THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
August 2004: Week Four
Page Two
- August 24: US Army officials say it could take up to ten years to end the insurgency in Iraq. Many US officials believed that the transfer of power to an Iraqi government would halt much of the violence spreading throughout Iraq, but instead, insurgent attacks have increased in frequency and in sophistication. "If we have the political will and stamina to stay, I could see this going on for 10 years," says Randolph Gangle, a retired officer who heads the Marine Corps' Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities. Tacticians have counselled patience in winning the war. "If we can stay the course over here for another year or so, the insurgency will wear itself out," says Colonel Dusty Rhoades, a marine intelligence officer in Iraq. "The US military is currently in a position where it is militarily impossible for us to lose, but only an Iraqi government can totally win." (Times of India)
- August 24: The upcoming Fay Report on abuses at Abu Ghraib confirm allegations made by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, that Iraqi teenagers were abused during their incarceration at the infamous prison, and that they were hidden from Red Cross inspectors by US soldiers. The report shows that soldiers used military police dogs to terrorize the teenagers, many of whom were incarcerated without charge or for low-level crimes. Children as young as 15 were targeted, says the report. "There were two MP dog handlers who did use dogs to threaten kids detained at Abu Ghraib," says an Army officer familiar with the report. "It has nothing to do with interrogation. It was just them on their own being weird." The investigation also acknowledges that military intelligence soldiers kept multiple detainees off the record books and hid them from international humanitarian organizations, and confirms that at least one male detainee was sodomized by one of his captors at Abu Ghraib. The Defense Department continues to insist that all of the abuses at the prison were carried out by "rogue" guards acting without authorization, though evidence proves otherwise.
- The investigative report by Major General George Fay focuses on the role of military intelligence soldiers in the prison abuse. It does not examine the role of civilian military leadership, though it does criticize high-ranking generals in Iraq for a failure of leadership in curbing the abuses. Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, then the top US commander in Iraq, is named in the report for leadership deficiencies and failing to deal with rising problems at the prison as he tried to manage 150,000 troops countering the insurgency. Sanchez, however, will not be recommended for any punitive action or even a letter of reprimand. Only 300 pages of the 9,000-page report will be released publicly. Another report regarding the prison abuse, commissioned by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, will be released today. The independent commission, chaired by former Republican defense secretary James Schlesinger, will be critical of the guidance and policies set by top Pentagon and military officials as they worked to get more useful intelligence from detainees in Iraq. The Schlesinger report is not expected to implicate high-level officials by name, but it would be the first report to link the abuse at Abu Ghraib to policies set by top officials in Washington. The Fay report, by contrast, does not point a finger at the Pentagon and instead assigns most of the blame to military intelligence and military police who worked on the chaotic grounds of the overcrowded and austere Abu Ghraib. (Washington Post)
- August 24: Concerns about electronic voting machines to be used in the November elections is mounting. 29% of American voters will use touch-screen voting machines to cast their ballots; except for the 0.5% of voters in Nevada, none will be able to verify their votes on paper receipts. Some on both sides of the political fence worry that the concerns will discourage voters from bothering to vote at all. Ted Selker, a professor at MIT who co-directs the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, says,"It'd be terrible if the reason we didn't have a great election is because Americans acted like voters in a third world country" and didn't trust what happened at the polling place. (Salon/Guardian)
- August 24: A photograph has emerged of a young George W. Bush wearing a military ribbon he did not earn. In the photo, Bush is wearing an Air Force Outstanding Unit Award ribbon, though his National Guard record clearly shows he did not earn that award. The award was given, according to Air Force regulations, "in recognition of exceptionally meritorious service or outstanding achievement of a numbered unit whether in peacetime or wartime." Whether Bush was wearing the ribbon at the time the undated photo was taken, or whether Bush campaign operatives doctored the photo in an attempt to counter the chestful of medals Kerry is legitimately entitled to wear, is a question that remains unanswered. It is not against the law to wear medals or ribbons that one did not earn, but it is a serious violation of military protocol and procedure.
- Additionally, author and commentator David Corn reminds us, in light of the SBVT brouhaha, that Bush blatantly overstated his own military record in previous political campaigns, and was never called on it by the media. Corn is not talking about Bush's lie in his 2000 campaign biography, when he claims to have completed his pilot training in 1970 and "continued flying with my unit for the next several years." In fact, he did not, refusing to fly or even to show up for duty during his final 18 months of service in 1972 and 1973. Bush had been grounded after failing to take a flight exam, and had won permission to train with a unit in Alabama where he did no flying. There are no records proving he showed up for duty in Alabama, though Bush has insisted he did. Corn is referring to Bush's 1978 claim, during his failed run for Congress, that he served in the US Air Force. And in 1999, his campaign placed ads in Texas newspapers claiming that Bush had served in both the Air Force and the Air National Guard. In 1999, when reporters asked him about his claim of Air Force service, he said, "I think so, yes. I was in the Air Force for over 600 days." Karen Hughes, his spokeswoman, maintained that when Bush attended flight school for the Air National Guard from 1968 to 1969 he was considered to be on active duty for the Air Force and that several times afterward he had been placed on alert, which also qualified as active duty for the Air Force. All told, she said, Bush had logged 607 days of training and alerts. "As an officer [in the Air National Guard], he was serving on active duty in the Air Force." This is a lie. The Air Force says that Guard members, even on active duty, are not considered part of the Air Force. "If a member of the Air National Guard is in pilot training," says Captain Cristin Lesperance of the US Air Force media relations office, "they would remain on the Guard books. They would be counted as Guard, not as an active-duty Air Force member." The question of why the media is letting Bush off the hook for his specious claims is one that answers itself. (Democratic Underground, Nation)
- August 24: Attorney Benjamin Ginsberg, who works for Bush's re-election campaign, has acknowledged that he has provided legal advice for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Any connection between the Bush campaign and the SBVT, a "527 group," is illegal. The Bush campaign and the group both say there is no coordination; the campaign insists that it only today learned of the connection. According to Ginsberg, the SBVT "came to me and said, 'We have a point of view we want to get into the First Amendment debate right now. There's a new law. It's very complicated. We want to comply with the law, will you keep us in the bounds of the law?' I said yes, absolutely, as I would do for anyone." Just two weeks before, Ginsberg issued a scathing criticism of anyone who would maintain a dual relationship between a 527 group and a political campaign, directing his fire at two Democrats, Harold Ickes and Bill Richardson. "They're over the coordination line," he says. "The whole notion of cutting off links between public officeholders and soft-money groups just got exploded." Ginsberg not only provides legal advice to the SBVT, but serves as the official chief counsel to Progress for America, another 527 that, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, exists to "form 'issue truth squads' that respond to Democratic attacks on President Bush." Ginsberg will resign from the Bush campaign on August 25. Mary Beth Cahill, a Kerry campaign aide, says the resignation of Ginsberg "only confirms the extent of those connections" between the Bush campaign and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Ginsberg served Bush-Cheney as national counsel in 2000 and was a key player in the recount of the 2000 Florida vote recount. Ginsberg, according to his Web biography, also represents campaigns and PACs of numerous Congressional Republicans, as well as the Republican National Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee. He serves as counsel to the Republican Governors Association and has helped state Republicans direct their redistricting efforts, which many have called illegal gerrymandering.
- Cahill said Ginsberg's resignation "doesn't end the extensive web of connections between George Bush and the group trying to smear John Kerry's military record. Now we know why George Bush refuses to specifically condemn these false ads. People deeply involved in his own campaign are behind them, from paying for them, to appearing in them, to providing legal advice, to coordinating a negative strategy to divert the public away from issues like jobs, health care and the mess in Iraq, the real concerns of the American people." (AP/Democratic Underground, Washington Monthly, CNN)
- August 24: Veteran political observers are drawing connections between the Swift Boat Veterans attacks on John Kerry and the Bush campaign's attacks on Vietnam veteran John McCain during the 2000 Republican primaries. After the vicious attacks on McCain reached a fever pitch, the Bush campaign distanced itself from the veterans' group that made the attacks, praising McCain's service and winning a key victory in the South Carolina primary. The San Francisco Chronicle writes, "[I]n a series of events that some observers say are eerily familiar, Bush distanced himself from a veterans group running fierce attacks on John Kerry's military record and called his rival's service in Vietnam 'admirable.' Rather than focus on the Democratic nominee's Vietnam record, a matter that has engulfed the presidential contest for the past week, Bush said 'we ought to be debating who [is] best to be leading this country in the war against terror.'" Author Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News observes, "It's amazing how similar this type of attack is to the pattern of attacks I have seen over two decades -- in some cases involving Bush's campaigns, in other cases they involved campaigns in which Karl Rove was a participant. In every case, the approach is the same: You have a surrogate group of allies, independent of the Bush campaign, raising questions not about the opponent's weakness but directly about the opponent's strength. In every case, it works."
- Slater reminds us that in 1994, when Bush ran against popular Democratic governor Ann Richards in the Texas gubernatorial elections, a whisper campaign that alleged Richards was appointing gays and lesbians to state positions began. Though the allegations had some merit, Bush's East Texas campaign chairman accused Richards of naming "avowed and activist homosexuals" to high offices. Bush distanced himself from the remarks, but the story garnered major media attention and turned one of Richards' greatest strengths -- the inclusiveness of her administration -- into a political liability, particularly in socially conservative East Texas. In the 2000 South Carolina Republican primary, Bush attended a rally during which the chairman of a Vietnam and Gulf War veterans group accused McCain, a prisoner of war for six years, of betraying veterans on health issues such as Agent Orange and Gulf War syndrome. "I don't know if you can understand this, George, but that really hurts. You should be ashamed," McCain told Bush at a televised debate. Bush replied: "I believe you served our country nobly. I've said it over and over again. That man wasn't speaking for me." Slater says that in each case Bush "was able to basically take the high road and give the same answer: 'I'm not associated with these attacks, and I don't condone these attacks. I'm engaged in a high-road campaign,' while at the same time, his allies are basically doing the dirty work."
- Bush campaign advisors say there is no difference between the slime ads from the SBVT and the hard-hitting but factually accurate ads attacking Bush's service record from MoveOn.org and the Media Fund. The SBVT ads, which have run in three battleground states and garnered far more media attention than the countering ads from MoveOn and the Media Fund, have damaged Kerry among veterans and helped Bush close the small lead currently enjoyed by Kerry in the polls. Dan Schnur, a California Republican strategist who worked on McCain's 2000 campaign, says there is an "absolute moral equivalency" between the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads and ads produced by the Democratic groups. "Anyone who lashes out on the swift boat ads without calling MoveOn and the other groups into account is the worst kind of hypocrite," Schnur says. Like McCain four years ago, Kerry is accusing Bush of hiding behind a group of attack-dog surrogates. (San Francisco Chronicle/Truthout)
- August 24: Former Swift Boat commander Rick Baker breaks 35 years of public silence about his service in Vietnam to praise John Kerry's service and repudiate the SBVT attacks on Kerry's service and character. "Every Swift boat officer gave his all in Vietnam, but Kerry stood above the rest of us," Baker says. "He was number one as far as courageousness and aggressiveness. He set the tone. ...John Kerry went above and beyond the call of duty, sticking his nose into enemy fire. Not everybody liked that because some were just intent on survival. But until recently, nobody ever said he did not serve honorably. ...John Kerry should not be alive today. He was aggressive -- more aggressive than the rest of us. That was his nature, and everybody who was there knows it." Baker is a registered Democrat who voted for Bush in 2000, but will vote for Kerry in November, largely because he considers Kerry to be better qualified as a commander-in-chief than Bush, and because he is perturbed by the attacks on Kerry's wartime service, especially in comparison with Bush. "George Bush has two silver dental fillings in his teeth to show what he did during the Vietnam War," Baker says. "John Kerry has a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts." (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
- August 24: Though George Bush has consistently refused to condemn the SBVT ad slandering John Kerry's war record, and instead stuck to generalities about "banning all 527 ads," the ever-pliable mainstream media has reported that Bush indeed called for the ad to stop running. The Associated Press recently ran a story with the headline, "Bush Criticizes Anti-Kerry Television Ad." Reuters ran a similar story, headlined "Bush Says Kerry Ad Should Stop." More accurately, the New York Times recently reported, "President Bush said on Monday that political advertisements run by a broad swath of independent groups should be stopped, including a television advertisement attacking Senator John Kerry's war record. But the White House quickly moved to insist that Mr. Bush had not meant in any way to single out the advertisement run by veterans opposed to Mr. Kerry.... Only when pressed by reporters whether he specifically meant the commercial from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, did he say 'all of them.'... His press secretary, Scott McClellan, said Mr. Bush had not intended to single out the Swift Boat advertisement as one that should be stopped." In other words, Bush specifically noted that he and his campaign were not calling for the SBVT ad to cease. (Washington Post)/LI>
- August 24: The liberal media watchdog site Media Matters documents the farrago of lies SBVT chief John O'Neill has told about himself, his organization, and his book Unfit for Command in his quest to smear and slander John Kerry's Vietnam service. While the article goes into detail that I will not repeat here, the high notes are:
- O'Neill lied when he claimed that the SBVT "has no partisan ties;" Bush campaign official Ken Cordier is involved with the group. Cordier resigned from the campaign after his ties to the SBVT were revealed.
- O'Neill lied when he told MSNBC's Chris Matthews, "I'm not a Republican from Texas. That's just not true." O'Neill not only lives in Texas, he has donated over $14,000 to Republican causes since 1990, and donated nothing to Democrats.
- O'Neill lied when he told the moderators of CNN's Crossfire that he has had "no serious involvement in politics of any kind in over 32 years." $14,000 in donations to Republican candidates and causes since 1990 constitutes "serious" involvement in most eyes.
- O'Neill lied when he denied making any contributions to Republicans to Fox's Brit Hume. He told Hume, "that is not true. ...Actually, about half of them were mine." The other $7,000, according to O'Neill, were given by his law partner, Edward O'Neill. "I simply didn't give them. I would have been happy to give them. I just didn't." FEC records confirm that the entire $14,000 in contributions were given by John O'Neill; his partner Edward O'Neill made his own contributions. Media Matters reminds us that "if Edward O'Neill actually made the contributions in his law partner's name, it would be a violation of federal election law."
- O'Neill lied to Matthews about his ties to the Nixon White House, when, in response to a Matthews question about his recruitment by Nixon official Charles Colson to challenge John Kerry in public debate, O'Neill responded, "That's just not true." Colson recalled that to challenge the "articulate...credible leader" that Kerry was for the antiwar movement, "We found a vet named John O'Neill and formed a group called Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace. We had O'Neill meet the President, and we did everything we could do to boost his group." Articles from the April 21 edition of the Houston Chronicle and the June 17, 2003, edition of the Boston Globe confirm close ties between O'Neill and the Nixon administration.
- The same TV news media that engaged in the Kerry mudfest had refused, for more than three years, to report the documented absence of George Bush from National Guard duty.
- The same TV news media that gave O'Neill prime air time to defile John Kerry, never gave MoveOn an equal opportunity to support its counter ad about the President's questionable service record.
- They ignored the connections between the SBV group and the Bush family and Karl Rove that were clearly defined and mapped out by the NY Times.
- They did not explain, with each showing of the Kerry testimony before Congress, that he was recounting the testimony of nearly 200 other Vietnam vets.
- They did not inform the public about the LA Times Pulitzer articles that corroborated Kerry's testimony about American atrocities in Vietnam.
- They did not report that John O'Neill was a Republican flunky for over 30 years.
- They did not cite Chuck Colson, of Watergate ignominy, - who explained that Richard Nixon helped organize the SBV group to counter the anti war testimony of John Kerry in 1971.
- They did not let up for a minute, making certain that the story remained at the top of the news, and that Kerry's service in Vietnam was reduced to implications of self-inflicted wounds and fabrications.
- And the media watchdog organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) pens a scathing criticism of the media's leap to join the SBVT bandwagon, with little regard for fairness, accuracy, or balance. FAIR writes, "At times, some reporters seem to suggest that the Swift Boat coverage is being driven by some external force that they cannot control. 'The ad war, at least over John Kerry's service in Vietnam, has for the moment effectively blocked out everything else,' explained MSNBC's David Shuster (8/23/04) -- as if the media are not the ones responsible for deciding which issues were being 'blocked out.'" Before giving a number of specific examples, available at the link below, the organization reports, "Imagine that the situation were reversed: What if all available documentary records showed that George W. Bush had completed his stint in the Air National Guard with flying colors? What if virtually every member of his unit said he had been there the whole time, and had done a great job? Suppose a group of fiercely partisan Democrats who had served in the Guard at the same time came forward to say that the documents and the first-hand testimony were wrong, and that Bush really hadn't been present for his Guard service. Would members of the press really have a hard time figuring out who was telling the truth in this situation? And how much coverage would they give to the Democrats' easily discredited charges? But when Kerry is the target of the attacks, many journalists seem content to monitor the flow of charges and counter-charges, passing no judgment on the merits of the accusations but merely reporting how they seem to affect the tone of the campaign." (Media Matters, TV News Lies, FAIR)
- August 24: Liberal political commentator Joshua Micah Marshall says that, while the Democrats are understandably tempted to get into a "tit-for-tat" competition with the Bush campaign smear merchants and their SBVT colleagues, it would be more productive for Democrats to focus on what Marshall calls Bush's "moral cowardice." Marshall writes, "[F]undamentally, every day of this campaign that isn't spent talking about the sluggish economy and the president's debacle in Iraq is a day wasted, a strategic failure for the Kerry campaign. But Democrats don't have to choose between hard-hitting lines of attack on the president himself and focusing on the main issues that are facing the country today. The most damning attacks turn out to be the most compelling, the most relevant for what the country faces, and the most difficult for the president to combat." Marshall points to Bush's record of moral cowardice in allowing others to savage his opponents -- "for sins of which he is usually more guilty than they" -- and then refusing to accept responsibility. "He's not used to having to stand behind what he's done," Marshall writes. "And when [John] McCain comes at him one on one he's jelly. His life has always been a matter of others doing his dirty work for him, others bailing him out. And in that moment it shows." Marshall says that Bush's moral cowardice is a hallmark of his record as president: "Forget about thirty years ago, just think about the last three years."
- Marshall says, "Moral cowardice is more complex [than physical cowardice]. A moral coward is someone who lacks the courage to tell the truth, to accept responsibility, to demand accountability, to do what's right when it's not the easy thing to do, to clean up his or her own messes. Perhaps we could say that moral bravery is having both the courage of your convictions as well as the courage of your misdeeds. [T]he issue isn't that Bush ducked service in Vietnam. It's that he tries to smear other people's meritorious service without taking responsibility for what he's doing. He gets other people to do his dirty work for him. ...The key for the Kerry campaign to make is that the president's moral cowardice is why we're now bogged down in Iraq. It's a key reason why almost a thousand Americans have died there. President Bush has set the tone for this administration and his moral cowardice permeates it."
- The most obvious example is the US occupation of Iraq. Bush didn't think he could convince the public of the merits of invading Iraq, so he lied about the weapons of mass destruction that Iraq supposedly had. He manufactured connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda that didn't exist. "He couldn't get the country behind him on the up-and-up," Marshall writes. "so he took the easy way out; he took a shortcut; he deceived them. And now the country is paying a terrible price for it. He and his advisors knew that if they levelled with the public about the costs of war -- in dollars, years, soldiers -- he'd have a very hard time convincing them. So he didn't level with them. He took the easy way out. The sort of forward planning that would have made a big difference in post-war Iraq was scuttled or attacked because it would make the job of selling the war harder. Those who sounded the alarm had their careers cut short. Once we were in Iraq and it was clear that we had been wrong about the weapons of mass destruction -- a judgement that's been clear for more than a year -- he wouldn't admit it. And he still hasn't. A year and a half after we invaded Iraq and he still can't level with the American people about this. He still relies on his vice president to try to fool people into thinking Hussein was tied to al-Qaeida and the 9/11 attacks. More importantly, once it became clear that the president's plans for post-war Iraq were producing poor results, he refused to shift policy or to reshuffle his team. He refused to demand accountability from his own team because of how it would have reflected on him. He's preferred to continue on with demonstrably failed policies because to do otherwise would be to admit he'd made a mistake and open himself to all the political fall-out that entails. And that's not something he's willing to do.
- "The stubborn refusal ever to change course, which the president tries to pass off as a sign of leadership or devotion to principle, is actually an example of his cowardice. For the same reasons, he runs from soldiers' funerals like they were burying victims of the plague -- because it's the easy way out. If there's a problem, he denies it or finds someone else to take the fall for him. Everyone has these tendencies in their measure. No one is perfect. But they define George W. Bush. The same sort of moral cowardice that led him to support the Vietnam war but decide it wasn't for him, run companies into the ground and let others pay the bill, play gutter politics but run for the hills when someone asks him to say it to their face, those are the same qualities that led the president to lie the country into war, fail to prepare for the aftermath and then refuse to take responsibility for any of it when the bill started to come due. That's the argument John Kerry needs to be making. And he needs to make it right now." (Talking Points Memo)
- August 24: Washington Post reporter Dan Froomkin gives some sterling examples of how Bush and Cheney have misstated Kerry's statements in their attacks on the Democratic candidate.
- On July 18, Kerry said, "Every performer tonight in their own way, either verbally or through their music, through their lyrics, have conveyed to you the heart and soul of our country." Bush rewrote Kerry's statement on August 18: "The other day, my opponent said he thought you could find the heart and soul of America in Hollywood."
- On August 9, Kerry said, "My goal, my diplomacy, my statesmanship is to get our troops reduced in number and I believe if you do the statesmanship properly, I believe if you do the kind of alliance building that is available to us, that it's appropriate to have a goal of reducing the troops over that period of time [the first six months of a Kerry administration]. Obviously, we'd have to see how events unfold.... It is an appropriate goal to have and I'm going to try to achieve it." Bush rewrote Kerry's statement on August 18: "I took exception when my opponent said if he's elected, we'll substantially reduce the troops in six months. He shouldn't have said that. See, it sends a mixed signal to the enemy for starters. So the enemy hangs around for six months and one day.... It says, maybe America isn't going to keep its word."
- "I will fight this war on terror with the lessons I learned in war," Kerry said on August 5. "I defended this country as a young man, and I will defend it as president of the United States. I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history. I lay out a strategy to strengthen our military, to build and lead strong alliances and reform our intelligence system. I set out a path to win the peace in Iraq and to get the terrorists wherever they may be before they get us." Cheney's version, from August 12: "senator Kerry has also said that if he were in charge he would fight a 'more sensitive' war on terror. America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive.... Those who threaten us and kill innocents around the world do not need to be treated more sensitively. They need to be destroyed."
- "Lee Hamilton, the co-chairman of the 9/11 commission, has said this administration is not moving with the urgency necessary to respond to our needs," Kerry said on August 2. "I believe this administration and its policies is actually encouraging the recruitment of terrorists. We haven't done the work necessary to reach out to other countries. We haven't done the work necessary with the Muslim world. We haven't done the work necessary to protect our own ports, our chemical facilities, our nuclear facilities. There is a long, long list in the 9/11 recommendations that are undone." Bush's version on August 18: "My opponent says...that going to war with the terrorists is actually improving their recruiting efforts. I think the logic -- I know the logic is upside down. It shows a misunderstanding of the nature of these people. See, during the 1990s, these killers and terrorists were recruiting and training for war with us, long before we went to war with them. They don't need an excuse for their hatred. It's wrong to blame America for anger and the evil of these killers. We don't create terrorists by fighting back. You defeat the terrorists by fighting back."
- "Yes, I would have voted for the authority [to use force in Iraq]," Kerry said on August 9. "I believe it is the right authority for a president to have. But I would have used that authority, as I have said throughout this campaign, effectively. I would have done this very differently from the way President Bush has. My question to President Bush is: Why did he rush to war without a plan to win the peace? Why did he rush to war on faulty intelligence and not do the hard work necessary to give America the truth?" Bush's version, from August 18: "He now agrees it was the right decision to go into Iraq. After months of questioning my motives, and even my credibility, the Massachusetts senator now agrees with me that even though we have not found the stockpiles of weapons we all believed were there, knowing everything we know today, he would have voted to go into Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power." (Washington Post)
- August 24: As Republicans begin descending on New York City for the upcoming national convention, the Village Voice lists ten of the many ways the Bush administration has "screwed" the city. The Bush administration has drastically defunded the city's police force by $61 million in federal funds, resulting in almost 6,000 fewer police officers to patrol the city; the administration is proposing further cuts. Six firehouses have closed in the city as a direct result of the administration's refusal to compensate the city for revenue lost after 9/11, breaking Bush's promise to the city after the terrorist attacks. NYC firemen have been denied promised funds needed to revamp their antiquated radio communications system, a priority noted after the attacks; Bush has also defunded the SAFER program, blocking $9 million in needed funds that would have allowed the hiring of more much-needed firefighters. The administration still refuses to fund critically needed health care programs designed to help first responders with the myriad of ailments contracted as a direct result of the exposure to toxins released during the attacks. 20,000 residents of Lower Manhattan still live in apartments, and work in offices, that were scheduled for federal funding for asbestos cleanup, funding that has been denied. Security measures promised after 9/11 at bridges, bus terminals, and train stations have not been funded. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, delineated more fully in the article, which is linked as follows. (Village Voice)
- August 24: Journalist and commentator John Berger writes a paean to the possible "world-changing" nature of Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, saying, "The film, considered as a political act, may be a historical landmark. ...Ever since the Greek tragedies, artists have, from time to time, asked themselves how they might influence ongoing political events. It's a tricky question because two very different types of power are involved. Many theories of aesthetics and ethics revolve round this question. For those living under political tyrannies, art has frequently been a form of hidden resistance, and tyrants habitually look for ways to control art. All this, however, is in general terms and over a large terrain. Fahrenheit 9/11 is something different. It has succeeded in intervening in a political program on the program's own ground. ...The film proposes that the White House and Pentagon were taken over in the first year of the millennium by a gang of thugs so that US power should henceforth serve the global interests of the corporations: a stark scenario which is closer to the truth than most nuanced editorials. Yet more important than the scenario is the way the movie speaks out. It demonstrates that -- despite all the manipulative power of communications experts, lying presidential speeches and vapid press conferences -- a single independent voice, pointing out certain home truths which countless Americans are already discovering for themselves, can break through the conspiracy of silence, the atmosphere of fear and the solitude of feeling politically impotent. ...It's a film that deeply wants America to survive." (Guardian/Michael Moore)
- August 24: William Regnery, whose family's Regnery imprint routinely publishes screeds by radical conservatives such as Ann Coulter, is looking for investors for a whites-only dating service. Regnery is the publisher of the Occidental Quarterly, a publication described recently by Newsweek as "espous[ing] white nationalism" and "whose statement of principles calls for limiting immigration to 'selected people of European ancestry.'" In a recent letter to subscribers, Regnery expressed his concern about the decreasing percentage of white people in the population and announced plans for a new dating service that he claims will address the problem. Internet-based and earmarked only for whites, Regnery's service aims to increase the white population in the United States through marriage and procreation. Regnery's letter, titled "Population is Destiny" was an appeal to potential investors. The dating service, he said, will be only the "first arrow in a business quiver" providing "services and products to whites." According to the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report, Regnery pointed out that in addition to its money-making potential, the Caucasian-only dating service would be an opportunity to ensure "the survival of our race," which "depends upon our people marrying, reproducing and parenting."
- Regnery and his family have long been involved in "promoting white nationalism," the Intelligence Report points out: "His grandfather, William I, signed incorporation papers for the America First Committee, an organization that opposed fighting Nazi Germany in World War II." William's father Henry created Regnery Publishing, which during the Clinton era became a "major purveyor of books by right-wing attack dogs like Ann Coulter and G. Gordon Liddy. ...William II has made his mark as a major fundraiser in radical right circles as the founder of the Charles Martel Society in 2001." The society publishes the Occidental Quarterly: A Journal of Western Thought and Opinion, "an academic-looking journal filled with articles by white-supremacist luminaries such as Sam Francis, editor for the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens and Wayne Lutton of the hate group The Social Contract Press." According to the Quarterly's web site, the affiliated Charles Martel Society is currently seeking funding several groundbreaking research projects: Taxing the White Family Out of Existence, a study to determine whether an over-bearing tax burden has forced white wives into the workplace thereby slowing the white birth rate; The Cost of Good Intentions, researching whether too much government money has gone to fostering minority-based programs at the expense of the white middle class; and Abjuring the Realm or How to Mitigate a Toxic Culture -- as life in the United States "become[s] increasingly nasty, brutish and even short for whites," the Quarterly proposes publishing "a primer to help people better contend with the myriad problems of earning a livelihood, finding a support group, filtering out the worst elements of the toxic surroundings, raising and educating children." Regnery's recent book, Unfit for Command by John O'Neill and Jerome Corsi, is a scathing attack on John Kerry's war record and has shaken up the presidential race during the past few weeks. (Working for Change)
First war-crimes case at Guantanamo begins
- August 25: Yemeni detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan goes on trial today in Guantanamo for conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism. Hamdan admits to having been a driver for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, but denies any other connections to terrorist acts. Hamdan's is the first of four trials slated to begin this week. Hamdan's lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift, opens by trying to get the presiding officer of the tribunal sitting in judgment of Hamdan, Colonel Peter Brownback, to recuse himself because of his extensive contacts with senior Pentagon officials who helped set up the military tribunals. Brownback refuses to step down but says he will refer Swift's request to the Pentagon. Swift also fruitlessly challenges the impartiality of four other panel members. Swift says that Brownback should be disqualified because he said at a July 15 meeting with some lawyers that he did not believe Guantanamo detainees had any rights to a speedy trial, a remark Brownback denies making, but is visibly shocked when Swift informs the panel that he has an audiotape of Brownback's remarks. The trials are being observed by officials from various organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Bar Association, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First and Amnesty International. Anthony Romero, the executive director of the civil rights union, told reporters the shortcomings in the system far canceled out the rights provided. Actual testimony in the cases is not expected to begin for weeks and possibly months.
- Swift's challenges to the panel are not expected to be upheld, but nevertheless are powerful. Of Brownback, he says, "The presiding officer would not even be qualified to be civilian defense counsel here." Panel member Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Toomey served in Afghanistan as the intelligence officer in a task force charged with capturing detainees who were eventually sent to Guantanamo Bay. A second, Colonel Thomas Bright, was a US Central Command officer responsible for moving detainees from Afghanistan to Guantanamo. "That's a little too close for comfort," says Deborah Pearlstein of Human Rights First. "These are clearly good people trying to do the right thing in a badly damaged system." The alternate panel member, Lieutenant Colonel Curt Cooper, admits he knows little about the principal body of international law. "Do you know what the Geneva Convention is, sir?" Swift asks. Cooper answers, "Not specifically. No, sir. And that's being honest." He adds that he knows there are three articles of the Geneva Convention. "Actually," Swift says, "there are six, sir." Brownback says he will send the challenges to retired Major General John Altenburg, the appointing authority for the Office of Military Commissions, as required under Pentagon rules. Critics, however, note that Altenburg was the official who appointed all the panel members. (New York Times/Truthout, Los Angeles Times/Truthout)
- August 25: A right-wing organization called the Committee for the Present Danger has relaunched itself, calling for the US to make war on any groups espousing Islamic jihad or characterized by the group as enemies of Israel. The committee's honorary co-chairmen are right-wing Republican senator Jon Kyl and conservative Democratic senator Joe Lieberman, and is funded by a coterie of right-wing billionaires. The CPD says "Islamofascism" is a threat to Western democracy that must be battled in the same fashion as Soviet communism of the Cold War era. The CPD is chaired by former CIA director James Woolsey, and boasts 49 members, including a number of hawks and neoconservatives affiliated with the neocon American Enterprise Institute. The membership includes former UN ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Danielle Pletka, Joshua Muravchik, Laurie Mylroie, Newt Gingrich, Michael Rubin), former Attorney General Edwin Meese, Victor Davis Hanson of Stanford's Hoover Institution, Norman Podhoretz of Commentary, Charles Kupperman of Boeing Missile Defense Systems, former Reagan official Jack Kemp, former Congressional staffer-turned-lobbyist and Project for the New American Century board member Randy Scheunemann, and several anti-arms control hawks, including Woolsey, Henry Cooper, Kenneth Adelman, and Max Kampelman, who founded the original 1976 iteration of the CPD. A 50th member, Peter Hannaford, a former Reagan PR official, stepped down after reporter Laura Rozen revealed his his past paid lobbying for the Nazi-sympathetic Austrian Freedom Party and its leader Joerg Haider. Hannaford is still a "senior consultant" to the CPD.
- Woolsey says, "Most of us see the Committee not so much focused on the threats to the US [posed by terrorism], as focused on the threats to democracy around the world. Unlike the first two incarnations of the committee, this is not going to be something that focuses on the danger to the US alone. Here, we're talking about dangers to, for instance, the nation of Senegal posed by Wahabbi funding of their education system. We're helping protect democratic systems and the rule of law and civil society." When asked why the organizers chose to use the name of a committee so associated with the Cold War, Woolsey replies, "Because there are some real senses in which this is like the Cold War. This war will have a number of things in common with the Cold War. Among them, that only a portion of it, I hope not much, will have to be fought militarily and that much of it will be fought ideologically." The financial backers include Jewish World Congress president Edgar Bronfman Sr. and Charles and Andrea Bronfman of the Seagram beverage fortune; Bernard Marcus, the founder of Home Depot; Leonard Abramson of US Healthcare, the Judy and Michael Steinhardt Foundation; Dalck Feith, the father of undersecretary of defense for Policy Douglas Feith; and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, among others, many of them associated with philanthropy on behalf of right-wing Jewish and Israeli causes. (AlterNet)
- August 25: The Los Angeles Times excoriates the Bush campaign for using the baseless charges from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth against John Kerry. The editorial reads, in part, "The technique President Bush is using against John F. Kerry was perfected by his father against Michael Dukakis in 1988, though its roots go back at least to Sen. Joseph McCarthy. It is: Bring a charge, however bogus. Make the charge simple: Dukakis 'vetoed the Pledge of Allegiance'; Bill Clinton 'raised taxes 128 times'; "there are [pick a number] Communists in the State Department.' But make sure the supporting details are complicated and blurry enough to prevent easy refutation. Then sit back and let the media do your work for you. Journalists have to report the charges, usually feel obliged to report the rebuttal, and often even attempt an analysis or assessment. But the canons of the profession prevent most journalists from saying outright: These charges are false. As a result, the voters are left with a general sense that there is some controversy over Dukakis' patriotism or Kerry's service in Vietnam. And they have been distracted from thinking about real issues (like the war going on now) by these laboratory concoctions." It concludes, "No informed person can seriously believe that Kerry fabricated evidence to win his military medals in Vietnam. His main accuser has been exposed as having said the opposite at the time, 35 years ago. Kerry is backed by almost all those who witnessed the events in question, as well as by documentation. His accusers have no evidence except their own dubious word. Not limited by the conventions of our colleagues in the newsroom, we can say it outright: These charges against John Kerry are false. Or at least, there is no good evidence that they are true. George Bush, if he were a man of principle, would say the same thing." (Los Angeles Times/Truthout)
- August 25: Vietnam veteran John Cory, who himself won a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star during combat, writes an open letter to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Cory's letter reads, in part, "In the face of fact after fact that exposes your lies, you continue to foul and slander John Kerry. Your words and deeds cast doubt on all the honorable men who served gallantly; question the competence of former military leadership; and hurl dispersions on fellow soldiers, while denigrating the dead. And for what? You choose to align yourselves with those who smeared an honorable Vietnam POW, calling into question his sanity and his survival of the Hanoi Hilton. You choose to serve those who disgracefully painted a Vietnam veteran triple amputee as unpatriotic and less than a true American. Where were you then? John Kerry was there for his fellow veteran brothers, where were you? You choose to support men who had other priorities than serving their country. Men, whose self-interest was more important than duty, honor, and country; and you prefer to serve a man who treated his military obligation like Alcoholics Anonymous; picking and choosing what meetings he would or would not attend. You choose to aid those who have soiled themselves with the blood of others. ...I crawled the mud paddies of Vietnam and stuck my fingers in the gaping wounds, trying to stop the oozing blood that drained the life from my fellow soldiers. I have walked the old paths of war and seen the children that even today, lose limbs from the unexploded ordinance of yesterday's war. I have seen more honor and compassion in the eyes of the men who were once my enemy, than in the twisted piety of your vitriolic defamation. You now seek to cover your previous words of endorsement with the stench of vomit and partisan bile. You speak of wanting honesty and openness, but your actions belie your lips. You have chosen vanity over valor, hubris over honor, character assassination and fraud over fact. You have chosen to enfold yourself in the shadows of partisan politics while sniping at those who stand in the open light of their record. You have chosen to wear the uniform of shame. No sirs, with all due respect, I submit that it is you, who are Unfit." (Truthout)
- August 25: Journalist and commentator Charles Tiefer breaks down the probable ramifications of a second Bush term. The prospects are disheartening. Tiefer goes into extensive detail, which I will not repeat here, but here are some highlights:
- Medicare: Bush will push his 2003 proposal, the "Medicare Modernization Act," already passed into law by the Republican Congress, to further extremes. Under the MMA, a new "Preferred Provider Organization" gives large corporate health-care providers billions in subsidies that would have been used to fund health care for less affluent seniors. Traditional Medicare programs end up spending far more per patient than they would have, giving corporate lobbyists and conservative Medicare opponents ammunition to claim that Medicare is wasting US tax dollars, and enabling them to call for further draconian cuts in Medicare funding. 6 million of the 41 million seniors currently covered by Medicare will find themselves paying far more for their Medicare premiums, with more being affected as the program continues to wend its destructive path through the Medicare legal and organizational structure. As a result, healthier and wealthier Medicare recipients are encouraged to leave the system for private programs, leaving Medicare progressively more and more underfunded while serving more and more working poor and indigent seniors. Tiefer writes, "[T]he whole senior population would be split into two antagonistic camps. The sicker and poorer group would be forced to stay behind in traditional Medicare, which would suffer increasing underfunding. However, the healthier and wealthier group of seniors moving into Bush's private plans would be well taught to identify their interest with the Bush-supporting private insurers. Both the insurers, and this group, would see merit in supporting tough cost-savings in the traditional Medicare group -- treating it increasingly the way stingy states treat Medicaid beneficiaries." Tiefer predicts, "In every election thereafter, an alliance of drug companies, insurers and other Republican supporters would spend heavily in floods of easily understood, simplified advertising to label the Republicans as Medicare's saviors through so-called choice for beneficiaries, while labeling the Democrats as draconian tax increasers (who would also be implicitly stigmatized as defending minorities). As Medicare's beneficiaries increasingly separate into two classes, one of them susceptible to Republican lures, a unified and vigorous Democratic defense of Medicare would either crack up or lose key support through desertion."
- Social Security: As with Medicare, the eventual aim is the complete dismantling of the Social Security safety net. Since no workable methodologies have been presented to transition the existing system to the Bush "vision" of private retirement accounts for those able to afford them while continuing to fund the payouts to the current generation of retirees, the Bush administration will continue to use the issue to hammer away at their political opponents, or perhaps propose a new set of taxes slated to eventually supplant traditional FICA paycheck withdrawals.
- Taxes: As with so many Bush initiatives, the idea here is twofold -- to dismantle and restructure the current system in favor of one far more charitable to the wealthy, and to hopefully divide more affluent Democrats from their poorer political colleagues. One part of this plan is the possible supplantation of the present Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), now used to great effect by millions of working-poor and lower-income Americans, with the Alternative Minimum Tax, which will benefit middle- and upper-class workers at the cost of their poorer brethren. Bush's current tax breaks for the wealthy are due to expire in 2005; the AMT is one method of continuing to increasingly shift the tax burden away from the wealthy and onto the backs of the middle- and lower-income workers in the US. Additionally, the short-term effects of the AMT would disproportionately affect workers in preponderantly "blue," or Democratic, states and areas of the country, further alienating Democratic workers and benefiting Republicans. A predicted slate of negative ad campaigning against Democratic resistance to the AMT, using the canard that Democrats "want higher taxes," is likely.
- August 25: Dick Cheney "accidentally" mixes up the names of John Kerry and Ted Kennedy in a speech in Pennsylvania: "I listened to what Senator Kennedy had to -- excuse me, I get them confused sometimes," he said. "I listened to what Senator Kerry had to say in Boston...." Cheney made the same "accidental" slip on August 14 in Nevada while discussing votes on intelligence: "Not even Senator Kerry -- excuse me -- not even Senator Kennedy would vote for it. Sometimes I get them confused." It seems likely that Cheney is intentionally mixing the two names in order to link the two together in the minds of the listeners. (Spinsanity/Washington Post)
- August 25: The alternative publication Cleveland Scene offers a rambunctious look into the tremendous amount of corruption and criminality that defines Ohio's Republican power structure, organized by its perpetrators. The article profiles a number of prominent Ohio Republicans. One is Ohio's Speaker of the House Larry Householder, charged by the article with "selling legislation, intimidation, money-laundering, [and] illegal campaign fund-raising." Governor Bob Taft is labeled a thief and character assassin. Emmanuel Onunwor, the mayor of East Cleveland, is charged with 23 counts of bribery, extortion, racketeering, public corruption, mail fraud, witness-tampering, and lying on income-tax returns; Onunwor is currently the target of an FBI probe. State senator Jeff Jacobson is running from charges of money-laundering, perjury, and illegal campaign fund-raising; he recently admitted to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "Okay, I am a jerk." Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is most familiar to outsiders as the architect of Ohio's vote fraud scheme to deliver the state to the Bush campaign as well as plain old money thievery, to the tune of $15.3 million. The Ohio Taxpayers Association's Scott Pullins is charged with illegal campaign fund-raising and money laundering. State auditor Betty Montgomery is wanted for selling state contracts and construction fraud. The chairman of the Summitt County Republican Party, Alex Arshinkoff, is answering charges of sexually harassing male co-workers. State treasurer Joe Deters is charged with illegally selling state contracts. Ohio Consumers Counsel Rob Tongren faces charges of accessory to robbery, dereliction of duty, destroying public documents, and graft. And attorney general Jim Petro faces charges of illegal campaign financing and collusion with other Republican criminals, particularly Householder. A regular rogues' gallery. (Cleveland Scene)
- August 26: The official Fay Report, overseen by Major General George Fay, concludes that at least 44 instances of abuse can be confirmed as happening at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison involving US soldiers and Iraqi prisoners, and many of those can be considered torture. "There were some instances where torture was being used," Fay tells reporters. General Paul Kern, who presents an executive summary of the report at the press conference, adds, "We discovered serious misconduct and a loss of moral values." The report cites 23 soldiers and 4 civilian contractors as being responsible for the instances of abuse covered in the report. Republican senator John Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, says the Fay report along with the just-released Schlesinger report represent a "serious issue of military misconduct." Warner says his committee will decide whether to recommend an investigation by the White House. He also says he hopes Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will review the reports and implement changes to bring the torture and abuse to an end. Many of the instances of abuse, some quite horrific, are detailed elsewhere in this site, along with other instances not examined by the investigators in either report. The Schelesinger report says that, although senior officials insisted that the protocols mandated by the Geneva Conventions were in effect at Abu Ghraib, the reality of life in that prison was far different, and often condoned and encouraged by superior officers. Other instances of allegations of abuse in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay are being investigated. (CNN)
- August 26: The Kerry campaign is demanding that the Bush campaign explain the "web of connections" between their campaign and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. In a letter to Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman, Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill writes, "For three weeks now, your campaign has been saying there are no ties between the Bush campaign and 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.' But the web of connections grows wider and wider every day. Yesterday we saw confirmation of another connection when your general counsel, Benjamin Ginsberg, was forced to resign for providing legal advice for this group." She asks why Ken Cordier served on the Bush Veterans Steering Committee as well as appearing in a SBVT ad. "As a member of the steering committee presumably he was involved in policy development," Cahill writes. "What information about the Bush campaign's veterans policy did he share with the 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth?' Did he ever discuss his activities with this smear group with anyone in the Bush campaign?" She notes that Karl Rove and SBVT financier Bob Perry are longtime friends, a fact confirmed by Rove on Fox News, and asks if Rove and Perry have ever discussed Perry's support for the organization. She asks about the involvement of Merrie Spaeth, who helped coordinate the 2000 Bush campaign smear against John McCain, advised Bush officials in the White House in 2003, and is now working with the SBVT. She notes that SBVT chief John O'Neill's law firm is deeply connected to Bush, with O'Neill's law partner Margaret Wilson serving as Bush's general counsel during his tenure as governor of Texas, and as the deputy counsel for the Department of Commerce in Washington.
- "Did she ever discuss 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' with President Bush, members of his administration or any Bush- Cheney campaign officials?" Cahill asks. She asks, "If you say there's no connection, why did the Bush-Cheney campaign office in Florida pass out 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' flyers to promote a joint anti-John Kerry rally in Gainsville, Florida last weekend?" She asks why the Bush campaign is working with newly formed 527 group "Progress for America," which is preparing to spend $35 million on attack ads against Kerry, and whose executive director is a top advisor to the SBVT, if the Bush campaign is not connected to the SBVT. She asks if Rove and Ginsberg have ever discussed the SBVT. "These questions go to the heart of why so many people now believe that 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' is nothing more than a front group for the Bush-Cheney campaign," Cahill writes. "The longer President Bush waits to specifically condemn this smear, the more it looks like he's behind it." As of yet, the Bush campaign has refused to respond to any of Cahill's questions. (US NewsWire)
- August 26: Former US senator Max Cleland, who lost both legs and one arm in Vietnam, tries and fails to hand-deliver a letter asking Bush to repudiate the SBVT attack campaign. Cleland journeys to Crawford, Texas, to deliver the letter to either Bush or a Secret Service agent; instead, Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson appears to take delivery of the letter. Cleland refuses to give him the letter, and, when his attempts to give the letter to Bush or the Secret Service fail, Cleland turns to the media. "These scurrilous attacks on John Kerry's credibility in war, courage and valor are false and George Bush is behind it," Cleland tells reporters. "That's why I tried to deliver a letter to the president's home and hand it either to him or one of his aides." The letter was signed by nine members of the Senate, all of them veterans, including a Medal of Honor recipient. "The question is: Where is George Bush's honor? The question is: Where is his shame to attack a fellow veteran who has distinguished himself in combat?" Cleland asks. "If the president of the US does not stick up for veterans who distinguish themselves in war, who will he stick up for?" Cleland calls the campaign by the SBVT "a campaign of character assassination" and accuses the Bush campaign of being involved in it. "We want George Bush to put up or shut up," he says. "stand up to the plate and say, 'This is wrong. An attack on valorous service of a fellow American is wrong.' And he's behind it, and his campaign is behind it." Additionally, Representative John Dingell, a Democrat, has asked the Justice Department to investigate possible connections between the Bush campaign and the SBVT. Before leaving, Cleland refuses to accept a letter from Patterson, written by Bush campaign aides, criticizing the Kerry campaign attempts to set the record straight.
- Cleland later recalls the attempt as an enormous waste of time on his part. He says that he came across on television news broadcasts as "mean and bitter and angry." He goes on to say, "My trip there didn't do a damn bit of good. It was the Charge of the Light Brigade. It didn't change anything. It did not reflect well on the campaign or me or anything else." (CNN, Buzzflash [text of letter from the senators to Bush], Max Cleland/Bill Kavotsky)
- August 26: CBS News editorial director Dick Meyer says it is ludicrous to equate the negative campaigning of the Bush and Kerry camps. "Both candidates benefit from 527 groups, but only one team has an explicitly ideological cable network, a dedicated publishing house and a pantheon of sympathetic, wildly popular talk radio shows which essentially function as 527s," he writes, referring to Fox News, Regnery Publishing, the axis of talk show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly (many of whom also have television shows on Fox), and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. He also reminds us that Bush's "patrician" habit of letting "the hired help" do his dirty work for him is a hallmark of Bush family politics, going back to the Willie Horton ad used by the Bush I campaign in 1988. He slams the Kerry campaign for not realizing sooner that the SBVT smear campaign was as well-financed and well-coordinated as earlier "third-party" attacks against Michael Dukakis, Ann Richards, and John McCain, and not responding sooner and more aggressively. Meyers concludes, "[D]espite Kerry's own Brahmin lineage, patrician bearing and vast wealth, he's a poor relation when it comes to hiring help to do the dirty work." (CBS)
- August 26: The White House denies a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the media watchdog organization, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW), asking for information concerning connections between the White House, the Bush campaign, and the SBVT. White House officials claim that the administration is exempt under the law from such requests. CREW's executive director Melanie Sloan says, "If the White House really had nothing to do with SBVT or its ads, then there was no reason for it to deny CREW's request. The White House could have released the records and silenced its critics. Its refusal to respond suggests that there is information the White House would prefer not become public." (releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=35271)
- August 26: In an interesting turnabout, Dick Cheney has refused to endorse the Bush administration's opposition to gay marriage, citing the example of his lesbian daughter Mary Cheney. Cheney says that couples, regardless of their sexual orientation, should be free to choose what form of relationship suits them best. While liberals, libertarians, and others find Cheney's opposition to a gay marriage ban laudable, they wonder at Cheney's hypocrisy (obviously stemming from his personal experience), since none of his other views and actions correlate with his support for gay rights. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, responds, "I find it hard to believe the vice-president would stray from the administration's position on defense policy or tax policy. For many pro-family voters, protecting traditional marriage ranks ahead of the economy and job creation." Cheney says he will not interfere with the Bush administration's efforts to legally restrict gay marriage, up to and including a Constitutional amendment banning marriage for gays. (Scotsman)
- August 26: UC-Berkeley's George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics, examines the underlying meanings behind the "war on terror" and other conservative catchphrases. He says that for years, Republicans have been far more adept at "framing" issues in easily understood, often misleading sound bites, and that Democrats have to use some of the same tactics while sticking to the truth in order to catch up. Lakoff's book on framing, Moral Politics, was required reading for the campaign staff of Howard Dean, his progressive Rockridge Institute is abuzz with activity, and Lakoff has become more and more popular among progressive candidates and bloggers. He has a new book, Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, coming, to be released over the Internet before hitting bookshelves. Lakoff says, "I wrote a chapter on what unites progressives -- a moral system, certain political principles, and what I call policy directions as opposed to policies. A policy direction is something like 'Let's have a sustainable environment' and 'Working people shouldn't be living in poverty' and 'Everybody should have health care.' The problem is that the Democrats have wanted to talk about programs rather than policy directions, and programs call up distinctions, which tend to separate people. For example, Kerry should be talking about health care for everyone, and just put a white paper with the details of the program on his website. The values, principles, and general directions are what people care about and what brings them together. It's pointless to argue about the policy-wonk details, because they're going to change anyway."
- Lakoff says that one of progressives' big mistakes when discussing issues with conservatives is accepting their frame of an issue. "[Y]ou should show respect, know your values, always reframe, and say what you believe. The important thing is not to accept their framing of the issues, nor just negate their framing -- that just reinforces it. Simply confronting them with facts won't help. Frames trump facts. The facts alone will not set you free. You have to reframe the issues before the facts can become meaningful and powerful. Some conservatives are ideologues and you're not going to sway them. But most conservatives are nice people. What you want to do is activate their nurturing model, engage their empathy. Ask them who they care about, what they care about, and why. Find out where their empathy lies. Connect with the part of them that shares your values, and get that to spread to other issues."
- The discussion of values, not programs, during the Democratic convention by, among others, John Kerry, Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, and Barack Obama is a strong step forward, he says, and not an accident. "They talked about unity, not the culture war. They began to explain why Democratic values are traditional American values -- an important step. The idea is very simple: Look at the things we are most proud of in this country, from the Declaration of Independence to the present. We had slavery then. We abolished it. Only male property owners could vote. Now both non-property owners and women can vote. The New Deal, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act -- these too are all products of progressive, liberal values. They represent advances of the nurturant parent model versus the conservative 'strict father' model. These movements are also seen as stemming from traditional American values, part of our shared heritage. So, when you start looking at what this country is rightfully proud of, it's the extension of progressive values. And it's time to say that loud and clear. ...You have to fight strength with strength. That's straight out of Moral Politics: the strict father has to be strong, but the nurturant parent must also be strong. However, I don't think the Democrats did a good job of defining what the difference is in Kerry's kind of strength, because they refused to use the word 'weak' in reference to Bush. They wanted to have a completely positive campaign -- which it isn't anyway -- but they didn't want to say that Bush has made the country weaker. The issue of weakness awakens the stereotype of liberals, so instead they said, 'Look, we just want America to be stronger.' But 'stronger' doesn't necessarily imply weak. They could have talked more directly about all the ways Bush has weakened the country. When they have a case to be made on the basis of a pattern of behavior, they don't tend to use a grammar that really nails the message, like 'We're weaker in education, and here's why. We're weaker in security, and here's why.' You could write this argument in half a page. The Democrats aren't there yet, by any means."
- Like many others, Lakoff says that conservatives have been very successful with labels such as "the liberal elite." He says, "Conservatives have branded liberals, and the liberals let them get away with it: the 'liberal elite,' the 'latte liberals,' the 'limousine liberals.' The funny thing is that conservatives are the elite. The whole idea of conservative doctrine is that some people are better than others, that some people deserve more. To conservatives, if you're poor it's because you deserve it, you're not disciplined enough to get ahead. Conservative doctrine requires that there be an elite: the people who thrive in the free market have more money, and they should. Progressives say, 'No, that's not fair. Maybe some should have more money, but no one should live in poverty. Everybody who works deserves to have a reasonable standard of living for their work.' These are ideas that are progressive or liberal ideas, and progressives aren't getting them out there enough. What progressives are promoting is not elite at all. Progressives ought to be talking about the conservative elite. They shouldn't be complaining about 'tax cuts for the rich,' they should be complaining about 'tax cuts for the conservative elite,' because that's who's getting them."
- On the other hand, Democrats are beginning to have some success in reframing the discussion about taxes, particularly in eschewing the Republican frame of "tax relief." "Every now and then they slip and say 'tax relief for the middle class,' but yes, they're learning," he says. "The Republicans, meanwhile, have increased their usage. Recently I've been talking about taxes as investments for the common good. In the past the government made certain wise investments in things like the interstate highway system. You just get in your car and drive; you don't think about how every time you use the highways you're getting a dividend on that previous investment -- and so is every business that sends a truck over the interstate highway system. The Internet is another example. It started out as a network funded by the Defense Department, by the government investing taxpayers' money. Now, every time you surf the Web, you're getting a dividend. Drugs and medical advances that come out of National Institutes of Health grants are financed by taxpayers. Computer chips in our computers and cars exist because of the government's early investment of taxpayers' money in semiconductor research."
- Lakoff says that the entire frame of the "war on terror" is not only fundamentally misleading, but plays directly into the hands of the Republicans. "Let's start with 'terror.' Terror is a general state, and it's internal to a person. Terror is not the person we're fighting, the 'terrorist.' The word terror activates your fear, and fear activates the strict father model, which is what conservatives want. The 'war on terror' is not about stopping you from being afraid, it's about making you afraid. Next, 'war.' How many terrorists are there -- hundreds? Sure. Thousands? Maybe. Tens of thousands? Probably not. The point is, terrorists are actual people, and relatively small numbers of individuals, considering the size of our country and other countries. It's not a nation-state problem. War is a nation-state problem. ...Real wars are wars against countries, and in the 'war on terror,' we are attacking countries. But those countries are not the same as the terrorists. We're acting at the wrong level. Meanwhile, by using this frame, we get a commander in chief, as the Republicans keep referring to Bush -- a 'war president' with 'war powers,' which imply that ordinary protections don't have to be observed. A 'war president' has extraordinary powers. And the 'war on terror,' of course, never ends. There's no peace treaty with terror. It's a prescription for keeping conservatives in power indefinitely. In three words -- 'war on terror' -- they've enacted vast political changes." Opponents to Bush's "war on terror" have successfully been marginalized by the labeling of them as traitors and appeasers. The "war on terror" continues to justify the occupation of Iraq, which had nothing to do with terrorism. The root causes of terrorism have gone unaddressed; homeland security has been back-burnered. Iran and North Korea have moved closer to becoming nuclear powers while the US focuses on Iraq. "How do you frame this issue of Iraq?" Lakoff asks. "You say, 'We go to war when we have to, when it's really necessary, when we're being attacked. We don't go to war as an instrument of economic policy. We don't go to war as an instrument of geopolitical positioning. We go to war when we have no other choice. We go with a plan for winning the peace, and we go with enough troops to be effective. Those are the minimal conditions.' In short, you don't have to go on the defensive at all."
- Conservatives are the true radicals of this day and age, Lakoff says. "They're not trying to conserve anything. They're trying to impose a strict father model taken from a terrible, disastrous parenting method -- one ruled by the use of abusive power and force -- on America and the world. If you're disciplined enough to make enough money to buy good health care, you deserve it, and to buy a good education for your children, you deserve it. Otherwise you don't deserve it and you won't get it. This goes against American egalitarianism and the idea of economic equity -- that is, if people work hard and play by the rules, they should have a decent standard of living, assuming there's enough money in the economy as a whole. There is enough money in this economy. To deny good health care and education to people who work goes against the best in American policy. It's radical and it's un-American." (UC-Berkeley)
- August 26: Gun activist Jim Brady, the former Reagan press secretary who was permanently disabled by a bullet fired by would-be assassin John Hinckley, says Illinois Senate candidate Alan Keyes's stance on gun control is "insane." Keyes says the Constitution gives American citizens the right to own machine guns and other military-style ordnance. "He must have fallen on his head," Brady says. "I was dumbfounded." Brady has endorsed Keyes's Democratic opponent, Barack Obama. A Keyes campaign official fires back that Obama is "the criminals' best friend." "It is Barack Obama and his record -- not law-abiding citizens exercising their constitutional rights -- that is the real danger to public safety in Illinois," says campaign spokesman Bill Pascoe. Obama, a state lawmaker, has been endorsed by the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police. (Chicago Sun-Times)
