You Can Run But You Can't Hide

Too bad that Bush said this twice in tonight's second debate, and neither time was it addressed to Osama bin Laden. It was addressed to John Kerry. We saw a different Bush this time, less repetitive, more vociferous and slightly more normal-seeming. This is enough for a lot of pundits to declare him the winner, with the basic idea that each candidate will be judged not by comparing him to the other, but by comparing him to his own prior performance. As Bush was really rotten in the first debate, he clearly excelled in this one, right?

Wrong. That's not the way to decide who wins a debate for the president of the United States. Though it's a tempting way to get around the big elephant sitting in the debate room that everybody pretends not to notice: That Bush simply isn't smart enough to be a president of anything. I'm sorry to say it, but it's a fact.

So Bush wasn't as whiny and repetitive as last time, but he still wasn't good. He kept attacking Kerry as if Kerry was the incumbent president, responsible for every decision of the Senate, and as if he himself was a John Wayne coming in from the wilderness, ready to shoot the barroom empty. He also offered very few facts or factoids and he seemed to be unaware of being the owner of a small business in the timber industry. In fact, he is the owner of one:

President Bush himself would have qualified as a "small business owner" under the Republican definition, based on his 2001 federal income tax returns. He reported $84 of business income from his part ownership of a timber-growing enterprise. However, 99.99% of Bush's total income came from other sources that year. (Bush also qualified as a "small business owner" in 2000 based on $314 of "business income," but not in 2002 and 2003 when he reported his timber income as "royalties" on a different tax schedule.)

I wasn't impressed with Bush, naturally. He didn't even bother to listen to the mediator. But I wasn't as impressed with Kerry as I was last time. True, he won the debate on issues and on clarity and demeanor, I think, but neither Bush nor Kerry would answer all the questions the audience and the mediator posed. And Kerry failed to really hammer home how awful Bush has been to the environment.

On the positive side, Kerry did come out for some issues that are important to women and he handled the difficult questions fairly well. Compare the discussions of the so-called partial birth abortion by Kerry and Bush. Kerry used the example of a teenager raped by her father to show how difficult it is to make laws that are based on all-or-nothing thinking (in this case about parental notification of a minor's abortion). Bush simply repeated that one is either for the partial birth abortion ban or against it. This shows a lack of understanding about human pain. I don't want a president who can't relate to the anguish of a teenager having to ask the rapist for a permission to get an abortion.

Who won? Kerry did, but the media is going to spin this into something else if they only can. So make certain that you tell them what my opinion is....

Hard Work!

Tonight is the night of the second debate which means no Friday night carousing for me. Instead I'll be watching, listening, taking notes, recording and surfing the web. All in the interest of truth. And I don't even especially like politics...

But the times are dire and all honest critics are needed out there telling the media about all the little things they overlook by being so focused on the shining visage of George Bush.

I'm also rooting for John Kerry, but all my comments on this blog will be impartial, honest and insightful! Believe it...

In other news, I got atriosed recently, which was wonderful. For those of my dear readers who don't follow the blogosphere in great detail, being atriosed means that I was mentioned in a post on Eschaton, one of the largest liberal political blogs. So when I came home at night a couple of days ago and clicked on my sitemeter I found that I had had 1800 visitors in the most recent hour. This was very nice, of course, but then I had to lie down and do deep breathing and some nectar study. Even goddesses can be surprised, especially when they expect a number in the low hundreds!

Though there is something about my regular readers that I adore, and in the last few days I've felt almost separated from that erudite and funny group. I'm not sure that I would do well as a major blogger. A minor goddess, now that sounds like the ticket.

Ok. Enough about me. The next few posts will all be solid hard work.

Friday's Girls

Aphrodite came to visit and we hit the shops. She only likes expensive malls, our 'Dite, and she only likes the kinds of stores where a little slip of fabric costs as much as your monthly rent. So I went along mainly to hold her handbag and credit cards while she indulged. She bought several of those fluffy little skirts that leave absolutely nothing for imagination, even in a goddess, and several tops which seemed not up to the task of restraining her breasts. And she bought about thirty pairs of sunglasses to stay anonymous. And some shoes with heels long enough to use for oil drilling in an emergency. I trudged somewhere behind, carrying mounds of clothes and Her Lady's handbag.

Then we took a rest at a cappuchino bar and it would have been nice except for the fact that 'Dite tried to ravish the handsome young man serving us right there in front of all the ladies-who-lunch. (Why did he have to say: "Anything else you ladies desire?") He had cappucchino and cream all over his face, poor thing, and it took me a lot of divine diplomacy to get us out of there. Then Aphrodite was sulking because I had to call her a deranged old coot to turn the atmosphere of impending riot into something more compassionate.

So I got this wonderful idea of making her interested in outfitting me, to take her mind off all those vague ideas of turning me into a rotten apple. She's very kind-hearted deep down (if you get through all those other layers), and she grabbed the idea and ran with it.

The result: I now own a little-nothing top which makes me look like Dolly Parton and cost me 240 dollars. Also a shirt that ends at my hipbone made out of pink flamingo feathers. If you breathe they move apart... I'll have to give them to charity and not eat anything but bread and water for the next month. Being a Goddess of Light is hard work!

Baseball Bats as a Debate Tool

Ann Coulter has a new book out. It's called How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter. She recommends baseball bats:

LINDA VESTER (host): You say you'd rather not talk to liberals at all?

COULTER: I think a baseball bat is the most effective way these days. [FOX News Channel, DaySide with Linda Vester, 10/6]

Someone sent me an e-mail suggesting Ann Coulter for my Rara Avis -series, and so I researched her writing and ideas for a while. But I soon realized that there is no way to write a satire about this woman; she's taken everything to the absurd extreme already. The only real enigma is why she has as much publicity as she can possibly clasp with her greedy hands, or maybe it's just that anybody who is willing to advocate killing and yelling and baseball bats is good value for the media.

I have no patience with Coulter. She yells and screams and then argues that it's the liberals who yell and scream and won't let her debate. She pretends that she's the first woman ever who has realized that bashing other women is the path to fame, money and love. "The World According to Ann Coulter" is a really sick place, and I'm glad that she's there all alone.

The Fruits of the Iraq Invasion

When the advertizing campaign for the Iraq invasion began in the late fall of 2001, I became a demonstrator. I had never marched before, but things changed, as they say, after 9/11. The reason for my political awakening was that I could foresee the future, and the future held an Islamic theocracy in Iraq. In fact, anybody could foresee the future at that time, provided that the anybody listened to some unbiased news coverage and read a few books on Iraq.

I'm not fond of theocracies of any stripe, and as experience shows, they are terrible for women. The first thing traditionalists attack when they seize power is women: women are scrutinized, forced into different clothes, segregated from men in all other ways essentially eradicated from public view. I very much doubt that women were traditionally treated this way in general, but the new traditionalists seem to make up their own traditions as they please.

It is curious, though, that women serve as the canary in the mines. Why is it that controlling the women is so important for the fundamentalists? I can think of quite a few theories to explain this, but none of them explains why women are seen as the enemy in some fundamental way. After all, even fundamentalists have wives and daughters that at least some of them love. Yet they are quite willing to have them lead lives with no independent choices. This makes me very sad, to be honest. Here is an Afghan judge telling us why women have to be imprisoned for disobedience:

Kandahar's chief judge argues that sharia, or Islamic law, protects girls like Musliba. "Our laws make family unity a priority," said Judge Abdul Basir Mahbooky, fingering his prayer beads. "That is important for women because, I'm sorry to say, women don't have the mental or physical capacity to live alone in this society. We must make sure they are cared for."

Something similar can be heard from the lips of the Christian fundamentalist patriarchs in this country, and though they frame it more gently, the fact remains that many fundamentalists like to regard women as some sort of domestic pets: cute, but in need of protection and strict discipline.

To return to Iraq, my fear is that Iraq will follow in the footpath of the Taliban. Instead of a democracy in the Middle East we just might be creating another Iran or Afghanistan. Consider this:

In a postwar Iraq tormented by growing violence and uncertainty, the men with the power are the ones in robes and turbans Muslim clerics counseling spiritual renewal and active defiance of the United States and the Iraqi government it backs.
In the 18 months since Saddam Hussein's regime fell, Shiite and Sunni clerics alike have shot to prominence, eclipsing the U.S.-backed politicians in smart business suits who returned from exile to form a new ruling class but found themselves sorely lacking the clergy's popularity.
The emergence of religion as a force has started a trend that may be difficult to reverse in this conservative nation. It raises the possibility of an Islamic-oriented regime that could fall well short of the U.S. goal of a secular democracy serving as a model for the rest of the Arab world.

Religion is a source to which people return when life is difficult, even unbearable, and I can understand that. Still, I wish (oh how I wish) that there would be at least some major religions which don't afford solace and comfort at the expense of women's full humanity.

Afghan Women Vote...

This weekend Afghanistan will have its presidential elections. Much has been made by the Bush administration about the liberation of Afghan women and girls from the harsh Taliban rule as one of the unintended side-effects of the U.S. hunt for bin Laden, and it is indeed true that life has much improved for some women in Afghanistan. Over a million girls now go to school, for example.

But at the same time Afghanistan is now a country in anarchy, and the lack of security hits women especially hard. Election workers who seek out women have been subjected to violence in several areas of Afghanistan, and though over 40% of the registered voters are now women, getting them to the polling places may prove difficult. For one thing, it has been impossible to find enough women to manage the female polling booths, and given Afghanistan's conservative nature, many women will not vote if the booth attendant is a man.

But supposing that some women at least do manage to get to the voting sites, how will they cast their votes? A recent survey shows that 72% of Aghanis believe that men should direct their womenfolks' voting choices. Given this, it's unlikely that these women's votes would somehow recast the political power structure in the country.

The local and parliamentary elections scheduled for next year could prove more informative on the question of Afghan women's political influence, as the new constitution guarantees a quarter of the seats in the parliament to women. But this may not be as empowering for women as it looks. Here's what Nisha Varia, the author of a report on Afghan women has to say about the quota:

The question is whether women can really stand as candidates. I think the positions will be filled but in areas with a dominant political faction, they will select women for the seats, but the women won't actually be able to participate freely or fully. They will be front women for the factions. Those who want to run as independent or to be a part of the process won't have a chance to take up leadership positions within the party structure.

In some ways the ability to vote may not matter very much to most Afghan women. Their lives are so affected by tradition, religion and their immediate family members that any distant political changes in Kabul might go completely unnoticed. A country which imprisons a twelve-year old for refusing her father's decision to marry her off to an old man has a long way to go before it can be called a democracy, whether women vote or not.

The Fairness Doctrine in Media

One would think that the U.S. media is obligated to provide time and space for both sides in a political debate. One would be wrong. The so-called fairness doctrine was abolished during the Reagan years. This is what The American Voice 2004: A Pocket Guide to Issues and Allegations says about the events that led to the demise of the doctrine:

In 1974 the FCC described the Fairness Doctrine as "…the single most important requirement of operation in the public interest—the sine qua non for grant of a renewable of license".
A decade later, under the leadership of Mark Fowler, a former broadcaster appointed Chairman of the FCC in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan, the FCC began to dismantle its "public interest" requirements. It lifted restrictions on the maximum number of commercials TV stations could air and eliminated minimum requirement for time that must be devoted to news and public affairs.
In l985 the FCC declared, "We no longer believe that the Fairness Doctrine, as a matter of policy, serves the public interests…We believe that the interest of the public in viewpoint diversity is fully served by the multiplicity of voices in the marketplace today…"
The FCC did not immediately abrogate the doctrine. It was concerned that the 1959 amendments to the Communications Act might have made the fairness doctrine a statutory requirement, subject to repeal only by Congress. But in 1986 the court held that the fairness doctrine derived from the FCC's mandate to serve the public interest and was not compelled by statute.
In the spring of 1987, reacting to the Court's decision and fearful of its consequences, Congress passed a bill that incorporated the fairness doctrine into the law. It passed with significant bipartisan support, 3 to 1 in the House and nearly 2 to 1 in the Senate. Newt Gingrich and Jesse Helms were among the law's supporters. President Reagan vetoed the legislation. There were insufficient votes in Congress to override his veto.
In August of 1987 the FCC dissolved the fairness doctrine. It argued that the doctrine was obsolete, no longer served the public interest and imposed substantial burdens on broadcasters without generating countervailing benefits.
In l989 the House of Representatives again easily passed a law incorporating the fairness doctrine into legislation. When President George Bush threatened a veto the bill died in the Senate.
The impact of the elimination of the fairness doctrine was immediate and significant. In l980 there were 75 talk radio stations in the country. By 1999 there were more than 1300. The conservative Weekly Standard recently summed up the landscape, "… 1300 talk stations, nearly all born since the repeal of the fairness doctrine and nearly all right-leaning…"

We no longer have a fairness doctrine in the media. That's why what happened today is completely acceptable and legal, though nothing can make it decent: George Bush gave "an important presidential speech" that was then televized widely. What he really gave was a campaign speech based on all his stump speeches. Some snippets from the speech:

I want to thank all the state and local officials who are here. I want to thank the candidates who are here. I want to thank the grassroots activists who are here. (Applause.) I want to thank you for what you're going to do, which is to put up the signs, make the phone calls, turn out the vote. With your help, there's no doubt in my mind we'll carry Pennsylvania. (Applause.)
I am sure many of you stayed up to watch the vice presidential debate last night. (Applause.) America saw two very different visions of our country, and two different hairdos. (Laughter.) I didn't pick my Vice President for his hairdo. I picked him for his judgment, his experience -- (applause.) A great Vice President. I'm proud to be running with him. (Applause.)

...

To keep this economy strong and competitive, we must make sure America is the best place in the world to start a business and to do business. (Applause.) To make sure America is the best place in the world to start a business, our taxes must be low; Congress must make the tax relief we passed permanent. (Applause.) To keep jobs here, there need to be less regulations on our small businesses. (Applause.) To keep jobs here, we must pass an energy plan that makes us less dependent on foreign sources of energy. (Applause.) To make sure jobs exist here in America, we got to do something about these junk and frivolous lawsuits. (Applause.) Trial lawyers shouldn't be getting rich at the expense of our entrepreneurs and our doctors. (Applause.)
My opponent and I have a very different view on how to grow our economy. Let me start with taxes. I have a record of reducing them; he has a record of raising them.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: He voted in the United States Senate to increase taxes 98 times.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: That's a lot. (Laughter.) He voted for higher taxes on Social Security benefits.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: In 1997, he voted for the formula that helped cause the increase in Medicare premiums.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: My opponent was against all of our middle class tax relief. He voted instead to squeeze another $2,000 per year from the average middle class family. Now the Senator is proposing higher taxes on more than 900,000 small business owners. My opponent is one of the few candidates in history to campaign on a pledge to raise taxes. (Laughter.) And that's the kind of promise a politician from Massachusetts usually keeps. (Laughter and applause.)
He says the tax increase is only for the rich. You've heard that kind of rhetoric before. The rich hire lawyers and accountants for a reason -- to stick you with the tab. The Senator is not going to tax you because we're going to win in November. (Applause.)

Nothing wrong with giving campaign speeches during the campaign, of course. What's wrong is that this speech was unscheduled, presented as something different than it was, and given wide publicity without any counterveiling comments from the other side.

Where are John Kerry's ninety seconds for replies? Ask the people who got rid of the fairness doctrine in the media.

Questions for the next debate

This is a good opinion piece on questions from various women's organizations for the second presidential debate. Some of them at least should be included in the debate, given that women are the majority of voters in the U.S..

My favorite question to George Bush would be:

Mr. Bush, if you remain the president of the United States, will you end your undeclared war against women?

And here's one to John Kerry:

Mr. Kerry, if you become the next president of the United States, what will you do to repair the damages caused by your predecessor's undeclared war against women?

Heh.

1984 Revisited

I've been reading George Orwell's 1984 again during this pre-election season, and though the book is structurally not very good it has some images which really strike a bell right now:

It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of doublethink are those who invented doublethink and know that it is a vast system of mental cheating. In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is. (p. 177)

The recurring theme in the book is the wars that Oceania is waging. As the enemy changes inexplicably, all old records of the previous enemy are erased and it is agreed by everybody that Oceania has always had the current enemy, always. It is not Eurasia that Oceania is fighting, it is Eastasia. Not only that, but it has always been Eastasia. Never mind what you know really happened just last week. And 2+2=5.

It does, at the end. Poor Winston Smith is converted forcibly to the Party's way of thinking. If he lived today he'd agree happily that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 atrocities. He'd also agree that feminazis is the Newspeak word for all those concepts of fairness and equality that no longer exist.
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My copy of 1984 is by Signet Classic.

Something I worry About

The Israel-Palestinian conflict was not addressed in the first presidential debate and in the vice-presidential debate Edwards' answer to the question appears to me to promise nothing new. Something new is very sorely needed. As long as this conflict is in the front pages of newspapers in the Arab world we are going to have difficulties. We desperately need a new peace initiative in that area, and I fear that nobody in the U.S. is courageous enough to propose one.

My verdict

On the vice-presidential debate, or what I saw of it. I had to tape it (bagua practise at the same time), and I misunderestimated the length so I missed the last few minutes.

First, Dick Cheney is not George Bush. Cheney is intelligent and able to argue quite well. He wove the Republican lies and half-truths into an almost-coherent whole, but the thing still stinks, of course. I must admit that I enjoyed watching Dick as he's not bad thinking on his feet and then he has that crackerjaw...

He did utter several untruths in the debate. The most puzzling one concerned not meeting John Edwards before. There is at least one photograph of them meeting at a prayer breakfast. Cheney also implied that Massachusetts had suggested amending its constitution in order to allow gay marriage, whereas the truth is that the judges interpreted the Massachusetts constitution to require allowing gay marriage. The other untruths he uttered are the same he and Bush always utter.

Cheney was quite aggressive, almost snapping his maw at Edwards, and I'm not sure if this is what the viewers want to see. I kind of enjoyed it but then I'm not human.

Edwards did well. He debated with gusto and elan, and managed to bring out all the major points, and he didn't surrender to any of Cheney's bites. Plus he was very pleasant and personable which shouldn't matter, but if it matters for Bush then it should matter here, too.

The debate wasn't as close to slaughter as the first presidential debate was. But then we didn't expect a rerun of that. Cheney is, after all, the real president of this country.

So who won? I would say that the debate was a draw in debating skills, Cheney won in ferociousness and Edwards in looks. The substance was won by Edwards, naturally. He told the truth.
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The picture of Cheney and Edwards in 2001 via Atrios.

Tonight's Debate

A vice-presidential debate is traditionally not regarded as important in the overall race, but this year may be different. The Republicans are preparing for a post-debate attack (see Kos) which consists of e-mailing and calling various representatives of media and of voting in all online polls. The idea is to create a victory for old crackerjaw whether he actually wins or not. This attack, if not responded to by the other side, could mean that a new false meme will be created for the cud-chewing of the pundits. So I have to go out there and e-mail and call and vote, even though I'm tired of doing that by now. But I guess using goddess powers and magic would be unethical? Nah, nothing is unethical in the Republican cookbook!

Randy Rhodes on Air America Radio called tonight's debate a duel between the Prince Charming and the Prince of Darkness. You can guess which is which. But I don't really think that Cheney is any sort of a prince. Maybe a better parable would be between Merry and Sauron?

Cheney is going to attack trial lawyers, I predict. I wonder if he has read about the recent research that shows how corporations use trial lawyers four times as much as consumers? Attacking trial lawyers could be a little bit like shooting your own foot for Cheney. Not that logic has ever hampered wingnuttery.

I'm looking forward to the debate in some ways. I want to see what Cheney does with his jaw, and the debate will give me lots of time for observing it. Though I'm also aware of the fact that he is Bush's brain and the evil spirit behind the Iraq war and the power of oil companies over our lives. And he's not stupid, so the victory of good over evil (borrowing from the wingnut cookbook) is by no means certain in this particular battle.

Roe in the Next Four Years

If Bush gets reselected, what will happen to Roe vs. Wade? It will be overturned. Then states will decide if abortion remains legal or not:

Thirty states are poised to make abortion illegal within a year if the Supreme Court reversed its 1973 ruling establishing a woman's legal right to an abortion, an advocacy group said Tuesday.
The Center for Reproductive Rights said some states have old laws on the books that would be triggered by the overturning of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. Others have language in their state constitutions or strongly anti-abortion legislatures that would act quickly if the federal protection for abortion was ended and the issue reverted to the states.
"The building blocks are already in place to recriminalize abortion," said Nancy Northup, the center's president.

These changes wouldn't have much effect on wealthy women's abilities to get an abortion, as they have the money to travel elsewhere. But they would certainly make poor women's lives even harder than they are today in states like Alabama, Arkansas, Wisconsin and Texas (just to pick some randomly).

Currently five Supreme Court Justices support Roe and four oppose it. So the next judge to be appointed could be a crucial one for this issue. Bush would definitely find judges that are extremely anti-choice, whereas there is at least some chance of a more neutral judge under Kerry. So vote.

Guess Who is Going to Iraq?

The Independent Women's Forum (IWF), that's who! The IWF is the gals' auxiliary to wingnuttery. They are famous for defending the Promise Keepers' message in public fora, for fighting feminists on university campuses and for standing firmly in opposition of Title IX, the civil rights legislation that guarantees gender equality in education.

I know what you're thinking, but no, they are not planning to take up arms against the terrorists. That would not be what IWF stands for. In fact, one of their members is a famous author whose main message is that women don't belong in the military forces. No, what they are going to do in Iraq is hard work: to tell Iraqi women how to take advantage of democracy! Or that's my interpretation of the grant they have just received from the Bush administration:

The U.S. Department of State has awarded a major grant to the Independent Women's Forum to promote women's political and economic participation in Iraq. Yet the organization, whose board emerita includes Lynne Cheney, the spouse of the vice president, is devoted to countering "the dangerous influence of radical feminism in the courts" and combating "corrosive feminist ideology" on college campuses, among other things, according to its Web site.

The IWF could easily become an addiction for someone like me; they provide so much fun material. And it is funny to think that the Bush administration is so scared of feminism that they are sending the advance anti-feminist forces to Iraq at this very early stage!
But it's also funny to think of these women in Iraq, sorry.

If you are interested in learning more about the IWF, you can Google them. This is the sort of thing you might find:

In addition to Lynne Cheney, its board of directors emeritae includes neoconservative author and columnist Midge Decter, who wrote a book in 1972 called "The New Chastity and Other Arguments Against Women's Liberation." In a collection of her writing published under the title, "Always Right," she accuses feminism of radicalizing and marginalizing women who choose the roles of mother and homemaker.
Another member, Wendy Lee Gramm, was a board member of Enron before its infamous collapse in 2001, and served on its audit and compliance committee where she helped approve financial statements and acted as a liaison to auditors Arthur Andersen, according to The Washington Post. She is the wife of former Texas Senator Phil Gramm, and was named "Villain of the Month" in January of 2002 by the nonprofit Clean Air Trust for her work with a think-tank at George Mason University that opposes many existing federal environmental regulations.

My political Photo Gallery

This is not adult and mature. But it's fun. Here are the pictures of the candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency of the United States in 2004:

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Credits: For the first, Eschaton,for the second Democratic Underground and for the last Kos.

Memes for the Democrats

Here are my suggested talking points for the Kerry supporters. Each is based on something that Bush actually said in the debate. All bolds are mine:

1.. Bush: I don't think we want to get to how he's going to pay for all these promises. It's like a huge tax gap and - anyway, that's for another debate.
(a response to Kerry talking about his plans for increasing homeland security)

Suggested talking point: Why does Bush hate America so much that he won't spend money on our security?

2.Mr. Lehrer: New question, Mr. President. Two minutes. You have said there was a "miscalculation'' of what the conditions would be in post-war Iraq. What was the miscalculation? And how did it happen?
Mr. Bush: No, what I said was that because we achieved such a rapid victory more of the Saddam loyalists were around. Other words, we thought we'd whip more of them going in.
But because Tommy Franks did such a great job in planning the operations, we moved rapidly. And a lot of the Baathists and Saddam loyalists laid down their arms and disappeared. I thought we would, they would stay and fight. But they didn't. And now we're fighting them now.

Suggested talking point: And this guy is supposed to be in command of the military?

3. Mr. Lehrer: New question, Mr. President. Two minutes. Has the war in Iraq been worth the cost in American lives: 1,052 as of today?
Mr. Bush: Every life is precious. Every life matters. You know my hardest, the hardest part of the job is to know that I committed the troops in harm's way and then do the best I can to provide comfort for the loves ones who lost a son or a daughter or husband and wife.
And, you know, I think about Missy Johnson, fantastic young lady I met in Charlotte, N.C., she and her son, Brian. They came to see me. Her husband, P.J., got killed-been in Afghanistan, went to Iraq. You know, it's hard work to try to love her as best as I can knowing full well that the decision I made caused her, her loved one to be in harm's way.

Suggested talking point: What do the women voters think about a president who "loves" women this way?

4. Mr. Kerry: I couldn't agree more that the Iraqis want to be free and that they could be free. But I think the president, again, still hasn't shown how he's going to go about it the right way. He has more of the same.
Now, Prime Minister Allawi came here and he said the terrorists are pouring over the border. That's Allawi's assessment. The national intelligence assessment that was given to the president in July said: Best-case scenario, more of the same of what we see today; worst-case scenario, civil war.
I can do better.
Mr. Bush: Yeah, let me -
Mr. Lehrer: Yes, 30 seconds.
Mr. Bush: The reason why Prime Minister Allawi said they're coming across the border is because he recognizes that this is a central part of the war on terror. They're fighting us because they're fighting freedom. They understand that a free Afghanistan or a free Iraq will be a major defeat for them. And those are the stakes. And that's why it is essential we not leave. That's why it's essential we hold the line. That's why essential we win. And we will under my leadership. We're going to win this war in Iraq.

Suggested talking-point: Terrorists coming into Iraq NOW, rather than being the reason for our attacking the country in the first place? Bush is admitting it here.

5. Mr. Lehrer: Mr. President, new question, two minutes. Does the Iraq experience make it more likely or less likely that you would take the United States into another pre-emptive military action?
Mr. Bush: I would hope I never have to. Understand how hard it is to commit troops. I never wanted to commit troops. I never - when I was running - when we had the debate in 2000, never dreamt I'd be doing that, but the enemy attacked us, Jim, and I have a solemn duty to protect the American people, to do everything I can to protect us.
I think that by speaking clearly and doing what we say and not sending mixed messages, it is less likely we'll ever to use troops. But a president must always be willing to use troops, as a last resort. I was hopeful diplomacy would work in Iraq. It was falling apart. There was no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was hoping that the world would turn a blind eye. And if he had been in power - in other - we just said, let's the inspectors work or let's - you know, hope to talk him out, maybe the 18th resolution would work, he'd have been stronger and tougher and the world would have been a lot worse off. There's just no doubt in my mind. We would rue the day had we - if Saddam Hussein been in power.

Suggested talking-point: Bush is not really sure who attacked us. Should we have a president who can't distinguish between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

And so on.

The Global Test

The current wingnut talking point based on the first debate is Kerry's comment about the global test. Here's Kerry in the debate:

No president, through all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America.
But if and when you do it, Jim [Lehrer, the debate moderator], you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.

According to Bush, this means that Kerry "would give foreign governments veto power over our national security decisions." Ok. That's how you distort your opponent's comments, and this is nothing new in politics. But here's how the media has reported on the two interpretations of what "a global test" means:

In an October 3 Washington Post article , reporter Dan Balz reported that "Bush has seized on a statement the Massachusetts Democrat made in the debate that U.S. decisions to launch military action needed to meet a 'global test' of acceptability among major allies, and the campaign launched a new TV ad on the same theme." While Balz noted that "Kerry immediately responded with an ad describing the charge as a willful distortion of Kerry's position," he failed to explain how the ad was a distortion.
On the October 3 edition of NBC's Meet the Press, National Review editor Kate O'Beirne summarized the Bush campaign's depiction of Kerry's statement and described a new Bush-Cheney campaign ad based on that depiction. While host Tim Russert noted that "the Kerry campaign is on with a rebuttal saying he's lying about the debate," Russert, like Balz, neglected to point out how the ad is a distortion of Kerry's statement.
New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney, in an October 3 article , reported merely on "Mr. Kerry's suggestion in the debate that he might not engage in a pre-emptive war without putting it to a 'global test.'"
An October 3 article in the Chicago Tribune, by national correspondents Mark Silva and Jill Zuckman, reported only Bush's version of Kerry's statement: "Bush honed his post-debate assault with a new label Saturday for Kerry's suggestion that the United States meet a "global test" before deploying military forces pre-emptively."
On the October 3 edition of CNN Sunday Morning, CNN anchor Drew Griffin misrepresented Kerry's statement while reporting Bush's distorted attack: "At a campaign stop in Ohio he [Bush] brought up a Kerry comment from their first debate, when Kerry said any preemptive strike by the U.S. should pass a global test. The president says that's not the way to go."
During the "Talking Points Memo" segment on the October 1 edition of FOX News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly played the video of Kerry's statement from the debate, presenting it in its proper context. However, immediately following the video clip, O'Reilly asserted that Bush "pounced on Mr. Kerry's error, and he's right." O'Reilly then echoed Bush's mischaracterization of Kerry's statement, saying, "Most Americans don't want a global litmus test when our lives are at stake."
Bill O'Reilly was not the only FOX News Channel host to refer to Kerry's statement as an error. On the October 3 edition of FOX Broadcasting Company's FOX News Sunday, Brit Hume mirrored Bush campaign senior adviser Karl Rove's assessment that Kerry's remark was "very big" and "a blunder." The "'global test' phrase was -- may turn out, when we look back on this later, to have been the gaffe of the night, if there was one," Hume said.

Unbiased and objective? Or biased and lazy? You decide, as the Fox News likes to say.

My next post will offer Democrats some similar talking points. They have the advantage of actually being rather bad cases of the Bush foot-in-the-mouth disease.

Deep Thoughts for the Day

All of these are based on the words of George Bush. Sort of.

1. It's hard freedom to work mixed messages.
2. Mixed freedom works hard messages.
3. Messages of freedom work hard mixed flip-flops.

Something Different for Sunday

This is a piece I wrote some time ago. The idea is that the woman in the story is talking to her own image in the mirror. The usual warnings about taking self-defence advice from people like me apply.

How Do You Make A Fist?

How do you make a fist? What would you do if someone choked you from behind? Are you always doomed to be the prey for the silent hunters of the night?

So you were brought up to be a good girl, a little ray of sunshine in this world of shadows. You treasure the fashionable frailty of your arms, the elegant arch of your tiny foot in the high-heeled shoe. You were a good student and learned that all this is good. You learned that you are weak, in need of protection, that no woman can defend herself against the evils of this world. Your goodness was the only cloak that covered you.

It isn't enough. You sit inside at night and watch the dark windows. What moves behind the streetlights which never seem to light anything? What rustles in the bushes by your door? How many locks do you need to keep the disquiet at bay?

We are all weak, but you have thrown away what strength you had. You have become prey, carefully plucking out anger, ignoring the rage that lives below your heart, letting the fear paralyze every cell in your body.

But you have a body for other purposes, legs to carry you away, arms to lift, eyes to observe, ears to listen. You can smell danger, taste it in the air. Your body wants to take the hot rage and coax it into a fire which will keep you warm, keep you safer. Your body wants to be strong and fast and good.

So how do you make a fist? You don't know? Go and find out. Never mind if you are thirty-five or sixty-five and afraid that people will laugh at your ignorance. You can learn it. Then learn how to use it. Think of all the soft, frightened places of your body: the eyes, the nose, the temples, the curve of your lips, the open neck. These are the places the hunters also have and these are your targets.

Learn to kick. If you love to dance you'll love to kick. You can learn the dances of death if you need to. It doesn't make you a hunter. Go and find out. You won't master them overnight but you will master them. Learn to be the one who leads in this dance and you'll sleep better, walk lighter, dance longer.

You don't believe this. Your education has prepared you well for the life of a prey. You believe nothing you do could ever work, could ever help. You have never studied the weapons of your body, the power of your rage; yet you are convinced of their failings. Go and find out. Seek the teachers of these arts. You'll be astonished.

You must learn to fight dirty. This can save your life one day. You can still be a good girl, only now a good girl who fights dirty. Dirty means smart. It means finding the weaknesses in the hunter who has you in his maws and attacking them fast. Dirty means staying alive, and staying alive is good.

All this will take time. The more time you put into studying your body as a weapon the more likely it is to buy you more time one day. But even a few moments of study is better than nothing. Kindle the fire in your stomach. It will melt away the frozen paralysis of your fear.

To conquer your fear you must enter it. What is it that you fear the most? Imagine it as if in a movie. Then rewind the tape and go back, step by step, asking "What should I do here?", "And here?". Add your rage, the moves of your body fighting for you. Edit until the story ends in your victory. Then make it even better. Keep working on your fears until you know that you are no longer the rabbit frozen in the headlights of an oncoming car.

Find out what you need to stay safer. If you feel weak make yourself stronger. If you feel slow practise and you'll get faster. Learn to plan, to anticipate. Stay present when in dangerous places. Know where the exits are, where safety lies. Choose your company with care.

If you do this you'll find the fear shrinking, almost disappearing. Only what is common to all people will stay. Your body will be freed to live as it was meant to, your mind will have some peace. This is the first fight your new skills have won you, and if you are lucky, it might be the only one you ever need to win. This alone is worth all your hard work.

Look at yourself in the mirror, now. Can you see the power uncoiling? Doesn't it look good on you? You look like someone who knows how to take care of herself. You look like someone who knows how to make a fist.

Cheney's Voting Record

Last July Dick Cheney said this about Kerry's voting record:

"On these and a whole host of values, John Kerry's votes and statements over the decades that he's been in office put him on the left, out of the mainstream, and out of touch with the conservative values of the heartland,"

And how does the nutcracker-jaw vote himself? Here's how:

He opposed federal funding for abortions -- with no exceptions in the case of rape or incest.
He voted against the Equal Rights Amendment for women, along with 146 other members of Congress in 1983.
On Education, he consistently opposed funding of Head Start and voted against creating the Department of Education.
Cheney was raised in Wyoming and opposes, as many Westerners do, gun control limits.
He was one of just 21 members of Congress, in December of 1985, to vote against a ban on armor piercing bullets -- called cop killer bullets.
Three years later he was one of only four members of the House voting against a ban on plastic guns that could slip through airport security machines undetected. The National Rifle Association did not oppose this ban.
Also in 1988, Cheney voted to scrap a proposed national seven-day waiting period on handgun purchases.
On the environment, Cheney opposed refunding the Clean Water Act. He voted to postpone sanctions slapped on air polluters that failed to meet pollution standards.
And he voted against legislation to require oil, chemical and other industries from making public records of emissions known to cause cancer, birth defects and other chronic diseases.
Dick Cheney consistently voted to raise military spending. He also supported aid to the Nicaraguan rebels, even after a moratorium on funding was passed.

Is this how the conservative values of the heartland translate? I don't think so. I think that our Dick is a wingnut.

A Reminder

I now also blog on the American Street on Saturdays. If you want more politics, check out my most recent sermon there. It's about security moms, or rather about the new meme that there is such a thing as women who are swing-voters but now lean towards Bush because he's seen as such a macho-man. It's all a puff of foul-smelling air from some wingnut's nostrils, as you might have guessed.

Christine on ms. musings does a very good job on this topic, and she asks for suggestions about new demographic groups for the election pundits to talk about. I like "war-thirsty wingnuts" or maybe "sundry fundies". Also "security blankets" for those people who have decided to close their eyes and brains against any evidence that might sway them from walking straight off the roof after our dear leader.

Mmmmmm!

The cake was a great success! Sorry for no picture, but it's all eaten up already. I had a few hairy bits during the preparation (the fudge hardened to a giant lollypop, the cake sank in the middle in the oven and the bottom half fell on the floor after I took it out of the oven..), but the result was brilliant and the taste is out of this world. Trust me. This is a parable for Kerry's campaign, its initial difficulties and other troubles en route to the final shining victory!

Here's the recipe:

Sweet Death

Ingredients:
4 eggs
2/3 cups white sugar
3/4 cups (a little over) pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

1 and 1/3 cups whipping (heavy) cream
1 Marabou bar or the equivalent amount of milk chocolate with almonds (four ounces is plenty)
3/4 cups dark brown sugar
2/3 cups of very strong coffee
1/2 tablespoon of butter
a handful of fine breadcrumbs (or use flour in an emergency)
oven tin of suitable size
large knife
hammer
first aid kit


Instructions:
1. Butter the oven tin and scatter breadcrumbs all over it. (Don't butter and crumb the outside!)
2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Beat together the eggs (only the insides!) and the white sugar until the result is very light yellow and leaves a mound for a few moments when you drop it from the beater blades.
4. Mix together the flour and the baking powder. Sieve it (through a sieve) into the egg-sugar mixture. Fold in gently (so as not to deflate the whole thing.
5. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 30-40 minutes or until the sides of the cake come apart from the sides of the tin and a match stuck into the cake (the wrong end in) comes out clean.
6. Take the cake out of oven and upend it on something clean. (Hope that it doesn't stick to the tin and then fall on the floor when vigorously shaken. If it does, piece it back together like a jigsaw puzzle.)
7. Prepare the chocolate filling: Put the chocolate bar inside a clean dishtowel or pillowcase. Take the hammer and have at the poor chocolate until the result is in nice chunks.
8. Make the coffee and let it cool.
9. Prepare the fudgey filling/icing: In a small saucepan mix together 3/4 cups of cream and the brown sugar. Cook over low heat until the mixture thickens. Add a tablespoon of butter and stir it in. (Do NOT refrigerate at this stage or you get a large lollypop!)
10. Whip up the remaining cream into a foamy stage that will stay on the cake.
11. Assemble the cake: First find your longest knife and slit the cake into two layers. (Careful with your fingers here!) Separate the layers and dribble half of the cold coffee on each. Decide which layer is the bottom this time, and cover the bottom layer with about half of the fudge sauce. Then smear about a quarter of the whipped cream over the sauce. Sprinkle half of the chocolate lumps over that. Then top the whole mess with the top layer of the cake. Cover that one with the rest of the fudge sauce. Then cover EVERYTHING with the remaining whipped cream and scatter the rest of the chocolate over the lot. Refrigerate for a few hours to make all the flavors merge into one unforgettable taste orgasm.

Meanwhile, in the real world

Today is the Cake Day! First I need to go shopping for eggs, flour, sugar, butter, cream, brown sugar, chocolate and coffee. Then I need to turn the kitchen upside down and cover it with various gooey liquids and fluffy powders. I need to find the manual for the electric beater and a ruler to measure how large my oven tins are.

I'm looking forward to this a lot. Probably best to wear something like a painter's overall? And I need to cover the dogs with some tarps.

Creativity is so fun! You never know what comes out of all the activity, but the experience is what really matters.

If you don't hear from me soon I probably put myself in the oven by accident. It's all for a very good cause, though.

The October Surprise

Karl Rove says that he has a few ready for the Kerry campaign:

President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, said Wednesday that the Bush-Cheney campaign is planning some October "surprises" for challengers John Kerry and John Edwards.

"We've got a couple of surprises that we intend to spring," Rove told ABC radio host Sean Hannity while explaining that he intends to wage an aggressive campaign no matter what the polls show. "It's 34 days [till the election] and that's a long time in politics, and when you get complacent you lose," the top White House adviser said.

We all know what one of those surprises might be. It starts with the letter "O" and might be frozen. The others are probably similar. Maybe Rove will stage a situation where Bush can save the life of a small child? Or there could be a group hug of war widows by the president who finds that loving them is hard work? Just kidding.

But be prepared: it's going to be something smelly, given that this is from our Karl.
-----
Original link via Kevin Hayden.

A Must-Read

This article in Media Matters for America is a very good one. It compares the pre-debate and post-debate spins and shows how the events are twisted so that they cannot benefit Kerry's campaign.

For a while there I was actually feeling gentle vibes of love towards all and sundry, even the pundits, but now I'm back to my normal state of cynical health.

Not to Rain on the Parade, But

It's good to remember that the debates don't necessarily help in determining how Americans might vote. And there is something a little sad in a country of this size ending up with two candidates who are both men and who are both white and who both have lots of money and who both went to Yale and belonged to the same secret society there as our two options for the president.

We should really try to do better in the future. Maybe overhauling the two-party system would be the first thing to work on? The countries with proportional representation and multiparty systems do a lot better in having both women and men and people of different ethnic origins in their parliaments.

But for now I'm glad for the pitiful fact that we have two (two!) candidates to choose from two (two!) parties.

Tiptoeing in Violets

This is allowed for one day. Everything looks so bright this morning! The sun kisses my eyelids and the snakes are dancing in the garden. It's good to be alive!

Tomorrow is soon enough for reality. But if you need to get back to the fight sooner than that, read this post about the aging Supreme Court and why it's so very important to assure that Bush is not back for another four years. Other reasons abound, of course, some of them more urgent and frightening, but the long-term effects of a fundie rule are not to be underestimated for anybody whose civil rights depend at least partially on laws of the country.

If you're not in the mood for anything that serious yet, Amanda is very funny about the G-spots here...

Putting on the Leash

This is a quote from the first debate:

Mr. Kerry Well, first of all, I appreciate enormously the personal comments the president just made, and I share them with him. I think only if you've - if you're doing this, and he's done it more than I have in terms of the presidency, can you begin to get a sense of what it means to your families. And it's tough. And so I acknowledge - his daughters, I've watched them, I've chuckled a few times at some of their comments. And -
Mr. Bush Trying to put a leash on them.
Mr. Kerry Well, I know - I've learned not to do that. And I have great respect and admiration for his wife. I think she's a terrific person -
Mr. Bush Thank you.

I'm sure that Bush was trying to be funny with his leash comment, but it might backfire pretty badly. For one thing, it reminds us of the torture scandal in Iraq, what with a leash being used in that one, too. For another, most young women don't want their fathers to put them on leash. I wouldn't, anyway.

More on the debate

Seriously, Kerry was a much better debater. His arguments were simple and clear and based on facts. He responded well and managed to make several important soundbites. He skated gracefully on the thin ice of fighting against his opponent while respecting the U.S. president. He brought out all his main points and he made Bush's strategies look as unthought as they are.

Bush, on the other hand, was very good at repeating the same brainwashing messages all over again, not giving much data at all (which is regarded as an advantage here) and quite often falling back on saying nothing much at all.

It would have been quite painful to watch if this had been a debate at a university or some other such place. Given the mainstream media's noticeable conservative bias, though, we are going to be told that the debate was at least a draw if not an outright win for Bush. And Kerry's ears looked too white.

The Shorter Debate

Kerry: blablablabla I'll get the job done blablabla.
Bush: blablablabla freedom blabla hard work blabla clear messages blablabla.
Kerry: blablablabla He doesn't get the job done blablablablabla.
Bush: blablablablabla freedom blablabla hard work blabla mixed messsages from Kerry blablabla
Kerry: blablablabla I'll get the job done blablaba.
Bush: blablabla freedom ha-a-ard blablabla.

Actually, Kerry won hands down, but that was pretty expected, really. He's intelligent and articulate and knows stuff. Bush kept saying the same brainwashing slogans over and over and showed that he doesn't understand anything about Korea.

But of course the media pundits will decide that Bush won. No, actually, they seem to declare it a draw. After all, they have far too much invested in Bush.

Campaigning for Women's Votes

This appears to consist of scaring women, then making up a fun category called "security moms", and then telling that they're going to vote for Bush because he has kept us so safe ( like on 9/11 2001). Or of feminism ultralite as discussed in my earlier post on this page. Campaigning for women's votes has practically nothing to do with asking women what they want from the president of this country.

An article in Women's E-news points out that there are many ways of finding topics that women voters could be interested in:

To illustrate: A front-page story in the Aug. 22 Atlanta Journal-Constitution on new rules for overtime pay used as an example a female McDonald's team leader earning $28,000 annually who would lose her overtime pay because she can hire and fire, and contrasted her with a carpenter earning $125,000 a year who can still earn overtime because he doesn't supervise anyone. Note to politics reporter across the room: Why not ask the campaigns what they'll do about that?
An article in the same edition, on the metro page, profiled a couple who have been foster parents of 39 children, and now take in only those who are medically fragile. A good day for them begins at 6 a.m. and ends at 2 a.m. For this they earn about $4 an hour ($2 apiece) per child. Why not ask the campaigns where the family values are in that scenario?
A week later, a mention of a lack of family-friendly policies for working women is noted in a story about a female mayor of Athens, Greece. Hey, how about the lack of supportive policies for working women soon to vote for president of the United States?

But naah, this is soft stuff. It's not what politics is about today. We worry about a few thousand terrorists instead. Never mind if many more people are killed for quite preventable reasons at home or if the money we keep pouring into Iraq ends up in the pockets of Enron-like corporations and their shareholders. Look there! A terrorist warning! It will state that there is no special terrorist warning about the debates, but this could be just because the terrorist are so scary that they might attack without warning!

The soundbite is that Bush is keeping us safe by standing rigid against terrorism as he defines it. In reality, many American women are not safe in their homes or on the streets, and this has nothing to do with terrorism of the Bush type. But to speak about crime and its victims in general is not fascinating and interesting and adequately macho-smelling this year.

The Compassionate Pentagon

Too bad that its compassion is in the wrong direction, towards those that sell it products and services:

More than 40 percent of all Pentagon contracts, a total of $362 billion, have been awarded on a no-bid basis over the last six years, according to a report issued yesterday. It showed that the biggest companies won the bulk of their contracts without going through a competitive process.
The nation's largest military contractor, Lockheed Martin Corp., received the most Pentagon business on a non-competitive basis. Seventy-four percent of Lockheed's $94 billion in Pentagon contracts since 1998 were awarded without competition, according to a report from the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington non-profit group that studied 2.2 million Pentagon contracts totaling $900 billion.
"Competitive bidding at the Pentagon happens less often than we think, and the no-bid controversy surrounding Halliburton in Iraq actually is, unfortunately, not an aberration," said Charles Lewis, the center's executive director. Lewis' organization was one of the first to study contracts won by Halliburton and other companies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yesterday's report grew out of that earlier work.

To have things delivered on the no-bid basis is a little like you calling up the local car dealer and asking them to send you a nice little vehicle at whatever price they deem fair. I can easily imagine how that would go down with most of us. We'd get very expensive cars.

What's Pentagon's excuse for this horrendous practice? This:

Thomas Greer, a Lockheed spokesman, said that because of "the substantial investment and lengthy development cycles followed by limited annual production quantities," it is often not cost-effective for the Pentagon to have competitive bidding. Greer added that "it is important to note that sole source awards still mandate contractor performance."

So Pentagon is sort of married to a few corporations because it's too difficult to ask for bids on these specialized projects. Ok, maybe. But how is the contractor performance mandated? Or rather, who analyses the costs and efficacy of the contractors? Hmmm:

Currently, for instance, half of the defense budget is outsourced to contractors, while oversight of these contracts has declined, the report said. The Pentagon has reduced the number of government officials who supervise contractors, instead hiring contractors themselves to oversee and manage others, according to the report, which said that the Pentagon hired a contractor to determine how many contractors it had employed.
"There is an even more fundamental problem underscoring our entire investigation: the stunning lack of accountability," said Lewis, who added, "This is a Keystone Kop situation where no one is monitoring the monitors. This is a very serious situation and the Pentagon is treating it like a hair in the soup."

It's a mess. And this is one of the reasons for the mess:

The leading recipient of campaign donations from military contractors has been President Bush, who has received $5.4 million from the industry since 1998. Military contractors, however, began stepping up contributions to Sen. John Kerry after he won the Iowa caucuses.
Before the caucuses Kerry had received $332,000 from the industry, and he has received just under $2 million since then. The Republican Party has received $62 million from the industry since 1998, compared with $24 million for the Democratic Party, according to the report.

No Title Stupid Enough Exists for This

Here is MSNBC on the coming debates in the U.S. presidential campaign:

President Bush's ability to stick to a scripted defense of his policies on Iraq and terrorism should give him an edge over Democratic rival Sen. John Kerry in Thursday's presidential debate, analysts say.
The war in Iraq, which has plagued the administration with escalating violence and intelligence lapses, is widely expected to produce the most heated rhetoric of the 90-minute face-off over foreign policy and homeland security. It is the first of three Bush-Kerry debates scheduled between now and the Nov. 2 election.
MSNBC.com will air the debate live in a Webcast from 9 to 10:30 p.m. ET. The debate also will be broadcast at the same time on NBC and MSNBC Cable.
Kerry will likely showcase his new hard-hitting language about chaos and casualties in Iraq by accusing Bush of mismanaging the war and diverting U.S. attention from the hunt for al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
But analysts say Bush has recently neutralized Iraq as a political liability, through campaign ads and stump speeches that have boiled the issue down to a series of scripted messages about strength and optimism.
"It's hard to argue with 'strength is good' and 'are you saying you're not for strength?'," said Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Where are my ashes and sackcloth? Where's the whip for self-flagellation? Why on earth did I ever bother going to school? Anyone want a spare PhD certificate to decorate the bathroom with?

So the debates are over before they have started, and the winner? Ding, ding, ding! George Bush, the great debater!

Well, what did you expect. After all, this is the way the winner is actually decided:

Kerry's sometimes meandering style could weigh down the Democrat in a contest analysts said would likely be decided by post-debate media coverage featuring the pithiest sound-bites.

(Bolds mine)

This is because people aren't actually expected to follow the debates, noooh. They are supposed to find out later by listening to what the pundits have to say about the pithiness of the two contestants. And we already know that Bush is extremely pithy. How? Well, the pundits have told us so.

Geez, I'm going to give up.

Self-Made Billionaires

There is no such thing. Every billionaire on this earth has had the advantage of the markets that the laws and government regulations provide and maintain, of the education systems that offer subsidized education to millions of people, including future billionaires and the people who are going to work for them and buy their products, and the police forces that allow the billionaires to keep their gains, whether ill-gotten or not.

According to the most recent evidence, the United States has 313 billionaires now. The total wealth of these people would be enough to buy the gross national products of many, many countries. To be quite honest, I think that there is something extremely distasteful in one person owning so much that a whole struggling nation could be lifted up from poverty with the same amount of money. Any argument that relies on the deserved fruits from the effort of the single individual leaves me cold as for it to apply I'd need to assume that one person could actually be worthier than a whole nation. I also can't see what kind of pleasure one could get from earning another billion on top of a big pile of them: we can only eat and drink and wear so much, and it's not possible to live in more houses than one at the same time. In short, successive dollars are worth less to you the richer you are.

Given this, it's totally mindboggling that Bush is giving these billionaires and others in the top one percent of the wealthiest Americans even more money as tax cuts. This money is not giving them something that they can't already buy, and the same amount could do so much good if it was given to the very poor. But instead:

Bush has reduced the share of taxes paid by the wealthiest one percent of Americans, who control about 35 percent of the country's wealth, from 22.2 percent in 2001 to 20.1 percent this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Meanwhile, the middle fifth of Americans, who control about 15 percent of the pie, saw their tax burden rise from 18.7 percent to 19.5 percent. The wealthiest one percent received an average tax cut of $78,460 this year, while the middle 20 percent's average take was $1,090.

Can you imagine what could be done with the money if every person in the top one percent of the wealthiest decided to give the average $78,460 to some good purpose? I very much doubt that they would ever miss this money, yet if it was used to fund extra school supplies and teachers to the poorest children in this country, wonderful things might happen.

But it's not acceptable to suggest this as it goes against Bush's new slogan of the United States as an ownership economy. As if everybody could become billionaires in this country. As if everybody could own without anyone being the owned one. As if this slogan is anything but a little bit of hot air. Just check whose ownership economy Bush is busy helping.

The Wise Viewers of Fox News

This is fun. Go to the Fox News website, and check their most recent poll. It asks:" Do you believe that Saddam Hussein was part of the 9/11 attacks on U.S.?"

The current answers:

Yes 54% (36,409)
No 38% (25,835)
I did but no longer think that 2% (1,560)
None of the above 6% (3,448)

This is hilarious! Even George Bush doesn't believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. Just goes to show how informative Fox News is.

Nigeria's Sharia Law

Human Rights Watch has published a report criticizing the effects of the introduction of sharia as the law in northern Nigeria:

The adoption of strict Islamic law in 12 predominantly Muslim states in northern Nigeria was mainly done for cheap political gain, but it has resulted in the systematic violation of citizens' fundamental human rights, subjecting women to unfair discrimination, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday.

The New York-based group said in a 111-page report titled 'Political Sharia'h: Human Rights and Islamic Law in Northern Nigeria' that some of the religious zeal that came with the adoption of the legal code from 2000 onwards has waned. But it said that the human rights abuses that came with the introduction of Sharia'h have remained.

Its findings were swiftly rejected by Nigerian supporters of Sharia'h law as western propaganda against Islam.

Yakubu Ali, a judicial official in Sokoto State, the first state to order a convict to be stoned to death for adultery in 2001, said: "Westerners have never liked Islam and we don't expect them to praise sharia'h."

This is the problem in a nutshell: How to discuss the oppression of women that has a religious basis without seeming to criticize that religion or all religions? The literalist interpretations would argue that this cannot be done. If the text states that women are unequal to men, then this is the truth.

All the holy books of the major religions contain snippets that can be used to argue such a case. At the same time, they also contain opposing snippets which appear to assume that the sexes are equal. Maybe we should point this out to the literalists who imply that debate on these questions is not allowed?

In any case, the current application of sharia in Nigeria is not equal across the sexes. Women are more likely to be found guilty of adultery than men:

Women have faced particular discrimination under sharia'h, especially in adultery cases where mere pregnancy is considered adequate evidence of guilt and allegations of rape are hardly ever investigated by judges, the report said.

This situation left male defendants with undue advantages, since Sharia'h rules of evidence require that four witnesses must have seen the man committing adultery or rape.

It is unlikely that most rapes would have four witnesses (do they have to be male witnesses?), and this rule alone will make women much more likely to be found guilty of adultery.

The effects of sharia are different on women and men even in less serious cases:

The report cites restrictions that have been placed on women's daily lives reminiscent of Taliban restrictions on Afghan women including their freedoms of movement, dress, and right to associate with others. According to HRW, some state governments have introduced measures not codified in law to limit women's freedom of movement and association. For example, in some states measures were implemented preventing men and women from being seen together in public. The hisbah, a group given responsibility to make sure Sharia law has been enforced, were found to pull women out of taxis if the driver is male. There were even cases of drivers being flogged for carrying female passengers. By 2003, HRW reports that these measures have been enforced less stringently, however, there are still cases of taxi drivers refusing to carry females in the Zamfara State.

The inequality here applies to other aspects of life than just being punished for crimes; in fact, to all of life.

I wish the major religions were more interested in the actual meaning of their holy texts, not the literal interpretation of rules written for a very different society.

What to Write?

I'm sitting here chewing the keyboard. Not a single interesting idea for a post in the whole room or the cyberspace attached to it! Granted, I am working on something about the Patriot Act, but that means sitting down and actually reading dry legal text for several minutes. Or I could always torture wingnuts, but I don't feel like doing so today.

I'm taking Henrietta the Hound to the veterinarian tomorrow. She has a lump on her chest. She is at least twelve years old, and every time she has to go to the veterinarian I worry. So I worry right now, and the worry drives away other things that my head could be used for. But Henrietta is a mean old revolutionary and a few little lumps won't get her!

She means a lot to me, as does Hank. The relationship we have is not the same as that with humans, of course. For one thing, dogs don't say stupid things in politics. For another, it's so easy to make a dog happy: just scratch in the exactly right spot. But these interspecies relationships have something deeper in them, too, and I have learned a lot about bouncing back from Henrietta. She was an abused animal when we met, and nine years later she's the queen of the household. I like that in a bitch.

More seriously, she is the Einstein of the dogdom and her extrasensory abilities are enormous. Every night she checks that the doors are locked, then she tells me to go to bed and finally rearranges all the pillows on her bed to make a nest. And she keeps Hank under some restraint. How she does that I have never been able to fathom. Maybe it's just the simple fact that she trashes Hank every afternoon?

The veterinarian will find her perfecty healthy, I hope. And then I get a bill for two hundred dollars and can whine about that instead. I hope.

Frank Gallup is Turning Over in His Grave

Frank was proud of the quality of his polling organization. In fact, we all were, and Gallup became the generic name for all scientific polling. Alas, things are not the same today:

...according to http://pollingreport.com, August surveys of likely voters showed Kerry up by one to seven points in nine national polls and Bush up by three to four points in three national polls. Curiously, all three of the outlier Bush-favoring polls were conducted by Gallup. The other nine were conducted by nine different polling organizations using nine different polling methods. One has to conclude that Gallup's methods are seriously flawed.
Recently, The Wall Street Journal, Pew, Harris, Investor's Business Daily and Democracy Now all released polls showing the race was neck and neck again with neither candidate ahead by more than two points. On Sept. 17, Gallup released a poll claiming that Bush is up by 13 points nationally.

Of course, it could be that the Gallup polls are correct and all the others wrong. But the fact that Gallup was wrong in the 2000 elections, too, makes me suspect that something is wrong in their polling methods.

The most recent Gallup polls suggest that Bush has an eight percent lead among likely voters. The reasons for this sizable lead might be in the way the Gallup methodology defines 'likely voters'. For some reason the filter they use lets more Republicans through than Democrats. Steve Soto points out the consequences of this. The latest Gallup poll had the following sample proportions:

Likely Voter Sample Party IDs – Poll of September 24-26
Reflected Bush Winning by 52%-44%
Total Sample: 758
GOP: 328 (43%)
Dem: 236 (31%)
Ind: 189 (25%)

No wonder that the poll predicts a strong Bush lead; after all, the Republicans are the largest group of those polled. This wouldn't be a problem if Republicans in fact voted in these very same proportions compared to Democrats and Independents. But this is not what happened in the 2000 elections. If it is not what happens this year, Gallup will, once again, fail in its predictions.

Other pollsters appear not to use the same filter that gives a concentration of Republicans in the Gallup polls. It would be interesting to know why various pollsters pick the filters they do, but it would also be interesting to know if Gallup's outlier status has something to do with this:

...James Clifton who bought the Gallup organization is a big Republican donor. He gave thousands to Right Wing Republican Georgia Senate candidate Herman Cain. Cain ran as a huge backer of cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans. This is essentially the same tax position supported with vigor by the Bush-Cheney ticket.

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Link to Steve Soto's blog The Left Coaster via Kos.

Feminism Ultra-Lite

I read about Naomi Wolf's most recent missive from the feminism-is-elective school of thought on Amanda's wonderful blog, and I'm hereby declaring that I have stolen the topic from her.

Wolf has written an article about the many ways in which feminism and presidential campaigns interact. Or rather, the two ways that she sees them as interacting, and they are: 1. The Republicans have successfully stolen the feminist message. 2. Teresa Heinz Kerry is the deathknell for the Democratic campaign for presidency.

Naomi is famous for writing about the "beauty myth", and she is a bona fide feminist, or at least was one. But this particular article makes me wonder how elastic we can make the definition of a feminist before everything slips out and flips and flops all over the place. Though her points about Karen Hughes' impact on the Republican campaigning style are interesting:

So they devised a deliberate strategy that went unnoticed by Democratic strategists, most of whom are white guys over 50: to showcase a moderate, mainstream feminist makeover for the Bush brand. Everyone fell for it, including the press. Bush's speeches are routinely cast before the eye, I am convinced, of Karen Hughes, who spins tax cuts as a boon to women entrepreneurs, like the one Laura Bush mentioned in her convention speech (Carmella Chaifos, "the only woman to own a tow-truck company in all of Iowa"). The fallen heroes of Iraq are "moms and dads." Afghanistan was the first time U.S. troops were deployed for a feminist goal, "so Afghan girls could go to school."
Abortion is an issue not of Ms. Magazine–style fanaticism or suicidal Republican religious reaction, but a complex issue on which "good people can disagree." (W. mimicked his father's trick of catering to his religious base while leaking the fact that his wife is pro-choice.)
Look at the language. Starting in 2000, every Republican-male dinosaur on TV began to sound like Oprah. Suddenly they all used the words—sensitive, comfort (or comfortable), and appreciate. George Bush is "comfortable in his skin." Laura Bush and her husband want to "comfort" the bereaved families of dead soldiers. Republicans would speak of Bush as "sensitive" to the complexity of issues and as being someone "appreciative" of working moms. It worked frighteningly well: The words "changed the tone" of Washington Republicans from that of the losing old boys' club of 1992 and 1996.

Yes, this is interesting, but Wolf is wrong in arguing that this is co-opting feminism, unless feminism is redefined as something so lite, so diaphanous that it becomes meaningless. After all, beneath all these words the Republican approach to women's issues has been nothing short of an undeclared war against all uppity women. I think that Naomi is confusing PR with real beliefs here as well as in the whole article. Still, she does us a favor by pointing out the little bit of feminist rouge on the cheeks of George Bush.

Where I disagree more strongly with Wolf is in her discussion of Teresa Heinz Kerry's disastrous effect on Kerry's campaign. Here is what Wolf says about it:

The charges are sticking because of Teresa Heinz Kerry. Let's start with "Heinz." By retaining her dead husband's name—there is no genteel way to put this—she is publicly, subliminally cuckolding Kerry with the power of another man—a dead Republican man, at that. Add to that the fact that her first husband was (as she is herself now) vastly more wealthy than her second husband. Throw into all of this her penchant for black, a color that no woman wears in the heartland, and you have a recipe for just what Kerry is struggling with now: charges of elitism, unstable family relationships, and an unmanned candidate.

So it's all about images? Wearing black is elitist and makes men unmanned? I don't know. I would think that something a little more is required to unman someone. I would also think that Teresa might have kept her previous name because it is part of who she is and because she has children with that name. Removing the name you share with your children smacks of unstable family relationship in the image world, doesn't it?

And if Kerry's masculinity was so frail that it had to be preserved by turning Teresa into some sort of a billion dollar Taliban-wife, wouldn't that really give us an image the opposite of what was intended? Right now I think that Kerry is a man fully up to the challenge of being married to a woman who is powerful on her own right, opinionated and interesting. Passionate, even. Isn't that a good image, too?

Not according to Wolf. Wolf argues that though she's a feminist, the hard truth is that politicans become imagery for the rest of us and so do their wives or husbands. Teresa should act in ways that prop up John's alpha-male image, or even better, Teresa should be kept under wraps and Elizabeth Edwards brought out to go on Oprah and talk about "mom-messenger" things, because she's a good antidote to all the things that are wrong with Teresa Heinz Kerry.

This is a brand new type of feminism to me, if it's a real type. I don't think that it is, because Naomi would get into some difficulties with applying this double-think to cases where it is a woman running for office and her husband acting the role of the supportive spouse. The images that she wants to use would guarantee that no female candidate would ever be elected.

I understand the need to pretend in politics, and I even understand the need to hide certain ideologies from the conservative eyes of some voters. What I don't understand is why Wolf pretends that this has something to do with feminism or why 'feminism ultra-lite' is good for the Republicans but bad for the Democrats.

Krugman Predicts the Debate Winner

And I agree with his prediction:

Let's face it: whatever happens in Thursday's debate, cable news will proclaim President Bush the winner. This will reflect the political bias so evident during the party conventions. It will also reflect the undoubted fact that Mr. Bush does a pretty good Clint Eastwood imitation.
But what will the print media do? Let's hope they don't do what they did four years ago.
Interviews with focus groups just after the first 2000 debate showed Al Gore with a slight edge. Post-debate analysis should have widened that edge. After all, during the debate, Mr. Bush told one whopper after another - about his budget plans, about his prescription drug proposal and more. The fact-checking in the next day's papers should have been devastating.
But as Adam Clymer pointed out yesterday on the Op-Ed page of The Times, front-page coverage of the 2000 debates emphasized not what the candidates said but their "body language." After the debate, the lead stories said a lot about Mr. Gore's sighs, but nothing about Mr. Bush's lies. And even the fact-checking pieces "buried inside the newspaper" were, as Mr. Clymer delicately puts it, "constrained by an effort to balance one candidate's big mistakes" - that is, Mr. Bush's lies - "against the other's minor errors."
The result of this emphasis on the candidates' acting skills rather than their substance was that after a few days, Mr. Bush's defeat in the debate had been spun into a victory.

It's not necessarily the case that all of the so-called liberal media is biased in favor of Bush; some are, but others have this odd view of nonpartisanship which boils down to trying to make each party equally bad or good. Even when the facts favor one position over the other. The combined effect of Fox News -type bias plus the wishy-washiness of the rest will result in a victorious Bush, even if he says something really stupid or deceitful.

The interesting question is of course why hold the debates at all. Why not just declare Bush as the winner and get on with life?

I still hope that all this is excessively pessimistic...

What She Said

Morgaine has a new blog with this name about women bloggers. I am in the blogroll so she obviously has good taste and understanding. If you ever feel like there are no progressive female bloggers anywhere in this cyberspace, go to What She Said and pick randomly from the miles-long blogroll.

Not that this new blog will stop the periodic discussions about where all the women are in political blogging. It's far too fun to argue about it every three months or so. I particularly like the argument that women blog about people and men about issues, and that this is the reason why there are so few women blogging politics. If you actually check out what the Big Boys blog about, well, it's almost all about people: What Bush said. What Powell did. What Kerry plans. Whether Allawi has strings or not. Whether Rush has ever had sex. And so on. Come to think of it, I should blog more about people than issues. I keep whipping the issues to death, but maybe there is still some mileage to be had in talking about George and Laura and John and Theresa and whether their marriages are dysfunctional or not? Though the media seems to take care of that topic pretty thoroughly.

Virginity Testing and AIDS

South Africa's moral regeneration movement has decided to urge the return of virginity testing of teenage girls as a means to fight the spread of AIDS:

On Wednesday, South Africa's Deputy President Jacob Zuma, a member of President Thabo Mbeki's cabinet, visited the city of Umtata on the Eastern Cape and praised a group of about 40 young girls for agreeing to take virginity tests, according to several press reports.
His visit is part of a controversial campaign to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS and reduce the incidence of teen-age pregnancy through encouraging young girls to take these tests. Human rights groups have condemned the practice as a violation of human rights and a woman's dignity.
Speaking to a crowd of local residents, government officials and reporters, Zuma called a young girl's virginity her "family's treasure," and lamented what he called the erosion of traditional African family values. The current situation in South Africa, he said, is one "where more and more children are giving birth to other children while still dependent on their parents."
Virginity testing, or ukuhlola, is an ancient practice that is still common in parts of Africa. The normal procedure is for teens to lie down on mats while a female examiner checks to see if their hymens are intact.

There seem to be two ways of looking at this proposal. One argues that returning to older customs will reduce intercourse and therefore the spread of AIDS. For this idea to work, it must somehow make teenage girls able and willing to stay virgins in order to pass the test. The problem is that the teenage girls in South Africa may in general not have much power to 'just say no' to sex. South Africa has one of the highest rape rates in the whole world and the traditional values that are praised in this proposal don't include the values of self-determination for women. Also, it does smell of an attempt to shame these young teenagers in public.

The other way to look at the proposal is to note that it seems to earmark a supply of young women who are guaranteed not to have AIDS from prior sexual contact. This is the nastier way, and probably the more realistic one. After all, the proposal does nothing to check on men's behavior, so the lopsided approach is more likely to tell which teenagers might be good targets for some powerful man's sexual adventures.

The Foxy Ladies

This is not something Outfoxed covered (see my next post), but I was really struck by the looks of the Fox News female staff. They looked like something from another planet, perhaps the planet of Barbie Dolls, and in fact made the male staff look like a bunch of deformed monsters. Luckily, there weren't that many of the female type...

This casts serious doubt on the criteria that Fox News uses in hiring news presenters. I suspect that it would be pretty easy to find that their criteria for women cover requirements not expected to be met by male applicants.

Fox Hunting

It's being banned in the United Kingdom, but I went fox hunting last night by watching Outfoxed. A fun evening with lots of junk food, and I found a parking spot right away. I had a new spell for that and it was nice to see that it worked.

Outfoxed is a documentary on the way the Fox News has reshaped the concept of journalism and the idea of what is 'fair and balanced'. The documentary has been extensively discussed on the internet and elsewhere, so there wasn't that much new in terms of the contents for me, but it was fun to see O'Reilly ridiculed as he should be. It was also very disturbing to observe how he created a lie and then stuck to it for a period of several months. He is a very uncouth man.

The real message of the movie was in the first few segments which gave a synopsis of Rupert Murdoch's rise to power. He currently reaches the majority of human beings on this earth through his various networks. Think of a large, fat spider in the middle of a wide conservative web, pulling slightly on one string, adjusting another and doing slow rounds of corpse sucking. That's how his corporation came across to me.

Journalism is not really approved of in the Fox News network. Stories are preselected based on their effects on George Bush and the Republican party, and stories which don't cast these in a good light are not covered. Likewise, the bias to be introduced in the coverage is carefully pre-specified, and those journalists who fail to abide by it are chucked out. I have naturally no way of knowing if the same happens at other networks, too, but even if it doesn't this should make us all concerned.

Not because Fox News has a conservative bias, but because they pretend to be 'fairandbalanced'. To do both at the same time is lying. Consider the ways this is achieved: not only are stories picked carefully and presented in a certain light, but certain soundbites are repeated over and over again in order to cause the viewer to be brainwashed by them, and the so-called liberal commentators are carefully picked to be as conservative as possible, as meek and mousy as possible and as ineffective as possible.

In defense of Fox News, one could argue that the 'fairandbalanced' bit is only intended to apply to their news coverage, not to the many conservative shouting-and-kicking opinion programs like O'Reilly and Hannity and Colmes. I don't actually believe that you can embed one tiny pearl of unbiasedness in the middle of the pigsty and then pretend that it lights up the whole enterprise, but in any case this is not what Fox News is doing. Their news programs are biased, too, not just quite as loudly and openly as the yelling matches that go for punditry on Fox News.

What I don't understand is why any liberal would voluntarily participate in the O'Reilly type of entertainment for the wingnuts. The game is rigged from the beginning and you can never get your point out at all. It must be money that is making some so willing to participate in their own torture.

I also don't understand why Fox News never has real lefties on. Their idea of a liberal is someone who has once whispered that maybe not exactly everything the government does is based on direct orders from the Devil. I also don't understand why Fox News is so scared of liberals who are good at yelling-and-kicking. Well, I do understand, but if they really wanted to be 'fairandbalanced' they'd give us better matches to watch.