Coo coo ca-choo!

Mr. Stuart Robinson has returned from the wilds of academia with a flurry of interesting posts: on whispering campaigns, radio pirate wars, origami where you least expect it, and an interesting new blogging system called Syncato:

All posts in Syncato are stored as XML within a native XML database and are searchable using XPath queries. This includes the ability to execute XPath via a URL from within your browser.

What this really means is that the limitations on how you use and reuse the content on your site is only determined by how you markup your posts.

Very neat stuff, and great to see Stu back finding cool stuff for me to read about.

Filed under: culture/blogs

What the Plame Affair is not

It is not a scandal. Crony capitalism married with war profiteering is a scandal. Running around on your wife and lying about it is a scandal. But blowing the cover of a CIA operative who was working to protect us all from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (remember those?) is not a scandal. It is a federal crime, and as Dan Drezner says, a terrible indictment of the Bush administration as a whole.

It is not a partisan political game. To his credit, Drezner realizes this. As does Tacitus, and many others on the right. But some don't. I have to ask, in the face of absolutely martian denials (Too complicated? Someone at the Whitehouse broke the law for political gain. Didn't happen? Thinly sourced? All the facts except the names of the perpetrators are public record!) -- if you're willing to accept this kind of behavior from an administration of which you are a supporter, what *won't* you accept? Is there a line? Is there any point at which your partisanship is trumped by principle? It is not an excuse for partisan attacks from the left, either. This isn't about the Republican party, it isn't an indictment of conservative philosophy, and it isn't a 'Democratic' issue. This is about powerful people who chose personal political gain and petty vengeance over the rule of law and the security of our nation. They were Republicans this time, but could just as easily have been Democrats or Greens or Natural Law-vians. No party has a monopoly on gangsterism. It is not certain to end justly. The administration has known about this crime for more than two months and done nothing. Bush obviously has more loyalty to his employees than to the law; he's not even going to ask them about it. What would make anyone think that they will stop stonewalling now, just because the story is getting more attention? If there's any way that they can keep the investigation inside the political arm of Justice, they will. And such an investigation will be cursory, find no wrongdoing, and name no names.

Lastly, it is not being covered any better by anyone than Josh Marshall and Kevin Drum, who have reminded me many times today why they are two of the best writers and commentators out there, in print or in pixels.

Filed under: politics

Chronicle of a butt whipping foretold

My track record for predictions is not so good. And I am not a betting man. If I could bet on cat fights, though, boy howdy! I'd be some kind of zillionaire. Check it out: when you pick a fight with a bigger cat, on a very slippery surface, you are going down, my young friend. You. Are. Going. Down.

On a more serious note, commenter James Duguid sends a pointer to a site dedicated to spreading the word about the extremely dangerous flea products that Hartz sells, products which can kill your cat. Please pay a visit to Hartz Victims, and help spread the word. Thanks, James!

Filed under: cats

Good state, bad state

Massachusetts decides to adopt open standards for its computer systems:

[State Administration and Finance Secretary Eric] Kriss said the state’s decision was driven by a desire to reduce licensing fees but also “by a philosophy that what the state has is a public good and should be open to all,” Kriss told The Associated Press. He characterized the decision as the “most visible concrete action by a state government” to move toward open standards.

Bravo, MA! (Link via slashdot.)

Meanwhile, Maryland decides that an easily exploitable electronic voting system that has no effective audit trail and can be remotely and untraceably manipulated by any teenager with a grudge and a copy of MS Access, is good enough for them, and lies about a report they commissioned:

Following an independent review and security analysis managed by SBE and Maryland’s Department of Budget and Management, SBE has deemed the Diebold AccuVote-Touch Screen Voting System acceptable. The announcement was made at a press conference today in Annapolis, Maryland.

This announcement directly refutes a report, “Analysis of an Electronic Voting System,” which had been issued in July 2003 by Johns Hopkins University and Rice University computer scientists, claiming that the Diebold voting equipment is vulnerable and susceptible to fraud. As stated in the September 23, 2003 State of Maryland Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting System Security Action Plan, issued by Linda H. Lamone, Administrator of the Maryland SBE, the Diebold AccuVote-TS system selected by the Board is fully and readily capable of meeting the security requirements with minor modifications, and with appropriate administrative and operations controls.

(My emphasis.) In fact, the report does anything but refute the Hopkins study.

In the course of this Risk Assessment, we reviewed the statements that were made by Aviel. D. Rubin, professor at Johns Hopkins University, in his report dated July 23, 2003. In general, SAIC made many of the same observations, when considering only the source code. While many of the statements made by Mr. Rubin were technically correct, it is clear that Mr. Rubin did not have a complete understanding of the State of Maryland’s implementation of the AccuVote-TS voting system, and the election process controls or environment. It must be noted that Mr. Rubin states this fact several times in his report and he further identifies the assumptions that he used to reach his conclusions. The State of Maryland procedural controls and general voting environment reduce or eliminate many of the vulnerabilities identified in the Rubin report. However, these controls, while sufficient to help mitigate the weaknesses identified in the July 23 report, do not, in many cases meet the standard of best practice or the State of Maryland Security Policy.

My emphasis again. Translation from consultant weasel words: Rubin is right, this system is fundamentally flawed. It is flawed at its core; lucky for you, Maryland, that so far you have had the good luck to follow procedures that have helped you to avoid exposure to some of these flaws. Note that the flaws are still there. And still will be, even after Maryland does all of the things SAIC has advised them to do. They can build all the walls they want, dig moats, fill them with alligators, starve the alligators and give them prosthetic electrified teeth; the castle will still be made of balsa wood and twine. Enjoy never knowing if your vote counts, Marylanders.

Why are these stories related, you ask? Because the only reason that there has been a Diebold inquiry is that researchers stumbled upon the voting machine source code on an unsecured ftp site. Without access to the code, no one would have known how insecure these machines are—at least, not until they were used to steal an election so brazenly that it was impossible to miss.

Again: without access to the code, we would not know how insecure these machines are. That’s why the Massachusetts initiative is so important. MA recognizes that transparent government is essential to the public good, and in the era of software, transparent government needs open standards and open source. You can’t have a civil society without a free press. You can’t have rule of law if citizens can’t know the law. And you can’t have democracy if they don’t know that their votes count.

Filed under: politics

Yes, Virginia, there is a media bias

Media bias can often be hard to spot. After all, a whole lot of it takes the form of editorial choices: what goes on A22 instead of A1; what gets 2 minutes instead of 10 seconds; what goes on the news at all. We news consumers don’t get to see the process that results in those choices, and we—obviously— don’t get to see the stories that the media chooses to leave on the copy room floor. And as Al Franken and others have written, the main press biases are not political, but self-interested: they like the news hot, fast, and cheap.

But sometimes there is political bias, and there’s just no missing it. Take for example this Associated Press writeup of the Gallup poll I mentioned in my last post:

Democrat Wesley Clark, in the presidential race for less than a week, is tied with President Bush in a head-to-head matchup [.]

Clark, a retired Army general, garnered 49 percent support to Bush’s 46 percent, which is essentially a tie given the poll’s margin of error. [.]

In the head-to-head confrontations, it was Kerry at 48 percent to Bush’s 47 percent; and Bush’s 48 percent to Lieberman’s 47 percent. Bush held a slight lead over Dean, 49–45 percent, and had a similar advantage over Gephardt.

(My emphasis) The margin of error of this poll was 3 points, plus or minus. Which means that all of these results are inside the margin of error; an honest, unbiased reading would say that the head-to-head matchups are universally too close to call. If Clark, ahead 49–46, is “essentially tied,” why then is Dean, behind 45–49, not also tied? Within the framework of the poll, these are indistinguishable results.

Also, the numbers themselves compare apples to oranges: the Clark 49–46 is among registered voters; the Dean 45–49 is among all adults. The Dean number for registered voters? 46–49, mirror image of the Clark result. Dick Gephardt polls 46–48 among registered voters—a closer result than Clark’s. Yet Clark is tied and Gephardt is behind.

Is Will Lester of the Associated Press unfamiliar with the meaning and application of statistical sampling error? Is he unable to read poll results and match up like with like? I doubt it. Much more likely that Mr. Lester and his editors could not (consciously or otherwise) accept that a popular wartime President could be losing to a guy who has been in the race for 5 days—let alone a French-looking sandwich nibbler like Kerry—and likewise could not accept that he could be tied with an unelectable Northeast ultraliberal or a washed up pantywaist with no eyebrows. Lester and the AP instead spun the numbers in a clearly biased way.

Hint for those not paying attention: the bias was not liberal.

UPDATE: Of course, it just might be possible that Will Lester is more familiar with the application of sampling error than I am. Kevin Drum of Calpundit writes in an email:

Unfortunately, I think Will Lester has the statistics right. Since
the 95% confidence interval is 3%, that means that 3% = two standard
deviations. Clark and Bush are separated by 3%, which is two standard deviations, and therefore you cannot (quite) say with 95% confidence that Clark is actually ahead of Bush.

However, Bush is ahead of Dean by 4%, which is more than two standard deviations. You can therefore be 95% confident that Bush is probably genuinely ahead of Dean.

And also see Ted Barlow of Crooked Timber in the comments below.

I still think it’s odd that Lester quotes different sets of numbers in different paragraphs, without making it clear that he’s doing so; and that it just so happens that he picks the sets of numbers that are generally more favorable to Bush and less favorable to Dean and Gephardt.

But my accusation of bias is clearly without merit, so please consider it retracted with apologies.

Filed under: politics/2004

Good news, everyone!

Sean (aka moja vera) of turningtables has come back home safely from Iraq. Would that the other 130,000-odd in harms way could say the same. And that “home” and “safe” weren’t mutually exclusive categories for Riverbend and her family, and all Iraqis. What a mess we made.

But maybe we will clean it up, starting at home. Via Kos I see this USA Today/Gallup poll that has Bush’s approval rating at only 50% with 47% disapproval, and his re-elect numbers as low as I’ve ever seen them. All serious Democratic contenders are within the margin of error against him, with Kerry and Clark actually leading. We can win this thing, folks.

Filed under: politics/war

Linus is a punk

What he lacks in musicianship, he makes up for with attitude. Linus gets ready to “rock out!”

Or possibly, Linus wonders whether there is anything edible inside the guitar, and whether his paws will fit through the f-holes. (Answer: no.)

Filed under: cats

Stop making sense

John Ashcroft is finally doing something right. He’s joined the call to repeal the section of the Patriot Act that allows government agents to investigate library patrons’ activities in secret, with librarians not allowed even to mention that they’ve been visited by said agents.

“The fact is, with just 11,000 FBI agents and over a billion visitors to America’s libraries each year, the Department of Justice has neither the staffing, the time nor the inclination to monitor the reading habits of Americans,” he said. “No offense to the American Library Association, but we just don’t care.”

Ashcroft’s comments came after the release yesterday of a memo he wrote disclosing that the Justice Department has never used a controversial section of the Patriot Act that allows authorities in terrorism investigations to obtain records from libraries, bookstores and other businesses without notifying the subject of the probe.

Yes, it makes perfect sense. The FBI has never used this power, and Ashcroft can see that it upsets people, so he’s decided to burnish his image at no cost by asking that the offending section of the Patriot Act be repealed. What a nice fellow!

Oh, wait, I’m sorry. I completely missed this other thing he said. Funny, it came right after that first part. How could I have missed it?

“The charges of the hysterics,” Ashcroft added, “are revealed for what they are: castles in the air built on misrepresentation; supported by unfounded fear; held aloft by hysteria.”

Say you don’t think naw. John Ashcroft, the Attorney General of the United States of America, could not possibly be deriding civil libertarians as “hysterics” because they are concerned about the scope of a hastily-passed law that allows secret searches approved by a secret court. He can’t possibly be deriding them especially much because they aren’t mollified by his memo saying that the law has not—yet—been used. What’s next? Will he snidely accuse his political enemies of treason when they question him? Turn the power of his office away from protecting us from terrorism, and toward protecting us from bongs? Force local prosecutors to seek the death penalty when they don’t want to?

Oh, wait. I’m sorry.

Filed under: politics

Dude, stick to football

Gregg Easterbrook’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback is a great read, one I look forward to every week. It helped to rekindle my childhood affection for the game. The only parts of it that I have never liked were the odd asides on politics, science, and religion, jammed in amongst the haiku and “It’s a blitz! Seven gentlemen cross the line. 16-yard completion”

Sadly, Easterbrook’s new New Republic blog consists entirely of these asides—indeed, it seems to consist partly of the very same asides, word for word, that are in the weekly TMQ column. And out of the cushy football context, it becomes clear how very silly Easterbrook’s writing on politics, science, and religion can be.

Combining missing dark matter and missing dark energy, science can’t so much as locate 90 percent of the universe! Bear this in mind, as well, when you’re tempted to think we “know” there is no nonmaterial world. An energy strong enough to push the entire universe is pulsing through your body right now; you can’t feel it, and science has no idea how it works or where it originates. How many other nonmaterial forces might there be?

Unexplained does not mean unexplainable. Undiscovered is not unknowable. Nonmaterial forces can’t push anything—they are non-material! Does Easterbrook think that the electron didn’t exist back when we didn’t know why rubbing your slippers on the carpet makes your hair stand on end?

Gentle reader, bear this in mind when you seek to use the current state of scientific knowledge as evidence for your religious beliefs: one, scientific knowledge is constantly changing, and makes a bad hook on which to hang a proof for the ages; two, faith shouldn’t require proof—if it does, it can hardly be called faith, can it? And three, chances are, you are going to look as silly as a blitz on third and long.

Filed under: culture/sports

Ceci n'est pas une WMD

CBS News concludes a confused mishmash of a story on the maybe-maybe-not forthcoming David Kay report with this:

Former weapons inspectors now say, five months after the U.S. invasion, that what the U.S. alleged were “unaccountable” stockpiles may have been no more than paperwork glitches left behind when Iraq destroyed banned chemical and biological weapons years ago.

(My emphasis)

“Paperwork glitches.” Too bad the same can’t be said of the roster of thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of Americans and Brits who died in bloody agony because George W. Bush couldn’t tell the difference between the words “mustard gas shell” in a ledger and an actual mustard gas shell. The names in that list aren’t just words on paper. They are lives lost and families destroyed. For a lie. For “paperwork glitches.” For nothing.

Filed under: politics/war

Nice guys move to Canada

For those still laboring under the false impression that the political press in the US is engaged or interested in a fair fight, consider the following public statements and resulting press furores.

Case 1: Dick Cheneny on Meet the Press, as reported by the Washington Post:

On the subject of Iraqi chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, which have not been discovered, Cheney said he still believes chemical weapons are “buried inside [Hussein’s] civilian infrastructure.” Of the weapons search, Cheney said, “We’ve got a very good man now in charge of the operation, David Kay, who used to run UNSCOM.”

Kay, who is heading the 1,200-person search group, did not in fact run UNSCOM, the U.N. Special Commission that directed inspections in Iraq from 1991 through 1998; he was for one year the chief inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency, which handled the nuclear portion of those investigations for UNSCOM.

And that’s not the only lie he told: see Talking Points Memo for a couple more.

Resulting press furor: You're looking at it.

Case 2: Howard Dean on Wolf Blitzer, as reported by MSNBC, among many others:

In an interview on CNN Wednesday, Dean said, “there is a war going on in the Middle East, and members of Hamas are soldiers in that war, and, therefore they are going to be casualties if they are going to make war.”

Resulting press furor: Top line on Drudge. Discussion on Crossfire. Blog after blog up in arms. Fox not only reported the story, but decided to turn it into a propaganda piece (thanks to Unfogged for the link):

“There is a war going on in the Middle East, and members of Hamas are soldiers in that war,” Dean said Wednesday.

Dean condemned terrorism but his description of Hamas — designated by the United States as a terrorist group — as “soldiers in a war” conflicts with U.S. policy. The European Union also approved last week the designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization.

(See how easy it is to cut a few words, and change the meaning of a statement entirely? That’s why news organizations don’t do it. Tends to damage the old credibility; a concern that Fox, having no credibility, obviously needs not share.)

So. The playing field isn’t level. The game isn’t fair. Liberals—hell, centrists—hell, actual conservatives, as opposed to the revanchist McKinley “Republicans” now running the country into the ground—we have all chosen to play by gentleman’s rules. The other side hasn’t and won’t. In a bizarre twist of chronology, we modernists are taking the field in boiled leather and eschewing the forward pass, while Bush and his loyal disinformation team are layered in polycarb, and gauging eyes like the Oakland Raiders.

In these circumstances, fairness and polite disagreement are nothing but uniltateral disarmament. The country won’t magically become unbankrupt while we argue points of honor. It won’t magically become safe, either.

The time for polite disagreement is over. We have to stop pretending that we’re in a contest against decent people with whom we happen to disagree. We aren’t. We are in the midst of a struggle that will shape our country for the rest of our lives, and our children’s lives, and their children’s lives. On our side are people of good character and genuine concern. On the other side are corrupt propagandists, racists, anti-American haters of liberty and democracy, religious fanatics, and crony capitalists, led by the worst, most mendacious, most incurious, most despicable man ever to hold high office in this country. What we want is liberty and justice for all. What they want is to roll back a century’s worth of social progress and reclaim this nation that belongs to every American for the kleptocrat aristocracy that ran it in the era before labor unions and suffrage and Social Security and the Civil Rights Act. They are not good people, and in their aims we must see them disappointed. And we can’t let manners get in the way of winning.

Civility is a small price to pay for an America worth having in the world. Or, put another way, this Spinsanity article that cuts on Al Franken’s excellent new book for being too mean is a crock of warm, unilaterally-disarmed piss.

Filed under: politics

Friday guest beast

Maggie was our guest last weekend (accompanied by a human, of course, who is not pictured). Here she is enjoying one of Chicagoland’s finer dog beaches.

Now, it may look as though Maggie is romping through piles of disgusting lake weed, but nothing could be further from the truth. She jumped right over it. And you can’t prove any different.

Filed under: dogs

Dirty tricks?

Josh Marshall thinks the flurry of stories about the recent Dean-Clark meetings was cleverly spun up by dirty tricksters at Dean HQ:

Is the Dean camp trying to set up Wes Clark? (Yep, I’m talkin’ about you, Joe!) This piece in today’s Post says Dean and Clark “discussed the vice presidency at a weekend meeting in California.” Read down into the article and there doesn’t seem to be that much there there. But the story got picked up on CNN too. And now the story of the day is not those very active discussions Clark is having about his own presidential run, but the potential ‘Dean/Clark alliance’.

That’s one heck of a reach, if you ask me. I think the Post story reads a whole lot more like a couple of reporters in search of a storyline than like a campaign plant. But I have pro-Dean bias, and am certainly vastly less in-the-know than Marshall, so give him the benefit of the doubt and say Dean HQ brought this meeting to the attention of the Post. How is this a “dirty trick,” exactly?

Marshall goes on to say:

[I]f Clark decides to get into the race after all, doesn’t that mean that he wobbled, that as recently as this week he was thinking of taking the number two slot from Dean, or endorsing Dean? (His opponents want to play to the ‘indecision’ meme, remember.) I think that’s what some people would like us to think.

Now, I don’t know the term of art that professional reporter types use for baseless speculation about the motives of unknown actors, but colloquially, it rhymes with “he extracted it from his donkey.”

But again, Marshall: Beltway god. Me: Chicagoland nerd. On Marhall’s side: a Washington Whispers column that he links to in a later post. On my side: diddly. Grant that Marshall’s donkey squoze out the truth. Dean HQ pushed this story specifically to make it look like Wes Clark is having trouble making up his mind.

Again: How is this a “dirty trick,” exactly? Isn’t he having trouble? Hasn’t he publicly stated that he’s not yet made a decision, after 6 or more months of pondering? And anyway, no laws were broken. No lies were told. No innuendo whispered. No personal life or loved one smeared, insulted, ridiculed, or vilified. No record twisted. No campaign headquarters broken into. Even if Joe Trippi ginned this story up out of nothing, it’s harmless spin, and I think—call me a donkey extractor—but I think, maybe, Josh Marshall like Wes Clark a bit more than he likes Howard Dean and I think, maybe, by crying “Dirty tricks!” he is engaging in a little spinning of his own. Harmlessly! Of course.

Filed under: politics/2004

Donald Rumsfeld: mendacious, fallacious, and disputatious

Rumsfeld is now (CDT) giving what I’d say is his worst interview performance ever. He’s on the Lehrer News Hour, being grilled by the mild-mannered Lehrer himself.

Highlights include the following syllogism:

1. The USSR had 300,000 troops in Afghanistan.
2. They lost.
3. Therefore, we can’t increase the number of troops we have in Iraq, because then we would have almost 300,000 and we would also lose.

And the following quote, verbatim: “I don’t do politics.”

And really lovely exchange where Lehrer caused Rummy to completely flip out by asking why it’s taking so long to suppress the Ba’athist resistance. Boy, did he not like that.

And of course a near-infinite number of rhetorical questions. And he closed with a classic rendition of the fly-paper theory: “we’re fighting them in Baghad, which is a whale of a lot better than fighting them in Boise.”

To which I can only say, a whale of a lot better? What the hell does that mean?

UPDATE: Ronk over at Kos's place has links to the transcript and audio and video versions. As long as I'm updating, I'll add another fab Rummyism from the interview: Lehrer asks about the dozen or so attacks US troops are facing each day in Iraq. Rumsfeld says not to worry, because "They last two or three minutes."

Filed under: politics

Donald Rumsfeld: Anti-American Thug

Fourth in a series sure to be depressingly long. Here’s what the Secretary of Defense thinks about the free exchange of opinion and ideas that defines our civil society: he thinks it causes terrorism.

We know for a fact . . . that terrorists studied Somalia and they studied instances where the United States was dealt a blow and tucked in and persuaded themselves they could, in fact, cause us to acquiesce in whatever it is they wanted us to do[.] The United States is not going to do that. President Bush is not going to do that. Now, to the extent terrorists are given reason to believe he might, or if he is not willing to, the opponents might prevail in some way . . . and they take heart in that, and that leads to more recruiting . . . that leads to more encouragement, or that leads to more staying power. Obviously that does make it more difficult.

Back in my day—two years ago or so—if you blamed terrorism on anything but the brimstone hearts of the terrorists and the stinky evil emanating therefrom, consensus opinion was that you hated America. But I guess that rule only counts if you’re not blaming Democrats.

Filed under: politics/war

Dramatic return of the Anti-American Right (3)

On the Russert show this morning, RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie called criticism of President Bush “political hate speech” and claimed that Republicans had never spoken of a Democratic President in such a way.

Forgetfulness of history is all too American. It’s our national pastime. But dissent is also American. In fact, dissent is the principle on which this nation was founded, and is the core value enshrined in and protected by the Bill of Rights.

Democrats are attacking Bush on his policies and the facts. (They are not, for example, accusing him of having staffers murdered, or of dealing cocaine while Governor, or being a traitor, all accusations that conservative Republicans threw at President Clinton.) That’s legitimate dissent. Calling legitimate dissent “political hate speech” is a clear attempt to delegitimize and suppress that dissent, and suppressing legitimate dissent is Anti-American.

Filed under: politics

It's late, everyone is sleepy

With apologies for yet another barely under the wire friday cat blog, I give you: sleepy cats on a big foam cube.

Filed under: cats

Master Debaters

I’m comfortable with most of the Democrats running in the primary. Obviously, I have my preference about who I’d like to see win, and who I think would be the strongest candidate in the general election (coincidentally, those happen to be the same guy).

I like John Kerry. I like John Edwards. Graham and Gephardt I respect, at least. Sharpton is an excellent speaker, and Carol Moseley Braun has so far done an excellent job of fending off the relentless attacks on her poor Senate record and curious associations with brutal dictators. Or at least she would do, if anyone thought her relevant enough to attack. And Wesley Clark would be a great addition to the race.

There are those two other candidates, though. I’ve covered Kucinich before. There’s not much left to say about him; he’s one-note and going nowhere. And I don’t hate him; if by some bizarre twist of fate he were to become the nominee, I’d grudgingly support him.

Joe Lieberman, on the other hand, I do hate. I would have a very hard time voting for him. And his behavior during last night’s debate is an excellent example of why.

But first, the backstory. I grew up in Connecticut. Lowell Weicker, though a Republican, is a typical New England Republican—social progressive, fiscal conservative, pragmatic overall. And an honorable and honest politician. Lieberman beat him by running a sleazy, deceptive campaign. He ran to Weicker’s right on most issues, and won thanks mainly to William F. Buckley, who rounded up a posse of conservative Republicans to cross party lines and give Lieberman a tiny 10,000 vote victory. In the Senate, Lieberman has spent his time advocating censorship and capital gains tax cuts.

In the debate last night, he pulled a trick from the same bag he used to smear Weicker, taking a poor paraphrase of Dean’s trade position from a single article, and using it to accuse Dean of advocating protectionist policies that would result in a new Depression. Move right, hit hard, don’t concern yourself with honesty. Typical Lieberman. Typical Lee Atwater and Karl Rove, too, as it happens.

Dean parried gracefully, and if any harm was done it was to Holy Joe himself, as the debate audience clearly did not appreciate the attack. Which goes to show two things: some socially progressive, fiscally conservative, typical New England politicians are tough as well as honest; and Bill Buckley’s endorsement means little in the Democratic Presidential primary.

Filed under: politics/2004

Mendacity rules

Eric Alterman came across a remarkable story in the Washington Times—yes, that Washington Times. Apparently Rev. Moon hates America too, now:

A secret report for the Joint Chiefs of Staff lays the blame for setbacks in Iraq on a flawed and rushed war-planning process that “limited the focus” for preparing for post-Saddam Hussein operations.

The report, prepared last month, said the search for weapons of mass destruction was planned so late in the game that it was impossible for U.S. Central Command to carry out the mission effectively. “Insufficient U.S. government assets existed to accomplish the mission,” the classified briefing said.

(My emphasis.)

There are only two explanations for the short shrift given to securing the supposed target of the war by the same planning corps that found a way to conquer Iraq in under a month. One, the administration did not think there would be any weapons to find. Two, the administration thought the weapons would all be lying in the street with pink bows tied around their arming mechanisms.

Administration apologists are now banking on the David Kay report, crying to all and sundry that it will put these “questions” to rest. Not unless it’s delivered wrapped around bricks of weapons-grade plutonium with ‘property of S. Hussein’ stamped in the side, it won’t. So I expect BushCo to eventually come around to arguing for option 2, or the “we wuz fooled” option as I like to call it. They will lay the blame on Chalabi and the other defectors and exiles, somehow forgetting to mention that they set up their own intelligence bureau in the DoD because the CIA was insufficiently credulous of Chalabi’s self-interested WMD hawking. If they wuz fooled, they need not look far for the foolers.

The big lie of the Iraq war is that Bush ever wanted to ‘disarm’ Saddam Hussein. Bush wanted his war; weapons were never anything but a pretext.

Oops, did I say ‘the’ big lie? I meant, one of the many big lies. For example, Bush’s repeated-ad-nauseam claim that he had not decided on war, that war could be averted by Iraq complying with the inspectors or giving back that lawnmower they borrowed last year, or whatever. Because in fact the war plan was set almost exactly a year ago today:

The report also provides a classified timeline of events from September 11 leading to war. It says that on Aug. 29, 2002, Mr. Bush “approves Iraq goals, objectives and strategy.”

Oh, no, sorry, I blew it again. The number one, real, true, seriously-this-time big lie: Invading Iraq will make us safe. And they’re stilling telling that one.

Filed under: politics/war