May 05, 2006
No, not because of hookers!
CNN.com - Porter Goss resigns as CIA chief - May 5, 2006
"He's got a five-year plan to increase the number of analysts and operatives, which is going to help make this country a safer place and help us win the war on terror," the president said...Goss became CIA chief in September 2004...
No reason was given for Goss' resignation.
Daily Kos: UPDATED: CIA's Goss at Cunningham's Hooker Parties?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 03:10 PM | Comments (1)
April 28, 2006
This might not be a bad thing
CNN.com - Bush: Raise fuel-efficiency standards - Apr 27, 2006
You know, if Congress doesn't let him then turn around and gut what standards are already set. But if Bush actually were to set higher gas standards -- especially on tanks SUVs -- that would keep the Democrats from having to do it later. Win-win.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 10:55 AM | Comments (2)
April 21, 2006
Presidents of my lifetime
Best to worst:
1. Clinton (by far)
2. Bush I
3. Ford
4. Carter
5. Reagan
6. Nixon
7. Bush II
Posted by Mac Thomason at 10:17 AM | Comments (6)
April 20, 2006
This is good news
KRT Wire | 04/20/2006 | Bush, Chinese leader fail to agree on key issues
The way I figure it, the only way his popularity is going to get any lower is if he starts thinking that the Tyrant of Communist China has some good ideas.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 07:36 PM | Comments (0)
Previously
I remembered this slightly... Slimy Marty Connors got himself booed trying to find black Republicans in Tuskegee in 2004.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:28 AM | Comments (1)
I'm certainly not going to read this
Remarks by the president at Tuskegee University
But I can imagine. For example:
"I have always been an admirer of Booker T. Washington, especially for his work with the MGs."
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:23 AM | Comments (2)
I bet it went great
I can't think of a single reason that the students and faculty of historically black Tuskegee University wouldn't welcome George W. Bush. Not a blessed thing.
Bush mentioned that he was a history major. Gee, I thought it was those that didn't know history who were doomed to repeat it.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 07:03 AM | Comments (1)
March 28, 2006
Deck chairs on the Titanic
Andrew Card Resigns as White House Chief of Staff
He's being replaced by the director of the Office of Management and Budget, because he's done such a great job with that.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 12:03 PM | Comments (0)
March 27, 2006
Guests
CNN.com - Bush pushes guest-worker program for noncitizens - Mar 27, 2006
There's a fair amount of dislike for this program on both the left and right. The right, as usual, is full of it and mostly fueled by bigotry and ignorance of basic economic principles. The concern on the left is mostly about the idea of institutionalizing a program where people come to America with no chance of becoming American citizens. That is valid.
Make no mistake, what President Bush is proposing is not actually anything new; it is only the institutionalization of what we already have. The US has a "guest worker" situation already. It is only that these workers are "illegal aliens" and are unable to receive basic protections, and do not pay income and (more importantly at these low levels of pay) social security taxes.
Some complain about a "two-tiered labor market", divided among citizens and non-citizens, and say that the United States should not have such a beast. The problem is that the US has always had a two-tiered labor market. Citizens and slaves, native-born and immigrant, there have always been these divisions. The US has always imported low-cost labor; most developed countries do. The current situation, divided among legal residents (citizen and non) and illegal immigrants is but the latest iteration. We can not get rid of it without major economic restructuring that is simply not going to happen. Any even partially successful attempt to shut off the flow of immigrant labor will lead to high inflation (particularly in produce, but in many other areas as well) and probably the collapse of the residential construction industry.
It is still vital that we do not enter a situation where people are brought into this country with no chance of earning American citizenship. We do not need a permanent caste system. The immigrant labor brought into this country -- African, Irish, Chinese, Mexican, and many others -- has always, eventually, become American. It should be possible for "guest workers" to come in, work for a few years, and leave, but they should have the right to change their minds and enter a citizenship track. Anything else is un-American.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 12:27 PM | Comments (7)
March 02, 2006
See, Roy, that's their job
Congressmen are supposed to worry about this stuff. Of course, they actually mostly worry about getting reelected and running for Senate, but theoretically this is their job.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 10:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 11, 2006
Destroy all trees
Bush seeks sale of national forest land
Yeah, and let's just burn down the rest, right George?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 06:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 01, 2006
The President is bananas
President Bush's State of the Union Address
I certainly didn't watch the damned thing -- I have better things to do, like sleep -- but did he really call for a ban on "human-animal hybrids"? Is this a real concern? Are we at war with the Lobster People again?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 08:24 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
January 09, 2006
Trolling now illegal
Create an e-annoyance, go to jail | Perspectives | CNET News.com
Anonymous annoying on the Internets is now illegal. Really. The law actually includes "annoy" as a prohibited activity. It's just a wonderful idea, isn't it? I guess you call the FBI and say that Trolly McLibelson is bothering you and then they call up the ISP and BOOM there's a raid and Trolly is sent to Talladega for two years. I think this is a bit of an overreaction and is certainly unconstitutional (under that pesky "free speech" thing, whose idea was that anyway?)
(Via Atrios.)
Posted by Mac Thomason at 04:16 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
January 04, 2006
Technically accurate
CNN.com - Bush campaign to donate Abramoff contributions - Jan 4, 2006
But incredibly misleading. Abramoff hustled up $100,000 in contributions, but they're giving up just the $6000 donated by him, his wife, and a Native American tribe. The rest is just fine, even though the convict in question raised it.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 10:49 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 21, 2005
Notes from a fantasy universe
Snow, Praising Bush on Budget, Calls Clinton's Surplus `Mirage'
MAGICAL FAIRY WONDERLAND (AP) --
Treasury Secretary John Snow today announced that the Federal budget deficit had been erased due to contributions of fairy gold from the magic fairy king Bumbletweezer.
"Thanks to King Bumbletweezer, and the steady leadership of President Bush, who is no doubt the greatest and finest and most fiscally prudent and totally handsomest President there ever was or ever will be or ever could be, the United States is on a firmer financial footing than ever before," said Snow.
When asked about the reports that fairy gold is an illusion and would vanish overnight, Secretary Snow shouted "Look behind you!" and ducked behind the podium.
(Original report via Political Animal.)
Posted by Mac Thomason at 03:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 19, 2005
Dick Cheney is Max Headroom
RTE News - Cheney in surprise visit to Iraq
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:03 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 22, 2005
The President is a loony
Blair talked Bush out of bombing al-Jazeera: report - Yahoo! News
Does it bother anyone that the President of the United States is an insane idiot? Or is it just me? I mean, even as a joke this is beyond the pale -- and I don't buy the "it was only a joke" line.
Predicted winger reaction: It didn't happen, but if it did, good, there's nothing wrong with blowing up al-Jazeera and we should blow up CBS while we're at it.
(Via Shakespeare's Sister.)
Posted by Mac Thomason at 12:27 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
November 07, 2005
We don't?
CNN.com - Bush defends detainees policy - Nov 7, 2005
Sure, for a given value of "torture". If we don't torture, why are you against a law banning torture, George?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 01:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 28, 2005
Not Roy Moore, then
Sessions presses for scholarly nominee
He did suggest Bill Pryor. Ouch. Knowing Bush, he'll probably come up with an even more "Screw You" candidate. Neil, maybe.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 08:42 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
October 27, 2005
Loser
CNN.com - Miers withdraws Supreme Court nomination - Oct 27, 2005
Sad, really. I was hoping we could drag this out for awhile. Maybe until next year.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:01 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 26, 2005
Good for him there's no election
CNN.com - Poll: Bush would lose an election if held this year - Oct 25, 2005
It's a silly poll. "Generic Democrat" consistently won the polls before the 2004 election; it was only specific Democrats who couldn't beat this buffoon.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 03:32 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
October 22, 2005
What a load
Apparently, if you're against the Iraq War, you're the moral equivalent of George Wallace.
"These early years of democratic change in the Middle East are vitally important. And now is not the time to falter or fade," Rice said. "We must remain confident, as one American abolitionist was, that, `The arc of the moral universe is long - but it bends toward justice.'"...
Rice, who remembers Birmingham's "Bombingham" days, put a hometown spin on American foreign policy, suggesting that critics of the war in Iraq would deny Iraqis and others living under oppression the same human rights to freedom and liberty that black people sought and won.
"These cynics say that we are arrogantly imposing our democratic principles on unwilling peoples," Rice said. "But it is the very height of arrogance to believe that political liberty and rights for women and freedom of speech and the rule of law belong only to us."
Shove it, Condi.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 02:12 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
October 05, 2005
Just not crazy enough
Sessions meets Miers; not ready to endorse
If you're losing Jeff Sessions, then you're definitely losing the wingnuts. Sure, she's a hack, but is she the right kind of hack?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 10:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 21, 2005
Those poor, poor people
Bush will visit city on tour of 3 states
Our Only President is going to visit places housing Katrina evacuees. It's not enough that they've lost their homes, now they have to suffer being a Bush photo-op.
He's staying in Birmingham Friday, then going to Arkansas and Texas on Saturday. Hey, kill two birds, he can also visit the Hurricane Rita devastation while he's at it.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 10:42 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 16, 2005
Our President has a baseball age
Biography of President George W. Bush
Here's something interesting... Bush's bio on the White House web site lists his birth year as 1946. But the cataloging information in several books -- including his official "auto"biography A Charge To Keep -- lists it as 1948. Typical sloppy Bush, is my guess. (I'm pretty sure that the web site is right; other books list 1946 as well.)
Well, I guess that isn't actually interesting, except to me.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 01:05 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
September 08, 2005
Georgie played guitar
The Poor Man Institute � Re-evaluating the Bush administration’s response to Katrina
I don't know, it makes me think more of Don McLean's "American Pie". The part that goes:
As I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in Hell
Could break that Satan spell
But maybe that's just me.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 07:56 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
September 07, 2005
Meanwhile...
Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall
I haven't got the heart to detail it, but Josh has the information on the Bushies' cynicism, corruption, incompetence, etc. in the aftermath of Katrina. I wouldn't vote for a conservative anyway, but is it too much to ask that we have a competent conservative who has the best interests of the entire country at heart?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 10:59 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 04, 2005
Don't put yourself out
al.com: NewsFlash - Secretary Rice to tour Alabama Katrina damage
I mean, you don't have to cut your shoe shopping short if you don't want to, Condi.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 01:14 AM | Comments (18) | TrackBack
August 04, 2005
Bush is a moron; what else can I say?
The Panda's Thumb: The reaction to Bush's statements
I can't believe anyone is actually surprised by George W. Bush's support for teaching creationism -- oh, sorry, "Intelligent Design" -- in public schools. For one thing, anti-intellectualism is Bush's defining trait.
For another, this sort of theocratizing nonsense is at the core of the Republican Party agenda, right next to tax cuts for the wealthy. For more, see this post from right after last year's election. Creationism in the schools is not a fringe belief in the Republican Party. It's near and dear to the hearts of their truest true believers.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 01:57 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
August 01, 2005
Undiplomatic
CNN.com - Officials: Bush to appoint Bolton to U.N. - Aug 1, 2005
That's Bush for you. Stick a guy in with a recess appointment just to annoy not only Democrats but everyone else in the world.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:06 AM | Comments (21) | TrackBack
June 21, 2005
Better late than never
Bush to Visit Vietnam Next Year
He makes it too easy sometimes.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 12:30 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
May 27, 2005
Oh, that old thing
al.com: NewsFlash - Bush: Base closings needed to fight terror
He needs new material.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 01:21 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 10, 2005
When do they defy him?
CNN.com - Senate defies Bush on highway bill - May 10, 2005
Only when he's right, of course. Deficit? What deficit?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2005
That old thing?
al.com: NewsFlash - Woman arrested in Bush protest released under First Amendment
Man, that whole "right to free expression" bit is so pre-9/11.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 03:36 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
March 07, 2005
Tries to, anyway
al.com: NewsFlash - EPA cracks down on lead in drinking water
There are certain problems with doing it, though:
President Bush proposed cutting EPA spending by nearly a half-billion dollars next year, most of that from clean water programs. He wants to reduce by one-third the low-interest loans to states for water quality protection and decrease by 83 percent spending on replacing aging water treatment facilities and pipes.Bush, however, said that one of the chief tasks facing the next EPA chief would be to "lead federal efforts to ensure the safety of our drinking water supply," which would also play "an important role in the war on terror."
So he's cutting money to protect and clean up the water supply and giving terrorists ideas. Thanks, Mr. President!
The EPA's assistant administrator for water is named "Ben Grumbles".
Posted by Mac Thomason at 11:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 01, 2005
The Great American Lying Tour
Bush to hold town-hall meeting in Montgomery
I know one thing -- I wouldn't be allowed in. Nor, probably, would you. Here's a simple questionnaire to determine your eligibility for a Bush appearance:
Are you a Republican? Yes NoAre you incapable of independent thought? Yes No
If you answered "Yes" to both questions, contact your local Republican party.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:13 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
February 22, 2005
That's not what he said
washingtonpost.com: Bush Dismisses Idea of U.S. Plan to Attack Iran
(Feel free to ignore this, it's mostly about semantics.)
Actually, he said:
"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. Having said that, all options are on the table."
Leaving aside that a bombing raid, at least, would be an option, of course we have plans to attack Iran. We have plans to attack Great Britain! The Pentagon has plans to attack everyone, that's part of its job. What Bush said, boiled down to short words that even reporters can understand, is that the White House has no current intent to order an attack on Iran. Though he may be lying.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 02:56 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 29, 2005
I've said those things
McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Today, Some Lists.
THINGS I'D PROBABLY SAY IF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION WERE JUST A WEEKLY TV SHOW AND I WERE A REGULAR VIEWER.
Really, is 24 any less realistic?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 08:29 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 19, 2005
Sure they will
Riley: 'Moral values' will define 2nd Bush term
Because what's more moral than lying about a major government program being in imminent crisis so you can blow it up? And doing this after not mentioning the idea throughout the Presidential campaign you just ran?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:05 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 11, 2005
Why do they hate Jesus?
KRT Wire | 01/10/2005 | Crosses among banned items along inaugural parade route
No crosses on the inaugural parade route. The Christian Defense Coalition, a Roy Moore groupie organization, says that this is "blatantly unconstitutional". Not that I'm in the habit of agreeing with the CDC's constitutional interpretation, but I agree.
The Secret Service says that the ban is because crosses could hide guns. Yeah, right. I would bet that they're banned for the same reason that coffins are -- because antiwar protestors would use them to represent dead soldiers.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 02:14 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 20, 2004
Consider the source
Bush Says Rumsfeld Doing 'Fine Job' as Defense Secretary -- 12/20/2004
I mean, this is the guy who thinks that he can look into Vladimir Putin's soul, and that Putin is trustworthy.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 12:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 13, 2004
Promoting from within
al.com: NewsFlash - Bush taps EPA chief as health secretary
He'll do for your health what he did for the environment. Jack Squat.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 10:36 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
November 30, 2004
What, he wasn't issuing "alerts" fast enough?
CNN.com - Officials: Ridge to announce resignation - Nov 30, 2004
Ridge was actually one of the last members of the Bush team -- maybe the last -- I didn't utterly despise. Which crony will get this job? Neil?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 12:58 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
November 16, 2004
Again, you're welcome
Rice will be first black woman to be secretary of state
Condi Rice will be the first Alabama-born US Secretary of State. There was a Vice President once from here, William Rufus King, but he died soon after taking office.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:01 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
November 10, 2004
How to begin?
Hmmm... I was hoping to start by mocking Roy Moore, but he hasn't done anything the last couple of days. Well, the big news is that John Ashcroft resigned, which I didn't get to write about yesterday because my site was down. Anyway, he's gone.
Giuliani is the obvious choice, right? First, because Bush owes Rudy big time for campaigning so hard for him. Second, because it would help expand the base. But then, Bush isn't running for anything anymore, so he can do pretty much whatever he wants, and what he wants is to appoint wingers to everything. So he's probably going to appoint Alberto Gonzales. At least it's not Bill Pryor.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:54 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 03, 2004
The Fed
You know what really scares me? If Alan Greenspan dies or retires in the next four years, Bush will appoint his successor. And Bush's economic appointees have largely fallen into three groups:
1. Complete bozos.
2. People who are actually competent, but won't stand up to him.
3. Paul O'Neill, who was forced out.
The United States was able to get out of the economic problems of the late seventies and early eighties because Volcker was willing to starve the inflation out of the economy, and Presidents Carter and Reagan stood by, even as it hurt their standing. Since then, Greenspan has been able to keep the economy on more or less an even keel, first because the Presidents stood by and since because he's had the stature that Clinton and Bush II deferred to him.
Whoever Bush appoints, should Greenspan leave, won't have that stature. And there's no evidence that Bush will pick someone willing to stand up to him. There's also no evidence Bush is willing to sacrifice anything now to save bigger problems down the road -- in fact, quite the opposite. Similarly, he's politicized all sorts of other government agencies, so I doubt he'd respect the independence of the Fed. If a toady or an incompetent were to be appointed Fed Chairman, we'd all be in trouble.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 08:43 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Karl & Jeb
1. I think that the key moment in this campaign will turn out to be when Bush started campaigning hard in a series of mostly midwestern Gore states -- notably Wisconsin, also Minnesota, Michigan, and Iowa, plus New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He didn't win any of these states, except maybe Iowa, but this forced Kerry to play defense, rather than focusing, as he wanted to, on Ohio and Florida. (It probably also forced the pullouts from Missouri and Arkansas.)
This could easily have backfired -- the temporary pullout of Ohio could have cost Bush the state and the election. If not for the anti-gay measure on the ballot bringing out the zealots, it probably would have. But that probably factored into the decision. At any event, Kerry wound up spending a lot of time in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, shoring up two states that really should have been automatic, rather than in Ohio. His last campaign stop was in Wisconsin. In a race as close as Ohio was...
At any event, credit to Karl Rove. Four years ago, a similar gambit (campaigning late in New Jersey and California, two secure Gore states) almost cost him the election. Would have, if not for the butterfly ballot. But he wasn't afraid to attack this time, and it won it for his man.
2. Everyone seems to expect that Jeb Bush will be the Republican nominee in 2008, yet another step in the road to monarchy. Who else is there? Cheney isn't as old as people think, but his health would seem to rule out a run. Ashcroft is a loon. Rumsfeld is an old loon. Ah-nuld isn't eligible, and anyway he's pro-choice. So is Giuliani. Pataki is also too liberal. The activists hate McCain. Frist is a creation of the Bush Machine and wouldn't stand a chance against Jeb. Bob Taft, maybe?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 02:40 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Four more years of this?
Okay, let's say Ohio is called for Bush, as pretty much everyone expects whether they're saying it or not. What then? The David Broders of the world will no doubt call for a national unity government, as they have been since 1968 at least. "Put a couple of Democrats in the cabinet!" they say. "Throw them a bone!" That obviously won't happen. At most, there will be token Democrats in the departments that the Bushes have no respect for. (State, then?)
Similarly, there will be those who say that there's no clear mandate, but the Bush/Rove philosophy clearly is to govern like you have one even if you don't. If they acted like they have the past four years after losing the popular vote and "winning" Florida by 537 votes because of a badly designed ballot, how are they going to act now? Right. They'll swagger around like the other 49 percent of us don't matter, just like they have been.
Invade Iran? There really aren't the troops to do it. They could bomb Iran, though. Would that surprise anyone? It has the combined advantages of not really doing anything about the real problem, probably being counterproductive, killing people who just happen to be in the area, and pissing off the rest of the world. Sounds like a Bush plan to me.
It seems impossible that all the members of the Supreme Court would make it through four more years -- Rehnquist may not make it through the month. If he, or Scalia, were to leave (one way or another) it probably wouldn't matter. If it were O'Connor or Stevens, though, that's a different situation. Some have said that Bush won't try to push through a hardline conservative to fill those jobs. Those people apparently haven't been witness to this administration's work. They'll nominate who they want. If they don't nominate someone categorically anti-Roe v. Wade, it's because they don't want to lose the issue, not because they're afraid they can't push through a Bill Pryor-type.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 26, 2004
Well, he tries to
Herald.com | 10/26/2004 | Gov. Bush defends state voting system after criticism
He can't do a very good job, what with the screwups of 2000 and 2002. So instead he, in the fine tradition of Southern governors, even carpetbaggers like himself, attacks "outside agitators":
In the past three weeks, Bush has shifted strategies to return the heat and to raise questions about the parade of lawyers coming to Florida to watch the elections, calling many of the charges ''ginned up'' and part of ``an effort underway to set up a post-election strategy.''
And, of course, Republicans are as pure as the driven snow, have no post-election strategies whatsoever, he never assured his brother that Florida was in the bag four years ago, and there's no such thing as a "bourgeois riot".
Posted by Mac Thomason at 01:59 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
October 18, 2004
Yet more on Bush's mind
To refine yet further... We have a divide here between thinking and instinct, and between talking and acting. In each case, Americans tend to glamourize the latter of both pairs and denigrate the former. I certainly have for the latter pair on many occasions. "Talking about it isn't going to get it done."
And there's a certain element of truth to this. However, it's important to realize that simply acting on instinct is not the proper way to go about things either. It takes both, both the will to think and discuss and the will to act, to get anything done properly. The Democratic Party of the post-WWII era has had the reputation for being far too willing to emphasize the former halves and not the latter. (At times, particularly during the 1980s, this was a fair criticism. And even successful Democratic presidents, notably Clinton, have tended to the thinking/talking side.) The Republican Party has not tended in the other direction nearly as much until now.
There is a tendency, as I have mentioned, to glamourize the instinct/action half. But what is it that makes us human? It's thinking and communicating. The other half is the old half, the animal half. Forget animals --- there are plants capable of seemingly "instinctive" action. Only human beings are conscious and can truly plan.
Most people act, when they act, on instinct. As I mentioned in the previous post, people even when they think things over tend to do what they would have done anyway. But I think that a President needs to do more. I'm not asking for a President Hamlet, who overthinks everything he does, but can we at least not have a President who thinks a little about what he does? A President who when he does make snap judgments makes them with all the available information possible, instead of intentionally trying to minimize information to keep away the deadly Second Thoughts? A President, that is, who is not George W. Bush?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 05:24 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
More on the wine-dark mind of George W. Bush
[From comments, Paul, on "creating reality": "That's actually a very astute observation that has nothing to do with magic or fantasy. What he's saying is that you have two people: the one doing things and the other debating and studying what the actor is doing. As the actor does new things, the reality changes. It makes sense to me."]
[My response:] I've seen that interpretation. But it's a very odd way of putting it. And my interpretation of Bush's actions and philosophy over the last couple of years isn't really based upon the NYT Magazine story. I described his belief system as "magico-religious" several days before. The "Reality-Based Community" thing is more a reflection of what Bush-bashers already thought than a new concept. It's just that now we have a way of saying it.
Also, if you don't study before you act -- proverbially, "look before you leap" -- your actions will always have unintended consequences. An action-based philosophy is fundamentally anti-rational and indeed anti-consciousness. What separates us from the animals is that we can assess our options instead of working on instincts.
And then do what we wanted to do anyway, because people are like that.
But I prescribe to the theory that most of the time you're better off leaving things alone, better off doing nothing than doing something, which will most of the time just make things worse. (Two sayings, both more or less medical -- "First do no harm", and "It will get better if you don't pick at it.") It's only when things are bleak and anything would have to be better -- as arguably, I still think, the situation in Iraq was before the invasion -- that action is always the best policy.
UPDATE: Re-reading, I should clarify that all actions have unintended consequences. It's just that if you don't plan beforehand, you have little chance to minimize them or be prepared for them. The Administration policy seems to be that "If we mean well, everything will work out all right." Again, magico-religious. And their apparent belief that bad things only happen if invoked necessarily makes planning for the worst a bad thing.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 03:37 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
It's much clearer now
CNN.com - Health secretary: No flu vaccine crisis - Oct 18, 2004
You see, once I would have wondered what Tommy Thompson was smoking when he decided that the extreme shortage of flu vaccines, the vaccine's actual nonexistence in many areas, the laws punishing doctors for giving doses to people who weren't in the most at-risk groups, the fact that we had to go to the French for help, none of this constitutes a crisis. But now I understand that I'm simply a member of the reality-based community, that that's not how the world works now, and that if there is a flu epidemic either Jesus will save us all or the people who die needed to die as part of God's greater plan. And I feel better. At least until the fever starts.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 10:49 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Count me in
Matthew Yglesias: The Widening Reality-Based Community
The movement has a name.
[N]ow that shrill, Bush-hating libertarian Gene Healy is suggesting "Reality-Based Community" T-shirts it appears that the anti-Bush coalition may at last, thanks to an anonymous White House advisor, have found a unifying theme. We are not merely the Ancient and Hermetic Order of the Shrill, which may turn off some of your more mild-mannered Bush opponents, we are, proud members of the Reality-Based Community. On the other side is, well, the other guys.
We can still be shrill, right?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 17, 2004
The faith-based Presidency
The New York Times > Magazine > Without a Doubt
I wasn't kidding the other day when I talked about the magico-religious worldview of George Bush.
Joe Biden was telling a story, a story about the president. "I was in the Oval Office a few months after we swept into Baghdad," he began, "and I was telling the president of my many concerns" -- concerns about growing problems winning the peace, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and problems securing the oil fields. Bush, Biden recalled, just looked at him, unflappably sure that the United States was on the right course and that all was well. "'Mr. President,' I finally said, 'How can you be so sure when you know you don't know the facts?'"Biden said that Bush stood up and put his hand on the senator's shoulder. "My instincts," he said. "My instincts."
Biden paused and shook his head, recalling it all as the room grew quiet. "I said, 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough!'"
But it's not simply that Bush makes judgments when he doesn't have the facts. He makes judgments in spite of the facts. If the facts are inconvenient, then the facts must be wrong, whether it's global warming or anti-Americanism in Iraq. It's the worldview of a fundamentalist; if the world doesn't match that which you must believe, then the world is wrong. And I'm not exaggerating.
I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
"We create our own reality." This isn't about George Bush and John Kerry, or Republicans and Democrats. It's about irrationalism and rationalism. It's about magic and science. It's about whether we're going to base American policy upon fantasy or reality, upon how you want the world to work or upon how it actually does.
I believe you know where I stand.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 10:49 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
October 10, 2004
Bush and anti-rationalism
Dylan Otto Krider writes on the Bush Administration's anti-science attitude:
There’s a war going on—and not just the one in Iraq. This conflict may not get as much media play, but it could have just as great an impact on our safety, national prestige, and long-term economic health. It is a war over the integrity of science itself, and the casualties are everywhere: career scientists and enforcement officials are resigning en masse from government agencies, citing an inability to do their jobs due to what they see as the ruthless politicization of science by the Bush administration. Bruce Boler, Marianne Horinko, Rich Biondi, J. P. Suarez and Eric Schaeffer are among those who have resigned from the EPA alone. In a letter to The New York Times, former EPA administrator Russell Train, who worked for both Nixon and Ford, wrote, “I can state categorically that there never was such White House intrusion into the business of the EPA during my tenure.” Government meddling has reached such a level that European scientists are voicing concerns that Bush may not merely be undermining U.S. dominance in sciences, but global research as well.
Read The Rest, as they say. You're probably familiar with a lot of the problems. Their attacks on climate theory, of course, are familiar to anyone who's paid any attention at all.
But it's part of a wider problem. George W. Bush is actually opposed to rationalism. The Republican Party is captive to a magico-religious, and hence irrational, view of the world. They don't actually believe in science. Their attitude is either pre-Enlightenment or Postmodern, and I'm not sure which.
Is it any wonder that they think they can cut taxes and raise spending and still cut the deficit? Or that they can invade a country, kill a bunch of its citizens, and be greeted with flowers? Or that if a general, or an economist, or a scientist, tells them that their plan won't work, can't work, that the way to solve the problem is to fire the nay-sayer? That if nobody tells them that something could go wrong, that nothing will go wrong? That when things go wrong, as they inevitably do, it's not the fault of the planner but of the people who warned the planner that his plan was flawed? It's an essentially magical attitude: Failure only occurs if invoked.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 06:41 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 28, 2004
The Alabama Connection
We now know that:
George Bush spent 1972 in Alabama, working (not very much or effectively) on a political campaign, and a member of the Alabama National Guard, and you can make your own call on what he did or didn't do about that.
Condi Rice was born in Alabama, where her parents were college professors.
Karl Rove tried out his political strategies in Alabama, where he ran evil campaigns for the evil Business Council of Alabama.
Coincidence? I think not. I have done some investigation, and have found that virtually every prominent member of the Bush Administration has a past link to the state. I have not been able to verify all, but so far I have learned that:
Dick Cheney is actually the half-brother of former Alabama head coach Mike Price.
John Ashcroft co-wrote the Alabama hit "If You're Gonna Play In Texas (You Gotta Have A Fiddle In The Band)", while Colin Powell was briefly a member of the Commodores.
Donald Rumsfeld likes to go to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center and stand next to the Saturn V rocket, which makes him feel "tingly".
In a tradition similar to John and Elizabeth Edwards, Tom Ridge and his wife every year celebrate Flag Day with ribs at the original Dreamland in Tuscaloosa.
Experts now believe that the leading cause of the endangerment and possible extinction of the Alabama sturgeon is not, as was thought, damming of the rivers that make up its habitat, but Interior Secretary Gail Norton's insatiable desire for its caviar.
Norm Mineta, while driving once to Panama City, was pulled over in Dothan, AL for Driving While Japanese, and has vowed to do everything in his power to keep the city from getting an interstate highway link.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:07 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
September 27, 2004
Nobody ever whispered to me
The Atlantic Online | November 2004 | Karl Rove in a Corner | Joshua Green
Okay, we all know that Karl Rove is a slimebag of the highest order. But who knew that he, like his putative boss, spent time corrupting the politics and institutions of my home state? Yes, it's true! Apparently, we're the minor leagues now.
Anyway, Rove allegedly started a whispering campaign at the University of Alabama School of Law insinuating that a Democratic state Supreme Court justice was a pedophile. This was just about the time of my one, regrettable, year of law school there, but nobody ever tried to use me as a conduit for smears. I'm actually rather insulted.
Also, Rove was the architect of much the Business Council of Alabama's still-current strategy of painting Democratic judicial candidates as tools of the plaintiff's bar and their use of "horror stories" of allegedly overgenerous judgments. This actually explains something to me. I've wondered why the Republicans have been so good at getting elected to judicial office (eight of nine current justices are Republicans) while only getting about half the other statewide offices, and Democrats still control the legislature. Maybe it's because they had an Evil Genius design their judicial campaign plan but only local yokels for everything else.
What did Rove learn from Alabama? Well, let's just say that he might have gotten some lessons from a recurring character around here:
In the rare instances when he has failed to set the terms of debate, Rove hasn't fared nearly so well. Four years ago, in a race to succeed Hooper, who was retiring as Alabama's chief justice, Rove lined up support from a majority of the state's important Republicans behind his candidate, an associate justice named Harold See. Like most of Rove's clients, See had an enormous financial advantage and ran a brutally negative campaign—but he was nonetheless trounced by Roy Moore, the "Ten Commandments" judge, who succeeded in making the race about religion. This loss may have helped Rove to recognize the power of religion as a political motivator: from the question of gay marriage to organizing churches for Bush, it features prominently in his playbook for the current election.
Yes, the long-sought Roy/Rove link at last.
(Link from Talking Points Memo.)
Posted by Mac Thomason at 10:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 15, 2004
I was pretty close
Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: September 12, 2004 - September 18, 2004 Archives
The word is out and about now that the CBS Bush National Guard memos are not forgeries but rather recreations of actual documents authored by Lt. Col. Killian... There's a word, though, for these sorts of recreations, if that's what they are: forgeries.
My guess is that the two were produced by whoever provided the documents to CBS, someone probably using the same "higher truth" thought processes fakers often do: "People who knew Killian say this is what he thought of Bush? Well, let's produce the papers saying that! After all, if there were real memos around, this is what they'd say! Bush probably had the real ones destroyed anyway!"But that's just a guess. To be clear: I am not endorsing this belief system.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 02:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 11, 2004
They're probably fakes
What I was unaware of until today was that CBS doesn't have the original memos, only photocopies. That just screams "fake". 10:1 the CYA memo and the order, at least, are fake.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 02:28 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack
September 10, 2004
This is a totally unfair and horrible thing to say
If Ivan hits Cuba and causes massive devastation (as is likely) what are the odds Bush calls out the Navy to blockade the island to keep aid out? It's certainly not incompatible with his Cuba stance, especially his policy of prosecuting people for giving money to relatives there.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 10:22 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
The real point of all this
And I'm as guilty as anyone... Is that instead of talking about Darfur, we're talking about typewriters. Instead of talking about Dick "EBay" Cheney, we're talking about superscripting and spacing. Instead of talking about whether the invasion of Iraq was justified, we're talking about justification.
So just ignore me, really -- I'm just fascinated by the mystery-story aspects of this. Read the real news. Pray for the people in Ivan's path. If you have time, figure out how comparing these memos to the Hitler Diaries means that I think they're real, as one commenter seems to think.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 04:32 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
I am not qualified to judge
I'm just saying what this looks like to me, and I'm working on a PDF file blown up and not an original. But some examples of the number 1 used on this memo doesn't look like a number 1 to me, certainly not a Times New Roman 1 like has been claimed. Actually, what it looks like, to me, is a lowercase letter "l". In Times New Roman, at least in its Word version, the two characters are hard to tell apart -- the only difference is that the letter is slightly taller. But in a typewriter font -- try Courier New in your word processor -- the numeral is pointed, while the letter has a flat top. The character that appears in most incidents in this document doesn't look like any character in Times, and a lot like a Courier New lowercase L.
The "1" in "1st Lt." (I will repeat that while the TH is superscripted in this document, the ST never is in any of them) is in fact the numeral. But in other occurances ("111 F.L.S.", "35-13" "14 May") the character appears to have a flatter, "typewriter" top. It looks, to me, more like an L. Interestingly, one of the occurances is actually in "111th". The TH is in fact superscripted, but the 111 looks like lll to me.
That might