Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said yesterday he supports a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages in the United States....

"I have this fear that this zone of privacy that we all want protected in our own homes is gradually -- or I'm concerned about the potential for it gradually being encroached upon, where criminal activity within the home would in some way be condoned."

This is scary, folks. Not that he'll get a Constitutional amendment through--that's just election year grandstanding. No, what's scary is that the Senate Majority Leader is threatening to make consensual sex the government's business. It's not a big stretch to recall the Southern politicians during the civil rights movement, vowing to protect racist laws. The Senate Majority Leader.

Mr. Bush has named Ralph Reed, who first rose to prominence as executive director the Christian Coalition, as a senior member of his campaign team. Beyond that, Mr. Rove and Mr. Mehlman are viewed by conservatives as advocates for their point of view in the White House.

Question is, what do the moderates think? (Maybe there are none left.)

How much of it is because Bush really doesn't want to worry about the details? He prides himself on his decisiveness, but this can be a very bad trait when the decisions are made without insight and/or thoughtfulness. For Bush, it seems to be yet one more case where a basically lazy and unreflective man relies on his gut feelings and his supreme self-confidence in his own capabilities. That and the fact that God tells him what to do.

I don't promote The Watch as often as I ought to. Great blog.

But the Rev. Lou Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, warned on the courthouse steps, "We're talking about moving toward sanctioning homosexual marriage, slam dunk, across America in this decision. There is going to come a real line drawn in the sand."

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Recognizing the danger this rift can create, Bush has remained silent on the issue. But he won't be able to maintain that silence for long. Yesterday, Ari dodged the question, and wasn't pressured for further response:

Q And on the Texas sodomy case, does the President believe that gay men have the legal right to have sexual relations in the privacy of their own home?

MR. FLEISCHER: I think on this decision, the administration did not file a brief in this case, unlike in the Michigan case. And this is now a state matter.

Q So he has no position on this?

MR. FLEISCHER: It's just as I indicated, the administration did not file a brief on this -- as, I think, you know.

But that's going to change. You can bet that while the press is willing to let it go, the Christian right won't. What results is going to be mighty fascinating.

Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio, a longshot in the Democratic presidential race, has maintained a perfect attendance record. He rushed back to Washington even to vote for naming a post office after Walt Disney.

"It's called the House of Representatives," Kucinich said. "We are called representatives If you don't show up for a vote, you're not representing people."

(The New York Times also reported on this, citing slightly different voting records.)

Graham and Durbin had been demanding for more than a month that the CIA produce an NIE on the Iraqi threat--a summary of the available intelligence, reflecting the judgment of the entire intelligence community--and toward the end of September, it was delivered. Like Tenet's earlier letter, the classified NIE was balanced in its assessments. Graham called on Tenet to produce a declassified version of the report that could guide members in voting on the resolution. Graham and Durbin both hoped the declassified report would rebut the kinds of overheated claims they were hearing from administration spokespeople.

…On October 1, 2002, Tenet produced a declassified NIE. But Graham and Durbin were outraged to find that it omitted the qualifications and countervailing evidence that had characterized the classified version and played up the claims that strengthened the administration's case for war.

My reading of these facts is the possibility that the President (at least, and possibly some key members of the administration) carefully coaxed the CIA to produce damning evidence about Iraq’s WMD he could then cite. Whether or not it was accurate wasn’t germane. No doubt the President assumed, along with everyone else, that the Marines would flush something out during the invasion to justify the claims. And, in the unlikely event that no weapons were found, Bush had deniability: Tenet was his fall guy.

Not that it much matters. Republican apathy about whether the President lied is as deep and wide as the sea: apparently, as long as they’re in power, the health of the union is of no concern. According to the New Republic piece, Republicans are unwilling to call for an investigation. Either they know he’s lying and they’re covering for him, or they don’t much care to find out if he lied.

Yet they somehow managed their duty of Constitutional protection when the last President was in office. Any whiff of wrongdoing, and they were pleased to invoke the health of the republic. Surely the evidence is ample in this case to hold hearings. Congress was too quick to politically target the President in the last administration, and this Congress is wise to be more cautious. But we’re not talking about, say, whether the President engaged in insider trading (for which he might have been investigated--recall Harken), we’re talking about lying about the need to pre-emptively invade a sovereign nation. Partisanism? As long as Republicans refuse to investigate the President’s possible wrongdoing, they better not invoke this argument. This is the most grave form of partisanism.

The nation deserves better.

MR. RUSSERT: But you would raise taxes?

DR. DEAN: I would go back to the Clinton era of taxes because I think most Americans would gladly pay the same taxes they paid when Bill Clinton was president if they could only have the same economy that they had when Bill Clinton was president.

Critique
Invoking the name "Clinton" is doom. Everything about Bill worked because it was Bill sending the message, not the message. His policies weren't particularly strong, certainly not coherent, and he got lucky with a booming economy. The name says nostalgia. Look forward.

MR. RUSSERT: Ted Kennedy says that we should have a prescription drug plan. It's the first step, a compromise. Democratic leader Tom Daschle says he's right. Are you with Ted Kennedy?

DR. DEAN: . . .First, this is an opportunity to set up an entitlement program for people who need a prescription drug benefit.

Critique
Lose the word "entitlement" while you're at it. That's a neo-con word, which, roughly translated, means: "welfare queen spending my paycheck on liquor."

MR. RUSSERT: ...calling for that, and this is what Howard Dean said. "The way to balance the budget, [Gov. Howard] Dean said, is for Congress to cut Social Security, move the retirement age to 70, cut defense, Medicare and veterans pensions, while the states cut almost everything else. 'It would be tough but we could do it,' he said."

DR. DEAN: ...Well, because that was the middle of--I mean, I don't recall saying that, but I'm sure I did, if you have it on your show, because I know your researchers are very good.

Critique
Find out what the hell you were talking about and back way, way off it. What the hell were you talking about?

So, if you ask that to most Americans, they're going to say, "I would much rather pay the taxes that I was paying when Bill Clinton was president if I could have health care and my property taxes would go down and we could have jobs again." Because they never got the president's tax cut. The vast majority of people in this country either got no tax cut or got a small few hundred dollars.

Critique
Hammer this. Well said.

DR. DEAN: There are a number of people, Tim, who have gone out on the campaign trail, one as recently as last week, and said "I only voted for the resolution to go to war with Iraq because I knew that the resolution would force the president to send the matter to the United Nations." That is false.

MR. RUSSERT: Who said that?

DR. DEAN: I'm not going to tell you who said that.

Critique
They spent a lot of time on this. Russert kept pointing out how Dean tends to speak boldly against candidates one day, then back off the next. I expect this is early difficulty that Dean will smooth out, but he needs to do it, and fast. He needs to figure out if he's going after his rivals, or just going to let his policies speak for themselves. Later on, he had some nice context: "This whole campaign really has been about it's time for Democrats to be proud of being Democrats again. Stop voting with the president and then try to justify your actions, stop supporting stuff that makes no sense and stand up for what you believe in."

This is a winner--calling out the other Dems for not standing up to Bush. And boy is it legitimate. Don't waffle.

Other notes. If Dean considers himself left enough to be called "another McGovern," he should start explaining why. Otherwise, he should say, "look, my policies are extremely centrist--just a little right of Bill Clinton's--and this 'liberal' label is inaccurate."

He's fine on the gay issue, he just needs to streamline his message.

Like a lot of governors, Dean's weak on foreign policy. Because he's the only governor in the race, and because we're in the middle of a "war on terror," the other Dems and the media will continue to hammer him on it. He needs to know it backwards and forwards. It wouldn't hurt to have a high-profile committee of former generals help him draft a comprehensive foreign policy and then make that one of his highlights. Turn the disadvantage into an advantage.

And he got killed on the national defense issue, absolutely slaughtered. Shades of Bush in 2000, unable to name the leader of Pakistan. It's pathetic to offer critiques on how we should use the military when you don't know anything about it. . . .

He's not "too liberal", he just stinks. People don't like him because he's very unlikeable, and a few more performances like that and the press will start eating him alive.

Ouch.

From Peppermint Patty--and without comment (Mom, stop reading)--the remote controlled sex toys. "Have you ever been chatting with someone on the Internet and wanted to do more than just chat? Then you've come to the right place! Here you'll find sex toys with a twist--Remote Control Sex Toys you and your partner can control over the Internet." The graphic is pretty funny (and safe to open at work).

Tora Bora stopped by and left a comment a couple days ago, and I checked out her site. Damn funny. You might admire the entry "Neo-Conservatives-Erm What's That?" Yes, Tora's somewhere in the UK (the "erm" might have clued you in) and she makes me laugh.

Some big-nosed chick (her first name was Mayrev) was very smugly telling the camera that Neo-Conservatives (she’s one of them) haven’t brainwashed the president, it’s just that he’s so very open to their suggestions and willing to listen to their logic. (she actually used the word susceptible)

I don’t know why they even both pretending about this ‘war for democracy and freedom’ and crap. It’s just good old fashioned colonialism. The US is locking in cheap oil prices and safeguarding their interests. They’re not making the world safe for anything but themselves. (last I checked, dropping bombs was a distinctly un-safe thing to do)

The DNC is listening to bloggers and we welcome your suggestions. Regarding ePatriots, so far it's been a great success, thanks to people like you, and it will make a big difference for the Dem. nominee against Bush.
dncdoug | Homepage | 06.20.03 - 1:20 pm | #

There was some back and forth after that. I asserted (as always) the three-point plan, and pointed out that Bush is mentioned 6 times more often on the DNC site than any Democrat. A DNC backer rallied to the defence, and Doug posted this:

Emma,
Bill Rehm frames a strong argument. Our Dem. candidates are out there telling everyone what their vision and plans are, and it's our job to make the most effective, compelling case possible against the Bush administration.
dncdoug | Homepage | 06.21.03 - 7:55 am | #

To which I responded with the following.

DNC Doug,

Well, he "frames" your argument. The question is--are you actually listening to bloggers, or just using the blogosphere to shape opinion? (Not that there's anything wrong with that--however you choose to conduct your campaign is your business.)

If you are listening, rather than shaping, I'd be interested in hearing your reaction to my post about the DNC's solely anti-Bush focus. Why, exactly, do you imagine that's a winning strategy when it has consistently failed in the past?

I know you are in the position of supporting all Dems, which limits your ability to craft a really clear image of the party (the primaries are all about distinguishing oneself). But you have the opportunity to begin building long-term for the future. If you only build a platform on deposing Bush, what is the foundation of the Democratic message? What if you win?

I would like to gently suggest that it's not your "job to make the most effective, compelling case possible against the Bush administration." It's your job to build a coherent message--a vision, a platform, and a set of policy initiatives--that will build a broad base of support among a majority of Americans.

That's where your hope lies.

I'd really love it if this kind of discussion went somewhere. If DNC Doug visits the site, I invite him to respond. In any case, it's somewhat heartening to think the DNC's out reading blogs and posting in comments.

As distrust of the invading forces increases amongst the local population US soldiers said they have killed civilians without hesitation, shot injured opponents and abandoned them to die in agony. . . .

The account quotes a couple of soldiers, and their frame of mind is revealing. Below are two quotes from Specialist Corporal Michael Richardson. (Here he's talking about killing other soldiers, not civilians.)

"Once you'd reached the objective, and once you'd shot them and you're moving through, anything there, you shoot again. You didn't want any prisoners of war. You hate them so bad while you're fighting, and you're so terrified, you can't really convey the feeling, but you don't want them to live."

"There's a picture of the World Trade Centre hanging up by my bed and I keep one in my flak jacket. Every time I feel sorry for these people I look at that. I think, 'They hit us at home and, now, it's our turn.' I don't want to say payback but, you know, it's pretty much payback."

All right, it's the Mirror--useless propoganda from the pantywaist, Saddam-loving left, right? Well, no. Even Fox has reported on some pretty un-heroic battlefield stories.

And then there's this exchange, from a non-embedded reporter writing for Harper's (July 2003). The reporter, Paul William Roberts, has spent a great deal of time in Iraq, and was traveling in Arab dress with an aquaintance while following a story. He was stopped by American military, and what follows is a shortened version of their exchange.

"Hey!" shouted [an American soldier] as I approached. "Stop right there!"

The dishdasha and turban had obviously thrown him, so I searched for my Harper's press card, saying, "It's okay, I'm a Brit journalist.

"I said, 'Stop,' fucker!" he growled, pointing his machine gun at me. "You understand 'stop'?"

I nodded.

Another soldier appeared and asked me in an Arabic worse than my own what I wanted.

"I do speak English," I pointed out in my best Oxonian accent.

"Get this motherfucker!"

There follows an exchange about his Harper's credentials ("It have naked chicks in it?"), and then the suspiciousness of his many national ties.

"Let me get this straight," he said. "You got a British passport, you live in Canada, and you write for an American magazine..."

"Right."

"You gotta admit it sounds weird."

I admitted it did.

"So why you dressed like this fucking scum?" He indicated the growing crowd of locals, some of them clearly concerned for [my welfare]. I told him I found his remark deeply offensive.

"Thatta fact?"

"Yep."

"Fuck you."

CHICAGO, June 19 — Responding to public health concerns about the overuse of antibiotics in farm animals, the McDonald's Corporation said today that it would ask its meat suppliers around the world to reduce their dependence on antibiotics.

McDonald's said it expected its suppliers to phase out the use of some antibiotics that promote growth in healthy animals and to significantly reduce the use of other antibiotics that typically protect animals against disease. The company's decision was reported in The Washington Post today.

McDonald's said it was making the change because of growing evidence that the use of antibiotics in farm animals was creating antibiotic resistance in animals and in the bacteria that cause diseases in humans.

This is absolutely wonderful news. Now we just have to get them to demand different meat-processing practices. One victory at a time, though...

Elizabeth, New Jersey, June 16
This nation acted to a threat from the dictator of Iraq. Now, there are some who would like to rewrite history -- revisionist historians is what I like to call them. Saddam Hussein was a threat to America and the free world in '91, in '98, in 2003. He continually ignored the demands of the free world, so the United States and friends and allies acted. And one thing is for certain and this is for certain: Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to the United States and our friends and allies.

Annandale, Virginia June 17
And we acted in Iraq, as well. We made it clear to the dictator of Iraq that he must disarm. We asked other nations to join us in seeing to it that he would disarm, and he chose not to do so, so we disarmed him. And I know there's a lot of revisionist history now going on, but one thing is certain. He is no longer a threat to the free world, and the people of Iraq are free.

On the other hand, you could make the argument that the President does believe America is indulging in revisionism. He was being sincere when he talked about "moral clarity" and the need to invade Iraq. And he was never really that concerned about the petty details of justification. He wanted to kick some ass, and that was that. He might feel genuinely aggreived that, having kicked some ass, and subsequently shown that that ass was indeed some nasty, dictatorial ass, this is all just a partisan smear. Not that it matters--as a President, we can hold him to a higher standard than his own delusions.

Bonus Material
Now that he's retiring from the press sectretary biz, Ari might consider a sitcom ("Oh That Ari!" would be a good title). I'll start out with the postmodern stuff, then move into the snappy patter. From Tuesday's press briefing.

MR. FLEISCHER: Yesterday, in the President's remarks, he referred to -- he referred it to revisionist historians who are seeming to make the case that Saddam Hussein likely did not have, or did not have, weapons of mass destruction prior to the war. And the President bases that on some of the statements that he has heard where people are expressing doubt about whether or not the intelligence that was provided to the administration, as well as to Congress for many years was accurate intelligence information.

MR. FLEISCHER: ...How come Saddam Hussein didn't prove to the world that he had destroyed them if, when, indeed, he had them, yet he was not able to show the inspectors who were just in Iraq that he did, indeed, destroy them. That's a fanciful interpretation. That's what the President judges as revisionist.

Q That's not evidence, that's an argument.

I wasn't kidding, I'm really going to miss Ari. (Bush not so much.)

The Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to publish a draft report next week on the state of the environment, but after editing by the White House, a long section describing risks from rising global temperatures has been whittled to a few noncommittal paragraphs.

The report, commissioned in 2001 by the agency's administrator, Christie Whitman, was intended to provide the first comprehensive review of what is known about various environmental problems, where gaps in understanding exist and how to fill them. . . .

Among the deletions were conclusions about the likely human contribution to warming from a 2001 report on climate by the National Research Council that the White House had commissioned and that President Bush had endorsed in speeches that year. White House officials also deleted a reference to a 1999 study showing that global temperatures had risen sharply in the previous decade compared with the last 1,000 years. In its place, administration officials added a reference to a new study, partly financed by the American Petroleum Institute, questioning that conclusion.

Now that's bad (or predictable) enough, but check out this tidbit:

James L. Connaughton, chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, a White House advisory group, said, "It would be utterly inaccurate to suggest that this administration has not provided quite an extensive discussion about the state of the climate. Ultimately, E.P.A. made the decision not to include the section on climate change because we had these ample discussions of the subject already."

(The EPA had not made that decision. Christine Whitman's first draft included it, and versions of that report have "been circulating for months.")

Now, talk about your revision. First the President rewrites an agency report, then rolls out some flunkie to lie about revising it, all the while trying to keep a straight face while maintaining that they wished the EPA had kept the damaging information in there.

Damaging, you say? Sure Bush lied about it, but how could that information be damaging? Well, let's check the record. In 2000, George Bush received $3 million from oil, gas, and electrical companies--over 600% more than any other politician received that year. His running mate had just left an oil-services contract, after having created a superhighway between his former company and federal money. His Energy Secretary, Spencer Abraham, was the number 1 recipient of campaign contributions from the automotive industry. Condi Rice sat on Chevron's board, and was popular enough with the company that they named a ship after her. Gale Norton, the Interior Secretary--charged with protecting our wild lands--represented Delta Petroleum and was chair of a PAC backed by Ford and BP Amoco.

So Bush scrubs a government record of any reference to the industries that are causing grave damage to the earth--the very industries that overwhelming got him elected. So the damage could be to his buddies and the little "arrangement" that keeps the companies rich and the money flowing to George.

It seems criminal, but I suspect that things like trotting out this functionary who heads an Orwellian doublespeak fake "advisory group" will provide sufficient cover. In any case, it's more deception and ass-covering from a man who makes Bill Clinton look like a piker in that arena. Yup, revisionism in Washington is rampant, all right, and the revisionists' King is George Bush.

Our difficulty in getting support this time is that neither the international community nor the British public is persuaded that there is an urgent and compelling reason for this military action in Iraq. . . .

Ironically, it is only because Iraq's military forces are so weak that we can even contemplate its invasion. Some advocates of conflict claim that Saddam's forces are so weak, so demoralised and so badly equipped that the war will be over in a few days.

We cannot base our military strategy on the assumption that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a threat.

Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term - namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target.

It probably still has biological toxins and battlefield chemical munitions, but it has had them since the 1980s when US companies sold Saddam anthrax agents and the then British Government approved chemical and munitions factories.

Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years, and which we helped to create?

. . . On Iraq, I believe that the prevailing mood of the British people is sound. They do not doubt that Saddam is a brutal dictator, but they are not persuaded that he is a clear and present danger to Britain.

They want inspections to be given a chance, and they suspect that they are being pushed too quickly into conflict by a US Administration with an agenda of its own.

Above all, they are uneasy at Britain going out on a limb on a military adventure without a broader international coalition and against the hostility of many of our traditional allies.

It was, therefore, uncomfortable when he stood in front of the same body yesterday and said in essence 'I told you so.' (Or in his words: "I fear the fundamental problem is that instead of using intelligence as evidence on which to base a decision about policy, we used intelligence as the basis on which to justify a policy on which we had already settled.")

Why should the President care? Because while he had the Democrats yipping agreement for the war, the probe into Blair's intelligence will ultimately be a probe of the President. Blair is already in hot water over his dodgy dossier, and presumably, it's only going to get worse. I'll go ahead and make a prediction here and now and say that if the heat gets too intense, Blair will blame his decision on US intelligence. Blair has been defending himself well in front of the House of Commons, but a man with Cook's credibility on the issue is harder to quiet.

If the intelligence was as weak (or absent) as I imagine it was, Cook could be the loose thread that unravels two leaders. Or for metaphoric consistency, the first domino.

Senate Bill 1046, introduced in the commerce committee by Sens. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., and Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, seeks to restore the limits on station ownership and may also bring back the rule against cross-ownership. The committee will vote on the bill Thursday morning, and if they approve it for a floor vote as expected, the entire Senate will vote on the issue. And, almost certainly, pass it by a wide margin, moving it along to the House of Representatives.

Where, according to Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., the bill will almost certainly die. [But] Walden isn't sure this is a bad idea. He's says he's not crazy about all of the new revisions in the FCC rules -- particularly the easing of ownership restrictions -- but as the owner of five radio stations in Hood River and The Dalles, he is more than sympathetic to the need for economies of scale.

"Some level of consolidation is necessary," Walden said in a telephone interview. "If you're artificially prevented from doing that, you risk taking a lot of broadcast properties underwater."

But there's a big distinction between Columbia Gorge Broadcasters, the 17-employee company Walden operates with his wife, Mylene, and the small handful of multinational conglomerates that could end up with a near-monopoly on the nation's TV airwaves.

That was a slightly-edited article by Peter Ames Carlin. The distinction, as you well know, is that Fox might well squeeze Walden off the air, but Walden damn sure's not squeezing Fox. Carlin urges Oregonians to bomb Senator Gordon Smith, who's still waflling on the issue, with phone calls. That number, for Oregonians, is 202-224-3753 (or visit his website for a local number). Or, you could also call Billy Tauzin, who's been bought off by big media, and isn't likely to allow the bill to be introduced to the House. His number is: 202-225-4031.

Lisa at Ruminate This is your one-stop clearinghouse for news on the number of ways you can try to influence the process. (I encourage you to avail yourself of them all.)

A federal appeals court, reversing a lower-court decision, ruled today that the government did not have to disclose the names of more than 700 people detained in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, agreeing with the Justice Department that making that information public could "allow Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups to map the course of the investigation."

The 2-to-1 decision by a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia was a rebuff to the civil liberties and other groups that were challenging the Bush administration's refusal to provide the names and other information about people, mostly immigrants, held in connection with the 9/11 terrorism investigation, on the ground of national security.

The court said the government could withhold the dates and locations of arrest, detention and release of all detainees, including those charged with federal crimes, and the names of lawyers representing them.

It's weird, too, because I was just compiling information on John Ashcroft for the Dossiers Project when I stumbled across it. In fact, some of the stuff I was compiling related directly to this issue.

As if it's not obvious enough--the packing-the-courts agenda is really paying off. At one time, we all had some confidence in the courts as impartial arbiters of the law. Now it just seems like the different guys from the same country club solidifying an extremely conservative agenda. So now: the executive branch has discretion over the creation or implementation of law (which is the Congressional branch's duty)--it was Ashcroft who initially told his department to start rejecting FOIA requests; then the judges, who were put in place by the President, agree that he has this authority. Viola!--there's your trifecta.

The article continues, quoting Ashcroft:

Attorney General John Ashcroft said in a statement on the Justice Department's Web site, "We are pleased the court agreed we should not give terrorists a virtual road map to our investigation that could allow terrorists to chart a potentially deadly detour around our efforts."

The President of the People for the American Way, one of the members of the coalition who brought the lawsuit, called it a "stunning rollback of rights in America." He continues:

“We’re very disappointed with this decision. We’ve said again and again that the American people have a right to know what the government is doing in their name. Instead, this ruling gives amazing deference to the Justice Department, and cripples the critical role of oversight in protecting rights in America.

“This ruling allows the Department of Justice to bury these secret arrests even deeper. Now the public is denied access even to the names of attorneys representing detainees. There is no way abuses — like those chronicled in the report by the Justice Department inspector general — can be fully investigated and exposed if every aspect of these arrests is kept in the dark. This ruling could be complicit in a stunning rollback of rights in America. Indeed, this ruling takes us closer to authorizing the government to use secret arrests and detentions on a broad range of criminal suspects — or just outspoken critics. The repercussions could be disastrous.”

Hide the kiddies, moms, especially if they aren't white . . . .

Advocates of deregulation like to point out that the media landscape is sunnier than it was in the sixties, when ninety per cent of TV viewers watched only the three networks. But that was a different kind of concentration of power. Now big media players control both programming and distribution. Five companies own all the broadcast networks, four of the major movie studios, and ninety per cent of the top fifty cable channels. Those companies also produce three-quarters of all prime-time programming. Ten years ago, four of them accounted for just a quarter of it.

The control that these companies have over supply and demand doesn’t leave much room for newcomers. It’s impossible to imagine someone today pulling off what Diller and Murdoch did in the mid-eighties, when they started the Fox network, or what Turner did when he started TBS and CNN. There aren’t enough independent distribution outlets or independent sources of programming to make the gamble worthwhile. Deregulation is leading to fewer choices, not more.

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Citizens across the United States are now uniting in a great cause to establish a Department of Peace, seeking nothing less than the transformation of our society, to make non-violence an organizing principle, to make war archaic through creating a paradigm shift in our culture for human development for economic and political justice and for violence control. Its work in violence control will be to support disarmament, treaties, peaceful coexistence and peaceful consensus building. Its focus on economic and political justice will examine and enhance resource distribution, human and economic rights and strengthen democratic values.

Domestically, the Department of Peace would address violence in the home, spousal abuse, child abuse, gangs, police-community relations conflicts and work with individuals and groups to achieve changes in attitudes that examine the mythologies of cherished world views, such as 'violence is inevitable' or 'war is inevitable'. Thus it will help with the discovery of new selves and new paths toward peaceful consensus. . . .

Violence is not inevitable. War is not inevitable. Nonviolence and peace are inevitable. We can make of this world a gift of peace which will confirm the presence of universal spirit in our lives. We can send into the future the gift which will protect our children from fear, from harm, from destruction.

(He is also the only candidate who doesn't speak in the third person on his website, which is nice. Somehow, writing those things in the third person freaks me out. I don't want to know what your press agent thinks you think, I want to know what YOU think.)

Dean's a great anti-Bush candidate, but I believe we can do better. I believe that the conservatives have controlled the discussion long enough; it's time for someone with a new vision for America to emerge from the left. We need to switch the argument from "the future's dangerous, but I can protect you" to "we have an opportunity to make the country and the world a wonderful place to live." We need to see someone with ideas about how that can be done. And we need candidates who have a positive vision about America that can inspire people about leftist politics again. (Sounds familiar, I hope.)

For those of you who saw Nader as a real progressive solution, this is actually your candidate. Nader's message was incomplete and mostly angry and aggressive (hey, that's Nader's mode, and it's served America well). But Kucinich is someone who actually has a large, progressive vision. It's time for a progressive candidate to emerge, and it's time for progressives to support him. Kucinich only has $180,000 and is a long, long shot. But if we can give him support, he might at least make it onto the national stage and cause people to discuss his vision of the future. Imagine that--the debate turning from whether we should have invaded Iraq to whether or not the Department of Peace is the best way to promote cooperation and mutual respect.

If you want to hear those kinds of discussions, Kucinich is the candidate to support.

93% Senator John Kerry (MA)
90% Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (OH)
88% Senator John Edwards (NC)
83% Congressman Richard Gephardt (MO)
76% Senator Joe Lieberman (CT)
69% Senator Robert Graham (FL)

I think the message on all of these is that they're only guages: if a candidate has voted well on a eight of ten key pieces of legislation, but has voted badly on the last two as well as most of a number of lesser bills, that needs to be taken into account. Character also counts for a lot--which is why Dean's captured the hearts of a number of bloggers.

Civil Rights
He voted no on one bill, and the NAACP didn't know how he voted on the other. The thing he voted against was actually an amendment to an education bill that would have stricken the federal requirement that states test children for math and reading in grades 3-8. The one they didn't know what his vote was a resolution to encourage humanitarian relief and assistance to sub-saharan Africa. I'm guessing he either supported it or would have; the vote was 400-9. Hard to call him lacking on his civil rights record.

Environment
There's no way to tell from the the League's numbers how he voted on particular items. His low score comes from an 86% rating in the 105th Congress--the last two (106th and 7th) he was 90% and 95%. No lifetime statistic is given.

Bank
Here he's really getting whumped. According to the most recent data I could find (here and here), Kucinich has a paltry $180k. That compares to millions raised by others, including $2.6 mil raised by Dean.

Translation: he needs help! Starting today, he's getting mine.

Symbol (n) [from the Greek sumbolon: mark, token] 1. a thing conventionally regard as typifying, representing, or recalling something. (Oxford)

Flag day is an odd thing. Other national holidays more obviously celebrate events or people--New Year's, MLK jr. Day--or concepts, as in Labor or Memorial Day. But for Flag Day we ritually celebrate a symbol. The flag, after all, represents the US. But we have a holiday for that--Independence Day. For flag day we honor not the country but one of the country's symbols.

(Presumably, this means the positive elements of our liberal democracy--our Constitution, freedoms, government and so on. Yet we don't hold that opinion when we see the flags of other nations. China's, for example, reminds us more of the government's repression than its original, pure fidelity to human equality. Likewise, one could argue that the flag represents the whole of America, too--the Bill of Rights as well as slavery; the liberation of Europe and the horrors of Vietnam, and so on.)

The US has always regarded its own government with something of the awe afforded to religion, and flag day is a psychological tell to this tendency. The flag, as representation of the sacred faith, is itself worthy of veneration. Normally we don't confuse the symbol with the thing it's symbolizing--tearing a picture in half is not like killing the person in the portrait. But that's not the case with the flag. For Americans, the flag is itself more than dyed and sewn cotton fiber. It is somehow imbued with the very sacred nature of the country.

When the founding fathers cleared the continent of timber and Indians, they built a society based on values, rather than race. This may not have been the first such occasion, but it was certainly a rare thing. America's self-image has always been one of values: founded by "the people"--equal, not part of a medieval caste system--who wanted to create a more perfect union celebrating life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It was a country of beliefs, not heritage. Though those beliefs have always been open to interpretation, the nature of being an American means only a belief in these ideas--nothing else is required.

It's a strange quirk then that the religion of most of the early citizens in this country-of-ideas had an almost identical theology: it doesn't matter who you are or where you came from, just what you believe. The result was an emotional response to the beliefs of the country that mirrored the emotion people felt for their Protestant Christianity. Subsequent democracies, borrowing almost wholesale from the US Constitution, resisted this identification--partly because they hadn't knitted the country together solely from the fabric of thought, partly because they had other, pre-existing self-images about what it meant to be, say, French or Indian.

So America has always deified itself, inadvertently, innocently, and unconsciously. So many examples exist, but veneration of the flag has always been the most provocative. That veneration leads self-proclaimed patriots burn the flag--either in celebration of the purity of the rights granted in the Constitution, or ritually, once a flag had become stained and tattered. The debate isn't as much about the sacredness of the flag as to the appropriate ritual with which it should be honored.

But at the end of the day, the flag is nothing more than cloth, a symbol. What it represents--liberty or enslavement, opportunity or oppression--is a moving target. In American history we find all of them. As a symbol, the flag is only a reflection of the civic good we embody in our policies and actions. This weekend, I've heard a lot of discussion about how people plan to celebrate flag day. But thinking about the celebration of the flag (or even its ritual meaning) misses the larger point: it's not the symbol we should be considering, it's the policies of the country that flag represents. After all, a symbol can only reflect the thing for which it stands.

"Smith and other Republican leaders say White House officials -- particularly Bush's top political strategist, Karl Rove -- are anxious to break the Democratic dominance on the West Coast. They believe their best target is in the Northwest, particularly in Oregon where Bush lost in 2000 by fewer than 6,800 votes. Democrat Al Gore defeated Bush by 5 percentage points in Washington."

(Background: Oregon was one of the states where Nader might have swung the vote. Although Gore only beat Bush by 6,000 votes, Nader got 77,000, or 5%--his largest support in the country. So go ahead and figure those 77,000 votes aren't going to Bush in '04, putting him in a hole a lot deeper than a mere 6,000 votes.)

Well, I have a little news for the Prez: ain't gonna happen. He may have lost Oregon by just a hair in the double aught debacle, but that was a long, long time ago. As is usual with the President, he only dimly understands the consequences of his actions. Let's review:

- He got out of the gates by backing Ashcroft's attempt to overturn Oregon's Death with Dignity law.

- Ashcroft had further troubles here when he tried to get ahold of library records. (Multnomah County led a national lawsuit to prevent this.)

- After 9/11, Bush and Ashcroft again ran against the state when they tried to crack down on immigrants and Portland refused to cooperate. (We took a lot of heat for that nationally. The city was again called anti-American, terrorist lovin' "Little Beirut." Doesn't look quite as bad today.)

- Bush waged a war that was wildly-unpopular here. (The local newspaper--The Oregonian--which has statewide distribution, was getting letters to the editor running 95% against the war.)

- Bush tax cuts have very visibly damaged our listing economy, and insult to injury, he refuses to fund his own "no child left behind" legislation, even while Oregon schools make national headlines for their poverty.

Did I miss anything?

Bush may be able to fool a lot of the people a lot of the time, but very few of them live in Oregon. Go find your suckers somewhere else, pal.

THE PRESIDENT: ...Poland is a member of this coalition of the willing, who stood up for freedom and stood up for peace and stood up for security. And Poland also recognizes that there's more work to do. And I'm -- also I'm going to Poland to thank the Polish people for caring about freedom in other parts of the world.

Q But, still, those countries who didn't support the Iraqi Freedom operation use the same argument, weapons of mass destruction haven't been found. So what argument will you use now to justify this war?

THE PRESIDENT: We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them. (Emphasis, of course, is added.)

These were comments he made on May 29, after the discovery of those two trailers the Pentagon speculated might have been used in bioweapons production. Even after they were first discovered, no one was willing to verify they were mobile labs--only that they seemed unlikely to be used for anything else.

So when Bush, two days after their discovery, says "We found the weapons of mass destruction," this can't be confused with an intelligence failure. It's a--come on, say it with me--it's a blatant lie. What's worse, shaking your finger and saying, "I did not have sex with that woman," or telling the country you've found the very thing you lied about to justify a war?

Where the hell's Ken Starr when you really need him?

(Oh, and just to maintain my blog cred as a conspiracy theory nut, let me point out that the CIA report on those trailers isn't online anymore. Or at least, the link to that report that I found here is dead. They buried it, I tell you!)

"And as President Bush affirmed the next night, announcing the opening of the war, 'Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.'

"So the war had to happen immediately, March 19, and even a Canadian resolution to wait until the end of March was too dangerous. . . .

"But March, if you remember, was all about urgency. That was why we couldn't wait around for the United Nations, not another month, not another couple of weeks. Fundamentally, that's why we're now virtually alone in Iraq, with tens and tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers trying to maintain order and defend themselves. It's why the rest of the world is not only not with us in Baghdad, but also deeply dubious about what we're doing next -- and why."

The President and the President's men are desperately trying to revise history, even history barely three months old. They argue now that WMD never really had much to do with the justification for war, and anyway, the fact that there are no WMD isn't proof of a lie, but an intelligence failure. Sarasohn reminds us all, again, that that simply wasn't the case.