Blogging Blues

I find myself greatly admiring the bloggers who have carried on valiantly following the election. My heart isn't in it right now. I'm still visiting the blogs, and reading the news, but the election results have taken the wind out of my sails.

I find myself spending more time on Television Without Pity and Fametracker and following the horror known as Star Reynolds (nee Jones) Big Gay Wedding. Nothing comforts the mind like silly television shows and pseudo-celebrity excesses.

Still, the political world invades. Colin Powell retires, to be replaced by Condi Rice. Here's an SAT analogy for you...
Jesus Christ:Mary Magdalene::George W. Bush:
a) Barbara Bush
b) Condoleeza Rice
c) Helen Thomas
d) Karen Hughes
e) Laura Bush

OK, it's not easy. But I'm going with (b) Condoleeza Rice. (If Karen Hughes were still in the administration, she'd be my choice.) I predict disaster. With little real management experience, and owing her political career to the Big Dick, Condi's real benefit to the administration (but not to the country as a whole, nor to the world) will be as the handmaiden who carries out Bush's every wish and desire.

Also worthy reading is Media Matters' fine analysis on why "moral values" did not REALLY affect election decisions. Just as I thought, although I didn't take the time to do the legwork. So, thanks Media Matters and David Brock.

Now, back to lick my wounds and watch The Gilmore Girls on TiVo.

Three Days Later...

It's taken me this long to begin to consider a post-election blog. I read through the opening of my last post on Tuesday morning, when I had jitters in my stomach but that same cautious optimism I'd had the last few weeks prior to the election. Fueled by decent polling numbers and continuing bad news and defections from the Bush camp, I was hopeful.

In hindsight, the piece of information that most pointed to the election result was this study: "Bush Supporters Still Believe Iraq Had WMD or Major Program, Supported al Qaeda" from the University of Maryland Program on International Policy Attitudes. The meta-analysis goes on to point out that:

• 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%).
  
• 56% assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD
  
• 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at least a major WMD program. Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points.
  
• 75% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda
  
• 63% believe that clear evidence of this support has been found.
  
• 60% of Bush supporters assume that this is also the conclusion of most experts
  
• 55% assume, incorrectly, that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. Here again, large majorities of Kerry supporters have exactly opposite perceptions.
  
• 69% assume incorrectly that Bush supports Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty;
  
• 72% assume incorrectly that Bush supports the treaty banning land mines
  
• 51% assume incorrectly that he favors US participation in the Kyoto treaty.
  
• After he denounced the International Criminal Court in the debates, the perception that he favored it dropped from 66%, but still 53% continue to believe that he favors it.
  
• An overwhelming 74% incorrectly assumes that he favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements.
  

"The roots of the Bush supporters' resistance to information," according to Steven Kull, "very likely lie in the traumatic experience of 9/11 and equally in the near pitch-perfect leadership that President Bush showed in its immediate wake. This appears to have created a powerful bond between Bush and his supporters--and an idealized image of the President that makes it difficult for his supporters to imagine that he could have made incorrect judgments before the war, that world public opinion could be critical of his policies or that the President could hold foreign policy positions that are at odds with his supporters."

Well, there you have it. I probably should have been far more worried and pessimistic after reading that study's findings.

There's been quite a lot written about the "moral values" of the exit polling, and I'm sure this is only the beginning. Without more information other than the talking heads and the bloggers, I can't begin to comment on it, or even fathom the meaning of that phrase.

What I do know is that slightly more than half this country wants desperately to believe in our President. And believe they do despite all evidence to the contrary.

Faith and emotions carry a lot of weight -- if there's anything I've learned from my many years in the marketing world, people don't make decisions based on logic. It's not that you can't reason with some people -- most people are immune to reason and seek comfort and security. As the good prince Hamlet said,

"Give me that man
That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him
In my heart’s core..."

For me, knowing what I know about the President and his minions, I was completely willing to put my comfort and security in the hands of John Kerry. Beyond all logic, I felt, and still feel, deep in my soul, my heart, and my bones, that President Bush is rotten. Corrupt, wrongheaded, mendacious, calculating, and deceitful.

For those who believe in the President, the challenger did not offer enough. My consolation is now that Bush will have to live with the mess he had made, and perhaps he will have to face up to them. We must make him face up to them.

Iraqi Dead Estimated at 100,000

I know, I know. It's Election Day. I should be wringing my hands (OK, I am), engaging in nervous eating (check!), and making optimistic predictions (Kerry will win the popular vote and the electoral college).

But I thought I would address the crimes against humanity that we have perpetrated against the Iraqi people in our zeal to bring them democracy.

A recent study by the U.K.'s Lancet medical journey estimates that 100,000 non-combatant Iraqis have died in the 18 months since we invaded Iraq in March 2003. Without going into the details of the survey methodology (The Guardian has more info), it is certainly better than the complete lack of information provided by the "Coalition" forces.

This is 0.4% of the Iraqi population, which would be equivalent to 1.2 million American. Imagine that!

When I recently brought this statistic up to a friend (Bush supporter), his response was:

• Well, we would expect civilian deaths if we were invaded, too.
  When I mentioned that we invaded Iraq without cause, and that there would be an unbelievable outcry if we lost 1.2 million people due to some invasion or attack; where was the equivalent outcry about the injustic to the Iraqis? We are blind to our own destruction.
  
• The next response was: Saddam was a danger to us. We need to get rid of tyrants. What if we had gotten rid of Hitler in 1933?
  Oy, the Hitler argument. I completely absolutely totally reject the equivalency of Saddam to Hitler. I agree that Hitler was a danger, and we fought a long and bloody war to rid the world of him. Saddam was not a danger to us, though, any more than Pol Pot, or Robert Mugabe. Saddam was contained. He had no weapons programs. He was a bad baddie, but he was not a danger to the U.S. I could make a good case that we should be more worried about Kim Jung Il or Musharif where we have real documented evidence of nuclear weapons.
  
• The last point: Saddam was murderous thug to his people, and he killed far more people and would keep on killing them unless we stopped him. There were 300,000 bodies found in mass graves -- women and children.
  This put me in a difficult spot, because I ain't going to start definding Saddam Hussein. But that 300,000 number seemed awfully big. But being open-minded, I wanted to check out the sources for that. I could find a lot of sources for the 300,000 number, which seemed to originate at Human Rights Watch, which estimated 290,000 Iraqis dead in mass graves. But that was from May 2003, right after we "won" the war. Since then we've had a chance to find all the mass graves (and the WMD). So what's the latest?

There are many many many sources who repeat (or even expand) Saddam's death toll at 300,000, but not a single stitch of post-invasion documentation of that number. There is certainly recent evidence of mass graves, and women and babies in them. CNN reports finding hundreds of bodies in October 2004. The article repeats the 300,000 murdered estimate, but gives no support for it.

But there was a single article in July 2004 in the Observer that stated:

Downing Street has admitted to The Observer that repeated claims by Tony Blair that '400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves' is untrue, and only about 5,000 corpses have so far been uncovered.

The claims by Blair in November and December of last year, were given widespread credence, quoted by MPs and widely published, including in the introduction to a US government pamphlet on Iraq's mass graves.

So far, I haven't found this same story in any U.S. newspaper. I'm still waiting for evidence.

Wages Slaves, Be Sure to Vote!

Many states require employers to give employees time off to vote.

In Illinois: Employee may take two hours off to vote. Must apply in advance. There is no so specific provision that you will be paid for your time; however, the statute provides that the voter shall not be liable for any penalty for absenting himself to vote. The statute has been interpreted that non-exempt employees will not be paid.

In Kentucky: Employee may take off four hours to vote. Must apply for leave in advance. There is no specific provision that employees will be paid. The statute provides that no person shall be penalized for taking a reasonable time off to vote, unless under circumstances that did not prevent him from voting, he failed to vote. It also states that such a person may be subject to disciplinary action. The Kentucky attorney general has issued an opinion stating that employees of private employers need not be paid for time off taken to vote.

In California: Employee may take time off if there is not sufficient time outside working hours to vote. Employee must give two days notice of need for time off. Employer must post notice of right to take time off to vote 10 days before election. Employee must be paid, for no more than two hours.

In Ohio: Employee may take a reasonable time off to vote. Employee may not be discharged or threatened for taking time off to vote. Violators may be fined from $50 to $500. It is unclear whether employees must be paid. The statute has been interpreted to mean that an employer’s refusal to pay an employee who is employed on other than a piecework, commission, or hourly basis for taking time off to vote, if done to induce or compel a person to refrain from voting or to vote in a certain way, would violate this law.

In Florida: No provision. Figure it out and vote on your own time!

This list shows all the state statutes.

Friday cat blogging

Bush Takes Shamelessness to a New Low

After spending the last year and a half or so TRASHING the current Democratic leadership and villifying his opponent, Bush has the gall to hearken back to great Democrats of the past (Roosevelt, Truman & Kennedy) -- guess he doesn't think much of old Eisenhower, although his granddad Prescott Bush was quite a fan -- and attempt to make the truly lame case that HE is the true inheritor of Democratic values.

Ha! Double-ha! As NDOL.org says:

We have no way of knowing if the president is going to continue this laughable effort to steal the clothes of great Democrats right up until election day, or if this gambit is as disposable as his 2000 campaign promises to "change the tone in Washington" and serve as a "uniter, not a divider." It is pretty clear that his words in Wisconsin probably didn't reach too many Democrats in real time, since anyone bearing visible Democratic insignia is banned from his campaign appearances. Moreover, he was surrounded on the platform by a host of Republican candidates eagerly seeking to reinforce the GOP's iron partisan control over Congress, a place where Democrats are being treated with a degree of contempt rarely seen since the 19th century.

Vote this man out.

New Yorker Makes an Endorsement

Usually I resist reading the New Yorker online before I receive the magazine. I love reading the magazine itself. Flipping the pages, seeing what the "talk" is, checking the reviews, glancing at the cartoons, seeing who has the fiction piece that week.

But really, I read on Laura Rozen's excellent blog that the New Yorker has actually endorsed a presidential candidate for the first time in its long history. So of course I had to check it out. The editors systematically take down Bush for his lack of "uniting," his ill-advised tax cuts, his environmental policy, his breaching of civil liberties through the Patriot Act, his hostility to science, and last, but not least, his incompetence in monitoring the terrorist threat prior to 9/11, and his complete botching of the Iraq War.

You can read all that bad stuff about Bush yourself. I'd like to tell you what they say about John Kerry:

But when his foes sought to destroy him rather than to debate him they found no scandals and no evidence of bad faith in his past. In the face of infuriating and scurrilous calumnies, he kept the sort of cool that the thin-skinned and painfully insecure incumbent cannot even feign during the unprogrammed give-and-take of an electoral debate. Kerry’s mettle has been tested under fire—the fire of real bullets and the political fire that will surely not abate but, rather, intensify if he is elected—and he has shown himself to be tough, resilient, and possessed of a properly Presidential dose of dignified authority. While Bush has pandered relentlessly to the narrowest urges of his base, Kerry has sought to appeal broadly to the American center. In a time of primitive partisanship, he has exhibited a fundamentally undogmatic temperament. In campaigning for America’s mainstream restoration, Kerry has insisted that this election ought to be decided on the urgent issues of our moment, the issues that will define American life for the coming half century. That insistence is a measure of his character. He is plainly the better choice. As observers, reporters, and commentators we will hold him to the highest standards of honesty and performance. For now, as citizens, we hope for his victory.

Beautiful day. Beautiful family.

Beautiful day. Beautiful family
Originally uploaded by franabanana.

This photo was taken last spring, on a blustery day by Lake Michigan.

When bloggers make me laugh...

From Attaturk, at Rising Hegemon: Atrios and Steve Gilliard point out that Bush is supposed to be in Crawford on his potemkin ranch this weekend.

Bwah! Potemkin ranch! (Here's the trackback link. We'll see if it works.)

Definition of Potemkin Village: Something that appears elaborate and impressive but in actual fact lacks substance.

Sounds about right.

Greatest Writer of All Time Hates Bush

Yes, I'm quite partial to John LeCarre novels. And John LeCarre's politics have much to recommend them as well, especially when we writes:

Maybe there's one good reason — just one — for reelecting George W. Bush, and that's to force him to live with the consequences of his appalling actions and answer for his own lies, rather than wish the job on a Democrat who would then get blamed for his predecessor's follies.

Read the rest (requires free subscription to LA Times).

It Just Goes to Show Ya ... Not All Bushes Are Bad

I like these people. I really like them!

Bush Relatives for Kerry.

Bush Is Not a Man of Faith

As good as Ron Suskind's NY Times Magazine article "Without a Doubt" is, something was just a bit off. The issue left unchallenged is that nearly everyone, including Suskind, takes Bush's profession of faith at face value.

But he is not a man of faith. (See also my earlier post on E.L. Doctrow's elegant bashing of Bush's lack of compassion and empathy.)

Ayelish McGarvey writes oh-so-insightfully inThe American Prospect, taking Bush's faith at face value

is a huge mistake, because when judged by his deeds, an entirely different picture emerges: Bush does not demonstrate a life of faith by his actions, and neither Methodists, evangelicals, nor fundamentalists can rightly call him brother. In fact, the available evidence raises serious questions about whether Bush is really a Christian at all.

Ironically for a man who once famously named Jesus as his favorite political philosopher during a campaign debate, it is remarkably difficult to pinpoint a single instance wherein Christian teaching has won out over partisan politics in the Bush White House. Though Bush easily weaves Christian language and themes into his political communication, empty religious jargon is no substitute for a bedrock faith. Even little children in Sunday school know that Jesus taught his disciples to live according to his commandments, not simply to talk about them a lot. In Bush’s case, faith without works is not just dead faith -- it’s evangelical agitprop. ...

Judging him on his record, George W. Bush’s spiritual transformation seems to have consisted of little more than staying on the wagon, with Jesus as a sort of talismanic Alcoholics Anonymous counselor. Bush came to his faith through a small group program created by Community Bible Study, which de-emphasizes sin and resembles a sort of Jesus-centered therapy session.
...
Save for a few standout reporters, the press has done a dismal job of covering the president’s very public religiosity. Overwhelmingly lacking personal familiarity with conservative Christianity, political reporters have either avoided the topic or resorted to shopworn clichés and lazy stereotypes. Over and over, news stories align Bush with evangelical theology while loosely dropping terms like fundamentalist to describe his beliefs.

Once and for all: George W. Bush is neither born again nor evangelical. As Alan Cooperman reported in The Washington Post last month, the president has been careful never to use either term to describe his faith. Unlike millions of evangelicals, Bush did not have a single born-again experience; instead, he slowly came to Christianity over the course of several years, beginning with a deep conversation with the Reverend Billy Graham in the mid-1980s. And there is virtually no evidence that Bush places any emphasis on evangelizing -- or spreading the gospel -- in either his personal or professional life.

Al Gore Lives in My Heart

From Al Gore's speech at Georgetown yesterday:

It appears to be an important element in Bush’s ideology to never admit a mistake or even a doubt. It also has become common for Bush to rely on special interests for information about the policies important to them and he trusts what they tell him over any contrary view that emerges from public debate. He has, in effect, outsourced the truth. Most disturbing of all, his contempt for the rule of reason and his early successes in persuading the nation that his ideologically based views accurately described the world have tempted him to the hubristic and genuinely dangerous illusion that reality is itself a commodity that can be created with clever public relations and propaganda skills, and where specific controversies are concerned, simply purchased as a turnkey operation from the industries most affected.

George Orwell said, “The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."

Give em hell, Al. The Emperor has no clothes! The Wizard of Oz is just a man working the levers!

"We'll always have ... Poland?"

Thanks to my brother Michael (my real brother, not my "bra'"), I will never forget Poland. To have the same experience, visit You Forgot Poland!

Rise Up Against the Corporate Media

Frank Rich writes a powawful indictment of the interests of corporate media in this insightful article:Will We Need a New "All the President's Men"?.

Like the Nixon administration before it, the Bush administration arrived at the White House already obsessed with news management and secrecy. Nixon gave fewer press conferences than any president since Hoover; Mr. Bush has given fewer than any in history. Early in the Nixon years, a special National Press Club study concluded that the president had instituted "an unprecedented, government-wide effort to control, restrict and conceal information." Sound familiar? The current president has seen to it that even future historians won't get access to papers he wants to hide; he quietly gutted the Presidential Records Act of 1978, the very reform enacted by Congress as a post-Watergate antidote to pathological Nixonian secrecy.

Please read it! (The New York Times requires a free subscription.)

Best Debate Questions Came from Regular People

With the last debate over, Kerry and Edwards did exactly what they needed to do. Even without Bush's Debate 1 Meltdown (Blinky McWired); Cheney's tired growling (Grumpy McScary); Bush's Debate 2 aggression (Shrieky McFury); and Bush's Debate 3 Frat Boy Jokiness (Giggly McCreepy), Kerry Edwards still scored points with specific rhetoric, mature demeanor, and respect for the process and for their opponent. Kerry did not get rattled; he may not have always given the best answers, or responded with the greatest force, but he did enough to show himself as a strong candidate to those voters only exposed to Bush's lies.

Bush will not recover from the impression formed in the first debate; of course his supporters will continue to support him, but he has reached his ceiling.

As for the "debate" format, I say let them all be town halls. The moderators were awful; the town-hall folks were awesome (I guess Gibson gets some credit for choosing the questions. But still).

Lehrer: The questions weren't that bad, but he allowed Bush to jump all over him, taking extra time. Is everyone in the press afraid to challenge Bush?

Ifill played weird word games: Talk about what your ticket would do, but DON'T USE HIS NAME. Easy for Cheney, since he never mentions Bush anway.

Schieffer lobbed multiple softballs to Bush: Do you believe homosexuality is a choice? What kind of issue is immigration? Talk about your personal faith. Your strong woman. BLECH. (Edited to add this link to Somerby's Daily Howler column from Thursday, Oct. 14. Scroll about halfway down to see his criticism of Shieffer's lame-ass questions. He also notes the inherent bias in the questions directed at Kerry.)

Give me the intelligent, engaged voters of St. Louis. They brought specific, direct and tough questions to both candidates. Unliked the overpaid self-important blowhards of Da Media, they were not afraid to confront Bush (or Kerry).

Quickie book review

I just started reading Joyce Carol Oates' new novel The Falls. It is one of the best beginnings I've read in years. I'm only a few chapters in, and I woke up this morning thinking about the characters. If nothing else is good in this book, it's worth it.

I must stop blogging and read.

Like I Said, These People Are Scary

Nevada. It's the new Florida. From Las Vegas CBS affiliate: Dem Voter Registrations Trashed:

The out-of-state firm has been in Las Vegas for the past few months, registering voters. It employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of registrations per day, but former employees of the company say that Voters Outreach of America only wanted Republican registrations.

Two former workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats.

"We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assisatnt to get those from me," said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee.
...
The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee. Similar complaints have been received in Reno where the registrar has asked the FBI to investigate. 

We must take these people down. And keep working for democratic (small "d") values even after the election. These are very very very evil bad folks.

News Flash: Tribune Does Not Like a Republican

Yup, a recent Trib editorial came out against Tom DeLay.

In the clubby halls of Congress, getting spanked by the in-house ethics police is pretty rare. Last week, DeLay was walloped not once but twice, on top of a separate trip to the woodshed the week before. Unfortunately, the Texas Republican's conduct lends support to the most cynical view of how the nation's top lawmakers carry out their duties. And his angry reaction to being admonished by his peers shows that DeLay is too arrogant to mend his ways.

You go, guys.

It would be nice to see the same spanking for Dubya. An endorsement for Kerry, perhaps? Nah, that would be too good to be true.

Slightly Less Cautiously Optimistic Today

A few weeks ago, I told my dad that I was cautiously optimistic about Kerry's chances. I feel even less cautiously optimistic today. Perhaps it's been two solid debate performances from Kerry, along with a weak Dubya in Debate 1, and a mediocre Dubya in Debate 2.

Perhaps it's that Dubya has nothing substantive to offer about himself, his achievements, or his goals -- he merely repeats and repeats and repeats the John Kerry = bogeyman meme until your brains start to rattle around in your head.

Perhaps it's that certain media outlets (see ABC, the Washington Post) are finally "getting" that Bush lies, distorts, misleads, misrepresents, dissembles, falsifies, invents, makes shit up....

Perhaps it's that Bush seems strangely off (or read it here) and possibly wired for sound, and the major media are not ignoring the story.

Perhaps it's the everyone who's anyone is shrill when it comes to Bush's policies on science, terrorism, Iraq, the economy, health care, jobs, and the environment.

I am still cautious because these guys are evil and scary. Sinclair Media is trying to throw the election to Bush by airing a 90-minute Swift Boat Veterans commercial rehashing already discredited lies about Kerry. Bush's support is weakening, but not enough to be comfortable.

And Karl Rove will stop at nothing to win.