John Bolton's difficulties

First off, as a military veteran, I'm absolutely infuriated by the news of Bolton being insubordinate. He blew off both his boss Colin Powell and his later boss Condoleezza Rice.

Two officials described a memo that had been prepared for Powell at the end of October 2003, before a critical international meeting on Iran, informing him that the United States was losing support for efforts to have the U.N. Security Council investigate Iran's nuclear program.

Bolton allegedly argued it would be premature to throw in the towel. "When Armitage's staff asked for information about what other countries were thinking, Bolton said that information couldn't be collected," according to one official with firsthand knowledge of the exchange.
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Bolton's time at the State Department under Rice has been brief. But authoritative officials said Bolton let her go on her first European trip without knowing about growing opposition there to Bolton's campaign to oust the head of the U.N. nuclear agency.

Bolton has been trying to replace Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who is perceived by some within the Bush administration as too soft on Iran.

"[Rice] went off without knowing the details of what everybody else was saying about how they were not going to join the campaign," a senior official said.

As I said, for me, this is called insubordination and it's quite enough to tell me that this guy has no business being anywhere in the government. Further problems from The Japan Times:

During this internationally televised event, Bush expressed his commitment to a diplomatic solution to the North Korea nuclear crisis, citing in particular the need for consensus among the other five participants in order to bring Pyongyang to the table. But he could not resist throwing in a gratuitous personal attack against North Korea's leader, calling him "a dangerous person . . . who starves his people" and "a tyrant."

All told, he mentioned the reclusive North Korean leader by name 12 times. While this falls far short of Bolton's record -- he once castigated the "Dear Leader" by name more than 40 times in a speech that many South Koreans still cite as a principle cause for the breakdown in the dialogue process -- it was sufficient for North Korea to call Bush a "hooligan bereft of any personality . . . and a Philistine whom we can never deal with."

Bush no doubt believes all the nasty things he says about Kim Jong Il (and they have the added benefit of being true). But to repeatedly say them publicly does not help the diplomatic process, especially at a time when his chief negotiator, newly appointed Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, was visiting China, Japan and the Republic of Korea to build the consensus that the president himself acknowledged was critical for his diplomatic approach to succeed.

The primary concern here is not what North Korea thinks. At the end of the day, it has more to gain from cooperating than from not cooperating and will likely allow itself to be bribed back to the negotiating table. The real concern is the impact that Bush's statements are having on other six-party participants: China, Japan, Russia and, most importantly, South Korea.

As the president has repeatedly stressed, the other members need to stick together and speak with one voice in pressuring Pyongyang to come back to the table. For this to happen, they have to believe that Washington is seriously committed to achieving a negotiated solution.

I have spent the last week traveling through five South Korean cities, speaking to college students and professors, security specialists, and nongovernmental organization representatives. I have met few people who believe that the Bush administration is serious when it says it is prepared to cut a deal with the current leadership in Pyongyang. I was not surprised.

The Bush Adminisration is taking the tack of saying something to the effect of: "You need a tough guy like Bolton to accomplish anything." But clearly, Bolton has not bothered to inform Bush that diplomacy requires some sort of tact, some degree of discretion, it's NOT just a matter of being honest and straightforward and saying whatever comes to mind. Obviously, Bolton can't brief Bush properly on these subjects if he himself is convinced that tact and discretion are not needed.
To illustrate further, please keep in mind that the following passage from NRO comes from a conservative, Republican-friendly website:

Bolton's crime was pointing out the obvious. Two weeks ago in a speech entitled "A Dictatorship at the Crossroads," he offended Supreme Leader Kim Jong Il by stating that the dictator "has not had to endure the consequences of his failed policies. While he lives like royalty in Pyongyang, he keeps hundreds of thousands of his people locked in prison camps with millions more mired in abject poverty, scrounging the ground for food. For many in North Korea, life is a hellish nightmare. As reported by the State Department Report on Human Rights, we believe that some 400,000 persons died in prison since 1972 and that starvation and executions were common. Entire families, including children, were imprisoned when only one member of the family was accused of a crime."

The writer reports that North Koreans were quite upset by these remarks, calling Bolton:

"human scum," "devoid of reason," "an ugly fellow who cannot be regarded as a human being," and a "bloodthirsty fiendish bloodsucker"

The fact that Bolton's observations were all entirely accurate is beside the point. How anyone can represent Bolton as a diplomat and a problem-solver is beyond me. The writer reports that negotiations did not completely collapse because North Korea saw the talks as too valuable to toss away merely because the diplomat in charge was an idiot. That hardly justifies such self-indulgent, degrading, immature name-calling. What have been the consequences of such juvenile antics? Japan Times again:

At a recent Pacific Forum conference on U.S.-ROK relations, I asked how many, in a group of about 40 American, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese regional specialists, believed that the Bush administration was actually pursuing regime change and would not negotiate with Kim under any circumstances. More than 90 percent raised their hands, despite the fact it is the stated position of the Bush administration, as reiterated by Bush, Rice and even Bolton, that it does not seek regime change in North Korea.

There is no possible way on Earth that talks with North Korea can succeed if 90% of the participants think the US has a hidden agenda to conquer North Korea and is simply being dishonest when it says otherwise. For this next passage, keep in mind that Bolton was the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security for four years previous to this.

NEW YORK/UNITED NATIONS - A United Nations review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is ending in failure today, according to a Japanese delegate who said there is no agreement on new steps toward disarmament or measures to block nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.
``We lost an opportunity to send out important messages on issues such as North Korea, Iran and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty,'' Japanese envoy Mine Yoshiki told reporters at the UN. ``Some countries put the emphasis on nonproliferation, some on disarmament, and we could not get any agreement.''

None of the three committees created to deal with the issues of disarmament, proliferation, peaceful uses of nuclear energy and terms of withdrawal from the treaty presented a substantive report.
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The U.S. called for amendments to the treaty to block the development of nuclear weapons by Iran and North Korea, or a determination to refer those issues to the UN Security Council. Delegations led by Egypt and Iran demanded assurances of the nuclear powers that they wouldn't attack non-nuclear nations, and that they would ratify the proposed test ban treaty.

Neither side compromised and the delegates didn't adopt an agenda until May 11 or refer key issues to committees until May 19, leaving too little time for agreements.
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Diplomats put much of the blame on the U.S., saying the Republican Bush administration wasn't willing to reaffirm disarmament commitments made at previous conferences...

Bolton isn't mentioned in this article by name, but it's clear that Bolton deserves a hefty portion of the blame.for the project being a complete failure.
For anyone to vote for this guy to have any position even remotely connected with diplomacy would demonstrate that the person has no interest in the US achieving anything in that field.

UPDATE 1Jun05: Salon.com (Free Day-Pass or subscription required) confirms that Bolton had everything to do with the failed nuclear treaty talks.

Friedman sees the light

Shut it down. Just shut it down.

I am talking about the war-on-terrorism P.O.W. camp at Guantánamo Bay. Just shut it down and then plow it under. It has become worse than an embarrassment. I am convinced that more Americans are dying and will die if we keep the Gitmo prison open than if we shut it down. So, please, Mr. President, just shut it down.
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Why care? It's not because I am queasy about the war on terrorism. It is because I want to win the war on terrorism. And it is now obvious from reports in my own paper and others that the abuse at Guantánamo and within the whole U.S. military prison system dealing with terrorism is out of control. Tell me, how is it that over 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody so far? Heart attacks? This is not just deeply immoral, it is strategically dangerous.
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"This is not about being for or against the war," said Michael Posner, the executive director of Human Rights First, which is closely following this issue. "It is about doing it right. If we are going to transform the Middle East, we have to be law-abiding and uphold the values we want them to embrace - otherwise it is not going to work."

Well Tommy my boy, congrat-u-fricking-lations. You've finally acknowledged what was screamingly obvious to us anti-war liberals/progreessives/leftists from the very beginning. It's not that many of us opposed the War on Terror, most of us agreed that al Qaeda had to be punished for 9-11 and that taking down the Taliban government of Afghanistan seemed like an appropriate response (It's become obvious since then that the whole 9-11 story is a lot more complicated than “Bad guys attacked the US.”). But when Bush started talking about starting a war with Iraq, we noticed that he hadn't exactly done a bang-up job of restoring peace to Afghanistan. In fact, Afghanistan was in pretty lousy shape with very little reconstruction going on. By the time the Iraq War began, it was obvious that many of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay were probably not guilty of anything and should have been held as POWs under Geneva Conventions rules or released. Instead, the Bush Administration made up a whole new category of prisoners (“Enemy Combatants”) that had no defined rights under any recognized international agreement. Since the Iraq War began, it's become more and more obvious that Iraq has become an absolute hellhole for both Iraqis and the American troops sent to occupy the place. As Riverbend comments:

We've been watching the protests about the Newsweek article with interest. I'm not surprised at the turnout at these protests- the thousands of Muslims angry at the desecration of the Quran. What did surprise me was the collective shock that seems to have struck the Islamic world like a slap in the face. How is this shocking? It's terrible and disturbing in the extreme- but how is it shocking? After what happened in Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons how is this astonishing? American jailers in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown little respect for human life and dignity- why should they be expected to respect a holy book?

Juan Cole has some good links about the topic.

Now Newsweek have retracted the story- obviously under pressure from the White House. Is it true? Probably. We've seen enough blatant disregard and disrespect for Islam in Iraq the last two years to make this story sound very plausible. On a daily basis, mosques are raided, clerics are dragged away with bags over their heads Several months ago the world witnessed the execution of an unarmed Iraqi prisoner inside a mosque. Is this latest so very surprising?

Detainees coming back after weeks or months in prison talk of being forced to eat pork, not being allowed to pray, being exposed to dogs, having Islam insulted and generally being treated like animals trapped in a small cage. At the end of the day, it's not about words or holy books or pork or dogs or any of that. It's about what these things symbolize on a personal level. It is infuriating to see objects that we hold sacred degraded and debased by foreigners who felt the need to travel thousands of kilometers to do this. That's not to say that all troops disrespect Islam- some of them seem to genuinely want to understand our beliefs. It does seem like the people in charge have decided to make degradation and humiliation a policy.

By doing such things, this war is taken to another level- it is no longer a war against terror or terrorists- it is, quite simply, a war against Islam and even secular Muslims are being forced to take sides.

Friedman is absolutely correct and as Riverbend points out, the damage goes far beyond some manageable PR problems. It goes to the very heart of the War on Terror. Abusing prisoners does the US a great more harm than good. At no time has this been an acceptable policy. At no time has it been justified. I just wish he had noticed this three-plus years ago as opposed to waiting until now.

How concerned are conservatives?

DailyKos maintains that

We know that recruitment is at crisis levels. We know that deaths and injuries are depleting our ranks. We know that at least 5,000 soldiers have deserted.

And the bad news keeps on coming.

Last year, Army lieutenants and captains left the service at an annual rate of 8.7% -- the highest since 2001. Pentagon officials say they expect the attrition rate to improve slightly this year. Yet interviews with several dozen military officers revealed an undercurrent of discontent within the Army's young officer corps that the Pentagon's statistics do not yet capture.

Young captains in the Army are looking ahead to repeated combat tours, years away from their families and a global war that their commanders tell them could last for decades. Like other college grads in their mid-20s, they are making decisions about what to do with their lives.

And many officers, who until recently had planned to pursue careers in the military, are deciding that it's a future they can't sign up for.

There's a word for what's happening to our military: "hollow army". We experienced it after Vietnam, and Bush is busy recreating that experience.

But despite the personnel crisis faced by our armed forces, the War Preachers, War Politicians, War Pundits, and the 101st Fighting Keyboardists still refuse to call for sacrifice. They refuse to urge their followers and readers to enlist in their cause. They, themselves, refuse to serve. They'd rather others suffer the consequences of their neocon fantasies.

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We no longer have a volunteer army capable of meeting the requirements of their military adventures. Yet they refuse a call to arms.

How do pro-war conservatives respond to the shortfall the Army is experiencing? Well, we have a start by the Commander-in-Chief, who spoke to young people graduating college:

"As your generation takes its place in the world, all of you must make this decision: Will you be a spectator or a citizen?" Bush asked about 900 seniors graduating from this liberal arts college.

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In his commencement speech, Bush mentioned advancing freedom around the world and voiced his support for faith-based, or religious, groups getting involved in social service.

"To make a difference in this world, you must be involved by serving a higher calling here and abroad," Bush said. "You will make your lives richer and build a more hopeful future for our world.”

Bush's actual call for young people to devote themselves to community service is not reproduced, but it's clear that he was not asking people to sign up for military service. The piece is mainly concerned about the protesters who marred the ceremony and only minimally about what Bush said. The site I reproduced a section from below, Newsmax, doesn't seem terribly concerned about the Army's manpower shortage either. Here are their top stories of the day for 23May05:

Media Want More Photos of Dead GIs
Evangelicals Targeting Ivy League
Pirro Moves to Challenge Hillary Clinton
Mass. Justice: I 'Cherish' Judicial Activism
Charge Your Credit Card for Israel
Steve Roberts: DeLay Deserves Jail
Tillmans: Army Disgraced Memory of Pat
Sex Offenders Get Medicaid Viagra
Tim Russert Rips Howard Dean Apart
Clinton Criticized for Charging Charity
Poll: Byrd Vulnerable in 2006
Frist Said to Have 'Nuclear Option' Votes
Ethics Committee to Probe Harry Reid
DA Pressured to Quit Over DeLay Remark
Al-Jazeera Nixes Saddam Pics
Schwarzenegger on Fund Drive

And just for the fun of it, here are what their individual writers had to say

Limbaugh: Old Media Liberal Bias
LeBoutillier: Major Political Issues
Farber: Civilized vs. Uncivilized
Metcalf: Don't Expand Patriot Act
Weyrich: Bush Apologizes for Yalta
de Borchgrave: On a Terrorist List
Horowitz: The End of Time
Williams: Muslim Women Enslaved
Putnam: Supporting Tom Tancredo
Estrich: Frist, DeLay Move GOP
Navrozov: Thoughts on Hitler

Not much about the manpower shortage there. Let's see what Free Republic has to say:

Latest News on the Filibuster Showdown
Latest on Newsweek's Treasonous Koran Scandal
Latest News on Hillary Scandals
Latest News on Tom DeLay
Latest News on Bolton Confirmation

Well, how about their News / Activism, Front Page News section?

High court turns aside Mexican's appeal of death sentence in dispute involving foreigners' rights
Anti-Hijab Party Wins Elections, Schroeder Calls Snap Polls (Germany May Be Waking)
Chavez considers breaking US ties (There's One Born Every Day)
Nelson Mandela’s son-in-law wanted for rape in Connecticut (judge let him leave the country)
CRYING FOR STANDARDS - Kosovo
Rather Praises Mapes, CBS News: "Kingdom of Journalistic Knights"
U.N. Forces Using Tougher Tactics to Secure Peace
Sticky wicket in Koran story
Court Dismisses Death Row Rights Appeal
India's BJP sees ISI hand in theatre blasts-'Blasts are a conspiracy': Sikh group
The price of Asian conflict

What are TownHall's most emailed articles of the day?

John Stossel: The H2O challenge
Ann Coulter: Newsweek dissembled, Muslims dismembered!
Michelle Malkin: It's not just Newsweek
Thomas Sowell: Big-time bigotry
Jeff Jacoby: Why Islam is disrespected
Dennis Prager: Newsweek and the rioters
Thomas Sowell: The Senate's 'Dirty Harry'
Thomas Sowell: Newsweak?
Mike S. Adams: The University of Nude Caucasians at Wilmington
Mike S. Adams: Silence that kills
Phyllis Schlafly: Bush buries the shame of Yalta
Jonah Goldberg: Invasion of the America Snatchers
Brent Bozell: No riots for Hollywood
Mona Charen: Caution: Muslims easily inflamed
Charles Krauthammer: Nuclear? No, Restoration
Walter E. Williams: Ripping off the system
Caroline B. Glick: Israel's immigration idiocy
Rebecca Hagelin: The power of parenting
Doug Giles: Developing the Disaster Master Mind
Marvin Olasky: Unanswered questions about Newsweek's false story

Seems their main concern is that Newsweek isn't toeing the line, that Newsweek is proving to be an insufficiently patriotic citizen and failing to do it's part to convince everybody that things are going swell in Iraq. In short, it's only the progressives/liberals/leftists who appear to be concerned about the manpower shortage that's now breaking the Army and that's leaving it a hollowed-out force. The problem here is that officers, both commissioned and non-commissioned, are not produced overnight. The Navy has requirements for making rank that can get a person advanced rapidly, but "Time in Rate" is also an important consideration. An officer or petty officer needs to spend time in the job, grasping the subtleties of leadership and the technical aspects of his or her job before they become good at it. If people drop out of the service and go off to pursue other careers because the Army is looking like a lousy place to raise a family from, where casualties return to the USA in the dead of the night, without the traditional recognitions they deserve, where the wealthy don't sign up to join their less-fortunate brothers and sisters, where the war just appears to be grinding down people with no end in sight, it's not terribly surprising that the Army will start showing signs of severe strain over the next decade or two as a thinned-out officer corps takes command after the next several years.
For those of us who advocate for a stronger military, part of the problem is the actual physical shape of the Army, the hollowed-out force that we're now defending our country with. The other part is that if the Army feels that it's being carelessly used with no consideration for it's people (See complaints about lack of armor for Humvees) then morale will go down and effectiveness will go down with it.

President not informed of possible attack for 36 minutes after “All Clear” sounded

When a Navy ship goes into an alert, the proper words to be passed from either the bridge or Damage Control Central are: “General Quarters, General Quarters, All hands man your General Quarters Stations!!!” That means the ship is facing a situation dire enough that everybody on board needs to be on the alert and at their pre-arranged places. It also means that several crew-members have to change into special outfits for fighting fires and that all kinds of equipment has to be made available and ready for use. Ammo lockers should be opened up, flak jackets and helmets should be put on and the crew made generally ready for anything. If the ship suddenly loses power and the lights go out, the crewmembers don't wait for an alarm to be sounded, going to General Quarters is automatic.

Now, when the country is facing an unexpected problem that may or may not call for a military solution, what should the President do? Seems to me that going to General Quarters is the obvious answer. Where does that mean the President should go? A command post. On board Air Force One will do as that plane is specifically designed to act as a flying command post. Any Navy ship will do as each and every one has a bridge and the great majority have a separate DCC. If there's more than one ship available, the President would go to the largest one. Just about any military base will do nicely, as these normally have a headquarters that can serve as a command post.

There are two reasons for the President to get to a command post:

1. Safety. A ship or a plane can get underway or take off and can promptly be surrounded by escorts, i.e. other ships and planes. Military bases are normally placed in safe, defensible areas and the base command post is usually well inside the base, able to be surrounded by troops. Of course, there's a reason to want the President to be safe. Being safe is not an end in itself. The President is only one person and there are 250 million other people in the United States for us to worry about. Accordingly, we're concerned about:

2. Communications. The other primary reason is so that the President can communicate with the Armed Services. Not just one-way communications. Both directions are needed. The President must be informed in real time as to what's going on and he should respond in real time so that the proper orders can be issued. An example would be during the September 11^th attacks in 2001.

(8:46 a.m.)

Two F-15 fighters are ordered to scramble from Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts to find Flight 11, approximately 190 miles from the known location of the plane and 188 miles from New York City. [8:39, Channel 4 News, 9/13/01, 8:44, CNN, 9/17/01, 8:44, Washington Post, 9/15/01, 8:44, Los Angeles Times, 9/17/01, 8:46, NORAD, 9/18/01, 9/11 Commission Report, 6/17/04] Supposedly, NORAD makes the decision to scramble after only one phone call, as the decision is made to act first and get clearances later. Yet there is a nine minute gap between when the 9/11 Commission says NORAD is notified about the hijacking, and when the fighters are ordered scrambled (see (8:37 a.m.)). Stranger, the pilots received several unofficial warnings before the official one (see (8:40 a.m.)) and were possibly warned as early as twelve minutes before this (see8:34 a.m.). One of the pilots recalls sitting in the cockpit, ready and waiting for the scramble order to come. [BBC, 9/1/02] Yet it's supposedly another six minutes before they take off (see 8:52 a.m.)

(After 8:46 a.m.)

Bush will say in a speech later that evening: “Immediately following the first attack, I implemented our government's emergency response plans.” [White House, 9/11/01] But in fact, seeing the images on television, lower-level officials activate the Conplan—the Interagency Domestic Terrorism Concept of Operations Plan. The plan, created in response to an executive order by President Clinton, details the responsibility of seven federal agencies if a terrorist attack occurs. It gives the FBI the responsibility for activating the plan and alerting other agencies. [Wall Street Journal 3/22/04]

(After 9:03 a.m.)

Shortly after the second WTC crash, calls from fighter units start “pouring into NORAD and sector operations centers, asking, ‘What can we do to help?’ ” At Syracuse, New York, an [Air National Guard] commander [tells NEADS commander Robert] Marr, “Give me 10 min. and I can give you hot guns. Give me 30 min. and I'll have heat-seeker [missiles]. Give me an hour and I can give you slammers [Amraams].” Marr replies, “I want it all.” [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/02] Supposedly, Marr says, “Get to the phones. Call every Air National Guard unit in the land. Prepare to put jets in the air. The nation is under attack.” [Newhouse News, 1/25/02] Canadian Major General Eric Findley, based in Colorado and in charge of NORAD that day, supposedly has his staff immediately order as many fighters in the air as possible. [Ottawa Citizen, 9/11/02] Yet another account says those calls don't take place until about an hour later: “By 10:01 a.m., the command center began calling several bases across the country for help.” [Toledo Blade, 12/9/01] The 9/11 Commission later concludes that a command for other bases to prepare fighters to scramble isn't given until 9:49 (see 9:49 a.m.). In fact, it appears the first fighters from other bases to take off are those from Syracuse at 10:44. This is over an hour and a half after Syracuse's initial offer to help, and not long after a general ban on all flights, including military ones, is lifted (see (9:26 a.m.) and (10:31 a.m.)). These are apparently the first fighters scrambled from the ground aside from three at Langley, two at Otis, and two Toledo, Ohio fighters ordered scrambled at 10:01 that launch fifteen minutes later (see 10:01 a.m.). [Toledo Blade 12/9/01]

(9:03-9:06 a.m.)

Bush enters Sandra Kay Daniels' second-grade class for a photo-op to promote Bush's education policies. [Daily Mail, 9/8/02] Numerous reporters who travel with the president, as well as members of the local media, watch from the back of the room. [AP, 8/19/02 (D)] Altogether there about 150 people in the room, 16 of them the children in the class. He is introduced to the children and poses for a number of staged pictures. The teacher then leads the students through some reading exercises (video footage shows this lasts about three minutes). [Salon, 9/12/01 (B)] Bush later claims that while he is doing this lesson, he is thinking what he will say about the WTC crash. “I was concentrating on the program at this point, thinking about what I was going to say. Obviously, I felt it was an accident. I was concerned about it, but there were no alarm bells.” [Washington Times, 10/7/02] The children are just getting their books from under their seats to read a story together when Chief of Staff Andrew Card comes in to tell Bush of the second WTC crash (see (9:06 a.m.)). [Daily Mail, 9/8/02] [9:02, Washington Times, 10/8/02, 9:03, Telegraph, 12/16/01, 9:04, Daily Mail, 9/8/02, according to photographer Eric Draper, who is in the room] Note that Card comes in at the conclusion of the first half of the planned lesson, and “[seizes] a pause in the reading drill to walk up to Mr. Bush's seat.” [Washington Times, 10/7/02, Washington Times, 10/8/02] Why doesn't Bush take this opportune moment to leave the room?

Clearly, had the President responded in the way that he said he did, the scrambling of jets after the attack on the first World Trade Center tower could have been accomplished in a smooth and coordinated manner without all of the confusions and hold-ups that did, in fact, occur. That is not to say that it would have been accomplished in that manner, but the chances of a proper response would have been enormously increased.

9:29 a.m.

Still inside Booker Elementary School, Bush gives a brief speech in front of about 200 students, plus many teachers and reporters. [Daily Mail, 9/8/02] He says, “Today we've had a national tragedy. Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country” (see the text of the speech here [Federal News Service, 9/11/01]). The talk occurs at exactly the time and place stated in his publicly announced advance schedule—making Bush a possible terrorist target. [MSNBC 9/22/01; Washington Post 9/12/01; CNN 9/12/01; New York Times 9/12/01; Federal News Service 9/10/01]

(Between 9:45-9:55 a.m.)

At some point after the White House is evacuated (see (9:45 a.m.)), Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke institutes Continuity of Government plans. Important government personnel, especially those in line to succeed the President if he dies, are evacuated to alternate command centers. Additionally, Clarke gets a phone call from the PEOC command center containing Vice President Cheney and National Security Advisor Rice. An aide tells him, “Air Force One is getting ready to take off, with some press still on board. [Bush will] divert to an air base. Fighter escort is authorized. And … Tell the Pentagon they have authority from the President to shoot down hostile aircraft, repeat, they have authority to shoot down hostile aircraft.” However, acting Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers wants the rules of engagement clarified before the shoot down order is passed on, so Clarke orders guidelines given to pilots.

Had the President been doing his job and not stopping to listen to schoolchildren read and making speeches, perhaps the order to shoot down planes might have been given in time to get the plane that was headed for the Pentagon.

So having gone through all this and having supposedly learned lessons from it, what was the response on Wednesday, 11 May 2005?

NEW YORK On the day after more than 30,000 people -- including the vice president, the first lady, and a former first lady -- were evacuated from their offices or homes in Washington, D.C., but the president, who was biking in Maryland was not notified until the threat passed, reporters grilled Press Secretary Scott McClellan at his daily briefing.

**

Q: Scott, yesterday the White House was on red alert, was evacuated. The first lady and Nancy Reagan were taken to a secure location. The Vice President was evacuated from the grounds. The Capitol building was evacuated. The continuity of government plan was initiated. And yet the president wasn't told of yesterday's events until after he finished his bike ride, about 36 minutes after the all-clear had been sent. Is he satisfied with the fact that he wasn't notified about this?

McCLELLAN: Yes. I think you just brought up a very good point -- the protocols that were in place after Sept. 11 were followed. The president was never considered to be in danger because he was at an off-site location. The president has a tremendous amount of trust in his Secret Service detail. ...

Which is very nice to hear, it's very nice that the President was safe, but this completely misses the point that I brought up earlier, the fact that the President is responsible for the lives and well-being of 250 million fellow citizens. Our press corps demonstrates it's not completely out to lunch:

Q: The fact that the president wasn't in danger is one aspect of this. But he's also the commander in chief. There was a military operation underway. Other people were in contact with the White House. Shouldn't the commander in chief have been notified of what was going on?

McCLELLAN: John, the protocols that we put in place after Sept. 11 were being followed. They did not require presidential authority for this situation. I think you have to look at each situation and the circumstances surrounding the situation. And that's what officials here at the White House were doing. ...

Q: Even on a personal level, did nobody here at the White House think that calling the president to say, by the way, your wife has been evacuated from the White House, we just want to let you know everything is OK?

McCLELLAN: Actually, all the protocols were followed and people were -- officials that you point out were taken to secure locations or evacuated, in some cases. I think, again, you have to look at the circumstances surrounding the situation, and it depends on the situation and the circumstance. ...

Q: Nobody thought to say, by the way, this is going on, but it's all under control?

McCLELLAN: And I think it depends on each situation and the circumstances surrounding the situation when you're making those decisions.

With all due respect to Mr. McClellan and the rest of the Bush Administration, NO, this decision did NOT depend on “the circumstances”! The circumstances were UNKNOWN! No one knew exactly what the circumstances were! How was anybody have supposed to have made an intelligent decision on the circumstances when the person who was responsible for making that decision was out bicycling around, miles from the scene?

Q: I think there's a disconnect here because, I mean, yesterday you had more than 30,000 people who were evacuated, you had millions of people who were watching this on television, and there was a sense at some point -- it was a short window, a 15-minute window, but there was a sense of confusion among some on the streets. There was a sense of fear. And people are wondering was this not a moment for the president to exercise some leadership, some guidance during that period of time?

MR. McCLELLAN: The president did lead, and the president did that after September the 11th when we put the protocols in place to make sure that situations like this were addressed before it was too late. And that was the case -- that was the case in this situation. ...

I'm absolutely stunned at the assertion that the President showed leadership in this case, though fortunately McClellan does not go so far as to insult our intelligence by suggesting that Bush's actions on the day of 9/11 were anything to celebrate. “Protocols” are not really necessary. Protocols aren't really the point. The point is that America needs a President who understands what his job is and who does it, not a President who is simply oblivious to what's happening.

Simplicity vs Nuance

This is the concluding paragraph for a blog post:

This is the logic of the left, aided and abetted by large parts of the MSM, Academia, and the Democratic Party. While they will accuse the Republicans and Bush of doing exactly what I just described, their logic fails when it can not encompass 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq elections, 3/11, the Cedar revolution, and so much more.

Well, I guess if one takes a mindlessly simplistic, "You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror." sort of view then this might make some sense. As it is, it reveals the writer's complete ignorance of what the Left has been saying. Just the other day, I corresponded with a right-winger and referred him to an article by John Nichols of The Nation reprinted in Common Dreams (This website reprints articles as more-or-less straight text without any logging-in needed or any advertisements to distract readers, so it makes a very good source to refer people to.) and his answer made it very clear that he hadn't read the article. The second paragraph of the article reads:

Blair's Labour party is unlikely to be voted out of office in Thursday's voting, in part because the main opposition party – the Conservatives – also supported the war, and in part because a third of the Labour Party's members of parliament opposed Blair's efforts to sign Britain on for Bush's war.

So what does my correspondent say in response to my assertion that Bush lied to get America into the Iraq War?

I'm sure you realize that your's is a minority view.

Bush won reelection rather handily & in spite of all the lib press constantly telling us of how Blair is unpopular cause of his Bush support; now he is favored to also win reelection. Therefore your conclusion that the British believe Bush & Blair lied is just so much more lib unsubstantiated rhetoric.

So when I present an article that substantiates my rhetoric, that article goes unread and uncommented on and I and all liberals are accused of making charges without backing them up!

The idea that somehow lefties, liberals and progressives have somehow failed to explain how evil people carried out 9-11 AND to have explained how the Bush Administration has lied to the American people time and time again reveals a Manichean, black-and-white, with-us-or-against-us type of thinking. According to the Left, it's entirely possible for America to be attacked by evil terrorists AND for our president to be dissembling and fudging the facts and spinning and lying and covering up.

The World War II analogy that I came up with before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 for how the Iraqi people were likely to view an invasion was that of Ukraine 1941-1944. Stalin treated the citizens of the Ukraine horribly during the 1930s, with “collectivization” policies killing off millions of Ukrainians. When the Nazis invaded in 1941, many Ukrainians welcomed them and fought alongside them to help free their country. But Ukrainians soon realized that the Nazis were intent upon forcing the entire Slavic population into slavery and forcing them all to be cheap labor from them. Accordingly, by 1944 when the Soviet Red Army was sweeping across the steppes on their way to Berlin, many Ukrainians had by then concluded that the invaders were no better than “The devil you know...” so they went ahead and enlisted with the Red Army to drive out the foreigners. As we've seen, this analogy is quite relevant to the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. Americans are by no means as bad as the Nazis were and there don't seem to be any plans to enslave Iraqis, but Iraqis have made the nationalistic choice to support their own countrymen against the invaders. That doesn't mean Iraqis look back on Saddam Hussein as a great leader, but neither do they see Americans as honored liberators. The Iraqi resistance has been getting stronger and stronger with no American victory in sight.

The black-and-white, good-guys-vs-bad-guys view was simply not relevant to the Ukraine during World War II and, as we've seen during the last two-plus years, is not relevant to the Iraq War either. Viewing the situation requires, as John Kerry was accused of doing, the use of “nuance”.

As to the merits of the blog post that I originally referred to, Juan Cole writes a piece that explains:

President Bush and his supporters are taking credit for spreading freedom across the Middle East. But where changes are genuinely occurring they have nothing to do with the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Cole credits democratic changes with actually happening and says those are a good thing. But Cole describes these as phenomenon that are independent of, and have no relevance to the Iraq War. Of course, Cole is a “nuanced” commentator who today examines the possibilities of Iran getting a nuclear device. He concludes that it's quite likely that will happen while very clearly not suggesting that that would be a good thing.

I would suggest that it's simply not possible to take a back-and-white view AND to interpret reality correctly. Interpreting reality requires nuance. Repeating Republican talking points requires merely the ability to speak.

Fisking of the President

[Fisking is a term invented by right-wingers that means doing a close and detailed examination of someone else's speech, article, etc. For some reason, right-wingers use the term in a disparaging manner.]

We must address the root causes that are driving up gas prices.

In the past decade, America's energy consumption has been growing about 40 times faster than our energy production. That means we're relying more on energy produced abroad.

To reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy, we must take four key steps.

First, we must better use technology to become better conservers of energy.

And secondly, we must find innovative and environmentally sensitive ways to make the most of our existing energy resources, including oil, natural gas, coal and safe, clean nuclear power.

Third, we must develop promising new sources of energy, such as hydrogen, ethanol or bio-diesel.

Fourth, we must help growing energy consumers overseas, like China and India, apply new technologies to use energy more efficiently and reduce global demand of fossil fuels.

I applaud the House for passing a good energy bill. Now the Senate needs to act on this urgent priority.

American consumers have waited long enough. To help reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy, Congress needs to get an energy bill to my desk by this summer, so I can sign it into law.

Back in the early days of Bush's first term, I was amazed to, all of the sudden, start hearing talk about an energy crisis. I tend to pay pretty close attention to the news, so this was a surprise to me. Now, could it be that Bush and his people were more informed and aware than I was? Consider that Bush was Vice-President of Arbusto Energy, which nearly went bankrupt and had to merge with Spectrum 7, after which Spectrum 7 reported a net loss of $1.5 million. Bush than joined the board of Harken Energy, where he attracted the attention of investigators due to the loss of $23.2 million and his suspected involvement in insider trading. So yes, with Bush's career being heavily involved in energy exploration, it's entirely likely that Bush & Co. were more informed on the energy problem/crisis than I was. But if the problem has been growing “over the past decade” and he's only been president for five years, then that suggests he had five years to plan for an energy strategy upon coming into office. Yet at his press conference of 28 Apr 05, he complains that “American consumers have waited long enough.” and that an energy bill is needed on an expedited basis.

Bush's desire for a “good energy bill” that includes “innovative and environmentally sensitive ways to make the most of our existing energy resources” is not a bad thing in and of itself, but where has this idea been for the past five years? In 2001, Vice-President Cheney's energy task force rather famously stiff-armed the renewable energy lobby. In the 2005 House energy bill, “Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass, ...noted that the bill does nothing to improve the fuel economy of automobiles.” and with $8.1 billion in tax breaks “going to promote the coal, nuclear, oil and natural-gas industries.” this is hardly a conservation-aware administration. As Business Week puts it:

Sadly, the plan Bush proposed would do little to increase existing supplies of oil, gas, or electricity, or decrease domestic demand for energy -- the two steps that would really make a difference.

They also point out that giving assistance to the nuclear industry is a waste of money as long as the issue of nuclear waste remains unresolved. “But the waste issue is a political hot potato, so Bush steered clear of it.“

Here's a classic:

"There will be no price gouging at gas pumps in America," Bush said.

He spoke on the same day the world's largest publicly traded oil company, Exxon Mobil Corp., announced that its profit for the first three months of the year had risen 44 percent to $7.86 billion from the corresponding quarter a year ago.

Sorry, but the new attention Bush is paying to energy policy priorities like renewable energy, public transportation, etc., is mostly just PR boilerplate. I'm prepared to give him credit for being serious when I see actual policy result from all of his wonderful words and hazily-defined good intentions.

Social Security

Franklin Delano Roosevelt testified in 1941 that the Social Security program initiated in 1935 was designed in a very deliberate and conscious way:

Those taxes were never a problem of economics. They are politics all the way through. We put those payroll taxes there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program.

The Wall St. Journal editorial complains that FDR decided to make participation in Social Security universal (Wrongly suggesting that rich people stay in the program because they're stupid and don't know any better.) so that wealthier people wouldn't abandon Social Security. The editorial quotes Wilbur Cohen, who argued in 1972 that:

I am convinced that, in the United States, a program that deals only with the poor will end up being a poor program. . . . Ever since the Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601, programs only for the poor have been lousy, no good, poor programs. And a program that is only for the poor--one that has nothing in it for the middle income and the upper income--is, in the long run, a program the American public won't support.

Contrast that with Bush's proposal:

We also have a responsibility to improve Social Security by directing extra help to those most in need and by making it a better deal for younger workers.

In other words, Bush would toss the whole Social Security program overboard by first turning it into a “program that deals only with the poor”. This would reduce the stake of all other Americans in the program and revive the old charges of welfare abuse that were such a staple of American politics before Clinton's welfare reform. To argue that either FDR in 1941 or Bush in 2005 are being cynical about human nature is 1. Entirely correct and 2. Beside the point. FDR was doing something good, creating a program that Americans have shown strong support for over the 70 years that it's been in existence. Bush is trying to destroy that program so that only the rich will retire in comfort. For everybody else to finish out their days living in a one-room apartment heated only by a single candle and eating cat food is obviously a scenario that Bush and Co. are perfectly comfortable with.

I'm also puzzled by this section:

First, millions of Americans depend on Social Security checks as a primary source of retirement income, so we must keep this promise to future retirees as well. As a matter of fairness, I propose that future generations receive benefits equal to or greater than the benefits today's seniors get.

Secondly, I believe a reformed system should protect those who depend on Social Security the most. So I propose a Social Security system in the future where benefits for low-income workers will grow faster than benefits for people who are better off.

By providing more generous benefits for low-income retirees, we'll make this commitment: If you work hard and pay into Social Security your entire life, you will not retire into poverty.

This reform would solve most of the funding challenges facing Social Security.

But both provisions would increase the cost of Social Security. By retaining benefits for older Americans and by having a system where “benefits for low-income workers will grow faster than benefits for people who are better off“, Bush appears to be suggesting something for everybody. But a problem with Bush's proposals that the media usually ignores is that the cost of establishing privatized accounts would hugely outweigh any potential benefits. Bush's plan is guaranteeing that Social Security would be more expensive, not less. Once the aware citizen includes the costs as well as the benefits of privatization, it becomes clear that no, Bush's “reform” does not solve any of the funding challenges.

Iraq

I just can't come up with the motivation to read anything Bush has to say on the issue after this:

But, nevertheless, there are still some in Iraq who aren't happy with democracy. They want to go back to the old days of tyranny and darkness and torture chambers and mass graves.

This sort of straw-man arguing has been a staple of Bush's political arguments for his entire presidency and probably well before that. This argument treats Iraqis as stupid, moronic dolts who can't tie their own shoes without assistance from “Dear Leader” Bush. It's a cowardly way to argue because he completely dodges the very real problems Iraqis have with the American occupation of their country. As the vile atrocities comitted in the Abu Ghrab prison showed, Americans did not leave the “torture chambers” of the old days behind at all.

Nothing else he says on the issue can possibly be of any significance.

Interesting view on Vietnam War

David Horowitz has an interesting view on the American Left and domestic opposition to the Vietnam War:

In the Vietnam War the United States was supporting a dictatorship in South Vietnam on the grounds that the dictatorship was anti-Communist. “New Leftists” who believed by and large that Communism was a flawed attempt to create societies governed by the principles of equality and justice had an argument (whether one considers it plausible or not) for opposing the United States defense of the South Vietnamese regime. Perhaps (so they reasoned) a victory for the guerrilla forces of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam would mean the emergence of a society that honored the principles of equality and justice. This was an incentive to see that America was defeated. And this indeed is the delusional vision that motivated people like Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda other anti-war activists.

First off, Edward Herman wrote in Demonstration Elections about the US-staged elections in Vietnam:

Staged elections are not new. They are “demonstration elections” and have been around for a long period of time. From Vietnam in the 1960s to the recent Afghanistan elections. “The purpose of these elections - crafted by the US - was to persuade US citizens and especially Congress that we were invading these countries and supporting a savage war against government opponents at the invitation of a legitimate, freely elected government. The main purpose of a demonstration election is to legitimize an invasion and occupation, not to choose a new government”, wrote Edward Herman and Frank Brodhead.

For the Americans, “what happens before or after the elections concerns them not one iota. What matters is that the elections become a good PR exercise for the Bush administration”, Wamid Nadhim of Baghdad University told Al-Ahram Weekly. Furthermore, these elections are also seen as an excuse for Tony Blair and other “coalition of the willing” leaders to justify their support for Washington’s illegal war of aggression and occupation.

So yes, Horowitz' statement is literally correct, the US was supporting a dictatorship in Vietnam, but as Edward Herman and Frank Brodhead point out, the US leadership expended a good deal of time and effort to convince the American people that they were supporting a democracy there.

The idea that leftists among the American opposition to the war were trying to defend Vietnam's independence because Vietnam was trying to defend “the principles of equality and justice” is an interesting notion. Personally, I was only 15 when Saigon fell, but I've read a great deal about the Vietnam War since then and I'm still under the impression that I developed at a young age when I concluded that Americans were simply not wanted in Vietnam. The American soldiers were not welcome there, even though American soldiers, as individual persons, demonstrated all of the fine qualities that US myth and legend have talked about for the past two-plus centuries.

I also read the Port Huron Statement a few years back, the philosophical basis for the leftism of the 60s and I don't remember much there about anyone defending Vietnam because it was such a marvelous society. I remember the radicals of the 60s being very concerned about American society and how it could be improved.

Seems to me that the Left wanted the US out of Vietnam as 1. American troops were not wanted there and 2. Because America was expending a huge amount of blood and treasure there for no discernible purpose. As Steve Gilliard points out, there are also many other purely military problems with Vietnam then that are hurting us in Iraq now.

Social Justice Sunday

"We religious progressives value the diversity of thought and opinion among people of faith. We agree that no individual, group or side of any issue owns our faith. As people of faith, we find hope and compassion in witnessing the questions and answers of others and honoring their struggles.

In the words of Abraham Lincoln: My concern is not whether God is on our side. My great concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right."

--Clergy and Laity Network

WHAT: Social Justice Sunday - Faith and Freedom Vigil

WHEN: 2:30 pm, April 24, 2005

WHERE: Central Presbyterian Church
318 W. Kentucky St. Louisville, Kentucky

CONTACT: Clergy and Laity Network and DriveDemocracy

Progressive Religious Communities, our leaders and our community friends are gathering to witness:

OUR OUTRAGE over the attempt by the Family Research Council and its radical Christian Right colleagues to highjack the judicial selection process for their politiclal/theocratic agenda

OUR DISMAY Senate Majority Leader, Senator Bill Frist, is lending his name and influence to the Family Research Council's claim of universal support from "people of faith" for its strategy, thereby giving false religious credentials to a thinly veiled political agenda

OUR POSITIVE COMMITMENT to defend and strengthen our social context in its commitment to fairness for all people, free of biased religious doctrines and prejudiced attitudes which are inimical to a mature religious understanding of the standards of inclusiveness and justice in American life

The Social Justice Sunday invitation is available at the Building the Beloved Community. Please distribute the invitation to all progressives. You can download the invitation as a word document here.

Senator Frist's Cynical Use of Religion and Politics

Senator Bill Frist has joined with this organization and they are attacking the faith of Democrats and progressives in a cynical, partisan effort to win support for a handful of extremist judicial nominees. The Council is on record saying that Democrats are "against people of faith."

For more information on the disheartening comments that Senator Frist supports, read the article at the New York Times.

Click here to download Clergy and Laity Network and Drive Democracy's press release.

Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs, Rabbi of Kol Tikvah Synagogue in Woodland Hills, California and Dr. Nazir Khaja, Chairman of the Islamic Information Service, have authored a joint statement in response to Senator Frist's actions. The statement is posted on the Building the Beloved Community website.

Peace not Poverty Declaration

Thank you to all 13,287 participants of the Peace not Poverty write-in. The successful Peace not Poverty Declaration was completed on April 2. It was read for the first time in Riverside Church, New York, on April 4 by the final consensus leader, Kelley Ogden, of Houston, Texas. Visit Building a Beloved Community to read the completed declaration. And while you're there don't forget to register and join the Beloved Community.

Contribute and Learn More

To contribute and learn more about this emerging progressive interfaith movement, visit Building a Beloved Community, Peacenotpoverty.org or DriveDemocracy.org.

Co-sponsors include the National Council of Churches, United for Peace and Justice, Clergy and Laity Concerned about Iraq (CALC-I), Fellowship of Reconciliation, Unitarian Universalist Association, The Shalom Center, Faith Voices for the Common Good, Drive Democracy, Disciples Justice Action Network, Pax Christi USA, Progressive Christians Uniting, Baptist Peace Fellowship, Christians for Justice Action, Rainbow-PUSH Coalition, World Sikh Council - America Region, Faithful America, True Majority, Tikkun Community, Bruderhof Communities, Protestants for the Common Good, WHALE Center, Call to Action, Church of the Brethren Witness / Washington Office, The Witness Magazine, Global Justice and Peace Ministry - Riverside Church, Episcopal Divinity School, Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education, Lutheran Human Relations Association, People for Peace and Justice, Gold Star Families for Peace, Peace and Security Project of Iowa, Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, Mercury Public Media, House of Imagene Shelters, Jewish Voice for Peace, African American Women's Clergy Association, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Disciples Peace Fellowship, Episcopal Peace Fellowship, Episcopal Peace Fellowship of East Carolina, Plowshares Institute, The Witherspoon Society, United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries, Independent Anglo-Catholic Church of America, OneLife Institute for Spirituality & Social Transformation, Jewish Peace Fellowship, American Ethical Union, Dare to Dream Network, Interfaith Alliance, The Mountain Retreat & Learning Centers, South Texas Alliance for Peace and Justice, Word and World, Sojourners, Starr King School for the Ministry, Topia.net, Peacecentral.org, South Texas Interfaith Coalition, Erie Benedictines for Peace, Lexington Diocesan Council for Peace and Justice (Catholic Diocese of Lexington, KY), Peace and Justice Committee of the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, CA, and a growing number of religious and social justice bodies. The Riverside Church is graciously serving as the April 4 host church. Clergy and Laity Network (CLN), also a co-sponsor, serves as coordinator. A regularly updated word document is also available that contains the growing list of co-sponsors. For links to the co-sponsoring organizations visit Building a Beloved Community.

Having conversations with polemicists

How does a right-winger go about having a conversation with that extremist fellow of the left, Michael Moore?

Maloney began his film career by "staking out" Michael Moore "for four days," hoping to confront him and "provok[e] a flustered reaction," which he would then post on his weblog Brain-terminal.com. Moore didn't flinch; instead he told Maloney that documentary filmmaking "should be open to all people of all political persuasions." "It should not just be people who are liberal, or left-of-center, or whatever," the Oscar-winner said. "Make your movies, and then the people will respond or not respond to them."

Sounds to me like Michael's a pretty reasonable kind of guy, one who believes in free speech, the legitimacy of political opposition, etc. Eric Alterman takes some grief from the author of the execrable Time Magazine piece for being mean to Ann Coulter:

I think a pertinent thing about Alterman is that he has said publicly that he will not engage Ann Coulter in debate. He won't go on television with her. So his solution to Ann Coulter is to act as though she doesn't exist ... I don't agree with that approach to people that we don't necessarily like. I think you engage those people in open debate, you get those people to talk about their ideas, and then you weigh those ideas.

Sounds like an eminently reasonable position. But I wonder how to debate someone like Coulter:

COULTER (Slander; page 205): Except for occasional exotic safaris to Wal-Mart or forays into enemy territory at a Christian Coalition dinner, liberals do not know any conservatives. It makes it easier to demonize them that way. It’s well and good for Andrew Sullivan to talk about a “truce.” But conservatives aren’t the ones who need to be jolted into the discovery that the “bogeyman” of their imagination are “not quite as terrifying as they thought.” Conservatives already know that people they disagree with politically can be “charming.” Also savagely cruel bigots who hate ordinary Americans and lie for sport. (emphasis added by DailyHowler.com)

Is this really someone that one can possibly hope to have a reasonable discussion with?

COULTER (Treason; page 1): Liberals have a preternatural gift for striking a position on the side of treason. You could be talking about Scrabble and they would instantly leap to the anti-American position. Everyone says liberals love American, too. No they don't. Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence.

Keep in mind that liberals, according to how one defines the term, compose somewhere between 50 and 120 million Americans! I agree with Alterman, publicly debating Ann Coulter sounds to me like a complete waste of time. When someone begins her argument by claiming you're a traitor who sides with "the enemy", there's simply nothing more to say.

The DailyHowler piece goes on to describe how Ann's hysterically rude and coarse comments are all meant in jest, Sorry, but I agree with the Daily Howler folks I saw the clip where Ann is interviewed by Katie Couric on the Today Show and Coulter is completely drop-dead serious. There's absolutely no question that she means every single word. Eric Alterman specifies

Coulter has twice either wished for, or joked about the mass murder of American journalists. She has called for, or joked about, the assassination of a sitting American president. She has called for, or joked about, the mass murder of entire populations of Moslem nations. She has referred to the president of the United States and his wife as “pond scum,” among many other things. She has called Christie Todd Whitman a "birdbrain" and a "dimwit"; Jim Jeffords a "half-wit"; and Gloria Steinem a "deeply ridiculous figure" who "had to sleep" with a rich liberal to fund Ms. magazine--all of which makes her "a termagant."

Coulter humourous? Huh? On what planet?

UPDATE: Michael Berube reproduces Coulter's view on the Oklahoma City bombing of 10 years back.

My letter to Time Magazine

Every now and then, someone in the mainstream media scribbles out an article about how terribly unprofessional and unreliable the blogs are. As a lot of blogs are one-person shops that close down and reopen for personal reasons (A case in point is that immediately after the 2004 election, many liberal political bloggers ran recipes and cooking tips because they were burned out on politics. Within a week or so they were back to their old selves.) and as their fact-checking/correcting depends entirely on how conscientious the blogger is, a lot of this criticism is valid.

But when mainstream media criticizes the blogs and then prints up complete junk like the 6,000-word-with-pin-up-cover of a whack-job like Ann Coulter, they completely forgo any claim to be putting out any kind of superior product.

This is a woman who refers to “liberals” as traitors. Now, being a traitor is defined in the US Constitution as a specific crime. According to one's definition of “liberal”, whether someone self-identifies as a liberal or whether one (or one's parents) voted for John Kerry, liberals make up between 50 to 120 MILLION people!!! A conservative referred to Coulter as engaging in “parody”. Having read some of her writing, I assure you she is not engaged in anything of the sort. She writes with the complete conviction that what she says is true.

The article makes it sound as though Coulter's work on the Paula Jones case was something to be proud of. As I remember it, Ms Jones managed to prove that she and Governor Bill Clinton attended the same convention and, well, that was about it. Everything else that was reported about their encounter was 100% dependent on us taking Ms Jones' word for it. The judge in her case told her that even if everything she asserted were true, she still would not have an actionable case of harassment to lodge against Clinton.

April and May of 2004 were exceedingly bloody months for American troops in Iraq. For Coulter to assert in that June that the war was going “fabulously well” strikes me as the statement of a deranged lunatic, yet the Time article makes no comment upon the sanity of this statement.

The assertion that Coulter's long bibliography contains only one misstatement of fact is simply a lie. One can't possibly be so ignorant of her writing as to think that her work is generally or even mostly accurate, There's also a reason I didn't repeat your term “mistake”. Coulter's misstatements are not “errors”. She knows full well that what she's saying isn't true. When her fellow polemicist Rush Limbaugh makes misstatements, it's far too kind to refer to them as errors as he doesn't even have a fact-checker on his staff. When he makes misstatements, they're the result of a deliberate and conscious policy. Both Ann and Rush engage in what can be legally referred to “reckless disregard” of the facts of the case. They just couldn't possibly care less about whether what they're saying is accurate.

And...wow...Coulter “...can write about gender issues with particular sensitivity.”?? Her statement on feminism begins: “The real reason I loathe and detest feminists is...” And refers to a “girl general”??? If THESE count as sensitivity...hoo boy!!

This letter is only tangentially about Ann Coulter, which is why I didn't. write it to her, but to you. Mostly, it's about Time Magazine's incredibly sloppy and careless editorial process. If the comment about Coulter's accuracy was not a deliberate and outright lie, then I have very serious concerns about the asleep-at-the-wheel editors and fact-checkers who work there. Media people have been heard to complain about how no one respects them, readership is declining, people don't believe them, etc., etc.

I assure you, this type of article is not going to help matters.