Cindy Sheehan (it’s the last two graphs, if you want to ignore the rest of her prattle):
Good-bye America …you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it.
It’s up to you now.
Loving your country only when it agrees with you isn’t patriotism, it’s moral vanity.
Also, I liked this bit:
Our brave young men and women in Iraq have been abandoned there indefinitely by their cowardly leaders who move them around like pawns on a chessboard of destruction…
Leaving aside the “abandoned” bit, I think “pawns on a chessboard of destruction” is a good description of the military in our civilian-run system. She says it like it’s a bad thing.
…and the people of Iraq have been doomed to death and fates worse than death by people worried more about elections than people.
So now she’ll be voting for hawks? And among the people who seek a dishonorable defeat instead of continuing the fight (e.g. Cindy Sheehan), doesn’t their argument hinge on the notion that there is very, very little (if anything) worse than death? She wanted her son to desert the army rather than risk his life in Iraq.
Apollo posted this at 12:32 AM HKT on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 as Buffoon Watch, Dirty Hippies
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In 1948, Harry Truman famously ran against the “Do-Nothing” 80th Congress. We could argue that in ending wage and price controls, passing the National Security Act of 1947, and restructuring the American economy with the Taft-Hartley Act, the 80th was one of the most productive congresses in American History (it was also far less counterproductive than some New Deal and Great Society congresses). But Truman’s charge stuck, even though—thanks to Whittaker Chambers—the American public learned that the Roosevelt and Truman administrations had known about Communists in government and done nothing.
Fast-forward to today. So far, according to Robert Novak, here’s what Congress has passed:
DO-NOTHING CONGRESS
After five months of Democratic control, Congress has enacted no major legislation and finished no regular appropriations bill. It has successfully renamed six federal buildings and one national park, extended the lives of two government commissions and reduced the membership of the Red Cross board of governors from 50 to 10.
In addition, Congress kept the government going with temporary spending legislation, redesignated five Eastern European countries (Albania, Macedonia, Croatia, Georgia and Ukraine) for security aid, strengthened penalties against animal fighting and authorized construction of 541 feet of road in St. Louis County, Mo. An emergency bill financing the war in Iraq and Afghanistan was vetoed by President Bush before a bill acceptable to him was passed before the Memorial Day recess.
Congress faces a heavy agenda to fit into a schedule interrupted by several recesses before the end of the year.
It’s still too early to tag the 110th Congress with that label, but if you can label the 80th “do-nothing,” you can label anything that.
Nitpicking footnote to Novak’s column: he also talks about Pelosi fighting with her colleagues about “free-trade treaties.” He means free trade agreements. A treaty requires two-thirds Senate approval and requires nothing from the House. A trade agreement, however, requires a simple majority from both houses of Congress. Since house members have literally nothing to do with treaties, the fight must have been over trade agreements.
Hubbard posted this at 7:54 AM HKT on Sunday, May 27th, 2007 as The Democratic Congress, The Past Is Never Dead--It Isn't Even Past
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I should have given up on Fox News long ago, and I finally have, thanks to their atrocious coverage of the immigration debate this last couple weeks. I’ve posted more on the matter here.
conor friedersdorf posted this at 5:40 AM HKT on Sunday, May 27th, 2007 as Uncategorized
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When I lived in Paris and traveled around Europe I came away thinking that most American tourists travel the wrong way. They go for a week to a city like Paris, possessed with a list of things that they want to see not because they are of particular interest to them personally, but because they are things tourist books and popular culture dub “must see” sites. They spend too much time and effort trying to pack all these things into a short visit, and so never enjoy quintessentially French experiences like sitting for a couple hours in a sidewalk cafe sipping wine or espresso and people watching, or dining for a couple hours at a bistro where the service is deliberately slow.
Apollo and Dorothy are fortunate enough to be able to spend a month in France, and here I’d like to begin laying out tips for them and any other readers who make Paris a destination in the future.
My first piece of advice: do a bit of research and carefully pick out the art museums you’d like to see. The average Paris visitor goes to the Louvre because it’s the museum they’ve heard about, and because they want to see the Mona Lisa, both terrible reasons. As it happens, the Louvre is always overcrowded, its size is so big as to be overwhelming, and its most famous painting, the Mona Lisa, is stuck behind three feet of glass and tourists five deep.
Ugh!
If you must go to the Louvre, decide on a particular type of art you’d like to see there, enter underground by taking the metro to the appropriate stop, and go directly to the section that interests you. If you love Flemish tryptics, that’s a great reason to go to the Louvre.
But if you like modern art like me, visit the Musee d’Orsay instead. It has the best circa 1880 to WWI collection in the world. Otherwise better to stick to the many wonderful small Paris museums, where you can see the whole arc of an artist’s career while avoiding Louvre like crowds. The Rodin, Picasso and Monet museums are all impressive, enjoyable places to visit, and not nearly so overwhelming. You can see any of them in an hour or so. (I’m particularly partial to the Rodin Museum, where the outdoor gardens are lovely, and two excellent Van Goghs are tucked away in an upstairs room; it’s the perfect place to pack a picnic.)
Others prefer different types of art — Renaissance or contemporary, say — and Paris probably has a museum dedicated to whatever it is that you like most. If you’re like me, you can only take so much time inside a museum. Best to spend it seeing what you like, rather than what you happen to have heard of.
conor friedersdorf posted this at 5:38 AM HKT on Sunday, May 27th, 2007 as Uncategorized
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In a comment on one of Jamie’s posts, I noted my ideas about the Brit and Celt wings of each political party:
Conservatism, that many splintered thing, certainly has its share of non-thinkers. So, for that matter, does liberalism. Jonah Goldberg once had a useful metaphor, Brits and Celts. You want to have some allies amongst the Celtic barbarians who are useful for fighting battles, but you want a Brit to be on the actual throne. Once you start thinking like that—of the Brit and Celt wings of either party—things take on a different tinge.
Rick Santorum, Jesse Helms, Tom Coburn, Trent Lott, John McCain, and George W. Bush are all Republican Celts. Dick Cheney, Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Mike Pence are all Republican Brits. On the other side of the aisle, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Charles Rangel, and Ted Kennedy are Celts; Rahm Emmanuel, Steny Hoyer, Joe Lieberman, and Evan Bayh are Brits.
To the above list of Celts, let’s add John McCain. He sent out a press release blasting the Democrats who voted against a bill funding the troops. Barack Obama, one of those opposed to the funding, responded:
This country is united in our support for our troops, but we also owe them a plan to relieve them of the burden of policing someone else’s civil war. Governor Romney and Senator McCain clearly believe the course we are on in Iraq is working, but I do not.
And if there ever was a reflection of that it’s the fact that Senator McCain required a flack jacket, ten armored Humvees, two Apache attack helicopters, and 100 soldiers with rifles by his side to stroll through a market in Baghdad just a few weeks ago.
McCain then gave a stinging but problematic response:
While Senator Obama’s two years in the U.S. Senate certainly entitle him to vote against funding our troops, my service and experience combined with conversations with military leaders on the ground in Iraq lead me to believe that we must give this new strategy a chance to succeed because the consequences of failure would be catastrophic to our nation’s security.
By the way, Senator Obama, it’s a ‘flak’ jacket, not a ‘flack’ jacket.
The problem with McCain’s rhetoric is that it’s argumentum ad chickenhawkum: unless you’re a veteran, you cannot critique American foreign policy. This would have ruled out people like Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. For that matter, his military experience didn’t make Ulysses S. Grant a good president. I remain unconvinced that McCain will be a good president, but think he’d make a fine vice presidential attack dog.
Hubbard posted this at 2:21 PM HKT on Saturday, May 26th, 2007 as Audacity of Hype, Politics
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In a perhaps apocryphal story, German negotiators at Versailles after World War I were shown a list of demands from Georges Clemenceau. They were horrified, and argued that no civilized nation would impose such demands on another. Then Clemenceau replied, “We just lifted these demands from the treaty that Germany imposed on Russia at Brest-Litovsk.” The resulting Treaty of Versailles was tough, but far gentler than one the Germans would probably have imposed had they defeated France and Britain.
Recent news about torture reminded me of this historical anecdote. Conor once argued that:
Of course, reasonable people can disagree about what constitutes torture — I regard waterboarding as a rather obvious example of torture that should be prohibited, and loud music, standing for four hours straight and sleep deprivation as falling short of torture.
My problem with Conor’s position was that even as ugly as waterboarding is, it’s a far more humane interrogation method than many that humans, in our limitless cruelty, have developed. Now we have an idea what we Versailles treaty-supporters face from the intellectual heirs of the architects of Brest-Litovsk.
The Smoking Gun has published an Al-Qaeda torture manual used in Iraq (H/T). The imagery is graphic, and there are pictures of torture survivors. Hands get drilled through, limbs are sawed off, eyes are gouged out. If we use the word “torture” to describe both waterboarding and physical mutilation, I think we’re making one word cover too much ground (rather like the R-rating in movies that covered the relatively mild Little Miss Sunshine; the mostly-silly South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut; and gore-fests like Kill Bill Volume 1). If waterboarding is torture, then what do we call much more terrible acts of sadism?
To answer the obvious retorts: I agree that greater crimes do not excuse lesser ones. Evil men doing terrible things do not give good men license to do other terrible things. But can we at least admit that the American military has tried hard to balance decency with preventing terrorist attacks? And can we further admit that Islamofascists, who neither make nor deserve such fine distinctions, are lucky to be fighting America rather than, say, China or Russia?
Hubbard posted this at 1:55 PM HKT on Saturday, May 26th, 2007 as Global War on Terror, Philosophy
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I love the smell of Virtue in the morning.
Tom posted this at 10:45 PM HKT on Friday, May 25th, 2007 as Uncategorized
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Jamie has a nice post below on how Star Wars changed him. I thought that, to mark this anniversary, I’d put down a few thoughts about how Star Wars changed the movies. But first, we have to understand those movies. Allow me a few paragraphs to explain.
George Lucas had an incredible story planned, and his purpose became much clearer when Episodes 1-3 were released. The prequels themselves could have been made much better; I’ll try to cut the fat and focus on the meat. Upon looking at a properly done synopsis, these movies sound mythical, like Camelot or Beowulf.
Anakin Skywalker, like MacBeth, meant well. He saw the troubles of the galaxy and wanted to fix things, but became frustrated with endless bureaucratic tedium. His tragic flaw was impatience. He was sliding towards the dark side for most of the second movie. He lost his arm to Darth Tyrannus in part because he rushed to attack an enemy who was too formidable. He couldn’t wait for justice in the beginning of Episode 3, and murdered a then defenseless Darth Tyrannus. He couldn’t wait for the Jedi to bring Chancellor Palpatine to justice, so he intervened. Once he murdered Mace Windu, he could no longer turn back; he was forced to continue his bloody path and thus became Darth Vader.
His impatience ironically saved him in Episode 4; angry at the time it was taking to kill rebels, he left to fight them in his own ship, and thereby was off the Death Star when his son destroyed it.
In Episode 5, thanks to Episode 3, we now see the real meaning of his confrontation with Luke. After he’s mauled his son—both paid for their impatience with the loss of a limb—Vader makes Luke an offer that he made to Luke’s mother: join with me, we’ll murder the emperor, end the wars, and rule the galaxy in peace. We know how Anakin would have responded to such an offer; what makes Luke different is that he chose death rather than Vader’s bloody path.
Yet he survived the fall from Cloud City (which could also hint that he’s fallen from unrealistic ideas and is now grounded in reality). In his last duel with Vader, Luke cut off his father’s hand, and saw that it was artificial, like his own. Vader was now as vulnerable as Tyrannus had been. What made Luke heroic was mercy. As the emperor tried to torture Luke to death with blue lightning—the sins of the father afflicting the next generation—Vader redeems himself. He turns away from evil (too late for the murdered sand people, Jedi, and Alderaanians, among many others) and stops the emperor.
The story is archetypal and brilliant, but it was lost under the welter of special effects. In episodes 4-6, these effects helped tell the story. But in too many Hollywood films since then, the story has been shortchanged for the special effects. Indeed, even episodes 1-3 spent too much time on flashy effects and not enough on clarifying the story or developing the characters.
The irony of Star Wars is that, though it really was a success because of the big ideas behind it, people thought it was successful because of special effects. Now, when movies want to be the next Star Wars, they are bloated with explosions and chases and starved of ideas and archetypal depth.
Hubbard posted this at 2:03 PM HKT on Friday, May 25th, 2007 as Belles Lettres, Nerdom
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May 25th, 1977 is one of the most important dates in my lifetime. Sure it occurred 3 years before I was even born and it would not be until maybe 1986 that I first saw the thing that would dictate the course my life would take in later years. Yet May 25th, 1977 is still a date I will remember for the rest of my life.
Why?
Simply because it was the date that everything changed.
That’s right, 30 years ago today, the greatest, most spectacular, most fun movie of all time was released: Star Wars. It was such a simple story of good vs evil. Of one simple boy’s quest into a larger world. And yes, it may have been ripped off from another spectacular movie, but even the brilliance of Kurosawa couldn’t hope to match it for sheer spectacle and thrills. A timeless story that never gets old. And enduring characters that we will love for ever.
More than anything else it was my love for this movie that pushed me to choose the path I did in life. It’s why I chose to study film in college. It’s why I slogged through years as an unpaid Hollywood intern working 2 jobs. It’s why I subjected myself to the indignity of being someones personal assistant, getting them coffee, driving them around town, answering their calls, picking up their laundry, dropping off their laundry, being woken up at 3am by calls from London or Bombay, and having to hide my personal politics for fear of reprisal.
I did all that so that one day I could possibly, maybe, if I was extremely lucky, get to make a movie like Star Wars. Something that would capture the imagination of a generation. Something that would not only entertain people but truly become part of the lives of thousands, if not millions.
Thank you, Mr. Lucas, for your inspiring vision. For showing me that imagination can become reality. For kindling in me the desire to see my own dreams on screen.
I’m not there yet, but maybe, one day, if I’m extremely lucky…
Jamie posted this at 12:00 PM HKT on Friday, May 25th, 2007 as Nerdom, Ourselves
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Personnel is policy. Much, if not most, of Bush’s problems are self-inflicted. Today, Kim Strassel has an interesting tidbit about Deputy AG Comey:
The Ashcroft-in-his-hospital-bed story is in fact prehistoric news, leaked all the way back in 2005. Mr. Comey’s added value was to pad it with a few breathless details about siren-filled races through D.C. and orders to FBI agents that he not be allowed to be removed from Mr. Ashcroft’s hospital room. Tom Clancy couldn’t have spun a better yarn, and the Washington press corps (much to Mr. Schumer’s satisfaction) slurped it up, dutifully writing stories suggesting Mr. Gonzales was some White House heavy, whose job it was to rough up hospital invalids and forcibly institute legally suspect programs. Alberto the Knife.
Mr. Schumer had cooked up this dramatic event with Mr. Comey a week in advance, though that should come as little surprise. It was the senator who signed off on Mr. Comey’s 2002 appointment as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, where the two men would have forged a relationship. Mr. Comey is himself one of those self-styled Boy Scouts who hasn’t in the past been averse to inflicting damage on the president who appointed him. It was Mr. Comey, as deputy attorney general, who named his buddy Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate the Valerie Plame leak. Mr. Comey then checked out and the result was the Scooter Libby conviction.
Picking Alberto Gonzales for AG was a major mistake, which made the minor mistake of making Comey Deputy AG more serious. Baltasar de Gracian once advised his readers not to compound one blunder with another blunder; it appears that the Bush White House hasn’t learned this.
In a different matter, but with the same theme, the usually pro-open borders John Podhoretz warns the White House against the immigration bill:
Bush needs a unified Republican Party going into the fall, which may be the most difficult moment of his presidency. The most likely scenario is that Gen. David Petraeus will report modest to substantial improvements in the war in Iraq, but not definitively enough to fend off Democratic efforts to use his report as a key occasion to end the war.
The president must have his own party in his corner at that time. And yet the party is on the verge of self-immolation over immigration. Passage of the bill would drain most of the remaining affection and respect for Bush from Republicans on Capitol Hill, who would have to deal with the populist fallout from the bill’s passage.
He needs all the help he will get. And he will lose a lot of help.
What’s astonishing about the bill’s arrival is that the White House knows perfectly well it’s political poison. In 2004 Bush first announced his immigration reform plans, and the response from the Republican base was so violent that he immediately tabled the subject.
Last year an immigration bill surfaced and all hell broke loose again. It was the dominant subject on talk radio for two months, and helped contribute to the lassitude that overcame the GOP base in the months before the election.
So here is Bush, entering a critical period on the most critical issue of his presidency and for the nation – and he is playing salesman for a piece of legislation that divides his own supporters.
That’s bad politics.
It’s insane politics.
Hubbard posted this at 9:24 AM HKT on Friday, May 25th, 2007 as George Bush Sucks!
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No skirts. Much as I like kilts, I’m sticking to pants.
Hubbard posted this at 3:23 PM HKT on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 as Excruciatingly Correct Behavior
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For right of center politicians, a certain predictable pattern emerges. When in office, he’s insane (Goldwater), a scoundrel (Nixon), or a fool (Reagan). Once out of office, however, he’s an elder statesman, and Republicans would be—according to the press—much better off if only they would be like the now retired man.
It appears that John Ashcroft has joined the club. Let’s recall what was said about him when he was Attorney General, shall we?
Indeed, “McCarthy” and “Hoover” (as in J. Edgar) were heard frequently in reference to Ashcroft. The least that critics call him is “extremist.” It’s also widely alleged that Ashcroft is “scary” — “the scariest man in government,” wrote the Washington Post’s Richard Cohen. Al Hunt, in the Wall Street Journal, said, “Sept. 11 has enabled John Ashcroft to be John Ashcroft. That’s a scary spectacle.”
It was Anthony Lewis of the New York Times who best summed up the deepest liberal opinion about Ashcroft. The columnist was retiring after 50 years with the Times, and the paper did a farewell interview with him, at the end of last year. What had he learned? First, said Lewis, “certainty is the enemy of decency and humanity in people who are sure they are right, like Osama bin Laden and John Ashcroft.” It has come to that: There are circles in which easy comparisons can be made between bin Laden and Ashcroft, with no raised eyebrows.
John Ashcroft will never be a liberal darling, that’s for sure. He is liked — even loved — by his own, but he doesn’t go out of his way to make himself respectable to elite opinion. He has not “grown” in office — which is to say (sarcastically) that he hasn’t moderated his positions. As a conservative Christian, he is easy to mock as an anti-dancing Elmer Gantry. Liberals go after Ashcroft in the same way they went after Kenneth Starr. Back in Lewinsky times, James Carville sneered, “[Starr] goes down by the Potomac and listens to hymns, as the cleansing water of the Potomac goes by . . .” Ashcroft’s even worse: He sings hymns in public (about which, more later).
The attorney general has managed to enter the culture. Consider just a couple of offbeat items: The New York Times Magazine ran a spread on an eclectic gallery in L.A. It included a photo of an African coffin on which Ashcroft’s face has been painted. The gallery owner explained to me that Ashcroft was to be the death of affirmative action, Roe vs. Wade, and so on. Item No. 2? At a major Washington, D.C., synagogue, Ashcroft figured in a “Purim spiel”: He was equated with Haman, a figure of extreme danger — of mass murder — to Jews. Traditionally, Hitler, say, would be equated with Haman.
Now let’s take a look at his press today:
Last week, Schumer saluted Ashcroft’s “fidelity to the rule of law.” The liberal Web site Wonkette praised Ashcroft’s “heroic stand.” The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan, who has become a Jeremiah about the dangers of the Christian right that Ashcroft has long personified, dubbed him “an American hero.” Ashcroft’s rehabilitation was sealed by a Washington Post story about how the former AG was often the only firebreak against the Bush White House. Even Ralph Neas, the hyperpartisan president of People for the American Way, managed to mumble to the Washington Post that Gonzales had managed to make Ashcroft look like a “defender of the Constitution.”
Given that the unreliability of the windbags of the press, conservative politicians would best be advised to ignore them. Or, they should remember what Jay Nordlinger said about Ashcroft:
Ashcroft may have graduated from Yale College and the University of Chicago Law School — but he has his feet in an American earth that his fellow elites find alien, comical, or frightening.
Stay true to your roots, and the journalists will eventually follow.
Hubbard posted this at 12:23 PM HKT on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 as Journalism, The Past Is Never Dead--It Isn't Even Past
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The 94th congress notoriously cut off funding to Vietnam despite President Ford’s pleading; this lead to the fall of South Vietnam and the genocide of Cambodia. Sirik Matak understood this when he the American ambassador offered him the chance to leave:
I thank you very sincerely for your letter and for your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion. As for you, and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection, and we can do nothing about it. You leave, and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under this sky. But, mark it well, that if I shall die here on this spot and in my country that I love, it is no matter, because we all are born and must die. I have only committed the mistake of believing you.
Today, The NY Sun, has an interesting editorial with an important cameo with another blast from the past, Henry Kissinger:
When the 94th United States Congress finally pulled the plug on American support, how many of our GIs were still fighting in Vietnam? The question was posed to us the other evening by Secretary of State Kissinger, full of sagacity and wisdom 30 years after the events in question. We guessed somewhere on the order of 100,000, down from the more than half a million American military personnel who had been in Vietnam at the height of the fighting. But Mr. Kissinger had us.
It turns out that when the Congress pulled the plug on Vietnam, the number of our U.S. troops in Vietnam was zero. When, in the 1974 elections, the Democrats widened their majority in the Congress and then, in the spring of 1975, finally defied President Ford and ended support for the free Vietnamese government in the South, the number of GIs was something on the order of two or three dozen, mostly embassy guards.
This is something to think about as the Democrats maneuver against a war-time president over funding for our GIs and our ally in a free Iraq. It turns out that when one looks at the time-line of the betrayal of South Vietnam, one of the lessons is that, in the end, it was not about our GIs and the loss of American lives, great though that treasure was. Our GIs had long since been drawn down, as President Nixon fulfilled his campaign promise of Vietnamization of the war.
By the time the Congress forsook free Vietnam, there was no prospect of more American combat deaths at places like Hamburger Hill and the Ashau Valley. On October 26, two weeks before the 1972 election, Mr. Kissinger, then national security adviser, appeared at a press conference and gave his famous “peace is at hand” remark. Nor was it without reason. After our bombings of North Vietnam in December 1972, a cease-fire among all the parties to the war was signed shortly thereafter, in January of 1973. The last of our combat soldiers left in March of 1973.
So while the previous congress, the 94th, merely abandoned allies, the current congress, the 110th, voted to abandon the troops. Pelosi and Reid backed down only in the face of a veto threat. Our allies should be profoundly uneasy.
Hubbard posted this at 9:41 AM HKT on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 as Running with the antelope
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Apropos Hubbard’s excellent post: This monstrously large bill is decidedly not conservative; no grand attempt at overnight reform is. Had it been proposed by a Democrat president, there’s no doubt in my mind that it gets filibustered in the senate. Zero chance of passing.
How could those of us who don’t want amnesty have avoided this? There’s yet to be a presidential or congressional campaign that even slightly hinged on this issue. In 2000, it wasn’t really on the radar; ‘02 and ‘04 were dominated by other issues (though to be fair, border security should have been part of this president’s strategy; that he has always flatly refused to enforce border laws is a startling and damning indictment). Last year could have been, except a) the Republicans were in no position to make it an issue, and b) Republicans, with a special assist from the Mark Foley-obsessed media, saw to it that the election was about a bunch of largely meaningless scandals rather than any actual issue.
So here we are, with a bill opposed by a vast majority on an issue that has never squarely been put to a popular vote. And in particular it’s a bill overwhelmingly opposed by the Republican base, the main political result of which will be millions of additional safe Democrat votes, that only has a chance because the (anti-amnesty) Republican base turned out in ‘04 to keep a Republican in the White House. This is beyond frustrating for democrats like myself.
Apollo posted this at 8:44 AM HKT on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 as Politics, The Melting Pot Boils Over
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Amnesty International thinks it’s a hoot to ask “who’s got the worst human rights record”: Darth Vader, Hobgoblin, or Dick Cheney? Here’s what it says about the three.
- Vader: “Torture, enslavement of Wookiees, decimation of the Alderaanian civilization.”
- Hobgoblin: “Attacks on Spiderman, gassing civilian populations, using innocents as human shields.”
- Cheney: “Torture, black sites, “disappearances,” kangaroo courts, indefinite detention, and more!”
Since they don’t list any human rights violations on the part of Vader, and Cheney doesn’t have the authority to do anything attributed to him, the obvious answer is Hobgoblin. Suprisingly, at least when I clicked, most of Amnesty’s voters agreed, with Hobgoblin getting 60% and Cheney only 10%.
Apollo posted this at 10:55 PM HKT on Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007 as Dirty Hippies
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