Flexible Reality
Saturday, October 09, 2004
Factcheck.org report on Debate II
Note: Both participants played loose with several facts in the debate. See what VP Cheney's noted website reports on the veracity of several arguments used in the debate.Not Quite Ready for Prime-Time?
Going to the US Department of Homeland Security website today, and entering the word: "Schools" into their search database results in..."Error 500. Your query returned an error..."Red Sox Win Series 3-0 !!
...and will face either the Yankees or Minnesota for the right to represent the AL in the World Series. It's been almost twenty years since the Sox have won a playoff series at home.Can we get the straight story on these computer disks containing photos and layouts of schools in the United States?
From: Talkingpointsmemo.com BlogAccording to reports that ran yesterday, (Oct. 7th) the disks came from an "Iraqi insurgent captured in Baghdad last summer, (2003), [who] had allegedly downloaded floor plans of elementary and high schools in Florida, Oregon, Georgia, New Jersey, Michigan and California."
But this CNN report from late this morning says that Department of Homeland Security officials say "the material was associated with a person in Iraq, and it could not be established that this person had any ties to terrorism. He did have a connection to civic groups doing planning for schools in Iraq."
So the guy with the disks was involved in setting up schools in Iraq? Sounds a little less worrisome than finding them in Zarqawi's butler's knapsack, right? Did everyone get scammed again on this one?
And what's with the school plans being mainly from swing states?
[ed.note: Special note of thanks to sharp-eyed TPM reader AK]
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Note: Well yes and no, again. One of the sites was in San Diego, California which is certainly not a swing state, but is a heavily Republican city.
According to an article in the San Diego Union-Tribune: "There is no threat here," said a San Diego police lieutenant who spoke on condition of confidentiality because of the sensitive nature of such investigations. "When you've put out information month after month after month, the public thinks we're crying wolf.
"The context here is, a public source document put out by the U.S. Department of Education was found on a computer. Period. My concern would be if a particular school district, or a particular school, or a particular institution was targeted, which it has not been."
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The Beslan tragedy has led to increased attention toward possible terrorist activities directed at schools. From Jakarta, where many schools with international students were ordered to close early last Friday based on warnings from Australian and American intelligence information, to administrators at the State University System of Pennsylvania who expressed concerns about their systems readiness to deal with terrorist activities at high-impact sites such as the Wharton School, or Carnegie Mellon University.
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From the Web, the Constitutional Rights Foundation has a comprehensive link page about "America Responds to Terrorism" with URL links for parents, educators, and researchers addressing terrorism concerns.
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Terrorism, n: The use of force or violence against persons or property in violation of criminal laws for purposes of intimidation, coercion, or ransom.
Friday, October 08, 2004
Re: Debate II: While Pres. Bush did a better job this time around, he still seems to resemble a snake-oil salesman, or the visiting revivalist who is delivering the last sermon before the tent comes down, and his people get on the bus to head out of town...taking the money with them.
The transcript of Debate II is here.
Conservatives say they are concerned about the size of government; but a quick look at the data reveals that only two Presidents of the past 25 years have trimmed the size of government, and both were Democrats.
More telling was the name of the President who presided over the largest decline in government employment in the past fifty years was...are you ready for this...are you really ready??...then I'll let you in on a solid fact: It was Pres. Clinton !!
On the contrary, during Pres. G.W. Bush's reign, federal government employment increased by over 800,000 people !!
The Number of Government Employees INCREASED by 843,000
between Jan. 2001 and Aug. 2004
for an average of 19,160 per month.
U.S. Added 96,000 Jobs in September, Fewer Than ExpectedBy TERENCE NEILAN
NY Times
Published: October 8, 2004
The United States economy added 96,000 jobs in September, the Labor Department reported today, a weaker total than expected and a development that Senator John Kerry will surely try to exploit when he debates President Bush on domestic policy tonight.
The figures showed that the employment rate held steady in September at 5.4 percent, with 8 million people unemployed, but the increase in jobs fell short of Wall Street's expectations of 148,000 payroll additions.
"This is a weak number, no matter how you cut it," said the chief economist at Morgan Stanley, Stephen S. Roach, adding that private sector jobs are up "an average of only 65,000" over the past three months. "That's a pathetic pace of job creation by corporate America."
He added: "If you look at jobs growth over the 34 months of this recovery, then private payroll growth is up about four-tenths of 1 percent over the entire span of this recovery. Normally, the gains are closer to 8 percent, so there is a profound disconnect between this jobless recovery and anything we have seen before in post-World War II history in a U.S. business cycle."
Mr. Kerry was quick to respond to the figures today, saying in a statement: "With 1.6 million private sector jobs lost during his term, President Bush will be the first president in 72 years to face the electorate with an economy that has lost jobs under his watch. Indeed, job creation is now 7 million jobs behind where the administration projected in February 2002 our economy would now be if we followed the president's economic plan."
The economy needs to create an average of about 150,000 jobs a month just to absorb a growing labor force and keep the jobless rate steady.
The four hurricanes that swept through the southeast in August and September probably held down employment growth, the Labor Department said, "but not enough to change materially the bureau's assessment of the employment situation."
Payroll employment has risen by 1.8 million since reaching a trough in August 2003, with about half of the gain, or 885,000, occurring in March, April and May, the department report said. Since May, payroll job gains have totaled 405,000.
Employment increases in September occurred in financial activities, professional and technical services, and temporary help services.
According to Labor Department figures, the net job loss in the private sector since January 2001 is 1.6 million, but the government added 843,000 government jobs between the end of January 2001 and last month.
Thursday, October 07, 2004
Essential Krugman: Ignorance Isn't Strength
Ignorance Isn't StrengthNY Times Op-Ed
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: October 8, 2004
I first used the word "Orwellian" to describe the Bush team in October 2000. Even then it was obvious that George W. Bush surrounds himself with people who insist that up is down, and ignorance is strength. But the full costs of his denial of reality are only now becoming clear.
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have an unparalleled ability to insulate themselves from inconvenient facts. They lead a party that controls all three branches of government, and face news media that in some cases are partisan supporters, and in other cases are reluctant to state plainly that officials aren't telling the truth. They also still enjoy the residue of the faith placed in them after 9/11.
This has allowed them to engage in what Orwell called "reality control." In the world according to the Bush administration, our leaders are infallible, and their policies always succeed. If the facts don't fit that assumption, they just deny the facts.
As a political strategy, reality control has worked very well. But as a strategy for governing, it has led to predictable disaster. When leaders live in an invented reality, they do a bad job of dealing with real reality.
In the last few days we've seen some impressive demonstrations of reality control at work. During the debate on Tuesday, Mr. Cheney insisted that "I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11." After the release of the Duelfer report, which shows that Saddam's weapons capabilities were deteriorating, not advancing, at the time of the invasion, Mr. Cheney declared that the report proved that "delay, defer, wait wasn't an option."
From a political point of view, such exercises in denial have been very successful. For example, the Bush administration has managed to convince many people that its tax cuts, which go primarily to the wealthiest few percent of the population, are populist measures benefiting middle-class families and small businesses. (Under the administration's definition, anyone with "business income" - a group that includes Dick Cheney and George Bush - is a struggling small-business owner.)
The administration has also managed to convince at least some people that its economic record, which includes the worst employment performance in 70 years, is a great success, and that the economy is "strong and getting stronger." (The data to be released today, which are expected to improve the numbers a bit, won't change the basic picture of a dismal four years.)
Officials have even managed to convince many people that they are moving forward on environmental policy. They boast of their "Clear Skies" plan even as the inspector general of the E.P.A. declares that the enforcement of existing air-quality rules has collapsed.
But the political ability of the Bush administration to deny reality - to live in an invented world in which everything is the way officials want it to be - has led to an ongoing disaster in Iraq and looming disaster elsewhere.
How did the occupation of Iraq go so wrong? (The security situation has deteriorated to the point where there are no safe places: a bomb was discovered on Tuesday in front of a popular restaurant inside the Green Zone.)
The insulation of officials from reality is central to the story. They wanted to believe Ahmad Chalabi's promises that we'd be welcomed with flowers; nobody could tell them different. They wanted to believe - months after everyone outside the administration realized that we were facing a large, dangerous insurgency and needed more troops - that the attackers were a handful of foreign terrorists and Baathist dead-enders; nobody could tell them different.
Why did the economy perform so badly? Long after it was obvious to everyone outside the administration that the tax-cut strategy wasn't an effective way of creating jobs, administration officials kept promising huge job gains, any day now. Nobody could tell them different.
Why has the pursuit of terrorists been so unsuccessful? It has been obvious for years that John Ashcroft isn't just scary; he's also scarily incompetent. But inside the administration, he's considered the man for the job - and nobody can say different.
The point is that in the real world, as opposed to the political world, ignorance isn't strength. A leader who has the political power to pretend that he's infallible, and uses that power to avoid ever admitting mistakes, eventually makes mistakes so large that they can't be covered up. And that's what's happening to Mr. Bush.
Cheney Says Report Finding No Illicit Arms in Iraq Justifies War
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 7, 2004
MIAMI (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney asserted on Thursday that a finding by the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq that Saddam Hussein's government produced no weapons of mass destruction after 1991 justifies rather than undermines President Bush's decision to go to war.
Note: What the f**k is Cheney trying to say??
First off...nah... there's no sense replying to this absurdity. Fortunately these wacked right-wing spinners are fast becoming shark bait! Good ! They deserve it.
Let's have Sen. Chuck Hagel, or at least a moderate Republican in 08 !! It's way past time for these neocon clowns to get off the stage. Newt can help them with their memoirs.
Is this Open Letter Real ??
From American Progress ReportOct. 7th, 2004
ECONOMY – PROFESSORS SEND OPEN LETTER:
One hundred sixty-nine tenured and emeriti business school professors from several of the nation's top universities have written an open letter documenting the drastic failure of President Bush's economic policies and asking for a "dramatic reorientation of fiscal policy, including substantial reversals" of tax policy. The letter, addressed to the president, begins, "Nearly every major economic indicator has deteriorated since you took office in January 2001… The data make clear that your policy of slashing taxes – primarily for those at the upper reaches of the income distribution – has not worked. The fiscal reversal that has taken place under your leadership is so extreme that it would have been unimaginable just a few years ago." Bush's second term economic proposals, the professors say, "only promise to exacerbate the crisis by further narrowing the federal revenue base."
Note: This letter is posted on a website that was started on Oct. 1st, 2004 and is registered to: Ellen Seidensticker, 43 Commonwealth Ave, Apt 3, Boston, MA, 02116, Phone: 1-617-728-2428. The only entry on the website is this particular "letter" no referrals, no documentation, etc. Unfortunately for the author, it looks and sounds like an "appeal to authority" logical construction.
There is an Ellen Seidensticker registered at this address, who is a Consultant at Harvard University. She is married to Lou Wells, a Georgia Tech Alumni with a speciality in Physics. While the letter may actually be approved by these 169 professors whose names are attached, it appears bogus.
Anyone have anything on this?
"Compassionate Conservatism"
George W. Bush was spending some time at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. One afternoon, he was riding in the back of his official limousine when he saw two men eating grass by the roadside. He ordered his driver to stop and he got out to investigate. "Why are you eating grass?" he asked one man."We don't have any money for food," the poor man replied.
"Oh, well, you can come with me to my ranch," instructed the president.
"But, sir, I have a wife and two children with me!"
"Bring them along!" replied the president. He turned to the other man and said "You come with us, too".
"But, sir, I have a wife and six children!" the second man answered.
"Bring them as well," answered Bush as he headed for his limo. They all climbed in, which was no easy task, even for a car as large as the limousine.
Once underway, one of the poor fellows said, "Sir, you are too kind. Thank you for taking all of us with you."
Bush replied, "Glad to do it. You'll love my place... the grass is almost a foot tall!"
From All Hat No Cattle Website
Sent in by Lisa Miller
The 'Pubs need to be concerned too !
DeLay Is Faulted by Ethics Panel for Second TimeBy SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
NY Times
Published: October 7, 2004
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 - Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, was admonished by the House ethics committee on Wednesday night for the second time in less than a week, this time for appearing to link legislative action to political donations and for sending federal officials to search for Texas legislators during a fracas over redistricting in that state.
In a long-awaited report that provoked an angry reaction from House Republicans, the committee dismissed the most serious charges of bribery and special favors. But the back-to-back admonishments marked an extraordinary turn of events in the House, and Mr. DeLay moved quickly to defend himself even as good-government groups were calling for him to resign as leader.
The rebukes on Wednesday came on the heels of another admonishment, issued last Thursday, to Mr. DeLay for pressuring a Michigan lawmaker to switch his vote on an important health care bill. In a seven-page letter to the majority leader - who was also admonished by the committee several years ago - the ethics panel, composed of five Republicans and five Democrats, issued Mr. DeLay a stern warning.
"In view of the number of instances to date in which the committee has found it necessary to comment on conduct in which you have engaged, it is clearly necessary for you to temper your future actions,'' the panel wrote.
The committee faulted Mr. DeLay for participating in, and helping facilitate, a two-day golf fund-raiser held by a Topeka-based energy company, Westar, to raise money for one of his political action committees. The event took place just as the House was considering energy legislation from which Westar stood to benefit; the panel said that at a minimum, it "created an appearance that donors were being provided special access to you regarding the then-pending energy legislation.''
In addition, the panel found that Mr. DeLay had wrongly exhorted officials of the Federal Aviation Administration to look for Texas state legislators when they fled to Oklahoma last year to avoid a contentious vote on redistricting. The panel said the action "raises serious concerns" under House rules that "preclude use of government resources for a political undertaking."
Last Thursday, the panel formally admonished Mr. DeLay for improperly trying to persuade a Michigan Republican, Representative Nick Smith, to change his vote on prescription drug legislation that passed the House by a narrow margin last year. The panel said it had determined that the majority leader offered to endorse Mr. Smith's son in a Congressional primary if the elder Mr. Smith voted in favor of the measure, which was then teetering on the edge of defeat. Mr. Smith did not change his vote, but the legislation passed. His son lost the primary.
New Online Electronic Voting Machine For Florida Voters
Here is the site where you can cast your vote in the Nov 2nd General Election by electronic means via Diebald.Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Note: Comments by VP Cheney during the debate, Oct 5th, in Cleveland, Ohio
Mr. Cheney
"Well, the reason they keep mentioning Halliburton is because they’re trying to throw up a smoke screen. They know the charges are false. They know that if you go, for example, to factcheck.com, an independent Web site sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, you can get the specific details with respect to Halliburton. It’s an effort that they’ve made repeatedly to try to confuse the voters and to raise questions, but there’s no substance to the charges
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Mr. Cheney needs to remember his URL's, as he wanted supporters of his side of the argument to visit factcheck.org, not factcheck.com...regardless...certainly Mr. Cheney was not referring to this accusation, rather it was most likely this one.
Several truths about Halliburton are crystal clear:
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The AP reported that a Pentagon audit found Halliburton "may have overcharged the Army" and that the auditors found "potential overcharges of up to $61 million for gasoline."
The difference between a potential overcharge and an actual overcharge is a big one, of course. It's the difference between a suspicion and a proven fact. The AP story and other news accounts were based on a preliminary audit by the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), and Halliburton disputed the findings and insisted that the high prices it charged for gasoline were made necessary by wartime requirements imposed by the Pentagon
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Halliburton paid $2 million in 2002 to settle charges that it inflated costs on a maintenance contract at now-closed Fort Ord in California. Vice President Dick Cheney's former company did not admit wrongdoing.
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Halliburton took in $3.6 billion last year from contracts to serve U.S. troops and rebuild the oil industry in Iraq. Halliburton executives say the company is getting about $1 billion a month for Iraq work this year.
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Federal authorities also are investigating whether Halliburton broke the law by using a subsidiary to do business in Iran, whether the company overcharged for work done for the Pentagon in the Balkans and whether it was involved in an alleged $180 million bribery scheme in Nigeria. The company admitted in 2003 that it improperly paid $2.4 million to a Nigerian tax official.
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In 1995, Halliburton paid a $1.2 million fine to the US government and $2.61 million in civil penalties for violating a US trade embargo by shipping oilfield equipment to Libya. Federal officials said some of the well servicing equipment sent to Libya by Halliburton between late 1987 and early 1990 could have been used in the development of nuclear weapons. President Reagan imposed the embargo against Libya in 1986 because of alleged links to international terrorism.
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According to a February 2001 report in the Wall Street Journal:
US laws have banned most American commerce with Iran. Halliburton Products & Services Ltd. works behind an unmarked door on the ninth floor of a new north Tehran tower block. A brochure declares that the company was registered in 1975 in the Cayman Islands, is based in the Persian Gulf sheikdom of Dubai and is "non-American." But, like the sign over the receptionist's head, the brochure bears the Dallas company's name and red emblem, and offers services from Halliburton units around the world.
An executive order signed by former President Bill Clinton in March 1995 prohibits "new investments (in Iran) by US persons, including commitment of funds or other assets". It also bars US companies from performing services "that would benefit the Iranian oil industry". Violation of the order can result in fines of as much as $500,000 for companies and up to 10 years in jail for individuals.
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In fact, U.S. law does ban virtually all commerce with the rogue nations, but there's a loophole that G.E., Conoco-Phillips and Halliburton have exploited: The law does not apply to any foreign or offshore subsidiary so long as it is run by non-Americans.
“These three companies, as far as we were concerned, appear to have violated the spirit of the law,” says Thompson. “In the case of Halliburton, as an example, they have an offshore subsidiary in the Cayman Islands. That subsidiary is doing business with Iran.”
That subsidiary, Halliburton Products and Services, Ltd., is wholly owned by the U.S.-based Halliburton and is registered in a building in the capital of the Cayman Islands – a building owned by the local Calidonian Bank. Halliburton and other companies set up in this Caribbean Island, because of tax and secrecy laws that are corporate friendly.
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The Nigerian parliament issued an interim report on its investigation of allegations that Halliburton's KBR subsidiary, along with three other companies, bribed government officials during the period when U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO. The parliament's report was released Sept. 1st, 2004.
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-A GAO finding in 1997 that the company billed the Army for questionable expenses for work in the Balkans, including charges of $85.98 per sheet of plywood that cost $14.06.
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-A year 2000 follow-up report on the Balkans work that found inflated costs, including charges for cleaning some offices up to four times a day.
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The Securities and Exchange Commission began in December a formal investigation into Halliburton's accounting practices, focusing on an accounting change made in 1998 during Cheney's tenure as CEO.
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Dr. Allawi tailors his speech to the audience
Which Version Will Americans Pay Attention To??
Iraq Chief Gives a Sobering View About SecurityBy EDWARD WONG
NY Times
Published: October 6, 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Wednesday, Oct. 6 - In his first speech before the interim National Assembly here, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi gave a sobering account on Tuesday of the threat posed by the insurgency, saying that the country's instability is a "source of worry for many people" and that the guerrillas represent "a challenge to our will."
In his speech, Dr. Allawi, who has cast himself as a tough leader since taking office in late June, insisted that elections would go ahead in January as planned, but he acknowledged that there were significant obstacles standing in the way of full security and reconstruction. The nascent police force is underequipped and lacks the respect needed from the public to quell the insurgency, he said, and American business executives have told him that they fear investing in Iraq because of the rampant violence here.
His tone was a sharp departure from the more optimistic assessment he gave to the American public on his visit to the United States last month. At his stop in Washington, Dr. Allawi made several sweeping assertions to reporters about the security situation in Iraq, including saying that the only truly unsafe place in the country was the downtown area of Falluja, the largest insurgent stronghold, and that only 3 of 18 provinces had "pockets of terrorists."
He did not directly contradict those statements on Tuesday, but his latest words reflected a darker take on the state of the war. "It is true that the security situation in our country is the first concern for you, and maybe for your inquiries, too," Dr. Allawi said in the 100-member National Assembly, which asked him combative questions after his speech in the nearly hourlong session.
The insurgents "are today a challenge to our will," he continued. "They are betting on our failure. Should we allow them to do that? Should we sit down and watch what they are doing and let them destabilize the country's security?"
Though Dr. Allawi joined President Bush last month in boasting of having 100,000 fully trained and equipped Iraqi policemen, soldiers and other security officials, he acknowledged Tuesday that there were difficulties in creating an adequate security force.
"It's clear that since the handover, the capabilities are not complete and that the situation is very difficult now in respect to creating the forces and getting them ready to face the challenges," he said.
He added that "the police force is not well equipped and is not respected enough to lay down its authority" without backing from a strong army.
Dr. Allawi's talk, given inside the fortified government headquarters on the west bank of the Tigris River, comes at a crucial juncture for the American enterprise in Iraq. Insurgents have stepped up a deadly campaign of car bombings and assassinations even as American-led forces push back into guerrilla territory. The successes of the American offensives in Samarra and Babil Province will ultimately depend on whether the Iraqi security forces can combat the insurgency on their own after the American troops withdraw to their bases.
Paul Bremer III Gets Added to the List...
Bremer Critique on Iraq Raises Political FurorBy ELISABETH BUMILLER and JODI WILGOREN
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 - Assertions by L. Paul Bremer III, the former top American administrator in Iraq, that President Bush had not sent enough troops to secure the country put the White House on the defensive on Iraq policy on Tuesday and prompted Senator John Kerry to expand his assault on Mr. Bush as commander in chief.
Mr. Bremer's comments, made in two recent speeches, quickly moved to the center of the presidential campaign. He said at DePauw University on Sept. 17 that he had often raised the problem with the administration and "should have been even more insistent.'' He also spoke Monday at an insurance conference in West Virginia, where he apparently thought his comments were off the record.
Mr. Kerry seized on the comments, first reported Tuesday by The Washington Post, and argued to an audience in Iowa that Mr. Bush "may be constitutionally unable to level with" the public. He called on Mr. Bush to own up to his mistakes in Iraq.
During a speech on Tuesday at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Mr. Bremer said his remarks about troop strength had been somewhat distorted by the media.
"We certainly had enough going into Iraq, because we won the war in a very short three weeks," Mr. Bremer said, according to The Associated Press. But he added: "One way to have stopped the looting would have been to have more troops on the ground. That's a retrospective wisdom of mine, looking backwards. I think there are enough troops there now for the job we are doing."
The administration, without disputing Mr. Bremer's statements that he had wanted more troops when he arrived in May 2003, said that the force levels had been set by military commanders there. By the end of the day, Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, was insisting that Mr. Bush's instructions to his commanders about more troops were "just let me know, you'll have them."
If administration officials were defending Mr. Bush's decisions in public, in background conversations they were clearly furious with Mr. Bremer, who in recent weeks they have blamed for much that has gone wrong in Baghdad.
Still, two senior officials confirmed Tuesday evening that Mr. Bremer had sought more troops before he took up his post as the head of the coalition authority in Iraq, and that once he arrived in Baghdad he repeated his belief that the United States and its allies had committed insufficient forces to the task.
"The reality is that Paul kept pressing the issue, because it was immediately clear that a lot of facilities - even arms stockpiles - were unguarded," said one senior official who was part of that debate but insisted on anonymity.
Mr. Kerry, hammering away at the president's Iraq policy, called Mr. Bremer's remarks evidence that the administration had mismanaged the war. "There are a long list of mistakes and I'm glad that Paul Bremer has finally admitted at least two of them, and the president of the United States needs to tell the truth to the American people," Mr. Kerry told several hundred supporters in a school gym. "I don't know if the president is constitutionally incapable of acknowledging the truth, I don't know if he's just so stubborn that he's going to go down."
In addition to the Bremer speeches, Mr. Kerry quoted remarks made Monday by the secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, that he had not "seen any strong, hard evidence that links" Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Mr. Rumsfeld later issued a statement backing away from his comment, which he said "regrettably was misunderstood."
Mr. Kerry said, "Commander in chief means you have to make judgments that protect the troops and accomplish the mission. I would listen to all of my advisers and make the best judgment possible. I can tell you this: General Shinseki asked for more troops, and he was fired. So that's a surefire way to chill a lot of other people from asking for things later."
General Eric K. Shinseki, then Army chief of staff, testified before the war that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed in Iraq afterward; he was contradicted by other Pentagon officials. General Shinseki was not fired but had difficult relations with the Pentagon's civilian leadership and was pushed into retiring at the end of his four-year term in 2003.
At the Pentagon, officials said that Mr. Bremer, while interested in the issue of security, had no authority over troop levels, which was solely the purview of military commanders. "Any views Mr. Bremer may have expressed regarding the capabilities and levels of U.S. forces in Iraq would have been referred to the military commanders and the chairman and members of the Joint Chiefs for their review and consideration," said Lawrence Di Rita, the Pentagon spokesman.
"Before, during and subsequent to Mr. Bremer's tenure, the military commanders and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff believed that the level of U.S. forces in Iraq was the appropriate level, and that was their recommendation to the secretary of defense,'' Mr. Di Rita said.
In a speech on Monday to an insurance conference in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., Mr. Bremer said, "We never had enough troops on the ground" to stop the widespread looting immediately after the fall of Baghdad and the lawlessness and insurrection that followed. The group released portions of his remarks after the speech.
At DePauw University, Mr. Bremer said that "the single most important change - the one thing that would have improved the situation - would have been having more troops in Iraq at the beginning and throughout" the occupation. He said that he raised his concerns a number of times within the administration, but that he "should have been even more insistent."
His remarks there were posted on the DePauw Web site.
Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, seemed to suggest in a briefing for reporters on Tuesday that Mr. Bremer had never raised his concerns about troop levels with Mr. Bush, but Mr. McClellan did not entirely rule out that such a conversation had occurred.
"They met on a regular basis, I don't remember that Ambassador Bremer ever talked about that, but we never got into the habit of reading out any of those discussions," Mr. McClellan said.
Mr. Bremer served for more than a year in Iraq, up until the handover of power on June 28.
In his remarks in Iowa, Mr. Kerry cited Bremer's speeches as more evidence of what he called the administration's wrong course in Iraq.
Mr. Kerry said the administration had made "a long list of mistakes" in Iraq, and added that Mr. Bremer had admitted to two of them; that "we didn't deploy enough troops to get the job done, and, two, we didn't contain the violence after Saddam was deposed."
In an e-mailed statement quoted by The Washington Post, Mr. Bremer said that he fully supported the administration's course in Iraq.
Mr. Bremer's remarks in his two speeches were considerably at odds with Mr. Bremer's previous public statements about Iraq.
In an interview on the NBC News program "Meet the Press" on July 20, 2003, not quite 11 weeks after he arrived in Baghdad, Mr. Bremer was asked if the United States needed more troops in Iraq.
"I do not believe we do," Mr. Bremer replied. "I think the military commanders are confident we have enough troops on the ground, and I accept that analysis."
Elisabeth Bumiller reported from Washington for this article, and Jodi Wilgoren from Tipton, Iowa. David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Washington.
Again: For the Last Time: "No Clear Link between Al-Zarqawi, and Al Qaeda <-> Saddam"
A New C.I.A. Report Casts Doubt on a Key Terrorist's Tie to IraqBy DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: October 6, 2004
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 - A reassessment by the Central Intelligence Agency has cast doubt on a central piece of evidence used by the Bush administration before the invasion of Iraq to draw links between Saddam Hussein's government and Al Qaeda's terrorist network, government officials said Tuesday.
The C.I.A. report, sent to policy makers in August, says it is now not clear whether Mr. Hussein's government harbored members of a group led by the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the officials said. The assertion that Iraq provided refuge to Mr. Zarqawi was the primary basis for the administration's prewar assertions connecting Iraq to Al Qaeda.
The new C.I.A. assessment, based largely on information gathered after the American-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, is the latest to revise a prewar intelligence report used by the administration as a central rationale for war.
Other reports have cast doubt on the idea that Iraq provided chemical and biological weapons training to Al Qaeda, and the report of the Sept. 11 commission found no "collaborative relationship" between the former Iraqi government and Al Qaeda.
In the months before the war, George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell were among administration officials who asserted without qualification that Iraq had harbored Mr. Zarqawi and members of his terror group.
In June of this year, President Bush described Mr. Zarqawi as "the best evidence of connection to Al Qaeda affiliates and Al Qaeda." But while Mr. Zarqawi was once thought to be closely linked to Al Qaeda, his affiliations are now less certain.
Some American and European officials have said there is no clear coordination between Mr. Zarqawi and Al Qaeda, though their aims are similar. In the meantime, Mr. Zarqawi has emerged as an architect of repeated car bomb attacks and as the most active and deadly foreign terrorist operating in Iraq as part of the anti-American insurgency.
The C.I.A.'s new assessment states that it could not be conclusive even about his relationship with Mr. Hussein's government. The C.I.A. review, first reported by Knight Ridder newspapers, did not say on what basis the earlier assessment was being softened, and government officials declined to explain on Tuesday.
VP Cheney's performance during the debate in Cleveland reminded me of Ike's warning about the dangers of an unrestricted military-industrial complex. Mr. Cheney is a proud representative of that unhealthy alliance, and Mr. Edwards did a great job of showing that.
After the first debate, Mr Cheney said: " And I don't think you can look at that debate tonight and conclude anything other than on the one case we've got in George Bush a man who has done it, who has been there, done it four different -- for four different years now, and done a superb job, made the right decisions for America...".
This Might Be Interesting...
ELECTION: American Progress Report 10/5/2004
Cheney Debunkered
All eyes are on Cleveland, Ohio, tonight, when Vice President Dick Cheney will square off against Sen. John Edwards in the 2004 campaign's Vice Presidential debate. The Boston Globe this morning offers questions for the Vice President, saying, "Because of the widespread perception that the war in Iraq is at least as much Cheney's war as President Bush's, both debaters tonight must come to grips with Cheney's performance as the official who steered Bush toward the invasion of Iraq and infuriated intelligence professionals by ignoring assessments that did not suit his policy aims and spotlighting others that did." Paul Krugman of the New York Times agrees, saying Edwards should ask tough questions of the man who "played a central role in leading us to war on false pretenses." After the invasion, Cheney also took the lead in perpetuating the myth that al Qaeda was somehow tied to Saddam, a claim which he continues to make even thought it has been disproved by all known intelligence. For more on what Cheney will likely say and what you should know, read this American Progress debate backgrounder. Here's what to watch for:
KEY CHENEY CLAIM BLOWN APART: Vice President Cheney still asserts, "[Saddam] had a relationship with al Qaeda," in an ongoing attempt to plant "the idea that Hussein was allied with the group responsible for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001." As his primary evidence, the vice president repeatedly has said terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi was an associate of bin Laden and received safe haven from Hussein, stating that Zarqawi "is an al Qaeda associate who took refuge in Baghdad, found sanctuary and safe harbor there before we ever launched into Iraq." Today, a new CIA assessment — which Cheney himself requested months ago – blew apart this claim. The report stated, "there is no conclusive evidence that the regime harbored terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi." One U.S. official said, "The evidence is that Saddam never gave Zarqawi anything."
INTELLIGENCE DEBUNKS CHENEY: It's the latest in a long line of intelligence that shows Cheney's claim is false. Previously, the Sept. 11 Commission found no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda. CIA interrogators found "Osama bin Laden had rejected entreaties from some of his lieutenants to work jointly with Saddam." The chairman of the monitoring group appointed by the United Nations Security Council to track al Qaeda found "no evidence linking Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein."
RUMSFELD'S MOMENT OF TRUTH: Further damaging Cheney's unsupported claims of a link between Saddam and Osama, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told an audience yesterday at the Council on Foreign Relations that he knew of no "strong, hard evidence" linking Iraq and al Qaeda. Immediately after his candid comments to the group, however, Rumsfeld furiously backtracked and tried to get back on message, saying he'd been "misunderstood."
'WE NEVER HAD ENOUGH TROOPS ON THE GROUND': Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, the former U.S. official in charge of Iraq after the invasion, said yesterday that the U.S. effort in Iraq was handicapped from the beginning by a lack of adequate forces, flatly stating, "We never had enough troops on the ground." An insufficient number of U.S. troops to keep the peace early on "established an atmosphere of lawlessness," he said in a speech yesterday. The White House didn't adequately plan for the peace in Iraq, badly misjudging the situation and relying instead on falsely rosy predictions. A prime example: On 3/16/03, the week the invasion took place, Vice President Cheney said, "We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators" and "I think it will go relatively quickly... (in) weeks rather than months."
THE ULTIMATE FLIP-FLOP: The Seattle Post Intelligencer reports Cheney opposed invading Baghdad before he supported it. In 1991, then-Secretary of Defense Cheney cautioned against U.S. troops advancing into the city, "telling a Seattle audience that capturing Saddam wouldn't be worth additional U.S. casualties or the risk of getting 'bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.'" He added, "And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many." About 146 Americans died in the first Gulf War. This time, more than 1,000 U.S. troops have been killed in the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath.
IN BED WITH THE AXIS OF EVIL: In recent stump speeches, Cheney has tried to defend the invasion of Iraq by saying, "Iraq for years was listed by the U.S. State Department as a state sponsor of terror." What he doesn't say: Although the U.S. "concluded that Iraq, Libya and Iran supported terrorism and had imposed strict sanctions on them," during Cheney's tenure at Halliburton, he ignored that and "the company did business in all three countries." For example, with Cheney at the helm, Halliburton signed contracts with Iraq worth $73 million through two subsidiaries while that country was on the terrorism list. And Halliburton is being investigated for doing business while Cheney was CEO with Iran, a country also listed as a "state sponsor of terror" by the State Department. "The grand jury has subpoenaed various documents covering Halliburton's Iranian operations, a sign some evidence has surfaced indicating the company "knowingly violated" U.S. anti-terror sanctions.
CHENEY'S DAYS IN COURT: Cheney, under the guise of "legal reform," has attacked his rivals for being too cozy with lawyers. Watch those stones you're throwing from your glass house, Mr. Vice President. A watchdog site, HalliburtonWatch.org, has found that, with Cheney in charge, Halliburton filed 151 claims in 15 states around the nation, petitioning America's legal system an average of 30 times a year; most actions were filed against other corporations. (Halliburton currently is suing former employees who complained when the giant corporation sliced retiree health care benefits.)
Hydrocarbon vs Fluorine Fuel Cell Membranes
Membrane Breakthrough for Fuel CellsBy MATTHEW L. WALD
NY Times
Published: October 5, 2004
With oil near $50 a barrel, alternatives to gasoline are attracting more attention - including fuel cells, devices that convert hydrogen into electric current with no waste products except heat and pure water.
Fuel cells have found their way into power systems for laptop computers and into many experimental cars. The main drawback to automotive use of fuel cells, though, has been their cost, which at $100,000 can be 25 times the $4,000 for a gasoline engine of equal power. Lately, some companies, including Honda, have been trying to come up with cheaper versions of the most expensive part of a fuel cell: the membrane that takes the hydrogen fuel and separates it into protons and electrons.
This morning, a California company, PolyFuel, plans to announce that it has achieved a breakthrough in fuel-cell membranes by using an alternative material: a hydrocarbon that it says costs only about half as much per square meter.
Compared with the fluorine compounds that are the most commonly used for membranes in fuel cells now under testing, PolyFuel says that hydrocarbon membranes allow production of more electricity per square centimeter of membrane. That could mean that a fuel cell could produce the same power as a fluorine-membrane version, but would be smaller and lighter, further adding to efficiency, according to the company.
PolyFuel is quick to say that it has not moved the fuel cell to the point of commercial viability, but now hopes to be closer to that goal. "We're on a great trajectory here to continue to improve state of the art," said Jim Balcom, the company's president and chief executive.
Hydrocarbon membranes can also run under a wider range of temperatures, and thus allow better performance, he said. But he acknowledged that other drawbacks to fuel cells would still need to be resolved - including the logistics of producing hydrogren and transporting it to electric-car filling stations. The hydrogen molecule is so small that it would escape through the cracks in the pipes used for natural gas. And it is so light that it must be pumped up to extreme pressures to transport more than a few pounds by tanker truck - requiring more expensive pumps and tanks than are currently in use.
The dominant membrane for the fuel cells now in use is a fluorine-based DuPont product called Nafion, which was developed for use in the chemical industry. It is chemically related to Teflon, which DuPont makes. Nafion and other membranes look like plastic food wrap, but are thicker.
According to Mr. Balcom, Nafion will let enough protons slip through to generate about 6.5 kilowatts a meter, but his membrane will generate current of more than 7 kilowatts. (A kilowatt - a thousand watts - would run a single window air-conditioner. A car would require 50 to 75 kilowatts.) A hydrocarbon membrane functions well at temperatures slightly below zero degrees Fahrenheit, he said. Fluorine-based membranes can produce very little power at such low temperatures.
In addition, it can tolerate temperatures near the boiling point, substantially hotter than the fluorocarbon membrane, both men said. This is important because fuel cells generate heat that must be dissipated, and getting rid of heat from a system at 200 degrees is easier than cooling off a device that is already closer to the temperature of ordinary air. Mr. Balcom said that hydrocarbon membranes also require less humid air, allowing for simpler equipment within the fuel cell.
Skeptics of some of PolyFuel's claims include Scott G. Ehrenberg, the chief technology officer of Dais-Analytic, a Florida maker of hydrocarbon membranes. He said that operating the membranes too close to water's boiling point risked surpassing that point - as when a driver quickly accelerated. If the water turned to steam it would tear holes in the membrane, he said.
But he acknowledged the economic importance of cheaper membranes because they can represent nearly half the cost of the fuel cell. In a car, he said, the membranes would require replacement every year or so, the way existing cars require oil and spark plug changes.
Mr. Ehrenberg suggested another advantage to hydrocarbon membranes: they are already mass produced. His company sells millions of square feet of hydrocarbon membranes every year, he said, not for fuel cells but primarily for use in raising the efficiency of commercial air-conditioning systems.
In a commercial building, the ventilation system draws in warm, moist air, chills and dries it, and pumps it inside, and exhausts air that is cool and dry. With a hydrocarbon membrane between those two air flows, the dry air on its way out can suck humidity out of the fresh air on the way in, reducing the workload for the air-conditioner, Mr. Ehrenberg said.
People pursuing hydrocarbon membranes as a cost-cutting measure are "barking up the correct tree," he said.
Let's Get Real About Tax Shelters Guys !!
Republicans Try to Dilute Provisions in Tax BillBy EDMUND L. ANDREWS
WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 - Despite widespread agreement that abusive tax shelters are costing the federal government billions of dollars a year, House Republicans are working to eliminate or dilute provisions in a new corporate tax bill aimed at cracking down on illegal shelters.
The provisions, opposed by a range of business lobbyists and tax lawyers, are part of a larger battle in Congress over how hard to attack the rapidly expanding use of complex transactions that turn real-world profits into tax-world losses.
The issue is coming to a boil in a House-Senate conference committee that Monday night resumed considering a corporate tax bill that would provide up to $170 billion in tax breaks.
With only a few days left before Congress is supposed to adjourn, lawmakers are trying to make hundreds of last-minute changes that could affect tens of billions of dollars in tax revenue. Business groups, ranging from the National Association of Manufacturers to the Business Roundtable, have worked with tax lobbyists and accounting firms to protect the tax shelters.
A study prepared last year for the Internal Revenue Service estimated that abuse of tax shelters cost the federal government $12 billion to $18 billion a year.
A study last week by Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal research organization, reported that 82 of the nation's most profitable companies paid no corporate taxes in at least one of the last three years.
Both the House and Senate have passed bills that would raise billions of dollars by shutting certain kinds of tax shelters. But House Republicans have balked at several provisions that the Senate passed with broad bipartisan support.
One crucial Senate provision, for example, would greatly increase penalties on people who spin complex transactions that serve no other purpose except to avoid taxes.
Supporters of the Senate bill say it would address a glaring weakness of the system: even when a court finds that a tax deal is abusive, it rarely imposes penalties beyond making a company or a person pay back taxes.
"Multinational corporations use complicated schemes to claim they've had losses when they've really had gains," said Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat who has been pushing for such a provision since 1999. "These schemes are so complicated that even the experts have difficulty getting to the bottom of them. One way of challenging these apparent tax losses is to say this complex scheme that may involve many different entities has no economic substance."
The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, which provides the revenue estimates on proposed tax bills, estimated that just one of the disputed provisions would raise about $15 billion over the next 10 years.
But House Republicans oppose that measure. Representative Bill Thomas, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said two weeks ago that the provision was unnecessary and would have a chilling effect on legitimate business deals.
Opponents of the Senate bill's tax shelter provisions are particularly incensed about a provision that has strong support from Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
That provision would tighten the definition of tax shelters, putting into legislation the well-established judicial doctrine that a financial transaction has to have "economic substance," which means it has to have a purpose beyond reducing taxes.
Kenneth J. Kies, a prominent corporate tax lobbyist in Washington who has defended some of the biggest tax shelters, said the Senate bill would have ensnared scores of companies engaged in routine transactions.
"This is a much broader provision than its being made out to be," Mr. Kies said. "It would set up a standard for economic substance that would be very hard for garden-variety business transactions."
But supporters said the provision would simply add some teeth to a concept that courts have used for years.
The dispute goes to the heart of all kinds of tax shelters, but it could have a big impact on one of the biggest kinds of transactions in recent years: leasing deals in which cities, including New York City, sell subway trains and other public infrastructure to private investors, who then lease them back and take advantage of tax write-offs for equipment depreciation.
The goal of the deals is to give investors tax breaks that are of no use to municipal governments, including many cities and organizations outside the United States, that pay no federal taxes. For the cities, the deals reduce the cost of new equipment at the expense of the federal Treasury.
Both the House and Senate bills would prohibit such deals in the future, but the Senate bill could invalidate many deals that are already in existence. As a result, the Senate bill would raise about $45 billion over 10 years, while the House bill would raise about $19 billion.
But if the final law includes the Senate provisions on "economic substance," investors who entered into such deals could face stiff penalties on top of losing their tax shelters.
Joseph Bankman, a professor of tax law at Stanford University, says California has already reaped $1.3 billion from a similar provision it passed one year ago. The California law declared that any tax shelter that fails the test for economic substance could be subject to penalties but it offered an amnesty to people who came forward voluntarily.
"It is still very much the exception rather than the rule that people have to pay penalties," Mr. Bankman said.
Calvin Johnson, a professor of tax law at the University of Texas in Austin, said the Internal Revenue Service would have to impose "gargantuan" penalties before it really frightened off companies or individuals trying to shelter tens of millions of dollars.
But Mr. Johnson said there was a pressing need to attack the widespread view, which he said was generally accurate, that people can avoid penalties simply by obtaining an opinion from tax lawyers in advance of a deal that says the transaction fits the letter of the law.
"There is a common view that you can set up an elaborate scheme and that if you have the opinion of a respectable attorney that you can't be assessed any penalties," he said.
But the conventional wisdom may be changing. In a decision that electrified tax-shelter promoters, a court ruled in August that Long-Term Capital Management, the huge hedge fund that nearly went bankrupt in 1998, took $106 million in improper tax deductions and owed $56 million in taxes and penalties.
"The Long-Term Capital case showed that the I.R.S. has many arrows in its quiver," said Tim McCormley, executive director of the Tax Executives Institute, an association of tax professionals who work at major corporations. "In the past, taxpayers had what they viewed as a 'get out of jail free' card if they had an opinion from a highly respected law firm. That's not the case anymore."
City Challenged on Fingerprinting Protesters
By DIANE CARDWELL
NY Times
Published: October 5, 2004
(New York City): Since coming under fire for their handling of protesters arrested during the Republican convention, Bloomberg administration officials have said that sluggish fingerprint processing in Albany was a major cause of the long delays in releasing detainees, although state officials have denied any tardiness.
Now it looks as if much of the fingerprinting may not have been legal in the first place. According to lawyers at the New York Civil Liberties Union, the city may have violated state law by routinely fingerprinting arrested protesters.
In a letter sent yesterday to Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, officials of the organization wrote that although the law allowed the police to fingerprint people charged with minor offenses in certain circumstances, "this could not justify the routine fingerprinting of the nearly 1,500 people reportedly arrested during the convention for minor offenses."
The officials, Donna Lieberman and Christopher Dunn, the group's executive director and associate legal director respectively, wrote that state criminal-procedure law defined narrow circumstances for fingerprinting when the offenses are minor. Those circumstances are when the police cannot establish the person's identity, when they suspect that the identification supplied is not accurate, or when they suspect that there is an outstanding warrant.
Legal questions about the fingerprinting policy have come up before. At a hearing in September over the city's treatment of arrested protesters, Justice John Cataldo of State Supreme Court in Manhattan noted that the city could have dispensed with the fingerprinting entirely as most of the offenses were so minor that state law did not require it.
Ms. Lieberman and Mr. Dunn also wrote that they found the "blanket fingerprinting" of people arrested at demonstrations troubling because "the entry of fingerprints into law enforcement databases can have lifelong consequences."
Monday, October 04, 2004
Republicans currently are a majority in the House, Senate, Supreme Court, and they hold the White House after increasing their percentages in each branch for the past several elections. Is that what YOU want??
The Daily Outrage: Fox TV Commentator: Carl Cameron
In the wake of President Bush's disastrous showing at last week's debate, Fox News political reporter Carl Cameron attributed ridiculous quotes to John Kerry, designed to make him seem patrician and out of touch. Fox pulled the story from its website after Josh Marshall exposed it as a complete fabrication.<------------------------------------->
From American Progress Action
October 3rd, 2004
After Kerry's strong performance during the debate Friday night, it was no secret that Republicans and the right-wing media were desperate to find a way to criticize Kerry. But no one knew they were this desperate. Carl Cameron, the top political reporter at Fox, made up ridiculous quotes which he attributed to Kerry and posted on Fox's website as news. Cameron – who bills himself as an objective journalist – falsely quoted Kerry saying, "Didn't my nails and cuticles look great? What a good debate!" and "Women should like me! I do manicures." Coincidently, Cameron's quotes parrot Republican talking points that aim to depict Kerry as patrician and Bush as a man of the people. Another Cameron doozy attributed to Kerry: "I'm metrosexual – [Bush is] a cowboy." Fox pulled the story from its website after journalist and blogger Josh Marshall exposed it as a complete fabrication. Fox spokesman Paul Schur said that Cameron "made a stupid mistake which he regrets. And he has been reprimanded for his lapse in judgment." But Schur refused to say what discipline Cameron faced, later saying "we're simply moving on." Cameron has declined to discuss the incident and continues to report from the campaign trail. Write Fox and tell them that Cameron lacks the objectivity to cover the presidential race.
FOX NEWS DOESN'T LEARN: The day after the Cameron incident, Fox News posted an interview with a group called Communists for Kerry, which it presented as a legitimate, pro-Kerry organization. Fox quoted 17-year-old Komoselutes Rob, a member of the group, as saying, "We're trying to get Comrade Kerry elected and get that capitalist enabler George Bush out of office." The report concluded, "it is unclear whether the Kerry campaign has welcomed the Communists' endorsement." What Fox didn't mention: Communists for Kerry is a parody by a Republican front group. Fox News later retracted the article and claimed it wasn't at fault because "FOXNews.com's reporter asked the group's representative several times whether the group was legitimate and supporting the Democratic candidate, and the spokesman insisted that it was." If Fox would have bothered to click the "About Us" link on the group's website, it would have discovered "Communists for Kerry is a campaign of the Hellgate Republican Club, a tax exempt non-partisan public advocacy '527' organization that exists for the purpose of; Informing voters with satire and irony."
CAMERON PALS AROUND WITH BUSH BEFORE INTERVIEW: This isn't the first time that Carl Cameron's objectivity has been called into question. In a scene captured in the film "Outfoxed," Cameron is caught palling around with Bush moments before an interview during the 2000 presidential campaign. Cameron: "My wife has been hanging out with your sister." Bush: "Yeah, good." Cameron: "She's been all over the state campaigning, and Pauline has been constantly with her." Bush: "Yeah, Doro [Bush's sister] is a good person." Cameron: "Oh, and she's terrific. When she first started campaigning for you, she was a little bit nervous, but now she's up there—" Bush: "Getting her stride?" Cameron: "She doesn't need notes, she's going to crowds and she's got the whole riff down." Bush: "She's a good soul." Moments later, the cameras turned on and Cameron slipped instantly into his "objective journalist" persona. Cameron later said that "The whole thing is, in retrospect, an embarrassment that I feel really bad about."
CAMERON REPEATEDLY DESCRIBES KERRY AS OUT OF TOUCH MILLIONAIRE: On July 3, Cameron "reported" that "The problem for Kerry may be who he is. An Ivy League millionaire, who has rubbed elbows with the world's wealthiest sophisticates, while most of rural America is considered Bush country." Cameron made no mention that Bush attended Yale, is a millionaire, and has spent as much time as anyone rubbing elbows with "wealthy sophisticates." On June 29, Cameron similarly noted that "Kerry has always been one of the haves, educated at the finest schools [and with] a billionaire wife." Find out more about how Fox News anchors' "reporting" often becomes indistinguishable from Bush campaign propaganda.
CAMERON PUSHES MYTH THAT BUSH NEVER SAID MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: On Sept. 27, Carl Cameron "reported" that "Though the banner said mission accomplished, the president never actually use[d] those words. Nonetheless, a new Kerry attack ad repeats the charge." One problem: Bush did say "mission accomplished." On June 5, 2003, Bush said to troops in Qatar, "America sent you on a mission to remove a grave threat and to liberate an oppressed people, and that mission has been accomplished."
BRIT HUME SAYS CAMERON IS FAIR TO KERRY: Days before Carl Cameron presented fake Kerry quotes as news, Brit Hume, Fox's Washington managing editor, said, "our day-in, day-out coverage by Carl Cameron has been extremely fair to Kerry." Of course, Hume himself isn't the most objective observer, either. In June, July and August, Kerry's evaluations on Hume's show, Special Report, "were negative by a 5 to 1 margin."
The "Flip-Flopper" Label -- How It's Done
From the Hauser Report: Oct 3rd, 2004
Salon has an article by Matthew Craft today, Winning the war of words, that talks about how the Republicans are so well able to get the public to believe their misleading and distorting slogans. From the article:
"After months of tireless repetition, the Bush-Cheney campaign's 'flip-flop' charge against John Kerry has become a national cliche. I'm sure you noticed that during the debate Bush kept repeating the "mixed messages" line. Over and over. Whatever the question, Bush returned to this theme, even when it did not seem to be an appropriate answer to the question. This line ties into the "flip-flopper" campaign theme, because what a "flip-flopper" does is send "mixed messages."
You and I are informed and know that Kerry IS NOT a flip-flopper, of course, but what about the general public? The Republicans have spent something like 200 million dollars repeating this message over and over and over and over and over. And not just in TV ads. They are using every channel through which people receive "messages." For example, I've written about receiving e-mail chain-letters -- those things your sister-in-law from Kansas is always forwarding to you, that have about 300 other people's e-mail addresses at the top and have already been forwarded eight times -- that have as the actual message a joke, another joke, a joke about Kerry being a flip-flopper, a joke, and a sign-off about God smiling on little children or something. Well, where do you think those originate? This is just one example of manipulating a channel through which people receive messages.
The result of this comprehensive message communication effort is that people who don't spend a lot of time informing themselves about what is going on in the world have heard this single message repeated on the radio, through the internet, on TV, in articles, and, most importantly, from friends. And so it has become "conventional wisdom," or what you might call "a truth" that you can not trust Kerry because he is a flip-flopper. The Republicans laid out this plan of attack a long time ago and have consistently stuck to this one theme, repeating it over and over, right through the debate and continuing with the ads they are running today. This is how it is done.
From the article,
'That's exactly what research shows,' said George Lakoff, a cognitive scientist at the University of California at Berkeley. 'Repeat something over and over and it gets in people's brains.' Republicans, Lakoff argues, have found success through 'framing' issues along lines that fit their worldview and sticking to them. The Democrats aren't nearly as effective."
Most people do not have time to study issues, and, instead, rely on other cues to decide who to vote for. The Republicans have studied this process and manipulate people using these cues, while Democrats continue to believe that just taking positions on issues is enough. This is why Kerry always talks "positions" and Bush always talks "values." The way to reach people is at a deeper level than "issue arguments."
From the Salon article,
His [George Lakoff's] book "Don't Think of an Elephant," with a foreword by Howard Dean, came out on Sept. 15 and quickly made a cameo among Amazon's bestselling books. What's surprising about Lakoff's analysis is how it can be used to make sense of otherwise conflicting ideas. His theory of political preferences, taken on its merits, offers insights into the Zell Miller enigma and might explain the mystery of why people don't vote in their self-interest.
In the reality show called American politics, you don't need to master the issues to take the White House. In fact, Lakoff and many others now argue, a stance on an issue matters less than the candidate's "values," a recognizable moral system. Many Democrats don't vote for their self-interests, and, as Thomas Franks pointed out in his recent book "What's the Matter with Kansas," most poor Kansans don't either.
"People always vote their values," Lakoff said. Democrats and liberals always assume people vote their self-interests, he said, like shoppers with a grocery list. "Polls and focus groups are based on this metaphor of a political campaign as a marketing campaign. That's just wrong. Cognitive science shows us that's not how people work."
How voters' minds work is, like the study of decision making, a source of endless debate. Political scientists assume that most people skip the hard work of immersing themselves in the issues before picking a candidate and look for shortcuts instead. But what are they, and which come first?
We (Progressives, Liberals, Democrats) need to start thinking past the election cycle. Thinking that a candidate or political party is going to somehow magically know what to say to lead all of us out of this mess is not realistic.
What we need to do is restore in the widespread general public underlying Progressive values, and this will bring support from which candidates can draw their strength. This is what the Right has been doing for thirty years. They have been manipulating the public's underlying values, and THEN their candidates can show up and use code-words to tap into that underlying value "language" they have developed.
