Welcome to 201k.com - A Commonwealth Perspective.

201k is strongly considering supporting a change to the U.S. Constitution to allow for a non-native to be president.

Why? So we can vote for Eric Idle, who's had the guts to say what no other public figure has.

Eric Idle (of MONTY PYTHON) presents... The FCC Song.
Heres a little number I wrote the other day while I was out duck
hunting with a judge. It's a new song, it's dedicated to the FCC and
if they broadcast it, it will cost a quarter of a million dollars."

Warning: contains language likely to offend the Family Resource Council.

Daniel Okrent, the New York Times' "Public Editor" weighs in with a critique of the paper's coverage of the lead-up to the war in Iraq that's more direct--and more credible--than the paper's own editors wrote last Wednesday.

Okrent politely but firmly does not let the paper off the hook as easily as they did themselves. Citing specific examples of questionable assertions becoming reported facts in the Times, Okrent writes,

...stories pushed Pentagon assertions so aggressively you could almost sense epaulets sprouting on the shoulders of editors.

That, poor readers, is a gentleman's way of suggesting that the New York Times wanted the war with Iraq.

The question is: why?

An editorial in today's Times prompts us to report something odd we'd encountered but set aside. First, the editorial:

Attorney General John Ashcroft and Robert Mueller III, the director of the F.B.I., created unease on Wednesday with their vague warning that Al Qaeda is planning an attack in the United States. It wasn't so much the grimly familiar warning. It was the absence of Tom Ridge.

The public understands that warnings are not likely to be specific. But two and a half years after 9/11, bureaucratic turf battles over the nation's security are inexcusable. The 2002 law that established the Department of Homeland Security gave Mr. Ridge the responsibility of coordinating terror-related intelligence analyses and threat assessments. His color-coded terror advisories are often mocked. But at least they signal Washington's best relative estimate of risk.

Last Wednesday, Mr. Ashcroft failed to bring Mr. Ridge with him Ñ and Mr. Ridge had been on television that very morning assuring viewers that there was no new intelligence requiring an increase in the threat level. That left everyone wondering what to make of Mr. Ashcroft's different message. The official explanation, that Mr. Ashcroft just wanted to show pictures of wanted terrorists, deepened the confusion. His comments, and those of other officials, about terrorists perhaps wanting to disrupt the election, presumably to hurt the incumbent, were horribly inappropriate.

Well, an awful lot of things Mr. Ashcroft does are horribly inappropriate, but that's not what caught our eye. It was the part about bureaucratic turf battles. I mean, it's plenty weird that the director of Homeland Security (and how we despise that name; it has always sounded to us like something from the Soviet Union. Why didn't they just say "National Security"? What's this "Homeland" stuff? It's creepy. No one says "Homeland". Have you ever said "Homeland"? The Soviet's had "The Motherland", the Nazis had "The Fatherland", and we're sorry but "Homeland" is just as creepy as both of those things) wasn't there Ñ or worse, that he was on TV that morning saying everything was fine.

The reason it caught our eye is that not long ago we stumbled upon something weird on the Justice Department's website. Well, we thought it was weird--maybe we don't know how government websites work.

If you go to the Justice department's website, www.usdoj.gov, scroll down to this:

For the latest homeland security news, alerts, threats or for emergency planning information, visit the Department of Homeland Security at www.dhs.gov.

...and click on the link to go to the website of the Department of Homeland Security, www.usdoj.gov, you don't go directly there. You get a disclaimer page. This is the exact text of that disclaimer:

You are now leaving the Department of Justice WWW server

You are about to access

http://www.dhs.gov

The Department of Justice takes no responsibility for, and exercises no control over, the organizations, views, accuracy, copyright or trademark compliance or legality of the material contained on this server.

...after which you are redirected to the Department of Homeland Security.

Is that weird? Do all government websites disclaim all other government websites? Or is this some kind of turf war pettiness?

Does anyone know? Seriously, if you know email us.

Just thinking...it's 5:15pm on the Friday before a long weekend...

...wonder what bad news the Bush administration will release to the press in the next couple of hours...

The papers are abuzz with the sound of "conservatives" abandoning George W. Bush. It's certainly deserved, if true.

But we thought we'd take a moment to point out that as far as we know, we were the first to predict that this would happen, back on April 10.

If we're wrong, let us know.

Paul Krugman, the second greatest living American, writes today what millions of Americans have known for four years: that the mainstream press coverage of George W. Bush has been a fraud from the beginning. Of Wednesday's Times mea culpa over their coverage of the run-up to the Iraq war, Krugman writes:

...it's not just Iraq, and it's not just The Times. Many journalists seem to be having regrets about the broader context in which Iraq coverage was embedded: a climate in which the press wasn't willing to report negative information about George Bush.

Let's hope so. One's thing's for sure: the Times' readers haven't been fooled. Of the nine letters to the editor on the mea culpa only two accept it unconditionally; the other seven rightly note its obvious problems: too little too late, no acceptable explanation for the reasons, no willingness to name those obviously most to blame, and no willingness to face the much wider scope that Krugman nails on the head.

Moreover, Eric Boehlert's excellent comparison of the Times' mea culpa on Iraq's WMD to its mea culpa on Wen Ho Lee takes the sublime to the ridiculous, and left us wondering if the Times' stuffy self-righteousness can survive the "cut & paste" Internet age.

It is our opinion that the Times, by not sufficiently explaining why its coverage was so biased for war -- the only reason suggested, that "editors...were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper" doesn't come close to explaining why, for instance, "articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried [or not reported at all]" -- leaves itself vulnerable to less charitable theories. Perhaps they recognize this.

But it is another Krugman line, noting the decreasing effectiveness of the right's usual bullying techniques, that most caught our attention:

Amazing things have been happening lately. The usual suspects have tried to silence reporting about prison abuses by accusing critics of undermining the troops -- but the reports keep coming.

Earlier this week the Boston Globe's resident reactionary Jeff Jacoby wrote an absolutely despicable "web exclusive" screed on the paper's website Boston.com (perhaps the editors didn't want to dirty the paper with it). A little taste will give you the idea:

Ted Kennedy's anti-American slander
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist - May 25, 2004

TWO WEEKS ago Senator Ted Kennedy uttered what may turn out to be the single most disgusting remark made about the United States in the course of the Iraq War. The reaction to his slander - or rather, the lack of reaction - speaks volumes about the moral bankruptcy of the American left.

Speaking in the Senate on May 10, Kennedy had this to say about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal:

''On March 19, 2004, President Bush asked, 'Who would prefer that Saddam's torture chambers still be open?' Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management - US management.''

...Incredibly, the senior senator from Massachusetts really was equating the disgraceful mistreatment of a few Iraqi prisoners by a few American troops with the unspeakable sadism, rape, and mass murder that had been routine under Saddam Hussein.

It doesn't get any better after that. Here indeed is some bullying.

But you know what? Screw the bullies. Here's two letters that 201k readers sent the Globe on Tuesday, and which we offer as a templates:

To the Editor,

Jacoby can spare us the phony outrage over Sen. Kennedy's remarks. The Abu Ghraib prison scandal is the natural result of a morally bankrupt war propagated by a morally bankrupt administration, and more Americans are coming to recognize it everyday despite the best efforts of Jacoby, and others, to conflate blind acquiescence with patriotism.

First the administration and its apologists tried to blame a few soldiers for the abuse; now Jacoby is trying to shift attention to Sen. Kennedy, who, like many Americans, knows just how disastrous this abuse is for the U.S., and how imperative it is that we get to the root of its causes.

Unless Jacoby and his ilk have their way, the American public will soon learn that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were not isolated, were not the work of "a few bad apples", and, unfortunately, may have actually been Bush administration policy.

And as they learn that, Americans will rightfully assume their role as final judge and jury of this administration's decisions and actions. Whether Jeff Jacoby likes it or not.

Facing unpleasant realities is the responsibility of the self-governed. Jacoby can huff and puff, but he can't change that. Americans must learn the truth--and they owe a debt of gratitude to Sen. Kennedy for speaking it.

Regards...

To: jacoby@globe.com
Subject: Your anti-Kennedy op-ed piece

I've looked at the pictures from the Abu Ghraib prison. I share Mr. Kennedy's views on the Abu Ghraib crimes and the subsequent public relations disaster. We went into Iraq promising to remove the torturers from power. We succeeded and then we proceed to torture the people ourselves. We even tortured people in the same prison in which they were tortured under Saddam. We were even stupid enough to take pictures of the torture and our stupidity continued when we allowed the pictures to leak out to the press. The damage we've done to the image of America doesn't seem reversible. What a horrible situation. You think that we can't "equate" Saddam's atrocious tortures to the much lesser tortures perpetrated by our American soldiers? While it is true that Sadam did many, many worse things to his own people (many unbelievably horrible things) he was not American. Our soldiers represent the American way to the Iraqi people and they are there as their rescuers.

There are supposed to be clear differences between Americans and animals like Saddam. One of those many, many differences is that Americans don't torture our prisoners. These differences are very, very important to me and (I would hope) to most other Americans. I can't imagine an America that accepts the fact that the difference between Saddam and George W. Bush is that Saddam's prison guards kill their prisoners on purpose and Bush's only kill them accidentally when we're trying to bruise or humiliate them. That is NOT my America. That is not the land of the free and the home of the brave. God would never bless an America like that.

JF

201k believes that the wheels are falling off the Bush administration's cart of lies -- and all the king's liars and all the king's hacks won't be able to keep them on much longer.

Remember "Rock 'em-Sock 'em Robots"? Keep swinging, folks--the robot's head is about to pop.

From: "Nan H"
To: editor@201k.com
Subject: Good Job!
Date: Thu, 27 May 2004

I really appreciate what you have to say. Sometimes, I wish you would say it more often, but, when you do post, it's very, very insightful. Thank you.

I especially appreciate your perspective on the tragedy of the Nicholas Berg incident. 40+ men, woman, & children were killed at a wedding because of an incredible American belief in better to be safe than sorry. If they were so sure that these were insurgents, why didn't they arrest them? Or at least, go in and verify the situation? To easy to just obliterate them from a helicopter gunship.

I am old enough to have talked to Vietnam veterans. I talked to one veteran who was a helicopter gun man (don't know the actual term). He told me that he and his crew flew around Vietnam looking for something to kill. When they couldn't find human targets they made do with water buffalo. He and his crew had completely objectified the Vietnamese. To me that is happening all over again in Iraq. 40 Iraqis at a wedding? 1 Nick Berg. Only a very jaded American would not think that there was a terrible imbalance.

Nan

Thanks, Nan, for both your compliments and your comments. We confess to a minor spell of melancholy upon realizing that things have gotten so bad that our over-arching cynicism would strike you as "very, very insightful".

In the past we may have been occasionally right in the way a broken clock is--twice a day--but the sad fact is that nothing short of utter cynicism would lead one to any sort of political insight on either the Bush adminsitration or the Republican party in general.

We can offer one cheap trick, though, that has yet to fail us as a means of getting into the heads of the Bush administration: when you consider their actions, statements and motives--on any subject--don't think of them as officials of a representative democracy who consider themselves public servants entrusted with the responsibilty of doing what is best for the whole country and accountable to the citizens; think of them as the top executives of the largest corporation in the world, who consider it their right to make decisions based on their own agendas and desires--and the agendas and desires of their shareholders (i.e. donors) --and who consider the rest of us as nothing more than employees who are lucky to be here, and who should unquestioningly accept whatever nonsensical edicts descend from the home office.

Seen this way, you'll suddenly understand, say, Ari Fleischer, who wasn't so much press secretary to the President of the United States as he was "vice-president for public relations". He read the memos from on high, and his attitude was that if you didn't like what the company had to say, you could leave.

Snow and Greenspan aren't public servants: they're from Finance and Accounting. And they say the numbers are what they say the numbers are. You got a problem with that, you can start sending out resumes to other countries to work for. Got it?

Now that's a piece of cynicism you can take to the bank. Because that's who these people are. It's all George W. Bush has ever been.

Anyway, we appreciate the compliment. And we'll try to go back to a more frequent posting schedule, though life does intervene. As we've said before, we accept posts from readers (subject to editing), so one way to keep the content flowing here is to keep sending your thoughts. See, for example, the excellent comments in the posting below this one.

As for your Vietnam gunship story, we appreciate that you recognize the crucial distinction that 201k is not taking the "Arab side", but is merely pointing out the blinding idiocy--or more likely the disingenuous hooey--of expecting the Arab world to care about the death of one American.

We truly believe that Americans would value lost Arabs lives if they knew about them. We are cynical about today's Republican party, not about Americans in general. The proof is the effort to keep the truth from them; someone knows that Americans would not tolerate it. We are a good people.

Soldiers of all nationalities do things in war that people otherwise would not. That's the horror of war. And that's why those at the top who define the mission must be very careful, and must follow strict rules. Humanity learned this lesson painfully in the 20th century--the old world powers in World Wars I and II, and America in Vietnam. Yet the Bush administration threw those lessons away in an ideological heartbeat.

They come dangerously close to being "corporate criminals playing with tanks". They've abandoned the rules of warfare and the rules of diplomacy for the rules of the hostile take-over. They've used the full weight of the United States military--in large part contrary to the best military analysis--to carry out a "mission" that was hatched by civilian ideologues working in well-funded right-wing think tanks.

And the likihood is that they will never pay for it. Poor kids who signed up with the military to get ahead in life will pay for it. American civilians at home and abroad will pay for it. U.S. diplomats will pay for it. But the gang at the top doesn't care--and you know, they truly don't-- about those people. Hey, they'd say, if they thought no microphones were near, they enlisted; if they don't like it they can go elsewhere when their hitch is up.

And like so many big shots who walk away--or fly off to Aspen--while thousands of regular people are left with lost 401ks or lost limbs or lost family members, the architects of this war will fly back to wherever they came from, richer and more well-connected than ever.

A reader writes:

Date: Thu, 27 May 2004
From: "Richard"
To: editor@201k.com
Subject: Laurel & Hardy

Looking at the messy and volatile state of things in the world today, thanks to George Bush, I'm reminded of the early film comedy team of Laurel & Hardy. Their classic film plots were always the same. The two incompetents would get themselves hopelessly intertwined into situations from which they could not easily escape, and Oliver Hardy would always put the blame on Stan Laurel with his trademark comment "Well Stan, that's another nice mess you've gotten us into".

I say to George Bush, "Well Mr. President, it's a nice mess you've gotten us into!

"The world is far less safe today than it was when you embarked on your arrogant, reckless, disastrous foreign policy, spearheaded by your invasion and occupation of Iraq." And, as with the Laurel & Hardy films, in which the ensuing predicaments were telegraphed to the audience, who couldn't possibly foresee the mess in Iraq and the dire consequences that would result? Who, other than those blinded by ideology, those sold on the Iraq war by lies and concocted stories, and those blinded by the thirst to strike at anyone with misdirected revenge for 9/11?

The Bush foreign policy strategy was supposed to make the world a safer place. Does the news coming out this week make you feel any safer? I shouldn't think so. The effect of the ill-conceived Bush Doctrine on foreign policy has turned the world into a bubbling cauldron of potential terror ready to boil over. And that opinion comes from people within his own administration. Does this chilling remark from Attorney General John Ashcroft this week make you fee any safer: "Al Qaeda intends to hit the United States hard in the next few months." (Ironically, among seven key terrorists being sought, none are Iraqi.)

Bush was feeling pretty cocky when our troops marched through Iraq with little effective resistance and he delivered his "Mission Accomplished" speech. He was feeling pretty smug when he said with a smirk "We've got Al Qaeda on the run". And when Saddam was captured he declared that the world was safer. Take another look Mr. Bush. It's time for a reality check.

This week the International Institute of Strategic Studies released findings from their annual survey of world affairs showing that because of the Iraq war Al Qaeda's ranks are growing and they now have more than 18,000 potential terrorists in 60 nations around the world. They say the Iraq war has increased the risk to Western interests in Arab countries. They say the Iraq war has focused the energies and resources of Al Qaeda and increased recruitment. The report says Al Qaeda is intent on killing at least 4 million Americans. And the IISS says it could take up to 500,000 troops to effectively police Iraq and restore political stability. There's more, but I'm sure you get the frightening point that the Iraq war was a mistake. (And the fallout from the prisoner abuse incidents weren't even factored into their report.) Again, who but the blind couldn't see this coming.

Clearly, as opposed to reducing the threat of terrorism, the effect of the Iraq war has been to strengthen, inspire and embolden Al Qaeda rather than cripple them. Sadly for us, contrary to what our out-of-touch President says, Al Qaeda is not on the run, and we're not safer.

The incompetent Bush administration put us into this mess. America deserves a President who can make the U.S. and the world safer. That's why Bush does not deserve re-election.

Richard R.
Fairfield, CT

Our answer from Aaron Brown sounds a bit unbelieving:

From: "Brown, Aaron"
Subject: Re: This is what I mean: Crowley channeling Safire? Coincidence?
Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 10:35:49 -0400

Yeah, it was cool. All we mainstream media types got together over lunch and hatched this plan. Safire paid but we were all there.

Well, ok. Let's look at the tape, as they say.

Sources: CNN NewsNight transcript and The New York Times:

Crowley's opening:

CROWLEY (voice over): Sinking in the polls last year, John Kerry struggled to explain how having voted for war in Iraq, his policy was different from the president's.

Safire's second sentence:

Set aside Senator John Kerry's lurch toward the doves during the primaries to derail the Howard Dean bandwagon.

Crowley's second point:

CROWLEY: But plan for plan there is not much that separates the two...In fact, the president's speech Monday had many of the bullet points of the Kerry plan.

Safire's third sentence:

Consider instead the nondebate about Iraq now going on in the general election race.

Safire next lists Kerry's stances, beginning with that we should internationalize the situation in Iraq, and involve NATO:

Four weeks ago, at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo.,, Kerry laid out three basic options: (1) "continue to do this largely by ourselves" (would never work); (2) "pull out and hope against hope that the worst won't happen" (worst would happen); or (3) "get the Iraqi people and the world's major powers invested with us in building Iraq's future" (that's it!).

In his address the other night, President Bush agreed with Kerry's unassailable Option 3 by recounting his own five-step plan:

(1) Turn over sovereignty as promised in a month, the date O.K.'d by Kerry; (2) help establish security (like Kerry, Bush is ready to send over more troops if our generals ask, and they'd better not ask); (3) "rebuilding that nation's infrastructure," echoing Kerry's call for "tangible benefits of reconstruction in the form of jobs, infrastructure and services"; (4) "Next month at the NATO summit in Istanbul," Bush promised to "discuss NATO's role in helping Iraq build and secure its democracy." As Kerry said last month: "He must also convince NATO as an organization that Iraq should be a NATO mission."

Crowley's very next points are the very same--in the same order: internationalize the effort, and involve NATO:

CROWLEY: Kerry wants U.N. involvement in the political future of Iraq. The U.S. and Britain are shopping a resolution of support for the Iraqi transitional government. Kerry said the president should bring NATO in.

KERRY: The president must immediately and personally reach out and convince them that Iraqi security and stability is that global interest that all must contribute to.

CROWLEY: NATO meets in Istanbul next month. So, check.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: At the summit, we will discuss NATO's role in helping Iraq build and secure its democracy.

Crowley's conclusion?

CROWLEY: With so much agreement, the political advantage would seem to fall to the president.

Safire's summation?

The calendar suggests that June may be Bush's comeback month.

Leaving aside the more general fact that both Crowley and Safire decided to do the same story--i.e., point out the "similarities" between the positions-- and the fact that to do so both recognized they could only use quotes from Bush's Monday night speech (prior to which, of course, his positions were different)--leaving all that aside---how likely is that that they would do pieces so very, very similar in the same news cycle?

We don't know how likely it is that Safire would spring for lunch, but we frankly have trouble believing Candy Crowley and William Safire came up with such similar stories so closely resembling each other by accident.

We just don't believe it.

Last night's "NewsNight with Aaron Brown" on CNN prompted an email from 201k to Mr. Brown--who, it should be said, is pretty good about responding. In fact, it was 201k that first informed him that the photos of Kerry and Jane Fonda that surfaced on the web a few months ago were fake. At issue last night was a Candy Crowley segment. Here is the email we sent:

Mr. Brown,

Candy Crowley's report drawing comparisons between Bush's and Kerry's stands on Iraq failed to note that several of the current Bush positions she listed represent complete reversals from his earlier stances. And we're talking serious reversals.

Seems pretty relevant--if they hold similar positions now. How could she fail to even mention it?

Regards,

Now here's the kicker: today's William Safire column in the Times makes exactly the same argument, in almost exactly the same order--and also somehow fails to note that Bush's positions are a dramatic reversal.

In other words, Candy Crowley made a report on CNN last night with a very odd ommission that turns out to be the next day's Safire column in the Times.

What's going on here?

More later, with transcripts...

A reader writes:

Have you noticed that this administration never seems to equate cause and effect? They take one course of action against all advice that bad things will happen, then bad things happen and they disclaim all responsibility.

Don't you think there's a great deal of similarity between the arguments they used to flout the Geneva Convention and normal rules of law for people they wanted to detain and the arguments they used to promote the Patriot Act? In both cases when people screamed that they would have no protection under the rules of law and that this sent dangerous precedent and left the door open for abuse, they pooh-poohed that and reminded us that, after all, we're Americans and we don't do that sort of thing, just trust us.

How many abuses of Americans' civil liberties will be disclosed as we see what the consequences of the Patriot Act?

Cause and effect...what an interesting concept...

Great point. We think the answer is that they start with an agenda, not a desire to do what makes sense or is right for the country. In pursuit of that agenda they argue their way past the objections, then deny the consequences. What the reader recognizes as "cause and effect" are just impediments they have to deal with--which they do through marketing, courtesy of the right-wing media machine.

A perfect example is the recent attempt (first observed by us coming from CNN's resident Wall Street flunky Lou Dobbs) to change the subject from the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal to the failure of the Arab media to condemn the killing of Nick Berg.

While everyone with a beating heart should condemn the killing of Nick Berg--or the killing of anyone, for that matter, but that's a different subject--it takes a special sort of committed, self-deluded, propagandistic myopia to think the Arab world would give two s**** about the killing of one American at this point.

Why is it even possible for any American to think they would? Because the U.S. media until recently has not shown Americans the reality of the Iraq war that Arabs see every day.

Arabs turn on their TV's and see dead bodies stacked up; the week Nick Berg was killed they saw photos and video of Arab men and women being systematically beaten, sexually humiliated, and even murdered by U.S. soldiers.

Americans not only don't see the stacked corpses, they barely were allowed to see the prison abuse. Indeed, the majority of Republicans in Washington stated flatly that no one should see them--just as the Bush administration has decided that no one should see the caskets of returning servicemen and women.

But looking at unpleasant realities is the responsibility of the self-governed. It is our job to judge these matters. By preventing Americans from exercising that responsibility, the Bush Administration and its allies in Congress and the media have effectively withheld evidence from the jury of our democracy: the citizens.

Frankly stated, the Arab world knows they are in a war with us, and what that means. The open question is how many Americans would continue to support the Iraq war and accept its rationales if they were seeing the whole truth, including the thousands of dead bodies--of Arabs and Americans.

Understand that 201k is not arguing the Arab side in this issue. But we are pointing out the enormous hypocrisy needed for any American to expect the "Arab street" or its media to bother condemning the admittedly horrific murder of an American civilian looking for work in Iraq at the hands of individual terrorists when they are consumed with hatred for acts committed against them as a matter of U.S. policy.

It is blind folly to expect them to care about poor Nick Berg, and Lou Dobbs knows it. Because he knows what Americans haven't seen, and haven't been told.

The point is that without its control of the U.S. media, the Bush administration and its right-wing allies would never be able to avoid the laws of "cause and effect"--because the "effects" of their policies would be seen by all Americans.

But as of yet they have not been.

A reader alerted us to this item in the Washington Post

Marc Sandalow writes in the San Francisco Chronicle: "House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco rejected Republican demands Thursday that she apologize for her strong condemnation of President Bush, as raw nerves over Iraq collided with raw politics on Capitol Hill.

"Republican leaders accused Pelosi of taunting the troops, inspiring the enemy and putting American lives at risk by telling The Chronicle on Wednesday that Bush is an 'incompetent leader' who lacks the judgment, experience or knowledge to make good decisions."

In fact, Pelosi elaborated on her comments yesterday.

"The emperor has no clothes," she said. "I believe that the president's leadership in the actions taken in Iraq demonstrate an incompetence in terms of knowledge, judgment and experience, in making the decisions that would have been necessary to truly accomplish the mission without the deaths to our troops and the cost to our taxpayers."

In their Post story, Milbank and Babington write that "Republicans responded to Pelosi's unusually strong language by suggesting she was aiding the enemy in Iraq. 'We are in the middle of a war and in the middle of a political campaign,' said House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.). 'Mrs. Pelosi's comments were meant to inspire her political base, but who else do they inspire?' "

The usual G.O.P. bullying tactic, to which we can only say: Pelosi would have to go a long way to inspire America's enemies more than the incompetent George W. Bush has.

201k cannot remember a time when America has been so despised, so needlessly, throughout the world. George Bush's reliance on the ignoble liars surrounding him has created an international disaster for our country, the burden for which will be borne by all its citizens--not to mention its foreign service--years after W and his Straussian cabal have retired in comfort.

We received the following in an email forwarded from a Poor Reader. We cannot verify its authenticity or its accuracy, but given the name of the stated author, thought it was worth posting:

Date: Mon, 17 May 2004
Subject: Daniel Ellsberg's Statement on Camilo Mejia's Court Martial

Daniel Ellsberg has written a statement in support of our client, Camilo Mejia, who is being tried by court-martial on Wednesday, May 19, 2004 at Fort Stewart, Georgia. I thought you might be interested in this.

Statement by Daniel Ellsberg on the trial of Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia on 5-19-04

In the special court-martial of Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia in Georgia on Wednesday, the wrong man is on trial. If Monday's revelations by Seymour Hersh are confirmed, on the personal responsibility of Donald Rumsfeld and President George W. Bush for treatment of prisoners amounting to torture, they should both resign or be impeached and tried by the International Criminal Court in the Hague for war crimes. Sergeant Mejia served his country bravely and well in Iraq; but he is serving his country better, and just as bravely, in his publicly-announced refusal to participate further in what he correctly identifies as an illegal war using illegal means. That is also true of his role in being one of the first to expose serious American violations of the Geneva Conventions on treatment of prisoners, which as ratified treaties have the status, with the Constitution, of the highest law of the land.

Mejia's commendation by his company commander for "exceptional meritorious service" in Iraq cites his "courage and commitment" that "reflects great credit upon himself...and the United States Army." Those words apply exactly to his present stance, which deserves commendation by his fellow citizens, and indeed, if they share his integrity, by his military superiors.

This is why we love the Commonwealth. Below is a letter to the Editor of today's New York Times:

To the Editor:

Thomas L. Friedman (column, May 16) correctly identifies the common characteristics of the Shiite and the Israeli extremist movements as "religious messianism, and a willingness to sacrifice their followers and others for absolutist visions, along with a certain disdain for man-made laws, as opposed to those from God."

Sounds a lot like the Bush administration to me.

MAUREEN RATIGAN
Natick, Mass., May 16, 2004

And here is the text of 201k's letter to the Times, which they did not publish:

To the Editors,

Thomas Friedman may be correct, as far as he goes, that both Israel and Iraq are suffering under the tyranny of minorities that "combine religious messianism, and a willingness to sacrifice their followers and others for absolutist visions, along with a certain disdain for man-made laws, as opposed to those from God".

But there is a third country, omitted by Friedman, that is also currently in thrall to "a zealous, religious and messianic minority". The United States.

Regards, 201k

Way to go, Maureen from Flutie-ville.

Gays have been getting married all morning across the Commonwealth, and as of yet the sky has not fallen. 201k's own marriage has not been diminished -- although Mr. 201k was required to put the dishes in the dishwasher this morning -- and the earth has not cracked open to swallow us whole.

Actually, it's your basic Monday: most people went to work, and a lot of gay adults who were living together anyway got married. Mrs. 201k stayed home from work, had coffee and cleaned up a bit from yesterday's 4th birthday party for 201k jr.

It drizzled a bit early on, but the sun is out now and it's becoming a lovely spring New England Day.

The papers, as usual, were full of dire fears of a "gay marriage backlash", but 201k has not, as of yet, seen one story recounting any actual backlash--just lots of stories predicting one. It's starting to feel like a self-fulfilling prophesy--or at least some totalitarian's hope for one. Maybe the anti-gay people bemoaning in yesterday's Times the lack of enthusiasm in their rank and file for opposing gay marriage think they can stir a backlash up if they keep predicting one.

It may work; a Globe story today quoted a closeted gay man who claimed to fear the coming backlash -- so they've succeeded in convincing at least one gay person. Maybe he's a log-cabin Republican.

Our Utah Republican governor, having first failed to convince the Commonwealth's Attorney General to stop the marriages using a 91-year-old anti-miscegenation law, then failed to convince the U.S. Supreme Court that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court shouldn't be allowed to interpret the Massachusetts Constitution, then failed to convince anyone -- other than the anti-gay extremists who've come here from other states (like the governor himself) to try to change our Constitution -- that the executive branch is above the law, has mostly confined himself to muttering that "the people haven't been given a chance to vote" on the issue.

After we do, presumably, we'll all vote on whether the slaves should be free, women should vote, and Catholics can marry Protestants. Mob rule is so much more fun when you're governor of someone else's state. If it weren't for that damned Constitution and those meddling Justices...

The most interesting thing we read this morning is the long list of people getting married who have connections to some of the most powerful people in the Commonwealth. Former Republican Chiefs of Staff, cousins, brothers and sisters of State Reps and Senators, uncles and aunts of big-shot corporate leaders.

Who knew so many people were related to gays? Does Pat Robertson know about this?

Oh well, too bad. Soon the sky will fall, and all those brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles will have to give up their marriages.

Yup, any minute now.

Sure is a nice day out.

Monday marks the start of legal gay marriage here in the Commonwealth, and the Times has an unintentionally hilarious article on it. Or maybe it's intentional--hard to know with these crafty New Yawkas.

May 16, 2004

Backers of Gay Marriage Ban Find Tepid Response in Pews
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Just four months after an alliance of conservative Christians was threatening a churchgoer revolt unless President Bush championed an amendment banning same-sex marriage, members say they have been surprised and disappointed by what they call a tepid response from the pews.

Most of the groups supporting the proposed federal constitutional amendment concede that it appears all but dead in Congress for this election year...

...opponents of gay marriage say they are puzzling over why such a volatile cultural issue is not spurring more rank-and-file conservative Christians to rise up in support of the amendment...

..."Our side is basically asleep right now," Matt Daniels, founder of the Alliance for Marriage, which helped draft the proposed amendment, said in an interview last week.

The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, said: "I don't see any traction. The calls aren't coming in and I am not sure why."

Hmm, no response from the flock, eh? Might be a case of Americans sensing something is none of their business. That is a time-honored American tradition, after all.

The amendment's backers contend that the reason people are not responding more vocally is that many grass-roots conservatives do not yet understand how same-sex marriages affect them personally.

Um...actually, it kinda sounds like exactly the opposite; sounds like people understand just fine.

Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican who supports the amendment...said. "I think people are still having a hard time believing this is real. One of the most common responses I hear is, `This is just in Massachusetts, why does it concern us in other states?' "

Well, see, it does sound like people understand full well, doesn't it?

"When people understand that there are same-sex couples that will get married under Massachusetts law and then move to other states and demand that those marriages are recognized by the laws of other states, that is when people will understand this," he said.

Why? Won't they then just say, "This is someone else's marriage, why does it concern us?"

Mr. Foreman of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force [said] "The minute you pose the question to somebody, `How will this hurt you?,' they never have an answer."

Yeah, I've noticed that, too. Or at least that they never have an answer that doesn't sound a whole lot like a totalitarian excuse for sniffing around in other people's bedrooms. And speaking of that, have you noticed that when anti-gay activists try to justify condemning gay sex or gay marriage, they always have to do it by comparison to something patently illegal? They say, "Well, the State is allowed to look into people's bedrooms to stop rape, incest, and pedophilia, isn't it?" They have to do that because unless you put those criminal acts in people's mind in the same breath as gay sex, you're apt to have people realize that legislating gay sex or marriage is in fact sniffing around in the bedrooms of legal, consenting adults--including your neighbors--which most Americans rightly reject. As the tepid response to the gay-marriage ban amendment clearly shows.

But not everyone gets it.

Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention...has told President Bush's political adviser Karl Rove and members of Congress that no issue has upset ordinary evangelical Christians as much as the threat of gay marriage.

Dunno if we believe him. All evidence points to the contrary. Could the doctor be projecting his own views, or--worse--fibbing a bit?

Last week he stood by that view, but he acknowledged that parishioners around the country might not have voiced their opinions to elected officials as loudly as he had expected.

Ah. Well, there's nothing like a religious totalitarian for blind self-confirmation.

A reader from Tree Fort West (it's a long story) sent this:

The Denver Post

Bishop draws line for voters
Communion tied to politics
By Eric Gorski
Denver Post Staff Writer

Friday, May 14, 2004 -

[Bishop Michael Sheridan]...of Colorado's second-largest Roman Catholic diocese has issued a pastoral letter saying Catholics cannot receive Communion if they vote for politicians who support abortion rights, stem-cell research, euthanasia or gay marriage.

Now to our minds, this immediately calls into question the tax-exempt status of the Church. It is an overt political act to tell people how to vote.

Defenders of this type of meddling will claim it is merely the Church reminding its flock of its own mandates, but there is a clear distinction to be made between telling Catholics what the Church's position is--the proper role of a priest--and going the next step and telling them how to vote.

The former is the realm of religion; the latter is an overt political act, and as such should render the Church subject to normal political rules. It must lose its tax-exempt status.

Imagine, for a moment, if the Unitarian Universalist Church began requiring its members to vote only for politicians who supported abortion rights, stem-cell research, euthanasia and gay marriage. Can you imagine what the reaction would be from the Catholic Church--not to mention the rest of the right-wing in this country?

Bishop Sheridan has forgotten his place, and, more importantly, he's forgotten the meaning of separation of Church and State. The members of his flock are also citizens of the United States, and entitled to all its civic freedoms. And that includes, whether or not Sheridan likes it, the freedom to vote for whoever they like--regardless of Church doctrine.

American Catholics are BOTH Americans and Catholics, and nothing in the Catholic doctrine can change that. The Bishop cannot reasonably expect them to surrender the former for the latter. If he wishes a flock that will allow their political will to be subservient to the teachings of the Church, he must request that the Vatican transfer him to a country without a Bill of Rights, and without mandated separation of Church and State. There he could insist to his heart's content that religious doctrine take precedence over personal and civic freedoms.

In the United States, on the other hand, it is the Bishop who must govern his actions, not his flock. Accepting a Catholic post in the United States means accepting that his parishoners have freedoms beyond and outside his Church, and that to cross the line from the religious to the political is to require the nullification of the exemptions his religious body enjoys.

The Bishop is free to tell Catholics what Catholic doctrine expects of them; he's free to tell them what doctrine accepts and what it does not accept. But he must himself accept that after he's said his piece, and sits watching them file two-by-two out of Mass, he cannot, in the United States, control how they vote.

To expect otherwise is to believe that Catholic doctrine takes precedence over American freedom. It does not.

The first rationale for the war in Iraq was that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But he didn't.

The next rationale for the war in Iraq was that Saddam had ties to terrorists. But he didn't.

The next rationale for the war in Iraq was that Saddam was a brutal dictator who had killed thousands of his own people. But then we killed thousands of his people.

The next rationale for the war in Iraq was that we could make democracy flourish in the Middle East, put a dent in militant Islam, improve America's standing in the Arab world, and make Israel safer -- all by "liberating" Iraq. But we haven't created a democracy, militant Islam is at a fever pitch, our occupation of Iraq has created unparalleled ill will in the Arab world, and it would be delusional to think that Israel is safer today than before the war.

The next rationale for the war in Iraq was that Saddam was a brutal dictator who had tortured his own people in prisons like Abu Ghraib. But then the whole world saw that we tortured his people in prisons like Abu Ghraib (and there are uglier revelations on the way).

What does that leave?

But our thinking it leaves arrogance, abuse of power, religious zealotry, and oil.

Thanks to a reader for drawing this to our attention.

Last Sunday 201k suggested that the outrage George Bush feels over the abuse of prisoners by US military personnel in Iraq is likely more due to the pictures of the abuse than to the abuse itself.

Call us prescient (emphasis added):

May 6, 2004

Rumsfeld Chastised by President for His Handling of Iraq Scandal

By ELISABETH BUMILLER
and RICHARD W. STEVENSON

WASHINGTON, May 5 — President Bush on Wednesday chastised his defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, for Mr. Rumsfeld's handling of a scandal over the American abuse of Iraqis held at a notorious prison in Baghdad, White House officials said.

The disclosures by the White House officials, under authorization from Mr. Bush, were an extraordinary display of finger-pointing in an administration led by a man who puts a high premium on order and loyalty. The officials said the president had expressed his displeasure to Mr. Rumsfeld in an Oval Office meeting because of Mr. Rumsfeld's failure to tell Mr. Bush about photographs of the abuse, which have enraged the Arab world.

Another White House official said, "The president was not satisfied or happy about the way he was informed about the pictures, and he did talk to Secretary Rumsfeld about it."

So is it the pictures that bothered him, or the abuse?

Answer: It's the release of the pictures. How do we know? Because George Bush knew for months about the abuse. Look at his smarmy word-smithing (emphasis added):

In his interviews on Wednesday with Arab television networks, Mr. Bush said that he learned the graphic details of the abuse case only when they were broadcast last Wednesday on the CBS program "60 Minutes II." It was then, one White House official said, that Mr. Bush also saw the photographs documenting the abuse. "When you see the pictures," the official said, "it takes on a proportion of gravity that would require a much more extreme response than the way it was being handled."

Why did the president specify that what the photos showed him was "graphic details"? Because he'd already been told about the abuse itself (emphasis added):

Pentagon officials said that Mr. Rumsfeld was first notified about the pictures in mid-January, after a soldier turned them over to Army officials, prompting the opening of an investigation. A senior Pentagon official said that Mr. Rumsfeld was told of the allegations of abuse and given a general description of the photographs.

Within weeks, the Pentagon official said, Mr. Rumsfeld told the president about the case. But it is not clear, the official said, whether Mr. Rumsfeld mentioned the photographs or their basic content to Mr. Bush at that point.

So either the president was told of the abuse but, owing to his not having seen the pictures, did not grasp the "gravity" of the case, or--he knew about it but did nothing and said nothing until the photos emerged and were shown all over the world.

Which do you think it is, readers?

Conservative scold and faux Brahmin George Will criticizes as "careless talk" George Bush's tsk-tsking of the "them" who don't believe "people whose skins...are a different color than white can self-govern."

Beyond the fact that no one has yet emerged who believes such a thing (at least up here where it occasionally snows), Will cuts through the malarkey and rejects Bush's attempt to "deflect doubts about policy by caricaturing and discrediting the doubters."

More bluntly, Will dismisses White House press secretary Scott McClellan's effort to redefine plain english to simultaneously defuse and intensify Bush's words:

...what he [Bush] suggested was: Some persons -- perhaps many persons; no names being named, the smear remained tantalizingly vague -- doubt his nation-building project because they are racists.

Now who knows why Will has suddenly chosen the high road, but the first thing we thought of when we read this--and isn't it funny, by the way, that you can come to distrust this administration simply by having a memory that can reach a month or two back--was the scurrilous suggestion from the New York Times' punch-me-face preppie David Brooks that any criticism of the neocons in Bush's administration was covert anti-Semitism.

So let's review: criticizing Bush's Crusade is racist, and criticizing the jerks who came up with it is anti-Semitic.

Of this much we're fairly certain: George Bush didn't think this strategy up. And as for David Brooks, well, frankly we've read enough of his work to doubt he's capable of an original thought more compelling than the "red state/blue state" drivel he copped from a Fox News graphic. (Wasn't it his wife who wrote the lovely assertion that women who marry after 30 are losers that marry losers? What do you suppose those two talk about at home and aren't you glad you aren't there to hear it?)

So who was it? Which slimeball came up with this one?

It has to be someone Will doesn't like.

President Bush said publicly this week that he was disgusted by the actions of US military personnel who abused Iraqi detainees.

We cannot recall a sitting US president criticizing active military personnel in such stark terms. Perhaps readers who were around during Mai Lai will refresh our memory as to Johnson's reaction.

If it were not for military personnel George Bush would have to give all his speeches in front of captive audiences of the employees of large corporate donors dragged from their cubicles to applaud on cue under the watchful eyes of their vice-Presidents of Public Relations. For him to have to speak so harshly against active troops indicates the disastrous implications the bad publicity surrounding the images has for his Crusade, which, let's be honest, isn't going all that well anyway.

Having to condemn some of his most loyal Crusaders to assuage the feelings of those few Infidels he hopes might not raise arms against him cannot have been a pleasant decision for the president to have to make. It has all sorts of ugly implications, not least of which is how enthusiastically military personnel may in the future wave those little flags as he strolls -- palms resolutely facing backwards -- across the stage to the podium.

How enthusiastic can they be expected to be, if, after buying so thoroughly into Bush that they're willing to sacrifice their sense of humanity in pursuit of his Crusade, they realize he'll turn around and throw them under the bus the first time it's politically necessary?

Perhaps they should have checked first with the "sailors" who put up the "Mission Accomplished" sign. Or they could have asked Paul O'Neill. Or Richard Clarke. Or Joe Wilson. Or John Di Iulio. Or, soon, Colin Powell.

But consider for a moment the implications for the rest of us:

George Bush did not condemn the outing by a member of his own staff of a covert CIA operative.

He did not condemn the scurrilous attacks on the character of Richard Clarke.

He did not condemn the scurrilous attacks on the character of Paul O'Neill.

He did not condemn those intelligence officials responsible for the false information that Iraq had W.M.D.

He did not condemn whoever was responsible for inserting into his own State of the Union speech the known-false claim of the yellowcake uranium.

He did not condemn the catastrophic failure of his intelligence and security staff to respond to the voluminous and mounting evidence of an impending terrorist attack.

He did not condemn the now ridiculed and dropped charges against the U.S. Army Muslim cleric arrested at Guantanamo Bay.

He did not condemn, prior to last week, the abuse of the very same Iraqi prisoners, though it has been well documented for over a year.

Why? Because the whole world did not see PICTURES of those other outrages.

And if there weren't pictures of the abuse -- or if he'd been able to prevent their release -- he wouldn't have condemned that either. Because reality doesn't mean a thing to the Bush administration. All that matters is the "reality" they can shape in people's minds.

Which is why the hacks of the right-wing are now, in typical lock-step, attacking those who released the photos just as they attacked the 9/11 commission. They have to kill the messenger, because the truth, not the terrorists, is the enemy they have the most reason to fear.