bustardblog

Tricked Again

I'm frightened  by our inability to maintain our focus - I'm not talking about laser like precision here - I'm concerned that we're unable to keep our eyes on the ball - even when it's a one on one game of 21 and you can't follow the basketball.

Our ability to lose sight of the plan has been amply demonstrated in the last ten days.

The first occurred with the great manipulation that was "The Path to 9/11." Yesterday Cyrus Nowrasteh had an op-end in the Opinion Journal, which was entitled "The Path to Hysteria."  In it Nowrasteh went for the victim role. He argued that he has made films that have been considered ant-Republican, and thus it was grossly unfair that he was accused of being unfair to Clinton - it was an apolitical attempt at truth.

Whether the publicity run up to the show was concocted by Rove, or merely based on the personal greed of Nowrasteh, the clear plan was to rile up Democrats, and get them defending Clinton's behavior of a decade ago. The publicity we obtained for him was priceless, and had the added bonus for the right of bringing Monica Lewinsky back into the news, as well as a lot of fresh debate  about Clinton's handling of Osama.

The dishonesty of the Op-Ed, like the publicity before the film's airing was infuriating, and because of our reaction - totally successful. In it Nowrasteh mentioned that they had "lawyers [who] scrutinized every detail, every line, every scene. There were hundreds of pages of annotations." You don't need a team of lawyers to help you tell the truth, and they are not the same as fact checkers - you use lawyers to find our how much lying you can get away with.  The idea that the number of annotations is in any way indicative of truth went out the window the day that the stork flew in to deliver Ann Coulter.  He also said that "much was made of my 'friendship' with Rush Limbaugh (a connection limited to two social encounters)"  If he did not like the characterization of his relationship to Limbaugh, why'd he wait to clarify it? Why did Nowrasteh let Limbaugh's description of the film as a complete indictment of Clinton stand? 

When Bush says of a Democrat - "I've heard that he stopped beating his wife" - do we have to go out everyday and argue before the press the he hasn't stopped? Do we have to fall for every trick in the book?

(Tomorrow I hope to provide additional examples, and some suggestions.)

Supporting Israel, And Targetting Civilians

The Bush administration has given the green light for Israel's continuing reign of terror in Lebanon. Condi implied today that after enough bombing has occurred to devastate Hezbollah, the U.S. will explore ways of occupying Southern Lebanon. Perhaps Israel would occupy it, or perhaps some "coalition" of foreign troops would do it.  (Remember this is the administration of coalition builders - I have no doubt that The Kingdom of Tonga is ready to enlist again.)

Clearly, Iraq has taught us nothing about the outcome of our occupying Arab lands. But maybe someone should remind our dear leader that it was during and in reaction to Israeli occupation of Lebanon that Hezbollah was born. It's exact birthday is unclear, but it was definitely after the occupation of the South which began  in 1978 and only ended in 2000, that the terrorist organization was born and grew into adulthood. It flourished on the steady diet of hatred and resentment Israel created during those 22 years.

Until we get an administration with the strength to standup to the rabid "supporters" of Israel, that poor country is doomed to continous war. I put the word "supporters" in quotes because an Israel at peace with its neighbors, in its originally mandated borders, would be of no interest to such people.

Make no mistake about it - the idea that the IDF is carefully only targetting only Hezbollah resources is an absolute lie. So far it has hit a dairy farm, a church,and  an outpost of the regular Lebanese army. It is aiming at, and hitting civilian targets. Why else are Eruopeans and Americans fleeing the country as fast as they possibly can?

Vile Wisdom

Yesterday I wrote a post characterizing Deb Frisch's recent comments at Protein Wisdom as despicable.I also wrote that they weren't actually threats, and she shouldn't lose her job because of repulsive comments.

A lot of commenters here thought that I was rationalizing or overly parsing - that the comments really were threatening. Many blogs from the right asserted that she was in fact threatening the child of the author at PW,  Jeff Goldstein.  Some argued that she should be held "accountable," others that she should lose her job, while others thought she deserved jail and/or bodily harm for threatening a two year old.
Blackfive wrote that she "repeatedly and quite disturbingly levied DEATH THREATS against Jeff's 2 year old child."

Gulf Coast stated that she "is threatening a two year old child." Sierra Faith chimed in "Most importantly, this sick person is threatening the life" of a 2 year old.
Right Wing Nation claimed she was "threatening Jeff Goldstein's child." While Right Wing Nut House said "Short version: Frisch made a series of what can only be termed threats against Jeff and his two year old son. The threats were both violent and sexual in nature." A piece entitled "Arizona Psych Professor Threatens Life of Two Year Old" was posted by Caos Blog. Lilac Rose sympathized with Jeff's having to endure "vile threats against his child." MarkinMexico wrote of her "hurling death threats and sexual innuendos." (I think he might have hurt Goldsteins pride with this one - he likes to think he's the best sexual innuendo hurler in town.) Moonbattery prefers labelling Frisch as the one who "threatened a conservative blogger's two-year-old child with sexcual abuse and death."

 

To put it bluntly, all of these bloggers knowingly were posting lies. What Frisch said was vile, but in no way threatening. After his website was shut down for a while, Goldstein wrote that never felt threatened nor "victimized."  He allowed Frisch to comment for a few days because he hoped that she would "show her ass." He wanted her to make a fool of herself, and to make her seem unbalanced. He succeeded. He does "not want apologies." It was a game to him – a vile, manipulative game. That's all. Because he played the game better than she did, he'd love a bottle of tequila as a victory prize. He also implies that she might have been drunk when she made her stupid comments

Before calling Deb Frisch's employer to register a "complaint," presumably about her threatening a two year old, Froggy of Blackfive talked with Jeff Goldstein.

Again, I make no excuse for her horrible words. But she is no longer employed – in large part  because a lot of  wing-nut bloggers wrote to her employer accusing her of threatening a 2 year old.

Goldstein’s behavior can only be characterized as despicable. He has allowed someone to be punished for an act that he knew did not happen. Apparently, he sat back and chuckled as his fellow wing nuts tried to get Frisch fired for threatening his child, although he knew there was no threat.  I'm not surprised by Goldstein's cruel dishonesty as I have seen his m.o. before. But a lot of bloggers, and a lot of commenters at my blog, also were lying about what was happening. They claim to be outraged  that a child was threatened, when they know it never happened. Why? I don’t understand what excitement and pleasure they get by trying to destroy Frisch’s career.  As Goldstein put it – she’s the kind of woman who has too many cats.
 

I realize that the Republican party relies on smears, lies and vile manipulation to remain in power. I recognize the swiftboating, the accusations of treason, the phony outrage over leaks, for what they are. But the only explanations that I can see for destroying a part-time college teacher’s career is simple cruelty, or a desire to maintain those skills which they need to remain in power.  An election is coming, and they must keep their knives sharp.

Is Memeorandum Legit?

Quite often, I head to memeorandum, hoping to find the news from the traditional media or from bloglandia. Their site purports to feature political web sites that are important, popular and fresh. The implication is that they automatically report and link to whatever is hot at the moment in political blogs.

Yet the blogs to which they link are overwhelmingly right-wing.  Over the last couple of weeks I have randomly recorded the blogs that they have linked to in a portion of their site entitled "More Items."  There is no particular reason why I selected this sub-section, located at the lower left part of their "front page," to analyze. I chose it at random because I could not examine all of their links.  I know of no reason why this sub-section of their site would not be representative of their site as a whole.

I captured and saved ten different of these sub-sections; again chosen at quite random moments.  Over the two week period the minimum amount of time between the "captures" was about four hours, and the maximum was about six days. The most recent was this afternoon.

This afternoon I also noted the 50 most "popular" blogs at Technorati.  Of course, many were not political. Within that sample, I found five blogs that I would classify as leaning to the left, and only four with a right slant. (#5 Daily Kos,#6 Huffington,#16 Crooks & Liars, #22 Think Progress, #34 Talking Points Memo; versus #9 Instapundit, #12 Michelle M., # 38 L.G.F., and #45 Powerline.)  The left ones had a total of 143,365 links from 35,249 sites. The right leaning blogs had 99,902 links from 22,561 sites.

It is no longer true that the right-wingers dominate bloglandia; but still the number of links at memeorandum fails to reflect this reality.

In those ten "captures" there were 106 links to right-wing sites, and only 52 to left leaning blogs. There was a tie in one of the "captures" between the number of links to the left and those to the right; of the other 9 there were two incidents when there were more links to lefties, and 7 where there were more links to righties.

The left is more active, with more hits and more links, than is the right in the world of blogs.  But news sites such as memeorandum would have us believe otherwise.

Does this mistake lie in their metrics or in their bias?

UPDATE: Corrected for sloppy spelling, editing, and categorization. (5/9/06)

Faith in Rumsfeld

It's certainly not scientific sampling, but it's still great to see. A poll over at AOL has 78% of the respondents agreeing that "Rumsfeld lied about prewar intelligence."

Divided Flight 93

It's depressing, yet fascinating, to watch the Right praise "United 93" while they politicize 9/11 and denounce the goal that the writer/director had for his film.  As I posted yesterday, the director's hope that the movie could be a uniting force is being destroyed by right wing bloggers.

One of the themes running through right-wing blogs is their pleasure that the movie was not made by a guy with "guts", and not some liberal type.

"This is no PC film crafted by moral relativists in Malibu" (national review)

"I thank God that director Paul Greeengrass and Universal Pictures have the guts to show some of out American heroes during the hours of our nation's darkest day." (gaypatriot)

"This movie is not PC. It sticks to the story as it happened." "Perhaps that is why the hijab-wearing woman I saw and her Muslim male companion walked out of the film with big frowns on their faces. I think they wanted this film to make the hijackers Samoans or Icelanders." (debbieschlussel) [I'm surprised at the implication here -that good American Christians came out of the movie smiling??]

For the record at least two of Greengrass's previous films were on subjects that are "liberal" and he calls the war in Iraq "the most calamitous decision of our generation."
But the right likes his film, so he can't be a "leftie." They have to create their own reality.

One of the reasons that they like the movie is because they believe it shows how evil our "enemy is - and thus it justifies the war in Iraq and our courageous President.

"I suspect others though would just as soon the rest of us not remind ourselves of why we're angry." (daveintexas)
"The only people likely to object to this film are those who don't want Americans to become aware of just how conscienceless,cruel and depraved our enemy is." (dennisprager, quoted in new republic)

Somehow, this movie, released by Universal, also proves how horrible Hollywood is.

"if Americans are interested in seeing more flag-waving films and less Oliver Stones, they would be wise" to see the movie... "ever since Vietnam, Hollywood has tried to make America bashing cool." (OPFOR)

"The Democrat Party and their collaborateurs at the TV network news divisions have tried to bleach from our memories those horrific images of 9/11/2001."(gaypatriot)

Many of the wing nuts like to express their outrage at the N.Y. movie theater which stopped showing the preview, after some customers were in tears and complained that it was too soon, too painful to watch. But they know that the movie is late if anything, and they know who must see it.

"the crowd whined, "Too Soon!" (debbieschlussel)

The movie must be seen by "Assorted ACLU-style lawyers and activists" (schlussel)

"Teenagers and older children in particular should see this film..."Young Americans need to know the nature of whom we are fighting." (schlussel)

A commenter at Schlussel "The only ones screaming; "Too Soon" are LIBERALS (who want to see America destroyed), and the Muzlum propagandists"

GayPatriot "How dare we offend Upper West Side sensibilities! " by showing this movie.

The right's reaction to the film shows the ownership that they believe they have of 9/11. So what if the majority of the deaths occurred in Blue New York? Flight 93 was going between a  New York suburb and San Francisco: how blue can you get.

In the end Greengrass failed at making a film that United us - the right's need to politicize our national tragedy makes that impossible.

 

DeLong Denies Truth.

No one could have expected that they would use planes to fly into buildings. No one could have expected the levees to break.... Right.

Here we go again.

The Op-Ed in yesterday's NY Times by Michael DeLong defending Rumsfeld argued that "The outcome and ramification of a war, however, are impossible to predict. Saddam Hussein had twice opened his jails, flooding the streets with criminals..... We did not expect" this development.

The larger "amnesty" and release of prisoners in Saddam's Iraq occurred on October 20, 2002 - five full months before we invaded the country. Even U.N. Resolution 1441, the supposed justification of our pre-emptive strike - was passed AFTER the release of the prisoners.

The only thing that is "impossible to predict" is how this administration and its supporters will rewrite history, and to lie about what transpired in Iraq, and how the main stream press is co-dependent.

You're in Better Hands - Without Bush

In the interests of full disclosure, let me say at the outset that my home is insured by Allstate.

As a Democrat, I was disappointed to see that in 2002 100% of their political donations went to Republicans.  In 2000 they gave 60% more to the Republican party than to the Democrats. Open Secrets indicates no political donations for 2004.

Perhaps they learned that Bush's denial of reality is bad for business.

Allstate has decided not to renew policies in coastal areas around New York. The N.Y. Times reported today that the company "planned to reduce its business in coastal areas vulnerable to what the company described as the increased danger of a devastating hurricane." It went on to say that "powerful hurricanes are more likely to occur in the Northeast as Atlantic waters continue to warm."

Bush may deny the reality of global warming, but business, even those who have supported him, know it is real.

Bush Cuts and Runs

The continuing downward spiral of Bush's approval ratings, especially those concerning Iraq, caused the right to advance it's time frame for when they declare that the "Mission is Accomplished." (yes, again) I expected it later in the year, and thought there would be a triumphal announcement by someone in the administration. But I guess it would look a little awkward for W to put that flight suit and cod piece back on, so the announcement is being made via an argument by bloggers and other writers of fiction on the right.

It's actually hilarious, if only people were not dying over it.

Dr. (In)Sanity is, as always, one of the least subtle: "Here's an astonishing concept:the U.S. has already won the war in Iraq; just as we won in Afghanistan. We won when the liberated people in these countries held their own elections and started to form their own governments."

Gateway Pundit agrees about Iraq, and is even more upbeat on Afghanistan, describing W's visit there: "Bush "The  Liberator" lands in a Free Afghanistan."

Victor David Hanson's editorial is headed "We're winning in Iraq. Let's not lose at home"

The poor writer at Blogs for Bush expresses his great admiration for Mr. Hamsom by referring to his phenomenal accomplishments as a teacher of Latin and Greek, as well as top prizes he received from the National Endowment for the Humanities. (I do pity the writer whose computer expired after having to process words so noxious to it's habit) He describes current events in Iraq, and issues a most gracious invitation to those of us on the left : "Great things are afoot, a new birth of liberty comes.  Do you want to be part of it?"

David Price, writing for Deans World analyzes what would constitute victory in Iraq. He concludes that the "removal of Saddam's regime with minimal casualties [is] a success almost regardless of what replaced it." He describes it as the 2003 definition of winning, and still believes it the best.

Of course, Sister Toldja jumps on the bandwagon, without really adding anything to the performance.

What these writers are doing is extraordinarily dishonest. They are denying the reality of what is happening on the ground in Iraq - despicable, but predictable. Worse is the dishonesty of not having comparable justifications for going to war with the outcome of the war.  You cannot say that you went to Iraq to liberate it, and call it successful, if you have destroyed the little liberty that was there. You cannot say that you went to Iraq to establish a real democracy in the Middle East, and then define victory as the toppling of Saddam's statue, and leave a country in chaos.

It was to be expected that Bush would cut and run. What I failed to anticipate was  his history of screaming "I won!" as he ran home, unwilling to face the consequences of his actions.

Jest-imony

All right, maybe they are not liars, merely bad comedians.

Rice yesterday testified that "It is Iran's regional policies that really are concerning as we watch them...destabilizing places like...even ... Iraq." WHO destabilzed Iraq?  Suddenly she cares about stability?

Rice also testified that "many more Iraqis are getting drinkable water and have sewers." After questioning, she clarified that they weren't actually getting it - but there is now the capacity for them to get it. It's an important distinction if you want a glass of water. There is no actual water to drink, nothing is in your glass: but there is the capacity for something to be in your glass.

Rumsfeld testified that the country of Iraq "is functioning" for the most part. But there is less oil production,less electricity production than there was three years ago. Ooops!

By the way, Rumsfeld testified that "We're not there to do nation-building." 

So why are we there?

What have we built?

"U.S. and Iraqi authorities discovered an apparent death squad operating within the country's Interior Ministry last month."  Within the new government we so proudly hailed.

Every day that we are there - the number of terrorists in the world increases. We are not destroying our enemy, we are creating them.

They are liars.