2006 archive

I am old enough to remember the “credibility gap.”

That was the term applied to President Johnson’s positions on the Viet Namese War when it became clear that the facts did not match his statements.

The term lived on into the Nixon years, as it became clear that Nixon was a noxious, lying little twit (though, frankly, he was a much better President than the current holder of that title–had he not been so afraid of losing an election that he already had in the bag, I am confident he would be remembered as a good, if not great, President, for many of his official actions did benefit the polity, unlike his ex officio actions)–and unlike the actions of the current holder of that office.

Dick Polman analyzes the–er–misrepresentations in the current President’s speech of last night. Follow the link for a point-by-point analysis:

Five years ago, few Americans could reasonably question the president’s arguments. Last night was a different story. Anybody with even a rudimentary talent for fact-checking could have a field day. One big reason why the spirit of ’01 has waned is because Bush’s credibility has waned. He did little to repair it last night, by making statements that failed to square with the factual record and political reality . . . .

. . . the current Federal Administration had got it right?

The use of the word “homeland” to refer to the United States of American has always troubled me.

It smacks too much of the “vaterland” of the Germans and the “motherland” of the Russians.

And, face it, with very few exceptions, citizens of the United States of America have other homelands: for my ex, homeland is Italy; for some, it is Ireland; and so on.

Under any other regime, the Department of Homeland Security would have been the Department of Domestic Security.

The choice of the word “homeland,” frankly, gives me the willies for what it reveals about the subconcious of the current Federal Administration.

I voiced these concerns when DHS was created, but that was long before I had this blog, where I can present my opinions to my two or three faithful readers.

Today, I learned that I share those willies with others: Eugene Robinson in today’s Washington Post:

The word homeland is a vivid but relatively inconsequential example — less a distortion than an infelicitous choice that makes us sound as if we had quaint harvest rituals and a colorful national costume. It strikes an odd note, with its vague connotations of ethnic solidarity and ancient nationalism, and it gives off more than a whiff of us-vs.-them. This nation does have enemies from whom we need vigilant protection, but something more like “domestic security” would have done just fine, with less baggage.

In addition to ticking off a bunch of people who care about truth, they’ve ticked off a big business. A big Texas business (emphasis added).

Executives with American Airlines say they are “outraged” at the airline’s depiction in the ABC miniseries The Path to 9-11.

Airline spokesman Roger Frizzell said Monday that the miniseries, which concludes tonight, falsely portrays an American gate agent at Boston’s Logan Airport allowing a terrorist onto a flight despite a warning that he may have been a threat.

“It’s important for the public to know that the ABC dramatization is inaccurate and irresponsible in its portrayal of the airport check-in events that occurred on the morning of Sept. 11,” he said.

(snip)

“The real facts can be found in the 9-11 Commission Report,” Frizzell said.

The 9/11 Commision Report. Oh, yeah. That’s what this show was reputed to be based on.

And Richard Clarke had somethingto say.

Although I am not one to easily believe in conspiracy theories and have spent a great deal of time debunking them, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the errors in this screen play are more than the result of dramatization and time compression. There is throughout the screenplay a consistent bias and distortion seeking to portray senior Clinton Administration officials as holding back the hard charging CIA, FBI, and military officers who would otherwise have prevented 9-11.

The exact opposite is true.

Will Bunch. Follow the link the see through the eyes of the children what happened in Sarasota:

On the second anniversary of 9/11, in 2003, I wrote a story in the Daily News that, among other things, mentioned that Bush had spent at least five minutes reading “The Pet Goat” in that Sarasota classroom. It was an indisputable fact, and yet I received hundreds of emails from readers, many asking if I would be fired for reporting such a simple and inconvenient truth. When Michael Moore showed the actual footage in “Farhrenheit 911” months later, much of the nation was shocked to learn for the first time what really happened that day.

Not everyone was so surprised. In fact, the then-second graders that Bush read “The Pet Goat” to that morning clearly saw though the emperor’s new clothes even while all the “grown-up” journalists did not.

Then go here to see what the Other Local Rag had to say about this anniversary day.

I received an email from the Center for American Progress Action Fund summarizing last-minute changes ABC made to The Path to 9/11 .

Here are the highlights:

Our team reviewed the first half of the program as it aired, and your efforts led to several problematic elements being fixed:

• In its advertising to promote the film, ABC stopped making the claim that the film was “based on the 9/11 Commission Report.”
• An extended disclaimer ran both before and after the film explaining that the movie contains “fictionalized scenes.”
• A key fabricated scene falsely depicting Clinton National Security Adviser Samuel Berger that had been included in earlier copies of the movie was substantially cut back.

The buzz your efforts created in the press also led to significant victories:

• ABC’s educational distribution partner, Scholastic, significantly revised materials they planned to send to 100,000 high school teachers, incorporating the controversy as part of their teaching tools.
• ABC’s Internet distribution partner, Apple, has apparently abandoned plans to make the movie available for free on iTunes.
• More broadly, our efforts to fight for the truth will permanently be linked to this ABC project. Hundreds of newspapers and television reports described the inaccuracies that were part of the initial version of the movie.

Of course, all that means is that the lies were muted.

You can find the actual 9/11 Commission Report here and judge for yourselves.

Phillybits.

Where I come from the American flag is not a doormat; one stands for it, not on it.

But it can be argued that, in these pictures, it is a stand-in for the Constitution of the United States under the current Federal Administration.

In the course of researching the previous post, I found this:

A list of slang from 1922.

This would seem to be kind of like moving next to a pig farm and then complaining about the smell, except there’s no indication anyone has moved. (Note: An ASBO is sort of a general purpose PFA.)

A Scottish council is pursuing a cock with the threat of an Asbo if it refuses to cap its ear-splitting doodle-dooing.

Borders council says three-year-old Charlie’s crowing exceeds a 30 decibel limit set by the World Health Organisation, beyond which kip is made difficult, The Scotsman reports.

(snip)

A previous attempt to calm Charlie’s show-off instincts with hormone pellets failed. Today, officials are applying for an Asbo demanding that Mr McFarlane silence his gobby charge between the hours of 11pm and 3am.

It seems the council has more sinister plans for Charlie, however. In a court submission, Borders council Asboss Kerr Scott said: “The vet has informed me there is nothing that can be done to quieten a cockerel, other than wring its neck.”

From the Annenberg Center (follow the link below for detailed analysis):

The pro-Bush group Progress for America is running a TV ad appealing directly to Americans’ fear of terrorists, saying bluntly “These people want to kill us.”

That’s true enough. But the ad falsely attributes the recent thwarting of a hijack plot to the President’s warrantless NSA wiretaps, when it was actually British authorities who uncovered it.

The ad also distorts the position of Iraq war critics, implying they propose to withdraw from “the Middle East” and not just Iraq.

And in a bit of bad luck, the ad cites the case of al-Qeda affiliate Zarqawi as evidence of the success of Bush’s anti-terror campaign – one day before the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report saying Saddam Hussein considered him an outlaw and tried to have him arrested.

Meanwhile, over at Nieman Watchdog, James Forrest, Assistant Professor and Director of Terrorism Studies at the United States Military Academy, suggests a way to improve the USA’s domestic security strategy:

Instead of “fueling the fear” — that is, giving an already troubled nation new reasons to “duct tape themselves inside their homes” — the government must do more to educate the general public on what each of us can do to reduce the vulnerabilities we share as a nation. Previous examples of nations who have endured long terror campaigns (including Israel, Spain and the United Kingdom) demonstrate that a well-informed public is a vital part of developing their ability to withstand any kind of terror attack or other catastrophic event.

Since promoting fear and secrecy seems to be a “family value” of the Federal Administration knows, I suspect that they are unlikely to heed his recommendations.

I present this with the proviso that I had no position on the CBS film about Ronald and Nancy Reagan. For one thing, I was going through a divorce which consumed a lot of energy; for another, I can’t remember the last time that I watched a major network television show that didn’t involve a ball of some kind.

But I do have a thing about liars and lying. And with presenting as fact something directly contrary to the historical record.

Furthermore, as I have said in a comment to another post here, freedom of speech does not mandate an obligation to publish. The Constituion of the United States of American says that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

This provision, which is reflected in most, if not all, state constitutions (I’m too lazy to do the research) restrains the government; it does not compel individuals or the press.

The argument used by some liberals that the CBS film about the Reagans had to be shown because not showing it somehow violated freedom of speech was, frankly, hogwash. Any similar argument advanced to support the broadcast of “The Path to 9/11” is, similarly, hogwash.

Just as a newspaper has no obligation to publish every letter to the editor or every story off the AP wire, a broadcaster has no obligation to air a show. It is the government which is restrained from prohibiting individuals, the press and, by extension, broadcasters, to express themselves.

Freedom of speech is not compulsion to speak.

A newspaper and a broadcaster–and bloggers, too–are obligated to ensure that what they publish is as accurate as possible and that the line between fact and opinion is clearly drawn–and area where many bloggers, I fear, have a lot to learn.

And now to excerpts from Mr. Polman’s comments (emphasis added):

The current flap over the upcoming ABC docudrama The Path to 9/11 is a textbook case of partisan hypocrisy. And that label applies to liberal and conservatives alike.

Let’s start with the liberals — not all liberals, of course; I am referring to activists and bloggers — since they’re the ones who are ticked off at ABC. Their outrage is directed at various fictionalizations of the 9/11 saga that the Hollywood types have either dreamed up or improvised.

(snip)

Looking at this case on the merits, it’s clear that the liberal camp does have a legitimate beef; even ABC has admitted taking some dramatic liberties with the known facts. But I don’t recall the liberal camp acting with similar concern back in 2003, when a CBS docudrama about Ronald Reagan was planning to take some dramatic liberties in its depiction of the former president.

Quite the contrary, in fact. Liberals thought that the Reagan show should air just as the miniseries producers intended it to air — in the name of freedom of speech.

(snip)

Most conservatives, however, are also selective in their outrage. They don’t seem very concerned that the Hollywood types (whom they generally dislike) have filmed fictionalized scenes that depict a former president in a negative light.

(snip)

Yet the scene was very different in October 2003, when they were so outraged that Hollywood had filmed fictionalizeed scenes depicting their favorite former president in a negative light. Back then, when a major network acted in this fashion, it was viewed as fresh evidence of liberal-media perfidy.

As Ed Morrow of the National Review said, “Attempts to distort our history must be resisted. Historical truth is simply too valuable to be made a plaything for biased filmmakers rewriting it to fit their politics.” . . .

If it ain’t getting better, just make it look like it’s getting better (emphasis added):

U.S. officials, seeking a way to measure the results of a program aimed at decreasing violence in Baghdad, aren’t counting scores of dead killed in car bombings and mortar attacks as victims of the country’s sectarian violence.

In a distinction previously undisclosed, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson said Friday that the United States is including in its tabulations of sectarian violence only deaths of individuals killed in drive-by shootings or by torture and execution.

That has allowed U.S. officials to boast that the number of deaths from sectarian violence in Baghdad declined by more than 52 percent in August over July.

But it eliminates from tabulation huge numbers of people whose deaths are certainly part of the ongoing conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Not included, for example, are scores of people who died in a highly coordinated bombing that leveled an entire apartment building in eastern Baghdad, a stronghold of rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Peter Bergen in today’s Washington Post:

. . . Indeed, the U.S. military and NATO are now battling the Taliban on a scale not witnessed since 2001, when the war here began, and are increasingly fighting them in remote areas such as Larzab where the Taliban once roamed freely.

When I traveled in Afghanistan in 2002 and 2003, the Taliban threat had receded into little more than a nuisance. But now the movement has regrouped and rearmed. Bolstered by a compliant Pakistani government, hefty cash inflow from the drug trade and a population disillusioned by battered infrastructure and lackluster reconstruction efforts, the Taliban is back — as is Afghanistan’s once forgotten war.

Trudy Rubin:

But the maximum level of confusion in the 9/11 speeches revolves around the claim that “Iraq… is the central front in our fight against terrorism.” Yes, Iraq has become a training center for jihadi terrorists – which it wasn’t before Saddam fell. But the reason for Iraq’s descent into postwar hell is the administration’s arrogance and incompetence – which, of course, the president does not admit in his speeches.

This denial creates a black hole of moral and intellectual dishonesty at the heart of the Bush rhetoric. I happen to agree with the president that if we pull out of Iraq now we will provide a bonanza for al-Qaeda in terms of bases and recruitment. But since he won’t take responsibility for his mistakes, the president has little chance of rallying a majority around his Iraq policy.

Why should Americans believe he will do better in the future? Especially when his team denounces critics as “appeasers” – and he paints a simplistic picture of the coming struggle.

Suburban Guerrilla.

Here.

A tip to Phillybits.

Eugene Robinson:

If the secret prisons where U.S. agents interrogated “high-value” terrorism suspects with “alternative” techniques are so legitimate and legal, if they’re so fully consistent with American values and traditions, then why are they overseas?

That’s one thing the Decider didn’t tell us Wednesday in his forceful yet obfuscatory speech confirming the existence of the CIA prisons and announcing the transfer of 14 detainees to Guantanamo Bay, including boldface-name miscreants such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh and Abu Zubaida.

(snip)

Since the president didn’t address this question, I’ll try. The only reason that makes any sense to me is that the Decider wanted to put his secret prisons beyond the reach of U.S. courts. I think the president and his lawyers knew from the beginning that detaining suspects indefinitely and wringing information out of them with methods that international agreements define as torture — “an alternative set of procedures” was the president’s delicate euphemism — wouldn’t amuse even the most law-and-order federal judge.

The full story of what has taken place at Guantanamo Bay and in the CIA’s overseas prisons will come out someday. But even with the little we know so far, I remain convinced that history will view these acts of arbitrary detention, extraordinary rendition and coercive interrogation with strong censure and deep shame. The president’s claim that “the United States does not torture” comes with an asterisk, since his definition of torture is as tortured as Bill Clinton’s definition of “is.”

(snip)

No, an American “detained” by al-Qaeda wouldn’t enjoy a guarantee of due process. But we’re not al-Qaeda. I thought that was the whole point.

Oh, one more thing the president didn’t mention, for some reason: Those 14 most-wanted terrorists who were kept in the secret prisons? As far as we know, not a single one was captured in Iraq.

A federal judge ordered a small-town school to suspend a program that gives free Bibles to students, saying it improperly promotes Christianity.

U.S. District Court Judge Catherine Perry also scolded school officials for continuing the program after warnings that it violated the Constitution.

South Iron Elementary in Annapolis, a town of 300 in southeastern Missouri, has quietly allowed Gideons International to hand out Bibles to fifth-graders for years. After concerns were raised last year, the then-superintendent consulted with the district’s attorneys and insurance company and recommended that the handouts stop, but the school board voted to continue them.

Acting on behalf of two sets of parents from the district, the
American Civil Liberties Union sued in February in federal court in St. Louis.

“The defendants were repeatedly told that their actions violated the Constitution, but they chose not to heed those cautions,” Perry wrote in the preliminary injunction issued Wednesday.

A final ruling is not expected for months.

When I was in public elementary school, I received several New Testaments from the Gideons, who visited the school regularly. I probably still have them somewhere.

It was no big deal.

But everyone in the two counties of the Eastern Shore of Virginia was Christian, at least nominally.

There were rumors that there was a Jewish family in the nearest middle-sized city, about 80 miles away.

It was no big deal.

There were even a couple of Catholic churches in the two counties.

It was no big deal.

I didn’t meet any Catholics until high school.

It was no big deal.

It was also agents of the state–the teachers and other authority figures in the school–giving approval to one religion over any another.

It was no big deal, because there were no dissenters, no one to feel left out, no one to feel belittled, no one to feel pressured to pretend he or she was something other than what he or she was.

The Gideons perform a great ministry.

They do not belong in public schools, promoting Christianity under the authority of the State.

Washington Post report on 9/11 disbelievers, fascinating and scary at the same time, kind of like watching someone skid off the road into a tree:

“To me, the report read as a cartoon.” White-haired and courtly, Griffin sits on a couch in a hotel lobby in Manhattan, unspooling words in that reasonable Presbyterian minister’s voice. “It’s a much greater stretch to accept the official conspiracy story than to consider the alternatives.”

Such as?

“There was massive complicity in this attack by U.S. government operatives.”

If that feels like a skip off the cliff of established reality, more Americans are in free fall than you might guess. There are few more startling measures of American distrust of leaders than the widespread belief that the Bush administration had a hand in the attacks of Sept. 11 in order to spark an invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.