Category Archives: Uncategorized

George Bush’s America

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I plan to be far, far away from a television set during the SOTU speech tonight. But no matter; Dan Froomkin provides a preview:

President Bush goes before a disaffected nation tonight to reassert his leadership — quite possibly by insisting repeatedly that he’s a leader with an obligation to lead at a time that requires leadership.

“Lead” certainly was the word of the day at the White House yesterday.

After his Cabinet meeting, Bush told reporters : “I can’t tell you how upbeat I am about our future, so long as we’re willing to lead. . . .

“We talked about how to make sure this economy of ours stays the strongest economy in the world, and that we recognize we can’t just sit back and hope for the best, that we’ve got to lead.”

And at the mid-day press briefing , spokesman Scott McClellan was typically unsubtle.

“We are living in historic times and, as the President has said, we have a responsibility to lead. . . . It’s important that we continue leading and acting to spread peace abroad and prosperity at home. The President is optimistic and confident about the path that we are on.”

Didn’t catch that?

The word for the drinking game crowd, boys and girls, is lead.

While you’re at WaPo, check out this story by David Finkel about Randolph, Utah, a town that in 2004 gave Bush “95.6 percent of the vote and support for him continues to be nearly unanimous.”

Randolph is “a place that seems less a part of the modern United States than insulated from it.”

There have been no funerals here from Bush’s war on terrorism. There are no unemployment lines, no homeless people sleeping in doorways, no sick people being turned away from a hospital because of a lack of insurance, no crime to speak of, no security fence needed around the reservoir, no metal detectors at the schools.

Terrorist threats? That’s anywhere but here. Iraq? That’s somewhere over there. Hurricane Katrina? That was somewhere down there. Illegal immigrants? Not here, where everyone is fond of Ramon, who came long ago from Mexico and is married to the Catholic woman, who is the one non-Mormon everyone mentions when the conversation turns to religious diversity. As for racial diversity, everyone says there are three African Americans in the county, including the twins on the high school cheerleading squad, which also includes a Hispanic, according to the superintendent of schools, Dale Lamborn, which means “we’ve probably got the most diverse cheerleading squad in the state.”

Finkel interviewed a number of locals, and boy, do they love President Bush. It’s still September 12, 2001, in Randolph, Utah.

I say slap Randolph, Utah, in a bell jar labeled “George Bush’s America” and put it in a museum, where it belongs.

At the Movies

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Rightie movie reviews, courtesy of this fluffhead, via Shakespeare’s Sister …

Get this synopsis of “Good Night & Good Luck” —

“A film portraying as noble the efforts of journalists to demonize and “take down” a US Senator whose anti-communist policies they did not like.”

Jebus. She’s talking about Edward R. Murrow’s takedown of Joe McCarthy for pity’s sake. Holy bleep. Talk about utterly depraved historical revisionism! I’d like to rub the fluffhead’s nose in a few history books. But she’s a rightie, so she can’t read. Never mind.

Here’s her comment on “A History of Violence” … “The demonization of the average mid-western American man as someone who is no hero, but a cold-blooded killer at heart.” I don’t think that’s what the director was going for; at least, that’s not what I took away from it. The main character wasn’t an “average mid-western” American man, in any event. Perhaps La Fluff didn’t see the film for herself and is just going by what other people have told her. Not smart.

Meanwhile, Steve M. has some comments on the favorite films of conservative college students. Some of the films that made the list are, um, a surprise.

I understand audiences are down in theaters, but I think that has more to do with theaters than with the films. I’ve gotten picky about which theaters I give my business to; messy theaters that don’t enforce good audience etiquette should go out of business. There’s a multiplex about a mile away from my home that I’ve avoided ever since some woman sitting near me talked loudly on a cell phone during “Return of the King.” There are plenty of other theaters that have not-sticky seats and audiences that behave.

For many years I’ve heard people complain there used to be more good movies; I think that’s because we only remember the good ones. Are films getting more depraved? I seem to remember more explicit sex and violence in the 1970s, but maybe I was hanging out with a bad crowd then. (Anybody else remember “El Topo”? Was that sick, or what?)

I don’t see every film that comes along, but of the films I’ve seen in theaters this year I believe my faves were “Batman Begins” and “Good Night & Good Luck.” I also liked “Kingdom of Heaven,” but I understand I am the only person in America who did.

Add your own film reviews here.

Local News from Afar

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Everyone in southeast Missouri goes to Johnson’s Shut-Ins in the summer. The “shut-ins” are a spot where the clear waters of the Black River have cut through ancient volcanic rock, forming a labyrinth of chutes, slides, gorges, potholes, waterfalls, and pools. The photo shows just a small portion of the shut-ins.

The Ameren power company says that the rupture that emptied its 50-acre reservoir on Proffit Mountain today released a billion gallons of water that flooded the shut-ins. The rocks themselves are, I assume, safe, but are the trees gone? I’d really like to know. And what about Elephant Rock?

Christopher Leonard of the Associated Press reported that “in a matter of minutes the 50-acre reservoir had emptied itself out with terrifying effect, turning the surrounding area into a landscape of flattened trees and clay-covered grass. ‘We’ll never see anything like it in our lifetime again,’ paramedic Chris Hoover said.”

As tragedies go this one isn’t that big a deal, I suppose, considering that part of the Ozarks is sparsely populated (as you can see in this photo of the reservoir, pre-rupture). But this is one of the prettiest parts of the state of Missouri — or it was, before today. I’d like to know what happened. If anyone can provide details of what happened to local landmarks and towns, please add to the comments.

Update: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a photo gallery of the damage; see “related links” column to the right of this story.

McClellan Meltdown

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See First Draft for the transcript of yesterday’s Scott McClellan smackdown. Dan Froonkin adds:

Later, when American Urban Radio reporter April Ryan took up the question again, McClellan accused her of “showboating for the cameras” and told her she needed to “calm down.”

Surprisingly, there’s no outcry in today’s coverage over McClellan’s tactics. But it does make you wonder how much longer he can trade on his accumulated good will with the press corps.

In any other White House it would be time for the press secretary to “spend more time with his family.” But who else are the Bushies gonna get to do that job for them? Karen Hughes, maybe, if she weren’t so busy trotting around the globe to remind people why they don’t like us.

More Bad News for Bush

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Via Dr. Atrios, the Associated Press reports that voters don’t care for Bushies:

St. Paul voters punished Mayor Randy Kelly on Tuesday for standing with President Bush a year ago, denying the Democrat a second term in Minnesota’s capital city.

Former City Council member Chris Coleman, also a Democrat, routed Kelly by a more than 2-to-1 margin in unofficial returns with most precincts reporting. Ahead of the election, independent polls showed voters were primed to fire Kelly, and most cited his 2004 endorsement of the Republican president as the reason.

Analysis

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See “A Good Start” by Larry Johnson at TPM Cafe.

The indictment makes clear, with no shadow of a doubt, that Valerie Wilson was an undercover officer until exposed by Robert Novak’s column. According to the indictment,

Prior to July 14, 2003, Valerie Wilson’s affiliation with the CIA was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community.

As the prosecutor said at today’s press conference, this ain’t over.

As I wrote in the last post, righties everywhere are in full knee-jerk denial about Valerie Plame Wilson’s status.

Johnson also guesses that the “Under Secretary” mentioned in the indictment is John Bolton, UN anti-ambassador. Another possibility is Marc Grossman, an under secretary for political affairs in the State Department.

Johnson points to this sentence in the indictment:

On or about June 11, 2003, LIBBY spoke with a senior officer of the CIA to ask about the origin and circumstances of Wilson’s trip, and was advised by the CIA officer that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and was believed to be responsible for sending Wilson on the trip.

Johnson comments:

Now it gets interesting. Who is the senior CIA officer? There are several possibilities. For example, John Bolton’s Chief of Staff, Fred Fleitz is a CIA officer (no longer undercover) who was in a position to get information about Valerie. At the NSC there were several CIA personnel, including David Shedd, who is now on the staff of John Negroponte. It could also be someone from CIA Headquarters. We will probably have to wait for the trial to get some insight on this front.

A careful reading of the indictment shows beyond a reasonable doubt that there was an organized effort in the White House to go after Joe and Valerie Wilson. At a minimum, Vice President Cheney was witting of this effort. Too bad these guys did not work as feverishly in tracking down Osama Bin Laden. They only had time to attack two American citizens who were serving their country.


Josh Marshall points to this statement from the indictment:

On or about June 12, 2003, LIBBY was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson’s wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Divison. LIBBY understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA.

Josh comments:

This is a crucial piece of information. The Counterproliferation Division (CPD) is part of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, i.e., not the Directorate of Intelligence, the branch of the CIA where ‘analysts’ come from, but the DO, where the spies, the ‘operatives’, come from.

Libby’s a long time national security hand. He knows exactly what CPD is and where it is. So does Cheney. They both knew. It’s right there in the indictment.

On to the trial.

About the Comments

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I know people are aggravated that they have to register with WordPress and then log in to post a comment. So far I haven’t figured out a way to turn this off. I am beginning to suspect it cannot be turned off. The feature is intended to prevent spam, I’m sure. It prevents my comments from being swamped with Viagra ads. But it is still aggravating.

Once you have registered, however, you shouldn’t have to re-register every time you post a comment. If you wander down the left-hand sidebar you’ll find the header “Syndication,” and under that is a login link. If you are already registered you can log in there and comment away. We should probably figure out a way to make that link more prominent, but that’s where it is now.

If you have registered and logged in and still can’t post a comment, please email me to let me know there’s a problem.

Once of the down sides of this new setup is that I am helpless to change anything but blog posts. I have to badger other people to make changes for me. But over the next few days I hope to sniff out the bugs and make interaction with this site as painless as possible.

Here We Are!

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If you are reading this you have found the new, improved Mahablog. Let me know what you think. Is the site coming up quickly, or is it still slow? Is it readable?

Update: Also, I keep trying to turn off the registration requirement for commenting, but it’s not working. Sorry about that.

Update update: The RSS feed is fixed. You can find a link to it in the left-hand column.