September 2008: Wrapped In The Flag And Carrying A Cross

Just in case there was ever doubt that Sinclair Lewis' line captured native facism precisely—Sarah Palin debuts on the national stage.

Photo: Joeff Davis

A week later, watertiger spots—

The Sarah Palin Superhero ACTION FIGURE? What is she, The Embezzler?

And about that skimpy outfit—

With the amounts she and her husband have been been stealing from Alaska, you'd think she'd be able to afford some pants.

And with the newly national scrutiny, one of the stories to emerge is that, under Mayor Palin, the city of Wasila charged rape victims for their forensic tests.

As the Republican Convention itself gets underway, Glenn Greenwald reports on 9/1—

Beginning last night, St. Paul was the most militarized I have ever seen an American city be, even more so than Manhattan in the week of 9/11 -- with troops of federal, state and local law enforcement agents marching around with riot gear, machine guns, and tear gas cannisters, shouting military chants and marching in military formations. Humvees and law enforcement officers with rifles were posted on various buildings and balconies. Numerous protesters and observers were tear gassed and injured.

Amy Goodman and two Democracy Now producers are among the journalists and hundreds of demonstrators arrested by those riot troops.

Before the regime skips town, the stage is being set for the final looting of the treasury. Ian Welsh on 9/20—

What I'm hearing is that the gun being held to Congress's head is the fear of a money market meltdown. These funds are integral to the economy, yes, but 700 billion is far more than is needed to bail them out...

So the gun that Paulson is holding to Congress's head, while not filled with blanks, is a BB gun. He's trying to stampede Congress into giving him more money and more power than he actually needs to fix the ostensible problem by acting as if there's no time to think through, or disaster will occur almost immediately.
Why?

Well, that 700 billion bails out Paulson's friends and colleagues at the highest levels (most of the little people will still lose their jobs). It preserves the world that Paulson worked in all his life. It means that Wall Street and the Banking industry doesn't have to change how they do business. The people in charge of it will stay in charge and they will stay rich.

A few months later, Matt Taibbi will illustrate that the Goldman Sachs previously led by Paulson has manipulated the market and been behind every economic bubble since the Great Depression.

I haven't been able to locate the quote, but one morning I hear a radio news clip of Paulsen making a Bushian threat, along the lines of, "I can't keep the economy safe if Congress doesn't authorize the money."

Yes, our economy and selves are in the safest of hands...

Hurricane Ike slams Texas, and local authorities have taken their lessons from the Feds' Katrina record. As seen in the apparent effort at cleansing undesirables—

Galveston Island residents were told to flee Hurricane Ike or face "certain death," but the Sheriff has inexplicably decided not to evacuate 1,000 prisoners from the county jail, even though serious flooding has already begun.

It's bad enough to risk the inmates' lives, but downright bizarre to me that the Sheriff is willing to risk his deputies...

As well as learning the lesson of muzzling media coverage of fatalities.

September 2007: "It's That Time Again"

September 11: time again, says watertiger, for
"A moment of silence"...

(Photo: AP/Charles Dharapak)

Whitehouse.org Newsroom stops adding new material this month. This, after more than six years of channeling the Bush inner frat boy accurately—if far more articulately than the original.

The news reports end on 9-14, with President Addresses Nation on the Way Forward to Surging Back Towards Desperately Spinning the Clusterfuck That is Vietraq.

Which followed the President's Remarks Preceding Moment of Compulsory Silence Commemorating Annual Orgy of 9/11™ Patrio-Grief, and the 9/6 Transcript of President's Call of Support to Un-Resigning, Embattled Family Values Warrior Senator Larry Craig of Idaho.

Craig resigns, then takes it back and returns to the Senate.

The Minneapolis airport men's room experiences a tourism boom.

"After all, I have my reputation to maintain"—as watertiger puts it—Craig being back at work in time to vote against the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes bill.

Since mid-August, peaceful protests in Burma continued to grow, under the leadership of Buddhist monks. The brutal crackdown begins September 26.

In Finding George Orwell in Burma, Emma Larkin writes of traveling the country and meeting people who joke bitterly that Burmese Days was not the only book Orwell wrote about the place.

From a Mother Jones review—

What Larkin discovers is, well, Orwellian. Describing the junta, she writes, "The grand plan, if there is a plan at all, is to abolish the power of thinking." In Mandalay she finds a George Orwell book club debating the author’s legacy. Not surprisingly, 1984 is banned there, but a book collector digs up an old copy of Animal Farm, calling it "a very Burmese book... Because it is about pigs and dogs ruling the country!"

Published under a pseudonym, with concealed identities of quoted Burmese, Larkin's book is a touching, sad read.

If his experiences in Burma were what inspired Orwell's most significant work, the "Orwellian" practices he discovered there are not unique—not with their usefulness to repressive rulers everywhere.

It's "abolish the power of thinking" that the "senior Bush aide" of Ron Suskind's interview is talking about, when he says of journalists—

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

September 2006: Safety Last

"Security Kiosk Fail"

It's the fifth anniversary of the jewel of Bush's Trifecta. And with mid-term elections on the way, there's a panic level in need of being stepped up.

Andrew Greeley called it correctly in September 2002: Media ignored calm amid the 9/11 chaos—

In some sense, Sept. 11 was a victory over the terrorists. Socially responsible free Americans prevented the loss from being much worse. Yet, the response of the planning agencies has been to establish more and more elaborate command-and-control structures, which will force a population that is not about to panic into panic behavior.
...

The media got the story all wrong because the panic paradigm is still pervasive and because no one in the media had read the disaster-research literature. They thus reinforced the propensity of those running the country not to trust the good sense and social concern of ordinary folk. Rather, they want to control everything with such ditsy ideas as the proposed Homeland Security Department. That plan would take union and civil service protections away from government workers and accomplish little else.

In no time flat our country became "The Homeland," without comment from the major media. Forgetting for a moment the massive theft it's enabled, the term in itself is deeply disturbing. And since 2001 I've only seen two guesses at the origins of the term.

Back in 2002, in The Strange Career of "Homeland Security," Margie Burns suggested that the term originated from the Institute for Homeland Security, a military contracting-CIA-Sun Myung Moon connected group, founded in 1999.

And while conducting this interview, Thom Hartmann quotes—

...Rudolf Hess introducing Adolf Hitler in 1934 at the Nuremburg rallies. This is from Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will" movie...Notice the word "Heimat". And then he says, 'für alle Deutschen in der ganze Welt': 'All of the Germans in the entire world'. "Dank ihrer Führung" – thanks to our Führer – wird Deutschland sein Ziel erreichen, Heimat zu sein". 'Heimat zu sein' – a homeland here we have. "Heimat zu sein für alle Deutschen der Welt. Heil Hitler! Seig Heil! Sieg Heil!" And then he introduces Hitler and Hitler gets up and speaks and starts using the word 'homeland' for the very first time. And I don't remember the world 'homeland' ever being used in the context of the United States before now.

Barbara Bush may have said it in a very different context, but it's certainly the case that "This is working out very well for them." Only too true, when—Thom Hartmann again—Bush has "used 9/11 as his own 'Reichstag fire' to gut the Constitution and enhance the power and wealth of his corporate cronies..."

Which brings us to the upcoming vote on the Military Commissions bill, which Glenn Greenwald calls, The legalization of torture and permanent detention.

Mark Danner later writes a piece about the International Red Cross report on torture of detainees in CIA custody. The report is released in 2007, and Danner's article appears in 2009. But Danner notes (in section 4 of the article) how much we knew, so many years earlier—

News of the "black sites" first appeared prominently in the press—on the front page of The Washington Post —in December 2002...A year and a half later, after the publication and broadcast of the Abu Ghraib photographs—the one moment in the last half-dozen years when the torture story, thanks to the lurid images, became "televisual"—a great wave of leaks swept into public view hundreds of pages of "secret" documents about torture and the Bush administration's decision-making regarding it... There have been many important "revelations" since, but none of them has changed the essential fact: by no later than the summer of 2004, the American people had before them the basic narrative of how the elected and appointed officials of their government decided to torture prisoners and how they went about it.

In other doings of the Family Values Party, sexual harasser of male congressional pages, Mark Foley resigns. Fellow Republicans have covered up his behavior for at least six years—after learning about it from a page in 2000.

It's not long before Fox News footage labels Foley, "Democrat."

While there's this, from the godly Dallas area—

FRISCO, Texas -- An award-winning Texas art teacher who was reprimanded after one of her fifth-grade students saw a nude sculpture during a trip to a museum has lost her job.

The school board in Frisco has voted not to renew Sydney McGee's contract after 28 years.

September 2005 (II): Cui Bono NOLA

No matter how much horror the regime has unleashed there, Iraq is far away—and easily ignored by most Americans, who can't even pronounce the name.

A disaster at home, compounded by the regime's lack of interest—that got more attention, at least early on.
Mario Tama/Getty Images

But with the residents most affected being poor and the wrong color, it was easy for New Orleans to end up treated as Baghdad.

The Wall Street Journal on no-bid contracts, subhead: "White House uses practices criticized in Iraq rebuilding for hurricane-related jobs."

Mike Davis' The Predators of New Orleans is all too familiar—

...The speed with which Washington suspended the prevailing wage standards of the Davis-Bacon Act and swung open the doors of New Orleans to corporate looters such as Halliburton, the Shaw Group, and Blackwater Security, already fat from the spoils of the Tigris, contrasted obscenely with FEMA's deadly procrastination over sending water, food and buses to the multitudes trapped in the stinking hell of the Louisiana Superdome.

Also familiar: U.S. agency blocks photos of New Orleans dead.

As are grim predictions of a poisoned environment—Cover-up: toxic waters 'will make New Orleans unsafe for a decade'

And on the subject of the environment, David Helvarg's text and photos are a must.

Mike Davis: "The death of New Orleans had been forewarned; indeed no disaster in American history had been so accurately predicted in advance." The regime's deafness to warnings, too, is just like Iraq. As it is just like 9-11.

Davis reviews the scientific research preceding Katrina—work that had been stepped up ever since "a close call with Hurricane Georges" in 1998.

Of course, just as in Iraq—and the post-9-11 security biz—disaster is of use to the same players. In the Washington Post on September 8: Former FEMA Chief Is at Work on Gulf Coast.

Mike Davis—

When Republicans took over [FEMA]...in 2001, it was treated as enemy terrain: the new director, former Bush campaign manager Joe Allbaugh [my bold], decried disaster assistance as "an oversized entitlement program" and urged Americans to rely more upon the Salvation Army and other faith-based groups. Allbaugh cut back many key flood and storm mitigation programs, before resigning in 2003 to become a highly-paid consultant to firms seeking contracts in Iraq.

"An inveterate ambulance-chaser," Davis says of Allbaugh and his present activities in Louisiana. Timothy Noah calls him a "disaster pimp".

The scenes from New Orleans are so shocking, that parts of the media are closer than usual to doing their job.

But the skin color of so many of the victims will not be overlooked for long.

Side-by-side AP photo captions: white people "find" supplies; black people "loot" them.

Congressman Richard Baker (R, Confederacy): "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

By mid-month—Karl Rove is "in charge of the reconstruction effort." Dan Froomkin—

Rove's leadership role suggests quite strikingly that any and all White House decisions and pronouncements regarding the recovery from the storm are being made with their political consequences as the primary consideration. More specifically: With an eye toward increasing the likelihood of Republican political victories in the future, pursuing long-cherished conservative goals, and bolstering Bush's image.

Along with the political operation's work, hate radio and the rest of the right-wing media are there to demonize the victims in the minds of the credulous millions they reach.

This story does come out: Police in Suburbs Blocked Evacuees, Witnesses Report.

More to the point, even if a quote, the UK Independent says, 'Racist' police blocked bridge and forced evacuees back at gunpoint.

And the entire account is here. Written by emergency service workers who happened to be attending a conference and "spent most of the next week trapped by the flooding--and the martial law cordon around the city." They observe—

...What you will not see [in media accounts], but what we witnessed, were the real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class of New Orleans.

The maintenance workers who used a forklift to carry the sick and disabled. The engineers who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hotwire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the city. And the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens, improvising communal meals for hundreds of those stranded.

Most of these workers had lost their homes and had not heard from members of their families. Yet they stayed and provided the only infrastructure for the 20 percent of New Orleans that was not under water.

Since "A Thousand Points of Light" don't fill Republican off-shore accounts, FEMA interferes with volunteer relief efforts. As in, Doctor says FEMA ordered him to stop treating hurricane victims.

Services of volunteer morticians are spurned, as a contract is given to a Bush- (and Funeralgate-) connected company.

Late in the month, there are some press efforts at debunking the previous scare stories about flood victims as criminals. Seattle Times: Reports of anarchy at Superdome overstated. The article is much stronger than the headline—

The vast majority of reported atrocities committed by evacuees — mass murders, rapes and beatings — have turned out to be false, or at least unsupported by any evidence, according to key military, law-enforcement, medical and civilian officials in positions to know.

"I think 99 percent of it is [expletive]," said Sgt. 1st Class Jason Lachney, who played a key role in security and humanitarian work inside the Dome. "Don't get me wrong — bad things happened. But... 99 percent of the people in the Dome were very well-behaved."

The LA Times: Katrina Takes a Toll on Truth, News Accuracy—

Hyperbolic reporting spread through much of the media.

Fox News, a day before the major evacuation of the Superdome began, issued an "alert" as talk show host Alan Colmes reiterated reports of "robberies, rapes, carjackings, riots and murder. Violent gangs are roaming the streets at night, hidden by the cover of darkness."

The Los Angeles Times adopted a breathless tone the next day in its lead news story, reporting that National Guard troops "took positions on rooftops, scanning for snipers and armed mobs as seething crowds of refugees milled below, desperate to flee. Gunfire crackled in the distance."

..."I don't think you can overstate how big of a disaster New Orleans is," said Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, a Florida school for professional journalists. "But you can imprecisely state the nature of the disaster.

...[Major Ed] Bush, of the National Guard, said that reports of corpses at the Superdome filtered back to the facility via AM radio, undermining his struggle to keep morale up and maintain order.

But, Bush said, those stories received scant attention in newspapers or on television.

"We had to convince people this was still the best place to be," Bush said. "What I saw in the Superdome was just tremendous amounts of people helping people."

And of reported attacks on journalists—committed almost entirely by police, as seen in the National Press Photographers Association's account.

Digby looks at history's repeating itself in the fear of supposed black mobs hampering rescue work—and the right-wing media's exploitation of the fear.

And Atrios runs a Rick Perlstein piece, rejected as an op-ed by outlets that normally publish him. Perlstein tells how a friend, doing volunteer work at a Gulf Coast shelter, reports the comments heard from local whites: that "local" women should be kept away from the shelter; that "gangs of blacks" are "harassing" business owners; that the shelter was "where they put all the criminals." Perlstein's reaction—

I immediately got that uncanny feeling: where had I heard things like this before?

The answer is: in my historical research about racial tensions forty years ago. I'm writing a book against the backlash against liberalism and civil rights in the 1960s. One of the things I've studied is race riots. John Schmidhauser, a former congressman from rural Iowa, told me about the time, in the summer of 1966, he held a question and answer session with constituents. Violence had broken out in the Chicago ghetto, and one of the farmers asked his congressman about an insistent rumor:

"Are they going to come out here on motorcycles?"

It's a funny image, a farmer quaking at the vision of black looters invading the cornfields of Iowa. But it's also awfully serious. The key word here is "they." It's a fact of life: in times of social stress when solid information is scarce, rumors fill the vacuum. Rumors are evidence of panic. The rumors only fuel further panic. The result, especially when the rumors involved are racial, can be a deadly stew of paranoia.

...One of the most riveting early accounts of conditions in New Orleans was an email sent around by Dr. Greg Henderson. "We hear gunshots frequently," he wrote. It wasn't long before that got transformed, in the dissemination, into: doctors get shot at frequently. An Army Times article reported that desperate evacuees at the Superdome, terrified that losing their place in line might mean losing their life, "defecated where they stood." Now, it's easy, if you take a moment to think about it, to understand that happening to people, perhaps elderly and sick, under unendurable conditions of duress. As circulated on the Internet, however, another interpretation takes shape: these people are not like us. Them. Savages that, if they come to your town, might just be capable of anything. Even if they are just lost, confused people, in desperate need of help.

Meanwhile, Bush orders over a week of flags flown at half-staff for Rehnquist.

Photo: Alan Chin, from a gallery of NOLA images here.

September 2005 (I): Job Opportunities

The University presents me with a one-year of employment commemorative key ring, bearing the official seal. I find the reverse view the more appropriate one, what with its suggestion of a ball-and-chain motif.

Rehnquist conveniently dies this month, giving Bush the opportunity to withdraw John Roberts' nomination to Sandra Day O'Connor's former seat, and re-nominate Roberts to the Chief Justice gig. An ideologue young enough to have decades of sabotaging the country ahead of him.

Court is in session next month, creating yet another opportunity: to speed up the ramming of this appointment through Congress.

Democracy Now reviews Roberts' record. A major anti-abortion activist and one-half—his lawyer wife being the other half—of a forced birth power couple. Among his past efforts—

Roberts wrote the government’s brief in a 1991 case in which the Supreme Court held that government could prohibit doctors and clinics who receive federal funds from discussing abortion with their patients...

Roberts also co-authored a brief in the Supreme Court on behalf of the government in support of the anti-choice group Operation Rescue and six individuals who had obstructed access to reproductive health care clinics.

Some other things he's been up to—

During his time at the Washington law firm Hogan & Harston, Roberts practiced telecommunications, energy and other business law. The Wall Street Journal reports that business leaders who recently began reviewing records of the White House finalist list placed Roberts at the top of their candidate list.

Roberts may also have played a key role in the disputed 2000 presidential election. While his name did not appear on any of the briefs during the Florida recount, three unidentified sources told the Washington Post Roberts gave Gov. Jeb Bush critical advice on how the Florida legislature could name George W. Bush the winner at time when Republicans feared the courts might force a different choice.

...Roberts was part of a three-judge panel that handed Bush an important victory…when it ruled that the military tribunals of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could proceed. The decision also found that Bush could deny terrorism captives prisoner-of-war status as outlined by the Geneva Conventions.

Danny Schecter asks, What Did Roberts Do in Florida? And posts screen shots from video suggesting Roberts was among the "Brooks Brothers" thugs as they shut down the 2000 recount. This appears on 9/29: the day Roberts will be confirmed and sworn in.

Thuggery from 2000, which of course made 2004 a cinch...Clever Sister forwards this, observing, "this is more proof that they stole the election - why is Cheney thinking of Kerry right now?"

In Mississippi, during a press conference, after telling the press that what needs to be done, gets done. A resident walked up to the gaggle and said this:

"Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney!! Go fuck yourself!!!

Cheney looked pissed. Really pissed.

A reporter then asked him, "Do you get that a lot, Mr. Cheney?"

He replied, "That's the first time I've heard it. Must be a friend of John er.. uh.. never mind."

There's a new investigation of Army prisoner abuse. Digby adds—

...I don't want to hear any more bullshit about "Lord of the Flies" in New Orleans. It's pretty clear that even our own highly disciplined military can lose their humanity without a whole lot of provocation. These weren't dipshit national guard hicks either. This was the 82nd Airborn. No excuses.

As much as Katrina revealed the ugly underbelly of poverty and race in the country, 9/11 revealed the ugly underbelly of sadism and blind fury. This is a sick culture.

A sickness she's looked at here and here, regarding online warporn, and military consumption of violent sexual images. In the context of dehumanizing the "enemy," and,

The fact that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney said, "we're taking the gloves off" certainly created an environment in which the rule of law seemed to have been completely tossed aside. This country went temporarily insane after 9/11. I guess the military hierarchy lost its bearings too, which I find surprising since the highest levels of the officer corps are steeped in the lessons of Vietnam and presumably understood that this was likely the road to perdition.

...Sadly, I think our sick culture at this point is actually rewarding those who decry the sense of personal responsibility that leads a soldier to speak out against depraved behavior --- and excuse barbaric, cruel behavior as a normal way to relieve tension.

Like Rush Limbaugh who says:

I think the reaction to the stupid torture is an example of the feminization of this country.

[...]

You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of need to blow some steam off?

And finally: there have been actual prosecutions, and sentencings this month, of Lynndie England, et. al., for abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The only prosecutions of course, and of "dipshit hicks"—who couldn't get work at Walmart, but just happened to pack leashes in preparation for their jobs in Eye-raq.

September 2004 (II): Missives

Photo: solarbreeze69
Of all the regime's feats of pulling wool over 'Murkan eyes, one of the most impressive has been the turning of AWOL George into Commander-in-Chief, beloved by The Troops. And the process of creating this "War President" has combined emptying the treasury into the pockets of cronies with shanghaiing the National Guard as roadside bomb targets.

The abuse of the National Guard has been particularly stunning—and as ignored by the major media as most real stories are. William S. Lind, a military (and conservative) commentator calls the process exactly what it is—"Destroying the National Guard"—

...Desperate for troops as the situation in Iraq deteriorates, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is using the National Guard in a mission for which it was never intended: carrying on a "war of choice" halfway around the world. Most Guardsmen enlisted expecting to help their neighbors in natural disasters, or perhaps maintain order locally in the event of rioting. They never signed up for Vietnam II.

Eric Boehlert has been covering Bush's AWOL history at length, with a recent review here. From the latest round of document dumps—just out, after the AP wins a suit to obtain previously missing documents—Boehlert writes a primer of Bush's Guard record. This covers the period beginning 1972, when Bush still had over two years of service to evade.

Citing a Bush friend on the 1970s as "an irrational time in [Bush's] life," Boehlert says, "It may have been an irrational time for him, but Bush managed to focus intently on not serving in the Guard in any significant capacity again." Boehlert notes page after page of Bush's "focus"—chronic absenteeism and blowing off orders. None of which he ever had to account for.

The regime manages the CBS "controversy" to distract from the truth of Bush's military record. The rightist outlets running the attack on CBS are tied to anti-Kerry "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" operatives and Republican PR outfits, as Boehlert details here.

The "blogger" who instantly discovers supposed font discrepancies "proving" forgery is revealed as—quel surprise!—a Republican operative—

It was the first public allegation that CBS News used forged memos in its report questioning President Bush's National Guard service — a highly technical explanation posted within hours of airtime citing proportional spacing and font styles.

But it did not come from an expert in typography or typewriter history as some first thought. Instead, it was the work of Harry W. MacDougald, an Atlanta lawyer with strong ties to conservative Republican causes who helped draft the petition urging the Arkansas Supreme Court to disbar President Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal...

Of course, the distraction works as intended. A couple of samples from Media Matters—Media obsesses over CBS documents, ignores uncontested evidence that Bush didn't meet his Guard obligations; and, Trees everywhere, forest nowhere in sight: Media ignores witnesses who confirm memo content

It's left to Texas journalist James Moore to get at the story behind what may or may not be forgeries—

...People who know the truth about the president’s time in the Texas Air National Guard are angry that the cover up of his failings has been so effective. And now there are suspicions that the individuals who have long sought after the truth may have succumbed to the power of fighting a well-told lie with another; not so well-told...

... Lt. Col. (Ret.) Bill Burkett [suspected of fabricating memos]... told me that he had witnessed hard copy documents being dumped out of Bush’s file and into a wastebasket. According to his memory, there were "retirement points" and pay sheets in the trash and he had a moment to "lightly rummage" through them as two other officers stepped away to talk... In 1997, when this was supposed to have occurred, Bush was preparing to run for re-election as governor and was prepping a presidential campaign. Cleaning up a hard copy file and then controlling access to the microfilmed record was a simple method for hiding the facts. Bill Burkett either had a fanciful imagination or his unfettered access to senior officers in the Texas Guard had serendipitously put him a few right places at all the wrong times...

Moore notes that "at least a dozen commanders," some still in active service, hold former Governor Bush responsible for inadequate funding and training of the Guard. Burkett had been hired to oversee solutions, but was prevented from implementing his recommendations. And Bush was "said to have turned down millions of dollars in federal money to pay for improvements when it was offered by the Clinton administration."

Why ever would he have done that? From Moore's Texas sources–

No one understood the decision to not upgrade the guard until Bush ran for president. In his first policy speech, given at the Citadel, candidate Bush told the assembled cadets, "If the commander-in-chief were today call upon all of our armed forces to defend America, at least one full division would be unable to answer that call." The only "full division" that was incapacitated at the time of that speech was the Texas National Guard. The governor of Texas is the only governor in the country who has command of a full division. It struck Texas Guard commanders then, even some who supported Bush, that they had been used as a political ploy and their lousy training and equipment was part of a plan.

This rings only too true of the user psychology at work here. Bush first learned he could use the Guard to evade going off to a war in Vietnam he was so enthusiastic about having less fortunate sons die in. Knowing his connections had let him exploit the Guard, he went on to misuse it as governor, and in his run for president. All roads lead to: sacrificing the Guard as targets in Iraq.

Despite the non-stop perception management, this time around they aren't taking chances with the military vote. From NYT editorial, "Denying the Troops a Secret Ballot"–

Members of the military will be allowed to vote this year by faxing or e-mailing their ballots -- after waiving their right to a secret ballot. Beyond this fundamentally undemocratic requirement, the Electronic Transmission Service, as it's known, has far too many problems to make it reliable, starting with the political partisanship of the contractor running it. The Defense Department is making matters worse by withholding basic information about the service, and should suspend it immediately.

This is contracted to Republican-connected Omega Technologies, whose CEO refuses to discuss details, proclaiming "I will not allow the public to invade the privacy of the employees of Omega."

The editorial notes–

The secrecy of ballots could be breached at several points: when they are faxed or e-mailed from the field, when they go through the contractor and when they are received by local officials. The Pentagon has not explained why it is acceptable, or legal, to ask soldiers to waive their right to secret ballots. Laughlin McDonald, director of the Voting Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, says he cannot recall another group of voters being asked to give up such secrecy. It is particularly inappropriate, he says, for soldiers, who are under the direct control of the Defense Department.

And this guy also seems to know something–

Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday warned Americans about voting for Democratic Sen. John Kerry, saying that if the nation makes the wrong choice on Election Day it faces the threat of another terrorist attack.

Now that Sonny, Jr. is across the country at boot camp, Jesus' Best Administrative Assistant begins taking lunches in full public view. She plants herself in the lobby, stationery and pen in hand, writing a line, then pausing to stare soulfully into the distance. Rehearsing her new role as Mother Of A Troop.

Which doesn't make sense in English, even if it has become the usage.

Which is no mere quibble: getting people to use nonsensical language is part of getting them to fall for anything.

September 2004 (I): Objects Of Admiration

Photo: Steven Peterson

The Republican Convention opens for maximum date proximity to and exploitation of the magical 9/11 anniversary.

New Yorkers and others speak out, with CNN headlining a story, "GOP convention protest covers miles of New York." And also reporting the "miles" were filled by "tens of thousands of demonstrators."

Organizers estimate 500,000.

There's also this on September 1: Three-Mile Long 'Unemployment Line' Gives Bush the Pink Slip.

Over 1800 arrests are made in the course of the convention. Police documents will finally be released in 2007, after years of ACLU efforts. From James Ridgeway: the documents show the NYPD began plans in May to arrest protestors at the August convention instead of issuing summonses. Meaning, "You got to a judge in New York faster during the convention than you would have had you robbed a bank." And—

The documents show the cops themselves agreed with the protestors in that 40 officers filed occupational health forms complaining about environmental conditions at the 57th Street pier, a former MTA bus depot, that served as a holding and processing facility. The officers said they were exposed to asbestos, carbon monoxide, sludge, oil, fumes and toxic materials.

At my workplace the wingnut women go on about listening to Laura's speech and how wonderful she is. From Jesus' Best Administrative Assistant: "she humanized him!"

Also according to Jesus' BAA, "Vice President Cheney has a lot of good ideas, too...I don't remember what they are ... [pause to rev up manic laughter] ...Eh heh! Eh heh! Eh heh!"

Charles Pierce later observes of this election season—

...At the end of August 2004, the Zogby people discovered that 57 percent of undecided voters would rather have a beer with George Bush than with John Kerry. Now, how many people with whom you've spent time drinking beer would you trust with the nuclear launch codes? Not only is this not a question for a nation of serious citizens, it's not even a question for a nation of serious drunkards.

The regime has two strategies of public image management. One is the story for the rubes—George is a regular fella, with adoring, properly Stepfordian, wife by his side.

Which must be what Jesus' BAA meant by Laura's "humanizing" her awesome leader. It no doubt takes a zombie to identify with another one, and this one sure seems to feel a kinship with Laura. In the case of Jesus' BAA, I have no idea if the glazed eyes and fixed smile are just the mark of a 100 percent true believer. Or if Jesus' BAA is emulating her heroine's level of medication.

Of course, when anyone with access to the public ear and eye tries telling a story different from the regime's, that activates the other tactic: to smear—and if possible, destroy—the subject. (A little on some recent efforts in Part II.)

Meanwhile, the glow that comes from a well-cleansed mind sometimes departs the face of Jesus' BAA, and worry over Sonny, Jr.'s departure for boot camp takes over.

The wheels begin turning—she works for Dr. Gott, a big man in his field who travels the world attending professional meetings. Jesus' BAA asks the good doctor for travel advice, as she plans a family trip before Sonny, Jr. is to leave. Specifically, could Dr. Gott suggest good places to eat at -----burgh?

Now, this place is about 50 miles from here: one of those staving off Depression foothill/mountain towns (there are a few around the country), that made themselves into "alpine" theme towns following the loss of logging, or whatever economic source they once had. Low-budget Disney, in other words, and Jesus' BAA's idea of an exotic trip.

For which she seeks guidance from the world traveler...she's so pathetic, there are times I start to feel sorry for her. But I soon get over it, as I listen to the rest of what she spouts.

Charles Pierce again, from a piece this month, "Daddy Darkest"—

[Andrew] Card...had to interrupt the ensemble reading of The Pet Goat in order to tell George W. Bush that someone had flown airplanes into the World Trade Center, thus starting the clock on the now-famous Seven-Minute Glaze. Card was talking... about that moment, clinging to the GOP talking points like a nun to her beads. The president "didn't introduce fear into any of those young children or through the national media, to the American people," explained Card. Then, he attempted to explain how the president feels about the 200 million-odd souls who are, after all, his employers:

"It struck me as I was speaking to people in Bangor, Maine, that this president sees America as we think about a 10-year-old child. I know as a parent I would sacrifice all for my children."

Let us leave aside any discussion prompted by Card's remarks that might uncomfortably contain the word "Fatherland." Let us take him at his word -- namely, that the president of the United States looks at the world's longest-standing free democratic republic and sees . . .

A middle-schooler.

...what Card said perfectly encapsulates this administration's approach to governance -- its fundamental contempt for democratic restraints and its hubristic insolence toward any limits on its political appetites. Our president is our Daddy. He will make his wars to keep us safe, and all we have to do is love him back, and do what he tells us to do. Go shopping. Go on happy vacations. Leave the decisions to Daddy and to Daddy's friends. They run things so we don't have to.

"Love him back"—and give him your first-born.

They've certainly tapped into the psychology of my office.