If you haven't figured out that John McCain's main interest in life is war (he uses the word "whatever" when talking about the economy, and all of his other domestic proposals are cast-off versions of the words "tax cut...) I'm not sure where you've been hiding. Well, to be fair, you've probably been watching the mainstream media give Johnny Mack the "full Monica," so you're confused. But McCain has uttered some of the most extreme, most frightening statements during this campaign, of which this is the latest:
"There is no circumstance under which the international community could be confident that uranium enrichment or plutonium production activities undertaken by the current government of Iran are purely for peaceful purposes. Given the Iranian regime's history of deception with regard to its nuclear program, its continuing lack of cooperation with the IAEA, its still unacknowledged work on weaponization, its defiance of international norms with regard to support for terrorism and threats toward Israel, and the lack of any serious economic justification for the program in the first place, Iran has forfeited any plausible claim to be pursuing a "peaceful" nuclear energy program. Accordingly, we must insist that the government of Iran permanently suspend its uranium enrichment activity and development of a plutonium production capability."
Come again, grandpa? You're telling us that you don't know jack about the U.S. economy, but you know enough about the Iranian economy and energy sector to know that they have no "serious justification" for wanting nuclear power? Who in the hell are you to tell another country what their electricity needs are? Clearly, McCain knows better. But what he's actually saying in this revealing statement, is that Iran can't spell the word "nuclear" without provoking a President McCain to blow them to hell. Really? So what you're saying is that we're guaranteed to be at war with Iran either before, or certainly if, you become president.
Is anybody paying attention to this guy? The New York Times today seems more preoccupied with how well he cuddles up to his Republican colleagues in congress so he can win the election. And the Times is even looking forward to a McCain administration canoodling with Democrats to stymie the right, with the reporter, Carl Hulse, employing the always handily vague term "some," as in, "this is my opinion but I'm generalizing it to make it seem like somebody credible told it to me":
In fact, some see a potentially divided government, with Mr. McCain on one side and a Democratic Congress on the other, as an opportunity to make major agreements. And that is a prospect that could leave some Republicans now in the McCain campaign camp out of the final picture.
Really, Carl? And who might these "some" be? They don't work for the New York Times, by chance, do they?
Not that there aren't perfectly loud voices screaming at the top of their lungs about a potential U.S. attack on Iran. But most of them point to Mr. Bush, forgetting that apparently, John McCain has sold his proverbial soul to the neocons and war profiteers, and if Bush doesn't get to it, HE will take this country to war with Iran, come hell or high water (hell being the most likely.)
McCain has aligned himself with some of the hardest of the hardcore neocons (many forget that McCain was their original candidate in 2000, before it became clear that Bush would win the nomination, and they switched to him), including Joe Lieberman, for whom war with Iran isn't an option, it's an imperative.
Indeed, it's likely that President Bush's constantly elevated threat posture toward Iran is partly being done in the service of Mr. McCain, who backed down dutifully after the nasty 2000 election and then promptly sucked up to Mr. Bush, I believe in a deal that he believes will make him president with Bush's help. Says retired diplomat Dan Simpson:
... Washington's band of war makers, war profiteers, and their theorist lackeys and flacks might lead our weary country into one more unnecessary war in the Middle East is the experience of the run-up to the Iraq war.
Based on the narrowness of Mr. Bush's Florida "victory" in 2000 and realizing that voters had some basic understanding of Mr. Bush's limited talents, the President's campaign team saw that a second-term victory in 2004 was unlikely unless Mr. Bush was a war president, so the drums began to roll. Iraq appeared increasingly to be cast in the role of loose dog on the parkway and the endless shock and awe began.
Now, roll the clock ahead to the 2008 elections, as seen by a Republican strategist looking to hold onto the White House at almost any cost in spite of the dire state of the economy and of our armed forces.
The Republican candidate is a former Navy pilot and bona fide war hero, albeit his experience is at the tactical level. The Democratic candidate is either young and somewhat inexperienced or a woman who would be hard to mistake for Xena Warrior Princess or G.I. Jane.
Taking America to war again in the final months of the current administration would make the case for electing Mr. McCain - with his white uniform, all those medals, and war-seasoning - just what America needs to lead us in a time of war, gas rationing, and maybe even a draft to soak up all those unemployed from the ruined economy.
What an appealing scenario. How else to get 71-year-old John McCain on the grueling campaign trail one more time other than this prospect of victory? The only question is whether it should be Israel or the United States that bombs the Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz to set off the war.
The skeptic says that the Bush Administration couldn't be that irresponsible. But how badly do the Republicans not want to relinquish the White House? How much do they not want a reckoning of the real costs of their eight years in power to the American public?
"It was a long, long time ago and neither one of us ever talked about it and I don't know why," she said. "He didn't mention it and I didn't mention it," Cher told "Entertainment Tonight."
Apparently Cher and Cruise dated between 1983 and 1986, after "Risky Business" and before "The Color of Money." Cher now says she's troubled by what she sees about Cruise in the press, referring to his involvement with the Church of Scientology.
Cher, guys ... he dated Cher... what else do you need? Has this guy got to marry Liza Minelli?
So Karl Rove, magically transformed from a lying, scheming, one step ahead of the jailer Bush operative to a respectable columnist and political pundit -- overnight! -- is now dispensing some advice to his new charge, John McCain, via the newly Foxified Wall Street Journal. First, the MacGyver story:
Mr. Day relayed to me one of the stories Americans should hear. It involves what happened to him after escaping from a North Vietnamese prison during the war. When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and said, "I told you I would make you a cripple."
The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day's will. He had survived in prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm would heal at "a goofy angle," as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, he never would have flown again.
But it didn't heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe punishment, Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard to use as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his own wounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day's splint in place.
Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complemented the treatment he'd gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was Dr. McCain who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.
All that's left is John McCain making a flying machine out of his pants and, on the strength of his lung power alone, blowing himself and his fellow captive clean out of Vietnam... Next, Rove throws out some ideas for our boys down in Gitmo:
Another McCain story, somewhat better known, is about the Vietnamese practice of torturing him by tying his head between his ankles with his arms behind him, and then leaving him for hours. The torture so badly busted up his shoulders that to this day Mr. McCain can't raise his arms over his head.
Are you taking notes, CIA interrogators...???
Finally, we have Cindy McCain as Angelina Jolie:
n 1991 Cindy McCain was visiting Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh when a dying infant was thrust into her hands. The orphanage could not provide the medical care needed to save her life, so Mrs. McCain brought the child home to America with her. She was met at the airport by her husband, who asked what all this was about.
Mrs. McCain replied that the child desperately needed surgery and years of rehabilitation. "I hope she can stay with us," she told her husband. Mr. McCain agreed. Today that child is their teenage daughter Bridget.
I was aware of this story. What I did not know, and what I learned from Doris, is that there was a second infant Mrs. McCain brought back. She ended up being adopted by a young McCain aide and his wife...
Well I'll bet Karl Rove didn't put together a push polling smear campaign to tell South Carolina voters in 2000 that the goodly McCain aide had an illegitimate black child. Nope. Rove reserved that tactic for McCain, the man whose specialness he's touting today, in order to throw the election to George W. Bush.
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, like Tavis Smiley, is about to learn a powerful lesson about Black America: the consensus inside the community, to the extent there is a consensus, can turn on a dime. Black America was skeptical of Barack Obama, until it wasn't. Black America was with Hillary, until they weren't. And Black America supported Rev. Jeremiah Wright against the media, until yesterday. In the wake of his gratuitous performances in Detroit and Washington, Wright will soon learn that he went a bridge too far. (As I keep saying, he should have left it at Bill Moyers.) And given the choice between salvaging Jeremiah Wright and salvaging a potential President Barack Obama, I think it's a safe bet that all over America tonight, most Black Americans are choosing Barack.
Update: Youtuber Obamamania mashes up Jeremiah's revenge, featuring scenes from the Barack-Wright divorce:
The Wright controversy comes full circlhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gife
"An insult to me, and a disrespect to what I'm trying to do in this campaign..."
You might say Barack Obama just couldn't take it anymore. The Democratic front runner just finished making a statement and taking questions on the subject of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, who horrified the media and Obama supporters Sunday with a speech in which he made fun of the Kennedys, following by a talk at the National Press Club Monday in which, most pundits agree, he pitched his former parishioner directly under the bus -- the wheels, not the tall gap underneath. Well today, Barack isn't the only one feeling the wheels on his back.
I think this has been the single best thing to happen to Obama in weeks.
Why? Because after watching his pastor seize the spotlight for two days, after an absolutely wonderful interview on PBS that should have ended the matter, Barack Obama has a license to get mad. And in getting mad at Jeremiah Wright, he can finally give the teeming masses of the mainstream media what they are downright demanding -- a no-holds-barred, unambiguous denunciation and rejection of Jeremiah Wright. Like it or not, Obama had to do it, eventually. More importantly, it was pretty obvious from his tone of voice that at this point, he also wanted to do it, which was not true during that speech in Philadelphia. The very personal breach between the two men puts real, not artificial or political, distance between Obama and what clearly would be his biggest nemesis in the campaign. It still probably will be. The right will not be mollified by anything Barack does. they will still try to hang him with Wright's statements, right into November. But Obama has now gotten license to jettison Wright, and with him, the fear factor that had begun to cloud his campaign. And when I say fear, I mean middle America's fear of Barack Obama, and the possibility that he's not "one of us... he's one of them..."
So there we are. Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright have thrown each other overboard.
Can we please go back to politics now?
Update: Tamryn Hall, MSNBC's late morning anchor (who has the best haircut in the business, by the way,) just finished explaining the ABCs of church in Chicago to Andrea Mitchell.
Hall is from Chicago, and attended Trinity Church, just like Obama. She just backed up Obama's contention that he didn't see the side of Wright that we all saw on Monday. She also pointed out that for Blacks who move to Chicago, there are two major churches they are often told are the ones to attend, and one is Trinity. She made the common sense point that just because the minister marries you and performs the baptisms of your kids, doesn't make them your spiritual advisor. And no, it also doesn't mean you go to church every single Sunday. I can tell you that I have no relationship whatsoever with the minister who married Jason and me. Ditto with the Episcopalian priest who baptised my daughter. And while I am a member of one of those major, social center churches Tamryn spoke of, here in Miami, I couldn't tell you everything that my very prominent pastor believes, nor could I tell you what he preaches every week.
LONDON (AP) -- BP PLC and Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Europe's two biggest oil producers, posted forecast-busting first-quarter earnings on Tuesday thanks to record crude oil prices that are expected to bolster profits across the industry. The combined profits of $17 billion reignited calls for a windfall tax on oil profits as consumers struggle to pay for food and fuel.
... BP posted a 63 percent surge in first-quarter net profit to $7.6 billion (4.9 billion euros), while Shell reported a 25 percent rise, to a record $9.08 billion (5.81 billion euros).
Revenue at BP jumped 44 percent to $89.2 billion (57.1 billion euros), while sales at Shell soared 55 percent to $114 billion (72.95 billion euros).
Last week ConocoPhillips reported a 16 percent rise in net income to $4.14 billion. Like BP and Shell, the third biggest U.S. producer far outpaced industry expectations. More big profits are expected from the biggest two U.S. companies, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., when they report first-quarter earnings later this week.
Crude oil hit $111.80 per barrel during the quarter, while gas jumped an average of 22 percent. Crude has pushed even higher since, reaching a record $119.93 per-barrel this week.
BP shares jumped 5.7 percent to 611.5 pence ($12.06, while Shell rose 5.2 percent to 26.03 euros ($40.51).
The NYDN's Errol Louis uncovers what could be a Clinton dirty trick on the Rev. Wright front:
Shortly before he rose to deliver his rambling, angry, sarcastic remarks at the National Press Club Monday, Wright sat next to, and chatted with, Barbara Reynolds.
A former editorial board member at USA Today, she runs something called Reynolds News Services and teaches ministry at the Howard University School of Divinity. (She is an ordained minister).
It also turns out that Reynolds - introduced Monday as a member of the National Press Club "who organized" the event - is an enthusiastic Hillary Clinton supporter.
On a blog linked to her Web site- www.reynoldsnews.com- Reynolds said in a February post: "My vote for Hillary in the Maryland primary was my way of saying thank you" to Clinton and her husband for the successes of Bill Clinton's presidency.
The same post criticized Obama's "Audacity of Hope" theme: "Hope by definition is not based on facts," wrote Reynolds. It is an emotional expectation. Things hoped for may or may not come. But help based on experience trumps hope every time."
In another blog entry, Reynolds gives an ever-sharper critique of Obama: "It is a sad testimony that to protect his credentials as a unifier above the fray, the senator is fueling the media characterization that Rev. Dr. Wright is some retiring old uncle in the church basement."
I don't know if Reynolds' eagerness to help Wright stage a disastrous news conference with the national media was a way of trying to help Clinton - my queries to Reynolds by phone and e-mail weren't returned yesterday - but it's safe to say she didn't see any conflict between promoting Wright and supporting Clinton. ...
Hm...
Here's Reynolds' blog, which strangely enough, doesn't use the spacebar between paragraphs... Reading through a March 17 post on Rev. Wright, you get the clear impression that she is a supporter of the pastor, if not of his parishioner, Obama. An example (with paragraph breaks provided for your amusement):
Pastor Wright is being brutally trashed for his controversial sermons. The mainstream media are the guilty culprit in all of this partly because of ignorance of the historic role of the Black Church, which was born out of the crucible of slavery, lynching and Jim Crow, If those injustices had not been raised with passion, blacks would still be on the plantation, a point that Trinity’s new pastor Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III, nicely raised in an interview on CNN.
Secondly, Pastor Wright seems so radical because so many churches aren’t saying anything. Instead of preaching and organizing against the unjust war in Iraq that has claimed more than 4,000 U.S. lives and 30,000 Iranian lives, the cradle to grave prison industrial pipeline, inadequate education, and other social ills, so many mega-church leaders are hooping about prosperity and allowing politicians drive through photo ops in their churches without holding their feet to the fire.
Wright stands out because so many others are sitting down. There are not many churches where the social gospel of Dr. King is preached. The media have watered down the volumes of King’s sermonic contributions to "I have a Dream," although King spoke out strongly against such issues as the Vietnam War just as Wright is campaigning against the horrors of the ill-fated war in Iraq today.
I have no way of knowing what Ms. Reynolds' motives were in organizing the Wright appearance in D.C. But I think it's safe to say that she is a strong advocate of his, and of the idea of confrontational Black politics, which puts her in the same camp as people like Tavis Smiley and Al Sharpton: pro-Wright, not so much on Barack...
For now, the Pentagon has shelved its program sending retired generals to the major TV and cable networks as propagandists for the war. Official reason: "internal review." Unoficial reason: New York Times...
Above: a picture you won't find of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Dick Cheney or any of the chicken hawks attacking Jeremiah Wright and questioning his patriotism.
I'm privileged to know Lawrence Korb, who served as undersecretary of defense for manpower during the Reagan administration and who now is a senior fellow at the Democrat-leaning Center for American Progress. Dr. Korb remains a Republican, if an iconoclastic one on the subject of Iraq, and he is, in my experience, the smartest analyst on the subject of the war. I met him in December 2003 during a brief journalism fellowship in Maryland, and he was my number one "go to guy" on Iraq when I was with Radio One. I say that to say that Korb's opinion is one I deeply respect. So when I noticed that it is he who co-authored (with fellow military veteran and CAP staffer Ian Moss -- Korb is a Navy man, Moss a former Marine,) this editorial, I took particular notice. So should you:
In 1961, a young African-American man, after hearing President John F. Kennedy's challenge to, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," gave up his student deferment, left college in Virginia and voluntarily joined the Marines.
In 1963, this man, having completed his two years of service in the Marines, volunteered again to become a Navy corpsman. (They provide medical assistance to the Marines as well as to Navy personnel.)
The man did so well in corpsman school that he was the valedictorian and became a cardiopulmonary technician. Not surprisingly, he was assigned to the Navy's premier medical facility, Bethesda Naval Hospital, as a member of the commander in chief's medical team, and helped care for President Lyndon B. Johnson after his 1966 surgery. For his service on the team, which he left in 1967, the White House awarded him three letters of commendation.
What is even more remarkable is that this man entered the Marines and Navy not many years after the two branches began to become integrated.
While this young man was serving six years on active duty, Vice President Dick Cheney, who was born the same year as the Marine/sailor, received five deferments, four for being an undergraduate and graduate student and one for being a prospective father. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, both five years younger than the African-American youth, used their student deferments to stay in college until 1968. Both then avoided going on active duty through family connections.
Who is the real patriot? The young man who interrupted his studies to serve his country for six years or our three political leaders who beat the system? Are the patriots the people who actually sacrifice something or those who merely talk about their love of the country?
After leaving the service of his country, the young African-American finished his final year of college, entered the seminary, was ordained as a minister, and eventually became pastor of a large church in one of America's biggest cities.
This man is Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the retiring pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, who has been in the news for comments he made over the last three decades.
The two men go on to disagree with some of Wright's statements, but they add a very important caveat:
... Some of the Wright's comments are inexcusable and inappropriate and should be condemned, but in calling him "unpatriotic," let us not forget that this is a man who gave up six of the most productive years of his life to serve his country.
How many of Wright's detractors, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly to name but a few, volunteered for service, and did so under the often tumultuous circumstances of a newly integrated armed forces and a society in the midst of a civil rights struggle? Not many.
While words do count, so do actions.
Let us not forget that, for whatever Rev. Wright may have said over the last 30 years, he has demonstrated his patriotism.
MSNBC and their regular contributors from the print media are in full lather over Rev. Jeremiah Wright's appearances on PBS, in front of the Detroit branch of the NAACP over the weekend (transcript here), and at the National Press Club this morning. "Why doesn't he just stay away!" moaned Chris Matthews. "How much does this hurt Barack Obama!?" quizzed Andrea Mitchell, and the morning anchors have been filling in the angst gap all morning and afternoon long. He's unrepentant! they're saying. And it burns... He's making more sound bytes to use against Obama! Hooray!!!
Will someone phone the media and inform them that Rev. Wright is not on the ballot in November, nor is he controllable by the Obama campaign? The worst thing about Wright's reemergence, while it has shown him to be a full human being, and a thoughtful, intelligent one at that (who also served in the military for six years, during the same period when Dick Cheney was chalking up six draft deferments to get out of going to Vietnam) and in that way has be rehabilitative, is that it has given the annoying chattering classes yet another chance to bray at Obama that he must, once and for all, distance himself from Wright, eject him from the island, and wrap himself in the biggest goddamned ... ooh ... let's try that again ... God Bless America flag he can find at Costco.
Clearly, the media will never walk away from the Wright sideshow. They're just enjoying it too much. But Obama must find away to walk away, and to make it clear that it is his name, and his beliefs, that will be on the ballot in November.
The good news for Barack is that Camp Clinton doesn't dare touch this one, given their side's already diminishing reputation with Black voters. It will be left to right wing talk radio and the GOP to join the media in keeping this dog of a story alive.
The bad news is that the story will stay alive. It just taps too deeply into white America's most primal fear about black people, and particularly black men: that they haven't gotten over those 400 odd years of slavery, Jim Crow and lynching ... and they want revenge. That's why the John Stewart joke about enslaving white people was so poignant. It's why white pundits are all but foaming at the mouth demanding that Obama begin mouthing the safe platitudes about the greatness of America that they are used to. And it's why Rush Limbaugh on his show today was sputtering about blacks demanding "100 years of payback!" and reparations! if the U.S. were to apologize for slavery. Even in Jefferson's time, white people feared that one day, blacks would exact their revenge on them, perhaps violently. That's why the repression of blacks after the civil war, including their right to vote, was so urgent, and why the most vicious, official violence against blacks dragged on into the latter part of the 20th century. (The same fears coursed through South Africa in the waning days of apartheid in South Africa.) Only now, the fear is economic -- reparations, economic advantage via affirmative action, etc., and it is psychic -- "they'll just hold it over my head forever!"
It's also irrational. And it suggests that perhaps African-Americans aren't the only ones walking around with a chip on their shoulder regarding race.
Support the troops? Not in the Bush administration...
The Bush administration has a long, sorry history of covering up the costs of the war in Iraq, from their "emergency appropriations" that feed the financial costs piecemeal to the Congress and the American people, to their denial of press coverage of the flag draped coffins of our veterans returning from Iraq or Afghanistan (or at their funerals), to, apparently, boldfaced attempts to downplay the horrors of war's aftermath for the men and women returning from service.
The latest outrage, which you might have heard on Olbermann's show last week:
WASHINGTON - Two Democratic senators have called for the chief mental health official of the Veterans Affairs Department to resign, saying he tried to cover up the rising number of veteran suicides.
Sens. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii and Patty Murray of Washington state said Tuesday that Dr. Ira Katz, the VA's mental health director, withheld crucial information on the true suicide risk among veterans.
"Dr. Katz's irresponsible actions have been a disservice to our veterans, and it is time for him to go," said Murray, a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. "The No. 1 priority of the VA should be caring for our veterans, not covering up the truth."
So what did Dr. Katz do?
A number of Democratic senators said they were appalled at e-mails showing Katz and other VA officials apparently trying to conceal the number of suicides by veterans. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifn e-mail message from Katz disclosed this week as part of a lawsuit that went to trial in San Francisco starts with "Shh!" and claims 12,000 veterans a year attempt suicide while under department treatment.
"Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?" the e-mail asks. ...
...Another e-mail said an average of 18 war veterans kill themselves each day — and five of them are under VA care when they commit suicide.
The former VA Secretary, James Peak had testified before Congress in February that just 144 vets had committed suicide between 2001 and 2005. That's a hell of a difference in scale.
Two veterans groups, including the IAVA, are suing the Veterans Administration over their handling of returning troops' care (including average 180 day wait times for suicidal patients to see a psychiatrist.) According to a recent study by the RAND Corp:
[an estimated] 300,000 U.S. troops — about 20 percent of those deployed — are suffering from depression or post-traumatic stress from serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The saddest part is, the Bush administration (and their sycophant followers online and in talk radio, plus their acolytes like Joe Lieberman and John McCain,) are willing to feed our finest young men and women into the grinder, slogging on in a war that was long-since over, but they haven't the slightest interest in what happens to them when, or if, they come home.
PBS' Bill Moyers conducted a thoughtful, intelligent interview with Rev. Jeremiah Wright last night that yielded some interesting information, and finally fleshed out the man who has become a media caricature of the ultimate Scary Black Man.
Who knew that Wright, a former Marine and Navy medic, once tended to then President Lyndon Johnson, which is how he met Moyers, who was Johnson's press secretary (Moyers proves, unlike Stephanopoulos, that it IS possible to go from political flak to serious journalist with your integrity in tact.)
That was fascinating information for me, as was the overall story of Wright's ascent to the ministry. He is clearly a serious person with serious ideas, not the cook that talking airheads like Tucker Carlson pretend he is, based on their exhaustive, 30-second knowledge of him.
And Moyers, thankfully, played longer clips of the now infamous sermon snippets that are burning up "the Youtube," and which will form the basis of the GOP war against Barack Obama and the Democratic Party's nominees down-ticket this fall. I hope it will be a revelation to many recalcitrant white voters to find that when Wright uttered the words "God damn America," he was speaking in a fuller context of "governments that can fail and that can lie," and should not be worshipped as if they are God (I'm talking to you, GOP...) and that when he said that on 9/11, "America's chickens [came] home to roost," he was citing a white ambassador, Edward Peck, who served during the Reagan administration. He even says, "that's a white ambassador who says that, not Jeremiah Wright..."
I doubt that any of this will move the mainstream media, which now has it's narrative, and won't dare change it, lest they look stupid, or worse, wrong. They will zero in on the part of the interview where Wright appears to praise Louis Farrakhan for the work he does in the community (next big Youtube clip: "Farrakhan is like E.F. Hutton: when he talks, Black folk listen." I guarantee it. Never mind that, as the WaPo's Colbert King points out in a column today, Hillary Clinton has someone in her camp who's much closer to Farrakhan than either Wright or Barack Obama, and he's a white guy named Ed Rendell...) And they'll continue to harp on what Dan Abrams insists was Wright "throwing Barack Obama under the bus" by saying that Obama, as a politician, does the things that politicians do.
Well knock me over with a feather.
Mostly, the MSM won't be satisfied because Wright did not subject himself to a harangue by one of the pit bull "journalists" nursed by cable news, whose job is not so much to probe, as to accost, their subjects. "He wasn't asked the tough questions," they'll say; questions like, "why do you hate America?", "how can you utter the words "God damn America" from the pulpit?", "would you stay in a church if YOUR pastor uttered words that sound to so many like unpatriotic and racist rants?", "You were a Marine, were you loyal to America then?" and of course, "Do you understand why so many Americans are offended by the words you used, and do you want to take this opportunity to apologize to them?"
Had Stephanopoulos gotten his hands on Wright, he might even have asked him whether he's ever worn a flag pin...
Oh well. At the end of the day, I am grateful to PBS for continuing to provide a platform for Mr. Moyers, who is one of the last remaining Big Men in news. Good for him, and good for Jeremiah Wright, who represented himself well last night. Members of the media, and the public, will have to be left to their own judgment.
I listened to a bit of Rush Limbaugh's show today, and was struck by the extent to which he seems determined to fight John McCain to the bitter end, ridiculing McCain for his (tepid) opposition to the North Carolina Republican Party's nasty, Jeremiah Wright-centered ad campaign. But Limbaugh's other theme today was that his so-called "operation chaos" was having an impact, by "keeping the Democratic primary going" so that the Clintons can do what he feels McCain and the GOP will not: "bloody up Obama."
OK. Well guess what else El Rushbo wants his "operation chaos" to do...
DENVER -- Talk show host Rush Limbaugh is sparking controversy again after he made comments that appear to call for riots in Denver during the Democratic National Convention this summer.
He said the riothttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifs would ensure a Democrat is not elected as president, and his listeners have a responsibility to make sure it happens.
"Riots in Denver, the Democrat Convention would see to it that we don't elect Democrats," Limbaugh said during Wednesday's radio broadcast. He then went on to say that's the best thing that could happen to the country.
Limbaugh cited Al Sharpton, saying the Barack Obama supporter threatened to superdelegates that "there's going to be trouble" if the presidency is taken from Obama.
Several callers called in to the radio show to denounce Limbaugh's comments, when he later stated, "I am not inspiring or inciting riots, I am dreaming of riots in Denver."
Limbaugh said with massive riots in Denver, which he called part of "Operation Chaos," the people on the far left would look bad.
"There won't be riots at our convention," Limbaugh said of the Republican National Convention. "We don't riot. We don't burn our cars. We don't burn down our houses. We don't kill our children. We don't do half the things the American left does."...
Limbaugh went on to say that "riots in Denver, at the Democratic Convention will see to it we don't elect Democrats. And that's the best damn thing that can happen to this country, as far as I can think." Though later, he began to downplay his comments, perhaps realizing, even with his drug-addled brain, that what he said amounted to incitement to riot.
Well too late, fat boy. The story is all over the Denver media. And as someone who grew up in Denver (from age 2 to age 17) let me invite Rush's flabby, pasty ass to come to the Mile High City and make his threats to wreck it in person. I dare you.
[from Mother Jones] ... McCain's record on Hurricane Katrina suggests that he was part of the problem, not the solution. McCain was on Face the Nation on August 28, 2005, as Katrina gathered in the Gulf Coast. He said nothing about it. One day later, when Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, McCain was on a tarmac at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, greeting President Bush with a cake in celebration of McCain's 69th birthday. Three days later, with the levees already breached and New Orleans filling with water, McCain's office released a three-sentence statement urging Americans to support the victims of the hurricane.
Though McCain issued a statement the next week calling on Congress to make sacrifices in order to fund recovery efforts, he was quoted in The New Leader on September 1 cautioning against over-spending in support of Katrina's victims. "We also have to be concerned about future generations of Americans," he said. "We're going to end up with the highest deficit, probably, in the history of this country."
That attitude was borne out in McCain's actions and votes. Forty Senators and 100 members of Congress visited New Orleans before he did; he finally got there in March 2006. He voted against establishing a Congressional commission to examine the Federal, State, and local responses to Katrina in med-September 2005. He repeated that vote in 2006. He voted against allowing up to 52 weeks of unemployment benefits to people affected by the hurricane, and in 2006 voted against appropriating $109 billion in supplemental emergency funding, including $28 billion for hurricane relief.
Shortly after the disaster in New Orleans, McCain did introduce a bill that sought to improve communications mechanisms for first-responders and authorities. The bill failed to go anywhere, and McCain later voted against other bills that had similar provisions.
... Maybe McCain should have taken Lieberman down there to whisper some corrections into his ear...
Rev. Jeremiah Wright gives his first television interview since the Youtube clips heard round the world, sitting down with PBS' Bill Moyers. PBS has released a trio of clips:
Part two:
Part three:
The Moyers interview airs tonight at 9 p.m. EST.
The talking heads are decrying Wright's daring to speak, even calling him "Obama's Bill Clinton" this morning on MSNBC. It's typical of a media that in its own mind has dismissed Wright as an untouchable, unreconcilable racist America-hater, based on hearing about 1 minute of his sermons. Interesting that the MSM never dismissed Jerry Falwell or John Hagee in similar fashion...
Wright speaks at the National Press Club next week.
Three NYC detectives have been acquitted on all charges, including manslaughter for two of them, in the "50 shots" death of would-be bridgegroom Sean Bell.
Three detectives were found not guilty Friday morning on all charges in the November, 2006, shooting death of Sean Bell, who died in a hail of 50 police bullets outside a club in Jamaica, Queens.
The verdict prompted several supporters of Mr. Bell to storm out of the courtroom, and screams could be heard in the hallway moments later.The verdict comes 17 months to the day since the Nov. 25, 2006, shooting of Mr. Bell, 23, and his friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, outside the Club Kalua in Jamaica, Queens, hours before Mr. Bell was to be married.
It was delivered in a pack courtroom and was heard by, among others, the slain man’s parents and his fiancee. About 150 Bell supporters had been gathered outside the Queens Criminal Court building before the verdict, handing out leaflets.
The seven-week trial, which ended April 14, was heard by Justice Arthur J. Cooperman of State Supreme Court in Queens. The defendants waived their right to a jury in January, a strategy some lawyers called risky at the time. But it clearly paid off with Friday’s verdict.The detectives were charged collectively with committing eight crimes amid the 50 gunshots that brought worldwide attention. Detectives Isnora and Oliver faced the most charges: first- and second-degree manslaughter, with a possible sentence of 25 years in prison; felony assault, first and second degree; and a misdemeanor, reckless endangerment, with a possible one-year sentence. Detective Oliver also faces a second count of first-degree assault. Detective Marc Cooper was charged only with two counts of reckless endangerment.
During the 26 days of testimony, the prosecution sought to show, with an array of 50 witnesses, that the shooting was the act of a frightened, even enraged group of disorganized police officers who began their shift that night hoping to arrest a prostitute or two and, in suspecting Mr. Bell and his friends of possessing a gun, quickly got in over their heads.
“We ask police to risk their lives to protect ours,” said an assistant district attorney, Charles A. Testagrossa, in his closing arguments. “Not to risk our lives to protect their own.”
The defense, through weeks of often heated cross-examinations, their own witnesses and the words of the detectives themselves, portrayed the shooting as the tragic end to a nonetheless justified confrontation, with Detective Isnora having what it called solid reasons to believe he was the only thing standing between Mr. Bell’s car and a drive-by shooting around the corner. ...
The defense argument won. Now, New York City is bracing for the reaction (and the Sharpton). It will be interesting to see if the reaction is any different because two of the cops are Black ... Meanchilw, the Daily News' Denis Hamil talkes to a couple of lawyers who fault the prosecution. An interesting piece of news:
Another lawyer, who preferred to remain nameless, who used to work for the Queens district attorney's office, said politics is the only reason the case was brought to trial.
He said there was an angry split in the Queens DA's office over bringing an indictment. One faction led by Jack Ryan, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown's top aide, argued that there wasn't enough evidence. The other faction said prosecutors owed it to Sean Bell's loved ones, the shooting victims and "the community."
"Traditionally, the Queens DA's office assembled their best ADAs and made them build a great defense of the suspect," the lawyer said. "If the defense was stronger than the prosecution's case, you didn't go into the grand jury. Judging by his own admission during summation that he could not vouch for some of his own witnesses, it's difficult to believe that [lead prosecutor Charles] Testagrossa could have analyzed this case and come away convinced the prosecution had a more compelling case than the defense."
As awful it is for Bell's family and fiancee, the result here is not much of a surprise. Police officers are rarely convicted in shooting cases like this one, since their lattitude on the use of force is so broad, and juries tend to give them the benefit of the doubt, particularly if the defense can get a jury, frankly, that's mostly non-Black. [Sidebar: the verdicts in this case came from a judge. Apparently the defendants waived their right to a jury trial.]
Just keeping it real.
Update: MSNBC just showed a growing crowd outside the Queens courtroom. A Sharpton appearance is imminent, apparently.
Update 2: Mayor Bloomberg and police chief Ray Kelly have issued statements on the verdicts. Bloomberg's reads in part:
There are no winners in a trial like this. An innocent man lost his life, a bride lost her groom, two daughters lost their father, and a mother and a father lost their son. No verdict could ever end the grief that those who knew and loved Sean Bell suffer. Judge Cooperman’s responsibility, however, was to decide the case based on the evidence presented in the courtroom. America is a nation of laws, and though not everyone will agree with the verdicts and opinions issued by the courts, we accept their authority. Today’s decision is no different. There will be opportunities for peaceful dissent and potentially for further legal recourse – those are the rights we enjoy in a democratic nation. We don’t expect violence or law-breaking, nor is there any place for it. We have come too far as society – and as a City – to be dragged back to those days.
And Kelly wouldn't comment on the verdicts, but did react to the gathering protests:
I cannot make any comment on the verdict because any disciplinary action that might emanate from this case will ultimately come before me. We have been asked by the U.S. attorney to hold up any disciplinary proceedings until they make a determination whether or not they are going to be involved in this matter. So we’ll await word from the U.S. attorney before we will proceed with any formal investigation.
There have been no problems. Obviously there will be some people who are disappointed with the verdict. We understand that. We have had no history of violence since this incident began as far as the vigils, the memorial services are concerned. We don’t anticipate violence but we are prepared for any contingency.
Having failed to complete a single major prosecution in the so-called "war on terror" since 9/11, the Bush justice department will grind away at the six remaining members of the Liberty City Seven, trying the six for a third time, after two hung juries. The foreman of jury #2 has said, "don't bother", but there's nothing to stop the JD from shopping for jury after jury after jury until they find one filled with enough Bush Kool-Aid to convict. Meanwhile, the government is continuing its push to deport the one member of this hapless crew who was actuallly acquitted by a jury of his peers. From the Herald story:
Six Miami men who survived two mistrials will be tried for a third time on terrorism charges in an unprecedented federal case. But the jury foreman in the retrial that deadlocked last week questioned the prosecution's decision on Wednesday to retry the Liberty City defendants again, saying it would probably lead to a third mistrial. They were mainly charged with conspiring to assist al Qaeda in a government sting operation.
In the undercover investigation, the FBI recorded the defendants as they pledged their allegiance to al Qaeda in a March 2006 oath led by an FBI informant. The informant, an Arabic man who went by the name Mohammad, posed as a financier for the global terrorist organization.
Prosecutor Richard Gregorie said Wednesday the U.S. attorney's office decided to pursue the third trial because the ringleader, Narseal Batiste, was a dangerous man whose mission was to ''kill all the devils'' in a war against the United States -- beginning with the destruction of the Sears Tower in Chicago, then FBI buildings.
But the jury foreman in the second trial, who did not want to be identified, said the prosecution's conspiracy case wasn't strong enough and that jurors would likely deadlock again on their fate.
''I'm in disbelief they are going for a third trial,'' said the foreman, who contacted The Miami Herald after the government's announcement was reported on the paper's webpage on Wednesday. ``I'm afraid if they go for a third trial the jurors will hang or they will have the same issues we did.''
The foreman said the vast majority of jurors in the retrial wanted to convict Batiste and his alleged second in command, Patrick Abraham, on the central charges of conspiring to provide ''material support'' to al Qaeda in 2006.
But almost all wanted to acquit defendants Naudimar Herrera and Rotschild Augustine, he said.
The jurors split down the middle on the two other defendants, Burson Augustin and Stanley Grant Phanor, he said.
The foreman said the basic problem with the government's case was the lack of evidence to prove all six defendants had the will to carry out a terrorism plot , noting investigators found no explosives, weapons, ammunition or terrorist blueprints on them after their arrests in June 2006. He also said the jurors struggled with the FBI's undercover operation, in which agents used an Arabic informant posing as an al Qaeda representative to test the resolve of the men. ...
House majority whip James Clyburn,one of the most respected members of Congress, rips Hillary a new one in a Reuters interview:
“Scurrilous” and “disingenuous” were among the words a top Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives used on Thursday to describe Hillary Clinton’s campaign tactics in her bid to defeat Barack Obama for their party’s presidential nomination.
House Democratic Whip James Clyburn, of South Carolina and the highest ranking black in Congress, also said he has heard speculation that Clinton is staying in the race only to try to derail Obama and pave the way for her to make another White House run in 2012.
“I heard something, the first time yesterday (in South Carolina), and I heard it on the (House) floor today, which is telling me there are African Americans who have reached the decision that the Clintons know that she can’t win this. But they’re hell-bound to make it impossible for Obama to win” in November, Clyburn told Reuters in an interview. ...
Then he went after Clinton on her push to count Florida and Michigan:
“I think it’s so disingenuous … (adviser James) Carville and Sen. Clinton were all on TV. I’ve seen them two or three times this week, talking about counting Florida and Michigan.”
Obama did not campaign in those states because the Democratic Party said Florida and Michigan wouldn’t be included in the formal tally for the nomination. “Her name was the only one on the ticket in Michigan and still 42, 43 percent of the vote was against her,” Clyburn said.
Still, Clyburn said “I don’t think she ought to drop out.”
But he added, “There’s a difference between dropping out and raising all this extraneous scurrilous stuff about the guy (Obama). Just run your campaign … you don’t have to drop out to be respectful of other people.”
Ouch... Then it was Bill's turn, courtesy of the New York Times: In an interview with The New York Times late Thursday, Mr. Clyburn said Mr. Clinton’s conduct in this campaign had caused what might be an irreparable breach between Mr. Clinton and an African-American constituency that once revered him. “When he was going through his impeachment problems, it was the black community that bellied up to the bar,” Mr. Clyburn said. “I think black folks feel strongly that that this is a strange way for President Clinton to show his appreciation.” Mr. Clyburn added that there appeared to be an almost “unanimous” view among African-Americans that Mr. and Mrs. Clinton were “committed to doing everything they possibly can to damage Obama to a point that he could never win.”
Mr. Clyburn was heavily courted by both campaigns before South Carolina’s primary in January. But he stayed neutral, and continues to, vowing that he would not say or do anything that might influence the outcome of the race. He said he remains officially uncommitted as a superdelegate and has no immediate plans to endorse either candidate. At one point before the South Carolina primary, Mr. Clyburn publicly urged Mr. Clinton to “chill a little bit.”
Asked Thursday whether the former president heeded his advice, Mr. Clyburn said “Yeah, for three or four weeks or so. Or maybe three or four days.”
Ouch again! It's getting tight for the former president, who I think has officially lost his Black pass. (Hillary never really had one, so she might not be feeling as much pain...)
The Washington Post takes on the Pentagon's continued policy of hiding the flag draped coffins of Iraq and Afghanistan war casualties from the American people. Here's Dana Milbank:
Lt. Col. Billy Hall, one of the most senior officers to be killed in the Iraq war, was laid to rest yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery. It's hard to escape the conclusion that the Pentagon doesn't want you to know that.
The family of 38-year-old Hall, who leaves behind two young daughters and two stepsons, gave their permission for the media to cover his Arlington burial -- a decision many grieving families make so that the nation will learn about their loved ones' sacrifice. But the military had other ideas, and they arranged the Marine's burial yesterday so that no sound, and few images, would make it into the public domain.
That's a shame, because Hall's story is a moving reminder that the war in Iraq, forgotten by much of the nation, remai
