Freedom's Fire, Brightly Burning

(Okay, the "as usual" in my headline is editorial...not directly from Kerry...but easily inferred if you've been listening to him for a while!)

Earlier today at a press conference, Bush made the claim that

[These are] challenging times and they're difficult times and they're straining the psyche of our country..." Bush said.

No shit these aren't joyous times. But why is that, George?

I remember in the Clinton years - as much as I winced over policies like NAFTA and a much too slow approach to the oncoming freight train of global environmental disaster - I woke up each day (mostly) thinking the world was, on the whole, becoming a better place for most people, little by little.

We're a far, far sight from that optimism now, and as much as the Bushies try to point the finger at Clinton, it's getting a little old - they've had five and a half years to turn the ship around - if indeed it was Clinton that set it on the wrong course, which I doubt - and they've proven themselves utterly incompetent to the task.

Meanwhile, the incompetence goes on, as Bush states with regard to withdrawal of forces from Iraq:

We're not leaving so long as I'm the president. That would be a huge mistake.

Mistake for who? The war profiteers?

As Kerry says in a statement I received in my email, which is also covered at Raw Story and The Democratic Daily:

“President Bush is profoundly wrong about Iraq, and profoundly wrong about the American people. Today President Bush said America’s “psyche” has been “strained” by “challenging times.” Americans are a strong people. The American psyche isn’t the problem. The problem is this Administration’s disastrous Iraq policy.

Bingo. That "stay the course" Iraq non-policy that Bush intends to stay on for another two and a half years. That policy that has resulted in an ineffective government in Iraq, unable to protect its citizenry at all, in a budding civil war. Whole towns where even under Saddam's repression, a woman was treated as a human being, have now been taken over by radical patriarchists who treat women as property. (You call that "freedom" George?? Freedom for whom?)

Kerry goes on, talking about what is really "strained" and why:

Our military has been strained by the Rumsfeld policy of going to war with too few troops, sending troops into battle with inadequate body armor, and overextending the National Guard. Faith in this Administration has been strained by exaggerations and miscalculations from the promise of “mission accomplished” to Vice President Cheney’s declaration of an insurgency “in its last throes.” Patience is strained because almost five years later, Osama Bin Laden is still on the loose, and gone is the promise of ‘wanted dead or alive.’ The Administration’s credibility is strained because the President’s mantra that “U.S. troops will stand down as Iraqis stand up” is another misleading myth, and “stay the course” is a recipe for disaster when the course is broken. Budgets are strained by record deficits, while critical needs, from homeland security to Katrina rebuilding go unaddressed while each week we spend two billion dollars in Iraq.

Well, I have to disagree with Kerry on one part of that - the Administration's credibility is not strained. It's nonexistent, and has been for awhile.

Otherwise, not bad. Kerry on...(now he calls a civil war a civil war. Good job. 'Bout time someone noticed.)

This Administration’s Iraq policy has been an unmitigated disaster and has set us back in the War on Terror. Iran is profiting because the United States is bogged down in Iraq. Our troops are stuck in a civil war. The violence is worse than ever. 100 Iraqi civilians are being killed every day in a brutal civil war that Administration still denies, and it’s getting worse every month. Over 9,000 Iraqis have died in the last three months alone. Since the bombing in Samarra, 182,000 Iraqis have fled their homes due to sectarian violence and intimidation. IED attacks against American troops have nearly doubled since January.

And finally Kerry reminds us, contrary to the right-wing and M$M spin, he doesn't just criticize the current policy, but has concrete proposals for an alternative course of action (aka a "plan", for those who like that word):

We must change course in Iraq. We need to set a date to force Iraqis to stand up for Iraq, force the Administration to finally do the diplomacy necessary to find the political solution our generals say is needed, move American troops to an over the horizon position, and refocus the United States on waging and winning an effective War on Terror.”

Yeah, diplomacy especially. I know that in November 2004, 60 million or so Americans (plus or minus a few mil black box voting extras) actually thought they could continue to ignore diplomacy and "stay the course" with a fake cowboy who can hardly stand to say the word, let alone actually try to do it.

I'm hoping a good chunk of those voters are starting to catch on that diplomacy is not such a bad idea, and maybe we ought to hire someone for the job who is actually qualified and interested in doing it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russell-shaw/ohio-was-stolen-crowd-_b_27705.html

By now, large swaths of the progressive blogosphere are convinced beyond counterpersuasion that "Ohio was stolen," and John Kerry was actually elected President in 2004.

While objective, politically progressive outlets and thinkers without books to sell have countered these notions with hard facts, the "Ohio was stolen" crowd continues to exhibit confirmational bias by sticking to their beliefs.

(snip)

"And to the bloggers, I say stick to standards of evidence that will convince the mainstream voters. Sometimes we stray from what we know, and what can be proven to the public, into the world of, well, conjecture. We cannot fight against a faith-based crusade with one that sometimes appears to be fantasy-based. We cannot fight the conservative model with a conspiracy model. The facts are staggering enough to cause deep public questioning and, in time, a radical public awakening. We should see ourselves as the questioning conscience of the nation, the prod to deeper digging by the media, the force that pushes politicians to address all the "inconvenient truths", every last one of them."

What Tom is saying is, when you take your "fantasy-based," "Ohio was stolen" opinions to the public square, and demonize anyone who asks for confirmational clarity, you run the risk that millions of voters who we all need to come down on our side this time will tune you out. Why? Because, frankly, the most shrill of you who are absolutely convinced that Ohio was stolen sound like sore losers, pundits with agendas, wack jobs, or some sort of combination of all of the above.

Then he makes his real point,

But given this obsession with Ohio, Diebold, Ken Blackwell, and other objectionable types, those who have not voted in the past and who we progressives really need this cycle will go "what's the use."

And even some progressives who do vote will be unmotivated because they will assume their votes don't matter.

We can't allow this to happen. The stakes are too high.

I for one pretty much agree with him. I think Ohio was stolen - but not by the "machines". It was stolen by voter suppression. And what we need to do is convince people that they need to FIGHT - they need to give a resounding FUCK YOU to the people who would try to suppress their vote, by registering, verifying their registration, making sure they know where their polling place is, and basically not taking ANY SHIT about being allowed to excersize their RIGHT TO VOTE.

(okay I know their is a fantasy-land aspect to all that but the rant did feel good. Now if we can only figure out how to stop the games the republicans - and sadly in some cases, Democrats - will play with id cards and machine allocation and opening the polls late and every other shitty thing they will try...)

I didn't see it, but I'm told that on ABC's Sunday pundit show, This Week, George Will said that "John Kerry had a point" when he said during the 2004 campaign that defeating terrorism was more a matter for intelligence and law enforcement than military action.

Not only did Will say it on This Week, he reiterated it in his column in the Washington Post:

Cooperation between Pakistani and British law enforcement (the British draw upon useful experience combating IRA terrorism) has validated John Kerry's belief (as paraphrased by the New York Times Magazine of Oct. 10, 2004) that "many of the interdiction tactics that cripple drug lords, including governments working jointly to share intelligence, patrol borders and force banks to identify suspicious customers, can also be some of the most useful tools in the war on terror." In a candidates' debate in South Carolina (Jan. 29, 2004), Kerry said that although the war on terror will be "occasionally military," it is "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world."

Immediately after the London plot was disrupted, a "senior administration official," insisting on anonymity for his or her splenetic words, denied the obvious, that Kerry had a point. The official told The Weekly Standard:

"The idea that the jihadists would all be peaceful, warm, lovable, God-fearing people if it weren't for U.S. policies strikes me as not a valid idea. [Democrats] do not have the understanding or the commitment to take on these forces. It's like John Kerry. The law enforcement approach doesn't work."

This farrago of caricature and non sequitur makes the administration seem eager to repel all but the delusional. But perhaps such rhetoric reflects the intellectual contortions required to sustain the illusion that the war in Iraq is central to the war on terrorism, and that the war, unlike "the law enforcement approach," does "work."

Thanks, George.

I have one small request though, to you (George), your pundit pals, and the rest of the American electorate; For the next US Presidential election (maybe even the mid-terms - but I don't want to be too demanding here), could you please try paying attention to facts and rationality before the election?