I now have wireless Internet access. I've been testing free hotspots around downtown San Francisco. Needless to say I am having fun. The Westin St. Francis has 625KPS T1 access in the lobby and function room areas. I'm in the lobby in a sitting area. No one has bothered me and I assume the key is discretion. The access portal is Starwood. Its stable, and fast. I downloaded a brief trailer for the film "Rear Window" from Trailers.com and it came in at 1.4MB per second. In 41 seconds the download was complete.
There's a excellent hopspot (Free) at Cup of Joe on the corner of Sutter and Leavenworth. Good coffee and perfect T3 internet. I was in Union Square and picked up Citi Net as well as a hotspot from Macy's across the street. I gave up because I kept getting popup ads from Macy's. They are smart folks over there!
I have 811-G and it works wonders. I'm using a Toshiba Satellite Pro 4020 CDT just a P2 300Mghtz and 160MB RAM. A marvelous laptop from 1999. It serves me well.
2
Fire Rumsfeld and let Rudy Giuliani run defense! He will rattle the Iraqi Insurgents! Hey, he cut crime in NYC 70% in five years. I think the thugs found him so obnoxious they left town! Ha!
Later!

Yesterday December 14th was my 54th birthday. I was delighted to receive calls from old friends and a sweet card from a pen pal of 16 years that I have yet to meet face to face. The day was fun and I felt that life was as it should be. My mentor, who is now all of ninety-five told me years ago that 54 is the youth of old age. Memory begins to fail, sight dims, hearing goes flat, sexual proweses fade and everything appears to be a vague repeat of twenty years ago. Friends and lovers begin to die off and treasured possession's break, get lost or loose their meaning.

Well! I can live with it. Life has its rhythms and our time on Earth is limited which is just as well. The young are free of the curse of "knowing too Much" the are excited and willing to take risks. The bitter quarrels both political and social fade as a new generation appears and does not share the passions of old.

Renewal means letting yesterdays wonderment disappear so that tomorrows wonderment has the stage to itself.

The Baby Boomers are all over 40 now, the old guys and gals and America, the world has a new Hip Hop face and a funkier and frankly better attitude about love, sex, and having fun!

The politics of the 2020s has already started, it is so much better! A true international culture is developing from world consumerism and international investment. The rationale for war is fading as humanity becomes integrated through media and entertainment.

GW Bush is 58 he is part of a generation of American South boys and girls stunned by the Civil Rights movement that shamed them and their parents. The pivotal event in GW Bush's life is the world telling "Dixie" 'you are wrong!'"

This new generation is indifferent to just about all the old racial, ethnic, and social stereotypes or differences. Today people are judged by their talents and the skill in using them. All these reality TV shows reinforce a sense of personal ability ability the want to use them well.

When I was born in 1950 America was in the height of the Post War Red Scare and paranoia was the call of the day. The country was prosperous, but fretful. Religion was at a high tide, Churches were full and faith was rock solid.

In his recent book Robert S. Elwood "1950: Crossroads of American Life" he shows that's much of the fear and uncertainty of today was white hot in 1950. Nothing is new, it all comes around again and again. The final consequence of the intense religiosity of the 1950s was rebellion against the rightness, lack of modern thought, and a lingering suspicion that religious leaders were cynical hucksters on the make.

Today as religion draws our attention will it again reveal itself not to be a constructive answer to our fears? Will we again turn away because religious figures will expose their inflexibility and lack of genuine insight?

As I get older I see a tragic miscalculation on the part of both sides in America's social debates. The conservatives are far to harsh, dogmatic and at times outright cruel. The liberals are too fuzzy, indecisive, and at times mean spirited in their rants at the conservatives.

Both sides need to think of the consequence of such beliefs. In 1950 church attendance was 91% at 1964 it was 43% by 1980 it was 31% in 1990 it was 52% and today despite the noise church attendance is just 54%

The United States is such a fabulous, absolutely dynamic civilization with a wonderful future. We are a sound people and we are smart in all the ways that count. We won't fail. But we must be careful and not humiliate the rest of humanity. By the time I'm 84, China and Brazil will be serious world powers. The European Union will be a center of economic muscle and cultural authority. The United States must accommodate the changes that are coming and be generous in doing so. If we act wisely, the 21st century will be a marvelous time to be alive.

I have had great fun, life has been sweet. I am blessed by superb friends and I have exciting times ahead as I publish my book and start to travel.

Youth was an adventure, old age will be a revelation and a time of exhilaration. I know I'll leave this world with a smile.

The War has become a travesty of meaningless destruction of any person who sides with the US or attempts to work for the interim government. The abysmal failure of the Bush Administration to grasp the horror in lost lives and the obvious depletion of the ranks of willing folks to support any government condeams Iraq to Civil War and eventual dictatorship.
How can it be that The President and his ministers at State and Defense are so detached to the human suffering and outright slaughter? Perhaps they are like children who walk away from anything that fails to support their fantasy of personel greatness?

The idea of a limited troop engagement and minimal number of troops is outrageous. Demanding that former service personnel come back, after years if not decades, to willingly upset their new lives is a disaster in the making. Future recruiting will be tough because everyone will suspect they would never really be free of Uncle Sam's demands.

The callus attitude at the pentagon over loss of civilians and the deep human anguish is going to come back and bite us again and again.

You can be certain that traumatized children will comve visit the US in a few years as suicide bombers and terrorists with real weapons of mass destruction.

My impression is that GW Bush sees the calendar and says "All I need to do is get to January 2006 and then I can blame the liberals for the mess in Iraq!"

The Bush legacy will be mass murder, cruel waste of property and lives, and the ruin of Iraq.
He sought to fight a war on the cheap and ended up wasting hundreds of billions of dollars: other peoples money!
Mr. Bush has no conception of the magnitude of waste, cruelty, and suffering he has created. And he never will!
He will leave office blissfully ignoring all of it. He will be rich and a darling of the smug rightwing that never remembers and never gives a damn!

Saving Iraq was a noble goal, but we ruined that dream and have left a nightmare behind.
God is watching, He has a way of protecting his own from fools and predators. There will be an accounting for GW Bush and the United States. Count on it!
David

The Bush Administration seeks a place in respectable history, as well as to exact revenge against the "Liberals" whom humiliated them and the "South" in the 1950s and 1960s. The hard right seek final victory for God over Secular Humanism and every other insult they feel they suffered in the dark age of "Dem-Crat" rule.
The Bush vision runs head long into a new generation of Americans who have little or no memory of the '50s or '60s or even the '70s.
None of this is new. Theodore Roosevelt railed at the grip the old Civil War generation had on 20th century America. The "progressive" railed at the "Old Order".
In the 1930s FDR was so embittered by the "Primitives" he tried to stack the Supreme Court and hit the wall of history.
The United States is not a Christian Country. It's a "Self Importance" country that uses a vague Christian ethic as a guide to getting what you want.
GW Bush must restrain the religious right and not alienate the "Sincere Believers" Can he do it?

The World does not need the United States as it once did. The Euro is sound, the Yen stronger, and the Yaun doing even better. The Chinese are emerging as a smooth capitalist economy much like the US in the 1950s. Brazil and India are moving fast and offer a good product. As the US annoys the international community with unilateralism there is a way out and it will be taken.
GW Bush has no choice but to act carefully or he will preside over a weak dollar, a frail economy and a bitter electorate.
Create unrealistic expectation and loose the mid term elections.
The country is shocked at Mr. Bush's re-election. In 2008 the Democrats will stage a major come back and all these smug Republicans will be left behind, all their plans in ruins.

Israel has a grand opportunity to affect the Palestinian future, lets hope they seize it.

20 years ago today Shaun Ouilette was murdered by Rod Matthews in Canton Mass.
Rod is at MCI Shirley. God Bless Jeannie Quinn.

David 11/16/04

The election is over.

Karl Rove should get a A+ for a effective and successful campaign straightly. The Democrats should follow his lead.

Christians are not a block of one mindset but many blocks drawn together in common cause.

The US is not a especially religious society, even if the media thinks it is. What Americans are, is afraid of a world that seems less friendly and more threatening.

Bashing Mr. Bush is a exercise in futility. In 48 months he will be gone, forever.

The Democrats should create a believable moderate Christian community and invite all interested parties to join. The hard right is just an emotional jag at best. Serious theology based on historical experience and openminded will last long after the emotions have cooled.

Give the faith community something real, sustainable, and worth defending and the extremists will soon fade away.

Rove understood what the Red States are about and went after them with a credible message.

As a homosexual I resent the cynical use of Gay Marriage as a wedge issue. Nevertheless it works and winning elections is what matters.

The Liberals should never allow anyone to smear them, and liberals must learn to get nasty, and stay nasty until the other guys cries uncle.

If you will not fight for your principals then you have none.

America loves a serious fighter. Kerry whined and stumbled about. The Debates gave his pathetic campaign a rebirth for a few weeks.

Forget Hillary Clinton! She is 20th century and that time is over!

We surrived Nixon and Reagan, we will survive Bush. In 1928 many Democrats thought Hoover was a two term president and he'd be followed by another GOP stalwart.

FDR came and the nation changed, forever. We can do it again. If we have imagination and courage and modern ideas.

Life goes on, get a grip, the GOP will make a mess of it and if we are reasonable we will have another chance.

David 11/6/04

The Word Series starts today.
In 1986 I was a security officer at the Boston Center for Adult Education on commonwealth Avenue in Back Bay. I watched the 6th game on a 2 inch Sony Watchman and several men gathered about. We watched in horror as Mr. Buckner fumbled the ball and that led to the Soxs loosing the game. The 7th game was a loss from the get go. The Mets had their victory but it was hollow since every one knew the Red Soxs had choked and never came back.
I recall in 1978 when the Sox had a one game playoff with the Yankees and lost it, and then there's 1975!
Well this is the year the Red Sox will decide their future. An entire generation watches, needing to believe that finally this team is worth the devotion.
Think! Men lived entire lives eighty plus years and how often did the Red Sox reach the Series only to fold! A lifetime of false hope and bitter despair.
If they win, the ugliness of the Bussing Era and decades of rage will at last fade into the mists.
Boston needs this moment.
New England has retreated from the worlds stage. New York is America's place of leadership and creative forces. Boston, so glamorous in a strange haunting way, deserves it's moment to glory.
How odd that so much depends on a simple game. But it does!
Greatness is never a near miss.
I do hope the Sox put up a splendid battle and defeat the Cards in a good way and give Bean Town a long over due night of glory and a season in the sun, old men weeping with joy, that at long last the dark has been defeated, if only for a single year.
Go Sox!
David.

The third presidential debate is this evening. GW Bush must show he understands the publics concern over the economy and other domestic issues. He is increasingly perceived as obsessed with the war in Iraq.
Kerry must find the right words to show a connection with ordinary folk. He must give all of us a true satisfaction in choosing him and that we won't regret it. People dread another Jimmy Carter and they fear Kerry is too verbose and not decisive. Perceptions rule!
Not since 1960 has the election been decided at the last minute and not since 1980 has an incumbent been so disliked by so many.

Chris Reeve was a decent actor and a better gentleman. He gave a face to an often neglected community. America dislikes seeing wounded folk. Reeve allowed us to consider the unbearable and start to do something about it. Now he is dead and we will so forget him and the community he represented. The GOP will not sacrifice it's religious base to placate the paralyzed. Republicans in general loathe helping anyone who is flawed, social Darwinism still percolates within the GOP's heart.

Yesterday, in a distant place Janet Leigh came up behind Alfred Hitchcock, who was reading the Wall Street Journal Celestial edition, and screamed repeatedly: "You ruined my career!"
Hitch, grinned, told her: "You are still the master screamer! Good girl!"
At that moment Fay Waye started screaming and God asked Jesus "Why? Why must they scream?"
Jesus replied: "Americans!"
Mark Twain came by, cigar in hand and observed. "Loud noise, ah such sweet pleasure!"
God leaned over to Jesus: "And he never believed in me?"

David 10/13/04

The debates have been great fun, but not very informative. The Bush Team has a succession of bad news reports on the war, the economy, and the fate of oil prices soaring. Evidence shows that Kerry has little substance to offer because he has spent such a amount of time fending off emotional attacks and trying to define himself. Nevertheless, Kerry has succeeded in surving the Rove attack plan because of an increasing public weariness of Mr. Bush and the war.
We may be seeing a repeat of 1980 where the public became fed up with Mr. Carter and saw in Mr. Reagan a stable figure and a less emotional mindset. Reagan had a much better voice, deeper and full of sincere affection. Carter was shrill and oftentimes too verbose.
Mr. Bush is energetic but shrill. He has to respond to everything Kerry says.
The election will be decided on the last day as millions ask themselves just what they want.
My hunch is that the country is going to opt for change, saying that four years of all this tension and rant is enough.
David 10/10/04

Saturday, September 25, 2004
Here is an unauthorized reprint of a marvelous blog known as Belmont Club. This is why the blogsphere is so popular. I agree completely with “Wretched”
Who Goes There?
Most visitors to the US know that not even a valid visa can guaranty entry into the United States. Nor is America alone in this. Generally speaking, no foreign national can enter another country as a matter of right. Louis Farrakahan found that holding an American passport did not entitle him to enter Britain in 2002. Nor is politics always a factor: bureaucrats can act in arbitrary ways.
One of Laura Bush's favourite British authors has been refused entry to the US, a day before he was due to lecture to an audience of 2,500 people. Ian McEwan was stopped by immigration officials as he left Vancouver airport, in Canada, for an engagement in Seattle. The man who was last year invited to Downing Street by Cherie Blair to meet American's first lady - who said she keeps a McEwan novel by her bedside - found himself detained for four hours before being turned back. McEwan, who recently won America's National Book Award for his novel Atonement, was travelling to the US as a guest of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Officials there told him he did not need a visa. But the immigration officer felt differently.
So when Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, declared he was going to take legal action to "undo the very serious, and wholly unfounded, injustice which I have suffered" as a result of his spectacular deportation from the United States, he appeared to be trying to refute the accusation that he was a Hamas supporter, rather than to directly compel the US government to admit him, though the second would would probably follow if the first could be achieved. "I am a man of peace and denounce all forms of terrorism ... it is simply outrageous for the US authorities to suggest otherwise." Islam has denied being a Hamas supporter, saying that his donations have always been for humanitarian causes like orphanages in Hebron. Islam's had similarly been refused him entry to Israel in 2000, before September 11. The accusations against him then and Islam's rebuttal are eerily similar to the most recent incident.
Islam, 51, who changed his name after becoming a Muslim in the late 1970s, was refused entry into Israel hours after arriving Wednesday. The former singer said he was told only that he was a "threat to national security.''
Israeli Defense Ministry officials refused to comment on Islam's case other than to say that the Shin Bet, Israel's internal intelligence agency, had ordered him barred from the country. The Maariv Daily in Israel reported that the government claimed Islam had delivered tens of thousands of dollars to Hamas, a militant Islamic group, during his last visit in 1988.
"Upon my return to London, reports were already circulating that the Israeli authorities were trying to excuse their actions by linking me to terrorist groups,'' Islam said in a statement. "I want to make sure that people are aware that I've never knowingly supported any terrorist groups -- past, present or future. It's simply an attempt to cast doubt again on my character and good intentions.''
Islam has contributed sums of money to orphanages in Kosovo and Bosnia too. The US position is that while it can't prove anything in court -- it doesn't need to prove anything to deny an alien entry into the America. Colin Powell responded to accusation that Islam had been unfairly treated by saying:
"We have no charges against him," Mr Powell told reporters at the foreign press centre. "We have nothing that would be actionable in our courts, or in the courts in the United Kingdom, I'm sure. "But it is the procedure that we have been using to know who is coming into our country, know their backgrounds and interests and see whether we believe it is appropriate for them to come in," he said.
"With respect to Cat Stevens ... our Homeland Security Department and intelligence agencies found some information concerning his activities that they felt under our law required him to be placed on a watch list and therefore deny him entry into the United States," Mr Powell said. "In this instance, information was obtained that suggested he should be placed on the watch list and that's why he was denied entry into the country," he said.
The shock power in the Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) affair lies precisely in Colin Powell's tone: the cold determination to deny even the most prominent persons entry into the US if suspected of terrorist links. For decades being turned back at the US border was an indignity reserved for poor Mexicans, Filipinos and such. Visitors from Europe and especially the Transatlantic commuter set were spared these inconveniences, as were millionaires from Third World hell-holes, who had the telephone number of a high-priced immigration lawyer at their fingertips as insurance against such misunderstandings. Even the Saudis could expect to be waved past immigration in the pre-911 age, courtesy of the Visa Express program. Joel Mowbray wrote in 2002.
Three Saudis who were among the last of the Sept. 11 homicide hijackers to enter this country didn't visit a U.S. embassy or consulate to get their visas; they went to a travel agent, where they only submitted a short, two-page form and a photo. The program that made this possible, Visa Express, is still using travel agents in Saudi Arabia to fill this vital role in United States border security.
But now men traveling first-class in bespoke business suits know that neither wealth nor fame nor that immigration lawyer's telephone number can keep F-16s from popping out of the dark and escorting their flight to Bangor, Maine, from where the Mexicans might be allowed to continue, but not them. While Mr. Islam is certainly entitled to pursue legal action and may in the end be vindicated, the incident shows more clearly than any other that it's not September 10 any more. America is at war in a way that it never was in Vietnam. This one is for keeps.This is an unauthorized copy 9/25/04

Last night I watched John Kerry on David Letterman. Kerry was dull uninspiring and frankly too much the politician. He is not a leader and he bitches too much about what a bastard GW Bush is.
We already know what kind of person GW Bush is. The country is fully conscious Bush is no intellect and will never give the Democrats an honest case. Bush has a standard stump speech and he sticks to it. Kerry has a stump speech but it is not effective because he is such a stiff. Kerry is going to lose the election unless he can in some metaphysical fashion set fire the electorate.

Dan Rather should resign; allow the next generation of CBS talent to start their reign. He is old, boring, and dated.
David 9/21/04

In 1987 Lee Atwater warned: "The GOP can never win the intellectuals or the better educated but not intellectual, we can only win by juicing the working folks who are naturally suspicious of the "Elites" and the "Big College Boys" Atwater understood that most folk are busy paying bills and lack the time for complex issues and serious investigation of fact.
Like FDR and even LBJ Atwater understood that elections are 70% emotion and 20% fact and 10% red meat rumor. "KEEP IT SIMPLE"
Bill Clinton in his long draw of a book speaks endlessly about how critrical it was he answer the negative ads run by opponents in Arkansas and later throughout the country immediately, right now!
John Kerry is a blathering idiot like Mike Dukakis who thinks he can defeat street fighters by being a decent guy who tells the truth.
BULL SHIT!
Street fighters thrive on the decency of their opponents. Hitler won by telling the big lie until even the angels wondered if it might be true.
GW Bush's mantra in this election is simply: "KERRY IS A WHINING LOOSER!"
See http://www.rachellucas.com or http://www.andrewsullivan.com or try out http://www.belmontclub.blogspot.com I also recomend http://www.donaldsensing.com
All of th ese blogs show how the NRC and t he Bush Camp hustle well intentioned and sincere folk with repetition and loud noises.
Spophistry is the word and it works!
My question for my blog friends: "Do you not realize Bush and Co see how powerful Blog Sphere has become? Do you think they will allow this to continue?
In Bush Term Two, they will find a way to stiffle the blog sphere and even Rachel Lucas will gasp and slink away in to the night! Calling these predators "Asshats" will not be enough!
This Administration is a group of cynical Texas Business Interests and they will stop anything even friends to insure they get what they want.
bashing Kerry is understandable. He is an idiot. But Bush and Co are predators who have an agenda.
1. Abolish the 40 hour week and OT except for certain friendly business interests.
2. put Federal monies into the churches and corrupt them further.
3. Play the Homo Card and split the liberal left thus set the stage to defeat Hilary in '08 by portraying her as a threat to marriage.
4. Loot Iraq and destabilize Iran and then try to loot them.
5. Run up a huge deficit and bleed the Yankee government white.
6. Cripple the Broadcast Networks by huge FCC fines and alienate the public through a smear campaign of everything that is not FOX or News Corp.
7. Alter student loan program and bleed the state universities.
8. Gut regulatory agencies with poison pill rules and new outsourcing contracts.
9. Gut Federal Courts by setting poison rulings that will stumble the courts for years.
10. Gut Medicare by making it a mess of rules and contradictions.

And why not? The GOP is run by bitter southern moralist who detest Modern Times.
The failure of honest conservatives to see the scorpions in their midst is the real tragedy.
Laugh all you want. But remember I warned you.
They lied about the war and now they have the morons thinking Saddam Hussein was at 911.
They will win by telling lies.
While Blog sphere chases Kerry the Bush Camp will sucker the country into a mean and bitter future.
David 91104

The recent flap over ‘forged’ documents used by CBS and endorsed by Dan Rather are a superb example of Partisanship where there should be none.

CBS used to have a reputation for stepping away from the news and delivering facts unaffected by personal interest or political gain.

William Pailey, they man who made CBS the Tiffany Network eschewed partisanship, feeling it clouded the networks ability to have the publics respect. In the 1950s Pailey fought with Edward R. Morrow over the issue of slanting the news. Morrow was a serious thinker who loathed the antics of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (R Wisconsin) CBS was known as intellectual and worldly. To be silent and allow McCarthy to ruin the country struck Morrow as obscene. Pailey felt the average person was more than able to see through McCarthy and did not need CBS to pester them.

Dan Rather has always been a liberal partisan and he never conceals his contempt for the GOP and especially the Bush family. Read his book. "The Camera Never Blinks"
Rather is from Texas, an older, more FDR devoted Texas. He is in his 70s and has a dated way of looking at things. America has moved away from the righteous mid century liberalism toward a hard-edged moderation that seems conservative from a distance.

In truth the Bush administration is ordinary in its Doctrinaire Business mentality. Its political thinking is classic conservative even its theology is mainstream with a whiff of evangelical fervor. But so what? Liberalism is an ideology just as well. The country has never allowed any idea to poison the well. Bush Conservatism will peak out and the excesses will be removed. What congress passes it can refute by a simple vote. The truth of history is a genuine fact. The abuses at Abu Gherab have been exposed. We are all aware of the situation at Guantenamo and are watching reforms take place. The government was here before Bush and will be here long after.

The Bush Administration reflects a predictable rebellion toward rapid change and a natural fear of losing control. The Liberalism of the 1930s was a rebellion against the reactionary 1920s we survived both decades.

In 55 Months GW Bush will be gone forever and America will carry on. We survived Nixon Carter and Clinton, we will survive Bush.

Dan Rather needs to retire, allow a new generation of CBS talent to take charge and lead the Network into the new century. His refusal to vacate the stage of history in a gracious fashion is a loss for him and CBS. If Bill Pailey were around, Rather would be long gone. Les Moonvies hurts himself and CBS by not setting a date for Rathers exit.

In rgars to the election over all. John Kerry has a chance to defeat the president, and I hope he does. But Mr. Kerry must create a serious reason to do so. Not liking Mr. Bush is not enough. The Administration lies outright on the deficit as well as the war. Iraq is no longer a insurrection as it is a genione war against the US.

Kerry should seize the moment and re-define Iraq as a country at war with the United States and the Al Cedr brigades as the enemy. Kerry should hammer on the themne that we will be their three more years easily and just how many lives and treasure are we willing to lose? Ultimately the fantasy of democracy in Iraq has to be challenged.

John Kerry has such a wealth of issues to use against the GOP and he has flubbed just about every one of them.

My personal view is that the Democrats should concentrate on the Senate, there will be real power their and a means to prevent the Bush administration from damaging the Supreme Court.

I do hope Bill Clinton can affect the Kerry Campaign.

David 91004

The Kerry campaign must come to terms with cruel reality and began a detailed presentation as to why the country should endorse Mr. Kerry. Emphasis should be on the Supreme Court, the deficit, and the long term goals in Iraq.

As stated here before a true leader controls the agenda and never allows the other guy any leverage. The Kerry camp let GW Bush imply Mr. Kerry was disloyal or at the least a waffler. These are old style methods and Mr. Kerry has seen them before.

I firmly believe that the GOP is a cynical band of businessmen who stoke the emotions of the poor and near poor. So why do Democrats allow this to happen again and again? Mike Dukakis in 1988 and Albert Gore in 2000. In 1992 the GOP tred to smear Bill Clinton but he was glib enough to give it right back. He did the same in 1996.

Most Americans are not very deep politically. They have families to raise and lives to live. The Blogsphere is populated by driven minds in possession of the time to think and write. Most folks have neither.

Instead of abusing the people Kerry must develop a three line mantra: Bush endless war! Bush endless deficits! Bush endless mean judges. Simple talk big ideas.

Kerry comes across as far too verbose and he whines.

I am a liberal Democrat, I want victory. What Kerry and friends forget is that Bush has the advantage. Take it away from him and beat him up on the endless war endless deficit and mean judges. Pound the drums, "Bush is not the future, he is the past!" And mean it.

Kerry still has a chance, but it is dwindling away as people get distracted by hurricanes and the Base Ball playoffs and the NFL season.

David 9/8/04

Greetings!
August is over and I'm back. I've been working on the final draft of a novel and it wears me out easy. Here if San Francisco things are quiet. Few people here are interested in the GOP convention just as few were interested in the Democrat convention. I am pretty certain that most people have decided what they will do in November.
John Kerry must survive the first debate and in the meantime he must deflect the vicious ads about his 1971 senate testimonies concerning the Viet Nam war. My own thoughts on this mess, is that Kerry will not get past it an GW Bush will be re-elected. Kerry must develop a message that mutes the War Protester image. He has to diminish the value of re-electing the president. Very few candidates have ever defeated a president seeking a new term.
In the 20th century only Taft, Hoover,Ford, and Carter were defeated outright. GHW Bush lost in a three way battle just as Taft did in 1912.
In 1996 The GOP had Robert Dole, a genuine WW2 hero and he lost to Bill Clinton. Kerry may well be remembered as miscalculation in running on his military record. Perhaps if he ignored Iraq and terror and concentrated on the economy and the Supreme Court, he might have a bit of a chance.

I have said before that I suspect the country is tired, its been a long four years. Bush might loose on that issue alone.
As things stand, Bush looks to be re-elected unless he stumbles or Kerry gets a issue that makes him more credible.

2
Russia is going through hell. The world is ignoring it, a bad mistake. 200 school kids are hostages in the latest drama. The Chechyn Terrorist seem able to move about Russia quite freely. Mr. Putun will suffer for this.
Be sure other terrorist are watching and learning. The Chechyn's use women who have lost brothers or sons or husbands. Does the US look out for woman?
More later
David

I am 53, I have lived in America all my life. I have studied politics as a sport, institution, and cancer at different times. I am increasingly disgusted by the cynical manipulation and shameless antics in campaigns. The Dem-crats and the GOP treat the public as fools and then ask for respect.

John Kerry takes a 4 month career in Vietnam that ended in near death and milks it for all it's worth. GW Bush acts as if he is a sacred wall between civilization and Al Qaeda. Both men are abusers and we are the abused.

In the end, the idea of a unadorned discourse and truth are tossed away by lame excuses that no one listens unless it's a dog fight.

I agree that theater is a big part of politics and presidential races are mostly theater. The founding fathers hoped these once every four year blow outs would replace revolution in the streets. Well maybe they do. But the fraud and baloney hurts the dignity and character of the country.

2

I do feel that an adult somewhere needs to shout "Stop" at the charade of terror alerts. The TV networks milk them because it's free news and has lots of drama. But it's all a lie. Bill Clinton got warnings and he never spooked the country.

Now the whole nation is burned out and if the wolf ever shows up no one will care.

A car bombing in NYC would be a tragedy, but not a threat to the nation's survival.

The UK had an IRA terror that set off bombs in London and other venues for three decades and they NEVER juiced it or hustled the public.

Why must the US go so crazy over these things?

3

The great evil we do not acknowledge is the huge federal debt and the effect it has on liquidity and control of money. More than half of Federal Bonds are bought overseas. We are at the mercy of strangers.

The time is long past due, to get a grip on the debt and create a believable plan to pay it off. A 4% Federal tax on all business Gross Profits would be a start. A congressional mandate of paying $125 billion a year on the debt. And then once the deficit is less than 10 billion a year, keep it there. Retire short term bonds and offer tax credits to cash in others.

This will be the choke issue in 2008.

4

I dread a second Bush Administration. They will populate the Supreme Court with reactionaries and the Religious Right will bully the GOPwith extremist demands. It will be a dark unhappy four years. More war, less peace, and a theocratic paranoia will poison everything. Do we need this?

David

The terror alert is bullshit.
GW Bush or perhaps Karl Rove and Dick Cheney likes to scare the country. Do we have terror alerts against Texas?
I think Bush sells Terror Alerts to wealthy Texas cronies who hate the Liberal North.
America should get wise to this scam.
Do you think the GOP would refuse a million dollars to scare NYC or other Liberal Cities?
Remember the Religious Right hates the modern World and seek every chance to abuse the secular comunity.
Ignore the terror alerts, do not surrender to the Big Lie!
David 8/2/04

Saturday

The Republicans are using the time honored pitch that the "Liberals" want to raise taxes and give your hard earned money to deadbeat welfare bums and foreign devils.

The Democrats are ranting that John Kerry is a genuine soldier and GW Bush is a rich brat who ran away to Alabama when he could have gone to 'Nam and got shot all to hell like Kerry.

So much for intelligent discourse.

Theodore Roosevelt once warned of the "lunatic Fringe" taking over politics in America. Well, they did!

The country is tired of GW Bush. This has been a eight year presidency rolled into one. The Democrats smell blood and are after the kill.

What is sad is the terrible realization that Mr. Bush in a perverse way is perfect for a war on Terror. He is simplistic in his thinking and cares not one whit who says so. He scares the Muslims for ALL the wrong reasons, but it works. No trouble here since 911.

Only when Mr. Bush goes home will this ugly time in our national life finally end.

I loathe Bush Cheney, but I respect their dogged devotion to protecting America.

John Kerry is a better man, but sometimes seeking nuance is not a virtue.

Barry Goldwater grasped the truth that our enemies were generally our own creation and sometimes just plain psychopath and we had to make the distinction.

Ronald Reagan understood the universal desire to have toys and be happy and wanted to make it happen. He only lacked the right words to get the rest of us on his parade.

I really wonder if Dick Cheney will actually go home if he and Bush lose or if he will stage a last stand at the observatory? (VP Residence)

2

Rachel Lucas has returned to the Blog sphere. Read her and have a sweet time!

More later
David

1

This has been a remarkable summer and it may well be seen as the calm before the storm.

Losing credibility is the curse of all politicians. It can happen in the lest expected of ways and once it starts there is rarely a comeback.

Bill Clinton is the truly rare exception. By the second year of his presidency he was unpopular and seen as unbelievable and increasingly unimportant as GOP leaders in congress assumed greater authority. And then Speaker Gingrich arrived and showed himself to be a greater liability and in a few months made Clinton look good. By the summer of 1996 President Clinton was in a new birth and he managed not to bungle it until the spring of 1998.

After the impeachment Clinton faded only for a few days and came right back as the House GOP looked truly disgusting on the floor of the Senate. Rep Henry Hyde was pathetic and his antics gave the President yet still another life. However clumsy Clinton was, people detected in him a genuine innocence regrettably poisoned by foolish impulses. The GOP was seen as malevolent and at times perverse.

 

All of Clinton foibles are forgiven because he was truly honest in a most peculiar of ways. Yes he lied and played games, but it came from a kind of over enthusiasm and readable inability to resist temptation. He was every man writ large. The GOP leaders were seen as simply predatory.

 

The Bush Administration is increasingly revealing itself as more than predatory or even ideological. It is seen by almost all honest observers left and right as simply calloused and even willfully arrogant.

The Vice President has succeeded in creating a myth about himself as mean, cynical, and tenacious in being dead wrong on critical issues again and again.

 

GW Bush increasingly looks to be less a serious leader. His strong stands are less commitment to an idea as blind stubbornness.

The country is coming out of its grief over 911 and has less and less tolerance for the Administration stridency.

 

In the end Bush might win because Kerry foundered. But you have to wonder. The angst is real and the feeling in many quarters of four more years of this bunch is unbearable.

 

They lied to us in a way that has cost lives and treasure, who wants more of that?

 

Many things are happening. The genocide in Sudan, the evident crumbling of the Palestinian Authority's ability to contain violence in Gaza and the West Bank, an increasing whiff of economic slow down here at home, and a growing concern over Iran.

People fear the harsh and pointed thinking of the Bush Administration in dealing with all these matters.

Strength that was seen as positive two years ago is increasingly seen as a reactionary mindset that is shallow and finally too dangerous in and of itself.

 

GW Bush may lose simply because he has exposed himself as too conservative for America's conservatives and far to cold blooded for a society that dose have and savors a genuine compassion.

The United States is not a mean country. The Bush Administration comes across a not just mean but deliberately so. Angry men on a evangelical mission.

General resistance to that way of thinking is creeping into the public conversation.

The President is losing credibility because he is less and less a likeable or believable leader.

More Later

David

Crellin@Audiea.com

 

1
The Kerry-Edwards ticket just might defeat Bush-Cheney.
There is a genuine bitterness in several key GOP factions. The traditional business community resents the federal deficit. They rightfully see it as wasting money and depleting the liquidity of the lending markets. The Religious Right suffers from increasing hostility from a growing part of society: the next generation.
We are in a time when little gets done. Did not Bush promise to unite not a divide? People hate such a atmosphere and will rebel by voting the incumbents out.
In 1994 as Bill Clinton floundered the Democrats in Congress suffered a bloodbath at the hands of Newt Gingrich who offered something different.
As strange as it seems John Edwards could lead the Democrats to a great turning of GOP Congressional seats while losing the Presidency.
America feels the GOP has become nasty, too conservative, and unreasonably combative. The endless attacks on “Liberals” have become a tiresome whine. Talk Radio has become stereotyped as "White Guys Ranting" that is not good.
People become weary at relentless vilification. The endless ridicule of the Clintons and the failure to offer a positive view of anything erodes even core supporters.
Kerry might lose because of concerns over international terrorism, but Bush may lose what matters most, a GOP majority in Congress.
The Supreme Court is set for changes in personnel and the Military is already in a generational change. The country is getting wise to VP Cheney and his contempt for the public. He is genuinely disliked by a lot of people simply because they see him as a stuffy old white guy.
Kerry gave himself a chance with Edwards. Edwards may well be a rising star, who could become president in 2008.
More later
David
Crellin@Audiea.com

1
The dark side of Gay Pride Days in San Francisco are the secret tales of predators and the like who come into The City to hurt innocents or to do worse. Local Media rarely delves into the street crimes or police reports of injured or dead adults who invited a pleasant stranger into their home expecting fun, not anything else. Predators are with us always and the hard part is to admit that the good ones are beautiful to look at. Serious psychopath work at their trade and are most interesting to watch.
San Francisco is the last stop for all kinds of desperate not all Gay. The City offers the ultimate cruelty as those who have made it treat the new comers like dirt. Rents are absurd and much of the housing stock is old, exhausted, and not safe should the earth move.
I love the city as a dear friend but I have no illusions. I know all too well the deceptions and dangerous games played here.
Herb Caen spoke of the wonder and thrills and on occasion the despair and defeats. Any wonder why over 2000 have jumped of the Golden Gate Bridge?

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The handover in Iraq is complete and the Bush Administration deserves honest praise. I hope that it works and Iraq can start the tough task of getting away from American predators and create a life of its own.
More later
David
Crellin@Audiea.com

1
The US Supreme Court decision on Monday 28 June that the detainees at Camp X Ray have the right of access to council as well as legal status in US courts, brings to an end the Bush Administrations effort to grant US Presidents executive largesse in dealing with foreign combatants without recourse by Congress or the persons involved. The Imperial presidency lasted less than three years.

I believe this court has a growing dislike for all things Bush Cheney and I believe that over the next year or so, Rehnquist and company will rebuke Bush/Cheney again and again.
The jurists on the high court are serious folk, having earned everything they have. They thought they were installing a tradional Republican president in 2000, they were fooled.
Bush Cheney are hardcore ideolog's and you can be certain they do not reflect the values and faith in an independent judiciary!

The Bush Administration has put the shame to honest conservatives.
The cynical hustle of 9/11, the Callus misuse of federal regulatory agencies as well as a genuine contempt for everyone except friends in Texas, well, the court will have it's day and GW Bush will rue ever insulting this bunch with cracker judges like Mr. Pickering, and others.
More later
David
Crellin@Audiea.com

1
6.23.04
The death of Kim Il, the Korean translator at the hands of the Iraqi thugs solves nothing and only ads to the misury of the Iraqi's.
Here is an unauthorized bit from todays column by Andrew Sullivan.

REAGAN'S HUMOR: Here's a classic from a wonderful essay by Edmund Morris in the new New Yorker:
Perhaps the best of Reagan’s one-liners came after he attended his last ceremonial dinner, with the Knights of Malta in New York City on January 13, 1989. The evening's m.c., a prominent lay Catholic, was rendered so emotional by wine that he waved aside protocol and followed the President’s speech with a rather slurry one of his own. It was to the effect that Ronald Reagan, a defender of the rights of the unborn, knew that all human beings begin life as "feces." The speaker cited Cardinal John O’Connor (sitting aghast nearby) as "a fece" who had gone on to greater things. "You, too, Mr. President — you were once a fece!"
En route back to Washington on Air Force One, Reagan twinklingly joined his aides in the main cabin. "Well," he said, "that's the first time I've flown to New York in formal attire to be told I was a piece of shit."

1
Ronald Reagan is dead.
Here is a unauthorized reprint from Andrew Sullivan.

WHAT THEY SAID: In honor of president Reagan's funeral, here's a useful corrective to the notion that his legacy was always celebrated. Today, almost everyone concedes his historical significance. But that wasn't what was said at the time. Here's a smattering of commentary from the 1980s.

"A few years from now, I believe, Reaganism will seem a weird and improbable memory, a strange interlude of national hallucination, rather as the McCarthyism of the early 1950s and the youth rebellion of the late 1960s appear to us today." - Arthur "Always Wrong" Schlesinger, Washington Post, May 1, 1988.

"I wonder how many people, reading about the [Evil Empire'] speech or seeing bits on television, really noticed its outrageous character… Primitive: that is the only word for it. … What is the world to think when the greatest of powers is led by a man who applies to the most difficult human problem a simplistic theology – one in fact rejected by most theologians?... What must the leaders of Western Europe think of such a speech? They look to the head of the alliance for rhetoric that can persuade them and their constituents. What they get from Ronald Reagan is a mirror image of crude Soviet rhetoric. And it is more than rhetoric: everyone must sense that. The real Ronald Reagan was speaking in Orlando. The exaggeration and the simplicities are there not only in the rhetoric but in the process by which he makes decisions." - Anthony Lewis, New York Times, March 10, 1983

"Something like the speech to the evangelicals is not presidential, it's not something a president should say. If the Russians are infinitely evil and we are infinitely good, then the logical first step is a nuclear first strike. Words like that frighten the American public and antagonize the Soviets. What good is that?" - Rick Hertzberg, New Yorker macher, quoted in the Washington Post, March 29, 1983.

"President Reagan has substituted a mindless militarism for a foreign policy, rattling arms from El Salvador to Saudi Arabia, frightening our friends from Japan to West Germany. He proposes a 50 percent increase in ‘defense expenditures.’ Much of it will be dissipated in the self-defeating spiral of an open-ended nuclear-arms race that poses a greater threat to our own internal and external security than all the Communist propaganda that ever emanated from Moscow. Already, the cost of Reagan policies is devastating to our country in economic strength, in diplomatic influence, in national security, in moral stature." -- John B. Oakes, former senior editor, New York Times, November 1, 1981.

"All evidence indicates that the Reagan administration has abandoned both containment and détente for a very different objective: destroying the Soviet Union as a world power and possibly even its Communist system. [This is a] potentially fatal form of Sovietphobia… a pathological rather than a healthy response to the Soviet Union." — Princeton Professor Stephen Cohen, 1983.

"'We've really got to start talking,' says George Ball, undersecretary of state in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. 'The fact is we've let these fellows get away with murder, and the situation now is much too serious for that.' To ideological men like Ronald Reagan, new information is only useful if it confirms old prejudices. Though he is shrewd enough to bend and budge under pressure (hence, for example, his abandonment of old positions on Taiwan), in his heart Reagan knows he has always been right about the nature of the world, of communism, of America's proper role." - Robert Kaiser, Washington Post, October 30, 1983.

"Are we rushing headlong into the next step of those 40 years of progressions by which we do something then they do something, by which we pretend that we're going to build this and it will somehow strengthen our deterrent then they do it, and low and behold, the next thing we know is, the President of the United States is addressing the nation saying, ‘My fellow Americans, I hate to tell you this, but the Soviet Union is deploying more of these, and we have to respond, and I'm asking the Congress for more money in order to respond.’ Star Wars is guaranteed to do that, and it's guaranteed to threaten the heavens -- the one line we haven't yet crossed with weaponry: the heavens." – Senator John Kerry, on SDI, the program that brought the evil empire to its knees, August 5, 1986.

"In his distaste for bilateral efforts to manage the superpower rivalry and his instinctive predilection for unilateral ones, Reagan is counting on American technological and economic predominance to prevail in the end. The most striking, and questionable, theme in his star wars speech was his apparent belief that the U.S. could mobilize its scientific community and its economic resources in quest of an impenetrable antiballistic-missile shield over the entire nation without triggering perilously destabilizing countermeasures, both offensive and defensive, on the part of the U.S.S.R. Reagan's views notwithstanding, there is little reason to hope that the many handicaps of the Soviet economy will be decisively advantageous to the U.S. in the long run, allowing the U.S. to ‘beat’ the U.S.S.R. in an arms race." -- Strobe Talbott, Time, April 18, 1983.

"Ronald Reagan came to Europe to persuade people that he is not the shallow, nuclear cowboy of certain unkind assessments. Said White House spokesman David Gergen, on the eve of departure, ‘Some in Europe do not know or understand him.’ But now that the president has been among them for over a week, Europeans may think they got him right the first time. In Rome, he made a stab at identifying himself as a ‘pilgrim for peace.’ But by the time he got to London he had reverted to type as a cold warrior. And yesterday in Bonn, he reiterated his commitment to ‘peace through strength’ – which is fancy talk for continuing the nuclear arms race." - Mary McGrory, Washington Post, June 10, 1982.

Rest in peace, Mr President. And know that after all these years, you were right - and all these people were clearly, emphatically, embarrassingly, wrong.
Andrew Sullivan
David A Fairbanks
Crellin@Audiea.com

I believe this cartoon says it all! 

1
Think of all the men and woman who entered military reserve to serve the country and get unaffordable benefits. They get sent to Iraq for a bit of adventure and end up being there well past a year, and finally they are surrounded by a sullen population and a petty squabbling "Ruling Council" that is in fact a powerless window dressing!
Imagine the despair of wanting to do the right thing but know all of it is a pack of lies and pointless murder!
The Military has been massively abused by the Bush Administration. The cynical under manning of the needed troops in Iraq. The shoe string adventure in Afghanistan and the shameless abuse of veterans by cheap VA services and excuses to deny needed medicines by a stingy government!
All of us should be ashamed. The Armed Services deserve so much better!
I commend all Service personnel for their bravery and simple decency!
David
Crellin@Audiea.com

1
The childish dispute between Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge and AG Ashcroft serves no purpose other than to add to the publics growing weariness with the Bush Administration.
Evidence is gathering that few people take the terror alerts seriously anymore.
The president must establish credibility with the American people.
Can he?
David
Crellin@Audiea.com

1
From Andrew Sullivan 5/25/05
Unauthorized copy

THE PLIGHT OF GAY MUSLIMS: It's grim, of course. Radical Islamism hates only Jews more than homosexuals. And the mullahs best even John Derbyshire in their bigotry:
Dr Muzammil Siddiqi, director of the Islamic Society of North America, says "homosexuality is a moral disease, a sin, a corruption… No person is born homosexual, just as nobody is born a thief, a liar or a murderer. People acquire these evil habits due to a lack of proper guidance and education." Sheikh Sharkhawy, a cleric at the prestigious London Central Mosque in Regent’s Park, compares homosexuality to a "cancer tumour." He argues "we must burn all gays to prevent paedophilia and the spread of AIDS," and says gay people "have no hope of a spiritual life." The Muslim Educational Trust hands out educational material to Muslim teachers – intended for children! – advocating the death penalty for gay people, and advising Muslim pupils to stay away from gay classmates and teachers.
What staggers me is how silent the gay establishment is about these obscenities. If a religious right figure had said them, there would be hell to pay. But the multi-culti left still has a stranglehold on official gay discourse and won't condemn Islamist bigotry. Why not? These mullahs are fanning the flames of anti-gay violence with literally incendiary rhetoric. Burn gays? Yep, that's what the cleric said.

1
President Bush's speech at the War College was a dud. (In my opinion) He was clumsy in his delivery and he broke a cardinal political rule: "Never ever allow the opposition to have the lead." Now the Democrats can wave his positive speech before him when disaster comes. Good politicians do not make promises concerning a war. You keep quiet, offer solace, encourage patience, and assure that victory will come. Do not give dates or make promises of conditions to come. Every stumble, every setback plays into your opponents hands. In the Fall the Democrats will trash the President for creating false hope or simply trying to fool the voters. Bush ends up trying to explain away bad newsw and gets boggoed down in a swamp he created by unrealistic expectations. Why do that?

Bush created a list of events we are exprcted to witness. Among them the June 30th handover in Iraq. A farce by any standard. Who does POTUS think he is fooling? Every member of the Ruling Council is dependent on the good graces of Mr. Negropointe as well as Richard Cheney and possibly GW Bush? Is it true this administration fails to see what everyone else sees so clearly? Why pretend when the pretend council of leaders will falter and fail under the weight of it's on powerlessness? The United States thinks Iraqis will build relationships with these front men? Why? What gain is there? They will not survive an honest election, are they not tainted by US control?
Second, the President acts as if every step will come right on schedule and all will be just fine? Does he not grasp the law of unintended consequences?
The Council might just say "Go Home!" then what? We kill them?
Bottom line? Iraq needs a popular leader from it's own ranks who understands privately what the US actually wants and what the US will tolerate. The Iraqi leaders will not be independent of the US for a decade or more because the various business interests from the US will not allow it!

GW Bush talks as if all there is to do is fill seats and then we go home. The Iraqi religious community comes in several flavors and they are not going to blend just to suit us. Why should they?
My hunch is that scandals concerning No-Bid contracts will soil any real effort at setting up a US backed government and the increasing weariness of the Iraqis themselves will create further resistance movements and thus violence that defeats Mr. Bush's ambitions. The central fact, our being genuinely disliked by most Iraqis can not be ignored.

I want the US to leave a positive legacy in Iraq. If Bush can do so, fine with me. I just don't see evidence he or his advisors have a true understanding of the task ahead.
David
Crellin@Audiea.com

BY BART JONES
STAFF WRITER
News Day (Unauthorized copy)
May 23, 2004, 7:17 PM EDT

E.L. Doctorow, one of the most celebrated writers in America, was nearly booed off the stage at Hofstra University Sunday when he gave a commencement address lambasting President George W. Bush and effectively calling him a liar.

Booing that came mainly from the crowd in the stands became so intense that Doctorow stopped speaking at one point, showing no emotion as he stood silently and listened to the jeers. Hofstra President Stuart Rabinowitz intervened, and called on the audience to allow him to finish. He did, although some booing persisted.

Doctorow, who spent virtually all of his 20-minute address in Hempstead criticizing Bush, told the crowd that like himself the president is a storyteller. But "sadly they are not good stories this president tells," he said. "They are not good stories because they are not true." That line provoked the first boos, along with scattered cheers.

"One story he told was that the country of Iraq had nuclear and biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction and was intending shortly to use them on us," he said. "That was an exciting story all right, it was designed to send shivers up our spines. But it was not true.

"Another story was that the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, was in league with the terrorists of al-Qaida," he said. "And that turned out to be not true. But anyway we went off to war on the basis of these stories."

Those lines provoked an outburst of boos so loud the "Ragtime" author stopped the speech. Rabinowitz approached the podium and called for calm. "We value open discussion and debate," he said. "For the sake of your graduates, please let him finish."

Some students and most of the faculty responded with a standing ovation, and Doctorow resumed speaking. He attacked Bush for giving the rich tax breaks, doing "a very poor job of combating terrorism" and allowing the government to subpoena libraries "to see what books you've been taking out."

Many parents and relatives were livid over the address, saying afterward that a college graduation was not the place for a political speech. "If this would have happened in Florida, we would have taken him out" of the stadium, said Frank Mallafre, who traveled from Miami for his granddaughter's graduation.

Bill Schmidt, 51, of North Bellmore, shared the outrage. "To ruin my daughter's graduation with politics is pathetic," the retired New York Police Department captain said. "I think the president is doing the best he can" in the war against terrorism.

Many students also called Doctorow's speech inappropriate. Peter Hulse, 24, of Manchester, England, said, "He's a bit like Michael Moore," the documentary director who provoked booing at last year's Oscars' ceremony by criticizing the war in Iraq.

But some defended Doctorow's speech. "I think he's entitled to his opinion and he's as American as anyone else," said a Hempstead resident who identified himself only as Frank and whose daughter was graduating.

One Hofstra official said Sunday that while Doctorow had the right to say what he did, he violated the unwritten code that college commencement speeches should inspire and unite a student body. Provost Dr. Herman Berliner said he has been to numerous graduation ceremonies during the past 30 years and "I cannot remember a commencement speech that was as divisive as this commencement speech was."

Berliner said it was relatively common during the Vietnam War, but "extraordinarily uncommon" in recent times for a speaker to have to stop speaking.

Still, it has happened recently. Last year, for instance, New York Times reporter Chris Hedges was booed off the stage when he tried to deliver an anti-war speech at Rockford College in Illinois.

Some Hofstra professors said Doctorow was on target in discussing the war. "I thought this was a totally appropriate place to talk about politics because that's the world our students are entering," said sociology professor Cythnia Bogard. "I only wish their parents had provided them a better role model."
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.

1
Rants at Andrew Sullivan and other respected blogs about various dissenters of the War In Iraq reveal an increasing despair. The truth is that so many decent folk of all political stripes graciously supported the Bush Administration in a time when we all were rightfully afraid. Now all these folks feel that they were hustled in some fashion.
Grim reports coming from Baghdad of pointless cruelty and increasing violence that resembles the mindless lashing out of retreating Germans in WW2 or the tales of sadism by retreating Japanese in WW2 especially in China.
The United States was sucker punched by Bin Laden in 2001. By 2003 we were deep in a fog of moral conviction that we just might solve our troubles by going into Iraq, liberate the place, and create a new society based on the best in us. Instead we have a bitter occupation and a smoldering civil war. We know we fucked up big time and it enrages us. We are America, we went to the moon, damnit!
Men like Andrew Sullivan are supposed to be responsible conservatives. The left is quiet least the Bushies come after them.
The whole country needs a rest. I see an increasing fatigue in the TV news, the Talk Radio and Blogsphere. Kerry might win simply because people are tired. Too much bad news and not enough hope.
The real scandals are coming. All the no-bid contracts VP Cheney gave out through the Congressional leadership as well as huge waste of money. Massive profitering and simple embezzlement all will make 2005 and 2006 miserable years for America.
In 2006 the GOP will take a bath in the congressional elections and in 2008 the Democrats will return on a wave of rejection. The GOP will not get the congress back for a generation and no Republican will reside in the White House for twenty four years.
Remember I said it.
David
Crellin@Audiea.com

1
Tony Randall has died. He was my all time favorite actor. Tom Hanks comes closest to him in skill and charm. Randall was a generous, intelligent, and sympathetic figure. Like Allen King who died a week ago, Randall was a delightful figure in my life. Their films and wizardtry in comedy was original and endearing. I will miss both of them.
Here is an unauthorized copy of the Washington Post obit.

Actor Tony Randall Dies; Fussy Half of 'Odd Couple'
By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 19, 2004; Page B05

Tony Randall, 84, the wispy-looking, rubber-faced comedian who scored his greatest fame as the fussbudget Felix Unger on the television sitcom "The Odd Couple," died May 17 at a hospital in New York. He had pneumonia, a complication from heart bypass surgery in December.

Mr. Randall, who had a long career in radio, television, stage and film and was a major promoter of opera, said he wanted to be known for more than playing Felix Unger. His press representatives warned reporters against humming the familiar "Odd Couple" theme in his presence.

Eager to talk about his other interests, he went on talk shows and made 70 appearances on David Letterman's "Late Show." He accepted Letterman's invitations with only an hour's notice and once allowed himself to be covered in mud -- a far cry from his image as the super-fussy Felix. He spoke enthusiastically about his other Letterman exploits, once asking, "Did you see the one where I came out in a baggy Batman suit?"

Mr. Randall achieved significant popularity in the early 1950s on the situation comedy "Mr. Peepers." He played the overbearing history teacher Harvey Weskit -- foreshadowing Felix Unger -- and parlayed his fame into movie roles.

In "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" (1957), he was the unlikely co-star of busty bombshell Jayne Mansfield. That was followed by roles as the fussy foil to Rock Hudson and Doris Day in romantic comedies such as "Pillow Talk" (1959), "Lover Come Back" (1961) and "Send Me No Flowers" (1964).

Showing his range, he was an alcoholic car salesman in Martin Ritt's drama "No Down Payment" (1957); played the seven title roles in "7 Faces of Dr. Lao" (1964), about a cunning Chinese medicine show impresario; and portrayed Agatha Christie's Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in "The Alphabet Murders" (1965). He also was the determined brain who directs the body's sex organs in Woody Allen's "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask" (1972).

He had long been a fixture on Broadway. Among his notable roles was the cynical reporter based on H.L. Mencken in the hit drama "Inherit the Wind" (1955), about the Scopes "monkey trial." The fidgety actor said that part was one of his toughest because "I had to be onstage for 15 minutes without any lines."

He had studied voice for years and lent his baritone to the lead role in the Jay Livingston-Ray Evans musical "Oh, Captain!" (1958). The show, which ran 192 performances, was based on the Alec Guinness film "The Captain's Paradise," about a ferry captain with a wife in every port.

Mr. Randall was primarily a television star. Perhaps no role suited him better than that of Felix Unger, the compulsively tidy photographer who rooms with his best friend and fellow divorcee, the unkempt sportswriter Oscar Madison.

Neil Simon had a long-running Broadway hit in "The Odd Couple," with Art Carney and Walter Matthau, and Jack Lemmon and Matthau were in the 1968 film version. But Mr. Randall and Jack Klugman became most identified with the roles, largely through syndication.

The Randall-Klugman program ran from 1970 to 1975, and in its last year, Mr. Randall won an Emmy Award for outstanding lead actor in a comedy series. The show was canceled at the same time, leading him to quip: "I'm so happy I won. Now if I only had a job."

Off-camera, he was a dapper, cultured presenter and master of ceremonies. He hosted "Texaco's Opera Quiz" broadcasts and was the intermission commentator on "Live From Lincoln Center."

Mr. Randall was born Leonard Rosenberg in Tulsa, where his father was an art dealer. He was drawn to acting after a ballet troupe swooped into town for a dazzling performance. He soon was getting laughs for his talents at mimicry, but one of his teachers was unimpressed. More than one note went home saying, "Please stop him from making faces."

He attended Northwestern University for a year before going to New York to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. He studied under drama instructor Sanford Meisner and choreographer Martha Graham in the late 1930s.

As Anthony Randall, he worked on radio soap operas and acted onstage opposite theater stars Jane Cowl in George Bernard Shaw's "Candida" and Ethel Barrymore in Emlyn Williams's "The Corn Is Green."

Returning from Army Signal Corps service during World War II, he briefly worked at the Olney Theatre in Montgomery County before heading back to New York.

He had small parts in two shows starring Katharine Cornell. One of them was Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" as Scarus, a soldier of Antony. A young Charlton Heston, Eli Wallach and Maureen Stapleton also were in the cast.

From 1952 to 1955, he had a large supporting role on the NBC sitcom "Mr. Peepers," which starred Wally Cox as a Midwestern science teacher. Mr. Randall played Cox's brash, overconfident pal and received an Emmy nomination.

That led to other television work, including several dramas and stints as a fill-in host for Steve Allen and Arthur Godfrey on their programs.

After "The Odd Couple," he played a stuffy Philadelphia judge on the sitcom "The Tony Randall Show," which aired on ABC and then CBS from 1976 to 1978. In "Love, Sidney," on NBC from 1981 to 1983, he was a single, middle-aged commercial artist, and it was implied but never specified that he was gay.

When the show aroused controversy from conservatives, he fumed. "If they want to attack things," he said, "why aren't they attacking the Ku Klux Klan?"

Mr. Randall frequently toured with road companies and was outspoken about cuts in arts funding during the Reagan administration. In 1991, he founded the National Actors Theatre in New York with $1 million of his own money. Focusing largely on revivals of classics, the company received mixed reviews as it produced "The Crucible," "Night Must Fall," "The Gin Game," "The Seagull" and other works. But Mr. Randall's name and passion attracted boldfaced talent, including Martin Sheen, Charles Durning, Julie Harris, George C. Scott and Matthew Broderick.

In 1992, his wife of 54 years, the former Florence Gibbs, died of cancer. In 1995, he married Heather Harlan, who worked for the National Actors Theatre and was five decades his junior.

After the marriage ceremony, Mr. Randall told the media: "It was so simple and so touching. He spoke of two people becoming one. I'm afraid I'm a sucker for that sort of thing."

The new bride declared her love and then added: "I wanted to be married. I'm an old-fashioned girl. I'm so old-fashioned I married a man three times my age."

At age 77, he fathered his first child. Survivors include his wife and their two children.

Mr. Randall spent recent years as a spokesman for the National Funeral Directors Association, saying he was well-qualified because he had attended so many funerals. Politically outspoken against Republicans, he joked that although he hoped his funeral would be attended by far-flung dignitaries, his friends should bar President Bush and Vice President Cheney, "because everyone knew how much I hated them."

In his autobiography, "Which Reminds Me," he suggested his own epitaph: "I'm not going to take this lying down."
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
David: Crellin@Audiea.com

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From USA Today Online News 5/15004

Report: Rumsfeld OK'd program that led to Iraqi prisoner abuse
NEW YORK (AP) — Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the expansion of a secret program that encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners to obtain intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq, The New Yorker reported Saturday.
Rumsfeld made the decision last year when he broadened a Pentagon operation from the hunt for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan to interrogation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, according to the report, which cited unnamed current and former intelligence officials and was published on the magazine's Web site.

Seven soldiers are facing military charges related to the abuse and humiliation of prisoners captured by the now-infamous photographs at the prison. Some of the soldiers and their lawyers have said military intelligence officials told military police assigned as guards to abuse the prisoners to make interrogations easier.

According to the story, which hits newsstands Monday, the initial operation Rumsfeld authorized gave blanket approval to kill or capture and interrogate "high value" targets in the war on terrorism. The program stemmed from frustrating efforts to capture high-level terrorists in the weeks after the start of U.S. bombings in Afghanistan.

The program got approval from President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and Bush was informed of its existence, the officials told New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh.

Under the program, Hersh wrote, commandos carried out instant interrogations — using force if necessary — at secret CIA detention centers scattered around the world. The intelligence would be relayed to the commanders at the Pentagon.

Last year, Rumsfeld and Stephen Cambone, his undersecretary for intelligence, expanded the scope of the Pentagon's program and brought its methods to Abu Ghraib, Hersh wrote.

Critics say the interrogation rules, first laid out in September after a visit to Iraq by the then-commander of the prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, amounted to a green light for abuse.

Defense Department officials deny that, saying prisoners always are treated under guidelines of the Geneva Conventions. Pentagon spokesman Jim Turner referred to that assertion, made at a news briefing Friday, when asked to comment on the New Yorker article.

The intelligence sources told the magazine photos of the sexual abuse were used to intimidate prisoners and detainees into providing information on the insurgency. It was thought that some prisoners would do anything — including spying on their associates — to avoid dissemination of the shameful photos to family and friends.

One intelligence official said the CIA ended its involvement with the program at Abu Ghraib prison by last fall.

"They said, 'No way. We signed up for the core program in Afghanistan — pre-approved for operations against the high-value terrorist targets — and now you want to use it for cabdrivers, brothers-in-law, and people pulled off the streets,'" the source said.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Unauthorized copy from Andrew Sullivan and The New Republic.
Read it and weep!
That's The Ticket
The Kerry-McCain Dream

The last week has been an emotional whiplash for Americans. The shame of Abu Ghraib morphed into the shock of the beheading of Nick Berg. America seemed too powerful and then not powerful enough. And by the end of it, a kind of psychic equilibrium could be felt. No serious figure wants to cut and run in Iraq, however chastened and troubled Washington has become. And no serious neo-conservative or liberal interventionist has avoided what is in Washington a rare event: a bout of public self-doubt. What emerges is something of a consensus: Bush has a few months to persuade the country that Iraq is on the right path. If he fails, Kerry will have a chance to offer himself as the "smarter war, kinder peace" candidate. In this endeavour, Kerry needs some measure of hawkish credibility. And he needs someone who can ease polarization and bring independents into the Democratic tent.

One man can. Republican Senator John McCain is everyone's dream candidate, especially the Washington pres corps'. He's a charismatic Republican, tough on defense but alienated by George W. Bush and the Republican Party's fundamentalist Christian base. Last week, John Kerry mentioned him as a possible futrure defense secretary in a Kerry administration. But true dreamers are looking for something more radical: a Kerry-McCain bipartisan ticket. It's still highly unlikely, but recent events make it far less so.

Here's why. There is no one better suited in the country to tackle a difficult war where the United States is credibly accused of abusing prisoners than John McCain. He was, after all, a war hero and then a victim of the worst kind of prisoner torture imaginable in the Hanoi Hilton. His military credentials are impeccable but so are his moral scruples and backbone: that's a rare combination. As vice-presidential candidate, he would give the Kerry campaign the ability to criticize the conduct of this war of liberation, but also to pursue it credibly. He would remove the taint of an "anti-war" candidacy headed by a man who once helped pioneer the anti-war forces in Vietnam, while giving the Kerry campaign credibility on national defense. He would ensure that a Kerry victory would not be interpreted by America's allies or enemies as a decision to cut and run.

In office, McCain could be given real authority as a war-manager, providing a real counter-weight to Kerry's penchant for U.N.-style non-solutions. There's a precedent for such a powerful vice-president who could not credibly be believed to have ambitions on the Oval Office himself: Dick Cheney. Why no credible ambitions for the presidency himself? If McCain agreed to run with Kerry, he would also have to agree to support Kerry for possible re-election. There's no way that McCain could credibly run for president in eight years' time - as a Democrat or as a Republican. So he could become for Kerry what Cheney has been for Bush: a confidant, a manager, a strategic mind, a guide through the thicket of war-management.

But he could also be more for Kerry. He could be a unifying force in the country in the dark days ahead. Domestically, a Kerry-McCain ticket would go a long way toward healing the Vietnam wound, now rubbed raw again by recent events in Iraq. The two men represent very different responses to that war, and could help unite their generation - finally! - over it. To have two combat veterans up against Bush and Cheney would also eviscerate Republican attempts to paint Kerry as weak on defense and in the war on terror. Besides, McCain represents a real and utterly unrepresented constituency in America: the fiscally conservative, hawkish, socially tolerant hawks, usually described as "Independents." By bringing these people into the Democratic big tent, Kerry could not only win the election, but help position the Democrats to regain majority status. It would be, for the Democrats, a strategic coup de main.

McCain, of course, is a Republican. But he has worked with many Democrats, including Kerry, and has been systematically excluded by the increasingly fundamentalist caste of Republican establishment. On domestic issues, such as campaign finance reform, corporate scandals, and the deficit, he might actually be more comfortable in conservative Democratic ranks. He is pro-life, which makes him anathema to Democrats. But this year, with Kerry under fire from the Catholic hierarchy on the abortion question, picking McCain would enable the Democratic candidate to insist that there is real diversity within his own party, and that he respects those who disagree with him on abortion. His policy would remain the same, but he could go a long way to reversing the unfortunate litmus test among Democrats and Republicans that abortion has become.

Would McCain agree? The one sticking point has been his loyalty to his party. That counts for something. But Americans are now in a national crisis of confidence in the middle of a crucial war. The next president, whoever he is, may well have to encounter seismic shocks from new terrorist atrocities in America and the world. Under those circumstances, America cannot afford more polarization, partisan division and acrimony. In parliamentary democracies, such crises sometimes provoke the formation of a "national government" in which both parties agree to serve in a national unity government. The American tradition demands otherwise. But the need to heal divisions and yet fight on in Iraq and around the world may lead to a version of the national government in the shape of a unity ticket.

McCain could say that this national crisis demands that he put country ahead of party and serve. His loyalty to his party would therefore be trumped by loyalty to his country. Kerry could also say that his impulse is to be a "uniter, not a divider," and that, unlike George W. Bush, he will actually show it in his pick for the vice-presidency. Their platform? Winning the war, cutting the deficit, reforming corporate excess. A Kerry-McCain ticket, regardless of the many difficulties, would, I think, win in a landslide. Will it happen? Still unlikely. But the odds just shortened. And if Bush keeps stumbling, the arguments for such a dramatic innovation could get a lot stronger.

May 12, 2004, The New Republic.
copyright © 2000, 2004 Andrew Sullivan
David
Crellin@Audiea.com

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The murder of Nick Berg is a three day wonder. Such pointless but emotional killings are a common part of modern warfare. As much as I dislike the sophistry of a Limbaugh, I do understand his thinking. All sides seize upon these events and play partisan politics. Who cries out when these things happen in Haiti, by thugs trained by the United States? Who cries out when Russia brutalizes the Checnyns? I condemn all of it by everyone.
Berg was a tragic victim, we should not forget him. But at the same time we must be honest about Linda English and others like her. She cynically abused inmates. However vicious they were, she was just the same brutish mindset on a different team. DR. Donald Sensing at "One Hand Clapping", states better than I, the way excuses are made and war becomes a slaughter. The United States must never give in or allow its forces to resort to such violence. Iraq is not going away. This mess will linger for years and define the US in the 21st century. The Bush Administration faces serious scandals over No Bid contracts as well as understaffing the military so GOP big shots can get contracts for numerous services. All the ugliness will come back in spades. I detest the violence and send the Berg family my condolences. I also send the US Soldiers who die for such a dubious cause. Iraq will be a sullen dictatorship soon enough. In 2005 Bush and CO. Will do everything to get out and thus condemn Iraq to further despair and ruin.
David: Crellin@Audiea.com