Between the fifth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks and plans to make this month 'Security September,' Congressional Republicans are going to work overtime the next few weeks to paint Democrats as soft on national security. President Bush and his Administration will join in the chorus through a series of speeches that are certain to be full of the same 'stay-the-course' rhetoric and attacks on Democratic resolve.

The fact is Democratic presidents have led our country in defeating tyranny and defending freedom for the last century. We continue that tradition today by pushing the Bush Administration to take a new direction in Iraq and to adopt better strategies in the war on terror.

Read more »

In a recent column in the Chicago Tribune, Clarence Page basically blamed the problems with rebuilding in New Orleans on mayor Ray Nagin. This is a fairly common assertion, and depends on a contrast with Mississippi’s supposedly spectacular pace, as with Tony Blankley’s assertion that it is all because Mississippi’s leadership is “honest” (ha!) while Louisiana’s is “notoriously corrupt and incompetent” (I refuse to link to him). Nagin has been a very handy scapegoat, which is one of the reasons rich white Republicans in Louisiana worked so hard to get him re-elected.

This is just silly. What happened in Mississippi (hurricane) and what happened in New Orleans (unprecedented flood) is beyond apples to oranges (maybe apples to manatees?). Moreover, the people making the assertions show a depressing ignorance of the basic facts of the issue.

Read more »

How low can they go? I refer of course to the latest vitriol directed at Valerie and Joe Wilson by the likes of Christopher Hitchens and Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post, who claim that Joe Wilson, not Bush Administration officials, is responsible for destroying his wife's cover and exposing her as a CIA operative. Hitchens battle with the bottle may account for his addled thinking, but what is Hiatt's excuse? Both men perform like Cirque du Soleil contortionists in dreaming up excuses for the nutty and destructive policies and actions of the Bush Administration. In watching their behavior we see a parallel with the devotees of Jim Jones who gathered in Guyana almost 30 years ago to drink poisoned kool aid.

Let's focus on the Post's Fred Hiatt. In today's Post editorial page, Hiatt writes:

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials.

Read more »

If anyone needs to know whether or not we live in an era of biased, and indeed untrustworthy press, the ABC has sealed the deal - having decided to run hard right wing propaganda under the title "The Path to 9/11" which is filled with lies, distortions and fabrications. Clearly the right wing is absolutely desperate in the face of what could be an electoral wipe out in November, as Americans remain unimpressed with the paltry job creation of the present economy.

Equally clearly, the owners of the major networks have so little regard for the American public that they feel they can simply shovel unadulterated extremism and call it a "docu-drama." Even the films director admits it wasn't a documentary - but the network is billing it as one. It is already being heavily promoted by Rush Limbaugh as "zeroing in on the shortcomings of the Clinton Administration."

Read more »

Eulogy for Michael Etzioni (1967-2006)

If you broke my knee caps, both of them; gouged out my eyes; and tore my heart out with your bare hands—it would pain me much less. Who is cruel enough to take this loving son, in the prime of his life, from his aging, ailing father? Who would tear a doting husband out of the arms of his loving wife? Deny a one year old son, the love of his father, and-- leave behind an infant to be born-- who will be unable to see his father even once? Who would take from four brothers, scores of other family members, and a legion of friends—their close and dear companion?

Read more »

The New York Times analysis of census data had a quick blip about health insurance: the number of uninsured increased by 1.3 million from 2004 to 2005. People on the lowest economic rung had already been going naked—that is, living without health insurance. The new 1.3 million represents a continuing expansion of middle class people who can’t afford health insurance.

Newsweek reporter Karen Springen and I had blunt conversation about the economics of health care for the middle class. Perhaps I should have suggested we give up on the term “middle class,” and divide America into the Insured Class and the Uninsured Class.

Read more »

Another excellent piece from Michael Sartisky, CEO of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities:

In the face of growing expressions of reluctance from some quarters  nationally to restoring New Orleans, let it be understood that as New Orleans goes, so  shall go the cultural soul of America. For just as surely as New Orleans was  overrun by a storm surge because her buffering coastal wetlands had been  allowed to erode through years of neglect, so too will American culture sink into  terminal banality and homogeneity if it abandons the root city of American  culture.

Read more »

In May I wrote (this and this)about an Iranian intellectual and civil society builder, Ramin Jahanbegloo, who had been taken political prisoner. News reports came yesterday of his release.

From the AP report: A Canadian-Iranian writer and intellectual who was arrested in Tehran on accusations of spying has been released after four months in prison. Ramin Jahanbegloo's release was confirmed by Kouhyar Goodarzi, a member of the Student Committee of Human Rights Reporters of Iran. Azin Moalej, Jahanbegloo's wife, also confirmed that her husband was released on bail, but refused to provide details.

Read more »

Eve Kessler has a cool story in the Forward, the fine New York Jewish newspaper.

It seems that George Allen's mother is Jewish (which, according to Jewish law makes Sen. Macaca Jewish too).

He is, however, a practicing fundamentalist Christian.

Nothing wrong with that. Anybody can choose to practice any faith or none.

But, according to Kessler, Allen has gone to some length to hide his Jewish background. Why? Ashamed of mom? A bigot? Or making sure the "base" does not stop supporting him because he's half Jewish.

In any case, it reflects badly on the struggling senator. Too bad Jim Webb can't exploit it -- way too tricky.

But very interesting. He sure is a tall Jew!

The headline says it all. The US military is bidding to get more positive press for the war in Iraq. They are working to do their part with a "run and hide" strategy - no offensive moves, which means that fatalities are down to "wastage", as the term went on the Western front in World War II - deaths that happen just because there is a war on.

Meanwhile I have to read Xinhua to hear that Romania has left the coalition of the billing - saying that it will pull out in less than two months.

Here at home, Bush is back to accusing everyone who speaks the truth about Iraq of being defeatists. No, Bush is the one who has been defeated in the war. It's almost like the "cheerleaders for failure" line - it's the warbloggers who have been cheerleaders for fiasco in Iraq.

But let's get back to reality - the US military has been defeated in Iraq, and is being order to hide from the enemy. This isn't the worst reality in the world - someone in the White House clearly understands that throwing more lives away before an election is a bad idea - but it certainly isn't the best reality in the world either.

Read more »

If you missed Keith Olberman's commentary on Donald Rumsfeld's accusation that Americans who criticize the Bush Policy in Iraq are basically traitors, then you missed a chance to witness history. Olberman's courage and genius should be celebrated and cherished. God bless him. The man has a set of stones.

The following is posted at Keith's blog. If you don't want to read it, check out the video posted at Crooks and Liars.

Feeling morally, intellectually confused?

The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack.

Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.

Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis—and the sober contemplation—of every American.

Read more »

Everyone has an internal calendar, a place where they think we have been before. For many, the 1970's was the 1930's all over again, with the world order tottering on the edge of a deep and possibly violent abyss. In the present it is not liberals who see this moment as a moment of supreme pressure, but reactionaries. In the minds of the reactionary leadership this is the 1930's - justifying extraordinary, even quasi-dictatorial, powers.

There are of course those in the fringes of the right who are more than happy to give them these powers, but what is unsettling is how much the leadership buys into the hysteria. For it is indeed hysterical to compare 2006 to 1936 - the two years almost could not be more different.

Read more »

John Barry, author of Rising Tide, has an excellent op-ed today in USA Today:

Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans was not a natural disaster. It was a man-made disaster. But it wasn't man-made only because the levees built by the Army Corps of Engineers proved so flawed that, as the Corps itself said, they offered protection "in name only." It was man-made in a much larger sense, for even if the levees had kept New Orleans dry last year, eventually another hurricane would have ripped the city apart. That will still happen unless we do something....

Read more »

In a move that's getting remarkably little national media, the California Assembly voted for a bill, SB 840, that would provide health care to all state residents under a government-run universal health insurance system, joining the state Senate which enacted a similar bill last year. 

The bill, which needs an additional vote in the Senate, faces a possible veto by the governor and will need additional votes in coming years as a new California Health Insurance Agency develops the details of the system, but it adds to the trend this year of state legislatures taking significant action towards universal health care.

Read more »

“Census Reports Slight Increase in Incomes,” said the headline in Rick Lyman’s front-page story in the New York Times today. Bush officials smile even wider, with a spokeswoman for Bill Frist saying the data show “the economy remains strong.”

A few alternative headlines would have captured the data better: “Families get ahead only by working more”

“Same work, less money”

“5.9% decline in families' incomes since 1999”

“One-Earner Families Squeezed Harder”

“Number of Uninsured Increase 1.3 million 2004-2005”

Read more »

In September 2005 I was talking with a prominent Indian general-diplomat. “I am a friend of the United States,” he said. “I don’t always agree with all your policies but believe that the world needs your leadership. What, though, am I supposed to tell my people about Hurricane Katrina? In our part of the world natural disasters hit all the time; plenty of tsunamis, not just the 2004 one that grabbed the world’s attention. For us the most basic responsibility of government is to help people in such situations. How much of a model of democratic governance can you be when you did so little for people in need in your own country?”

Read more »

The Bush administration once again is turning to the Munich analogy and the bloody shirt of appeasement to discredit critics and shut off consideration of alternatives to staying the course in Iraq. But if there’s anything worse than not learning from history, it’s drawing the wrong lessons. Munich was Munich; British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s policy towards Hitler was deeply flawed, all too tragically so. But no historical analogy has been more misapplied than this one. Remember Vietnam?

Read more »

Love him or hate him, President Bush is having a terrible week while trying to catch some downtime in Maine. Watching the self-immolation of the Bush Presidency is certainly a spectacularly sad show. When this week is over and opinion polls are taken, we are likely to see Bush close in on low thirties or high twenties in terms of public support for his Presidency. The drumbeat of bad news is incessant. Consider the following:

• TV screens are filled with documentaries about the Federal debacle in failing to effectively respond to hurricane Katrina. The images of bodies slumped in chairs surrounded by weeping crowds seeking refutge outside the New Orleans Convention Center are searing themselves into the souls of Americans who take time to watch Spike Lee's, When the Levees Broke, or the other retrospectives provided by NBC, CBS, and ABC. I'm reminded of the old Navy saying, "you can't polish shit". Americans watching these shows also are reminded in the most graphic terms that President Bush was on vacation when his leadership was needed most.

Read more »

American Prospect on-line has published a thoughtful and provocative essay that goes straight to the heart of our contemporary debates on U.S. foreign policy: “What does it mean to have a ‘progressive’ foreign policy?”An excellent start, but it doesn't really answer the question. Here's another answer.

Read more »

On this, the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, what if this natural disaster was not an once-in-a-lifetime occurence?

Writing in the next issue of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Elaine Kamarck -- former reinventing government czar and top aide to Vice President Gore -- explores what happens to our government in a world where the catastrophic is relatively normal. How does it respond to -- and more importantly -- pay for such emergencies?

Read more »

The people of New Orleans are not OK.

This morning on the Today Show Matt Lauer asked former FEMA director Michael Brown "Were you confident as [Katrina] approached that the federal government's plan was adequate to deal with anything that storm could deliver?"

Michael Brown: "What plan? Matt, there was no plan...

Read more »

For decades, the US and Britain have mocked countries that have tried to block access to the BBC and Voice of America, highlighting such actions as proof of those countries suppression of freedom.

Now, the US has actually arrested a man for providing satellite programming carrying Hezbollah television station, Al Manar.   Rebroadcasting information and nothing more has now been defined as providing "material support" to terrorism.

Read more »

In response to Mark’s post yesterday about the centrality of levee failure to the fate of New Orleans, we get Dilan Esper, a frequent and well rated contributor to the TPM Café conversation, calling Mark’s insistence that it was a man-made catastrophe a piece of “unmitigated crap.” Dilan has proven over time to be both reasonable and well-informed, and yet still holds this position. This is a microcosm of the paralysis that has kept the faucet that dispenses the money for the city’s recovery firmly in the off position. See, at last count, the number of houses in New Orleans that have been rebuilt with the aid of federal funds is…zero. Happy anniversary!

Let’s take this line by line as an exercise.

Read more »

Maria "the Money Honey" Bartiromo had a CNBC report today where she stated (roughly): "Tomorrow marks the 1st anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's assault on the Gulf Coast. Katrina was the most costly storm in U.S. history, slamming the insurance industry with more than 40 Billion dollars damage and killing more than 1800 people." I think this more or less represents the typical sort of news description we'll be hearing for the next two days. Poorly designed levees-- whose failure made the storm so costly and deadly-- will rarely be mentioned in such anniversary reports.

Read more »

From the people who brought you the Iraq war, here's...another coalition of the willing.

The L.A. Times reports that John Bolton is already trying to put together a group of countries who are prepared to enforce sanctions on Iran without U.N. Security Council approval. Other sources confirm that it was Bolton's idea to try to isolate Iran by going around the U.N. Bolton is single-handedly pushing the U.S. toward confrontation, and he's doing it in a way that will give Iran the upper hand in the international arena. Without the Security Council, it will be even harder to pressure Iran to make even the slightest concessions.

If we keep going down this path, we'll probably get a promise from Palau to cut off arms supplies, but that's not going to do the trick. It's time to do the hard work of consensus building that real diplomats know how to do.

Yesterday as part of the Rising Tide Conference the Nola Bloggers went out with the Arabi Wrecking Krewe to gut the home of 84 year old Mrs. Cora Foster. The Arabi Wrecking Krewe works on the homes of NOLA musicians in order to make sure they can come home and the music of New Orleans will not die. These guys are Magnificent.

Read more »

I'm tired from the workday, so perhaps my eyes are deceiving me, but I thought I saw the following things last night on the 60 Minutes segment with OUR MAYOR, C. Ray Nagin.

Read more »

One of the most noxious of the federal talking points after Katrina last year was that they weren't going to play the "blame game." Of course administration defenders were playing it vigorously, which is important to note, because if the "blame game" had not been played, things would have been much worse for the administration than they ended up being (which is in fact pretty bad). The reason it was a success is that it gave Bush's true believers something to hang their hat on if they didn't want to criticize the administration.

But all this is to misunderestimate the scope of what happened here, and how predictable it was. You could prove decisively that Nagin was an incompetent idiot and Blanco was clueless and uncooperative, and still do nothing to mitigate the "blame" due the federal government.

Read more »

Sometimes even I am rendered speechless. You have to read the piece.

Read more »

Not to get all Marxist on folks, but this is the classic definition of the exploitation of labor: workers increase productivity and the wealth of their employers, but don't geta fair share of the increase in higher wages.  From the New York Times:

The median hourly wage for American workers has declined 2 percent since 2003, after factoring in inflation. The drop has been especially notable, economists say, because productivity — the amount that an average worker produces in an hour and the basic wellspring of a nation’s living standards — has risen steadily over the same period.

Read more »

So . . . moving is pretty taxing, both physically and mentally. Almost all my stuff is in the new place, but now begins the daunting post-move stabilization and reconstruction process. I'm not looking forward to it, so why not a blog post? Now that the formerly booming coastal (coastal is normally qualified by including "and Florida" but of course Florida is on the coast notwithstanding the fact that Bush won the electoral votes ) housing market is no longer booming, a lot of people are concerned about a big bust. Since before I moved I was looking for a place to live, I am now in possession of a massive stockpile of anecdotal evidence -- plus my usual cunning logic -- with which to shed some light on the situation.

Read more »

Chris Bowers at mydd asks - what should the Democrats do if they win one or both houses of Congress? What is the agenda? Or what should the Democratic Party pursue?

The totally out party has an easy job – oppose. Propose cutting taxes and raising spending at every turn, and oppose the big initiatives of the other side. Someday these initiatives will fall apart and people will hand power to the outs.

The dangerous moment is being slightly out of power – having one chamber of Congress for example, or even both with an executive who is head strong enough to push back. It is at this moment that the not quite outs can be in the position of taking the blame for when things go wrong, without really much of an ability to either prevent things from going wrong, or to make things go right. Look at Labor in Israel – they signed on board the Kadima coalition as a junior partner, and now their once promising star is shot down, resigned in disgrace.

Read more »

Well, it looks like ol' Ernesto is making a bit of a turn to toward Florida, and has a good chance of weakening over Cuba. This is certainly good news for New Orleans. Which is good, becasue the Army Corps of Engineers basically told us that the levee system would probably fail. My wife and I don't even talk about it in front of our kids, which turns out to be a good decision because a lot of kids I know went into a full on panic when hearing about Ernesto.

In other news, the Rising Tide conference (WARNING: excessively revolutionary imagery) of New Orleans bloggers and others was a great success, not least because of the presence of Wall Street Journal reporters and newly minted book-authors Chris Cooper and Bobby Block. We will be talking more and more about their book this week, and Bobby may drop by for a chat. For now you should just go buy it.