Hi. On Saturday I sent you a short essay by attorney Martin Garbus
which began: "Today, for two separate reasons, has been an incredible
day in America. First, the United States has legitimized torture and
secondly, the President has admitted to an impeachable offense."
Martin Garbus is expanding his views today on Democracy Now!
It's on now and repeats in the LA area at 9 am.
Ed
Newsweek and the Silence of the Lambs
"Capitol Hill Blue" Didn't Exaggerate
by David McReynolds
NY, Dec 14, 2005--Newsweek's current issue, December 19th, now on the
stands, has a cover showing George Bush in a bubble with the heading:
"Bush's World - The Isolated President: Can He Change?" For months Doug
Thompson's blog - Capitol Hill Blue - has been circulating on the internet,
with many of us more curious about Thompson than about Bush. Thompson's
charges were outrageous - reports of a President who wandered the White
House yelling at his aides, accusing those around him of betraying him
- surely Thompson was on a private rant of his own. (Thompson is not a left
winger - if anything, he is a libertarian, so his reports carry more sting
than something written by a liberal).
Now, with this long article by Evan Thomas and Richard Wolffe, running for
ten pages (with a terrific follow-up column on the "Imperial Presidency" by
Fareed Zakaria), it is clear that Capitol Hill Blue was reporting the
reality. What is most interesting about the article is not what is in it,
but what is not in it. Where other articles discussing past Presidents -
Clinton, Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan - would have been able to quote "named
sources", what we have here is almost entirely anonymous. Take this example:
"A White House aide, who like virtually all White House officials (in this
story and in general) refused to be identified for fear of antagonize the
President... " or "White House officials, as well as one of his closest
friends (also speaking anonymously so as not to complicate relations with
the President ).... "
The problem extends beyond the White House itself, to the military:
"According to senior Pentagon officials who did not want to be identified
discussing private meetings", to the Republicans in Congress, "One House
Republican, who asked not to be identified for fear of offending the White
House... " and even to those entirely outside the US, "A foreign diplomat
who declined to be identified was startled when Secretary of State Rice
warned him not to lay bad news on the president. 'Don't upset him' she
said".
Don't upset him? Over two thousands Americans dead in Iraq, tens of
thousands of Iraqis dead, and Bush must not be upset? The situation is so
serious that Senator Joseph Lieberman, an enthusiastic supporter of Bush's
war, now is urging a bipartisan "war council" that could advise the
President. (There is a rumor Lieberman may be brought in to replace
Rumsfeld).
The Newsweek article confirms the feeling many of us have had, as we watched
Bush blunder into a criminal adventure in Iraq and stumble so badly over the
New Orleans tragedy, that the nation is like a train rushing along toward a
bridge that isn't there. The war is getting worse instead of better, the
deficit is rising, the tax cuts benefit the very wealthy, the administration
is absolutely riddled with corruption - as bad as anything I've seen in my
life - and Bush doesn't listen, doesn't read, wants long vacations and wants
to be in bed by ten! (And now, as those my age realize, we are stuck with a
medical insurance plan that Bush can't even understand).
What makes matters worse is that there seems to be no way to put a brake on
this train. The Democrats are divided and for the most part clueless -
outside of John Murtha, who saw the truth and spoke it. Hillary Clinton is
still building her political platform on support of the military (and,
lately, on a bill to ban flag burning). Bush, the man who became President
by one vote of the Supreme Court, despite losing both the popular vote and
(as the media pretty unanimously agreed after a careful look at the Florida
ballots) the electoral college, is now frightened, fearful, appearing only
at events that can be carefully controlled, with audiences that are
friendly.
We have three more years of this Administration - and frankly not much to
hope for from the Democrats. If there is any hope it will come "from below",
from millions of citizens who are fed up with an administration that has had
only the interests of the corporate state at heart. When there is strong
pressure we can see, as with Nancy Pelosi, change is possible. It was clear
from watching John Murtha that the military is very uneasy, there are
tensions between the military and Rumsfeld. What we need and don't have is
a Martin Luther King Jr. But what we do have is Cindy Sheehan, a mother who
lost her son, the Rosa Parks of the peace movement, camping outside of the
Bush ranch all this past summer, galvanizing tens of thousands of Americans
- many of them military families.
What I believe we need to do is tie together some of the issues - the
terrible losses of American and Iraqi lives, the failure of the country to
put its money where it is needed (New Orleans and our infrastructure), the
loss of our civil liberties, the shock of finding torture now an official
project - to point out, by dialogue, not by shouting, that we have an
administration of the wealthy which is indifferent to the burdens carried by
working families, many of them African American, Asian, Hispanic. In short,
where there is no leadership, that burden falls on us, home by home, town by
town, vigil by vigil, letters to the editors, delegations meeting with
members of Congress.
Newsweek, troubled by what it found in the White House, searched for answers
in places not so obscure or foolish - the Freudian tensions between Bush the
younger and his father, Bush the failure all his life who is now suddenly
frightened and insecure as reality presses in. The Newsweek article is
important - this is a newsmagazine, not a journal of opinion. And the news
it brings us is that our Administration is out of touch and out of control.
For our friends elsewhere in the world, now is not the time to "make peace"
with the Administration, but to speak truth to power. For those of us living
here, now is not the time to despair but to realize that when even a leading
newsmagazine runs a feature article pointing out that the emperor is naked,
the time for change has come.
- 30 -
David McReynolds was Socialist Party candidate for President
in 1980 and 2000.
***
The cartoons, just click 'em on.
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/tmdho/2005/tmdho051214.gif
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/stn/2005/stn051216.gif
***
http://www.plenglish.com
Bush Least Popular of Last Ten US Presidents
Washington, Dec 17 (Prensa Latina) George W. Bush has achieved the
dubious honor of scoring as the least popular of the last ten US
presidents, a National Qualitative Center survey reported Friday.
Only nine percent of the 662 surveyed people selected President Bush
as their favorite in an opinion poll, in which JFK was favored by 27
percent and Bill Clinton by 25 percent.
Bush was considered the most warlike by 43 percent, the worst for
economic progress (42 percent), and the less efficient (33percent).
The National Qualitative Center usually carries out marketing studies
and developed this survey as part of research for a book on popular
preferences, explained Ken Berwitz, one of the authors.
hr/ccs/isn/jll
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