Monday, January 17, 2005

U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer of California Boxer has big balls, Part 2 I received an e-mail today from Sen. Barbara Boxer (I'm on her e-mail list). The e-mail states that this is what Boxer, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, plans to say at tomorrow's confirmation hearing for National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to replace Colin Powell as U.S. secretary of state: I'd like to begin by welcoming Dr. Rice to this committee hearing. It is my hope that today we will have a candid discussion, Dr. Rice, because I believe it is crucial that a secretary of state speak openly and honestly with the American people and with Congress. Frankly, this issue of candor is where my concern lies. Since 9/11, we have been engaged in a just fight against terrorism. I voted to use force against Osama bin Laden and the terrorists in Afghanistan, and I assumed that we would focus on that challenge, not stopping until we got bin Laden, dead or alive, and broke the back of al-Qaeda. However, instead, with you in a lead role, Dr. Rice, we went into Iraq. I want to read you one paragraph that best expresses my views, and the views of millions of Californians, on the impact of the Iraqi war on the war against terrorism. It was written by one of the world's experts on terrorism and foreign policy, Peter Bergen, five months ago. He wrote: What we have done in Iraq is what bin Laden could not have hoped for in his wildest dreams: We invaded an oil-rich Muslim nation in the heart of the Middle East, the very type of imperial adventure that bin Laden has long predicted was the United States' long-term goal in the region. We deposed the secular socialist Saddam, whom bin Laden has long despised, ignited Sunni and Shia fundamentalist fervor in Iraq, and have now provoked a "defensive" jihad that has galvanized jihad-minded Muslims around the world. It's hard to imagine a set of policies better designed to sabotage the war on terrorism. This conclusion was reiterated last Thursday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank, which released a report saying that Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists. NIC Chairman Robert L. Hutchings said that Iraq is "a magnet for international terrorist activity." These quotations are significant to this hearing, Dr. Rice, because as a major proponent and spokesperson for the war in Iraq, and as someone who was asked by the president to make the case for this war to the American people, and as the person in charge of the reconstruction effort -- you have many questions to answer to the American people. This war was sold to the American people -- as Chief of Staff to President Bush Andy Card said -- like a "new product." You rolled out the idea and then you had to convince the people, and as you made your case, I personally believe that your loyalty to the mission you were given overwhelmed your respect for the truth. That was a great disservice to the American people. But worse than that, our young men and women are dying. So far, 1,342 American troops have been killed in Iraq. More than 25 percent of those troops were from California. More than 10,000 have been wounded. I don't want their families to think for a minute that their lives and bodies were given in vain. Because when your commander in chief asks you to sacrifice yourself for your country, it is noble to answer the call. I am giving their families all the support that they want and need, but I will also not shrink from questioning a war that was not built on the truth. Perhaps the most well-known statement you have made was the one about Saddam Hussein launching a nuclear weapon on America, with the image of a "mushroom cloud." That image had to frighten every American into believing that Saddam Hussein was on the verge of annihilating them if he was not stopped. I will be placing into the record a number of other such statements which have not been consistent with the facts nor the truth. As the nominee for secretary of state, you now must answer to the American people through the confirmation process. I continue to stand in awe of our founders, who understood that ultimately, those of us in the highest positions of our government, must be accountable to the people we serve. Wow. A Democrat telling it like it is and not being afraid to stand up for the people. Who'da thunk? Of all of the names being bandied about for the 2008 Democratic presidential candidate -- Hillary Clinton (ughhh), John Kerry (sorry -- you get only one chance at the brass ring, I recently heard someone wisely say), Al Gore (ditto), et. al. -- since the Nov. 2 election, only Boxer has shown balls, first being the only U.S. senator to refuse to rubber-stamp George W. Bush's "re"-election in light of numerous election irregularities in the make-or-break state of Ohio that just coinky-dinkily all benefitted Bush and now refusing to rubber-stamp the confirmation of the God-awful Condoleezza Rice as U.S. secretary of state. I hope that Boxer continues to fight the good fight that no other Democrat who is as prominent as she is will fight and that she runs for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomation. Don't forget to sign Boxer's petition to hold Condoleezza Rice's feet to the fire for having been a miserable national security adviser. Sign it here. 4:54:32 PM    Comments []

I couldn't resist. 12:37:52 PM    Comments []

Reminder: 50.7% is not a mandate We live in the United States of Amnesia, as writer Gore Vidal calls us. What happened last week already is ancient history, and everyone knows how much Americans suck ass at history. So I will remind you, whenever "President" Bush and his spokesweasels talk about all of that "political capital" he supposedly has "to spend" and how he supposedly has "the will of the people at his back" and all of that shit, that in reality Bush received only 50.7 percent of the popular vote to John Kerry's 48.3 percent -- even with the probable election fraud that the Republicans committed. (Speaking of which, Kerry most directly spoke about that probable election fraud today. It's not enough, but I guess it's something.) Bush won "re"-election by the smallest margin ever in U.S. history. (Reports Wikipedia: "Bush won with the smallest margin of victory for a sitting president in U.S. history in terms of the percentage of the popular vote. [Bush received 2.5 percent more than Kerry; the closest previous margin won by a sitting president was 3.2 percent for Woodrow Wilson in 1916.] In terms of absolute number of popular votes, his victory margin [approximately 3 million votes] was the smallest of any sitting president since Harry Truman in 1948.") You call Bush's "re"-election a "squeaker," not a "mandate." Still, I surmise that for the next four years we'll be hearing bullshit like this from Bush and the members of his regime (this is from The Washington Post [my comments are in brackets]): President Bush said the public's decision to re-elect him was a ratification of his approach toward Iraq and that there was no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath. "We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. "The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me. [So there! La la la la la la! They chose meeeee! La la la la la la!]" With the Iraq elections two weeks away and no signs of the deadly insurgency abating, Bush set no timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops and twice declined to endorse Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's recent statement that the number of Americans serving in Iraq could be reduced by year's end. Bush said he will not ask Congress to expand the size of the National Guard or regular Army, as some lawmakers and military experts have proposed.... The president's inaugural speech Thursday will focus on his vision for spreading democracy around the world, one of his top foreign policy goals for the new term. But it will be Iraq that dominates White House deliberations off stage. Over the next two weeks, Bush will be monitoring closely Iraq's plan to hold elections for a 275-member national assembly. He must also deliver his State of the Union address with a message of resolve on Iraq, and he will need to seek congressional approval for about $100 billion in emergency spending, much of it for the war. ...Bush acknowledged that the United States' standing has diminished in some parts of the world and said he has asked Condoleezza Rice, his nominee to replace Powell at the State Department, to embark on a public diplomacy campaign that "explains our motives and explains our intentions." [Oh, I think the entire fucking world is pretty crystal clear on the Bush regime's motives and intentions: The complete and total domination of the entire fucking planet. And isn't Condofuckingleezza Rice just the person to make the rest of the world feel all warm and fuzzy about us Americans again?] Bush acknowledged that "some of the decisions I've made up to now have affected our standing in parts of the world," but predicted that most Muslims will eventually see America as a beacon of freedom and democracy. [Yeah, they'll just forget all of the thousands of Iraqis who have been slaughtered in the name of freedom and democracy by that nation that is "a beacon of freedom and democracy."] "There's no question we've got to continue to do a better job of explaining what America is all about," he said.... [Yeah, Bush does have a lot of 'splaining to do, but don't hold your breath for any explanation any year soon. And note that when he uses phrases like "what America is all about," Bush implies that a considerable majority of Americans endorse his agenda -- when the fact is that just a hair under half of Americans oppose him and what he stands for.] On the election Bush said he was puzzled that he received only about 11 percent of the black vote, according to exit polls, about a 2-percentage-point increase over his 2000 total. "I did my best to reach out, and I will continue to do so as the president," Bush said. "It's important for people to know that I'm the president of everybody." ["I'm the president of everybody"? Is this a grown man or a fucking 5-year-old? I do not and will never consider George W. Bush my president. As the bane of the right Ted Rall pointed out (in his blog, I believe it was), if you steal your first presidential election, as the 2000 election undoubtedly was stolen, even if you truly win the next presidential election, you cannot legitimately be re-elected because you were never legitimately elected in the first place.] Americans are big on Bush's Iraq adventure? Well, let's look at that: The Bush regime has lied to the American people and to the world about its Iraq adventure from Day One. Those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the pretext for the Bush regime's March 2003 invasion of Iraq, never existed. Hundreds of American soldiers and thousands of Iraqis have died for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. (Well, they actually died for corporate profits -- more on this shortly.) The Bush regime shamelessly, continually made the false link between al-Qaeda and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and Saddam Hussein and Iraq. The Bush regime did its best to mislead the American people about its real reasons for invading Iraq. (The central real reason for the Bush regime's illegall, immoral, imperialistic and unprovoked March 2003 invasion of Iraq is that Dick Cheney's Halliburton and other war-profiteering subsidiaries of BushCheneyCorp wanted a war -- because without a war, you can't war profiteer. And so the Bush regime delivered BushCheneyCorp its war.) Using its bully pulpit, the Bush regime continually beat down the American people with fear, terror, fear, terror and more fear and terror. (Remember all of those terror alerts that we used to have before the Nov. 2 election but don't have anymore?) Anyone who dared make a peep was branded as unpatriotic at best and a terrorist sympathizer (or perhaps even a terrorist him- or herself) at worst. Yet despite these tactics in propaganda that would make the Nazis jealous, Bush "won" "re"-election by only 50.7 percent to 48.3 percent (again, assuming that the Republicans didn't commit election fraud, which they most likely did). And Bush's current overall approval rating, which hovers in the polls from the upper 40s to the lower 50s, is "as low as any job approval rating for a re-elected president at the start of the second term in more than 50 years," notes The Associated Press.  In the AP's poll earlier this month, only 50 percent of Americans approved of how things are going in Iraq, while 48 percent disapproved. Fox News more recently conducted a poll (on Jan. 11 and 12) and guess what? When asked, "Do you approve or disapprove of the job George W. Bush is doing handling the situation with Iraq?", 51 percent disapproved and only 44 percent approved. Let me repeat: Fox News poll. Bush. Iraq. Handling of. 51 percent disapproved. 44 percent approved.  This is a weak "president" who believes that if he just repeats, over and over again, how strong he is, then he will be strong. Of course, it was the power of the repetition of lies that got Bush his illegal, immoral, imperialistic and unprovoked war in Iraq and his "re"-election, so we cannot misunderestimate the power of the repetition of lies over an American populace that doesn't bother to sort out what is true and what is a lie.  Those Americans who do bother to sort out truth from lies, however, will see that Bush's supposedly strong support from the American people is as real as were those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. 12:25:00 PM    Comments []