HorsesAss.Org

I sometimes wonder if the Seattle Times editorial board actually reads their op-ed pieces before publishing them? Apparently not…

MoveOn.org’s ill-considered, outrageous New York Times newspaper ad calling Gen. David Petraeus, the commander in Iraq, “General Betray Us” not only slimed a well-respected general, it distorted a very real and very serious debate about the course of the war. Instead of the U.S. Congress making progress on troop withdrawal, as some expected this month, the Senate wasted time debating and voting on a measure to condemn the ad.

Damn you MoveOn.org for forcing the Senate to waste time debating an ad!

No… really. That’s the logic that leads the Times to blame MoveOn.org for the Senate’s lack of progress on troop withdrawal — the same sort of sanctimoniously twisted thinking that once prompted Times editors to berate me for having “successfully placed the phrase ‘horse’s ass’ into dozens of family newspapers.” As if I held a fucking gun to their heads. Now, more than a week later, MoveOn’s evil geniuses have apparently forced the Times to waste its time as well.

The war is bad enough. Nobody needs MoveOn.org’s stupid advertising campaign.

Yeah, sure… George Bush’s trillion dollar war and its thousands of American and million-plus Iraqi dead… is… um… “bad.” But MoveOn’s ad… well that’s just inexcusable.

The Times asks why we cannot “disagree about policy without undertaking childish ad hominem attacks?” To which I thoughtfully reply: “Eat me,” for how else to respond to an editorial that equates a mere newspaper ad with a brutal war of aggression? Once again the Times confuses solemnity with seriousness, embracing a notion of civility more befitting a dying empire than a thriving democracy. It is this sort of myopically polite sensibility that permitted 19th and early 20th century British society to “civilize” the subjects of their far flung colonies by, you know… killing them, polite debate notwithstanding.

The Times’ pious call for civility is also an offensively one-sided misreading of recent history. No doubt the MoveOn.org ad is “outrageous,” and intentionally so, but it is far from “ill-considered.” In fact it deliberately adopts the same sort of rhetoric the Bush administration has so effectively used to bully Congress into authorizing and funding this ill-advised war. Every display of opposition to administration policy has been met with accusations of disloyalty, cowardice, stupidity, lack of patriotism, and even treason. But when MoveOn.org attempts to co-opt the White House’s frame, the Times finally finds this tactic beyond the pale.

As for Gen. Petraeus, it was President Bush who chose to make him a political human shield, and Petraeus who allowed himself to be expressly used for this purpose. In the heat of battle, verbal or otherwise, collateral damage is inevitable, and with so many lives at stake it would be ill-considered for the anti-war forces to hold their fire for fear of damaging a general’s honor, whatever his service to our nation.

There is nothing civil about the civil war we created in Iraq. The civility of the debate surrounding it should be judged accordingly.

UPDATE:
I just got around to reading today’s Seattle Times editorial page, and I just have to ask… what the fuck? I mean, really… what the fuck is this editorial about it, and why was it published in our state’s largest newspaper? Were they drunk or something?

UPDATE, UPDATE:
Looks like Dan Savage had the exact same reaction.

Case in point:

Washington has the MOST regressive tax structure in the entire United States mostly because of its high sales taxes. Now, politicians want to punish poor people even more with a dramatic hike in the sales tax to build climate changing highways.

Or this:

The simple fact is that highways as the basis of a transportation system are inherently unfair to working people, burdening them with the high costs of car ownership, maintenance, insurance, parking and gas prices.

Then why are they FOR this?

We think it’s time to look at congestion pricing. In the business world, we deal with supply and demand issues daily, and the market sends us pricing signals to lead us to the most efficient use of resources. In our transportation system, there is clearly more demand for highway lanes than there is supply at the current price — free.

The local Sierra Club is using an “populist, anti-tax” message to attack the Roads and Transit package while at the same time pushing a tolling scheme which will disproportionally affect working people — just for driving to work!

They are pushing for congestion pricing everywhere (“Lexus lanes”!) and have the gall to call freeways discriminatory and the sales tax regressive? Tolls and a higher gas tax (which they also support) are the most regressive forms of taxation out there. With transportation, you don’t have a choice about how much you pay. People have to get to work!

It’s disingenuous at best, and weaselly bullshit at worst. Then again, what can you expect from Kemper’s favorite environmental group?

Your weekly compilation of news you may or may not have seen or read regarding America’s most disastrous ridiculous war.

First, a moment of silence for local historian Walt Crowley and Essential Bakery founder Jeff Fairhall. I knew them both — principled progressives who died much too young this past week.

In Iraq, dying prematurely happens hundreds of times daily. But the killing of up to 25 Iraqi civilians by private Blackwater contractors set off a firestorm last week in both Baghdad and Washington. It also, not incidentally, showed just how irrelevant the Iraqi government is. Prime Minister Maliki immediately condemned the killings, yanked Blackwater’s operating license, and ordered its personnel to leave the country — a move which was summarily ignored by the U.S., as without private contractors our heavily privatized military effort would grind to a halt. (And besides, U.S. contractors are immune to Iraqi law.) But Iraqis were so enraged by the murders that U.S. personnel were confined to the Green Zone for four days anyway.

Less covered, but more significant, was the withdrawal last week of Moktada al-Sadr’s parliamentary allies from Maliki’s ruling coalition — not only splitting the Shiites, but leaving Maliki with less than half of parliament in his camp. Who’s left? The Kurds and the Shiite exile parties (SCIRI and Dawa) with little constituency in Iraq itself. If Iraq had a, you know, functioning government that followed the law, this would end Maliki’s rule; if you want to get all technical and stuff, without a ruling majority, his leadership (sic) is now illegal. But this won’t happen, for two reasons: first, Parliament rarely has a quorum, and second, the opposition can’t agree on anything anyway. Iraq’s “government” is a joke.

Also on that theme, the target date for Iraqi control of security forces was quietly pushed back again last week, from November 2007 to July 2008. It’s the second delay this year, and security forces are under Iraqi control in only seven of the 18 provinces. (Generally, the least violent ones.) Most Iraqis, as well as Gen. James Jones’ recent commission, have been calling for Iraqis to assume full control immediately.

More bad news in the “Iraqi Life Is Cheap” Dept.: Word last week that northern Iraq’s cholera epidemic, which has now struck some 5,000 people, has spread to both Baghdad and Basra, with first cases confirmed in both cities. Cholera is a disease that happens only when there’s no safe drinking water and the public health infrastructure has broken down completely — conditions more than met throughout Occupied Iraq.

In the “But Life Is Cheaper In D.C.” Dept., Congress continued showing its priorities last week, spending ample time debating the appropriateness of a newspaper ad while Republicans blocked measures to address the war itself. In the Senate, the Reid-Feingold bill to cut off funding in June 2008 failed 28-70 (Patty Murray voted yes, Maria Cantwell, no). The Senate also rejected Sen. Jim Webb’s bill to give troops equal time at home, 56-44, short of the 60 votes needed to break the Republican filibuster. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that even drawing down to 55,000 troops in Iraq (a proposal on nobody’s table), George Bush’s perpetual war would cost $25 billion a year, or up to two trillion dollars overall. Those numbers actually seem low. And the ever-busy Rep. Henry Waxman has a new target in his oversight investigations: State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard, who Waxman accuses of cover-ups in investigations of waste and fraud in private contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The organization representing Foreign Service diplomats has joined in, calling on Krongard to resign.

In the latest confirmation of just how bad the internal refugee crisis has become in Iraq, a Red Crescent report last week says that not only have two million people (one in 12 Iraqis) fled their homes in Iraq, but a staggering one million of those were in Baghdad alone. What does that mean? Ethnic cleansing. Baghdad was one of the most ethnically diverse provinces in Iraq; all those people have been leaving because death squads would no longer allow neighborhoods to be mixed. Sunnis have all but been driven out of Baghdad, part of the de facto partitioning of Iraq that has already happened, much of it while the escalation surge was supposed to be putting an end to the problem.

In the latest US attempt at provoking Iran, last week the US arrested an Iranian trade diplomat in northern Iraq and accused him of smuggling IEDs into the country. The Kurdish government, which was hosting the man, protested strongly, but to no avail. And in the week’s most surreal bit of Iran-bashing — I know this didn’t happen in Iraq, but it’s too good to pass up — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, set to be in New York this week for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, was refused permission by the U.S. to lay a wreath at the World Trade Center. (In the wake of 9-11, there was an outpouring of support from both the Iranian public and its government — a measure of how things have changed in six years.) Why? Well, the request angered U.S. diplomats, who accused the Iranian leader of — gasp — “wanting to use Ground Zero as a photo-op.”

Well, if that’s the criteria…

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on News/Talk 710-KIRO:

7PM: Has WA “utterly failed” to do the right thing on reproductive rights?
That’s the strong assertion of state Rep. Brendan Williams (D-Olympia) after joining a rally outside Ralph’s Thriftway, where supporters of the pharmacy’s refusal to stock “Plan B” birth control verbal attacked female protesters, calling them “whores,” and asking a pregnant protester why she didn’t “scrape that baby out of her uterus.” Rep. Williams joins us for the hour.

8PM: Is it time to do what “believe is right” on same sex marriage?
San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, a Republican, and former Chief of Police, held an emotional press conference this week in which he reversed his opposition to same sex marriage, tearfully explaining that his daughter and several staffers are gay, and that he “couldn’t look any of them in the face and tell them their relationship, their very lives, were any less meaningful than the marriage I share with my wife, Rana.” Is it time for America, even Republicans, to finally do what we “believe is right” on same sex marriage?

9PM: Remembering Walt Crowley
Michael Hood eulogizes populist pundit Walt Crowley over on BlatherWatch, and he joins us by phone to remember his close friend.

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

(Wanna help? Start here.)

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on News/Talk 710-KIRO:

7PM: The Stranger Hour with Josh
The Stranger’s Josh Feit joins me for our weekly round up of the week’s news, and a look ahead to coming headlines. Tonight’s topics include dead bikers, teen prostitutes, get-out-of-jail-free johns, and the education of Jane Hague.

8PM: Are you your (adult) child’s keeper?
Alan and Stephne Roos didn’t just loose their 24-year-old son Thomas to a drug dealing conviction, they lost their two cars as well, seized by police as a drug forfeiture. A three judge panel upheld the conviction this week, chastising the parents for not keeping a closer eye on their son. Their attorney, Peter Mazzone joins us at the top of the hour.

9PM: Regional blog roundup with Jim and TJ
TJ from Loaded Orygun and Jim from McCranium join us for our monthly regional blogger roundup. Windmills in WA, candidates tilting at windmills in OR, and other news of the day.

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

So I’m heading south on 1st Avenue through downtown, and I’m lapped by two pro-looking cyclists. I finally caught them at the next red light, hit the brakes and stopped. I said, “how do you guys do this?”

The bicycles messenger said, “this is the fun part!”

Me: “What, stopping?”

Messenger lady: “No, the—,” and she was gone already, into the evening traffic jam ahead. I think she was talking about cycling through stopped traffic, and how cool that is. It’s true, it is cool, but a little scary when I was trying to negotiate getting around a Metro bus that was all ass over tea kettle on 1st Avenue. From what I’ve gleaned, bus drivers hate cyclists, and cyclists can’t stand bus drivers.

Also, a big shout out to the nice guys at Elliott Bay Bicycles, who fixed my brake pad for me without charging me. Thanks, fellas.

I bought a CatEye light, which is working pretty well.

Also, I got a new saddle, which is the size of an Ikea love seat. I swear, this thing is huge and comfortable.

Last item: After riding a mountain bike around Seattle for a few months, I can see why a road bike might just be the shit. Oh well.

Walt Crowley, 1947-2007. More here.

Sorry for adding to the OJ noise surplus, but this video was too funny not to post:

Small-world side note: I once played a round of golf with Yale Galanter’s father’s golf clubs (although I’ve never met either one). And much like OJ, I was unsuccessful in locating the real killers.

At least that’s the message I’m hearing from light rail opponents with Sierra Club.

“I think it’s not the most efficient use of tax dollars,” local club Chairman Mike O’Brien said during a campaign debate over this fall’s multibillion-dollar Proposition 1.

He called the Tacoma line a “political decision” made to satisfy elected officials in Pierce County. “If transportation planners were in charge, they would come up with a more efficient solution,” he said.

Mike is right about one thing. It’s not as efficient to build light rail in the poor part of town. Or the racially diverse part of town.

This arguement reminds me of how white liberals form the north end are still miffed that blacks, Asians, hispanics in the south end are getting light rail before they will. Truth is, light rail could have skipped SE Seattle and headed north sooner to Mike’s neighborhood of Fremont, and the U-District, and to whiter, more affluent neighborhoods further north. But they didn’t. A decision was made to put light rail through a part of town they usually gets the shaft. Instead of ignoring the south end, we invested in it.

After the debate, O’Brien said South End trains would take too long to reach Seattle, because of the system’s slow surface segment currently under construction through South Seattle’s Rainier Valley. He suggests building separate lines outward from downtown Everett and Tacoma, serving local riders into those urban centers.

O’Brien (and Sierra Club) are ill served by their Seattle-centric view. Folks in Fife are just as likely to be taking the train to Tacoma, Federal Way, or Sea-Tac, as they are to Seattle. The city leaders of Fife are getting really excited about light rail, even if urban Seattle liberals aren’t. Besides, where was the Sierra Club on the issue of route alignment? What studies have they done? Where are their ridership statistics?

See, this is what “lying” looks like.

Last week Republican King County Councilmember Jane Hague blamed staff for repeated errors in which published questionnaires and profiles claimed a four-year college degree she had not earned. But even if Hague won’t admit the truth, the document above, uncovered in a front page story in today’s Seattle Times, pretty much speaks for itself. As the Times explains:

The Municipal League, which publishes annual candidate evaluations, sent a letter to Hague in 1993 asking her to proofread the biography she had submitted: “Please review this information for accuracy and sign your name at the bottom of this page to indicate that you have approved the information … ”

The document was amended in several places to indicate that Hague had lived in the area for 24 years, was an active volunteer, and was on unpaid leave from her job as King County’s elections manager while running for the County Council.

But no correction was made to the sentence that stated she had earned a bachelor’s degree.

Just look at Hague’s attention to detail in amending the document. Then look at the detail she left unchanged. Now reread what she told the Times last week about circumstances surrounding her failure to be awarded a degree:

“About 20 years ago,” when Hague contacted her alma mater in an attempt to document her credits and get a degree, she learned that credits from the law class hadn’t been transferred to Western Michigan and by then it was too late. She said she never tried to portray herself as a college graduate.

That’s right, she learned she never received her diploma “about 20 years ago.” That would be “about” 1987. And yet she portrayed herself as a college graduate in 1991. And in 1993. And in 1996, 1997, and again in 2000.

In the end, this is not about a little white lie from 15 years ago, it’s about a long pattern of prevarication and blaming others that continues today. It is about whether Hague deserves voters’ trust, regardless of who her opponent might be.

Tonight on Countdown Keith Olbermann offered a Special Commentary about President Bush getting his undies in a bunch over that MoveOn.org ad:

[Sen. Brian Weinstein comments below, clarifying that while he likes Edwards, he has not endorsed him. The Democrats mentioned below were announced as being in attendance at the event, and their attendance should not necessarily be construed as an endorsement. -Will]

That was the theme of John Edwards’ visit to Seattle yesterday. In contrast to other Democrats in the race for president, John Edwards made it clear that he’s not interested in half measures.

He’s for universal health care, not “we’ll get to the other 15 million uninsured someday.” He’s upfront about how expensive it’ll be, and how he’ll pay for it (rescind the Bush Tax Giveaway for folks making over 200k a year). Edwards talked about the divide between rich and poor, and how this isn’t good for the health of our country. Whether it’s helping kids go to college, attacking global warming, or the war in Iraq, Edwards did not shy away from straight answers. He did not parse words.

After Edwards spoke, I had the chance to talk to Jenny Durkan, Edwards campaign chair in Washington state. Joel Connelly quoted her earlier this year:

“I will be honest: Hillary has impressed me. But we have seen that movie: It was called John Kerry. I hated the ending,” said Seattle attorney Jenny Durkan.

“I cannot think of a time when a person won the presidency by persuading people they were wrong. That’s what Hillary needs to do — persuade a lot of people who do not like her that they were wrong about her.”

Like I told Jenny, Edwards will help down ticket races in a way few candidates can. Sheriffs and county commisioners from conservative areas will be able to stand on the campaign stage with Edwards in a way they might not with other candidates.

Edwards’ overtly populist message plays well in the pointy-headed liberal precincts of Seattle, but also does well in the rest of the state. In Washington, Edwards gets the support of Democrats from all over the state, from Sen. Brian Weinstein to Sen. Brian Hatfield, from Dick Kelley to Yvonne Ward.

Last but not least… John Edwards is an compelling public speaker. There’s a reason why he went from 2% in Iowa to second place back in ’04. Joel Connelly again:

On the Friday night before Iowa’s 2004 caucuses, Gov. Tom Vilsack hosted a reception in Des Moines for the “bigfoot” pundits.

A gang of journalistic middle-feet, myself included, headed out to nearby Madison County — and witnessed Edwards’ campaign on fire. He packed American Legion and VFW halls with blue-collar crowds like Democrats used to attract.

…and ought to attract again in 2008.

I just got a text message from someone down at the Seattle City Club event where Kemper Freeman, Jr. is speaking. You know, the Kemper Freeman who thinks mass transit is for Communists:

Kemper just said he “loves” mike o’brien at the city club.

If I was a road warrior from Bellevue, I’d love Mike O’Brien too.

[UPDATE]

I get an email update about Kemper’s man-crush on the Sierra Club’s Mike O’Brien:

He also said “Mike is my new best friend.” Mike smiled uncomfortably.

Nice.

It may not be his best known play, but Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal” is by far my favorite, and the 1983 film version starring Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley and Patricia Hodge has stuck with me like few others. The play moves backward in time, starting with a reunion of sorts between two lovers, Jerry and Emma, and ending a decade earlier at the party where they first meet. Jerry is the best friend of Robert; Emma is Robert’s wife. And as the play unwinds (or rewinds,) we learn that Robert has perhaps betrayed his friend and wife as much as they have him.

The play is sad, funny, a bit of a mystery, and brilliantly written — and its simple, one word title turns out to be as much a question as it is a statement. Who is betraying whom? Are they betraying each other? Their families? Themselves? And what is the nature of betrayal itself?

Man is a social animal; we crave personal relationships and the positive reinforcement of society at large. We even rely on social institutions to physically survive. All our interactions with our fellow humans are at some level built on trust, and that is what makes “betrayal” one of the most powerfully evocative words in the English language. There is no wrong greater than an act of betrayal, and nearly every wrong has an act of betrayal at its core. It is not murder that is the original sin, but betrayal; it was Adam and Eve’s betrayal of God’s trust that got man evicted from the Garden of Eden.

This I think explains the tempest in a DC teapot over what is, after all, only an ad. Moveon did not even accuse anybody of betrayal, but merely asked the question: “Will Gen. Petraeus betray us?”

And I, for one, am glad they did.

Not because I have any reason to believe that Gen. Petraeus himself is not a man of honor, or because I believe him capable of treason in any way. But because it raises the question of what the word “betrayal” means in the context of this war, this White House and our current political climate.

Indeed for years Republicans have cheapened the word, brandishing it against anybody who would oppose their policies at home or abroad. Karl Rove and his cohorts have constructed a monochromatic political discourse in which you are either with us or against us, in which you either support the President, his war of aggression, and his unconstitutional assault on our civil liberties, or you are as much a threat as the terrorists themselves. How many times over the past few years have politicians and pundits on the right accused those of us on the left of being traitors? And why should the right maintain exclusive ownership over this powerful meme?

For all the heat Moveon is taking from the political class, the ad was both obvious and effective, and the more Republicans desperately attempt to turn the debate from their ill-conceived and disastrously executed war to, well, just an ad, the more they help us establish our frame. “Petraeus”… “betray us”… it is more than just a rhyme or silly pun, it is an unavoidable verbal linkage that inevitably asks the question every time somebody mentions the general’s name.

What is the nature of betrayal? Is it using the tragedy of 9/11 to push through tax cuts for the very wealthy? Is it lying about weapons of mass destruction to justify a war? Is it violating FISA while publicly claiming you are adhering to FISA? Is it leaving New Orleans to drown in its own toxic floodwaters? Is it spending hundreds of billions of dollars to fight in Iraq, and then nickel and diming our permanently disabled veterans at home? Is it running as a fiscal conservative but creating record federal budget deficits? Is it politicizing the Justice Department and the federal bench? Is it presiding over the greatest foreign policy blunder in US history, but defiantly leaving the consequences to the next administration?

Or is it an ad?

The American people aren’t dumb, and if constantly reminded of the word “betrayal,” they’ll sort this one out for themselves. It’s not Moveon who has betrayed the trust of the American people. It’s not the Democrats. It’s not liberal bloggers like me.

If, like in Pinter’s masterpiece, we run the past six years backward to the emotional days following 9/11, when the American people first embraced this president, the true scope of Bush’s betrayal becomes all the more apparent. It is a sad story, sometimes funny, even a bit of a mystery. And in hindsight, just as inevitable.