McGovern PWNS Cheney

Former Presidential Nominee George McGovern:

VICE PRESIDENT Dick Cheney recently attacked my 1972 presidential platform and contended that today's Democratic Party has reverted to the views I advocated in 1972. In a sense, this is a compliment, both to me and the Democratic Party. Cheney intended no such compliment. Instead, he twisted my views and those of my party beyond recognition. The city where the vice president spoke, Chicago, is sometimes dubbed "the Windy City." Cheney converted the chilly wind of Chicago into hot air.

Cheney said that today's Democrats have adopted my platform from the 1972 presidential race and that, in doing so, they will raise taxes. But my platform offered a balanced budget. I proposed nothing new without a carefully defined way of paying for it. By contrast, Cheney and his team have run the national debt to an all-time high.

He also said that the McGovern way is to surrender in Iraq and leave the U.S. exposed to new dangers. The truth is that I oppose the Iraq war, just as I opposed the Vietnam War, because these two conflicts have weakened the U.S. and diminished our standing in the world and our national security.

In the war of my youth, World War II, I volunteered for military service at the age of 19 and flew 35 combat missions, winning the Distinguished Flying Cross as the pilot of a B-24 bomber. By contrast, in the war of his youth, the Vietnam War, Cheney got five deferments and has never seen a day of combat — a record matched by President Bush.

Cheney charged that today's Democrats don't appreciate the terrorist danger when they move to end U.S. involvement in the Iraq war. The fact is that Bush and Cheney misled the public when they implied that Iraq was involved in the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks. That was the work of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda team. Cheney and Bush blew the effort to trap Bin Laden in Afghanistan by their sluggish and inept response after the 9/11 attacks.

They then foolishly sent U.S. forces into Iraq against the advice and experience of such knowledgeable men as former President George H.W. Bush, his secretary of State, James A. Baker III, and his national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft.

Just as the Bush administration mistakenly asserted Iraq's involvement in the 9/11 attacks, it also falsely contended that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. When former Ambassador Joseph Wilson exploded the myth that Iraq attempted to obtain nuclear materials from Niger, Cheney's top aide and other Bush officials leaked to the media that Wilson's wife was a CIA agent (knowingly revealing the identity of a covert agent is illegal).

In attacking my positions in 1972 as representative of "that old party of the early 1970s," Cheney seems oblivious to the realities of that time. Does he remember that the Democratic Party, with me in the lead, reformed the presidential nomination process to ensure that women, young people and minorities would be represented fairly? The so-called McGovern reform rules are still in effect and, indeed, have been largely copied by the Republicans.

The Democrats' 1972 platform was also in the forefront in pushing for affordable healthcare, full employment with better wages, a stronger environmental and energy effort, support for education at every level and a foreign policy with less confrontation and belligerence and more cooperation and conciliation.

Cheney also still has his eyes closed to the folly of the Vietnam War, in which 58,000 young Americans and more than 2 million Vietnamese died. Vietnam was no threat to the United States.

On one point I do agree with Cheney: Today's Democrats are taking positions on the Iraq war similar to the views I held toward the Vietnam War. But that is all to the good.

The war in Iraq has greatly increased the terrorist danger. There was little or no terrorism, insurgency or civil war in Iraq before Bush and Cheney took us into war there five years ago. Now Iraq has become a breeding ground of terrorism, a bloody insurgency against our troops and a civil war.

Beyond the deaths of more than 3,100 young Americans and an estimated 600,000 Iraqis, we have spent nearly $500 billion on the war, which has dragged on longer than World War II.

The Democrats are right. Let's bring our troops home from this hopeless war.

There is one more point about 1972 for Cheney's consideration. After winning 11 state primaries in a field of 16 contenders, I won the Democratic presidential nomination. I then lost the general election to President Nixon. Indeed, the entrenched incumbent president, with a campaign budget 10 times the size of mine, the power of the White House behind him and a highly negative and unethical campaign, defeated me overwhelmingly. But lest Cheney has forgotten, a few months after the election, investigations by the Senate and an impeachment proceeding in the House forced Nixon to become the only president in American history to resign the presidency in disgrace.

Who was the real loser of '72?

THE VICE PRESIDENT spoke with contempt of my '72 campaign, but he might do well to recall that I began that effort with these words: "I make one pledge above all others — to seek and speak the truth." We made some costly tactical errors after winning the nomination, but I never broke my pledge to speak the truth. That is why I have never felt like a loser since 1972. In contrast, Cheney and Bush have repeatedly lied to the American people.

It is my firm belief that the Cheney-Bush team has committed offenses that are worse than those that drove Nixon, Vice President Spiro Agnew and Atty. Gen. John Mitchell from office after 1972. Indeed, as their repeated violations of the Constitution and federal statutes, as well as their repudiation of international law, come under increased consideration, I expect to see Cheney and Bush forced to resign their offices before 2008 is over.

Aside from a growing list of impeachable offenses, the vice president has demonstrated his ignorance of foreign policy by attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for visiting Syria. Apparently he thinks it is wrong to visit important Middle East states that sometimes disagree with us. Isn't it generally agreed that Nixon's greatest achievement was talking to the Chinese Communist leaders, which opened the door to that nation? And wasn't President Reagan's greatest achievement talking with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev until the two men worked out an end to the Cold War? Does Cheney believe that it's better to go to war rather than talk with countries with which we have differences?

We, of course, already know that when Cheney endorses a war, he exempts himself from participation. On second thought, maybe it's wise to keep Cheney off the battlefield — he might end up shooting his comrades rather than the enemy.

On a more serious note, instead of listening to the foolishness of the neoconservative ideologues, the Cheney-Bush team might better heed the words of a real conservative, Edmund Burke: "A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood."

Matt Sanchez on the Issues

Matt Sanchez's five minutes of fame have come and gone. Matt continues on, now as a blogger, passing heavy handed judgment in the same way he criticized those who delved into his past life as a gay porn star and tried to attach his story to a larger political purpose. In my hopefully last visit to his blog, I stumbled upon his two most recent posts.

On April 20, 2007 Sanchez blogged a piece called "That's the Spirit", commenting on the media's and society's reaction to the Virginia Tech Massacre, during which, Seung-Hui Cho, shot and killed 30 VT students and professors and injured many more. Sanchez rages against people labeling what occurred as a tragedy, stating "Fatal car accidents, sudden infant death syndrome and getting struck by lightning is "tragic", when a man pre-meditates the death of 32 his classmates, this is what American society calls a massacre." Sanchez's reaction baffles me, why can't you refer to this as a tragedy?

Sanchez writes that calling this a "tragedy" reflects an "absurdity of word-choice and the willingness to avoid self-pity". At the heart of this commentary lies Sanchez's disgust for a world that he believes bends the law and is more compassionate towards those of the gay/lesbian/trans-gender community (he's written on this subject more than a few times, it's almost obsessive). Sanchez concludes by asking "Would Cho be any less of a madman, if he were a pre-op trans-gender person of color?". I ask, how can anyone take Sanchez seriously? During the internet flare up that was the revelation of his gay porn movies (he likes to refer to them as adult films), he ranted forever about the gay population's co-opting of his story and politicization of his story for their cause. Is this any different? Here we find the honorable Marine Corporal Sanchez, using the, yes, tragic, shootings of VT students and faculty, to push forth his agenda of scrutinizing those of alternative lifestyles. Yes, Matt, it is tragic, it is a tragedy. For those friends and family of the departed, it is a family tragedy. For the Cho family, to see their son and brother, snap and terrorize a community, it is tragic and devastating. How could anyone fail to see that? For Matt Sanchez, it MUST be called a "massacre", nobody can display emotions and feel sad about it. Am I misreading him? And no, Cho wouldn't be any less of a madman if he was a "pre-op trans-gender person of color", he would still be a murderer who went on a sick rampage.

April 21, 2007. Matt Sanchez comments on the man who raped, tortured, and held captive a Columbia Journalism student, and Columbia's activist community "Take Back the Night" reactions towards it. He begins by describing how Columbia's International Socialist Organization, ISO, speaks out on police brutality, profiling, and racism. "In the following days, students who typically call for the end to profiling and accuse the "pigs" of racism were insisting the police act to capture the rapist.". The logical reasoning is that if you speak out on issues against the police, you are not a legitimate voice in the conversation. Why can't you insist that the police capture a criminal and speak out against police brutality at the same time? The most fallacious aspect of the blog post is that he equates the ISO to the rest of the Columbia community. The ISO is 0.01% of campus, they do not run "Take Back the Night". "Take Back the Night" is an organization that speaks out against rape and violence against women, why question their actions?

Scapegoat?

Monica Goodling has resigned from her position as Director of Public Affairs at the Department of Justice, coming just 11 days after she cited the Fifth Amendment and at this point is no longer going to appear at Senate hearings she was originally slated to speak at.

Why the Fifth Amendment? Her lawyer John Dowd gave the reasoning,

"The potential for legal jeopardy for Ms. Goodling from even her most truthful and accurate testimony under these circumstances is very real... One need look no further than the recent circumstances and proceedings involving Lewis Libby"

We learned in the Scooter Libby trial that Libby was guilty of lying to federal investigators. Special Prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald did not find anyone guilty of leaking undercover CIA agent, Valerie Plame's identity, and it was largely believed that Libby took the fall for more high profile figures like Richard Armitage, Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove. Does it not seem familiar now that Goodling has resigned? Perhaps she saw the lessons of the Libby trial and felt that she would be asked to take the fall for Alberto Gonzalez and the White House...

Body Armor and iPods

iPod = standard issue hardware? The flickr caption reads:

"My wife’s uncle works in a military hospital and told me about this. Its pretty amazing. Kevin Garrad (3rd Infantry Division) was on a street patrol in Iraq (Tikrit I believe) and as he rounded the corner of a building an armed (AK-47) insurgent came from the other side.

The two of them were within just a few feet of each other when they opened fire. The insurgent was killed and Kevin was hit in the left chest where his IPod was in his jacket pocket. It slowed the bullet down enough that it did not completely penetrate his body armor. Fortunately, Kevin suffered no wound."

There has been some "controversy" from commenters on the Flickr page about the ability of an iPod to stop a 7.62×39mm steel core round, but the fact is, whatever the weapon/ ammunition was, 20 GB iPod saved this soldier's life. One less fatality can always be chalked up in the win column.

At the Pleasure of the President

United States attorneys are appointed by the President of the United States, not coincidentally, attorneys are often of the same political persuasion as the President. US attorneys are expected to enforce United States law, they are not political tools used to investigate and undermine opposition political parties. When President George W. Bush took the oath of office in 2000, he pledged to Americans that he would make national unity a top priority, perhaps the only growth of unity is in the growing discontent with the Bush administration. The forced resignations of 8 U.S. attorneys, has shaped it to be yet another example of political suppression of actions that are contrary to the interests of the administration.

Karl Rove has made the case that the resignations were not political actions but house keeping measures based on job performance. It is interesting to know what the criteria of job performance encompasses, perhaps they were sleeping on the job or maybe criminals were not prosecuted in an efficient manner. It has come out in recent weeks that the attorneys were removed because they were investigating Republicans in corruption cases and there are indications that they refused to be swayed by Republican Congressmen and women, pressuring them for information that they should not have had access to. It is quite obvious that it is not in the interest of the administration, for its members and supporters to be investigated and possibly be indicted on charges of misdoings. By removing attorneys that are in the midst of prosecuting such cases, the executive branch is circumventing the execution of the law.

• Bud Cummins was removed, according to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, to groom former Karl Rove aide, Timothy Griffin, for the position.
• Kevin Ryan, a Bush loyalist, was actually the victim of the poor job performance, but the DOJ had tried to retain him amidst the chatter of large scale firings. He was removed after a judge sought to go to Congress to make public his poor management problems.
• Carol Lam was removed because she was said to not be aggressively pursuing illegal immigration cases. The Department of Justice had defended Lam's performance in mid-2006, which asserted that she was pursuing larger scale immigration crimes, as opposed to small border crossing crimes. Emails between the DOJ and the White House, show that concern was growing about her expanding investigation of disgraced Republican Representative Duke Cunningham, which was beginning to investigate Republican Representative, Jerry Lewis (he was chairman of the House Appropriations Committee at the time of her firing).
• David Iglesias was removed when New Mexico Republican Party chairman, Allen Weh, complained to Karl Rove that he was unhappy about Iglesias' performance on voter-fraud issues, despite his active role of training federal prosecutors and giving symposiums on that topic. There had also been complaints that Iglesias did not prosecute Democrats quickly enough to make an impact on the 2006 elections.
• Paul Charlton was removed when his investigation of Republican Representative, Rick Renzi, began to ramp up. He had also created opposition with the Bush administration on his refusal to pursue death penalties in a few cases. Only a few months earlier, he had been honored with the Federal Service Award.
  
• John McKay was fired because he had not convened a federal grand jury case of voter fraud in the 2004 Washington State election for governor, following two recounts giving the victory to Democrat Christine Gregoire. McKay has responded, stating that following an investigation from his office as well as the FBI, they were unable to find credible evidence of federal crimes.
• Margaret Chiara was fired, according to the NYTimes, to make room for an attorney the Bush administration wanted to groom for the position.

These firings were not the first instances of politically motivated removals. Attorney Frederick A. Black, was demoted in 2002 while he was prosecuting the Jack Abramoff case through the Guam Superior Court.

Kyle Sampson, top aide to Alberto Gonzales and former UN ambassador, John Bolton (who did so on the Daily Show with John Stewart) have argued that there is no distinction between removing an attorney for politics and job performance. According to them, poor performance can be equated with acting contrary to the political interests of the ruling party.

As far as I know, Department of Justice attorneys do not have a requirement to be impartial. Unlike the Office of Independent Counsel, the advantage of politically moderate attorneys is in facilitating their confirmation by the Senate. As confirmation hearings during the Bush years have shown us, anyone heavily skewed to one ideological direction will get skewered.

In 2005, White House Counsel Harriet Miers approached Alberto Gonzales telling him that President Bush wanted to purge all 93 district attorneys, a move reminiscent of Stalin and Lenin era Soviet Russia. Pursuant with the Patriot Act, the White House would be able to replace removed district attorneys for an indefinite amount of time, circumventing Senate oversight. Checks and balances are effectively eliminated and opposition opinions are never voiced. The removal of those not considered Bush loyalists is yet another example in the Bush legacy of political insulation and suppression of political opponents.

• Valerie Plame, outed.
• Military generals speaking out against Iraq War policy, forced into retirement.
• Political commentators paid off by Department of Education to promote No Child Left Behind.
• Qualcomm donors to Democrats, barred from federal Telecom Conference.
• "Either you’re with us or you're with the terrorists".
  
• Bullying scientists on Global Warming.
• Bush Town hall meeting, question and answers, filled with pro-Bush supporters.
• Attorney Scandal, no transcript and officials not under oath.
• Habeas Corpus suspended for ANYBODY suspected of being a terrorist, people disappear without a trace and are tortured.

What are they afraid of? Public opinion?

First you terrorize your opponents into silence so that your movement appears to have no opposition. This gives you tremendous power, not only because moderates quietly feel they are alone in their disagreement with you, but also because the ignorant media – especially the foreign media – casts you as the choice of the people. Having succeeded in silencing moderates, the next step is terrorizing them into cooperating with you. Soon passive cooperation is not enough. You want more than their body – you want their soul, so you terrorize the moderates into being "passionate" in your cause.

In the end, your movement appears to have only loyal and active supporters. Now you are in total control, for who would dare speak out against you? As Hitler said, 10 years before he finally rose to power, "The National Socialist Movement will in the future ruthlessly prevent – if necessary by force – all meetings or lectures that are likely to distract the minds of our fellow countrymen." In other words, all opposition is evil and we will protect you from it. Conservative Columnist for WorldNet Daily, Bob Just

Sound familiar?