H. Res. 34

On Friday, a bill came before the House, H Res. 34, that recognizes Israel's right to defend itself against attacks in Gaza. Among those making statements about that resolution was Rep. Dennis Kucinich:

"In Gaza, the United Nations gave the Israeli army the coordinates of a UN school and the school was then hit by Israeli tank fire, killing about 40. The UN put flags on emergency vehicles, coordinating the movement of those vehicles with the Israeli military, and the vehicles came under attack killing emergency workers. The Israeli army evacuated 100 Palestinians to shelter and then bombed the shelter killing 30 people. Emergency workers have been blocked by the Israeli army from reaching hundreds of injured persons.

According to today’s Washington Post, one hundred survivors rescued in Gaza from ruins blocked by Israelis. Relief agencies fear more are trapped days after neighborhood was shelled. Today the US congress is going to be asked to pass a resolution supporting Israel’s actions in Gaza. I’m hopeful that we don’t support the inhumanity that has been repeatedly expressed by the Israeli army. The US abstained from a UN call for a cease fire. We must take a new direction in the Middle East, and that new direction must be mindful of the inhumane conditions in Gaza."

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)

January 9, 2009

from Michael Winship

Courtesy of Bill Moyers Journal, and Public Affairs Television:

What Am I Bid for the American Wild?

By Michael Winship

We've all seen those sitcoms or movies in which someone stumbles into an art auction and, not knowing how it works, idly scratches his nose or pulls his ear and finds himself the owner of a Rembrandt.

Better yet, there's one of my all-time favorite films, “North by Northwest.” Surrounded at an auction by the bad guys, Cary Grant makes outrageous bids and yells insults until the police arrive and unknowingly haul him off to safety. (“How do we know it’s not a fake?” he shouts about one painting. “It looks like a fake!” A woman sitting in front of him turns and replies, “You’re no fake. You’re a genuine idiot.”)

The Friday before Christmas, a college student in Utah who‘s neither fake nor fool pulled a Cary Grant at a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) auction of oil and gas leases for land between two of the most austerely beautiful national parks in the United States – Canyonlands and Arches.

Tim DeChristopher, a 27-year-old environmental activist and economics major at the University of Utah, was protesting the auction outside a government office building in Salt Lake City and decided to see what would happen if he went inside.

Instead of being immediately hustled out, he was asked by a clerk, “Are you here to bid?” He showed his driver’s license and was given a paddle, no questions asked. Then, as his incredulous roommate looked on, DeChristopher started bidding. “It was just raise my arm as often as possible, Bidder No. 70,” he told a reporter, “I was trying to make it obvious I was there to disrupt the auction.”

But before you could say, “Going, going, gone,” DeChristopher had “bought” 13 lease parcels – around 22,500 acres – for some $1.7 million and, according to BLM officials, driven up other bids by about half a million dollars. At that point, people started to complain and he was taken away by BLM security. Among his competitors: Kerr-McGee, a subsidiary of Anadarko Petroleum, the country’s second biggest independent oil producer.

The auction was part of the fire sale the Bush administration has been holding as it winds down, selling off oil and gas parcels as part of an apparent overall strategy to further carve up American wildlands and deregulate the environment as much as possible before noon on January 20th.

The White House may as well have a sign on the fence that reads, “Final Days! Everything Must Go!”

At the end of October, the BLM adopted Resource Management Plans for five field offices in Utah that oversee around 8.7 million acres of public land. Almost immediately, oil and gas lease sales of 360,000 of those acres were announced.

Environmental groups filed suit to stop the sale of 100,000 of the acres near national parks and monuments until the National Park Service could do an environmental impact analysis. Nonetheless, the auction at which DeChristopher became a surprise bidder went ahead.

In a November editorial, The Salt Lake Tribune described the Resource Management plans as “an eleventh-hour effort of Bush’s BLM to eliminate federal protections for Utah’s redrock treasures and give extractive industries… a virtual free hand,” a belief echoed by Tim DeChristopher in a blog entry he wrote the day after the auction.

“When faced with the opportunity to seriously disrupt the auction of some of our most beautiful lands in Utah to gas and oil developers, I could not ethically turn my back on that opportunity. By making bids for land that was supposed to be protected for the interest of all Americans, I tried to resist the Bush administration’s attempt to defraud the American people.” Some of the land, he said, was selling for as little as $2.25 an acre.

The BLM is contemplating restaging the auction. And whether Tim DeChristopher’s case will come before a Federal grand jury remains up in the air – no one’s even sure whether he broke any laws, and an investigation is ongoing.

A legal defense fund has been established and they’ve even started trying to raise $1.7 million to buy the leases upon which he bid (As of Friday, January 9, $45,000 in contributions had come in, enough for the initial payment, DeChristopher said, but the BLM says it’s too late – he’s already in default.).

There’s a website – www.bidder70.org – and DeChristopher’s legal team includes powerful Utah defense attorney Ron Yengich and Pat Shea, who ran the Bureau of Land Management during the Clinton administration’s second term.

Shea told The Salt Lake Tribune that he admires DeChristopher’s “integrity of purpose” and suggested to the Associated Press that the ease with which his client gained access to the auction – without a bond or other proof of the ability to pay – was indicative of the Bush administration’s “rush before the door slams behind them: ‘Let’s get as many leases out as possible.’” During his BLM tenure, Shea said, access was more tightly controlled.

Tim DeChristopher’s spur-of-the-moment action comes from a long tradition of civil disobedience in America and the belief that, in the oft-quoted words of the June Jordan poem he cites on his blog, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

He wrote, “We have been told that the best we can do is to sign an Internet petition and send our donations so that Big Green could hire lobbyists to fight our battles. The upswelling of grassroots energy is finally responding that we are willing and able to do much more.”


Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program
Bill Moyers Journal,which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes

Quote of the Day

About the horrific situation in Gaza:

"We are all very conscious that peace is made on the ground, while resolutions are written in the United Nations.”

David Miliband

British foreign secretary

Mis-leading Ladies

Sarah Palin is not a happy camper, or so she told Politico. The Alaska governor thinks that the press is giving Caroline Kennedy preferential treatment. She is interested in seeing how Kennedy "will be handled," and whether the media will use kid gloves.

Moreover, the former Republican vice presidential candidate says there is what she calls a "class issue" behind the scrutiny to which she has been subjected, but she never really expands on what exactly she means by that. She describes herself as "momma grizzly" when it comes to protecting her daughter from the paparazzi, but what she neglects to say is that, for the past several years, she could have been the poster child for the upwardly mobile.

Indeed, since 1992, Ms. Palin rose from a member of Wasilla's city council to being Wasilla's mayor. Then, in 2002, she took aim at the job of lieutenant governor of Alaska, but missed, and went on to chair the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Committee after which she became Alaska's first female governor.

By way of contrast, while she was the daughter of the closest thing this country has had to royalty, after graduating from Radcliffe, Caroline Kennedy went to work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where she met her future husband, exhibit designer Edwin Schlossberg. Kennedy went on to get a law degree from Columbia University, and co-author two books on civil liberties. She serves on the boards of several notable nonprofits, and has been a steadfast supporter of poetry. But, for the most part, she has spent the past several years gainfully employed raising her children, a fact she readily, and unapologetically, acknowledges (something that might indeed bring a big smile to her father's face).

I guess if one considers "class" a static thing, Governor Palin's argument that the media favors Caroline Kennedy based on her lineage would make sense, but one would have a hard time making that assertion stick in an age when two of our country's presidents were raised by single moms, including Barack Obama, one was a peanut farmer, and another an actor.

Ultimately, then, Palin's observations about class, and treatment, or mistreatment, by the media are misleading, and don't hold water except insofar as they make for compelling irony given her party affiliation.

But, irony aside, Sarah Palin is right about one thing. The media spend a lot more time on our leading ladies then our misleading ones. Take, for example, how little air time was devoted to revelations, last month, that another leading lady, and outgoing secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, in her capacity as national security advisor, helped former White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, cover his tracks when he lied to Congress with his contention that the CIA originated the spreading of false information about Iraq's attempt to acquire uranium back in 2002.

Indeed, Condi Rice has been given a get out of jail free card despite the findings of a House committee that both she and Gonzales misled the public and Congress; Rice in her public assertion that she wasn't aware the CIA had doubts about the Iraq uranium issue before the controversial announcement despite the contention of George Tenet, former director of the CIA, that the CIA sent memos to the White House questioning the Iraq uranium claim well before the broadcast.

Rice has also managed to escape friendly fire when discussion of who approved waterboarding, and other alternative interrogation methods, comes up despite her presence, and participation in meetings at which these techniques, tantamount to torture, were openly discussed, and approved.

Back in 2002, a former CIA deputy reportedly spoke with Rice, and advised her to avoid making any public assertions about uranium enrichment in Iraq, one of the principal pretexts for taking the U.S. to war. Yet, in 2003, Rice agreed that the claim never should have found its way into a speech based on what she had only recently learned when she had that information long before, and suppressed it, thereby deliberately misleading Congress, and the American people.

What is the common denominator between Condoleezza Rice and Sarah Palin? Both women are political careerists, and party apologists, and both have more than the lion's share of talent in the art of deception. In her recent bid for the executive branch, Palin has proven herself to be quite adept at coming across like the girl next door, and the paragon of unpretentiousness, when even Macbeth would envy her singleminded ambition.

And, as another misleading lady, Ms. Rice has managed to deflect the kind of high voltage charges that have been leveled at former attorney general Gonzales, and others in the Bush camp, both in terms of their active efforts to tweak traditional definitions of torture, politicize Justice by using party affiliation as a prerequisite for employment, and try to legitimize an illegal war.

No one will dispute that Caroline Kennedy has had certain advantages from birth, but the insinuation that this progeny of a family that has, for generations, worked to dispell economic, and racial, disparity in this country will in some way work to secure the betterment of others who have the advantage of being born well is flat out misleading and false.

More importantly, no one can accuse Ms. Kennedy of being a misleading lady. What you see is what you get. She has never tried to come across as anything other than what she is--a wife, mother, attorney, lifelong supporter of civil liberties, education, poetry, and humanitarian causes.

Governor Patterson would be wise to give Caroline Kennedy the opportunity to complete the remaining two years of Hillary Clinton's term in the Senate. As Kennedy herself has said, there are many different ways to perform public service, and she would be a refreshing change from those who have made a career of manipulating public opinion in their own favor.

Panetta

Barack Obama's decision to select Leon Panetta to be the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency was as good as it gets. Panetta will not only add dignity, but moral decency to the position.

Yes, Panetta is an "unconventional" choice, a word Caroline Kennedy used to describe herself, but consider the corruption inherent in the more conventional options. Consider, too, where we are today as a result of decisions made by former CIA directors.

Maybe those prominent Democrats who oppose Obama's choice like Sen. Dianne Feinstein would prefer to resurrect what she calls "intelligence professionals" like George H.W. Bush? If so, then they should have voted with John McCain for another hundred years of war in Iraq.

It's up to the Senate to confirm him, of course, but given the former White House chief of staff's strong anti-torture stand, whether he makes it through the confirmation process or not, this is a clear signal of the direction in which the President-elect is going to take us, and a powerful statement against so-called "alternative" interrogation techniques of the Bush regime.

However the Panetta appointment plays out, the President-elect is showing us he will not play ball with the toxicity that tried to pass itself off as national security for the past eight years for which he gets an enthusiastic thumbs-up from anyone who wants to see a change from business as usual in the agency.

One Month After Inauguration Day

On Feb. 20, one month after Barack Obama is sworn in as our next president, he must file a brief to let the Supreme Court, and the American people, know how he stands on the Bush administration's policy that says the commander-in-chief "may order the military to seize legal residents of the United States and hold them indefinitely without charging them with a crime." (NYT) We hope Mr. Obama will honor his election pledge, and affirm his commitment to human rights for if we illegally detain one, we may illegally detain any.

One month after he is inaugurated, the 44th president will have the chance to address, and begin to ameliorate, the moral vertigo from which this country now suffers. Many of us who have called for the new administration to revisit terminology such as "unlawful enemy combatant," and the policy of holding prisoners of war without charges, as well as without access to evidence against them, hope that Mr. Obama stands firm on his stated intention to close Guantanamo Bay, and end the heinous practice of extraordinary rendition.

It is hoped, too, that, through rigorous investigation, other clandestine detention centers, which currently hold thousands in Iraq, and Afghanistan, will be brought to light. Those, like our current vice president, who argue that information obtained from detainees by using "enhanced alternative interrogation" techniques have kept this country safe from another terror attack, fail to point out that testimony obtained from torture is inadmissible in court, thus not only do we act contrary to centuries of international legal precedent by waterboarding, but we also act at cross-purposes when using coercive measures to acquire confessions that aren't worth the paper they're written on.

While there may not be a whole lot Mr. Obama can do about foreign policy in that he must, after all, play the hand he's been dealt, we're confident that he will make his mark when it comes to domestic policy, as well as reigning in the runaway expansion of the executive branch. The White House has done to the Constitution, and the Geneva Conventions, what Israel is now doing to the Gaza strip, and the paranoia of this administration rivals even that of the Nixon administration.

It is often the case that paranoia derives from an exaggerated sense of self-importance. This is surely the case with the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Clearly, President-Elect Obama has a lot on his plate now, but the position he takes on the power of the presidency, as well as the rights of those we detain, will be the bell heard round the world.

That bell must toll for all of us--for the ironworkers, those disenfranchised in federal prisons, to the innocent on death row; for the unlikely terrorist who has been divested of due process to the homeless veteran who sleeps in the doorway of despair. Were it to be otherwise, the forces of darkness that took hold will have cemented their grip, and no president will ever be able to undo their damage again.

U.S. Thwarts U.N. Demand for Gaza Cease Fire

Aren't you proud of your country when you find out that we're only one of two that refused to sign a treaty calling for a halt in production of cluster bombs, and when you hear that the U.S., effective tonight, stands in the way of a United Nations call for an immediate end to the Israeli ground, and air, assault of Gaza.

As the Associated Press reports, U.S. deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff is cynical about the prospects of Hamas sticking to any agreement to stop the killing. In light of this, Wolff issued a statement saying that any cease fire "would not be adhered to and would have no underpinning for success, would not do credit to the council." Maybe so, but it would do a huge credit to the world community as indicated by the overwhelming support for an end to the violence from the 15 member nations present at the meeting.

But, we the solipstistic war merchants, the cannibals of international law, the vandals of history, progenitors of the Bush doctrine of preemption, a country in which 80% of its people believe in some kind of God, we think it a waste of time to condemn a mindset that justifies mass murder in the name of self-defense?

No one is sanctioning the rocket attacks by Hamas on southern Israel which continue even as I write, but to send ground forces into an area occupied by 1.5 million people, and to claim the lives of hundreds of civilians, as well as create the kind of upheaval last seen in Beirut in the name of protecting one's sovereignty, what kind of twisted logic is this? When we speak of so-called collateral damage, we must first ask---whose collateral, and what's damaged?

While some might argue that it's unsafe to send journalists into a war zone where their very survival is threatened, why have we heard so little, in the U.S., of the humanitarian crisis that has been taking place in Gaza for months now, and has been allowed to escalate to the point of explosion? Where is our concern for the stifling of information, and a preemptive war on dissent?
Clearly, the Bush doctrine involves only selective preemption, and information is this administration's largest casualty.

There are no good guys here. The politics of divide and conquer which has led to American-backed civil war in Latin America, Iraq, Pakistan, and now in Gaza, must end. America must get out of the business of state-sanctioned murder.

Neither Israel nor Hamas is innocent when even one civilian dies. Palestine has a right to exist as does Israel. Palestinians, who live within Israel, have as much a right to live freely, with dignity, and equal opportunity, and not to live as second class citizens.

All world leaders, the United Nations, men and women of conscience must come forward, call for an immediate cease fire, and for Israel to withdraw its troops from Gaza at once.

from Bill Moyers and Michael Winship

Making "Duck Soup" Out of 2009

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship

As 2008 ends and this New Year begins, with all its fledgling promise despite turmoil and crisis, it’s also that time when the media offers its lists of ten best or worst this and that of the previous year, an exercise that simultaneously entertains and infuriates.

Forced at knifepoint to make such lists, at least ours would be a little different.

One would be favorite headlines of the year from The Onion, the hilarious weekly that doesn’t bill itself as “America’s finest news source” for nothing. If you can read it without laughing, you probably have been paying too much attention to your 401K. Some of the ones we liked best:

$700 BILLION BAILOUT CELEBRATED WITH LAVISH $800 BILLION EXECUTIVE PARTY
GM COVERED WITH GIANT TARP UNTIL IT HAS MONEY TO WORK ON CARS AGAIN AMERICAN AIRLINES NOW CHARGING FEES TO NON-PASSENGERS
CHINA RECALLS EVERYTHING
HOUSING CRISIS VINDICATES GUY WHO STILL LIVES WITH PARENTS FACTUAL ERROR FOUND ON INTERNET

Of course, the problem The Onion’s editors have is that reality too often resembles parody. Take the story of Chip Saltsman, the guy campaigning to be chairman of the Republican National Committee by promoting himself with a CD featuring a song called, “Barack, the Magic Negro.”

That ditty, you’ll recall, was made famous on Rush Limbaugh’s minstrel show, as sung by an Al Sharpton impersonator. Even The Onion couldn’t come up with that one.

Or the claim by Governor Rod Blagojevich that those wiretaps actually reveal how hard he’s been working for the people of Illinois. And the circus that ensued when he tried to appoint Roland Burris, a veteran Illinois politician, to Barack Obama’s Senate seat – the one the governor allegedly was ready to sell just weeks ago to the highest bidder – and Senate Democrats said, “No.” No? From members of Congress for whom pay-for-play is as casual a game as Tic-Tac-Toe?

Look at New York’s Senator Charles Schumer, chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. According to The New York Times, the week after he attended a breakfast of financial high rollers and promised them that Democrats would make sure their $700 billion bailout got through Congress, those same fat cats sent $135,000 in campaign contributions.

Or New York Congressman Charlie Rangel, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, who reversed himself on a tax break for a business called Nabors Industries the same month that company donated $100,000 to a City College school for public service named after – all together now, class – Charlie Rangel. Life imitates satire – and vice versa.

Which brings us to our other unusual list. The best movies of… 1933.

Naturally, the original King Kong is on our list.

So are The Invisible Man and 42nd Street.

But our number one choice: The Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup. Why? Because as we enter this final month of the Bush years, the parallels are remarkable.

Sometimes it feels as if we live not only in the United States, but also in the side-splitting state of Freedonia, the imaginary country in which Duck Soup takes place. In 1933, a time much like now of calamity, fraud and peril, the Great Depression gripped America. Franklin D. Roosevelt had just become President and declared a New Deal, while in Germany, Adolph Hitler was named chancellor, the beginning of the Third Reich.

As all of this was taking place, the Marx Brothers – there were four of them then; Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo – shot Duck Soup, a comedy that almost inadvertently transcended slapstick, becoming a trenchant send-up of power and vanity and the disastrous consequences of both.

Freedonia is bankrupt and asking for a bailout – sound familiar? The wealthy Mrs. Teasdale, played by the redoubtable Margaret Dumont, says the only way she’ll come up with the money is if the country appoints as its new leader Rufus T. Firefly – played by Groucho, as only a true clown can play a charlatan. He sings, “The last man nearly ruined this place, he didn’t know what to do with it. If you think this country’s bad off now, just wait ‘til I get through with it.”

Cabinet meetings are run with a decorum worthy of contemporary Washington. (Finance Minister: “Here is the Treasury Department's report, sir. I hope you'll find it clear.” Groucho: “Why a four-year-old child could understand this report. Run out and find me a four-year-old child, I can't make head or tail of it.”)

Freedonia’s Axis of Evil includes neighboring nation Sylvania, and Groucho/Rufus Firefly handles diplomacy with all the tact of a neo-conservative. In anticipation of a meeting with his rival’s ambassador, he says he will offer his hand in friendship.

But suppose the ambassador doesn’t do the same? “A fine thing that will be,” says Firefly. “I hold out my hand and he refuses to accept it. That will add a lot to my prestige, won’t it? Me the head of a country, snubbed by a foreign ambassador! Who does he think he is? …Why the cheap ball-pushing swine, he’ll never get away with it, I tell you! He’ll never get away with it!”

Before you know it, the two countries are at war for no good reason, the rabble-roused, flag-waving public buying in as if taking directions from cable news.

Duck Soup is now seen as one of the great antiwar comedies of all time, right up there with Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator and Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (written with Terry Southern and Peter George).

Back in 1933, the world situation was grave and it was hard to hear the laughter over the sounds of civilization collapsing. Our chuckles today compete with the sound of renewed violence in the Middle East, melting glaciers sliding into the sea and champagne glasses shattering on the gold bricks of Wall Street.

Our situation may not be as desperate as the one that faced the first audiences of Duck Soup, who found in darkened theaters some relief from the grim world outside. Our current woes, nonetheless, are real, which maybe is why a little humor is the best antidote.

As Beaumarchais, that 18th century playwright who doubled as a politician said, “I quickly laugh at everything for fear of having to cry.” This, from a man who managed to survive the French Revolution.

So Happy New Year – but keep your fingers crossed.


Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal,which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.

How to Build a Better Mouse Trap

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "Build a better mouse trap, and the world will beat a path to your door," and that was before he could have met Dick Cheney.

After seeing the film "Frost/Nixon," with a friend, on New Year's Eve, I was struck by how dis- similar Richard Nixon is from, say, Dick Cheney. Consider, for example, last month's ABC interview with the vice president, and Cheney's assertion that waterboarding is an effective way to interrogate detainees, and that he thinks Guantanamo Bay should stay open as long as there is a "war on terror" (translation: as long as he's in the prison business).

One is almost moved by Nixon's acknowledgment of wrongdoing to David Frost. Compared with the current inhabitants of the executive branch, Nixon looks honest. Indeed, he even looks like a beauty queen. Admittedly, Nixon's confession didn't happen until the last inning, but the first president of the United States ever to resign told a talk show host, on national television, that he did things that were not worthy of his office, and stopped just short of admitting he committed a crime.

Contrast Nixon's contrition with the obstinate refusal to acknowledge any wrongdoing, or failure, on the part of the current administration, one that has violated the Presidential Records Act by destroying 5 million White House e-mails, as well as engaged in warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens in defiance of FISA, broken international law, the Geneva Conventions, spit in the face of the Magna Carta, and issued executive memos approving the use of torture on prisoners held in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and the meter's still running. Mind you, this is only what we know they've done--stay tuned for what we'll find out if/when our new attorney general, or an independent prosecutor, decides to dig deeper.

The first sign that something might be rotten in the state of Denial was when former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales hired a private lawyer after stepping down. Then, of course, there was Gonzales' recent entanglement with Dick Cheney, and an attempt by a prosecutor to try them both on charges of war crimes for the way they handled inmates in a Texas federal prison, a case which conveniently fell apart.

Assuredly, Cheney and his partners in crime will get to retire, and reap the benefits of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 which they instituted to reverse the 1994 War Crimes Act, and immunize themselves from criminal prosecution.

Mr. Cheney will go on the public speaking circuit, and Mr. Bush will go on to work on his presidential library, or will send Laura Bush out to speak for him. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will, most likely, return to college teaching. And, in a country famous for attention deficit disorder, as well as short term memory loss, after six months of President Obama, it will be like President 43 never happened. It's already starting to feel like President 43 never happened.

But, unless we learn to build a better mouse trap, we're only going to see more hubris on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue than we know what to do with, the kind of arrogance that drove Richard Nixon to tell David Frost something is "not illegal if the President of the United States does it." Oh, yes it is, and to think of Dick Cheney, Nixon on steroids, perfecting his golf game, or doing target practice at taxpayer expense, laughing all the way to the bank, makes one's blood boil.

If we can put a man on the moon, and Sarah Palin on the ballot, for cripe's sake, why can't we figure out how to move the Hague to K Street, or at the very least, build a bigger mouse trap, one strong enough to hold even the most virulent presidents, and vice presidents, until they can be held responsible for their actions.

The Still Point

"Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance."
T.S. Eliot

Fireflies light up
the roof confused by
a moon that is
more or
less full. I am
irrefutably
alone while
waiting for
someone
who is stuck at
an airport.
The tiny bird
next door is
hoarse from
chirping in
an empty house.
Everything exists for conflict
even the dumb trail of
dust that climbs
the stairs
duped into
believing the dance
survives all,
even us.


jayne lyn stahl
january 1, 2009

The best way...

to avoid a hangover is not to drink!

From John O'Donohue

"A New Year Blessing"

BEANNACHT for Josie

by: John O'Donohue

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.
And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colours, Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.



Irish poet John O'Donohue passed away, in his sleep, suddenly on January 3, 2008. He was 52 years old.
To hear him read this poem, and to learn more about him, go to: http://www.jodonohue.com/

New Year's Resolution

"You have asked me what I would do and what I would not do. I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve in that which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use—silence, exile, and cunning."

James Joyce

"Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"

The Opiate of the People

The C.I.A. is reportedly now giving Viagra to Afghan chieftains in exchange for information about the Taliban.

And, by the end of 2009, our government will also have spent about $8 billion, or $40 per converter box, to give us High Definition Digital TV.

April 12, 1861

Ran into a former neighbor this afternoon, a fellow refuge from New York, who's in the stock market----poor thing. he looks like hell---dissheveled like he hasn't showered, shaved, or had more than four hours of sleep in weeks.

Last time I saw Chris, it was summer, and hotter than hell. I asked him then what he thought of the candidacy Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton----he smirked. A conservative Republican, no doubt, I thought. He's strictly a McCain man, he said; no surprise.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting, for a minute, that he's one of those weird dudes, you know, the David Duke types, who manage to pass themselves off as card carrying normal, but who burn crosses on people's lawns as a hobby.

But, I couldn't help but think what it must be like to be a Klansman now, to have your whole world turned upside down. After all, these guys in the white hoods manage to hide neatly within shooting distance of some of our major cities outside Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco.

We're about to watch folks like my former neighbor undergo a kind of cultural insomnia, the kind of ontological restlessness one typically expects only in Fortune 500 nightmares.

Inexplicably, and suddenly, I pictured my neighbor meeting some Klan buddies for an Anheuser Busch, or a Heineken, behind Safeway where, when nobody's looking, they plan their next lynching. I realize I'm in danger of stereotyping here. Were Rush Limbaugh, and the wannabe chief of the GOP also in danger of stereotyping with their "magic Negro" song, and what does it say about the vestiges of racial corruption that remain in post-bellum America?

Comparisons between the Lincoln days, and the emergence of Barack Obama are valid. But, if you happened to find yourself in Huntington, New York on the morning of April 12, 1861, you would not have heard an announcement over a megaphone out your window saying "good morning, and welcome to the Civil War," it kind of crept up on us back then, just like it has now.

And, when we look at what's going on in Gaza we watch as the enmity between Semites grows. One can't help but think it's scary how fast hate spreads in the name of freedom.

Gaza: Stop the Bloodshed--End the Occupation

In the wake of Israel's escalating bombardment of Gaza, and this latest violence against Palestinians which has been condemned by many in the Israeli press, and media, The New York Times reported late Sunday:

"At Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, women wailed as they searched for relatives among bodies that lay strewn on the hospital floor. One doctor said that given the dearth of facilities, not much could be done for the seriously wounded, and that it was 'better to be brought in dead.'"

Obviously, the media, in the U.S., have dropped the ball on Gaza. What's going on there should never have happened in the first place, let alone percolate to the point of explosion, and it would end quickly were it not for American compliance, as well as the absence of investigative journalism. The Israeli press have been more vocal in opposition to militarist aggression by its government. The press, in this country, have been effectively sup-pressed, and co-opted.

This is no longer about who is right and who is wrong. It is no longer a question of who struck whom first any more than what is going on now in Gaza is about the moral culpability, or political viability, of Hamas.

The ongoing occupation, and decimation, of Gaza defies reason, and forces one to ask whether there can be any justification for wholesale slaughter that is going on there. There is only one solution, and that involves compromise. All who think of themselves as human beings are also victims of this violence.

Connecting the Haves and the Have Nots

David Cay Johnston, investigative journalist and best-selling author of "Free Lunch," writes:

"Notice that in the current bailout, foreclosure relief has been minimal and the official debate is wrapped in language about moral hazard, and borrowers who were irresponsible. Unmentioned is the role of the 2005 bankruptcy law in prompting people who are in a financial squeeze to choose, intelligently, to stop the mortgage payments, so they can keep up with their monthly credit card payments, fueling a surge in foreclosures...almost 11,000 extra subprime mortgage foreclosures each month are traceable to the 2005 law."

Johnston adds: "Let’s start with going after people who cheated and abused the tax system. There is no moral argument for cheating on taxes, especially calculated cheating that requires the use of tax professionals and planning."

What kind of inverted logic can rationalize a government ethic that bails out Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, AIG, and is planning to do the same for the big three automakers, as well as allows the upper one percentile of its citizens to shelter billions in taxes and, at the same time, denies working men and women, who are the backbone of this country, who find themselves in debt over their heads relief from credit card debt, and usurious high interest rates? We trust that President-elect Obama will honor his campaign commitment for greater regulation of the credit card industry. We also hope that he will revisit the 2005 bankruptcy reform bill, and acknowledge how damaging it has been to home owners and renters.

Leaders of both the Republican and Democratic parties have allowed the 2005 bankruptcy reform bill to pass, and Johnston is right on the mark when he connects this insidious legislation with the ever-escalating rise in foreclosures.


Mr. Johnston's article, "Invade the Caymans," appears in the Dec. 22, 2008 issue of Tax Notes.

Quote of the Day

From Richard Falk, U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories:

"At present, we have a global law that does not treat equals equally; the weak are held accountable, while the strong enjoy impunity. This represents law without justice, inviting charges of hypocrisy and double standards. My work as a scholar and engaged citizen has been dedicated to advancing the cause of global justice based on a legal order that learns to treat equals equally whether states or individuals."

Falk was denied entry into the OPT, by Israel, earlier this month.

"V" as in Viagra

Apparently, the CIA has found a new way to get information about the Taliban from Afghan chieftans that doesn't involve torture. They're giving out free Viagra, and getting great results.

Why didn't anyone think of giving some to G.W. Bush, in 2003, before he invaded Iraq?

Dec. 31: By Way of Follow-Up

In a previous post, I wrote about a plan by Time Warner Cable to shut fourteen public access stations, in Los Angeles, on Wednesday, December 31st.

Anyone who thinks that public access television exists simply to provide a soap box, and that there are other, more effective ways for the community to participate, must be advised that the uncontested, and unopposed closure of one means of access threatens all others down the line. If a cable behemoth is allowed to eliminate public access, what next, viewer-supported programming?

As the Caucus for Producers, Writers, and Directors, the only group that includes all four guilds (WGA, DGA, PGA, and SAG) writes, in a letter to California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown, Jr., " Since the wave of media consolidation that began after the deregulation of the media in the early 90's we have been prime advocates for media issues that affect the creative community....Public Access has been an important step for many young filmmakers and independent producers and access studios have provided training for countless individuals now working in the entertainment industry. Public Access is also a vital community service that we need now more than ever."

Importantly, the City of Los Angeles has done nothing to preclude Time Warner from doing away with the public access system in what is the hub of the media industry. Indeed, the only person empowered to prevent this closure is state Attorney General Edmund G. (Gerry) Brown.
Los Angeles, as a municipality, is responsible for operating public access channels, and no cable company has the right to shut them down until, and unless, the City has the opportunity to replace the channels.

In the words of actor, and activist, Ed Asner: "The studios should not close until the public's rights are secured and replacement of the lost facilities are in place."

Stanley Sheinbaum, another longtime opponent of censorship, writes "Cable operators pay franchise fees from revenue generated by cable subscribers who will be harmed when public channels are taken away."

The response from those who abhor monopolies, and the ability of media conglommerates to strongarm the community must be swift, and decisive. Whether you live in Santa Monica, New York City, Boston, or Des Moines, Iowa, should Time Warner prevail on December 31st, what happens in Los Angeles will affect you eventually.

Those who are concerned about protecting the integrity of the First Amendment, independent programming, and preventing a media shark from swallowing all the little fish, must act quickly by contacting California Attorney General Brown at: agpressoffice@doj.ca.gov, and urging him to seek injunctive relief under the California Business and Professions Code 17200, Section 3, Unfair Business Practices.

Unless we act to stop it, Time Warner will pull the plug on fourteen public access studios, in California, on Wednesday. First public access channels, what next?

Pinter

Playwright Harold Pinter died this Christmas Eve. He was 78, and succumbed, after a long battle, to cancer of the esophagus. Maybe, as he once said, "I think it's enough for me. I've found other forms now."

He was born and raised in Great Britain, the son of working class Eastern European Jews. Poet, author of 29 stage plays, such as "The Birthday Party," and screenwriter of "Betrayal," and "The French Lieutenant's Wife," Pinter was also an accomplished actor. His last appearance, back in 2006, was in a British production of "Krapp's Last Tape" by his good friend Samuel Beckett.

A fighter for social justice, Pinter served as vice president of International PEN where he was vigilant about speaking out against torture of imprisoned writers, and in defense of freedom of expression. "Being thrown out of the U.S. embassy in Ankara with Arthur Miller, a voluntary exile, was one of the proudest moments of my life," he once said.

The 2005 Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature was an equally ardent opposer of the 1991 Gulf War, the 2001 U.S. war in Afghanistan, who predicted the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 who called the American president a "bloodthirsty wild animal" condemning both Bush and Tony Blair as "war criminals." We're glad he lived to see the demise of the Bush era.

In the end, there isn't a hell of a lot more to say except thanks for stopping by, Harold Pinter, and, in the words of Samuel Beckett, for working "to find a form that accommodates the mess" as "that is the task of the artist now."

On Dec. 31: Time Warner will pull 14 California public access stations

An open letter to California Attorney General Jerry Brown:

On December 31st, Time Warner Cable plans to pull fourteen public access channels and fourteen studios, in Los Angeles, a city whose name has, for generations, been synonymous with media and broadcasting. This move will act to solidify recent gains in media consolidation, as well as set a dangerous precedent for television programming nationally.

Those of us born on the cusp of the McCarthy era, who are old enough to remember both McCarthys, also recall a time when another administration whose high crimes and misdemeanors would have gone undetected were it not for the free flow of information, and the ability of newspapers to pursue diverse paths in investigative journalism, a prospect which would be nearly impossible today.

Active dissent is greatly diminished in a climate in which independent programming is not enabled to survive. Allowing a cable behemoth, Time Warner, to eliminate more than a dozen public access channels means, in effect, green lighting standardized programming that exists solely to feed the corporate coffer at the expense of creative, community participation.

Bottom line, Mr. Attorney General: there needs to be diversity for the First Amendment to thrive. There needs to be citizen participation in a democracy, and no monopoly can be allowed to defeat that which is intrinsic to individual growth.

The Caucus for TV Producers, Writers, and Directors, Ed Asner, and all of us who are concerned about the life expectancy of an intellectual environment that embraces independence of thought, and diversity, call upon you, as chief law enforcement officer in your state, for injunctive relief, and a temporary restraining order against Time Warner to prevent them from pulling the plug on public access channels in Los Angeles this New Year's Eve.

A people without access to their airwaves is one without access to their government. On this, I know we agree.

by Paul Krassner

SEE YOU IN THE FUNNY PAPERS

by Paul Krassner

The economic crisis has made its way into the nation’s syndicated comic strips. A few have included references to companies going bankrupt.

In “Rex Morgan, MD,” Rex’s family is on a cruise. In the ship’s library, his wife June asks, “Is there a rental fee for the books?” “You can keep the books,” the librarian replies. “The cruise line is bankrupt!”

In “Sally Forth,” Sally tells her office co-workers, “Okay, everybody, calm down. The company is not going bankrupt…”

And in “Candorville,” at a hearing on the bailout of the failing comic-strip industry, Garfield the cat states, “Bankruptcy is not an option, Senator.

On another day, Dagwood Bumstead testifies, “If you allow us to fail, this worldwide recession could easily become a depression. Take it from us, we remember the last Great Depression….Congress refused to keep ‘Little Nemo’ alive. Two years later, there were soup lines.”

And on yet another day, a senator argues, “Let’s not pussyfoot around the REAL issue. The labor unions are milkin’ you dry. Elite workers rakin’ in upwards of $9 an hour…Before we give you a dime of taxpayer money the unions should be crushed, disemboweled and shot out the nearest cannon into the Gates of Hell.”

Dilbert says, “Uh, I didn’t know the comic strip industry HAD a union.” Huey Freeman from “The Boondocks” responds, “That’s because you’re a tool of our corporate overlords.”

In “La Cucaracha,” a couple in a car during the week before Christmas agree that “Shopping for bargains is even better during a bad economy…See?! THAT mall is having a ‘TWO for ONE’ sale.” As they drive closer, they see that the marquee reads: “2 for 1 Sale –- Buy This Empty Mall, Get One Free.”

And finally, in “La Cucaracha,” at yet another hearing, a senator asks, “Why do you feel you need a government bailout, Mr. Claus?” Santa explains, “Because I can’t figure out how to make a PROFIT by giving out all my inventory for FREE.”

one day a year...

There's only one day a year we get to celebrate poets and outlaws. That day is Christmas!

"Corruption Destroys Afghanistan"

Courtesy of Bill Moyers Journal, and Public Affairs Television:

Corruption Destroys Afghanistan

By Michael Winship

Just when you’ve finally gotten your mind around the enormous $700 billion financial bailout – even if none of us are really sure where all that money’s going – there comes an even greater, breathtaking price tag.

The amount is $904 billion -- that’s how much we’ve spent on American military operations, including Iraq and Afghanistan, since the 9/11 attacks; 50 percent more than what was spent in Vietnam, reports the non-partisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment. Their study does not include the inestimable toll in human life.

Of that money, nearly 200 billion has gone to Afghanistan, where 31,000 American troops are nearly 60 percent of the NATO peacekeeping force. When he becomes President, as promised during his campaign, Barack Obama will oversee the deployment of at least another 20,000 troops there.

This has been the deadliest year for American forces in Afghanistan since the war began. Our military faces a resurgent Taliban and al-Qaeda, better trained, better armed, supported from sanctuaries in Pakistan.

But in an op-ed piece in last Sunday’s Washington Post, Sarah Chayes – the former National Public Radio reporter who has lived in Kandahar province since shortly after 9/11 -- argued that America’s and Afghanistan’s biggest problem comes from within – our continuing support of a corrupt and abusive Afghan government that’s driving its people back into the arms of the fundamentalists.

Chayes, who organized a co-op of Afghan men and women making skin care products from herbs and botanicals as an alternative to the opium poppy trade, wrote, “I hear from Westerners that corruption is intrinsic to Afghan culture, that we should not hold Afghans up to our standards. I hear that Afghanistan is a tribal place, that it has never been, and can't be, governed. But that's not what I hear from Afghans.”

Chayes followed up that article with an interview conducted by my colleague Bill Moyers on the latest edition of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS. She told him that the United States and its NATO allies have had to convince themselves and public opinion in each of their countries that “this is a democratically elected representative government [in] Afghanistan in order to justify the sacrifices in money and troops."

But the Afghans see it differently.

What they see instead, she said, is a restoration to power under President Hamid Karzai of the gunslinging, crooked warlords who were repudiated when the Taliban first started taking over vast parts of the country a few years after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.

The “appalling behavior” of officials in the current government, including rampant bribery, extortion and violence, is a serious factor in the Taliban resurgence – it’s estimated that they now have a “permanent presence” in 72 percent of the country, according to one think tank, the International Council on Security and Development.

Chayes said, “There are people who don't like the Taliban but may kind of knuckle under to them because, on the one hand, the government isn't doing anything better for them. And the Taliban are going to kill them if they don't visibly divide themselves away from the government.”

An Afghan woman in her cooperative compared it to "a man trying to stand on two watermelons. The Taliban shake us down at night, and the government shakes us down in the daytime."

"The Taliban are aided and abetted by Pakistan, " Chayes continued: “It has been obvious to me that the Pakistani military intelligence agency [ISI] has been basically creating, orchestrating this so-called Taliban resurgence since the end of 2001. So why are we paying Pakistan $1 billion a year? “… We need to realign our policy… What you have in Pakistan is a fledgling civilian government that's kind of fighting for its life. And it's not in a position to be able to challenge this military intelligence agency very powerfully. We need to get with that government and figure out and scheme with it how do we reign in this state within the state that is the military intelligence agency, which has been manipulating and instrumentalizing religious extremism for the past 20, 30 years… in a very myopic way, to forward its regional agenda both in Kashmir and in Afghanistan?”

Additional American troops are important now, Chayes said, and suggested that NATO allies who face opposition at home to sending additional combat forces could instead send a corps of experienced officials – from retired mayors to agriculture experts – who could rigorously mentor Afghan public officials and potentially reform their ways. Reconstructing infrastructure is important, she said, “But you don’t get infrastructure if you’re passing it through corrupt channels.”

So if nothing changes, Bill Moyers asked, should American men and women continue to give their lives in support of a government overrun by Afghanistan’s criminal class? Chayes rephrased the question: “If we are not willing to even begin to challenge President Karzai… then why are we sending people to die?”

In his tour of Iraq and Afghanistan this past week, President Bush told Karzai that he could count on us no matter who’s in the White House: “It’s in our interest that Afghanistan’s democracy flourish.”

To which Sarah Chayes’ friends in Kandahar would reply, “What democracy?”


Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program
Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS.Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.

Yeats

"We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.”

William Butler Yeats

Remember Guantanamo: for Danny Pearl

Five years ago today, I finished working on an essay that I began researching right around Daniel Pearl's birthday on October 10, 2003, and about a year after his murder in Karachi, Pakistan.

Wall Street Journal reporter, and father-to-be, Pearl was savagely killed, as you recall, back in February, 2002. The article attempts to show that instead of working to overcome that kind of brutality, our government tried to figure out ways to simulate, and perfect, it.

My personal journey into uncovering, and exposing, the activities of an administration bent on twisting, bending, and insulting the Constitution, and international law, began on the day Danny Pearl was assassinated, and has yet to stop.

I sent the article, "Remember Guantanamo," to editors of all the major mainstream newspapers, and even magazines like "The Atlantic Monthly." It would have no takers. Newspapers from San Francisco to New York to Washington, D.C. would have no part of what I had to say yet, within months of my writing "Remember Guantanamo," Gitmo, and human rights abuses that took place there, became the subject of many editorials.

During his interview with ABC News earlier this week, Vice President Dick Cheney insisted that the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba needs to remain open until what he calls "the end of the war on terror." Clearly, the only kind of commerce his administration has been willing to engage in with Cuba is that which brings the greatest profit to the prison-industrial complex in which he has vested interest.

Additionally, during the interview, Mr. Cheney gave a hearty thumbs-up for waterboarding, and other "enhanced alternative interrogation techniques." We thought it might be instructive not just for the vice president, but for anyone else who thinks that redefining the ways in which prisoners of war have been treated for generations, and implementing widescale government surveillance programs would keep us safe to remember not just his final words, but the torture to which an American citizen, and journalist, Daniel Pearl was subjected.

It's been a long five years for all of us.

We're hopeful that both President-elect Obama and newly appointed head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein, will keep their promise to close Gitmo, and take a long hard look at the heinous treatment received at the hands of U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo then and now. We suspect this is what Danny Pearl would want.


Remember Guantanamo

for Daniel Pearl

"History is a responsibility Americans would rathernot face." Octavio Paz

After several weeks of detention in a Karachi cell, journalist Daniel Pearl was videotaped before his execution, and given the chance to make a statement. Among the last things he had to say was that he sympathized with those captured, and held, in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

Most of us would prefer to believe that Danny Pearl's final expression of solidarity with others detained who are held indefinitely, and arbitrarily, had been forced from him by his captors. It is far more palatable to think that Danny Pearl was coerced to imply that the U.S., too, is guilty of human rights abuses. Why else would a man facing his maker express empathy for those who look like his captors, and are jailed by the American government far away from that cell in Pakistan where this courageous, first time father-to-be was to face execution?

But, on the other hand, if Danny Pearl meant what he said, then we, as Americans, owe it to ourselves to find out why he said what he did. In order to do so, we have to examine the cycle of righteousness, and vengeance, that makes the actions of our own administration no different than those governments that comprise the so-called "axis of evil." Maybe Danny Pearl was inviting an inquiry into human rights violations worldwide, maybe even human rights abuses committed by his own government.

Guantanamo Bay has been in the news a lot lately, but what's lacking is a sense of context. What do we know about this naval base in Cuba, who are these detainees, where are they from, and why are they being held? If, from 9/11 on, we're holding so-called "terrorists," some of whom are American citizens, at a naval base in Cuba, and denying them constitutional rights based on the premise that they're on foreign soil, then we need to examine Guantanamo Bay, and our relationship to Cuba over the past hundred years, to establish that they're not on foreign soil. Even if those detained don't know why they're being held, we need to know why.

With Richard Nixon, we had a president that attempted to overthrow an election by means of a bungled burglary. With George W., we have our first president who was appointed, not elected and who, through linguistic sleight of hand, is attempting nothing less than overthrowing the judiciary with respect to his handling of prisoners at Guantanamo. There is no small irony in the fact that it was the Supreme Court who appointed the president, and it is the president who is now trying to silence the court.

By using a phrase like "enemy combatant," this administration has detained hundreds of people, around 660 to be exact, using "war on terror" as a camouflage for an all out assault on human rights. If nothing else, history has shown that words can be instruments of liberation, or torture. These detainees, many of whom are Muslims, have been denied access to lawyers, held for two years without being told why they're being held, or convicted of anything, not allowed to see evidence against them and, in some cases, deprived of the right to see their own families.

Do we think that we can bypass international humanitarian law, and the Geneva Conventions, both of which require specific protocols, and rights, for handling prisoners of war, by using the label "enemy combatants?"

The term, "unlawful combatant," was coined by Donald Rumsfeld, in 2002, to describe those members of Al Qaeda, and the Taliban, who would qualify as in some way illegal, or outside the realm of protection given traditional prisoners of war. To designate these detainees "prisoner of war" would grant them legal protection under Geneva Conventions, hence the innovative terminology. In less than a year, the word "unlawful" devolves into "enemy" as the corresponding war on terror intensifies.

The president has been adamant in not considering those captured prisoners of war, not granting them prisoner of war status, and the corresponding constitutional, and international, protections normally given. One of the arguments the administration makes to suggest that the detainees aren't prisoners of war by Geneva Conventions' standards is that they weren't wearing clearly marked uniforms. Such specious reasoning doesn't fly with those we like to think of as our allies abroad.

For an administration that has worked hard to earn the reputation of being linguistically-challenged, by a clever manipulation of language, it has managed to sidestep its responsibility to provide those detained with due process, and other rights, guaranteed by the Constitution, as well as international law.

What's more, the concept of unlawful combatant is, in itself, unlawful; one can either be classified as a "prisoner of war," or a "protected person" (civilian) according to the Geneva Conventions. This administration has said that anyone captured, and labeled a "terrorist," can be considered an enemy combatant regardless of where they are captured, or the circumstances surrounding their capture, thus evading what would customarily qualify as unequivocal human rights abuses.

Notably, it was Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who, following Saddam Hussein's capture, called him among the most wanted war criminals of our times, and then proceeded to say that Saddam will be given those protections afforded a prisoner of war under the Geneva Conventions. Why is it that such a heinous war criminal, by virtue of being designated "prisoner of war," will be afforded those same protections denied to those currently detained at Guantanamo Bay?

Does our system of justice afford greater privileges to one who is believed to have committed mass atrocities than to those for whom justice is denied as a result of a hyperactive executive branch?

Human rights groups around the world have taken up the cause of these detainees, as well as some retired military personnel who fear this administration may be setting a bad example in its mistreatment of prisoners at the base. As this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi, suggests our so-called war on terror is being used as an excuse to trample human rights both in Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay.

Aside from linguistic chicanery, consider the religious fervor that this administration attaches to abstract terms like terrorism. If this isn't alarming in itself, then maybe this is: on November 21, an organization called "Human Rights Watch" wrote an extraordinary expose about human rights abuses committed by the current regime in Washington.

The piece was published in The Times of London, and was written by none other than the executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, who asserts that at Guantanamo "hundreds have been held without charge for two years, abandoned in a legal black hole."

Roth goes on to say that even a consummate diplomat like Tony Blair can't find a way to justify their detention, and that by calling them "bad people," and "the worst of the worst," aside from showing that he has a way with words, our president has virtually condemned them. Even Law Lord Steyn, one of England's most senior judges, recently called holding prisoners at the base a "monstrous failure of justice," insisting they are being held illegally.

Where is our outrage, as a nation, when an organization like Human Rights Watch is compelled to investigate our practices with respect to protocol for ethical, and legal, treatment of those we incarcerate under the banner of a "war on terror."

While George W. is off fighting his holy war, his jihad against the jihad, why isn't anyone in Congress challenging the chief executive officer, and the executive branch, in its total desecration of due process, and jurisprudence, that has been in progress for nearly a thousand years? We have a Congressional Human Rights Caucus that is doing outstanding work examining, and exposing, reprehensible human rights violations around the world. Why aren't they investigating, and exposing, human rights abuses going on in our own backyard?

Funny, isn't it, how history works. Presidents Carter and Reagan both supported fundamentalist Moujahedeen, who we now call the Taliban and Al Qaeda, in Afghanistan. Indeed, they were once called "freedom fighters," under Reagan, and equipped with shoulder-fired rockets. A quarter of a century later, these same Taliban, or suspected Taliban, are labeled "terrorists," several thousand are thrown in Afghanistan prisons while several hundred are shipped off to Guantanamo, Cuba.

Just last month, one of the authors of the "Patriot Act," Viet Dinh, shocked everyone by expressing his concerns about the detention of U.S. citizen, Jose Padilla, the "dirty bomb" suspect as an enemy combatant. Dinh's suggestion that the administration's case against Mr. Padilla was "unsustainable" is stunning. That a former member of the Defense Department, and author of the "Patriot Act," would challenge this administration in its handling of cases surrounding 9/11 is likewise extraordinary.

Just today, a New York federal appeals court overruled Bush by saying that his administration cannot hold Padilla in a military brig, by labeling him an enemy combatant, without the prior authorization of Congress. The court ruled that the government needs congressional authorization before it can lock up American citizens on U.S. soil. Rumsfeld was ordered to release Padilla from military confinement in Charleston, S.C. within 30 days, saying that he may be transferred to civilian authorities to face criminal charges.

While this ruling applies only to American citizens on our soil, and not to those picked up in Afghanistan, it is the first step in addressing the legal tightrope this administration has walked with the catch phrase "enemy combatant."

In the past two years, much has come to light. We now know that we're not only holding American citizens at Guantanamo, but citizens of Australia, and the U.K. as they continue not to be told why they're picked up, what evidence there is against them, or to have representation. According to Philip Heyman, a Harvard law school professor and former attorney general under Clinton, denying these rights amounts to "overthrowing 800 years of democratic tradition," including habeas corpus and the Magna Carta.

The former Muslim chaplain at the base, Captain James Yee, is among the few who has been afforded the privilege of counsel, and a trial. At least he's been charged with something, however dubious, transporting classified material, and an attempt at prosecution has been made which is more than one can say for those prisoners to whom he has ministered.

A recent New York Times editorial was kind in characterizing the military's prosecution of Yee as "misguided." The prosecution centers around which pornographic Web sites the chaplain has allegedly visited, and with whom he has allegedly committed adultery.

With Yee's trial, we have a modern day version of Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible" in the making, and a "war on terrorism" as an alibi for yet another Salem Bay witch hunt. To look on the bright side, Captain Yee has not been detained, he was on payroll, and he hasn't been branded with the scarlet letter "E," for "enemy combatant." That said, his trial could prove to be a trailer for even more ludicrous trials to come.

In future, the Bush administration may even argue that detaining enemy combatants is another application of "Operation Iron Hammer," the military strategy by which attacks are launched against insurgents before they strike. It follows then that Guantanamo Bay becomes a model for our government's preemptive strike against its own citizens --- what better way to deter dissidence, and terrorism, than lock up & detention. It works for Castro---why not for George W.

Speaking of Castro, Iraq is not the first instance in which the U.S. has engaged in the noble task of reconstruction following a war. There was, of course, Cuba. Remember when the CIA overthrew democratic secularist Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran and, in 1976, trained anti-Castro activist Luis Carrilles to bomb a Cuban airliner killing 73 people? When we train them, they don't qualify as terrorists.

You may recall, too, that Carrilles claimed to have been funded by CANF (Cuban-American National Foundation), a Miami-based non profit organization, and powerful anti-Castro lobby in Washington that appears to have been involved in other acts that may justifiably be called acts of terror. In his zeal for this war, George W. may have forgotten the bombings, and other terrorist acts, that were carried out by anti-Castro Cubans living in the U.S. who were funded, and trained, by our very own Central Intelligence Agency.

Ironic, isn't it, that the U.S. locked up "terrorists," 30 years later, on the same soil as a government it attempted to overthrow via the CIA- backed downing of a Cuban jet liner by a member of a prominent Miami based anti-Castro organization. Were these acts any less "terrorist" acts because they received the blessing of the CIA in the name of bringing democracy to Cuba?

Can we, as citizens, sanction a White House jihad against a Taliban it once called "freedom fighters?" Is one jihad better than another, or are all jihads created equally? Will our war on terror someday be called a "jihad to end all jihads?" Must we bring our own popcorn to watch our government's great crusade to bring liberty to the Middle East, and anywhere else in the world we deem worthy of conquering? If somebody strikes oil in Havana, or we experience a massive sugar shortage, will we, once again, invade Cuba as we did following the Spanish-American War?

Among the many differences between Iraq and Cuba is that we destroyed Iraq in order to rebuild it, and that we fought the Iraqi people, not Spain, to make it a colony. Cuba, on the other hand, worked with American forces to win its independence from Spain. Curiously, as a consequence of the Spanish-American War, Cuba didn't win its independence, but merely its independence from Spain. Instead of being codependent on Spain, it merely transferred its codependency onto America, then onto the U.S.S.R.

In 1903, the naval base was leased from Cuba, by the U.S. for only $2,000 a year, the average rent for a studio apartment in Manhattan nowadays, until the 1980's when we acquired rights in perpetuity. Many Cubans believed then, as they do today, that the main purpose for the naval base was to control, police, and spy on Cuba.

American attempts to colonize, and control, events in Cuba, following the Spanish-American War with the Platt Amendment until Castro became prime minister in 1959 closely parallel American efforts to "rebuild" Iraq. Our attempts at controlling Iraq, and keeping the Middle East as a sphere of influence, must also include the installation of leadership that is fundamentally user-friendly to American interests in much the same way as Batista's puppet regime.

If the Bush administration has its way, we will see something like the Platt Amendment coming soon to a theatre near Baghdad.

While our efforts both in Cuba and Iraq are about colonization, we invaded Cuba under the pretext of "Spanish American War," and Iraq, as an extension of the Gulf War, but in Iraq, we're fighting the Iraqi people who we call "insurgents," whereas in Cuba, we fought Spain, thus our mission in Iraq is not dissimilar to our mission in Vietnam, and Korea.

The fundamental problem with fighting a people for control of its government is that those who live in the land under siege will ultimately demand and devise an end to occupation not unlike the French resistance to occupying German forces during World War II. While our current administration, like that of Spain's at the outset of the Spanish American War, may perceive itself as fighting a holy war, it is all but inevitable that the outcome, for this administration, will be not unlike the outcome was for Spain, and later Germany.

For all his bible thumping, one wonders if George W. ever made it past the Old Testament given the eye-for-an-eye mentality memorably captured on network television as the slain sons of Saddam Hussein were displayed which, by the way, was yet another violation of the Geneva Conventions.

While kudos are being handed out generously for Saddam's arrest, it's disconcerting to think that George W.'s foreign policy amounts to little more than the exercise of testosterone over reason. This president appears to suffer a bit of confusion between being middle aged and living in the Middle Ages either that or the great crusades are now in syndication.

By labeling detainees "enemy combatants," not only are they stripped of any constitutional rights, but they also become our adversaries in this holy war of the president's making which may just cost future generations the Bill of Rights for which those "insurgents," of the revolutionary war, fought so hard to obtain. What's more, this president appears intent on leading us back to the days of the crusades with phrases like "axis of evil." George W. has invoked the almighty more than any other president in modern times, which is curious in that, if nothing else, the Patriot Act demonstrates that the "author of freedom," and the author of the Constitution are not one and the same.

When Castro called for the removal of U.S. military bases from Guantanamo Bay, in 1978, the Soviet mission was bombed by anti-Castro Cuban exiles living in the U.S. A few years later, Ronald Reagan ordered the invasion of Grenada, and established a provisional government there.

After the invasion, Reagan's Department of Defense spent $43 million to refurbish the naval base at Guantanamo. This renovation sure came in handy under Bush senior's administration when open migration was allowed, and 32,000 Cubans were picked up by the Coast Guard, and taken there. It was obvious by then that naval base had another purpose besides being a foot in the door of a former colony.

Of nearly 7,000 detainees held by anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan, only about 10% were sent to Cuba. It's curious why it is that no one talks about the detainees who are still in Afghanistan. The number of those kept at the naval base went from 50 in January, 2002 to 660 by November, 2003. Only recently has U.S. government agreed to release nearly a hundred of those detained, and little, if any, specific detail has been given as to their demographics.

By releasing these detainees, the U.S. is trying to deflect attention away from the real issue, which is its own hubris in holding prisoners in violation of those rights customarily afforded them.

When interviewed recently about the Pentagon's disclosure of the incarceration of children aged 13 to 15 at the naval base in Cuba, Rumsfeld concedes their detention, and then goes on to call these youngsters "very, very dangerous people" suggesting that while there isn't a formal process for adjudicating the charges they face, "we're keeping them down there to keep them off the street."

Using the same logic, why not round up all the members of the 18th Street Gang, and others, in Los Angeles, and ship them off to Guantanamo Bay-----heck, at least we'd be keeping them off the streets? Is it possible that our current secretary of defense regards the detention of teenagers, at the Bay, as a kind of after school program? Does the Pentagon suggest creating a military equivalent of "Juvey Hall" to try these youngsters?

Importantly, detainees only get a lawyer when they agree to plead guilty. Any counsel to which they are entitled would have to be appointed by the Pentagon, or approved by the Pentagon, and would be unable to discuss what evidence, or discovery, there is with his client. How can one be expected to get a fair trial when he's denied access to the evidence against him? While George W. reportedly would consider appointing civilians to an appeal panel of judges, he could remove these judges, thus they operate solely at the pleasure of the president.

Earlier this month, a German judge freed one of the Al Qaeda suspects, from the World Trade Center bombings, citing U.S. secrecy, and a policy of concealment that ironically worked against U.S. interests in that it helped obtain the release of so-called terrorists by international courts. By not making a captured Al Qaeda operative available for questioning, a Moroccan Al Qaeda suspect in Germany, who was an alleged member of the Hamburg cell that orchestrated the World Trade Center bombing, went free.

In a letter to Donald Rumsfeld , Kenneth Roth urged him to release, from Guantanamo, all members of the Taliban as well as any civilians who had no "meaningful" connection to Al Qaeda. One wonders if the term "meaningful" should read "provable" as, after all, isn't that which sets us apart from the cell, in Pakistan, where Danny Pearl's throat was savagely slit, that our system of law requires proof. The burden of proof, as always, lies with the prosecution, not with the defense.

Reportedly, at least 59 detainees are being held at the base who can be said to have no meaningful ties with the Taliban or Al Qaeda whatsoever. How can anyone argue that detention is necessary for national security when some of the civilians held have no ties to any so-called terrorist organization? Does the pervasive fear among security officials that someone has the potential to commit a terrorist act, pending his release, justify detaining someone with no history whatsoever of committing a crime let alone an act of terrorism?

Civilians typically qualify as "protected persons," according to the Fourth Geneva Convention, which clearly states that all combatants captured must be treated as prisoners of war, and are entitled to appear before a tribunal. Importantly, civilians, and those who cannot be directly linked with either Al Qaeda or the Taliban, have not only been detained in Afghanistan, but were transferred to Guantanamo.

The Geneva Conventions does allow the U.S. to detain prisoners of war without charging them for the duration of the war that prompted their confinement, but since the war with Afghanistan is over, these detainees must either be criminally prosecuted, or released. To do otherwise is in violation of the Conventions.

To comply with the Geneva Conventions means that one must charge a detainee with a crime formally, inform him of his rights, and permit him access to counsel. There is no legal basis for circumventing these protections. By an attempt at linguistic evasion, our government is setting a grave precedent.

If, as has been suggested, release of these enemy combatants, who comprise a special class, "terrorists," would be predicated on a victory in the war on terror, such a victory against terrorism might never come. What mandate do we have, or do we wish to set, that entitles us to hold detainees indefinitely?

More importantly, what kind of example are we setting to other nations when we ourselves refuse to take the moral high ground, defy international law, and hold soldiers from a now defunct, and as yet undeclared war, without due process?

The Supreme Court now faces appeals from those being held at the base. Two appeals the court has accepted were filed on behalf of 16 detainees - from the U.K. and Australia. The underlying, and fundamental, issue behind these cases is whether the judiciary should be subordinate to the executive branch of government. The attempt to subjugate the judicial branch to the executive branch is an ominous foreshadowing of the kind of totalitarianism we decry in countries like Cuba, and Russia.

Solicitor General Olson, whose wife was killed during the 9/11 attacks, urges the courts not to hear detainees' appeals citing a 53 year old Supreme Court ruling which posits that aliens under military detention abroad are answerable, and have privileges afforded them only by the executive branch, and the military, and not by the courts. So, the real question then is---do we consider Guantanamo Bay foreign or domestic? As we've seen, the base exists as an American stronghold "in perpetuity," so those held there are being held in a territory that is considered jurisdictionally as part of U.S.

If it helps one to sleep better at night to think that those being stripped of what are commonly considered human rights are "aliens," and foreigners, be advised that many at the base are U.S. citizens. One case in particular concerns Yasser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen of Saudi descent, who, by being labeled an enemy combatant, has been robbed of constitutional protection.

Would it be appropriate for a Russian citizen of American descent to be held indefinitely in a base created to confine so-called terrorists in Chechnya? Think of the rage that would ensue, and threats against the Russian government made by the current regime in Washington should this Russian-American prisoner be denied his civil, and human, rights.

Indeed, this administration's response to terrorists is not unlike Putin's response to Chechnyan rebels which leads one to wonder---is Russia moving closer to democracy, or is the U.S. moving closer to totalitarianism? There are always going to be those among us who will be content to point out----well, at least we're moving. They confuse movement with progress.

It's not enough to console ourselves with the knowledge that we're moving------we have to ask whether we're moving backwards or forwards. This administration is taking us backwards-- back to the days when leaders were appointed not elected, when due process, and survival itself, was a matter of privilege.

If we, as a nation, accept acting illegally, and in open violation of existing laws and treaties, how can we expect those who captured Danny Pearl, and who may yet capture others, to behave any better than we have? Has any empire that preceded us ever considered itself above the law without being a victim of its own arrogance?

Is any power that omnipotent that it can afford to act in opposition to the world community? Maybe this is what Danny Pearl meant when he expressed sympathy for others in captivity. Maybe he was suggesting that being righteous and being right isn't the same thing, and that injustice is no more justifiable when committed on a naval base operated by the U.S. than it is on a remote stretch of land, in a deserted cell, in Pakistan.

While one can hardly romanticize groups like the Taliban and Al Qaeda, on the other hand, to engage in the rhetoric of retaliation, and retribution, to operate under the misguided and dangerous notion that our efforts are divinely inspired and driven, is an affront to those generations of Americans who have given their lives to protect our civil liberties.

If words can be agents of torture, as well as liberation, then Danny Pearl's final words in support of those held in Afghanistan and Guantanamo may have been meant to shed light on the travesties being committed by our own government in the name of democracy; maybe his final hope was that the truth will make a guest appearance between gunshots.

a word about Caroline...

just something to think about:

Would there be all this hoopla about Caroline's "credentials," in her appointment for the Senate, if her name was Carl, and not Caroline?

Size 10

During a press conference with Prime Minister Maliki, on Saturday, an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at the president. Bush quipped: "It's a size 10 shoe," which only proves he missed his calling. He should have been a shoe salesman.

Quote of the Day

"Darwin was a good biologist. He wasn't much of an economist."

Congressman Barney Frank

Chaos

Chaos is the better part of life.

"Milk"

On Thursday night, I went to see a breathtaking film. "Milk," as you know, chronicles the life and times of activist, and first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk.

Apart from the once-in-a-lifetime stellar performance of Sean Penn, it was an amazing piece of filmmaking, and this from someone who lived in the Castro in the early 1970's, and who was in San Francisco the day Harvey Milk was shot and killed in City Hall.

"Milk" captures the paradoxical nature of a city long thought to be liberal, radical, and progressive,and unearths a dark, provincial, conservative side which, in my youth, I came to experience firsthand.

In November, 1978, I was living in San Francisco, on one of myriad treks from New York which started back in 1972.

My favorite haunt from the early 1970's was Castro Street where I rented an apartment back in 1973 right over Andy's Donuts. Even back in 73, the neighborhood was diverse---part-family, part-gay, part-outlaw, part-artist. Ah yes, those were strange, and bifurcated, times.

Everybody blended together well, but the vast distance between the polarized worlds was plain to see, a difference that is explored brilliantly in "Milk" when the film juxtaposes images of Dan White's small town christening with that of Harvey Milk's big city defiance of convention too easily misconstrued as deviance.

After a short junket back to New York, I returned, and found a furnished room in a palatial Pacific Heights flat which was owned by the widow of a prominent San Francisco judge. Elsie was a prim and proper woman in her mid-60's. The apartment was fastidious. I had my own bathroom, so the only time we saw each other was in the shared kitchen. Elsie didn't work---she was clearly well provided for by her husband.

Our bedrooms were on opposite sides of the flat, so I had much-needed privacy. But, every now and again, when I thought that she was out running errands, I'd bring home some guy for a mid-afternoon romp, and we'd frolic for a few hours, then he'd leave. Back then, for me, a naked man was like a Christmas present unwrapped. Somehow, I knew that wouldn't sit well with Elsie.

One day, Elsie was standing in the foyer with her arms folded. "Do you have such low self-esteem that you would allow some man to come and use you for sex?" she asked. I recall laughing, and saying "What makes you think he's using me? I'm using him!"

So, clearly we didn't see eye to eye on things, I thought, but Elsie, through the eyes of a 30 year old, was a relic of a bygone era. At times, I wanted to see her as a character from Tennessee Williams play, or Ibsen; a source of amusement more than disdain.

Until, that is, the afternoon of November 27, 1978 when I came home, waited patiently for Elsie to finish up in the kitchen, but finding her there greeted her hysterically. "What's wrong?" she asked --- tears streaming down my face. "Didn't you hear what happened today? Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk were killed. They killed Harvey Milk" I screamed--sobbing.

Elsie dropped the dish towel, and turned to look at me marble cold: "Oh, he was just a faggot," she said, "just a faggot."

I felt every ounce of blood sink to my shoes, and I felt like my feet had been cemented to the floor. With whatever energy I could find, I stormed out of the room: "I'm moving out now." I told her I couldn't live with anyone who used the word faggot, except affectionately.

She told me I was paid up through the end of the month. "And," she said, "I have a month's security of yours." I told her she could keep my security, packed my bags, and went back east.

There are lots of Elsies in the world. Some of them are judges' wives, some of them are judges, some sit at the helms of Fortune 500 companies, some dare to lead our armed forces in battle; all of them will ultimately stew in their myopic infernos.

Harvey Milk wasn't just a hero for gays, bissexuals, transsexuals any more than Cesar Chavez was a hero for Chicanos. Harvey Milk was a hero for everyone who has ever felt different.

When he stood on his soapbox on Castro Street, and screamed into the crowd "I'm Harvey Milk, and I want to recruit you," he wasn't talking about recruiting you to join his lifestyle. Harvey Milk was urging us to join him in daring to be ourselves.

The film brilliantly intersperses footage with quotes from a letter Milk wrote which was only to be read after his assassination. "Give them hope, hope, hope;" his last words.

Being different has always been a dangerous affair, look where it got Galileo, Joan of Arc, look where it got Jesus.

If he could be here with us now, Harvey might agree that the struggle doesn't end with hope; it begins there.

Floyd and Me

Photo taken by Howard Dyckoff at PEN Oakland Awards ceremony on December 6, 2008 of Floyd Salas, president of PEN Oakland, and me.


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Bush's Farewell Hallelujah Chorus

Courtesy of Bill Moyers Journal, and Public Affairs Television:

Bush's Farewell Hallelujah Chorus

By Michael Winship

With all the interviews President Bush has been giving out lately, you'd think he has a new movie coming out for Christmas. ABC, NBC, National Review, Middle East Broadcasting, the Real Clear Politics website – even a talk with the Washington Post's NASCAR expert.

For a fellow who's sometimes gone for months without a press conference, suddenly, the President's a regular chatterbox, spreading the word in these final days that his eight years in office really, really weren't all that bad. Honest. Regrets, he's had a few. But only a few. Or so he told ABC's Charlie Gibson: "I think I was unprepared for war… In other words, I didn't anticipate war. Presidents – one of the things about the modern presidency is that the unexpected will happen."

But of course he anticipated the war. He and Cheney and the neo-con biker gang had been gunning for an invasion of Iraq long before 9/11. Not that Gibson followed up and asked about that.

This is a President, you'll recall, who once said he couldn't think of any mistakes he's made. Instead, he regrets what he sees as the blunders of the intelligence community, not himself.
"The biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq," he said to Gibson. "A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is [sic] a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence. And, you know, that's not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess."

Truth is, as far as intelligence goes, the President heard what people thought he wanted to hear, shaped it to his purpose, turned his agents loose to scatter rumors and hearsay on the Sunday talk shows, and bullied a frightened Congress into compliance. He stirred up fears of smoking guns and mushroom clouds where there were none.

Nor was he ready to take the rap for the financial meltdown, even though he said he was sorry people were losing their jobs and savings. As he explained to ABC's Gibson, "You know, I'm the President during this period of time, but I think when the history of this period is written, people will realize a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so, before I arrived in President, during I arrived in President."

Odd syntax aside, point taken. Many of the seeds of economic woe were planted by lax oversight and deregulation during Bill Clinton's watch (and Ronald Reagan's and that of the President's father). But whatever happened to, "The buck stops here?"

This legacy tour – few dare call it victory loop – is all part of a strategy, the Washington Post reported, devised two months ago at a meeting in the White House, when White House counselor Ed Gillespie "began meeting with agency heads as part of an effort aimed at compiling the major accomplishments of the Bush administration."

The Los Angeles Times got hold of two pages of positive talking points that have been sent out to officials so they can be included in speeches and interviews. According to the Times, the memo states that the President "'kept the American people safe' after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, lifted the economy after 2001 through tax cuts, curbed AIDS in Africa and maintained 'the honor and the dignity of his office.'"

Would that the mainstream media would open up the questioning to the rest of us. For one, Mr. President, did you value abject loyalty over know-how and wisdom?

Mother Jones magazine reports that recently Republican Senator George Voinovich asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) for questions to ask Barack Obama's political nominees. He got back more than he bargained for – a 150-page list of issues left undealt with during the Bush years.

Among the revelations within the GAO's report, according to the magazine's Jonathan Stein, "The Department of Homeland Security and Department of Agriculture have no plan to work together in the event of a food-borne disease outbreak or terrorist attack. The Department of Defense's security clearance process takes so long it jeopardizes classified information. The EPA's chemical risk assessment program is improperly influenced by private industry…

"Problems like the politicization of the Justice Department are not mentioned. But this report serves as a peephole into the myriad internal problems of the executive branch, depicting a federal bureaucracy that is rife with mismanagement, inefficiency, and faulty communication practices--all of this combining to jeopardize both the nation's health and security."

No one has asked George Bush about this. Instead, the reporters granted the President's valedictory interviews have asked perfunctory softball questions about Iraq and the economy, then segued to inquiries about domestic life in the White House and what he'll do in Texas after January 20.

For one, the man who Newsweek once said was too busy making history to read it, is going to write some – he told National Review's Byron York and Rich Lowry that his interview with them was "jumping jacks for my own book that I'm going to be writing."

Will it answer any of the tough questions? Perhaps. But almost certainly not the biggest one, from which he will divert, splintering off into a thousand digressions and self-deprecating anecdotes: Why?

Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program
Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS.Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.