Michael Winship on "Bullies"

The Pulpit of Bullies

By Michael Winship

One of the most memorable moments in television coverage of American politics came during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968.

Out on the streets, anti-Vietnam war demonstrations were attacked viciously by law enforcement officials in what later was described in an official report as “a police riot.”

Inside the convention hall, tightly controlled by the political machine of the city’s notorious Mayor Richard J. Daley, CBS correspondent Dan Rather was attempting to interview a delegate from Georgia who was being removed from the floor by men in suits without ID badges. One of them slugged Rather in the stomach, knocking him to the ground.

As the reporter struggled to get his breath back, from the anchor booth, Walter Cronkite exclaimed, “I think we’ve got a bunch of thugs here, Dan!”It was an uncharacteristic outburst from America’s Most Respected Newsman, indicative of just how terrible the violence was both inside and out and how shocking it was for a journalist to be so blatantly attacked while on the air by operatives acting on behalf of politicians. As appalling as that 1968 assault was, thuggery is nothing new in politics; it transcends time, ideology and party.

But what’s even more disturbing in 2010 is how much of the public, especially many of those who count themselves among the conservative adherents of the Tea Party, is willing to ignore bullying behavior – and even applaud it – as long as the candidate in question hews to their point of view.Here in New York State, of course, we have Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, who combines the boyish charm of J. Edgar Hoover with the sunny quirkiness of Pol Pot. So extreme are Paladino’s views, so volatile his temper, that even Rupert Murdoch’s right wing New York Post has endorsed Democrat Andrew Cuomo, which is a bit like the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano dissing the Pope and singing the praises of Lutherans.

Doubtless this is in part because Crazy Carl, as he is affectionately known to many, almost came to blows with the Post’s state political editor, the redoubtable Fred Dicker, shouting “I’ll take you out, buddy!” at Dicker after the journalist asked Paladino for evidence to back up allegations the candidate was making against Cuomo and Paladino claimed the paper was harassing his out-of-wedlock daughter.

The Post had to admit that Paladino is “long on anger and short on answers... undisciplined, unfocused and untrustworthy -- that is, fundamentally unqualified for the office he seeks.” Okay, Paladino will lose, but in other parts of the country, Tea Party-supported candidates with a similar bullying, threatening attitude, or who seem to surround themselves with such people, are more likely to win.

Republican Allen West, endorsed by Sarah Palin and John Boehner, is leading in his race against incumbent Democratic Representative Ron Klein in South Florida’s 22nd Congressional District. A retired Army lieutenant colonel, West resigned from the military, according to the progressive website ThinkProgress.org, “while facing a court martial over the brutal interrogation of an Iraqi man: according to his own testimony during a military hearing, West watched four of his men beat the suspect, and West said he personally threatened to kill the man. According to military prosecutors, West followed up on his threat by taking the man outside and firing a 9mm pistol near his head, in order to make the man believe he would be shot.”You can’t make this stuff up: Last week, NBC News reported that West has been communing with a notorious Florida motorcycle gang, the Outlaws, which the Justice Department alleges has criminal ties to arson, prostitution, drug running, murder and robbery.

And on Monday, West could be heard at a rally urging some bikers – also with Outlaw connections -- to “escort” out a Klein staffer who was video recording the event. “Threats can be heard on the videotape,” said a reporter from NBC’s Miami affiliate. “West supporters forced him to get back into his car.” The West campaign responded that “the latest attacks aimed at associating… Allen West with a criminal and racist gang are completely baseless and nothing short of a hatchet job.” So what’s with the photograph of him glad-handing bikers who according to NBC brag about their association with the Outlaws? And why did West tell a supporter to back off when concern was expressed about “criminal organization members in leather” appearing at West’s campaign rallies?

Which brings us to Joe Miller, the Republican and Tea Party candidate for the United States Senate from Alaska. On Sunday, at a Miller town hall, private security guards hired by the campaign – two of whom were moonlighting, active duty military --took it upon themselves to detain a reporter pursuing Miller with questions, placed him under citizen’s arrest and handcuffed him – then threatened to detain two other reporters who were taking pictures and asking what was going on.

The plainclothes rent-a-cops, complete with Secret Service-type earpieces and Men in Black-style neckties and business suits, come from an Anchorage-based outfit called DropZone Security, which also runs a bail bond service and an Army-Navy surplus store – with one of those anti-Obama “Joker” posters pasted to its window. One-stop shopping for the vigilante militiaman in your life – kind of like that joke about the combination veterinarian-taxidermist: either way you get your dog back.

All of this would be funnier if not for the fact that this kind of hooliganism and casual trampling of First Amendment rights from people who claim to embrace the Constitution as holy writ is symptomatic of a deeper problem. The anger of the electorate is understandable: politicians and politics as usual have given voters much about which to be mad; furious, in fact.

But bullying is different. It comes from insecurity and fear, and lashes out with tactics of intimidation. To dismiss it as merely a secondary concern and say “I’ll take my chances” as long as the candidates in question agree with you is dangerous. Scuffling with the press and others may seem minor, but it’s just the beginning. In states where there is early balloting, already there are allegations of voter harassment, primarily in minority neighborhoods. The only way to fight back against bullies and thugs is to stand up and tell them to go to hell. To do otherwise is to give an inch and prepare to be taken for the proverbial mile. That way lies madness. And worse.

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Michael Winship is senior writer at Public Affairs Television in New York City.

A User's Guide to the Midterm Elections

Here we go again, another midterm election registering 7.0 on the Richter scale. This is the second one of this magnitude in my lifetime. The first was sixteen years ago, the midterms of 1994, the "Republican revolution." Anybody able to hold their breath under water for a minute or less can remember that one. The aftershocks are still with us.

The usual gang of suspects back then were different, of course, as they didn't have the chutzpah to profess to be a new movement or, for that matter, anything new at all, but boldly and proudly traced their origins back to Barry Goldwater conservatism. The Tea Party, on the other hand, a fabrication of the mainstream media, consists of some card-carrying incompetents who would never have hijacked the spotlight were it not for complicity by the press, broadcast news, and TV talking heads.

Relish the irony of a group of "populists" who evolved in response to outrage at the government for bailing out the banks and Wall Street. Of course, it is the wrong government they should be outraged against. It was George W. Bush's administration who started the stimulus program, but while they're in the neighborhood, tea partiers might as well speak out in favor of privatization of social security, and so-called free market economics. Ronald Reagan would be proud. It was, of course, Reaganomics that got us into this mess in the first place.

Then, there's Rand Paul who now says he wouldn't have voted for the Civil Rights Act, and would leave it up to private establishments to decide whom they allow, and disallow to frequent their clubs. We got a little taste of that kind of thinking when an Alaska journalist went to a rally for Republican Senate candidate, Joe Miller, to interview the candidate and was handcuffed, detained for a half hour, and ejected. This is the kind of empowerment Dr. Paul would like to extend to your local watering hole along with the right to carry a loaded gun on to the premises.

But, no matter. While the spirit moves me, I thought it might be expedient to put together a user's guide for this uber-important midterm election which would have been most helpful had there been one back in 1994:

First and foremost, show up. Nobody ever got elected by shadow voters. Well, that is, almost nobody. George W. Bush is a prominent exception. Absentee votes are okay, but absentee ballots are often counted last. Your vote must count. Put down that remote, walk away from your computer, and go to the polls.

#2: Vote for the outcome, not the candidate. Think about a country under the thumb of a bunch of Palin clones. Forget about how the media has sexed up the Republican Party by making what has been the same old, same old into a "movement." If it talks about your right to bear arms, wants to rescind any attempt to equalize health care in this country, proposes turning over your social security check to Wall Street, backs military surges and the "war on terror," plans to overturn Roe v. Wade, calls anyone a "socialist" who wants to reform a bankrupt and failing economic system, if you vote for that person, you are voting against yourself.

#3: For the gentlemen out there, stop looking at Michele Bachmann's legs. When Christine O'Donnell talks about masturbation as adultery, she is referring to you. That's right, if you're married and you pleasure yourself, you've just cheated on your spouse. Talk about boundary issues! Sarah Palin has a few of her own, too. She still thinks she can see Russia from her front porch.

#4: Now that you've read the newspaper avidly for the past month or more, forget everything you read, and instead remember the past. As the saying goes, those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. Remember where you when Richard Nixon was in office? Too young? Okay, how about Ronald Reagan. Did Mr. Reagan's trickle down thingy do anything for you? Well, stay tuned for trickle down take two if these tea party candidates gain momentum. One seat in Congress is one seat too many.

#5: Don't watch the election results on Election Day until after you've voted. Yes, that's right, the power of suggestion is a righteous thing.

#6: Friends in California, okay, I concede, Jerry Brown isn't sexy. Meg Whitman has better legs, but she's got better teeth, too, like her Republican counterpart, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and her bite is worse than her bark. If elected governor, she will work for more furloughs for state workers, cops, firemen, and teachers, strip even more than $250 million from a program dedicated to child care, beef up ICE raids, build a better fence to keep "illegals" out while secretly hiring undocumented workers, and make it clear that the upper 1% is going to remain just where it has been for the past 30 years in the upper 1% of wealth. A vote for Meg Whitman is a vote for corporations, big business, big banks, and a vote against working people.

#7: Don't be fooled. If you're concerned about the "national security" issue, it was Ronald Reagan who extolled the virtues of bin Laden's freedom fighters when they were pups in Afghanistan, and it was U.S. taxpayer dollars, under Reagan, that financed the training of the Taliban in Pakistan. Ultimately, there would no bin Laden without Ronald Reagan.

So, a vote for those who want to dissolve the difference between church and state only when that church is a Christian church, a vote for those who inveigh against building Muslim community centers in lower Manhattan is a vote against national security.

Last, but not least, it is not enough to show up. It is more important to grow up which is something we have yet to do in this country. Nobody wants to accept that a setback isn't a defeat. Everybody wants instant results. If things don't move fast enough, go to the other register.

Well, guess what, we're running out of registers, and the only register that matters now is the one that enables you to vote.

We're running out of allies, too. If you think this radical right lunatic fringe of a movement is scary, think about how it looks to others around the world, and picture your grandchild, twenty years hence, being all alone on a battlefield with a bunch of guys with shaved heads. This is the future you are voting for on November 2nd, election day. Let's get it right.

95 ain't what it's cracked up to be...

Sylvia, age 6, with her brother, and my dad, David, age 3

Word from Aunt Sylvia who, a few weeks ago, went with her husband Ellie to what she calls "an old age home." Sylvia turned 95 in September, and Ellie was 99 in July.

Sylvia does know how to turn a phrase, so here goes...

"I am now in the land of walkers and wheelchairs, and people of another planet. I am having trouble watching all these lovely people waiting for God.

Ellie hates it, unfortunately, but he really belongs.

They are very kind and helpful here... Well. So be it. We have outlived all our friends and most of the family."

And they fight on, Sylvia and Ellie, married for more than sixty years. They fight on in a world that is dedicated to appeasing youth as if it were feeding years, like raw meat, to a lion.

Those who live to be closer to 100 than 50 deserve not just our respect, but to finish out their days in a tropical retreat with fresh fruit, white wine, and overflowing fountains.

No one really belongs in an old age home. Time doesn't make us, we make time. If a civilization may be judged on how it treats its poor, its infirm, and those who are advanced in age, then we must cower in shame.

Peter and Paul

Why are we robbing Peter to pay Paul? Aren't those guys apostles?

Leaving Las Vegas

After two nights of watching debates featuring candidates like Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell, I know why I haven't been able to write about the midterm elections. It's hard to believe this is not a dream. At any moment, I think, I'll wake up, and realize that the past few weeks have been one Alaska-sized nightmare.

But, as Harry Reid would agree, what's happened tonight in Las Vegas is real alright as real as the mud on Michele Bachmann's pumps.

One comes away with two things from listening to Reid debate Angle:

1) The word "Obamacare" has caught on like wildfire in a mostly dry campsite, and is now a shibboleth, mantra, and one of Palin's nonsensical neologisms that are as weightless as a slipper in outer space.

After all, what is "Obamacare" but a new arrangement of the same health reform song sung by former Republican Massachusetts governor Mitt, the CEO cheerleader, Romney. Yes, it was a fellow Republican who first introduced the "socialism" that Palin likes to associate with the Democratic legislation passed nearly two years ago.

In almost every important respect, what Palin, and now Sharron Angle, like to dub "Obamacare" is virtually identical to its predecessor, the New England Commonwealth's health reform bill which is now jokingly referred to as "Romneycare" everywhere but in, you guessed it, Vegas and Alaska.

Notably, as you remember, Mitt Romney's health reform bill called for a government mandate for citizens to carry health insurance, like car insurance, or face a penalty just like "Obamacare" does. Its detractors have also blamed Romneycare for statewide job losses, and hurting small business. In fact, according to an article in Politico, Romney, everyone's favorite Republican 2012 presidential contender is already being urged to distance himself from the Obama administration's health care reform so as not to damage any possible bid.

From now on, when you hear a Republican talk about "Obamacare," think "Romneycare," as that is what it essentially is.

None of this seems to phase candidates like Christine O'Donnell, Michele Bachmann, Rand Paul, or Sharron Angle.

Secondly, and importantly, thanks to the mainstream media's fascination with nouveau populist causes, as well as anything that boosts anemic readership, many voters now think of Palin, Bachmann, O'Donnell, Rand Paul, and Sharron Angle as tea partiers, not Republicans. To think of these politicians as anything other than the logical, if nightmarish, extension of the Republican revolutionaries of 1994 is to deny the obvious. What is called the tea party is merely recycled conservatism.

So, we interrupt this article to bring you the following breaking news:

Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, Michele Bachmann, and Rand Paul are as true to the Republican Party platform as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush before them. They are card carrying right wing nuts. Don't let their two-bit populism fool you. They're populists all the way to the bank. They care as much about the working man and woman in this country as the folks at AIG, Citibank, Enron, and Goldman Sachs do. When they speak about the free market and deregulation, they're not practicing witchcraft, they're bringing you Reaganomics in drag.

The same Reagonomics that broke the air traffic controllers union now wants to break social security, Medicare, under the pretext of reducing the budget. Palin et. al are fighting hard to keep the upper 1% of the population precisely where it is, and has been for the past thirty years. Preserving the tax cuts of George W. Bush means preserving the status quo. Angle, O'Donnell et. al mean change you can believe in because you've already been there, half a century ago.

The scare tactics they use about increasing the deficit, and the risk of another terrorist attack are real, but the target isn't. They are every thinking man and woman's cause for fear. The prospect of a Palin, Angle, Bachmann, or O'Donnell in Congress, or lord forbid, the White House should scare the wits out of any reasonable person.

From Sharron Angle's proclamation, during her debate with Harry Reid tonight, that if we allow the Bush tax cuts to expire we do so at our peril to Christine O'Donnell telling her Democratic opponent Coon that she supports reversing Roe v. Wade and letting the states decide whether or not abortion should be legal to Michele Bachmann defending the rights of what used to be called fetuses, but what Bachmann now insists are the "pre-born," what we hear is the battle cry of the underprepared and overcoached.

Who are the coaches? The same guys who sold arms to the Contras in exchange for release of hostages. The lawbreakers. The saboteurs. The ones who like you to think they're keeping you safe while robbing your safe.

Michele Bachmann takes the choice debate one step further by saying she would work to grant the "pre-born" equal protection under the 14th Amendment. One can only scratch one's head when hearing that a candidate who aims to protect the "pre-born" simultaneously voted "no" on enforcing anti-gay hate crimes.

Bachmann's stance on gun control is equally emphatic. She wants to ban gun registration and trigger lock law.

And, while Angle wants to repeal the Department of Education, Rand Paul wants to abolish the U.S. Department of Energy. In his latest debate, Rand Paul also wants to repeal health care legislation.

During her debate with Harry Reid tonight, Sharron Angle made it clear that she still wants to privatize social security, though she now calls it "personalizing," using the proverbial party line that social security is verging on bankruptcy. Doubtless you recall that same privatization pablum coming from the mouth of another rank and file Republican, George W. Bush.

That Christine O'Donnell was unable to name one Supreme Court justice she admires during her live debate with her Democratic opponent is especially scary given that she can see the White House from her front porch.

When Rand Paul said he wouldn't have voted for the Civil Rights Act, all he needed was a confederate flag in the background and a couple of guys in white hoods to make the moment more authentic. And, what do Paul and Palin have in common? They both want to take their country back, back to where it was a hundred years ago.

As for Sharron Angle, it's hard to take anyone seriously who dismisses their mistake of $25 billion, and $2.5 billion, but guess what...

this is serious, this is mega serious, and no, Martha, this is not a bad dream.

This is the radical right wing fringe of the Republican Party, the same virulent wing nuts who brought you Oliver North, Newt Gingrich, and Dan Quayle, on steroids. But, you knew all that didn't you? The question is, what are you going to do about it?

Some might say we need to vet our candidates more, but the same vet who gave Sarah Palin her pedigree is working on the campaigns of Michele Bachmann, and Sharron Angle.

These four candidates, and their less conspicuous colleagues like Scott Brown who recently won Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, and the Republican now running to be New York's next governor, Carl Paladino, have one common denominator: they're scary as hell.

Perhaps the maxim should be changed to read: "Those who are not old enough to remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

If you, too, have never been one to rush to the polls during a midterm election, then you'd better be prepared to live with the consequences for a long time to come.

From Michael Winship

Washington and Change: Cash You Can Believe

By Michael Winship

"Somebody once said that Washington was a city of Northern charm and Southern efficiency." So John F. Kennedy famously remarked in 1961 and so the town seemed to remain when I first moved there in 1969 to go to school.

Clerks in dusty stores moved with the majestic inertia of tall ships becalmed. You could count the number of good restaurants on the fingers of one hand -- okay, maybe two hands. There was a rendering plant on the south side of K Street that turned animal carcasses into glue; when the wind blew the wrong way, the awful smell brought tears to the eyes of those who lived and shopped along the fashionable lanes of Georgetown.

There were still "temporary" buildings on the National Mall that had been there since the end of World War I, filled with government workers. But any citizen could freely walk the corridors of Congress, enter a member’s office to leave an opinion or pick up a pass for the visitors’ galleries of the House or Senate, ride that little subway that runs underneath the Capitol. No campaign contributions required.

Or so it seemed to a white, middle class college kid. Washington also was a city in decline. Not quite a year and a half had passed since the three days of riots that followed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Thirteen people had died, more than a thousand were hurt, and you could still see piles of rubble and burned out storefronts. Hundreds of businesses had been damaged or destroyed.

Robert Reich -- the new chairman of the non-partisan, citizens’ lobby Common Cause -- remembers DC in those days, too. He interned for Bobby Kennedy and later at the Federal Trade Commission. Then the capital changed. By the time Reich became President Clinton’s Secretary of Labor in 1993, poverty was still rampant in the city but much of it had been shoved beyond the sightlines of the rich and powerful. "Washington was much fancier," he recalled. "It almost glittered --the hotels and the bistros and the restaurants -- and the money."

Speaking at Common Cause’s 40th anniversary dinner on October 6, Reich noted, "It’s even wealthier today. You walk around Washington and you see what it is and that money is here for one reason. It may go into the hands of people who are lawyers and public relations people and lobbyists but it is here for one reason and that is to influence our democracy. We have never seen in American history as much money flowing to our nation’s capitol. This election that is coming up is an election in which for the first time that I can remember there are hundreds of millions of dollars flowing to candidates and we have no way of knowing who is providing this money at all. Complete, absolute secrecy."

Kenneth Vogel at the website Politico.com echoes Reich: "Never in modern political history has there been so much secret money gushing into an American election. By Election Day, independent groups will have aired more than $200 million worth of campaign ads using cash that can’t be traced back to its original source, predicts Fred Wertheimer, president of the non-profit group Democracy 21. 'And this is just the beginning,' Wertheimer said. 'Unless we get some changes here to mitigate this problem, I would expect we will see $500 million or more in 2012.'"

This year "has raised two basic questions that strike at the very core of the ethos of the campaign-finance reform effort: Can the flow of money into elections be limited if the courts have deemed political giving and spending a First Amendment right? Can any system of rules to make money more transparent ever keep up with the legal devices that powerful interests use to keep their influence hidden?"

This is not just the fault of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, although it has unleashed vast new sums of cash into the system – compare this year’s elections with the midterms of four years ago. Nor is it yet because of foreign money attempting to influence elections although, Karl Rove and the US Chamber of Commerce’s denials to the contrary, this is a clear and present danger. And true, it’s not solely because of deep corporate pockets that Democrats seem to be headed toward a significant setback in three weeks; a still faltering economy and lack of jobs are giving them a brutal slapping around.

But the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act has been eviscerated by the courts and what’s left of it is barely enforced by the Federal Election Commission. The same goes for various provisions of the Federal tax code, which need not only stricter enforcement but beefing up.

The October 12 Washington Post editorialized, "Nonprofit advocacy groups, known as 501(c)(4)s, are permitted to engage in political advocacy as long as that is not their primary purpose.

Meanwhile, these groups do not have to reveal the identities of their donors. IRS regulations bar such organizations from 'direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office,' but as a practical matter, these limits have not made much difference.

"One such Republican-leaning group, American Crossroads GPS, has touted its ability to keep donor names confidential even as it runs ads in key races. Similarly, trade associations such as the Chamber of Commerce, organized under section 501(c)(6) of the tax code, are not required to disclose donors and are permitted even greater leeway to engage in political activity."

Unfortunately, while the voting public expresses concern over campaign spending, it’s not very high on their agenda; most believe it will take an outrage such as Watergate, or at least another Jack Abramoff influence peddling-type scandal to get reform back on the tracks.Campaign finance reform has been a goal of the organization Common Cause since it was founded in 1970 by the great John Gardner, a Republican.

My friend and colleague Bill Moyers ended their anniversary dinner last week with a call to action, invoking the memory of Gardner and another prominent member of the GOP.

"The founder of Common Cause was a prophet in seeing money as the dagger directed at the heart of democracy," Moyers said. "Like his fellow Republican Teddy Roosevelt, he opposed the 'naked robbery' of the public’s trust. A century ago, in one of the most powerful speeches in American political history, Roosevelt said: 'It is not a partisan issue; it is more than a political issue; it is a great moral issue. If we condone political theft, if we do not resent the kinds of wrong and injustice that injuriously affect the whole nation, not merely our democratic form of government but our civilization itself cannot endure.'"

Moyers concluded, "The only way to defeat organized money is with organized people. Now it's your turn."

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Michael Winship is senior writer at Public Affairs Television in New York City.

Look Who's Playing with Guns Now

With the election of Barack Obama in 2008, the gun lobby's biggest fear was the dimunition of the power they have enjoyed since well before the days of Charlton Heston. But, to the contrary, not only has gun ownership surged in the past year, according to the Christian Science Monitor, but the Supreme Court has even sidled up to the gun lobby by conferring constitutional entitlement.

Even President Obama, during his campaign, acknowledged what he posits to be a Second Amendment right to bear arms. Ironically, the amendment that speaks of bearing arms also reinforces the need for a civilian militia, a frightening prospect when one considers that guns are as American as apple pie for the Tea Party.

Their darling, Sarah Palin, has even encouraged her flock to "reload," and take their country back. The former governor of Alaska was, of course, speaking figuratively; the National Rifle Association is not.

And, when newly appointed Attorney General Eric Holder intimated that he'd like to bring back the ban on assault weapons that was instituted, back in 1994, by then President Bill Clinton, he received a protest letter from dozens of House Democrats urging him to kill the idea. Mr. Holder quickly complied.

Those House Democrats who signed that letter to Holder must have been the same bunch who, back in June, agreed to omit the NRA from key portions of legislation designed to mitigate the effects of Citizens United , a Supreme Court ruling that appears to grant First Amendment rights to corporation, but really authorizes complete, and anonymous corporate takeover of elections. With that ruling, groups like the NRA, General Electric, AIG, E-Bay, News Corp., and any other company that wants to influence elections can do so with impunity, and without having to divulge their identities.

Patrick Leahy, the senator from Vermont's "Disclose Act" would have essentially counteracted the damage of Citizens United by requiring organizations to reveal their top contributors if they sponsor political campaign commercials, or mass mailings in the months immediately preceding an election. A sane idea, and a prudent one.

Over the summer, the seeds of discontent appeared. The NRA managed to finagle an exemption from disclosing, claiming their size alone merits exclusion. And as we have seen from Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac, size counts. The lobby managed to pull off this maneuver with a little help from one of their Democratic friends, Rep. Heath Shuler from North Carolina in exchange, no doubt, for future endorsements in the red state.

Senator Leahy's proposed legislation that would have forced campaign contributors to unmask their involvement was handily defeated in the Senate in September. Gun Owners of America is among the groups that openly applauded the bill's demise.

No doubt, Democrats in Congress scored points bigtime with the NRA by defeating the "Disclose Act," so it should come as no surprise that, as the Washington Post reports, the NRA now endorses more than 50 incumbent House Democrats, 10% of whom hold seats that are thought to be crucial to maintaining a Democratic majority.

Why is the NRA suddenly smitten with Democrats? They're not really. It's reportedly a tradition for them to be "incumbent-friendly," especially when incumbents are friendly to them, so in closely contested races in states like South Dakota, Virginia, Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, Florida, North Dakota, Maryland, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, the gun lobby has openly endorsed Democratic incumbents who are trying to hold on to their House seats like life rafts. Some might call that "quid pro quo," or one hand washing the other unless, of course, there is blood on one hand.

Speaking of which, remember, too, that it is the same Supreme Court that brought you Citizens United that also recently affirmed the so-called Second Amendment right to bear arms, striking down Chicago's ban on handguns. Back in 2008, the Court struck down a similar handgun ban in Washington, D.C., so like it or not, the lobby effectively owns this president.

Pretty soon, it may be said they own your neighborhood bar, too. It's now perfectly legal to walk into a bar carrying a loaded handgun in Tennessee, Arizona, Georgia, and Virginia, and other states, like California, are chomping at the bit to join the "open carry" crowd. This, despite the omnipresence of handgun violence. If you are black or Hispanic, and living in the inner city, you are more likely now to die from a handgun than from a cigarette.

If this sounds omninous, don't tell the FBI that. They're proud to report that, in the first six months of 2009, violent crime in America dropped by 10%, but consider last year, too, the United States ranked 4th, out of 46 countries, behind Thailand, Colombia, and South Africa in deaths from firearms with just over 9300 fatalities, more than twice as many as American lives lost in the war in Iraq.

In this era of mass gun violence exemplified by the shooting of more than 40 at Virginia Tech, and Columbine before it, guns are to blame for mass casualties in Chicago, Salt Lake City, and Texas. Just last week, in Gainesville, Florida, there was a shooting spree.

One can hardly go a day without reading about a gunman who opened fire at an elementary school in southern California, a disgruntled employee who shot three to death at the Discovery Channel, or the gunman who killed a doctor at Johns Hopkins then turned the gun on himself.

One can hardly go a week without hearing about a desperate family man, helpless in his hour of need, who turns the gun on his wife, and children, then on himself.

Where is the Disclose Act that will address this?

Before we accept mob rule, must we not first ask who is the mob that rules? Is it made up of those who speak of "reloading," and "grizzly mamas?" Is it comprised of those who shoot deer, wolves, and moose from close range, or from 20,000 feet? Is it not murder if you don't get your hands dirty. How to rationalize brute force, or to confuse it with free speech?

The Supreme Court has effectively enabled corporate bullies, and legalized giving steroids to lobbies that pose a clear, and present danger to families in the name of protecting family values.

Notably, members of Congress were careful not to let many key provisions of the USA Patriot Act sunset, to tay up nights worrying about whether to let George W. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy expire, but no one has lost any sleep about letting the ban on assault weapons go the way of all dust back in 2004 nor is anyone in Congress in a big hurry to bring it back. That is, in itself, a crime.

If it is possible to perform an autopsy on a person, why not on a nation? How about on the American dream? Those who insist on their right to civilian weaponry, those who think of the president as a figure head, and a puppet for the military, are ultimately cut from the same cloth as those who see arming themselves as their constitutional right. When an autopsy of this democracy is performed, it is they who may be listed as the official cause of death.

10/10/10

Seeing this many tens at one time, got me to thinking about how, as a child, I'd get confused between the letter "I" and the number "1, and I had an idea: remove all the zeros, and you've got: 1/1/1.

In an age when #1 has never been more important and verges on being maxed out frankly, I also started thinking about the difference between being 1, and being whole as they're often light years apart.

There is another important distinction to be made: to hope is not the same thing as to aspire. Hope implies passivity whereas to aspire suggests the kind of active, and critical intelligence needed for concrete change.

So, on this day 10/10/10, a date none of us living will ever see again, it occurs to me that we must aspire to greatness even if we hope for less.

In the end, greatness is never about a couple of 1's followed by a couple of 0's, but must include you, 2!

Imagine Peace Tower

Today would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday, and Yoko Ono spent it in Iceland unveiling the Imgaine Peace Tower.

Go to imaginepeace.com, and send your wishes there. Your wishes will be sent directly to Iceland, and go to the below link to see the documentary on how this great idea came to be...

http://imaginepeacetower.com/

(if link doesn't come up, cut and paste in your browser.)

Jail Bait

Watching Larry King interview Samantha Geimer, Roman Polanski's victim, reminded me of a story from my teenage years.

When I was a sophomore in high school, and about 15 years old, I was dating a fellow named Bobby. He was 27, and a salesman.

As I knew my parents wouldn't approve of me seeing a fellow his age, I asked Bobby to pick me up at the local candy store instead of coming to my house, so about once a week, he'd meet me there and we'd go out to dinner, or to movies. He loved to take long drives, and so did I.

Whenever we passed a hotel, I'd say "Bobby, can we please go to that hotel? I've never been to a hotel with a guy before." He laughed awkwardly, and give me this urgent look. One day, he just said, "You're jailbait. I'd get sent away for a long time if I took you there."

Expanding my vocabulary was always a matter of great importance to me, so I asked repeatedly, and plaintively "What's jailbait?" Bobby refused to tell me, so when I got home, I couldn't wait to ask my father who was in the kitchen reaching for a bowl of butter pecan ice cream.

"Daddy," I said, "what's jailbait?" I've never seen my father get so upset. He dropped the bowl, turned around, and yelled "Who called you that? Tell me now. Where did you hear that word?" He was never one to raise his voice. I looked at him, and laughed quietly---"Just one of my classmates at school. Relax."

He wouldn't give me the answer, but I had ways of finding things out and, not surprisingly, that was my last encounter with Bobby.

Girls in their teens are naive, or were back then. Truly, I just wanted the experience of going to a hotel with a guy, something I had never experienced before. I'd seen it in the movies, and it looked so glamorous. Luckily, I was with someone who understood that, and who was mature, and emotionally secure enough not to take advantage of my vulnerability.

Girls of that age are seductive as hell. Think about Lolita. Isn't that what the Nabokov novel was all about? Okay, well maybe she wasn't all that innocent, or naive, but to this day, I'm thankful that my friend was able to think clearly and not let his hormones get in the way. (Had he been 18, of course, it might have been another story)

Think about this: a 27 year old salesman from Queens was wise enough to know better than to mess around with an underage girl. Roman Polanski could have learned a thing or two from him.

Headline of the decade

"Obama admnistration declares Iraq open for U.S. business."

Passing the Peace Pipe Instead

No sooner has the ink dried on the first copy of Bob Woodward's tell all book which, among other things, outs the conflict between Obama and his military advisors over the direction of the Afghan war, than the Washington Post reports that the Karzais are now in "high level" preliminary negotiations with the Taliban, information that was provided anonymously by Afghan, and Arab sources.

What convenient timing, too, less than a month away from a crucial midterm election in which a Democratic Congress may be about to lose its shirt and at a time when public awareness of ever rising drone strikes in neighboring Pakistan has never been greater.

While Mr. Obama has said from the start that he favors diplomacy over warfare, only the most ingenuous would deny the blatant political expediency of passing the peace pipe in the months before the July, 2011 deadline for endgame in the region.

Reportedly, too, the Saudis have held what are called "inconclusive meetings" to reconcile the Taliban with the Karzai government until about a year ago. You may recall that Osama bin Laden hails from Saudi Arabia. Why, over the past nine years, haven't the Saudis arranged to have a pow-wow with him?

Another gaping question is, given all the controversy surrounding Hamid Karzai's brother, and the pervasiveness of Taliban influence to be found throughout Afghanistan from its police force to its poppy farmers, how can these negotiations be seen as anything but a public relations ploy designed to obscure the obvious: to accept the legitimacy of the Afghan war, one would have to believe that the insurgents are fighting themselves.

But, indeed they are not. This is not a civil war. What is happening in Afghanistan is altogether different from what happened in Iraq. It is not about faction A Taliban fighting faction B, but instead access to Helmand Province's lucrative poppy field, and ongoing control of the region including, as also recently disclosed, access to the area's mineral wealth..

America's short term memory deficit must astound the world. Does anybody remember the Obama administration's stated objective being counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, or merely to divest the Afghan/Pakistan border of al Qaeda? How quickly that goal was forgotten..

General Petraeus, too, appears to endorse "high level" Taliban representatives reaching out to the Karzai government: "This is how you end these kinds of insurgencies," he is reported to have said. Now he tells us! After the surge, troop increase of 30,000, not to mention escalation of the drone campaign, after many thousands of American, and Afghan lives, ending the war is as simple as taking a meeting.

One thing is clear. Any meeting between Taliban representatives and the Karzai government that doesn't include, and affirm Pakistan's sovereignty will be counterfeit as subsequent withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan can then only mean redeployment to Pakistan.

"Making Ends Meet in Coin-Operated Washington"

By Michael Winship
(with apologies to the late, great Damon Runyon)

So I am in Washington, DC, our nation’s capitol, admiring the buildings and the fine monuments and so forth, when I run into my very dear friend Gorilla Bagsley, whom I have not had the pleasure of seeing for many a year.

We shake hands with joy indeed and Gorilla says to me, come and have a drink for old time’s sake. I have not imbibed in a very long time, I tell him, and fear that such a thing will give me gas, but he persuades me to come into an establishment he knows and to bend an elbow with a pint of something pale and weak while he imbibes a beverage of a more muscular variety.

I have not been with Gorilla since he and I were young and flimflamming the tourists around New York Harbor, telling them that the Statue of Liberty is green on account of it was a gift from the generous people of Mars. Now here he is in Washington, which to me is passing strange. For if Boston is the home of the bean and the cod, as the poet once said, then surely Washington is the home of the scheme and the fraud, and so I ask Gorilla, who I thought had gone the route of the straight and narrow, what he is doing in such a place.

“Oh,” he says. “This is a wonderful place.”

“Why?” I ask, and Gorilla replies, “Because, dear pal of mine, it is coin-operated.”

“Crime does not pay,” I point out to Gorilla. “At least as I recall, not the way you do it.”

“That is a point upon which I must concur with you,” he says. “Certainly my attempt to hold up a financial institution with a staple gun was not my finest hour. In fact, I have learned during my brief time in this burg that I should have applied for bailout money instead. But I assure you that I have changed. This is the land of opportunity. And coin-operated, as I have said.”

“Coin-operated indeed,” I reply. “Look at what is in the newspaper here. According to The Washington Post, and I quote: ‘Interest groups are spending five times as much on the 2010 congressional elections as they did on the last midterms, and they are more secretive than ever about where that money is coming from. The $80 million spent so far by groups outside the Democratic and Republican parties dwarfs the $16 million spent at this point for the 2006 midterms.’

“And get this,” I continue, “It says, ‘The trends amount to a spending frenzy conducted largely in the shadows.’ Frankly, Gorilla, it is my belief that this is a far too dangerous place for one who has a curriculum vitae such as yours. I do not want your parole officer should be disappointed in you.”

“I appreciate your concern,” says Gorilla. “Truly I do. But trust me, everything is jake. I am in no danger of reapprehension.”

“How can that be?” I respond. “Leave us face it, there is an awful lot of lettuce rolling loose in this fair city and I fear it is far too great a temptation for one as light-fingered as yourself. The Democratic National Committee raised more than $16million last month even though they are supposed to be losing. The Center for Responsive Politics, an organization filled with honest types who I take to be very much on the level, says big oil and gas have spent more than $17 million on federal elections this year – so far. News Corp, the people who own Fox News, although they call themselves fair and balanced, has given a million bucks to the Republican Governors Association and another million to the US Chamber of Commerce which freely throws around money on pro-business candidates like a guy who is out of his mind about a doll.”

Gorilla gets impatient with me and swats the air with his enormous mitt as if he is sending a fly into the next solar system. “You are not telling me anything I do not know,” says he. “But I have found a legal way to benefit from this corporate largesse without threatening my always tentative freedom.”

“And that is?” I query.

“Catering,” Gorilla says. “All of these high rollers must eat when they are here, and all of these candidates have fundraisers here in the capital at which food is served -- even the ones who say Washington is a place in which they would not be caught dead, unless they are elected. I provide the edibles – pizza, doughnuts, little hot dogs wrapped in dough, fish eggs and sour cream on tiny slivers of toast or half a baby red potato – you name it. Here, taste.”

He reaches into a bag and hands me a buttery croissant. With my mouth full, I ask, “And from this you are making a living commensurate with the income once earned from your past nefarious activities?”

“Better,” Gorilla says, and pulls a piece of paper from his inside pocket. “Feast your eyes upon this. According to the website known as Politico.com, in just the last two weeks before the House adjourned so its members could go campaigning, more than 400 fundraisers were held in Washington for congressional candidates -- wine and bourbon tastings, beer blasts, barbecues, swanky cocktail parties, dinners and luncheons. Thousands of people, hungry for my finger food and pastries. After all these years, I am making it hand over fist.”

“Well, good for you, Gorilla,” I conclude, “and I certainly do not begrudge you your industriousness and good fortune, but I do not care what the Supreme Court says about limitless contributions. There has to be a new law so that these corporations cannot buy elections.”

“That is a good and noble idea,” he agrees, and brushes a trace of baking flour from his neatly tailored, plaid lapel. “But bad for business.”

“This is important!” I yell, and then look up at the television above the bar. Fox News is reporting that the Statue of Liberty is green on account of it is a gift from the people of Mars. Protesters are at the scene, demanding the statue’s destruction because it was donated by aliens and is much too close to Ground Zero.

I sigh and think maybe I will stay here with Gorilla Bagsley. He makes a very good croissant.

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Michael Winship is senior writer at Public Affairs Television in New York City.

October, 1969

"I'm not going to be the first American president to lose a war."

Richard M. Nixon

(and he won't be the last one, either)

Michael Winship on Dublin

The Celtic Tiger, Declawed and Defanged

By Michael Winship

DUBLIN -- The last time I was here in Ireland, eight years ago, the Celtic Tiger was still roaring. The country had zoomed from poverty to wealth, enjoying an unprecedented economic boom, with unemployment down to 4.5 percent and consumer spending and average wages at all-time highs.

But now? I stood on board a restaurant ship docked along a bank of the River Liffey with my friend and colleague David Kavanagh, executive director of the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild. His hand swept along the shore as he used the panorama of the city skyline to describe what has happened to the country’s economy in just two short years.

To the left, he pointed out the beautiful new Samuel Beckett Bridge, opened in December, shaped like an Irish harp placed on its side, and designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. (In this city that reveres writers there are bridges named after Beckett, Sean O’Casey and James Joyce – a Calatrava design as well. He’s also the imagination behind the new World Trade Center Transportation Hub, under construction at Ground Zero in Manhattan.)

The Beckett Bridge cost 60 million euros to erect – about $80 million US (and no Waiting for Godot –like jokes about a bridge to nowhere, please). Near it stands Dublin’s brand new national convention center, built for 380 million euros – that’s almost half a billion dollars. Both structures epitomize the spending spree that once characterized Ireland’s booming prosperity.

Torn down to make way for the convention center were red brick Victorian warehouses where trains delivered goods for transfer to the cargo ships that once docked here. A handful of them still stand. But next door, rising jagged like a broken tooth, is the unfinished building that was meant to be the new headquarters of the Anglo Irish Bank.

When all seemed flush, and foreign capital was rolling in, the Anglo Irish Bank lent billions of euros to property developers, including the builders of the convention center. The building boom went bust, exacerbated by the burst of the global housing bubble, and the bank has gone belly up, nationalized by the Irish government, a bailout that according to an analyst at Standard and Poor’s may wind up costing Irish taxpayers more than $47 billion American.

In January 2009, The Irish Times editorialized. “We have gone from the Celtic Tiger to an era of financial fear with the suddenness of a Titanic-style shipwreck, thrown from comfort, even luxury, into a cold sea of uncertainty… the future now is not just uncertain but has suddenly become a threatening place.”

Last year, when I spoke with David Kavanagh, the running joke was that the difference between Ireland and Iceland was one letter and six weeks.

In 2009, the economy sank 7.1 percent. Emigration levels are at their highest in more than twenty years, with a 50 percent increase in Irish nationals leaving the country.

Ireland now has close to 14 percent unemployment and the biggest deficit in Europe -- proportionately higher than that of Greece. It could reach around 20-25 percent of its gross domestic product, but the country has not yet gone to the International Monetary Fund and the European Union for a financial rescue, as the Greeks have.

But despite government denials, that may be unavoidable. And Wall Street hedge funds aren’t helping. According to Ireland’s Sunday Independent newspaper, “The International Monetary Fund estimated that up to [about $4 billion US] of Ireland’s debt was being targeted by speculators through the use of derivatives. This practice is likely to have increased in recent weeks over growing fears that Ireland may default on some of [the Anglo Irish Bank] debt.” As one newspaper columnist wrote, “It’s contempt for how badly we do things allied to a gleeful determination to make easy money out of it.”

As in the United States, citizen anger has been vehement and vocal, with Anglo Irish and other financial institutions the regular target of raucous demonstrations, hurled tomatoes and rotten eggs. Rage, too, has been directed at the country’s politicians, the papers filled with constant reports of oversized salaries and expensive perks (nearly $30,000 spent by a government delegation for one night’s stay at an expensive Italian hotel during Pope John Paul II’s funeral; trips to the Cannes Film Festival and a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Los Angeles; more than a million dollars of termination fees and pension payments to four members of the legislature who have decided not to stand for reelection).

The days of Brian Cowen, Ireland’s beleaguered prime minister – or Taoiseach, as they say here – are probably numbered, too, although he appears to have survived a mini-scandal after a somewhat befuddled and slurred interview on Irish radio that seemed hangover-induced. His already waning popularity nosedived even further but seemed to boomerang back after an apology and his appearance at that most Irish of events, the National Ploughing Championships.But curiously, despite the financial calamity and public indignation, there has been less here of the unfocused and often ill-informed fury typified by the Tea Party movement in America; in fact, most Irish with whom I spoke were perplexed by what’s happening in the United States. “America is going through an age of misinformation,” Irish journalist Una Mullally theorized in her column this past Sunday. “Fox News is sublime at creating an Orwellian arena of doublethink, but false information is being spread everywhere… The US is becoming increasingly polarized: politics, religion, money… But the biggest polarization is that of the truth.”

In a Dublin museum, I saw on one wall the words of a great truthteller, the sublime Dr. Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels, and long ago dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral here. When he died in 1745, he left the bulk of his estate for the founding of a psychiatric hospital. He wrote these lines for his native Ireland, but I couldn’t help thinking they apply to us, too:

He gave the little wealth he had,
to build a house for fools and mad:
And showed by one satiric touch,
No Nation wanted it so much.


Michael Winship is senior writer at Public Affairs Television in New York City.

Fighters, Not Bankers

As the saying goes, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. The president is right to deride Democrats who are disenchanted with his job performance nearly two years after inauguration day. Maybe the problem is, enchantment is optional with the vehicle.

Those whose vision of Obama was as a shaman, messiah, savior, or all of the above, were bound to be disappointed when the potion wore off. It's so much easier to invest all our energy into hoping someone will do our work for us, but it doesn't work that way, and never has.

Really, doesn't this president have enough to worry about without having to concern himself with being an entertainer, too?

Frankly, I don't know which is worse being called an Obama apologist, or an America apologist. Granted, all too often, they intersect, but for a moment, yes, and not that long ago, the whole world celebrated the ushering in of an era.

The $60 million question is, what happened to that era?

Like many, I'm disgusted that, while this White House touts civilian control, the military has all but run away with the war in Afghanistan. Like many, too, I'm concerned that CEO's are feeding off the working poor, a category under which too many of us now fall. I, too, long to see a rebirth of a middle class that has been laid to rest by a generation of trickle-down deregulated delusion. But, unlike many, I'm unwilling to throw in the towel on a president who has accomplished more in two short years than a generation of other presidents before him.

We must join him, and prepare to fight--fight those forces who want to turn back the clocks, and enable private institutions to bar people from their lunch counters like they did a half century ago. We must fight to ensure that women continue to have the right to determine not merely their reproductive destiny, but an equal wage in the workplace. We must fight to ensure that the upper one percent doesn't abscond with our pension plans, and our grandchildren's future.

This country was founded by fighters not bankers. The authors of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights raised their fists to oppression, tyranny, and religious intolerance. They didn't just roll back and say "here it is, dude, come and get it."

The attitude of the pioneers who laid the groundwork for a representative government was not just can-do, but will do, but what of the heirs to their republic? Well, look at us. We're a lazy lot. We think all we have to do is go to the polls on election day, pull a lever, or tear a chad, et voila---instant government.

If there isn't enough food in the refrigerator, blame leadership. If we can't make the car payment, blame leadership. If our children come home from fighting illegal wars, blame leadership when it was us who sent them there to fight in the first place.

The men and women who came to this continent to make a plan for a better future didn't intend for us to govern by remote control, but to arm ourselves with ideas not guns. Look where we are now. We have all these guns, but not many ideas. We're so into recycling, we even recycle our thoughts.

We recycle our revolutions, too. Couldn't Rand Paul be Newt Gingrich's son? '

Thomas Jefferson warned about the bankers. He predicted that it was the bankers who would pose the gravest threat to a burgeoning democracy, and he was right.

Those who raise their voices the loudest about reclaiming what they mistakenly claim to be their heritage are the ones who have, for generations, worked to put the Bill of Rights on life supports. The tea partiers have been around, in one form or another, almost as long as the American flag, and have worked in tandem with this corporate interest or that.

Nothing has changed except this: we have turned into a nation of bankers, and banker wanna-be's. We have lost the appetite for risk, except when it goes to venture capital, and look where that has gotten us.

We no longer value hard work, and are unwilling to put our shoulder to the wheel. We know only one word: "me," and the word "we" has taken on an increassingly narrow meaning.

We are as devout in our disbelief as we are in our religion. What we can't put on a credit card, we don't want. We have paced ourselves right out of the global marketplace.

So, what do we do when we're told we must roll up our sleeves, and get to work? Head for the door. Well, guess what. The door is closed, and only you can open it. The president, and Congress, they're elected to represent and represent only as, in the end, it is only the people who can act in the people's interest.

Be the change you can believe in, and for any concerned about this president's faith, worry about your own.

To those who still believe there are rights worth fighting for, get to work, prepare to get your hands dirty, walk away from euphemisms, and the illusion that you can elect anyone to do your work for you. Prepare to get thick with the struggle. For, as a wise man once said, "you're either part of the solution, or you're part of the problem."

Ahmadinejad steals the show, but Citigroup is the real bandit

All the furor, and media feeding frenzy over Ahmadinejad's comments at a meeting of the United Nations on Thursday couldn't have been better timed.

When Iran's Machiavelli decided to vent about the U.S. exploiting the bombing of the World Trade Center as a pretext for invading and toppling sovereign states in the Middle East, members of the U.S. delegation and those of several other European nations reportedly headed for the door. This makes for good copy, but does it make for good diplomacy? More to the point, such high theatrics steal the show rendering any other news coverage impossible.

So, when Ahmadinejad told FOX News, that it was time for a "fact finding mission" to find out who the real culprits were behind 9/11 as, in his opinion, the U.S. government was behind the attack, he was clearly stoking the fire of middle America by saying "such an insane and nutty thing." He was also driving up the ratings of all the major television news networks that covered the story.

While the president might consider the Iranian leader's comments "hateful" and "offensive," he allowed what was predictable, and won't even wind up as a footnote in history books, to hold America's attention captive for 48 hours.

What's more, the president did not deny Ahmadinejad's claim, as the Associated Press reports, that the U.S. has allocated $80 billion to upgrade our nuclear arsenal nor the hypocrisy of working with Russia, India, and Israel on their nuclear arsenals in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. He merely went along with the drama by instead focusing on the shamefulness of those remarks, especially so close to ground zero. What's really shameful is that the claim can't be refuted.

Nobody is defending Ahmadinejad's statements which were, at best, wildly inappropriate, but something else is being lost in the shuffle. The Obama administration and the mainstream media enabled furor over Ahmadinejad, as well as all the hooplah over the building of a Muslim community center at ground zero, at a time when Texas has decided to limit the number of references to Islam in future history textbooks. If we treat people as enemies, do they not become enemies?

Moreover, the news that poses the greatest threat to national security was eclipsed, deliberately or otherwise, by the visit of a the man who is, and has always been, essentially the fall guy for the Ayatollah.

On Friday, when most of America was preparing itself for the weekend, and after nonstop news coverage of Ahmadinejad's follies, it was announced that the feds have taken over three major credit unions.

It was also announced, on Friday, that Citigroup is awarding many of its executives with millions of dollars of salary raises in stocks. Citigroup, as you know, is partly owned by the government, and was the recipient, according to the AP, of $45 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) or government bailout money. So, in essence, your tax dollars are again going into the pockets of top executives with the stock market being used as a money-laundering operation.

While there is a federal pay cap on how much any chief executive can earn, one can supplement their compensation by awarding them millions in stock options which is precisely what Citigroup has done.

British deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, told the General Assembly that Ahmadinejad's "remarks were intended to distract attention from Iran's obligations and to generate media headlines."

The response by the United States and representatives of 27 other European countries who walked out of the United Nations, and those news outlets that covered the story nonstop, effectively deflected attention away from the fact those who have been sticking their hands into our pockets to enrich themselves are still at it.

Nov. 18, 1961

As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Nixon/Kennedy presidential debates, and are within ear shot of marking a half century since that fateful day in Dallas, we must be reminded of the prescience, and vibrant intelligence that was John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

In a speech delivered two short years before he passed, President John F. Kennedy's words eerily resonate, and must not be forgotten by those who entertain the notion that the Tea Party, so-called, is a new entity, but is instead a vestigial appendage of the John Birch Society of Mr. Kennedy's time:

"Now we are face to face once again with a period of heightened peril. The risks are great, the burdens heavy, the problems incapable of swift or lasting solution. And under the strains and frustrations imposed by constant tension and harassment, the discordant voices of extremism are heard once again in the land. Men who are unwilling to face up to the danger from without are convinced that the real danger comes from within. They look suspiciously at their neighbors and their leaders. They call for a 'man on horseback' because they do not trust the people. They find treason in our finest churches, in our highest court, and even in the treatment of our water. They equate the Democratic Party with the welfare state, the welfare state with socialism, and socialism with communism. They object quite rightly to politics' intruding on the military -- but they are anxious for the military to engage in politics."

For the full speech, please go to:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/35_kennedy/psources/ps_conspir.html

Michael Winship on Edwin Newman

Where’s Ed Newman When You Need Him?

By Michael Winship

I was in London last week when news came of the death of the great NBC newsman Edwin Newman, 91 years old. Turns out he and his wife had been living in England since 2007to be close to their daughter, but I suspect part of him chose to be there for the same reason the late American humorist S.J. Perelman migrated to the UK back in the 1970s. The courtesy may be only skin deep, he said, but that’s deep enough for me.

Disillusioned, Perelman wound up coming back to the States; Newman did not, which is a shame for the rest of us, as our bickering, divided, slaphappy nation could have used more of his perceptive objectivity, dry wit and profound sense of fair play. We certainly need all of those qualities now.

He was that rare thing, a gentleman, although "genteelly rumpled" and "genially grumpy" as his New York Times obituary described him. He also held an unusual record -- the only person in the world who had hosted two presidential debates and two editions of Saturday Night Live.

Ed and I got to know each other in the late eighties when he hosted a PBS documentary series I wrote and co-produced on the history of television. He also wrote the introduction to my book on the same subject. We spent a lot of time together, both in a post-production studio as he recorded narration and later on the road as we jointly traveled around the country promoting the TV series.

A strict grammarian and authority on the English language -- he wrote two best selling books on its use and abuse -- the only argument he and I ever had was on the difference between the words "perimeter" and "parameter." Ed, of course, won.

To him, precise language and journalistic accuracy were essential; part of what made him such a good reporter. In his life after retiring from NBC News in 1984, he enjoyed playing himself as a newscaster in movies and sitcoms. But he told me how incensed he was when the producers of The Golden Girls handed him a script in which he referred to Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev by the wrong title. He kept correcting it, yet the producers insisted on keeping it the way it was, because, they
argued, it was a dream sequence and the character having the dream wouldn’t know the difference. I thought Ed’s head would come to a point.

Newman’s first full-time job in journalism was as a dictation boy in the Washington bureau of the old International News Service, transcribing stories reporters phoned in from the field.

The wire service was owned by William Randolph Hearst and Ed loved to tell the story of the day one of Hearst’s deputies showed up at the bureau while the movie Citizen Kane -- Orson Welles’ devastating, satiric portrait of a Hearst-like publisher -- was playing at the RKO Keith’s movie theater just around the corner.

"Any of you boys seen Citizen Kane yet?" the man demanded. Ed and the other newsmen fell over themselves proclaiming total ignorance of the film.

Hearst’s deputy looked around the room and said, "Too bad. Damned fine portrait of the old man."

I suspect that even the legendary Hearst, who was no stranger to exploiting xenophobia and fear to peddle papers, would have been flabbergasted by our current toxic diet of hate radio, Fox News and Internet hyperbole. And I know Ed Newman would have been appalled, as illustrated by a story told in his Washington Post obituary.

On the Today show in 1971, Newman interviewed the 73-year-old comedian Georgie Jessel, one of those older entertainers like Bob Hope, Martha Raye and Kate Smith who were staunch supporters of Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War. During the interview, Jessel compared the Post and The New York Times to the Soviet government newspaper Pravda.

"You are a guest here," Newman told him. "It is not the kind of thing one tosses off. One does not accuse newspapers of being Communist, which you have just done."

Jessel responded, "I didn't mean it quite that way... I won't say it again."

Newman replied, "I agree that you won't say it again. Thank you very much, Mr. Jessel."

Jessel said, "I just want to say one thing before I leave." Newman said, "Please don't," and cut to a commercial.

As the Post reported, "When he came back on the air, Mr. Newman said television had a responsibility to uphold 'certain standards of conduct.'

"'It didn't seem to me we have any obligation to allow people to come on to traduce the reputations of anyone they want,' he said, 'to abuse people they don't like.'"

Alas, since then, as the progressive historian and journalist Rick Perlstein has written, "Conservatives have become adept at playing the media for suckers, getting inside the heads of editors and reporters, haunting them with the thought that maybe they are out-of-touch cosmopolitans..."

There was a time, he continued, when "the media didn't adjudicate the ever-present underbrush of American paranoia as a set of 'conservative claims' to weigh, horse-race-style, against liberal claims. Back then, a more confident media unequivocally labeled the civic outrage represented by such discourse as 'extremist' -- out of bounds."

Such was Ed Newman’s time -- and that of many other print and broadcast journalists with the knowledge, experience and bravery to speak the truth. Their erudition, skill and dedication to separating fact from fiction, right from rant and legitimate grievance from bellicosity are woefully absent from all too much of today’s misshapen, mainstream media.

Years ago, when we were promoting that PBS series and my book, he and I often would autograph copies together. One night in Seattle, a woman who had just gotten Newman’s signature was trying to make up her mind whether mine was worth having as well.

"Are you Ed’s sidekick?" she asked. Sidekick? I thought for a moment and answered, proudly, "Yes."

########

Michael Winship is senior writer at Public Affairs Television in New
York City.

Jimmy Carter's 60 Minutes Interview: The Scandal That Wasn't

Okay, I admit it. Everybody's got a weakness. For some, it's Godiva chocolates. For me, it's Jimmy Carter. How can one not like a man who says things like "Usually a president's image is enhanced by going to war. That didn't appeal to me?"

Okay, so he may surround himself with more controversy than secret service, but no one will ever accuse the former peanut farmer, and president of being a phony. He has antagonized just about every important political figure of our time, including his immediate successor Ronald Reagan. He alienated many by calling Israel an "apartheid state."

Remember that it was then President Carter who refused to go along with pagan chants to bomb Iran when those 52 American hostages were taken, a move that may have cost him reelection.

As a form of timed release as Mr. Carter's "Diary" comes out, Jimmy Carter sat down for an interview with Leslie Stahl (no relation) and, true to form, shocked yet again by saying that it was he who had what he called "comprehensive" health reform legislation first, and that his then political rival, Senator Ted Kennedy, "killed the bill." He portrayed the lion of the Senate as "abusive," and Stahl read selections from Carter's "Diary" that suggested Kennedy had been kicked out of college, and other scurrilous things.

Disclosure number two: I'm also a big fan of Ted Kennedy's.

This is not about liking or disliking. This is not about defamation of character. This is not about speaking ill of the dead. In his book, and during the interview, it was pointed out that Mr. Carter roundly criticized Ronald Reagan, suggesting that a renaissance in racism happened on Reagan's watch.

But, the obvious is often the most elusive element in the equation. Jimmy Carter was being interviewed about his newly published diary which he wrote while he was president of the United States. Ostensibly, each day he was in office, he recounted his experiences, his ruminations, events of importance, any trials and tribulations.

Forget location, context is everything. Should his "Diary" be an autobiography, or a memoir, it may be fair to question the judgment of a president, and a man, who would speak poorly of a former colleague, but no one should be expected to redact, or bury any personal complications that arose with one of his peers.

At the close of the 60 Minutes interview, correspondent Leslie Stahl made sure to note that whatever enmity may have existed between Carter and Kennedy was resolved, and the two worked closely and amicably after Carter left the White House.

Ultimately, it comes down to this. If you don't want to hear what he really thinks, don't ask Jimmy Carter. That's one of his great virtues. He calls them as he sees them as did Senator Kennedy. Ted Kennedy was no stranger to speaking his mind. That is what I respect most about both men.

Mr. Carter's outspokenness on the subject of Ted Kennedy is not the stuff from which a scandal emerges. They are the reflections of a man who maybe resents having the four years he presided over a peaceful country seen as a failed presidency. These are the words of a man who wants to set the record straight more than to demonize any past political rivals

Should Jimmy Carter be made to retract, or recant his statements about Ted Kennedy or anyone else, it would be a huge disservice to history, and one that Mr. Kennedy himself would abjure.

Accidentally For Purpose

Would it be considered naive or delusional to suggest that sometimes "bad" things that happen to one can be transformed alchemically into something good?

When life deals you a bad hand, do you just throw in your cards and walk away from the table, or do you step outside to look for the north star then come back, and go another round?

There is something to be learned even from the gravest adversity.

Having been prescribed bed rest for the entire Labor Day weekend was, for me, tantamount to torture, but it provided me the opportunity to unpack my head of all the unnecessary baggage I've been carrying around, mostly other people's demands, needs, and expectations.

Being remanded to rest for 72 hours provided the luxury of much-needed meditation, if you'll pardon the expression, on where I'm going, what I want, and most of all where I want to be. What do I want to do with the rest of my life? Yes, these kinds of thoughts may seem like a luxury, but are ultimately the only ones that count.

Yet, we fill our lives with so much distraction: shopping, cinema, television, politics, pointless conversation, bombarding ourselves with newsreel footage of everyone else's personal tragedies but our own. We spend our time playing with friends on social networking sites, trying to talk over the gaping hole of loneliness, doing everything but confronting the haunting reality, as poet James Dickey suggested that we are wasting our lives.

Some have bcome so adept at carrying other people's baggage that they don't need any help lifting it. Others will try to convince you that the baggage you are carrying is your own, but it's not. They bought it hook, line, and sinker, and only they can pay for it.

One longs for awakening in a world that worships sleep. Oh, and what an awakening it is to dream of stained glass, flying over the Atlantic, finding one's way in a foreign country, only to awake to headlines about Sharron Angle, Newt Gingrich, and Afghan civilians killed for protesting "mosque" protest in New York. I have been known, like many, to lose myself in headlines, and in other people's news.

So, an accident, and a temporary suspension of higher order thinking helped me to clear the cobwebs out of my vision, and to see, roundly and clearly, just how important it is to drive with the road in sight. Where this journey will take me, I honestly can't say, but movement has been the only divinity I've known, and what was an accident renewed a sense of purpose that was lost in the noise of car alarms, fire engines, and endless chatter of all types

Only those who refuse to answer when destiny knocks have wasted their lives.

"Escaping Tolerance"

Escaping Tolerance

By Michael Winship

Gentlemen, start your defibrillators. To baby boomers like me it’s gives the heart a bit of jolt to realize that 2010 marks the 50th anniversary of the presidential campaign between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon.

I visited the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum out on Columbia Point in Boston late last week for the first time since shortly after the permanent collection opened in 1980. Right now, they’re paying special attention to the 1960 election anniversary. Memories flooded back.

I was nine years old when JFK was elected, living in a house divided. My mother and I supported Kennedy; my father and older brother professed allegiance to Nixon -- I still have their Republican Party tie clip featuring a cheap gold caricature of Tricky Dick, an exaggerated ski nose making him look more like Bob Hope than the twitchy misanthrope we all knew and loved.

For a kid, that brief thousand days of the Kennedy presidency were a heady mix of exhilaration and despair: I was alternately captivated by the family’s youth, energy and charisma; terrified at the prospect of nuclear annihilation during the Cuban missile crisis; thrilled by the early flights of the space program; devastated by the assassination in 1963.

The Kennedy Library and Museum’s reflect all of that and more; displays filled with campaign paraphernalia, newspaper front pages, video clips, documents and other assorted, historic ephemera -- even the coconut on which Kennedy scratched a message to rescuers in the South Pacific after his PT 109 was cut in half by a Japanese destroyer. It sat on his desk in the Oval Office.

In one of the clear plastic display cases were two typewritten pages from one of the most important speeches John F. Kennedy ever delivered: his address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12, 1960, exactly fifty years ago this week, with words as relevant, in the face of today’s Islamophobia and other fears, as they were then.

Dogged by misperceptions about his Catholic faith and scurrilous allegations that his dedication to country would be superseded by allegiance to the Pope, Kennedy tackled the separation of church and state head on, with words as relevant, in the face of today’s Islamophobia and other unreasoned fears, as they were then.

"I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish," he said, "where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

"For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been -- and may someday be again -- a Jew, or a Quaker, or a Unitarian, or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that led to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom. Today, I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you -- until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped apart at a time of great national peril."

Fifty years later, as political journalist Steve Benen noted on his Washington Monthly blog, "Political Animal," little attention was paid to the speech former Republican Senator Rick Santorum delivered last week to mark the anniversary of Kennedy’s landmark address. It turned what JFK believed on its head. "Kennedy chose not just to dispel fear, he chose to expel faith," Santorum declared.

"... Kennedy's speech was historic because it did offer a teachable moment. In the short term it accomplished a great good by helping to put an end to Catholic bigotry. Unfortunately, its lasting impact not only undermined the essential role that faith has successfully played in America, but it reduced religion to mere personal 'belief' and helped launch a cultural revolution, proclaiming loudly that on matters of moral consequence, reason has no truths it can discern, nothing of moral significance it can claim to know, much less contribute to the public debate."

A wildly untrue exaggeration. As Benen wrote, "The right-wing politician who'd like to be the second Roman Catholic president made his case that Kennedy's commitment to First Amendment principles was a big mistake."

Santorum proclaimed Kennedy’s principles rooted not in good old American belief but on "a model used in countries like France and until recently Turkey." This, of course, is a popular form of right wing attack -- associating the opposition with, gasp, some foreign country. Witness Newt Gingrich’s embrace of a recent Forbes.com article, "How Obama Thinks," by Dinesh D’Souza, in which the right wing commentator links the president’s political philosophy to his Kenyan father in ludicrous, derogatory fashion.

D’Souza writes, "Incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, is now setting the nation's agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son. The son makes it happen, but he candidly admits he is only living out his father's dream. The invisible father provides the inspiration, and the son dutifully gets the job done. America today is governed by a ghost."

Gingrich called this the "most profound insight I have read in the last six years about Barack Obama," to which former Bush speechwriter David Frum replied, "With the Forbes story and now the Gingrich endorsement, the argument that Obama is an infiltrating alien, a deceiving foreigner -- and not just any kind of alien, but specifically a Third World alien -- has been absorbed almost to the very core of the Republican platform for November 2010… When last was there such a brazen outburst of race-baiting in the service of partisan politics at the national level? George Wallace took more care to sound race-neutral."

Years ago, I interviewed the great American comic writer and satirist Larry Gelbart. I asked him why, during a large part of the 1960s, he had chosen to live in Britain rather than the United States. He joked, "To escape religious tolerance."

As time goes by, the joke wears thin, its premise false. Increasingly, what we tolerate instead is prejudice, ignorance and just plain damned foolishness.

########

Michael Winship is senior writer at Public Affairs Television in New York City.

Ever Notice

Ever
notice
how fast
time
moves
when you’re
not watching
it.



(c) jayne lyn stahl

That other "Koran" story

Wonder why, during the nonstop Koran burning debacle, no one has mentioned the reports from Newsweek, back in 2005, that US service members were allegedly flushing Korans down the toilet at Gitmo.

On Memorial Day of that year I wrote to then Pentagon spokesman, Larry Di Rita, about it, and below is my e-mail followed by his response.

After a week of incessant coverage of a maniacal Florida minister's threat to burn the Koran, I find it remarkable that the mainstream media has had such an egregious memory lapse on this subject. Notably, Larry Di Rita no longer works for the Pentagon and has been replaced by Bryan Whitman:

May 29, 2005
>
>Dear Mr. Di Rita:
>
>On the eve of Memorial Day, with heartfelt respect for our troops in Iraq, and elsewhere, who have given their lives, and continue to give their lives so that we may barbeque, visit with friends, and write letters like the one I'm writing to you, I call upon you, as has an editorial in today's Washington Post, to provide all citizens of this great country with an independent investigation into the multiple accounts of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay.
>
>Regrettably, at the moment, documents that reveal heinous acts against detainees at the base may only be found on the Web site of the American Civil Liberties Union who obtained this information as a result of a lawsuit against the government under FOIA. That the release of information that speaks to the integrity of our armed forces, and their command, could only come about as a consequence of litigation in a country that purports to export democracy around the world is not merely ironic, it's egregious.
>
>These documents which reveal beatings, strippings, and "abuse of the Koran" are even said to include instances in which the Koran was flushed down the toilet, an assertion that you, sir, fervently dismissed as did White House Chief of Staff, Scott McClellan. The revelation of this desecration of the Koran which you have dismissed as "fantastic charges," and for which Newsweek has taken a public, and undeserved, beating require that amends be made. With all due respect, Mr. Di Rita, I believe you owe the editorial staff of Newsweek, and the journalists involved, an apology as these documents show that the reported insult to the Koran, for which they were so flagrantly censured, was, in point of fact, authentic and true. More to the point, on the eve of this most significant holiday, I believe you owe the American people the truth.
>
> As we pay our respects to the men and women who honor our country's uniform, we must also pay our respects to the principles for which many have given their lives, and continue to give their lives, for the free flow of information, for principled investigation and, most essential of all, for the release of those documents requisite to ensure that justice come to those who abuse, and defame human rights, our Constitution, and international law. I urge you, as the principal spokesperson for the Pentagon, to acknowledge the veracity of the Newsweek article, make a most necessary, and warranted, apology, as well as initiate an independent inquiry, in open session, into the allegations of prisoner abuse at that naval base in Cuba known as Guantanamo Bay.

Most importantly, when the investigation is complete, I urge you to work with the Defense Secretary, and all those to whom our men and women in combat report, to see to it that your findings come out for, as today's Washington Post editorial rightly suggests, "The American public has a right to know what mistakes are being made in its name, as well as what improved procedures have been instituted in response."
>
>Yours sincerely,
>
>Jayne Lyn Stahl

From: Di Rita, Larry, CIV, OSD-OASD-PA
>Date: Thu, Jun 2, 2005 at 2:46 AM
>Subject: RE: on the eve of Memorial Day...
>To: Jayne Stahl
>
> Dear Ms Stahl:
>
>Thank you for taking the time to write, and to share your thoughts. This is an important issue, and one that the Department of Defense takes seriously.
>
>I stand by what we said about the Newsweek story. It was egregious, and it turns out it was wrong. There is no evidence that U.S. forces did what they were alleged to have done in that story. In fact, Newsweek itself has acknowledged that and retracted the story.
>
>Trying to establish the veracity of that story, the commanders at Guantanamo have conducted a fairly extensive review of our procedures there. You should feel proud as an American of the cautious and respectful approach toward religious items and religious practice U.S. forces are taking. They fly into the island every day large quantities of specially prepared foods so that the detainees can have meals appropriate to their faith. Thousands of Korans have been issued so that detainees may practice their faith. Prayer times are respected, and prayer rituals are respected.
>
>The commanders have established detailed procedures for the handling of the Koran, precisely because detainees have expressed concerns about it. The procedures for handling the Koran by U.S. forces at Guantanamo run three pages long.
>
>In short, quite contrary to the impression left by the Newsweek story, U.S.forces treat the Koran in particular, and the practice of faith by the detainees in general, with respect.
>
>There have been some instances in which the Koran was mishandled apparently. Those are being looked into. Thus far, the review of the matter has uncovered some five or six such instances. This is gleaned from tens of thousands of pages of documents that detail precisely how the detainees are being treated. Five or six instances out of thousands of hours of contact with hundreds of detainees over three years hardly demonstrates a pattern, but we take each instances seriously.
>
>The International Committee of the Red Cross has offered its assessment and suggestions to ensure we manage this aspect of our operations carefully. Hundreds of members of congress have visited Guantanamo and observed operations there. Thousands of members of the press corps have reported from Guantanamo.
>
>The facts are as I have described them above. These facts have been provided to the public via the media. There is a great deal of oversight of U.S. operations at Guantanamo, from Congress, the media, and the courts.
>
>It is important to remember, too, that the people at Guantanamo are suspected, for very good reason, to be members of Al Qaeda. There are individuals there who have acknowledged playing a part in planning the 9/11 attacks that killed 3000 people. There are people there who provided intelligence that interrupted planning for additional terrorist attacks.
>
>The United States is fighting a war against violent extremists who use terror to kill women, children, the elderly, without discrimination. We are fighting this war consistent with our principles and values as a free, democratic nation. I am proud to be in government at this time, serving the country in my small way.
>
>Again, I thank you for the time you took to express your thoughts. If you care to get additional information about these matters, I would be only too pleased to provide it.
>
>All the best...
>
>Larry Di Rita

--

9/11

9/11

A cat has
nine lives
how many
lives
does a
country have
on this day
nine years after
the twin
towers fell
I look around
and see
only silence and
the young man who
lives below me
whose friends are
visiting from
boulder
they are here for
a football
game.
it could be 1955, but
it isn't as if
nothing has
happened in
America's parking
lot where
car alarms
constantly go
off where
somewhere in
lower manhattan
a maniacal
minister is
threatening to
burn the holy book of
another tribe.
we are all other
tribes even
the small birds
I feed from
my balcony who think
the sun
owes them
another
day.



(c) Jayne Lyn Stahl

By Michael Winship

9/11: The Rest Should Be Silence

By Michael Winship

This past Sunday was beautiful, bright and warm, not unlike the sky blue day when those two airliners hit the World Trade Center in 2001, just a mile or so from where I live. That day, a Tuesday, was a bit hotter, a bit more humid, yet just as sunny and promising.

But this Sunday morning’s silence was broken by the sound of a bell and a small, organized crowd of friendly people chatting quietly among themselves, walking south down Seventh Avenue, the street that runs beneath my apartment windows, escorted by police and fire vehicles. With a prompt from the news on my radio, I remembered that this was an event that now takes place every year on the Sunday before the anniversary of 9/11.

The people walk in memory of Father Mychal Judge, the Franciscan priest who died at the World Trade Center, the attack’s first officially recorded death, designated Victim 0001. Chaplain for the New York City Fire Department, Father Judge had rushed to the disaster scene, delivered last rites to the dying, then gone inside the lobby of the north tower, praying for all those at Ground Zero but especially for his friends, the firefighters.

"Jesus, please end this right now! God, please end this!" he was heard to exclaim. And then the south tower collapsed. Debris came crashing through the north lobby. Father was struck and fell, dead – “blunt force trauma to the head,” the coroner’s report read.

It would be foolish to pretend to know what Father Judge would make of the controversy over Cordoba House, the proposed Islamic center downtown a couple of blocks from Ground Zero, but there may be a clue in the words of the homily he delivered just the day before 9/11. "No matter how big the call, no matter how small, you have no idea what God is calling you to do," he said. "But God needs you, He needs me, He needs all of us."

All of us. Not just Christians or Jews, but Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics, atheists, the right, the left, everyone. Father Judge himself was both gay and a recovering alcoholic, struggles that gave him particular insight into the plight of all too many misunderstood souls working to make their capacity for love, compassion and courage known and accepted as equal to anyone else’s.

So all of us have a role to play and none of them should involve inflaming hatred and prejudice among us, none of them should involve violating the rights of others or considering oneself superior to another or burning the scripture of those the ignorant and opportunistic want us to believe are evil or unholy.

Writing in Wednesday’s New York Times, Feisal Abdul Rauf, chair of the effort to build Cordoba House and imam of the Farah mosque already in lower Manhattan, said, "These efforts by radicals at distortion endanger our national security and the personal security of Americans worldwide. This is why Americans must not back away from completion of this project. If we do, we cede the discourse and, essentially, our future to radicals on both sides. The paradigm of a clash between the West and the Muslim world will continue, as it has in recent decades at
terrible cost. It is a paradigm we must shift."

Just returned from two months in the Middle East on behalf of the State Department, seeking conciliation between Muslims and other religions, Rauf continued, "Let us commemorate the anniversary of 9/11 by pausing to reflect and meditate and tone down the vitriol and rhetoric that serves only to strengthen the radicals and weaken our friends’ belief in our values."

Reflect and meditate in silence, please. Many have urged that September 11 this year not be a time of demonstrations for or against Cordoba House or any other issue; rather, let it be a quiet day of commemoration and mourning.

The last time I attended the September 11 ceremonies at Ground Zero, on the fifth anniversary in 2006, as the names of the dead were read, solemn tranquility was disrupted and disrespected by those who tried to use the occasion to draw attention to themselves, crassly intruding with their conspiracy theories and raucous agendas.

And quiet, please, not only because it is a mark of respect for the deceased and their friends and families, but also because it is the sound of silence that many New Yorkers find so evocative of those days just after the attacks. Our streets closed to regular traffic, patrolled by police and the National Guard, we wandered in mute disbelief at what had happened, at the enormity of our loss. Even the
emergency vehicles that raced along the empty streets did so without their sirens. We murmured softly amongst ourselves, looking for answers as many of our fellow citizens still searched for news of their missing loved ones.

Let our loss be what we remember on Saturday. That, and the words of St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the order of friars to which Father Mychal Judge devoted himself: "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy."



Michael Winship is senior writer at Public Affairs Television in New York City.

permitted...

"Nothing is true, everything is permitted,' William Burroughs