Fantasy Land

Here's what Dan Froomkin writes in today's White House Briefing on the Washington Post web site, washingtonpost.com:

Editor and Publisher reports: "Despite several years of official and press reports to the contrary, a new Harris poll finds that half of adult Americans still believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when the United States invaded the country in 2003.

"This is actually up from 36% last year, a Harris poll finds. . . .

"In another finding wildly diverging from most expert opinion and media reports, Harris found that 64% said Saddam Hussein had 'strong links' with al-Qaeda, up from 62% in October 2004."

Washington Monthly blogger Kevin Drum writes: "As the prewar facts become clearer and Iraq spirals further into civil war, the American public becomes ever more withdrawn from reality. Even if complaints from us shrill liberal bloggers are dismissed, surely poll results like this should get the media pondering the question of whether they're doing a very good job of reporting what's really going on."

I'm aghast that so meany people are so gullible. It tends to support the argument that in a democracy, people get the government they deserve. It explains why someone like George W. Bush could occupy the White House. These numbers have come out at a time when other polls are indicating that the majority of people in the US believe that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. Perhaps people are appalled, as I am, by the number of American deaths in Iraq and to justify those deaths, they have to somehow justify the war in which they occurred. It's not at all a pretty picture, though.

Is the problem with the media? Maybe. The conservative media has never had any qualms about presenting commentary in the guise of fact. The Washington Times and Fox News have been doing it for years. The problem, though, is that most journalists, I think, are like a friend of mine who works for National Public Radio. I won't embarrass him by mentioning his name, but we've known each other since we were in third grade. We don't see each other often, so I'm not current on his political leanings, but when last I knew, he was an advocate of the midwestern Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. He's worked in print and broadcasting, and he's been thrown out of the offices of elected officials from both parties. He does not claim to be unbiased, but he claims to be balanced in his presentation. To the extent that his sources on both sides cooperate, he makes good on that claim. I've listened to some of his work and wondered why the hell he didn't just stick it to the corrupt son of a bitch he was reporting on. But that's not his style. If he unloads on, say, the so-called governor of Maryland, a Republican, other Republicans will refuse to cooperate with him. If he unloads on a corrupt Democrat, Democrats will stop taking his calls. He doesn't want to get his facts off the wire service feeds; he wants to be able to get them for himself, so he works hard to steer a middle ground. He encourages his audience to raise questions and draw conclusion, but no one can ever claim that he didn't make every effort to give both sides equal time.

Some folks would say that his work, as a result, is boring.

Compare this with Ann Coulter. She just screeches. She makes brassy assertions and, because she does so, some people say she's courageous. She has learned that it's the assertion, not the evidence, that people are after. They don't want the long strings of facts; they just want the bottom line--the assertion. And they don't want it to seem wimpy. They also like the fact that she's supposedly attractive. (No offense to my friend, but he looks like your basic middle aged guy, which is okay for a middle aged guy, but aside from his wife, few people would dream of considering him "hot." He's got a great look for radio. I'm afraid, though, that people want to listen to shrieking idiots like Ann Coulter and O'Reilly, and Hannity, and John McLaughlin and folks like that who tell them what to think rather than real journalists who lay out the facts and make clear that theirs is not the only available interpretation.

Are the media at fault? To the extent that they give these one-sided screamers who are neither unbiased nor balanced, they are. Before anybody gets the idea that I would deprive the screamers of their outlets, I wouldn't. I'd allow them to buy time on any TV station that's willing to sell it to them provided that they run a trailer saying that the broadcast was paid for by the person presenting and the station assumes no responsibility for any offensive or inaccurate content. But media executives need to leave reporting to reporters and make sure that commentary is clearly identified. And we don't need bombastic screamers. Unfortunately, people are too stupid to recognize that they're not giving the news or even responsible commentary; they're "entertainers," even when they aren't entertaining.

One on the Democrats

I don't usually criticize Democrats in this blog. It's not that I think they're infallible because after all, they've lost two presidential elections that they should have won as well as numerous congressional races and gubernatorial elections. But I'll make an exception today. The Democrats are thinking of changing the order of the primary elections. They want to move Nevada and South Carolina earlier and diminish the importance of Iowa and New Hampshire.
I can get behind diminishing the importance of Iowa and New Hampshire. There's no reason why two small states should have such prodigious influence on the selection of a national candidate. But changing the order of primaries won't protect the party from another disastrous candidate like Al Gore or John Kerry. There are days when I'm afraid that sort of candidate is exactly what the party leaders want.
In 2004, we went into the primary season with an apparent steamroller candidate in Howard Dean. He was kicking everybody's butt in all of the polls, and he appeared to be getting stronger all the time. He was a strong speaker. It was easy to see the difference between his positions and Bush's. And, as I say, he was kicking butt in the polls.
Governor Dean, however, wasn't a Democratic Leadership Council Democrat. He was a "Democrat from the Democratic wing of the Democratic party," sort of like Harry Truman. After he started kicking butts in the polls and before the primaries got started, Democratic insiders started worrying about his electability. I had a couple of discussions with people at work who are generally reasonably liberal Democrats, and they were parroting the electability question. I couldn't get an answer to a question that I considered fundamental: If he's not electable, why is he polling so strongly? But apprently, enough people were taken in to vote against Dean in the early primaries and we ended up with John Kerry, who simply looked stupid trying to differentiate himself from Bush.
It's two years until the next presidential election, and I'm hoping the Democrats' decision will be simple: Give President Pelosi (who took over after Bush and Cheney were impeached) an elected term. But that's not something we can really talk about too much; people who believe that the United States is the strongest country on earth might decide that the strongest country on earth couldn't stand the impeachment of a president and vice president, no matter how corrupt they were proven to be, and they might be so fearful that they would come to the polls and vote for Republicans. But who are we talking about? Hilary Clinton.
Please spare me. Hilary can't make up her mind about the war in Iraq. She sounds a lot like John Kerry on the subject, except that she hasn't really turned against it. She says she'll support the Democratic nominee in Connecticut, but she doesn't tell Joe Lieberman that if he doesn't win the Democratic nomination, he shouldn't run against the party's nominee--and her husband is actually campaigning for Lieberman. There are plenty of people who will vote against Hilary simply because she's Hilary, and people who will vote against Hilary because she's married to Bill. I'm a Democrat, and I can't come up with any reasons to vote for her. But Hilary is apparently the choice of the Democratic insiders, perhaps the Democratic Leadership Council.
The trick is listening to people, not trying to point them in a direction. Pointing people in a direction is the kind of thing that the Bush family and other Republicans do. It's based on the assumption that the insiders know better than the people, and in most cases, it means that the candidate sounds a lot like a Republican but not as friendly. And then somebody like Bush gets elected.

Bush's Week

We've had an interesting week. Mommy's Best Boy, President Chickenshit, spoke to the NAACP convention for the first time in his regime. Normally, it's not such a big deal for presidents to address the NAACP convention; most of them do it regularly, some every year. And he continued to do nothing that might actually bring an end to the fighting between Israel and Lebanon.
The point is made in this morning's Washington Post that Chickenshit really didn't do much of a job at the NAACP convention. He talked about the things that he thought he was supposed to talk about, such as slavery, segregation, integration, and racism. Note to his speechwriters: Slavery was ended with the Thirteenth Amendment. Segregation is pretty much illegal. Racism is a disgrace, and it's still with us, but the goal of ending it is not served when white presidents appear at NAACP conventions only once every six years and offer only platitudes that speak to the audience as if they were stereotypical.
There were reports that Chickenshit's approval rating among black people is only two percent. I found myself thinking that this constituted proof that black people are smarter than white people.
But we should give Chickenshit some credit; at least he finally got around to attending an NAACP convention, but it's an election year, and he needs to go for every possible vote for his party's candidates.
The same dynamic is operating, to the great discredit of the United States, in his response to the fighting between Israel and Lebanon. Note to Chickenshit, his Cabinet, and his advisors: People are dying, mostly in Lebanon. Most of the people who are dying are not Hezbollah. They are simply Lebanese civilians. Many of them, I suspect, can remember the bloodshed and devastation that occurred in their country during the Reagan years, and many, like a Lebanese-American friend of my wife, were thrilled at the reconstruction and increasing prosperity there today. And they are heartsick that people in Lebanon are dying, just as every human being should be at the willful killing of an innocent person.
Instead of joining the civilized nations of the world in calling for a cease fire, Chickenshit waited days before even making an effort to evacuate American citizens. He has not called for a cease fire because he thinks it might give Hezbollah a chance to regroup and rearm. Earth to Mommy's Best Boy, President Chickenshit, the Coward in Chief: It would also give the Israelis time to regroup and rearm. He says through Aunt Jemima Rice that no United States troops will serve in any peace-keeping force. And meanwhile, people are dying in Lebanon. Innocent people.
Here's the problem, as Chickenshit sees it: The people in Israel are Jews. Jews are a powerful group and American Jews make political contributions and vote in Israel's interest. Because the Bible claims that God gave Israel to the Jews, Christians of the Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell stripe believe that the United States must defend Israel. Besides, somehow it fits into their notion that the Day of Judgment is coming soon--all this can be related to stuff in Revelations. And Chickenshit knows that the fanatical Christians are generous donors and voters; he sees to that by standing firmly against equal rights for homosexuals, stem cell research, and abortion. But to make sure that the religious fanatic voting bloc stays behind him, he thinks it best to avoid calling for a cease fire. Lebanese-Americans have not made themselves a powerful voting bloc. If they had, there might actually be some difficulty in Chickenshit's decision.
The world, to him, is like one of those photographs in which the number of shadings of color has been reduced from millions to a handful. Real people look like people in a well-drawn comic strip, but they don't look real.
But people are real. And people face real issues. And they expect real answers from real leaders. That is why it's so critical that a Democratic congress be elected in November and that that Congress move immediately in January to impeace George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Lamar Owens Walks

I'm very disappointed at the outcome of the Lamar Owens Court Martial. He's the former quarterback who was accused of rape. I'm not entirely convinced that he was guilty. The accuser was hardly the strongest witness a prosecutor could hope for. Still, Owens' account of the events did strain credibility. If the woman in this case is such a loose cannon, somebody tell me how she managed to stay in the Naval Academy without getting drummed out for academic or disciplinary reasons.
What's incontrovertible (and what the court martial decided) was that Owens was guilty of disobeying a direct order. He had been told to stay away from the accuser, and he didn't. He didn't even really contest that one. The court martial, accordingly, found him guilty. And he was also found guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer. Duh? How could a guy disobey an order and not be guilty of conduct unbecoming, especially when he compounded it by doing a female Mid in her dorm room, where such stuff is not supposed to happen, with or without consent?
These are serious charges. While I'm not a big fan of unquestioning obedience, I understand that it's what prevents a military force from becoming a mob. And I definitely understand leadership by example. The late Admiral Grace Murray Hopper made the point that people cannot be managed into combat; they must be led. In most cases where I've been in a leadership position, I've gotten good results by demonstrating that I could and would do anything that I asked of anyone else and that it would take some doing to keep up with me.
My father-in-law was an artillery officer. The men who served under him knew that he had been an enlisted man before OCS, and while I'm sure he never allowed any question to arise as to who was in charge, he surely made a point of demonstrating the behaviors he wanted from the troops. One of my uncles was an Air Force brigadier general when he retired. Stories are told of him carrying flight engineers' bags off of his aircraft because he wanted to make the point that his command was a team, and when something needed to be done, rank should never stand in the way of getting it done. With the critical importance of leadership and obedience to orders in combat, it seemed pretty reasonable to think that Lamar Owens' naval career was over: He'd be put in the brig and dismissed from the Navy. What use is an officer who doesn't obey orders and doesn't exemplify the behavior he expects from those in his command?
But that's not what Lamar got. Apparently, the jury (whatever it's called in courts martial) thought that the trauma of not graduating with his class last May and actually starting his career as an officer a couple of months behind his classmates (which will make a difference on the promotions list) was so traumatic that this fine young man had suffered enough. No punishment. They believed that he was a fine young man who had made a mistake. Here's a news bulletin to the members of the court martial: The sea is always real, and storms still can sink ships. When a naval officer makes a mistake, people can actually die needlessly. Mistakes are things like when I go to the store and buy teriyaki sauce instead of lite teriyaki sauce. Mistakes--although we have largely forgotten it in American society today, do not end up with people getting naked and doing the horizontal lambada.
I have some slight hope that the Superintendent of the Naval Academy will show some guts and dismiss Owens from the Academy without allowing him to graduate. I just wish that the members of court martial had asked themselves one simple question: "Is this behavior I would tolerate from an officer in my own command? And if not, should I tolerate it in my Navy?" If you get your bars, Lamar, I hope the stigma of the guilty verdict runs you out of the Navy. Of course, I guess you'll get a contract with the Dallas Cowboys; Parcells has proven he'll take just about anybody.

the House's Next Folly

Tomorrow, the House of Representatives takes up a bill to "protect the Pledge of Allegiance." I don't even want to think how many of our hard-earned dollars are being pissed away in this sort of thing by the Republicans who complain that government is wasteful and then approve deficit increases.
I am not a huge fan of the Pledge of Allegiance for one simple reason: It makes a symbol of the United States more important that the historically and philosophically bases on which the nation rests--the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I remember, as a teenager, hearing that those of my generation who opposed the Vietnam War were "letting the flag down." We thought we were supporting the Constitutional right of free discourse. The flag, though, is a powerful icon, as we see in times of military action: Display of the flag is equated with patriotism, and failure to display the flag is equated with lack of support for the troops. (Note: I have a flag sticker on my car. The sticker also says "Proud Democrat." I bet that gives some Republicans fits--especially the ones at work who know that I detest the administration and hate the war.)
This leads me to my first news flash of the day. The flag has not always been so iconic. During the early years of the republic, the design of the flag wasn't even codified. The stars could be arranged any way the person making it saw fit. The stars, for that matter, could be any color, and gold seems to have been fairly popular. It simply wasn't that important to the founders. To them, a flag was a guide or rallying point for troops in combat--a tool. Periodically, the colors were "trooped." That is, a military unit stood in open ranks and its colors were paraded in front of the troops so that they would recognize their own flag in combat. It probably would not have occurred to the founders that a flag was much more than a tool. While they understood the value of a well maintained tool, they didn't think of tools as sacred. In a ranking, they would almost surely have put the fundamental documents of the United States far ahead of the flag in importance.
There hasn't always been a pledge of allegiance. In fact, we might not have one at all had Youth's Companion magazine not launched a campaign to sell flags to schools. A Baptist mininister (and, by the way, a Socialist) named Francis Bellamy was commissioned to write it as an advertising piece. You could think of it, then, as something like those nauseating jingles that accompany some ads these days. What Bellamy wrote, ironically enough, did not contain the words "under God" that the stupid Republicans are gearing up to protect. Those words weren't added until 1954. One story holds that they were added to distinguish the United States from those "godless comminists" who were regarded as enemies in those days. Thus are born artificial traditions.
Bellamy, it is said, wanted the pledge to be said in schools to teach obedience to the state as a virtue, and for years and years, school systems played along. Most still do. Let's set aside the question of whether unquestioning obedience to the state can ever be a virtue in a democracy. Let's look instead at a couple of issues related to school kids saying the pledge. First, there are students in United States schools who really should not pledge allegiance to the flag or anything else of the United States. They are foreign nationals who presumably will never become American citizens. And no, I'm not referring to the undocumented aliens; I'm talking about the children who are here because their parents are here temporarily for study or for work. When I was in England, nobody asked me to pledge allegiance to their flag or sing "God Save the Queen." (Today, I'd gladly do both, asking only that I be granted asylum in England." The reason may be that people in many other countries travel across national boundaries more often than Americans. They aren't going to force a foreigner to do anything in their country that they're not willing to do while travelling in another country.
And there's the reality. The pledge is recited every day in most schools, even by kindergarteners. I have never met a five-year-old who had a clue what "allegiance" or "indivisible" meant or especially cared what the pledge meant. All they know is that they're supposed to stand up, put their hands over where they are told (incorrectly) their hearts are, and say the words. I'm not opposed to ritual gestures; I'm an Episcopalian. Standing, kneeling, sitting, genuflecting, and making the sign of the cross are all part of my worship. In order to do the right thing at the right time, I have to be paying attention to the worship service: If my mind is not focused on the liturgy, it's a pretty safe bet that my body won't do what it's supposed to be doing. But telling kids that they have to perform ritualistic acts that don't focus them on the meaning of the words they are saying makes the words a joke pretty quickly. Even with explanations of what the words mean, kids lose interest and simply repeat the words without any consideration of what they mean.
This is what the Republicans in Congress want to defend. Once again, it's not likely to pass. They only want to bring it to a vote so that they can lose, convince their dumber supporters that there is a culture war being waged against them, and get those dumb supporters off their fat butts to vote for those "good Republicans who are fighting for our values."
By the way, I yearn for the day when George W. Bush learns that he or someone he cares about is dying or incapacitated by a disease that might have been cured had he not been determined to preserved the dignity of unimplanted embryos--so they could be destroyed with medical waste.

Becoming What One Hates

Israel authorities have explained that their plan is to destroy Hezbollah. When people think about Hezbollah in a vaccuum, that actually sounds good. Hezbollah is an organization of ruthless suicide bombers who are pretty undiscriminating about how they take with them. They're generally religious extremists. If they could be destroyed, the world might be a better place.
Here's the problem: There's no way to command compliance from a suicide bomber. He doesn't care whether he lives or dies, and in fact, he'd really like to get the seventy virgins. (An aside: Most religions--and Islam perhaps more than most--try to promote sexual restraint, but it doesn't strike the suicide bombers as a little unlikely that Allah would provide martyrs with virgins to service them.) So the only way to destroy the Hezbollah suicide bombers is to destroy all of them. There are a couple of problems here: First, it can be a little difficult to identify suicide bombers. Most of the time, they look a lot like any other young man you might meet on the street. And when you do catch them--if you can catch them before they blow themselves up, given the difficulty just mentioned--you actually create an aggrieved Arab who is, in fact, a potential recruit to the cause. This is how this so-called war on terrorism differs from every other war: The ability and will of nations to make war could be destroyed and nations can be defeated; for terrorists, what most people regard as defeat is, in fact, victory.
If an attempt to destroy terrorism by force is to work, it must somehow provide for the defeat of every terrorist and everyone who might become a terrorist. It must, in other words, become as ruthless and indiscriminant as the terrorists. And even if a nation--say, the United States or Israel--could wipe out all of the terrorists, the acts that nation had to commit in doing so would be as reprehensible as those that the terrorists committed. This raises a serious question when a nation's leader proudly proclaims himself to be a devout adherent of a religion: If terrorist acts are sins, can similar acts committed to stop terrorism be virtues? I suspect that Hell, if it exists, will be filled with leaders of this decade who were dead set on destroying each other.

Stem Cells

I don't claim to be neutral on stem cell research. My mother-in-law has Parkinson's disease. So far, her medications are controlling it, but I'd love to see a cure. There's Alzheimer's disease on both sides of my family, and I figure it's only a matter of time for me--unless. . . . No one can say for sure what advances medicine might make with stem cell research expanded. Even Bill Frist, who last winter was taking a hard line against expansion of this research, is in favor of it. Who's against it? A few religious fanatics in the Congress who couldn't be bothered to show up at their own background briefing on the subject. (I know. That doesn't exactly sound like zealotry, but maybe they're saving it for later.) Oh, and President Dumb as Dirt.
Dumb as Dirt has gone five years without vetoing anything. He's issued signing statements that he thinks have legal standing, but one of these days the Supremes (except Scalia) are going to point out to him that the Constitution makes no provision for signing statements.) Now, with most people in favor of expanded research with reasonable restrictions, he decides that he's going to drop the V bomb. I think this shows us something about his truly warped little mind.
I think he believes that the only way to show that you're a real thinker is to fly in the face of what many people believe. And let's face it: He's a prince of the blood royal. People have made fun of him, perhaps most of his life, for riding Daddy's coattails. I don't know much about his prep school record. His Yale record looks like that of a legacy from a wealthy family--somebody who really deserves to flunk, but there's no sense in making the wealthy family angry by actually failing him. How did someone with his GPA get into Harvard Business School? My undergrad record, overall, was not particularly distinguished, as his wasn't, and I had was very fortunate to get into a program at William and Mary. I was rejected by Duke (for which I now thank God) and North Carolina (almost equally thankful for that). How did Dumb as Dirt get into Harvard? I suspect that donations were made. And everybody knows that without Daddy's money and those lifelong friendships cultivated in Skull and Bones, this drug-eating alcoholic moron would be simply another drug-eating alcoholic moron.
Bush probably knows that he has accomplished nothing independently, and that probably feels pretty rotten. (Lord knows I've had struggles feeling that my father was a better person than I am.) So he's got to show that he's independent. He had to demostrate that he has strength and courage. So how does he do that? He has to go it alone as often as possible.
This is one of the problems with imperial families. They produce warped princes. I look forward to the day that we're rid of him, and I hope that it will be by impeachment so that we need not spend one more cent on his maintenance or safety.

The Pottymouth in Chief

I'm not one to get upset about profanity and obscenity among friends. I've been known to use it and in some cases, to use it abundantly. But it seems to me that if you're the Leader of the Free World and you're in a room full of cameras, you take for granted that somebody is straining to hear what you say, whether the microphone is live or not. And if you do talk to a friend in such an environment, the best bet is to avoid statements that contradict what you've been saying in public, and you try real hard not to say anything insulting about the Secretary General of the UN.
But, of course, you aren't the Leader of the Free World. For better or worse--and my take on that is hardly a secret--the Leader of the Free World is a dumbshit. He doesn't understand the complexities of the situation in the middle east. In his simple mind, Israel is right and that's that. Israel and Lebanon are simply doing what they've seen other nations--which I think I need not name--and using force as the first response to anything they don't like. Just what we need.

Let's Get This Straight. . . . .

The House of Representatives has scheduled a vote on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Never mind that very few people consider this issue as important as the war or the economy or integrity in government. Never mind that there are real questions about whether such an amendment would infringe on the religious liberties of those religious organizations that have chosen to bless same-sex unions, granting them God's blessing but not the state's. Never mind that this amendment, having been rejected by the Senate, isn't going anywhere. Never mind that the amendment might not get the support of the requisite two thirds of the states. The House is going to vote.
There's only one reason: The Republicans, who desperately need votes, are convinced that this issue will bring out people who would not otherwise vote to support Republican candidates. They want to at least associate Democrats with opposition to an amendment that shouldn't pass. What the Republicans do not want is a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage; such an amendment would deprive them of an issue that reliably brings out ill-informed people who the rest of us wish wouldn't vote anyway.
Don't believe these voters are all that bad or sufficiently numerous? Trust me; they are. In Virginia some years ago, Jim Gilmore ran for governor on the slogan "No Car Tax," which was a promise to end the personal property tax. (It wasn't quite what it seemed because the state couldn't end a county tax; it was actually a plan to reimburse. But it got Gilmore elected, and a few weeks later, the personal property tax bills went out. They had to. Gilmore's plan hadn't been passed by the legislature. Anyhow, people got their property tax bills, and some of those who had voted on the basis of the car tax immediately went to the revenue offices to point out that they were sure that the bill was a mistake; after all, they had voted for Mr. Gilmore, so they didn't have to pay the tax anymore. And when the economy went down the toilet, it became impossible to complete the plan.
It's time for Democrats to point out that the Republicans often make proposals that history teaches them will not succeed. The Republicans do this because they sound good to people who don't understand the issues or legislative processes very well. This is how we get Republican elected officials who can't cope with real issues; they're too busy promoting issues that aren't real.

The Pride of Ownership

"This land is mine;
God gave this land to me,
This brave and ancient land to me."
Those are some of the words to the theme from the movie Exodus, a movie that was a big deal when it was released but now is little noted. I quote the lyrics not because I mean to discuss the movie nor because I want to hold them up as wonderful poetry, but because they express the attitude of a great many people with respect to Israel.
To rehash some history: World War II left a great many Jews displaced. They weren't eager to go back to where they had been before the war (if it still existed) because economic and military devastation made it seem untenable. Besides, much of Europe was (and as I hear from European friends, still is) anti-Semitic. The "solution," it seemed to the United Nations, an organization that needed badly to show that it could be more functional than the old League of Nations, that the solution was to take what had been Palestinian land, rename it Israel, and give it to the displaced Jews. Since it was possible to tie this to the Old Testament passages in which God gave His chosen people some land, all of the (non-Arabic) people said "Amen." The Palestinians especially didn't say "Amen." They were the ones whose land was being taken away. Other Arab states were angry that the UN had acted against the interests of their Palestinian brothers. They argued that Israel had no right to exist.
For nearly sixty years, the Arab states have tried to reclaim what once belonged to the Palestinians, although the deed that the Palestinians got from God is not recorded. Israel had become stronger and stronger militarily. Every time Arab nations have attacked Israel, Israel has defeated them. Hamas and Hezbollah have mounted terrorist campaigns, and they've been bloody, but history shows that terrorist campaigns don't change national boundaries--or people's minds; they are bloody, painful, expensive nuisances.
Israel has, for years, followed a policy of massive retaliation. If a Hezbollah operative from Lebanon does something to harm Israel or an Israeli, Israel strikes back against Lebanon, even though the Lebanese government and people do not necessarily support what Hezbollah has done. And here in the United States, Fearless Leader pretty much shrugs it off. He can't say anything in favor of the Lebanese because that would partially invalidate his current campaign in Iraq, wherein US forces are punishing the many for the actions of the few. And he can't point out that the Israeli reaction is intemperate and disproportionate, likely to do nothing more than recruit new enemies for Israel; no American politician ever says anything even mildly critical of Israel because doing so could cost him the Jewish vote.
Among Jews I've known, some are stridently pro-Israel that it makes me think they really might be happier there--and that the only thing keeping them here is the mild American climate and cushy American life where terrorist attacks only occur about every ten years or so. But I also know Jews who really don't seem to give a damn about Israel. They figure that the Israelis can probably take care of themselves and should do so. I certainly dislike anyone who votes solely on the basis of policy towards Israel as much as I dislike anyone who votes solely on the basis of any other single issue, without considering a candidate's political philosophy and positions on issues of more immediate importance. And Israel, unfortunately, is at the core of much of the unrest in the middle east. Unfortunately, as long as there are people who believe that somewhere in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, there's a deed, signed by God, giving Israel to the Jews, the arrogant, egocentric Israelis are going to put world peace at risk by trying to prove that they're God's Chosen People and doen't have to live by the principles that apply to everyone else.
Or maybe they're just pissed off because the UN gave them the only land in the middle east that has no oil.

"The Aspirational Level"

We are told that there have been terrorist plots in recent weeks, but that they have only reached "the aspirational level." I think it's fair for us to wonder just what this level is; after all, it could mean damn near anything.
For example, someone I know (I dare not use her name because, for all I know, she could be run in for consipiracy to commit a terrorist act) actually has worked out plans to blow up one of the bridges into the District of Columbia using the minimum amount of explosives. In fact, she was part of a group that developed plans to blow up all of the bridges into the District. This was some years ago, but I suspect that she and many of her fellow members of the group still remember and could quickly piece together their plans. While I don't know her current political beliefs, I'm fairly sure that at least some members of the group do not support the current administration. Okay. The group was a group of U.S. Army officers in the Engineer Officers Basic Course at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and the plans were developed as part of one of their assignments for the course. But, dammit, in a post-9/11 world, you can't be too careful. Besides, even if we accept that they were military officers and wouldn't do such a thing, their family members may have heard or may have seen papers or something.
My wife and some very good friends of mine are, in fact, terrorists. I know this because the former Secretary of Education announced it to the world. These friends all belong to the National Education Association. I don't know what nefarious plans they might be hatching, but I know that most of them have said things that I'm told indicate that they hate America. They've said stuff like "We shouldn't be in Iraq," and "I'm ashamed of Bush's foreign policy." They even refer to the administration's education reform as "No Child Left Untested." I don't know why they hate America or why they hate our freedom, but I know they are terrorists because a Cabinet member said so and they have said things that members of the administration say indicate that they hate America. What I want to know is why no one seems to be following them. If their hatred for America and our freedom is developing into a conspiracy, it calls for action and now. Nip it in the bud.
Hell, I'll come clean. I have actually thought that it wouldn't break my heart if Air Force One dropped out of the sky while Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Rice, and Hastert were on board. I've thought that if bird flu pandemic is really going to happen, it should start in the Cabinet Room of the White House. I've wished that Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Rice, and Hastert should go to jail along with their friend Tom DeLay. Because I am receptive to these ideas, have they reached the aspirational level? If I discussed them with others, even though we've done no more than indicating that we all thought it would be a good day when the Bush family was out of American public life for the foreseeable future, are we involved in a conspiracy? Sometimes, when I've been driving on the Beltway and seen "Report suspicious activity. Call XXX-XXX-XXXX" on the electronic signs, I've been tempted--and I have told those in the car with me that I was tempted--to call the number and report that there were people in the White House trying to destroy the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Are we going to jail?
I don't know where the line is drawn between daydreams, wishes, intentions, plans, and conspiracies. I never heard of the aspirational level until the Feds busted those seven poor souls in Florida for conspiracy. Those guys thought it might be cool to blow up some buildings, and they did ask the FBI agent who posed as an al Quaeda operative to get them some boots and a camera. That was after they got back from asking for water at the nearby church. Obviously these were dangerous guys. And it looks like this "plot to destroy the tunnels into New York City" may have been wishful thinking rather than a plan. What I do know is that this stuff started leaking to the press when Bush's approval rating went down the toilet, sort of like we used to get glowing reports of progress in Afghanistan to cover the disintegration of the economy through 2002.
What I really hope is that this country can survive long enough to remove from offices of public trust George W. Bush, any and every relative of his, and anyone who thinks that he's done a marginally adequate job.

Happy Birthday, United States

I won't quibble over the dates--July 2nd, July 4th, no matter. Two hundred thirty years ago, for the first time, colonies declared their independence of their mother country. Even more important, the elected representatives of those colonies ratified a statement that governmental authority came from the consent of the governed rather than from God. Further, the representatives ratified that this concept included the corollary that if government did not protect the rights of the governed--which did come from God--the governed had the right and the duty to replace it. A host of other rights followed from these fundamental concepts: the freedom to express ideas, no matter how obnoxious; the freedom to worship as one saw fit or not to worship at all; the freedom to be left alone.
Every year at this time, and every year on Memorial Day, and every year on Veterans Day, we are told that freedom is not free and we are asked to think of those who have died for freedom over the last two hundred thirty years. But the reality is that freedom lives, not because it is protected by military force, but because people use it. When Natalie Maines says that George W. Bush makes the Dixie Chicks ashamed to be from Texas, freedom becomes stronger. When John Scopes taught his students that the Creation story in the Bible wasn't the only possible explanation for the origin of the universe, freedom grew stronger. When John Kerry returned his military medals, freedom grew stronger. Had the Revolution failed, had the British Army captured and hanged the Continental Congress, the United States might not have been born, but freedom would have grown stronger.
We have an administration that fails to understand that freedom is best defended by living free. Thousands of armed troops in the middle east cannot protect freedom as effectively as can people who have the courage to question the truths they have been given. They don't have to reject what they believe necessarily. A former student of mine told me some time ago that a series of assignments I gave based on the Harry Potter novels had challenged her intellectually and spiritually because her religious background taught her that novels about witchcraft were sinful. But she was willing to question that, and in the end, she said, her faith was stronger, even if some of her beliefs had changed.
If the United States is, in reality, the land of the brave, it is a land where we value honest doubt and dissent and grow from addressing both with equal honesty. It is a land where we can grieve the loss of lives in terrorist attacks and still go forward without making terrorism the center of our national life. We can remember that the German army invaded and occupied Holland by force during World War II--but the Dutch people still cherished their freedom and defied their oppressors at every opportunity. We can remember that when Martin Luther King, Jr., began working for freedom, he was put into the Birmingham jail--by force--but he understood that freedom belongs to those who refuse to give it up and drew others to his cause with his writings from the jail. We can remember that when we teach children to think for themselves, when we don't dumb down the past or the present because we are afraid they won't figure it out or will come to conclusions different from our own, we are making freedom stronger.
On September 11, 2001, teachers across the United States received word of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In many instances, this information arrived with instructions from administrators to avoid telling the students what had happened; that was a task best left to parents. So the teachers went on, focusing on their plans for the day, until school was dismissed. And the next day that school was in session, they went back and did it again. And again. And again. Those of us who teach, unlike those at the highest levels of government, have not adopted a new world view in which 9/11 is a watershed. I can tell you with absolute certainty that the message of the Declaration of Independence that I taught in the fall semesters of 2001 through 2005 is the same one that I taught through 2000. And it will still be the same in 2006--no matter what George W. Bush and his minions and courtiers want to say about how everything has changed because of terrorism. It is still a message of freedom, the dignity of the individual, and the source of governmental authority.
Jefferson wrote that he had sworn on the altar of God eternal enmity against every form of tyranny over the human mind. He was a man who knew that freedom, on rare occasions, must be defended militarily, but that it is more important to defend it daily by using it and by teaching others to use it. I'm pretty sure that the people in the military have been stroked more than enough for one day, so I'm offering my thanks to my teaching colleagues who understand that regardless of our disciplines, regardless of what level we teach, when we teach our students that the answers to life cannot be reduced to choices on a standardized test or other knee-jerk responses, we're defending freedom every day.