Combine that with rank incompetence, and you've got quite a potent -- and deadly -- combo. It was on full display last night during the president's speech on Iraq and last week during Donald Rumsfeld's multiple public appearances.

First the president's speech.

The president's "new direction in Iraq" speech rehashed the same tired material he's been using on Iraq for years. Indeed, it was a veritable Greatest Hits collection. He even invoked the terrorist formerly known as Osama Been Forgotten two times. Even more shockingly -- though not unexpectedly -- he played the "conflate 9/11 and Iraq" card again and again and again and again and again. Five mentions in all for the terrorist attack that had absolutely nothing to do with the war in Iraq -- supposedly the topic of the speech. Here's a sample: "The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lesson of Sept. 11."

And now on to the secretary of defense.

Continue Reading...

But unlike a traditional court, the Blog Circuit Court of Appeals lacks an enforcement arm. The only way its decisions can be enforced is by constant reiteration of the decisions.

Which brings me back to this weekend. If you were to get your news only from television, you'd think the top issue facing our country right now was an 18-year-old girl named Natalee Holloway who went missing in Aruba. Every time one of these stories comes up -- like, say, the Michael Jackson trial -- when it's finally over I think, what a relief, now we can get back to real news. But we never do. When one of these big-league nonstories ends, they just call up a new one from the minors ... and off they go with another round of breathless reporting. Anything to not have to actually report actual news.

Continue Reading...

Bush was able to keep Iraq at bay long enough to get reelected, but the debacle threatens to derail his second term. Just look at the latest polls. According to Washington Post/ABC News, for the first time a majority of Americans feel that the war has not made the U.S. safer. Fifty-eight percent disapprove of Bush's handling of it. Fifty-eight percent say the war was not worth fighting. And 73 percent consider the number of casualties unacceptable.

But poll numbers are not the only figures the White House should be worrying about. Dick Cheney's "last throes" delusion is being rebutted by the figures coming out of Iraq every day. May was the fifth deadliest month of the war for U.S. troops. And in just the first two weeks of June, 41 Americans have been killed and 75 wounded.

Continue Reading...

The key to the E-ZPass method is no follow-ups -- or lame follow-ups quickly abandoned. And Mehlman is a master at dealing with those. His technique? Just repeat or slightly rephrase his talking point, and trust that Russert will give up, wave him on, and proceed to the next prepared question.

To see a master in action, let's go to the transcript:

Early in the interview, Russert asks Mehlman whether "the president has hit a wall with his domestic agenda? What's the problem?"

The RNC chair dances around the question so deftly his moves should be taught at Arthur Murray: "Tim, I don't think there's a problem," he responds, and then promptly changes the subject to Ronald Reagan before closing with an RNC commercial.

Continue Reading...

After John Kerry lost in November, the conventional wisdom was that he hadn't been "me too" enough about Iraq. But the truth is the exact opposite.

This war is a quagmire, and if the Democrats don't know it, the American people do -- 57 percent don't believe the Iraq war was worth it.

On Tuesday (May 24) the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a British think tank, released its "2004/2005 Strategic Survey." The report, a well-respected annual assessment of the security situation worldwide, cites a number of positive developments in the Middle East.

But it's important to remember that those developments are hardly the product of Bush's policies. After all, Bush wasn't responsible for the death of Yasser Arafat, nor did he order the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the anti-Syrian former prime minister of Lebanon, which touched off the pro-democracy demonstrations there.

Continue Reading...

The NRA members, who had paid $75 to dine on sirloin steak with peppercorn cognac sauce and hear DeLay wax romantic about firearms -- "If you want to empower women in America, give 'em a gun" -- responded with thunderous applause. I wouldn't be surprised if the judges in the Terri Schiavo case, who DeLay had said would have to "answer for their behavior," responded by running out to buy bulletproof vests.

Among the friends gathering round DeLay is Rep. Roy Blunt, the No. 3 Republican in the House, who appeared on "Meet the Press" to defend his colleague the morning after DeLay's NRA speech. No word on whether Blunt was packing heat. But his performance marked a new low in the GOP's "see no evil" approach to their man Tom.

The key exchange started with Tim Russert offering a chapter-and-verse recital of DeLay's misdeeds -- and quoting generously from the Wall Street Journal's scathing "Smells Like Beltway" editorial.

Continue Reading...

The pope's interminable interment was the magenta-colored cherry on the death sundae. The TV coverage was so over-the-top and utterly uncritical, it was as if John Paul had been, well, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Or, at least, Jim Caviezel.

Now, I'm certainly not suggesting that the last week should have been spent trashing the late pontiff. His many achievements -- taking on communism, embracing the Third World, speaking out for the poor, and standing up against war -- surely deserved recognition and praise. But you'd think the wall-to-wall coverage would have included some serious discussion of the two tragic failures of his reign: his woeful mishandling of the church's child-molestation scandal, and how his archaic position on condoms contributed to the deaths of millions of people, especially in Africa.

Continue Reading...

No, President Bush is not gutting the Department of Homeland Security. The problem is Bush's definition of homeland security. Apparently, it doesn't include things like the safety of our streets. Especially the streets of our inner cities, which have become war zones.

After plummeting during the 1990s, gang violence is making a bloody comeback all across America, with gang-related homicides up 50 percent since 1999. According to Justice Department estimates, there are about 21,500 gangs nationwide with over 730,000 members. And these gangs are no longer confined to Los Angeles and New York. Cities like Denver, Portland, Ore., Salt Lake City, and Tulsa, Okla., have all seen dramatic surges in gang-related criminal activity.

Continue Reading...

It is about congressional Democrats and how they once again pathetically misread what moral values mean in a political context. May they miraculously wake from their persistent vegetative state -- or it won't be long before they are receiving their political last rites.

Ever since November, Republicans (aided and abetted by a poorly worded exit poll) have not only succeeded in defining the last election as having been about moral values, they've succeeded in defining moral values. In the GOP's extraordinarily abridged moral dictionary, fighting against gay marriage is morally valuable; fighting against 12 million children living in poverty is not.

Democrats, meanwhile, have been going through the most embarrassing public identity crisis since Anne Heche couldn't decide if, when it came to the bedroom, she preferred surf or turf. They've been mastering the feeble arts of second-guessing themselves and ducking for cover.

Continue Reading...

But when it comes to dealing with the many energy-related crises we're facing, can the Bushies really go on pretending that their policies are any more forward-looking than a rerun of "That '70s Show"?

Exhibit A is the president's bizarre and long-standing obsession with drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which just got Senate approval last week. I mean, how retro can you get? Instead of pushing to increase fuel-efficiency standards that could save millions of barrels of oil each day and calling for a national commitment to invest in renewable sources of energy, he's after one more fix of dinosaur byproducts from one of the world's last pristine places.

Continue Reading...

The political and cultural establishment has gone positively Goofy over this notion. In the corridors of power, Republicans are high-fiving and Democrats are nodding in agreement and patting themselves on the back for how graciously they've been able to accept the fact that they were wrong. The groupthink in the nation's capital would be the envy of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il.

Even heroes of mine like Jon Stewart and my buddy Bill Maher have hopped on the Bush bandwagon. "I've been supportive of President Bush," Maher told Wolf Blitzer this week, "now that I think Iraq is turning around ... He had a bigger and better idea than the rest of us."

Continue Reading...

In a normal world, those elected to represent the interests of the people would have fought for bankruptcy legislation that would, well, represent the interests of the people. But not in Beltway Bizarroland. Instead of cracking down on predatory lending practices, closing loopholes that favor the wealthy, and strengthening the safety net for working people, single mothers and elderly Americans struggling to recover from a financial setback, the Senate put together a nasty little bill that reads like a credit industry wish list. Rubbing salt in the wound, Sen. Charles Grassley, the bill's chief sponsor, labeled it the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 -- even though it does nothing to prevent bankruptcy abuse or protect consumers.

Continue Reading...

Well, I've just had a Springsteen moment. After spending some time last week with Andy Stern, the groundbreaking president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), I'm ready to declare: I've seen the future of progressive leadership in America, and its name is Andy Stern.

You'll forgive me if I temporarily trade my critic's platform for a cheerleader's megaphone, but I've spent the better part of my adult life obsessing over the dwarfish nature of modern political leaders. (I even wrote an entire book about it in my mid-20s, and watched while it was rejected by 36 publishers before it finally saw the light of day.) So when I see the real deal, I react like a starving woman being escorted to an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Now, I suspected that Stern was the real deal even before I met him, having followed his fight to pull the American labor movement out of its decades-long death spiral. But what indisputably come across in person are his fire and passion for the 1.7 million janitors, nurses, social workers, security guards and home healthcare aides he represents -- and, by extension, for all working Americans.

Continue Reading...

Now the Bushies are taking things to the next level. Not content to buy their press coverage retail, they are producing and distributing their own news network. And no, I'm not talking about Fox. It's the Pentagon Channel, a 24/7 niche network brought to you by the Department of Defense.

Started last year as an internal public relations unit within the Pentagon and designed to keep U.S. soldiers and their families informed about all things military, the network is now expanding its reach to the general public. A number of cable systems, including Time Warner, already carry the Pentagon Channel -- and the Dish Network will soon begin beaming the station to its more than 11 million viewers right alongside the half-dozen porn channels the satellite giant offers.

Continue Reading...

The answer came when I got to the epilogue. "Eisner's most glaring defect," writes Stewart, is "his dishonesty." Stewart goes on to describe Eisner's "tendency to distort, embellish or forget the truth" until he becomes incapable of distinguishing reality from his own fabrications.

That's when it hit me: Eisner is the Disneyland doppelgänger of Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's all right there: the unremitting duplicity, the penchant for saying one thing then doing another, the gift for irrational invective, the way both men forge personal bonds with others, then turn around and stab them in the back -- often just hours later.

Mouseketeer Mike and the Governator are pathological peas in a pod.

"DisneyWar" is a laundry list of Eisner's lies and deceptions. We get chapter and verse on his infamous two-faced handling of best friend Michael Ovitz, protégé Jeffrey Katzenberg, and heir apparent Robert Iger -- as well as the dishonesty-drenched disintegration of his relationships with the Weinstein brothers at Miramax and Steve Jobs at Pixar.

Continue Reading...

In 1941, as the United States was on the verge of entering World War II, Sen. Harry S. Truman launched an investigation into reports of widespread waste, corruption and mismanagement in the nascent war effort. Over the next three years, the Truman Committee held hundreds of public hearings, visited military bases across the country and ended up saving taxpayers $15 billion. His efforts also saved countless lives by rooting out contractors using inferior materials and producing shoddy equipment.

We sure could use "Give 'em Hell, Harry" today -- although, given the epidemic of corruption infecting the reconstruction of Iraq, even he would have his work cut out for him.

Continue Reading...

The media have made it sound like last Sunday was a combination of 1776, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Prague Spring, the Ukraine's Orange Revolution, Filipino "People Power," Tiananmen Square and Super Bowl Sunday -- all rolled into one.

It's impossible not to be moved by the stories coming out of Iraq: voters braving bombings and mortar blasts to cast ballots; multiethnic crowds singing and dancing outside polling places; election workers, undeterred by power outages, counting ballots by the glow of oil lamps; teary-eyed women in traditional Islamic garb proudly holding up their purple ink-stained fingers -- literally giving the finger to butcher knife-wielding murderers.

It was a great moment. A Kodak moment. And unlike the other Kodak moments from this war -- think Saddam's tumbling statue and Jessica Lynch's "rescue" -- this one was not created by the image masters at Karl Rove Productions.

But this Kodak moment, however moving, should not be allowed to erase all that came before it, leaving us unprepared for all that may come after it.

Continue Reading...

This year, I've decided to dub these awards "the Arnolds" -- I mean, it isn't every year that the chief executive of the most populous state in the union also lands a prominent role in a Jackie Chan flick (though the Governator playing a womanizing Turkish prince was a bit of a stretch).

So, without further ado, the envelopes please ...

Sequel

Best: "Shrek 2."

Worst: Bush-Cheney 2004.

Performance by a Grizzled Veteran

Best: "Million Dollar Baby's" Clint Eastwood gets another shot at glory when he trains a female boxer to fight for all the marbles.

Continue Reading...

There was no word on whether the president then put his thumb on his nose and wiggled his fingers, or just went with the more efficient single middle finger.

In the next few weeks, Democrats in Congress will have an "accountability moment" of their own -- George Bush's request for another $80 billion to $100 billion in supplemental funding for the war in Iraq.

This will be the third time since the war began that the president has come to the Hill looking to refill his Iraqi coffers. The last two times, congressional Democrats helped rubber-stamp his requests, forking over $152 billion in military funding.

The time has come for Democratic leaders to say: "Not this time, Mr. President."

First they need to admit that they were wrong. Wrong to trust the president and wrong to allow him to put our troops in harm's way without a plan for post-Saddam Iraq, without significant allies (sorry, Bulgaria), and without an exit strategy.

Continue Reading...

Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but America has morphed into a nation of Tony Maneros -- collectively dismissing the future. And nowhere is this mindset more prevalent than at the Bush White House, which is unwavering in its determination to ignore the future.

The evidence is overwhelming. Everywhere you look are IOUs passed on to future generations: Record federal debt. Record foreign debt. Record budget deficits. Record trade deficits.

And this attempt to "fuck the future" is not limited to economics. You see the same attitude when it comes to energy policy, healthcare, education, Social Security and especially the environment -- with the Bushies redoubling their efforts to make the world uninhabitable as fast as possible. (See their attempts to gut the Clean Air Act, gut the Clean Water Act, gut the Endangered Species Act, gut regulations limiting pollution from power plants.)

Continue Reading...