The Washington Post announced tonight that it cease its co-sponsorship of the Pentagon-organized Freedom Walk next month. The paper’s involvement had drawn heat from within and outside the paper, with a guild committee today calling for the link to end.
The newspaper told the Department of Defense that it was pulling back on its offer of free ads for the event–a march up the mall ending with a concert by pro-war country singer Clint Black.
"As it appears that this event could become politicized, The Post has decided to honor the Washington area victims of 9/11 by making a contribution directly to the Pentagon Memorial Fund," said Eric Grant, a Post spokesman. "It is The Post’s practice to avoid activities that might lead readers to question the objectivity of The Post’s news coverage."
Wingnuttia Of The Day
A.W. at Freespeech.com has been on trial lately (he says), so he’s been a little late in playing the Cindy Sheehan smear game. But what he lacks in punctuality, he make up for in both verbosity and wingnuttery:
I’ll lay out my evidence shortly, but here are the pertinent points in my book. The proper reaction, I think, should be driven by Christian compassion.
"Christian compassion" — keep that phrase in mind as we get further into A.W.’s post.
UPDATE: A.W. below questions the patriotism of Sheehan and her supporters, yet it was a member of the anti-Sheehan crowd (A.W.’s people) who desecreated a memorial of crosses dedicated to fallen soldiers. Said Sheehan:
"It’s so ironic that I’m accused of dishonoring my son’s memory by doing what I’m doing, by the other side, and then somebody comes and does this," Sheehan said.
Ironic, yes. But given some of the sentiments of the pro-Bush-at-all-costs crowd (see below), not entirely surprising. They’ll desecrate anyone — or anything — just to make their point.
A Soldier’s Letter To Cindy Sheehan
From Daily Kos:
Fort Hood, Texas
12 August 2005Dear Mrs. Sheehan:
I am a Soldier stationed at Fort Hood who is scheduled for deployment to Iraq (soon). Like you, I do not support the war because I believe it represents a horrible waste of lives and lucre that is bankrupting our nation. However, I am sworn to obey my orders and I will serve to the utmost of my ability when called upon.
Your actions in Crawford have served to galvanize the American people and to remind them of the sacrifices being made by its Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines during what seem to be prosperous and lazy times here at home. It is too easy for the average American to forget that the seemingly low casualty figures seeping in from Southwest Asia are represented by human faces – like the face of your son. While the nation dozes, ones and twos turn into hundreds and thousands of young lives forever squelched – 1,846 thus far, to say nothing of those whose lives have also been forever changed by being wounded and maimed in the conflict.
Whatever the rationale for the war in Iraq was and is, I cannot tolerate the sight of the huge quantum of vehicles I see on the highways with yellow "Support our Troops" magnets on them. Citizens who support us in the military don’t need to buy a magnet. They can contribute to causes benefiting soldiers and their families. They can inform themselves about the conflict in the Middle East and ask themselves what role, if any, the United States needs to play there. Most importantly, they can drive less, and drive smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles. That would reduce our dependency on foreign oil by which, ultimately, the desert wastes of Arabia and Mesopotamia are transformed into "vital United States interests."
Lately you have attracted the attention of the right-wing smear machine, wielded by those who use the people’s innate sense of patriotism and loyalty to serve its own selfish interests. This is a sign that you are awakening the sensibilities of decent Americans everywhere to the bloody-minded folly of the war in Iraq. Now more than ever, you must find your strength, a strength which you must have given young Casey in spades, and I am equally sure that today his strength of his spirit is animating and reawakening yours.
As a soldier, I am asking you to stand fast, and to stick to what you know is right and true. For me, those are the principal duties every civilian citizen owes to his or her nation. For my part, I am not allowed to participate directly in the political process. But I wrote this letter to you today to let you know that on Fort Hood, and on military installations across the United States and around the world, there are simple servicemen and servicewomen like myself who are praying for you, and who wish you well.
The duties of a soldier are a little bit different than those of civilians. Mostly they center around living the Army Values. Those values are:
LOYALTY
DUTY
RESPECT
SELFLESS SERVICE
HONOR
INTEGRITY
PERSONAL COURAGEI have no doubts that your son Casey lived those values to the fullest measure. I will remember him as I begin my own trial by fire in Iraq. Please accept my deepest condolences for your loss and my prayers for you and all of your entire family circle. Also, please accept my thanks for awakening the conscience of our nation.
In deepest sympathy,
OREGON GUY
(RANK), USA
Michelle’s Lame Response
As I reported yesterday, intellectually dishonest Michelle Malkin reported about Cindy Sheehan’s divorce claiming that "like it or not, it is news", a seeming contradiction of her previous "hands off" policy when it came to the mentioning of Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter and the New York Times inquiry into John Roberts’ kids.
Today, Malkin lamely responded to the obvious hypocrisy:
Unlike Cindy Sheehan, Dick Cheney and John Roberts did not cite their family members’ political or ideological positions to support their campaigns.
And while it is true that John Roberts did not cite his family members’ ideological position to support his campaign, it is also true that John Roberts, like all court nominees, isn’t campaigning! And clearly, Malkin is stepping away from her "like it or not, it’s news" rationale.
More importantly, Dick Cheney did mention his lesbian daughter with respect to his campaign, before Kerry raised it in a debate. Here’s the quote:
"Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it’s an issue our family is very familiar with . . . The question that comes up with the issue of marriage is what kind of official sanction or approval is going to be granted by government? Historically, that’s been a relationship that has been handled by the states. The states have made that fundamental decision of what constitutes a marriage"
Will Malkin issue a correction? Don’t hold your breath.
The Lower Depths
Just when you think Michelle Malkin can’t get any lower in her smears of Cindy Sheehan, she does:
Like it or not, the dispute between Cindy Sheehan and some of her family members is news.
Malkin then goes on to note that divorce proceedings have been filed by her husband against Ms. Sheehan.
Others have pointed out what I’m about to say, but it bears repeating. Before I get into it, let’s look at what Malkin wrote when John Kerry mentioned Cheney’s daughter’s homosexuality in a debate, in a post entitled "Abusing DIck Cheney’s Daughter":
John Kerry stooped to the lowest of the low with the shameless, invasive line that will be played over and over again on the news in the next 24 hours…
Now, Michelle… "like it or not", Mary Cheney’s sexuality was "in the news" before Kerry brought it up, right? Right? Can you possibly explain the double standard?
And "like it or not", Supreme Court nominee John Robert’s kids were "in the news" too, so why, Michelle, did you get so outraged when the New York Times checked into Roberts’ adoption records?
Your spineless "well, it’s in the news" rationale only seems to work in one direction, and casts a spotlight on your hypocrisy.
But even that’s not the issue here, Michelle.
Here’s the thing: even if Ms. Sheehan’s marital problems are "news", which is questionable, is it relevant to anything? Is there any reason for you to bring it up, other than to embarrass her? What is it supposed to prove, other than the well-known fact that losing a child tends to fuck up families, because parents don’t expect to bury their children?
Michelle, your meddling into this family tragedy for the purposes of scoring (what you think are) political points is among the most vile and reprehensible things you’ve ever done. I’m with John Cole:
It is goddamned disgraceful. Knock it off, take down that post, and then apologize.
And if you can’t do that, then don’t whine when you get emails calling you a "fucking cunt". Such language is uncalled for, but the sentiment behind it surely isn’t.
Mmmmm . . . Pork!
Great WaPo editorial called "Big Government Conservatives":
THREE TIMES in the past quarter-century, conservative leaders have promised to restrain wasteful government spending. President Ronald Reagan tried it and showed he was at least half-serious by vetoing the pork-laden 1987 transportation bill. House Speaker Newt Gingrich tried it and risked his party’s electoral standing by battling to restrain the growth in programs such as Medicare. And President Bush has tried it, declaring on numerous occasions that he expected spending restraint from Congress. None of these efforts proved politically sustainable….
Back in 1987, when Mr. Reagan applied his veto to what was generally known at the time as the highway and mass transit bill, he was offended by the 152 earmarks for pet projects favored by members of Congress. But on Wednesday Mr. Bush signed a transportation bill containing no fewer than 6,371 earmarks. Each one of these, as Mr. Reagan understood but Mr. Bush apparently doesn’t, amounts to a conscious decision to waste taxpayers’ dollars. One point of an earmark is to direct money to a project that would not receive money as a result of rational judgments based on cost-benefit analyses.
Mr. Bush, who had threatened to veto wasteful spending bills, chose instead to cave in. He did so despite the fact that in addition to a record number of earmarks the transportation bill came with a price tag that he had once called unacceptable. The bill has a declared cost of $286 billion over five years plus a concealed cost of a further $9 billion; Mr. Bush had earlier drawn a line in the sand at $256 billion, then drawn another line at $284 billion.
9/11 Records
The New York Times has made available certain documents and recordings pertaining to 9/11:
Audio files of dispatch transmissions recorded on Sept. 11, 2001
12,000 pages of oral histories (in pdf format, broken down by interviewee)
Justice Sunday II
Captain Ed has been live-blogging proceedings at Dobson’s Justice Sunday II conference. I laughed when I read this:
3:14 [p.m.] – Chuck Colson says he can’t understand why the New York Times considers this so controversial. All they want to see is justice, not money or power. The message of justice has always been central to Christianity. He said he thanks God that Martin Luther King fought for justice 40 years ago …
***
3:19 [p.m.] – Jim Daly, Focus on the Family: We will spare no funding to push for conservative judges. He points out the overwhelming rejection of gay marriage in every election where voters had the option to choose.
So in five minutes, they went from saying they are seeking justice . . . to applauding the unequality in treatment of gays. Apparently, their idea of "justice" is "majority rules", a notion that was rejected in the Civil War and the Civil War amendments (or so I thought).
Yeah, nothing "controversial" about oppression in the name of "justice", guys!
UPDATE: More from Captain Ed:
6:31 [p.m.] – Chuck Colson says that this isn’t a special-interest group; "we care about what is good for our society … because that is what God wants us to do." He speaks about his prison ministry and speaks from the Bible to underscore his point — and notes that Martin Luther King read the same verses from the Book of Amos during his protests.
That’s the second time today that Colson invoked MLK. Tsk, tsk.
Oh, and Chuck? The KKK read from the Bible while they were burning crosses. You see, the Bible can be used as a tool for justice (see, King, Martin Luther) or for injustice (see, KKK, Crusades). What you need to do — I’m serious here, Chuck — is listen the people around you and determine which camp they are in. Are they for creating a world where our sons and daughters of all races and religions and lifestyles join hands in God’s love? Or are they setting people apart, creating a world of "us" and "them"? The answer is a no-brainer, if you just listen to the rhetoric you hear at Justice Sunday II, Chuck.
Maybe then you will think twice about invoking MLK.
6:41 [p.m.] – Bishop Harry Jackson is the best speaker so far. He points out that justice unfortunately knows color, gender, and so on.
But justice apparently does know sexual orientation, according to these guys.
In the final analysis, it seems that even Captain Ed (a conservative blogger) was non-plussed by some of the rhetoric he heard:
However sympathetic I am to the main message, I have some reservations about the secondary messages. As a Christian, I also have some reservations about staging this in a church. Bearing in mind that I am a guest here, it still occurs to me that putting this kind of show on here would discourage others who disagree with the politics to come to worship here. I think churches need to ask themselves which message takes priority in the sanctuary — politics or Christ? It is a concern that some of the other bloggers shared during the program.
We also need to see more clarity on the message of judicial restraint instead of the complaints about public policy, especially homosexuality. That will exist regardless of the status of the courts, and I feel strongly that the role of public policy should not extend to personal relationships between consenting adults. Focusing as much attention on homosexuality makes the message sound a lot more like they want to target gays rather than the much more realistic and desirable goal of rolling back judicial supremacy.
I’m no fan of Captain Ed, but kudos to him for at least acknowledging the unsavory people to whom his party caters. For many of them — and this is not even below-the-surface — "judicial restraint" is merely a buzzword; the real agenda is prejudice and discrimination.
UPDATE 2: Photo from Pandagon inserted into this post. God hates people think for themselves.
Bored?
Cynical-C has some web recommendations of interest:
First, an animated gif of a plane getting hit by lightning, pictured here:
And then, a website devoted to death row inmates’ last meals.
Have fun!
Chronicle Of A Non-Scandal
PHASE ONE: The Able Danger "scandal" as first mentioned by Kevin Drum on August 11:
The story was about a U.S. Army military intelligence program called "Able Danger" that had supposedly used data mining techniques to identify the al-Qaeda cell run by Mohamed Atta a year before 9/11. Unfortunately, as the story went, nothing was done about it because Defense Department lawyers prevented the Able Danger team from telling the FBI about the Atta cell.
For better or worse, I scanned the email briefly, saw that the primary source of the story was Pennsylvania congressman Curt Weldon, and decided to pass on it. On Tuesday, though, Douglas Jehl of the New York Times ran a piece about Weldon’s accusations (here) and then followed it up on Wednesday with another piece (here) that quoted a number of people wondering why this information was only being made public now and why the 9/11 commission hadn’t investigated it last year.
***
Bottom line: This is an intriguing story, but my guess is that Weldon and his source may be considerably embroidering the scope and reliability of what the Able Danger team actually uncovered in 2000 — as people are often wont to do after the fact. Stay tuned.
PHASE 2: The right wing blogosphere goes ballistic. Here’s NRO on August 11:
In a story filed at 7:10 PM, the Associated Press is now confirming all the particulars of what will now forever be called the Able Danger disaster. The 9/11 Commission staff did hear about intelligence-gathering efforts that hit pay dirt on the whereabouts of Mohammed Atta — in 1999 — and deliberately chose to omit word of those efforts.
And why? Because to do so might upset the timeline the Commission had established on Atta.
And why is that significant? Because the Mohammed Atta timeline established by the Commission pointedly insisted Atta did not meet with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague.
And why is that significant? Because debunking the Atta-Iraq connection was of vital importance to Democrats, who had become focused almost obsessively on the preposterous notion that there was no relation whatever between Al Qaeda and Iraq — that Al Qaeda and Iraq might even have been enemies.
I was very skeptical of this Able Danger stuff about Atta, thought it was just sme way Rep. Curt Weldon was trying to sell a book. No longer. This is clearly becoming the biggest story of the summer.
Michelle Malkin and Captain’s Quarters, among many others, go ballistic.
PHASE 3: Nothing to see here, folks. Seriously:
In a particularly dramatic scene in Weldon’s book, Countdown to Terror, the Pennsylvania Republican described personally handing to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Steve Hadley, just after Sept. 11, an Able Danger chart produced in 1999 identifying Atta. But Weldon told TIME he’s no longer certain Atta’s name was on that original document.
PHASE 4: A rare display of public crow-eating:
NRO: "We May Owe Them A Big Apology": . . . I submit there is good reason to believe the Navy officer may have been extrapolating because he was so upset to discover that the "data mining" operation he found out about wasn’t being properly shared with domestic law-enforcement agencies. And without more proof than a four-year-old memory that may have been faulty, the Commission was right to be skeptical about the value of this testimony.
As for Curt Weldon, remember that he’s trying to sell a book. It’s now up to him to put up or shut up. Can he or anyone else supply evidence stronger than the evidence presented to date about this that the Pentagon was in possession of Mohammed Atta’s name a year before the attacks? I doubt he can or he would have already.
Michelle Malkin: Even so, those of us who reported unequivocally that Able Danger identified Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers a year before the 9/11 attacks simply were not on solid ground.
So much for the "scandal of the summer", yes?
Wingnuttia Of The Day
From a commentor at The Poor Man Cafe:
I know this isn’t going to [be] popular on this website, but may I just point something out?
A soldier’s #1 job is to stay alive. If you die, you can’t accomplish the mission, and you weaken your team and put your buddies in danger.
Obviously Sheehan’s son, I forget his name at the moment, didn’t die on purpose, and he may well have have had no control over the circumstances that let to his death.
BUT.
In war, there are no excuses. You find a way to stay alive, whatever it takes — if you’re a good soldier. Sheehan’s son didn’t do that. He paid the price. but he als failed the mission and let down his buddies.
As a soldier, he was a failure. He was brave (maybe), but he was also incompetent.
So, really, how much exactly are we supposed to grieve over this guy? Isn’t a certain amount of disapproval in order for the guy — and by extension his mom, for making such a fuss over a person who was, in the last analysis, by definition a loser?
So shouldn’t Mrs. Sheenhan be showing a little more shame about the situation and maybe not wanting to get her son and his shortcoming splashed all over the media?
Something to consider, anyway.
While reading this, I couldn’t help but think of these monuments to incompetent failures:
Both Theories
Intelligent design proponents, having created a bogus controversy about intelligent degisn vs. evolution, argue that the only fair thing to do — now that there is a "controversy" — is to teach both theories. Yeah, bullshit:
Lowered Expectations
It’s interesting. At the very moment, when Cindy Sheehan is asking Bush (or trying to ask Bush) why her son died, the Bush Administration is changing its answer:
U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq
Administration Is Shedding ‘Unreality’ That Dominated Invasion, Official Says
The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.
The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say. "What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we’re in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."
Over 1800 soldiers dead, and only now is the Bush Administration embracing realities.
UPDATE: Frank Rich says, "Somebody tell the President the War is over."
Weapons Of Mass Destruction Found In Iraq
Sadly, they weren’t there before the invasion. Now wonder most Americans (correctly) believe that the Iraq War has made us less safe. From WaPo:
U.S. troops raiding a warehouse in the northern city of Mosul uncovered a suspected chemical weapons factory containing 1,500 gallons of chemicals believed destined for attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces and civilians, military officials said Saturday.
Monday’s early morning raid found 11 precursor agents, "some of them quite dangerous by themselves," a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan, said in Baghdad.
Combined, the chemicals would yield an agent capable of "lingering hazards" for those exposed to it, Boylan said. The likely targets would have been "coalition and Iraqi security forces, and Iraqi civilians," partly because the chemicals would be difficult to keep from spreading over a wide area, he said.
Boylan said the suspected lab was new, dating from some time after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Bush administration cited evidence that Saddam Hussein’s government was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction as the main justification for the invasion. No such weapons or factories were found.
But the fact that the chemical weapons were dated post-invasion doesn’t stop the morons at Powerline from asking:
One can’t help wondering, too, how long the facility has been there and whether it could have played a role in Saddam’s chemical weapons program.
Blinders.
Report From Crawford
The anti-Cindy Sheehan protesters have shown up at the Bush ranch, and like their online counterparts, they’re nothing but ugly:
Alex just called, and some counter-protestors showed up in a bus. Don’t know with whom or what they’re affiliated. A diary on DailyKos says it’s the Mike Gallagher group. They’re not obeying the strict parking rules the police have been demanding of the Sheehan supporters.
After they arrived, the Sheehan supporters stood and sang "God Bless America."
The response?
A repeated chant of "We don’t care. We don’t care. We don’t care…"
Just chew on that image for awhile.