In An Alternate Reality

In an alternate reality, Iraq is doing well and we are helping to bring peace and freedom to the people of that country. That is the reality of President Bush and Republicans.

But the reality on the ground - the one that actually exists - is just the opposite. By now, most people who bother to read newspapers or blogs or who watch television or listen to radio know that the National Intelligence Estimate has said that our invasion of Iraq has increased terrorism. We've destabilized Iraq and turned it into a successful recruiting station for international terrorists who are offended to have non-Muslim Westerners occupying that country.

Most people are also familiar with Bob Woodward's book State of Denial, which says that the Bush Administration has consistently painted an overly optimistic picture of progress in Iraq.

Nobody, however, has yet to state the obvious. Overthrowing Saddam Hussein was the dumbest, worst strategic blunder that could have been made in the region. The trouble is that Hussein was such a genuinely bad man that it's hard to conceive that no good could come from his being ousted.

But as bad as he was, those now running wild in the streets of Bagdahd are so much worse.

I've harped for months about the difference in the situation of women. Under Hussein, women enjoyed relative freedom. They dressed in Western fashion, styled their hair, went to beauty shops, wore makeup, held down jobs, traveled, were educated. In short, they lived what we would call normal lives.

Since the invasion and the overthrow of Saddam, women are veiled. They are afraid to walk the streets, they seldom go places unchaperoned. In short, the fanatic Shiite leaders with whom we have replaced Saddam, have turned Iraq from a modern country into one as backward as Afghanistan under the Taliban, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. One more sad place where women's freedom does not thrive. Does not even exist.

But the latest casualty of Iraqi Muslim extremism is Christianity. As this article in today's New York Times shows, Muslims have seized upon the recent remarks by Pope Benedict as an excuse to throw still another temper tantrum against anyone not Islamic enough by their fanatic standards.

I'm not going to defend Benedict's remarks. They were insulting. But Pope Benedict is the same man who engineered a document, Domine Iesus, that declared the Protestant faith deficient. Lots of Protestants were offended. But you didn't see Baptists and Episcopalians rioting in the streets and burning down their neighbors' churches. They wrote letters to the editor like sensible people.

I don't know if anybody else on the left is getting as damned tired of Muslim rage as I am. But this quote from the Times about sums up the intolerance of the situation:

Muslim fury over Pope Benedict XVI’s public reflections on Islam in Germany a month ago — when he quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor as calling Islam “evil and inhuman” — has subsided elsewhere, but repercussions continue to reverberate in Iraq, bringing a new level of threat to an already shrinking Christian population.

Several extremist groups threatened to kill all Christians unless the pope apologized. Sunni and Shiite clerics united in the condemnation, calling the comments an insult to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. In Baghdad, many churches canceled services after receiving threats. Some have not met since.

“After the pope’s statement, people began to fear much more than before,” said the Rev. Zayya Edward Khossaba, the pastor of the Church of the Virgin Mary. “The actions by fanatics have increased against Christians.”

Christianity took root here near the dawn of the faith 2,000 years ago, making Iraq home to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities. The country is rich in biblical significance: scholars believe the Garden of Eden described in Genesis was in Iraq; Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees, a city in Iraq; the city of Nineveh that the prophet Jonah visited after being spit out by a giant fish was in Iraq.
Both Chaldean Catholics and Assyrian Christians, the country’s largest Christian sects, still pray in Aramaic, the language of Jesus.

They have long been a tiny minority amid a sea of Islamic faith. But under Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s million or so Christians for the most part coexisted peacefully with Muslims, both the dominant Sunnis and the majority Shiites.

But since Mr. Hussein’s ouster, their status here has become increasingly uncertain, first because many Muslim Iraqis framed the American-led invasion as a modern crusade against Islam, and second because Christians traditionally run the country’s liquor stories, anathema to many religious Muslims.

Over the past three and a half years, Christians have been subjected to a steady stream of church bombings, assassinations, kidnappings and threatening letters slipped under their doors.

Estimates of the resulting Christian exodus vary from the tens of thousands to more than 100,000, with most heading for Syria, Jordan and Turkey.

I know that was a long quote. And I'm not one to usually cut and paste without commentary. But it's so important to get back from the alternate reality of Republican ideology to the accurate reality on the ground over there. It's time to state the obvious.

No, we are not better off with Saddam out of power. The world is worse off with the fanatics that we have put in his place. Bush's father and Brent Scowcroft and James Baker III all understood this. That's why when they invade Iraq in 1990, they left Saddam in power. They left him in charge but severely constrained. The first Bush Administration understood the power vaccum in Iraq and they didn't dare leave that country with extremist Shiites in charge.

We are not better off now. And certainly the Christians of Iraq, some of whom are descendents of the earliest Christians, are far less well off. And that's not wishful thinking or an alternate reality.

It's the only reality we actually have. The true one.

Being A Republican Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry Part II

Coming home tonight, I heard on NPR that the Republicans and the Bush Administration want to blame Bill Clinton for the failures of policy and diplomacy with North Korea. After Democrats accused the Bush Administration of being so distracted by Iraq that they failed to prevent North Korea from nuclear testing, the Bushies want to lay the blame at Clinton's feet.

Excuse me but didn't that tactic fail when Republicans tried to shift the blame for 9-11 to Clinton? Clinton hit back and Bob Woodward and others validated Clinton's own claims that it was the Bush Administration that actually dropped the ball and failed to heed CIA and FBI warnings on bin Laden? Do the Republicans now want to go for 0 and 2?

Two terms - six years into an administration - these guys have got to begin to take some responsibility for their inaction and incompetence. They might as well, generals and diplomats who are normally sympathetic to the Republicans are pointing fingers at them. That includes some members of Bush, Sr.'s Cabinet such as Brent Scowcroft and James Baker III.

For a party that came to power preaching the need for individuals to take responsibility for their actions, nobody in this party seems to be able to practice what they preach.

Accountability - it's not just for poor inner city kids anymore. Rich white people, perhaps, need to also be responsible for their failures and misdeeds too.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Forrest Gump's mother had it right. Go figure.

What about Mark Foley being a pedophile didn't the Republican House leadership get? And what about the House leadership's personal moral responsibility for the protection of minors did the party of family values and personal responsibility also not understand?

The Republicans have been frantically looking for excuses and targets so they can deflect blame from themselves for this scandal. They've been spinning this faster than my head spins after too much Pinot Noir.

According to this report from David Corn, Republican strategists were divided over whether to blame Democrats for leaking it as an "October Surprise," which Newt Gingrich suggested last week on NPR, or to go after gay Republican Hill staffers, the so-called “Velvet Mafia,” for protecting Foley and then engineering his downfall. In fact, a list of gay House staffers has been going around Washington, DC and Corn claims to have a copy. He also refused to divulge it.

But here's what he does say about the list:

"What's interesting about The List--which includes nine chiefs of staffs, two press secretaries, and two directors of communications--is that (if it's acucurate) it shows that some of the religious right's favorite representatives and senators have gay staffers helping them advance their political careers and agendas. These include Representative Katherine Harris and Henry Hyde and Senators Bill Frist, George Allen, Mitch McConnell and Rick Santorum. Should we salute these legislators for being open-minded enough to have such tolerant hiring practices? After all, Santorum in a 2003 AP interview compared homosexuality to bestiality, incest and polygamy. It would be rather big of Santorum to employ a fellow who engages in activity akin to such horrors. That is, if Santorum knows about his orientation. "

Corn then goes on to claim that Republicans are afraid that if they harp too much on how many family values candidates have gay staffers in their employ they run the risk of angering their values voting constituents. Besides this constituency's ideological revulsion for gays anyway, it already hasn't escaped their notice that despite all the politically correct rhetoric coming from their representatives, few of their pet issues have ever actually become the law of the land. The Republican Congress has been better at bringing home the bacon to their corporate donors and big bucks contributors than they've been at delivering to the religious right. They've managed to give tax breaks, laws protecting off shoring, perks for oil companies all gift wrapped with nice little bows. But they failed to give the religious right the federal Constitutional amendment that would define marriage as only between a man and a woman. They haven't made much of a dent on pro-life issues (though that could change with the new Supreme Court). But over the years, religious conservatives have expressed dissatisfaction and threatened to desert the Republican Party because of the party's lack of success at getting the social issues legislation so important to them passed.

So, if those values voters see how many of their congressmen's staffers are actually gay they may begin to wonder if that may be the reason for their lack of success at advancing their social agenda. And they may also begin to wonder how many of these politicians whom they've supported with their money, their time, and their votes are true believers and how many have just been talking the talk while taking them for a ride.

So, the narrative that a cabal of gay Hill staffers knew and protected Foley is not a good target. The boomerang's too dangerous.

Unfortunately, venal Democrats who knew about Foley's behavior all along and hid it until it was strategically valuable to them also won't work. And it's their own fault. This group of Republicans has been so partisan and has marginalized their Democratic colleagues for so many years that it's legendary how out of the loop the Democrats are in this Congress. They've gleefully kept Democrats out of every loop on every issue for so long that they just don't have any plausible deniability on this one.

Nope. The public gets it that on this one they can't claim Democrats share their guilt for a cover up. This is a Republican scandal through and through. And it's not about the sex, not about the gay issue. It's the cover up.

Foley is gone. But Hastert is not only still around but he's still refusing to take any responsibility and the rest of them are still in denial. And that's the Republicans' real problem. That and, of course, protecting a pedophile and sexual predator.

Yes, Jim Webb Is A Democrat - And He Won Tonight.

Back in the spring, when Jim Webb was running in the primary, his opponents’ supporters hit me with a lot of questions about his authenticity. These were fair questions too. In fact, after the Northern Virginia Central Labor Council’s COPE Dinner, I was sitting in the bar of the Hilton Hotel where the dinner had taken place. I was with a group of Democrats and one of them told me that she opposed Webb because she didn’t trust his claim that he was a Democrat. She said that she did not want to witness the next Zell Miller in 2008 – that is a Democrat supporting a Republican presidential candidate and trashing his own party, which had happened at the 2004 Republican Convention.

Fair point. And it did give me a queasy moment. How could I guarantee that it wouldn’t happen? At that point, Webb was more of an unknown quantity. I liked his resume. I liked what he had to say about economic fairness and economic justice and I certainly liked what he was saying about the Iraqi war. Also his experience in the military and as a former secretary of the Navy gave legitimacy to his criticism of this Administration’s handling of the fight against terrorism. He was the one Democrat, I thought, who could make Virginians feel safe on national security issues.

But was he actually a Democrat?

Tonight’s debate laid that question to rest. While Allen spoke in tired platitudes and tried to raise fears about tax increases (in a state that has one of the lowest tax rates in the nation and that also has been voted one of the best run in fiscal managment while under a Democratic governor), Webb time and again showed his commitment to economic justice for ordinary middle class citizens.

Allen constantly tried to link Webb to Hillary Clinton and to tax increases. Webb meanwhile spoke eloquently about issues of fairness, the problem of the deficit, and the need for genuine economic fairness. When Allen tried to use the typical Republican claim about how good the economy is, Webb bluntly said how good it looks depends on where you sit.

Businesses are making record profits. The stock market is healthy and is benefiting wealthy investors. But the wages of the average worker are flat. And their wages are not keeping up with inflation. And Allen voted against raising the minimum wage.

Allen has voted with the Administration 97% of the time and 100% of the time on foreign policy issues.

Webb said that he favors targeted tax credits that would help the middle class. He stressed that under the current Administration's tax structure some of the largest, wealthiest and most successful corporations pay no taxes. And he said that we can't keep spending at the current rate without a source of revenue. It was clear that he was not in favor of raising taxes for working people but simply making large and rich corporations pay their fair share.

He also favors the U.S. making an unequivocal statement that it does not want to occupy Iraq indefinitely. He also would like to see Iraq’s neighbors in the Middle East get involved in the peace process while the U.S. withdraws to bases outside of Iraq, close enough to monitor dangers in that region but without appearing to be an occupying force. He pointed out that in recent days James Baker III and John Warner have both said that the Administration needs to take a new course in that region because we are failing there.

Webb, of course, has been saying that for three years.

Webb also spoke up, without equivocating, and expressed his opposition to the so-called marriage amendment. He said clearly that he was a Christian and believed that marriage was between a man and a woman. But he said that he, like Governor Tim Kaine, would vote against the marriage amendment because it was too broad and would take rights away from both gays and hetrosexuals. Webb showed the courage of his convictions and spoke up to take a stand that is unpopular in Virginia but is the right thing to do. And that is oppose an amendment that takes rights away from citizens.

But the most important thing Webb did was invite others like him to come home to the Democratic Party. As he said, those like him – the so-called Reagan Democrats – who left the party because of their concern over national security issues but who never felt at home with the Republicans’ economic policies, can come back to the party that now has a better solution than the Republicans. These are the working class and middle class people who care about economic justice. Tonight, Webb reassured them that the Democrats get it. The Democrats can be strong on defense, fighting terrorism, national security and foreign policy without sacrificing economic fairness.

Oh yeah. Webb also won the debate!

Update on Women For Jim Webb

By the way go here on Raising Kaine to see how real women feel about Jim Webb. And the first picture is Webb with Leslie Byrne, who was the first woman to be elected to Congress from Virginia. She's a femininist, a trail blazer and a straight shooter who wouldn't support somebody whose principles she disagreed with if her life depended on it.

George Allen's Bad Body Language

I once read a book about how to – well – how to read people like a book. Actually, that was the title of the book. It was about how to read peoples’ body language. Another tome in that genre is David Lieberman’s Never Be Lied to Again. The advice of books like this is to not trust peoples’ words but to trust their body language. Especially to observe whether there ‘s a disconnect between what they say with their words what their body language says.

Here’s a couple of obvious examples. Somebody saying a too hearty “yes, yes, yes,” to something while their heads are shaking “no, no, no.” Or telling you how good a friend you are while their hands are clenched into balled fists and their smiles are frozen on their faces. In fact, when they smile, their smiles don’t reach their eyes because it’s not sincere.

Well George Allen’s campaign has a metaphorical disconnect between its words and what it actually does that reminds me of all that talk about trusting body language. As a rule of thumb, always trust what people do not what they say. Here’s a perfect example.

George Allen just spent a lot of money to go on TV to implore journalists, the Webb campaign, and the voters to be concerned about issues rather than character attacks. His campaign has been saying for days that it wants to get off “character assassination” and discuss the issues that Virginia voters care about.

But for the past two days, his campaign has continued to run that ad with the female Naval Academy graduates who attacked Jim Webb for an article he wrote 27 years ago. That’s over a quarter of a century ago.

In fact, even Michael Shear noticed this disconnect today in this article in today's Washington Post. Here's a quote:

“A day after paying for a two-minute TV commercial calling for the campaign to focus on political issues instead of character issues, Allen said at the Fredericksburg luncheon that his Webb commercials are about ‘respect for women.’ His campaign vowed to continue attacking what they say is the Democrat's biggest vulnerability.

Dick Wadhams vowed that they will continue to run the ad because it’s important to Virginians to know that Jim Webb was against women fighting in the military or attending the military academies (a position, by the way, that is similar to Allen’s position on the subject).

Let me see, Jim Webb was negative about women in the military over a quarter of a century ago and has since changed his mind and grown as a human being. George Allen, on the other hand, made a racial slur about a month ago. And it’s part of a continuing pattern that appears to have gone on unabated since he was in high school but Jim Webb should stop the character assassination but George Allen is right to continue playing that ad because it’s different.

There’s a definition for what this is. It’s called hypocrisy. You could look it up in a dictionary.

Or you could trust your eyes about the bad faith and bad body language here.

A Campaign About Issues? Bring It On!

I have to confess that I missed George Allen’s two-minute commercial yesterday. And today I was too busy at work to play it back on my computer even though it was available on line. And the sound’s out on my home computer. So I haven’t seen it at all and can’t comment directly on it.

But from what I’ve read and gathered, Allen surrounded himself with all the accouterments of a politician, the lovely and smiling wife, the picture of his father and the football helmet to remind Virginians that, yes, he’s that George Allen, Jr., son of the beloved Redskins coach.

He also admitted that some of his recent problems he brought on himself. Just the proper touch of humility. And he called the racist charges “baseless.”

What amused me most, though, was Allen’s plea to get back on issues.

Let’s face it, you don’t hire people like Dick Wadhams, Chris LaCivita, Paul Galanti, and the rest of the Swiftboat crew so that you can run a clean issue-oriented campaign. That’s not what they do and if Allen hired them to stay on issues and not character assassination he would have been wasting his money.

He hired them exactly to do character assassination. And if the situation had been reversed and they had found dirt about Jim Webb they would have been sanctimoniously telling the reporters and public that character counts.

It does. Theirs are the values voters, after all. And guess what?

Hate is not a Virginia value.

Hatred of blacks, women, Jews, immigrants, and gays is not a family value and it’s not what Virginians do.

On the other hand, Allen better be careful what he wishes for because if this campaign actually becomes about issues, Jim Webb will be even stronger in the polls and with voters than he is now.

In Virginia, as in the nation as a whole, people are dissatisfied with the way the war in Iraq is going. Most people no longer feel it was worth it to go over there. And more and more people are coming to realize that fighting in Iraq is not necessarily making us more secure at home. It’s not necessary to be in Iraq to fight terrorism and defend our own borders. Especially with the recent revelations from Bob Woodwards’ new book, State of Denial, voters are aware that they’ve been lied to by the Bush Administration on all counts. All Webb needs to do is point out that George Allen has supported Bush 97% of the time. George Allen is not a leader and he’s wrong on the issues.

George Allen is wrong on Iraq and national security. He also has voted against raising the minimum wage. He would vote for Social Security privatization, to continue tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent of the population, and against programs that help the middle class and poor. If you want economic justice, peace and prosperity, George Allen is not your man. But Jim Webb is.

Make the campaign about the issues. Please. Bring it on!

So, Are We Feeling Safer Yet?

The Bush Administration has tried to make the midterm elections about terrorism. Republicans feel this is their strongest issue. And polls bear them out. Those who are concerned about terrorism are more likely to vote Republican in November and those who care more about the war in Iraq are more likely to vote for the Democrats.

Yet the truth is they are intertwined issues. And the Republicans are failing on both counts, their handling of the war in Iraq and fighting terrorism.

When Bush took us into Iraq the reason given was that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction – nuclear and biological. And as an added fillip, Administration officials kept implying a link between Saddam and al Qaeda.

We now know that there were no WMDs in Iraq. And the link between Hussein and terrorists has been disproved too.

The recent selective leaking of the National Intelligence Estimate confirms what many have suspected for a long time. According to this classified report, the American occupation of Iraq has become a major recruiting tool for al Qaeda. Since we’ve been there terrorists have flocked to that country to wage jihad.

The NIE also confirms that Iraq is spiraling into chaos and civil war. And on top of that assessment, Bob Woodward’s new book, State of Denial, asserts that the situation has been even worse than we’ve been led to believe. The Bush Administration has been withholding how dire conditions really are.

I think, though, that anybody who reads a newspaper every day can guess that it’s not exactly going well over there. Nobody should be in shock over Woodward’s revelations that Bush and his administration have been feeding the public overly optimistic reports.

But it’s worse than we thought. It turns out that the same people who are losing the peace in Iraq were asleep at the wheel when it came to preventing 9-11 after all.

Remember the recent uproar over the highly partisan and biased ABC-TV miniseries on 9-11? A rightwing television writer penned an essentially fictional account of the events leading up to 9-11 that placed most of the missteps at the feet of President Clinton. Neocons have spilled a lot of ink recently trying to lay blame for the intelligence failures that led up to the worst attack on American soil at the feet of the Clinton Administration and the Democrats.

To hear them tell it, Clinton was too distracted with his intern scandal to pay attention to stopping bin Laden. The miniseries even showed fictional scenes of Madeleine Albright and other officials ignoring warnings or passing the buck to other bureaucrats.

Clinton, never one to suffer unfair accusations in silence (he’s the one successful candidate who didn’t let Bob Shrum run any of his campaigns), hit back when he told Chris Wallace angrily that it wasn’t true. Hillary weighed in that her husband tracked down bin Laden aggressively and both said that it was the Republicans and neocons that let him slip through their fingers not the Clinton officials.

Indeed, Richard A. Clark, the former director of counter-terrorism at the National Security Council, gave testimony to the 9-11 commission that directly disputed the neocons’ claims and supported the Clintons’ assertions. Here’s an excerpt from his testimony:

" At the senior policy levels in the Clinton Administration, there was an acute understanding of the terrorist threat, particularly al Qida. That understanding resulted in a vigorous program to counter al Qida including lethal covert action, but it did not include a willingness to resume bombing of Afghanistan. Events in the Balkans, Iraq, the Peace Process, and domestic politics occurring at the same time as the anti-terrorism effort played a role.

The Bush Administration saw terrorism policy as important but not urgent, prior to 9-11. The difficulty in obtaining the first Cabinet level (Principals) policy meeting on terrorism and the limited Principals' involvement sent unfortunate signals to the bureaucracy about the Administration's attitude toward the al Qida threat."

And now, according to an excerpt from Woodward’s book, as carried in today’s Washington Post, it turns out that the Clintons’ counterpunch and Clark’s statements are accurate.

On July 10, 2001 CIA Director George Tenet met with his CIA counter-terrorism director J. Cofer Black to discuss intelligence chatter that convinced both of them there was an increasing likelihood that bin Laden was going to launch a major attack, possibly in the U.S.

Tenet and Black called Condoleeza Rice, the National Security adviser, from Tenet’s car and asked to see her right away.

The CIA and others in the intelligence community were all noticing an uptick in the chatter signaling something major was up. Their combined gut instinct was to take it seriously.

Indeed the National Security Agency and even Richard Clark were urging action. Care to guess who the major obstruction was?

The Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld!

Rumsfeld was skeptical of the CIA’s information and of the National Security Agency intercepts. He thought it was all “grand deception,” masterminded by bin Laden, a plot to measure U.S. defense reactions and not a serious threat.

We already know from other sources, including former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill’s testimony in Ron Suskind’s book, The Price of Loyalty, that Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush were more focused on Iraq than al Qaeda or Afghanistan even then. Indeed, according to O’Neill’s accounts, as soon as the Bush officials took office they showed more interest in finding a way to invade Iraq than even in fixing an economy that was heading into a recession.

Here’s what O’Neill told Suskind:

“And what happened at President Bush's very first National Security Council meeting is one of O'Neill's most startling revelations. 'From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,' says O’Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.”

And Richard Clark reported in his book, Against All Enemies, that immediately after 9-11 Cheney and Rumsfeld were frantically trying to pin the attack on Saddam rather than bin Laden. Clark was astounded since it ran counter to everything the intelligence agencies already knew.

In fact, as early as June 30, 2001, the National Security Agency had released a top-secret intelligence briefing “Bin Laden Threats Are Real.” And remember from the 9-11 Commission the August 2001 briefing that Rice ignored, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack in the U.S.?”

Immediately after the 9-11 attack, a distraught FBI Special Agent, Colleen Rowley, wrote her open letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller that several agents in the Minneapolis regional FBI office had grown suspicious of Zacarias Moussaoui, a Muslim with ties to questionable organizations who was taking flight lessons but skipping training on how to land planes. Her supervisor and others in middle and upper management ignored these warnings. They were not passing on crucial evidence that might have supplied the missing pieces to a security puzzle that top officials were becoming concerned about.

But middle management rarely acts in a vacuum. Careless functionaries weren’t simply losing this stuff in the bureaucratic maze. Rather, middle management gets a feel early on for what the top political people want. And that’s what they feed them.

Cheney and Rumsfeld weren’t interested in al Qaeda or bin Laden. They set their sights on Saddam Hussein from the beginning.

It’s not like plans to take out bin Laden weren’t formulated. In fact, in closed-door sessions, covert plans were being developed to use a new secret weapon, unmanned Predators or drones with Hellfire missiles to kill bin Laden. But the CIA and the Pentagon were locked in debate over who would pay for it and who would have the authority to fire the missiles.

Because of a turf war and a scuffle over finances, bin Laden walked away to launch his devastating attack on U.S. soil.

As for Black and Tenet, they left their meeting with Condi Rice on July 10 feeling more frustrated than ever. As Black said, “Adults should not have a system like this.” Indeed he felt that the decision to just keep planning rather than heed the warnings and act immediately was “a sustained policy failure.” And Tenet looked back at that meeting as a tremendous lost opportunity to prevent or disrupt 9-11.

The man most responsible for allowing this opportunity to slip through the Administration’s fingers, Donald Rumsfeld, is the same one equally responsible for the massive failures in Iraq. And for the same reason. He has allowed ideology to trump evidence. And he simply disrespects career civil servants whether they are intelligence experts or military leaders. He, Cheney, Karl Rove, and Bush place politics above sound policy.

Do you all feel safer knowing this? I know I don’t. And I think it’s time to challenge the Republicans’ assertion that they are better at protecting Americans and take the issue to the American people. We can’t shy away from it. Not because we want victory in November, although yes we do want that. But there’s a more important reason to fight tooth and nail to expose this Administration’s willful incompetence.

The real security of our nation is at stake. If protecting America meant Democrats losing the next 10 elections, I wouldn’t care. And if losing one election cycle to get rid of Rumsfeld and challenge this Administration to find a real solution that provides lasting security for Americans, then Republicans shouldn’t care if that means defeat. Ultimately the safety of America and its citizens should be more important than politics as usual. It was in the days immediately after 9-11 when we all came together. And it should be again with these revelations.

It’s time to come together again. Whatever the temporary partisan political cost.

Warning From the Webb Campaign and FCDC Chair

I just received this in an email from Ginny Peters, the Chair of the Fairfax County Democratic Committee:

"Hi All:
I have been informed by the Webb campaign that George Allen is doing a push poll. Please don’t hang up on them. The Webb campaign would like to know what they are saying. Write down as many questions as you can. So, if you get one of these calls please call Larry Byrne at the Webb Campaign and let him know what the polling questions are. Thanks, Ginny"

The number for Webb Headquarters is 703.778.4080.

George Allen's Jewish Problem

What do Madeleine Albright, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Wes Clark all have in common? Besides the obvious that they are all Democrats and three of them are viewed as possible Democratic presidential candidates?

What else all four of them have in common is that they were all raised Christian and consider themselves practicing Christians today. And all of them also have Jewish blood. Jewish relatives. And none of them knew it growing up.

Madeleine Albright’s father made a conscious decision to convert and to have his family also convert to Catholicism before World War II to escape the growing anti-Semitism that was engulfing Europe in a flood of hatred. Because he was a prominent diplomat, he got his family to safety in England and Madeleine never knew until the mid-1990s that she had Jewish ancestors. Although she is still a Christian, she embraced all of her heritage and publicly acknowledged her history.

Basically, John Kerry and Wes Clark did the same. Kerry found out that his grandfather was Jewish and had converted to Catholicism as a young man. In fact, one of Kerry’s brothers converted to Judaism to marry a Jewish woman. When the Kerrys found out their family history, his brother quipped that if he had known earlier, he wouldn’t have had to go through all the ritual and ceremony of a conversion. In fact, he actually would have because according to Rabbinical Law, Judaism is traced through the mother’s family line not the father’s.

Wes Clark also found out as an adult that his father was Jewish. His mother never told him because she didn’t want him to be subject to prejudice while growing up in Arkansas. She raised him as a Baptist, which was her religion.

Hillary Clinton also had a distant relative who was Jewish, which she announced while running for the Senate in New York.

What all of them have in common, however, is that none of them threw a temper tantrum when reporters asked them about their Jewish roots.

George Allen actually would not be considered Jewish because his mother Etty’s father was the one who was alleged to be Jewish. Judaism, again, according to Orthodox Rabbinic Law, is traced through the mother’s line. So unless Etty had a Jewish mother or converted she would not necessarily be considered Jewish.

George Allen can breathe a sigh of relief. He obviously was highly offended when somebody asked about this. At last night's debate between Allen and opponent Jim Webb, WUSA-TV reporter Peggy Fox raised the question, as reported by Dana Milbank, in today's Washington Post

Although I am a staunch Webb supporter, I really, really don’t want to pile onto George Allen about this. Really.

I would like to believe that his anger at Peggy Fox, when she raised the question, at the Allen-Webb debate yesterday, based on an article she saw in the Jewish Forward, about Allen’s mother’s Jewish roots, was because the question followed a previous Fox question that asked whether Allen had ever heard the word Macacca from his French-Tunisian mother.

Macacca is reputed to be a European slur word for blacks, Arabs and other peoples of color. Allen might have taken Fox’s question to imply that Etty was bigoted and used racial slur words while the Allen children were growing up.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Allen could have heard the word innocently enough as a child from a distant relative or acquaintance of Etty’s. In my otherwise liberal family, I heard some foolish relatives use words that my parents would never countenance. My folks wouldn’t have approved such language, but they couldn’t keep me sheltered from those who did use it. You can love your relatives despite their shortcomings. But you sure don’t get to pick them.

So Fox may not have meant to cast any aspersions on Allen’s mother. And Allen had every right to defend his mother from any charge of personal bigotry.

But his anger at the implication that he might have some Jewish relative lurking in a closet somewhere was way out of proportion. It seems almost like he considered the mere suggestion that he might have some Jewish blood a real insult.

Being Jewish myself, I have to wonder about that. A proportionate response to Fox’s question would have been either denial if it wasn’t true or simply admitting that he didn’t know if that was the truth. But getting angry and then staying angry even after the debate suggests that more might have been going on in Allen’s mind.

After all, Fox didn’t accuse him of being a Communist, a money grubbing Shylock, or a traitor. Or did she?

Those are all the stereotypes that bigots have of Jews.

I don’t believe that Allen is a conscious anti-Semite. He is, after all, a big supporter of Israel. He has Jewish political supporters too. And if you asked him, he’d probably be insulted that you would even think such a thing.

But at some level, being asked about a Jewish relative was offensive to him. And we know he dislikes being called Felix, which was the name of his supposedly Jewish grandfather. Might there be a connection there?

It sounds to me like George Allen, once again, has some ‘splaining to do. He may be thin skinned. But if something like that insults him, his Jewish supporters have a right to know why.

UPDATE:

Allen has indeed admitted his Jewish roots in this updated article from the Washington Post’s website, written by Michael Shear. But why does he still seem so begrudging and angry at Peggy Fox. After all, she didn’t out him for something shameful? Or does he still think she did?

Wanna Help Jim Webb - Just Show Up!

This may be the most important post I write this week. It's not an original piece of writing. There's no analysis of current events. In fact, it's probably the most boring post I've ever done. All I did was cut and paste an announcement and reformat it to make it easier to read. It could have been drudgery except for the fact that it was a labor of love.

All it is is a list of events and activities that you can show up for to help the Webb campaign. And that's what makes it so important. All the words on all the websites in the netroots won't matter without your help going door-to-door to meet and talk with voters. Show up, canvass, be part of the crowd at an event, work a table, pass out campaign literature, phone bank. It all helps.

There's a line from an old West Wing episode - not an exact quote, but it went something like this - "Decisions are made by those who show up."

Here are ways, places, and contacts where you can go to help Jim Webb. So, just show up!

Televised Debates—Come be a part of history!
MEET THE PRESS with Tim Russert WHERE: NBC Studios, 4001 Washington DC, NWWHEN: September 17, Sunday. Meet at 7:30 am. Debate starts at 10:30 amINFO: fielddesk@webbforsenate.com 703-778-2781NOTE: We will gather afterwards to watch the debate as it's broadcast!

FAIRFAX CHAMBER OF COMMERCE DEBATE with George Stephanopoulous WHERE: Hilton Hotel, 7920 Jones Branch Drive, McLean VAWHEN: September 18, Monday. Meet at 10:00 am. Debate starts at 11:30 amINFO: fielddesk@webbforsenate.com 703-778-2781

Upcoming Outreach Events—most events involve only a 2-3 hour commitment.

Washington County Fair—a great musical line-up!
WHERE: Washington County Fairgrounds, Abingdon, VA
WHEN: Sep 11-16, Mon – Fri 6 pm – 9 pm, Sat 10 am – 8 pm,
need people for Fri & SatINFO: Blake Andis bandis@comcast.net , 276-451-0194 or 276-676-0315

14th Annual Centreville Day Parade & Festival—a major political parade, come join the fun!
WHERE: Centreville Historic District, Centreville
WHEN: Sep 16, Sat 10 am - 6 pm INFO: Mary Lee Cerillo mlcerillo@aol.com 703-830-3435, http://webb.bluestatedigital.com/page/m/oiipuz658xp/Hva4ON

Reston Multi-cultural Festival—an award-winning event!
WHERE: Lake Anne Village Center, Reston, VA
WHEN: Sep 16, Sat 10 am - 6 pm INFO: Leslie David ldavid@hotmail.com, http://webb.bluestatedigital.com/page/m/oiipuz658xp/HzUZAV

43rd Street Festival of the Arts—the arts come alive in Richmond
WHERE: 43rd St., Downtown Richmond
WHEN: Sep 16, Sat 10 am – 5 pmINFO: Nichole Herbig nicholeherbig@gmail.com, 804-852-7224, 43rdstgallery.com

Southeastern Gun Show—another fine Sportsmen for Webb event
WHERE: Hampton Convention Center, Hampton VA
WHEN: Sep 16-17 Sat–Sun, 9-5, 10-4
INFO: Jim Kirkman, SportsforWebb@verizon.net, 703-314-6895, http://webb.bluestatedigital.com/page/m/oiipuz658xp/ijGuc3

Bluemont Country Fair—a great small-town fair in the Blue Ridge foothills!
WHERE: Bluemont, VAWHEN: Sep 16-17 Sat-Sun, 10 am – 5 pm
INFO: jan@moomail.net, 202-997-7275, http://webb.bluestatedigital.com/page/m/oiipuz658xp/9Ic97J

Wilderness Trail Festival—a celebration of southwest history & culture
WHERE: Downtown Christiansburg, VA
WHEN: Sep 16 Sat 9-5INFO: Henry Tieleman, mailto:hwtielman@aol.com, 540-382-7961 http://webb.bluestatedigital.com/page/m/oiipuz658xp/RbuMvt

Manassas Old World Festival
WHERE: Harris Pavilion, Manassas
WHEN: Sep 16, Sat 11 am - 5 pm INFO: Tom Counts tcounts35@comcast.net 571-330-6621, http://webb.bluestatedigital.com/page/m/oiipuz658xp/RKPC8a

18th Annual African American Heritage Festival
WHERE: Gypsy Hill Park, Staunton City
WHEN: Sep 16 -17, Sat-Sun 10 am - 5 pm
INFO: Greg Kane gregkane@gregkane.net 804-651-7195

Manassas Art Festival
WHERE: Harris Pavilion, Manassas
WHEN: Sep 17, Sun 10 am - 5 pm
INFO: Tom Counts tcounts35@comcast.net 571-330-6621, http://webb.bluestatedigital.com/page/m/oiipuz658xp/ytDjeo

Neighborhood Canvasses—involves only a 2-3 hour commitment. It's easy...and fun!
WHERE: Webb Headquarters, 1916 Wilson Blvd, Suite 304, Arlington (Courthouse metro)WHEN: Every Saturday 10 am & 1 pm, Every Sunday 2:00 pm, Tues & Wed Evenings 6 pm
INFO: Christie Fanelli, volunteer@jimmoran.org 703-310-6756

Alexandria City
WHERE: Alexandria Democratic Committee, 618 N. Washington St.
WHEN: Every Saturday 10:00 am & 1:00 pm, Every Sunday 2:00 pm
INFO: Christie Fanelli, volunteer@jimmoran.org 703-310-6756

Fairfax County—Mount Vernon
WHERE: 4701 Manor Drive, Alexandria, VA
WHEN: Sept 16, Saturday 10:00 am & 2:00 pm
INFO: Doug Reimel, DougReimel@cox.net

Fairfax County—Burke
WHERE: Cherry Run Elementary School, 9732 Ironmaster, Burke
WHEN: Sept 16 Saturday 10:00 am & 1:00 pm, Every Sunday 2:00 pm
INFO: Mike Burns mike@hurstforcongress.com 703 455 1014

Fairfax County—Chantilly
WHERE: Poplar Elementary School, 13440 Melville Lane, Chantilly
WHEN: Sept 17, Sunday 1:00 pm
INFO: Jessica Bearden jbearden@judyfeder.com, Susan Southworth, sooz@southworth.com

Fairfax County—Reston
WHERE: Reston Regional Library (front steps), 11925 Bowman Towne Dr, Reston
WHEN: Sept 16, Saturday 10:00 am
INFO: Alex Blakemore, precinctops@huntermilldemocrats.org 703-620-3315

Fairfax County—Reston
WHERE: Reston Library, 11916 Bowman Towne Dr, Reston
WHEN: Sept 17, Sunday 3:00 pm
INFO: Sloane Kuney, 703-887-7841 sloanekuney@gmail.comFairfax County—

Herndon
WHERE: Oak Hill Elementary School, 3210 Kinross Circle, Herndon
WHEN: Sept 17, Sunday 1:00 pm
INFO: Jessica Bearden jbearden@judyfeder.com, Sue Langley 703 403-0190 svlangley2003@yahoo.com

Fairfax County—Springfield
WHERE: Saratoga Elementary School, 8111 Northumberland Road, Springfield
WHEN: Sept 17, Sunday 3:00 pmI
INFO: Chris Ambrose, 703-314-7556, chrisambr@aol.com

Fairfax County—Fairfax
WHERE: Olde Creek Elementary School, 9524 Old Creek Dr, Fairfax
WHEN: Sept 17, Sunday 12:00 noon
INFO: Mike Burns, mike@hurstforcongress.com 703 455 1014

Fairfax County—Burke/Springfield
WHERE: White Oaks Elementary School, Shiplett Blvd, Burke
WHEN: Sept 17, Sunday 12:00 noon
INFO: Sharon Stark, sharon@bannertitle.com 703-978-9180 Bob Pearson, bob_pearson@cox.net

Go out and be a participant. Volunteer! Just Show Up!

Oh, and don't forget to have some fun doing it.

September 11, 2001: The Day That Stole Our Innocence

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was sitting in my office when my husband called me excitedly and told me to turn on the television. I was busy and annoyed. I snapped at him, “I don’t have time for silly sports trivia or some entertainment fluff. I’ve got a job to do.”

Fortunately, he didn’t get insulted and hang up. Instead he kept insisting that I turn on the office television.

At about that time one of my co-workers, who already had it on, let out a yell. Something about New York, explosions, and the Twin Towers.

Because of the distress in her voice, I went rushing in just in time to see, on the small screen, an airplane disappear behind one of the towers and then explode.

We all watched with horror. As Matt Lauer tried to explain what he was seeing, the world watched another plane disappear and explode. I was shaken. One plane crashing midair into the tower could have been a tragic accident. Two was a deliberate assault.

My first thought, as I went back to my desk to call and tell my husband that I had indeed seen what he was talking about, was that another country had to be behind it. A ragtag band of terrorists couldn’t possibly have access to a large jet plane to do this. Some rogue nation with a nationalized airline had to be behind it. Maybe Iraq. Maybe Saudi Arabia. Maybe Iran. My mind raced as I tried to figure it out. I never dreamt hijackers could do such a thing.

Then suddenly sirens were going off and lights flashing. Fire alarms in our building in downtown DC were wailing and my co-worker was yelling “Get out. We’ve got to get out. Now!”

“Now!” She insisted as I dawdled.

It was possibly shock. No. Probably stupidity to the 10th degree.

But it never occurred to me that we might be next, even though I worked not far from the White House. All I could think is that it couldn’t possibly be a fire drill. It had to be a crank caller taking advantage of the shock and confusion to phone in a false alarm. Some awful sicko who got satisfaction from adding to the chaos and tragedy.

It was only as I was racing, along with hundreds of others, down the halls of our large office building, and I heard the shouts “They got the Pentagon,” that I realized we actually could be a target.

“They got the Pentagon.” And another co-worker was sobbing. Oh God, Linda’s husband works there.

At some point I felt myself to be deadly calm. I thought soberly that we could all die. No exaggeration, no histrionics. Just the very real possibility. And all I thought was, God, if I do see your face today, then I’m sorry for all the things I should be sorry for.

Then, keep running. Comfort Linda, still sobbing. Try to make sense out bedlam.

When we were out of the building, I tried to reach my husband, who worked only a few blocks away, by cell phone. Nobody’s cells were working. All I could think was that if I could get to his office, I would be able to find out what had happened. I told Linda, “Come with me. We can call from Dan’s office and find out about your husband. I bet Dan's phone will be working.”

I still didn’t get it that this wasn’t local. Wasn’t just our building but citywide pandemonium. Linda decided to head for home and her children. I walked to Dan’s office, like a homing pigeon programmed by instinct on where to go.

I found him sitting outside his building talking to some of his co-workers. It was a gorgeous sunny day. From a distance it looked like everybody was just enjoying the balmy fall weather. It was only when I got closer that I saw the expressions of fear and disbelief.

We waited for our other carpooler to show up, which she did. Dan and I were of a mind to wait until the crowds of cars had thinned out. I remember saying, “By now whoever did this has lost the element of surprise. Whatever damage they’re going to do, they’ve done for the day. They’ve probably gotten out of Dodge by now.” And I was actually disappointed by that. How would we find them? How would we hunt them down and make them pay for this if they had left town? If they had indeed gotten out of Dodge as I predicted, how would even know who had done this to us?

At that point, what I was feeling was no longer the calm that came from simple shock, but logic that had taken back over. Our carpooler wanted to leave immediately. She had no stomach to hang around. She still felt like a sitting duck.

So we joined the caravan of cars inching its way out of the city. We couldn’t go out in any direction heading to Virginia because it was too crowded. So we crawled towards Maryland.

Three hours later we had navigated our way back on to the beltway and were heading in the direction of Virginia. We stopped at Inova Fairfax Hospital to try to give blood but others told us that there already was a line with a wait of up to six hours and the hospital was sending people home. People so needed to something. Anything to help.

At home, I tried to call my aunt and cousin who live in lower Manhattan. “You won’t be able to reach them,” my husband was saying just as my aunt actually answered the phone.

Even I was stunned that I reached her. I had to do something, go through the motions. But I never expected to get through. The news was saying the lines were all tied up and cell phones were still not working. Once I was reassured that she was ok, but shaken because she had seen the explosion at the Twin Towers from her building, I called my mother to report that her sister and niece were safe. My mother had been calling, unable to get through to any of us. Why my phone worked and I was able to connect to everybody I’ll never know.

Then, still feeling like a caged animal, I went upstairs to go on line. An instant message flared up on my screen, “Check the message boards,” it commanded me. Some on-line friends from a West Wing fan site that I frequented were trying to account for all their Washington and New York friends. I was the last one missing in action. I was surprised at all the buzz about finding me, so I immediately posted. So did the instant messenger, reassuring everybody that I had been found. I quickly explained that I had just then gotten in and called my mother and aunt.

I was accounted for by those who cared about me. Everybody I loved was safe. The numb, preternatural calm and logic suddenly wore off and I burst into tears. It felt like the dam finally bursting.

Today, I didn’t want to remember it. Instead, I wanted to feel safe. I wanted to be innocent again. None of us ever will be. The worst thing that Osama bin Laden robbed us of was our innocence. Our sense that we live in a safe and friendly universe.

The boogey man came that beautiful September day and made our worst nightmare come true.

Jim Webb's History

Nancy Reagan asked the Webb campaign to remove all reference to her husband from the new Webb for Senate television ad that’s scheduled to begin running on Monday. On Friday a letter was faxed to campaign headquarters from the Reagan Library at Mrs. Reagan’s request. As this article in the Washington Post points out, Mrs. Reagan has made similar requests in the past to the conservative Club for Growth; to President Bush, who during his 2004 presidential race claimed to be heir to the Reagan legacy; and to other Republicans who sought to use the Reagan imprimatur for their campaigns.

Nobody can doubt Mrs. Reagan’s sincere attempts to protect her husband’s memory and legacy. Indeed, while he was alive, nobody was more fiercely protective of President Reagan – both his reputation and his actual well being – than Nancy Reagan. Her boundless love and respect for her husband can’t be doubted ever. In his life and death, she remains devoted to the protection of her beloved Ronnie.

As a wife, myself, I understand and admire her dedication to her husband’s memory. But I also think Jim Webb has every right to use the footage of President Reagan praising him during a 1985 speech at the U.S. Naval Academy.

The ad shows Reagan saying, “James’ gallantry as a Marine officer in Vietnam won him the Navy Cross and other decorations.” According to the Washington Post, an announcer’s voice continues and the image morphs into a picture of a young Jim Webb in uniform.

I disagree with the Reagan Library’s contention that this could be misconstrued as a Reagan endorsement of Webb’s run for the Senate. With all due respect to both Mrs. Reagan and the Reagan Library, at the president’s death, there were very public and well attended events to mark that passing. His body was brought from California to the nation’s capitol where he lay in state. His funeral was televised. There can be no doubt that it would be impossible for him to endorse a current political candidate so nobody can fairly claim that the ad is an attempt to mislead the public.

All Jim Webb is doing in his commercial is pointing out his service as a much decorated Marine as well as a cabinet official appointed by Ronald Reagan. He is also well within his rights to show Ronald Reagan’s words of praise for him since they were uttered publicly by a public figure. At no time during his life did Ronald Reagan ever retract them.

And at no time has Webb ever repudiated Reagan. Just the opposite. He still proudly considers himself a Reagan Democrat.

It’s the current administration Webb disagrees with. He is opposed to their mishandling of the war in Iraq and the economy, whose recovery has aided the wealthy and not benefited the middle class or even reduced poverty. He has never criticized the Reagan Administration. In fact, he is justifiably proud of his service to it.

However even more important, every candidate has a right to show pictures of himself with a respected leader and to quote praise from that leader. That’s why I don’t think George Allen should remove from his website the picture of himself shaking hands with Ronald Reagan either.

Nobody running for office should mislead the public by implying support that truly isn’t there or by doctoring images to suggest more than really took place.

But every candidate – including both Webb and Allen – has a right to run on his real record of accomplishment and on his real history. And the simple fact is Jim Webb really was Reagan’s appointee and really was praised at a public event by the late president.

That’s James Webb’s history. It belongs to him.

UPDATE: Although I stick by everything I've written above and I still think he has every right to use that footage of Reagan praising him, after spending the better part of the day reading other blogs - both the pros and cons - I believe that it might be to Jim's advantage to honor the wishes of a grieving widowed first lady.

First let me say that I believe Jim Webb will do what he believes is the honorable thing. If he sincerely believes that he is right to show that footage and Nancy Reagan is wrong, or just partisan, in asking him to take it down, he will stick to his guns. But if he comes to see it as an act of gentlemanly graciousness to remove it, no campaign operative in the world will stop him.

The one thing I know about Annapolis grads is that they take the honor code very seriously. For Webb, it will come down to integrity. He'll behave as an officer and a gentleman, whichever way he decides.

However, I am a more cynical, more crass political person than he is. I've done the mental algebra. For me, the equation comes down to this. The damage to Allen has already been done. Everybody understands that Webb was the Vietnam hero who worked in the Reagan Administration and served his country honorably. He didn't spend the war at a dude ranch. Webb's the real deal.

On the other hand, Webb doesn't have much money for ads. People with computers have already seen this one. And the media and bloggers have covered it. The public gets it that Webb's a Reagan Democrat and former secretary of the Navy. If he withdraws the ad out of respect for Nancy Reagan's wishes (no matter how unreasonable those wishes may appear to us), he gets even more favorable publicity. And people still discuss the ad more.

And he has that much more money to move on to still another ad. It's not such a bad idea to honor Mrs. Reagan's wish.

As I said I'm sometimes cynical in my calculations. But the truth is, I really do believe that doing the right thing is sometimes its own reward too.

Support Your Local Blogger

At the risk of some people who shall remain nameless accusing me of being an echo chamber, I'm simply going to cut and paste and link to Slantblog to give Terry Rea a plug for a very witty new venture. And to wish him best of luck with it.

Wish I Were Anywhere Other Than Here

No that's not really true. It's just the line in a Jimmy Buffet song about "The Great Filling Station Hold Up" from one of his old albums. I was listening to it on my road trip to Cleveland, Ohio. It's my husband's and my annual trip to the Jake to see his beloved Indians play.

We get together with a group of friends and get loge seating - yes we splurge! And best of all, we get to see and get caught up with a bunch of friends from Ohio, including one we became close friends with in Fort Lauderdale over 20 years ago when we were all in Young Democrats together down there.

So, although I'm perfectly happy to be here, I'm mighty sorry I'm missing the blog conference in Martinsville. If not for this big weekend, I would've been there because it's fun to put names and faces together. And I envy every one of you who are getting to do it!

Have fun and raise a glass for me.

George Allen, Apologies, Soft Teeth and Whiney Throats

There’s a very funny scene in the movie Gone With The Wind. Newly widowed Scarlett O’Hara is slightly tipsy when Rhett Butler calls on her. She has just lost her second husband, Mr. Frank Kennedy, who was originally her sister Suellen’s beau.

Scarlett had used her Southern belle charm and feminine wiles to get Mr. Kennedy to wed her not because she felt any love for him, or even animosity for her sister, but simply because he had money and the Yankee carpetbaggers had stuck a tax on Tara, her family’s plantation, that she couldn’t possibly hope to pay. For Scarlett, Tara was her land, her heritage, and her father’s great legacy to the O’Hara’s. So, save it she must at any cost.

But in doing so, she wrecked her sister’s life and Frank Kennedy’s life too. And she was directly responsible for his untimely death as well.

So in a rare moment of contrition, a self-pitying Scarlett O’Hara had nipped at a bottle of brandy and in that condition, she spilled her gut to Rhett about how she feared going to hell for all she had done.

He laughed and said, “Why Scarlett, you’re like the thief who isn’t the least bit sorry that he stole but he’s very sorry that he got caught and is going to jail.”

One can’t help feeling the same way about George Allen’s belated apology to Siddarth for the macacca remark.

First, there’s the matter of the timing. It took Allen nearly two weeks to call Siddarth directly. Then, it was only after the SurveyUSA-WUSA-TV poll put the Senate race at 48-45 that he bothered to do it.

Meanwhile at the same time Allen was apologizing to Siddarth, his campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, was still busy blaming the whole fiasco on the liberal media for blowing it out of proportion. Here’s the money quote from today's Washington Post:

“Mr. Wadhams, an itinerant political hit man known for his nasty attacks on opponents, told Republican leaders in a memo sent over the weekend that the Webb campaign and the media had ganged up ‘to create national news over something
that did not warrant coverage in the first place.’

He continued: ‘Never in modern times has a statewide office holder and candidate been so vilified.’ In other words, Mr. Allen is the victim -- not the 20-year-old student whom he mocked with an insulting, possibly racist slur in front of scores of chortling supporters and demeaned by saying, ‘Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia!’ ”

And while Wadhams was busy proving the campaign is still clueless about racial sensitivity, another Allen staffer was emailing conservative Republican bloggers, trying to stir the mud by attempting to inflame them over a satirical movie poster that Ben Tribett put up on NLS. That movie poster showed the faces of Mark Warner, Tim Kaine, and Jim Webb superimposed on the bodies of Martin Short, Steve Martin, and Chevy Chase from the old flick Three Amigos.

(Here's a link to the original post of the satirical movie poster and one to Ben's post about the Allen staffer's email to Republican bloggers.)

According to the Allen campaign, this was very offensive to Mexicans.

The simple facts are the following: 1) it didn’t come from Webb’s campaign but from an independent blogger who is completely beyond anybody’s control but his own; 2) has not offended any actual Hispanic; and 3) no actual Hispanic was offended by the making of the original film back in the 1980s.

Of course, look for Allen campaign staff and Republican bloggers to now spend endless time and pixels whining about how there is a double standard for Allen and Webb and how Democrats are terribly unfair to them.

The simple truth is that there is a world of difference between an independent blogger making fun of a candidate and a sitting senator using a racial epithet that is caught on tape to insult a real person. Remember, this was directed at a 20 year old young man who was one of the few non-whites in an audience. That had to be very uncomfortable for him.

More troubling is the fact that these people are proving on a daily basis that they really don’t know why Allen’s racist remark was so bad. They honestly don’t get it. They are the same people who probably couldn’t distinguish why Mel Brooks’ humor wasn’t racist while Andrew Dice Clay’s was.

For the racially challenged, here’s why. Dice Clay used racial stereotypes to make fun of black and brown people. Mel Brooks used the same stereotypes to make fun of bigotry and the bigots. They both took the same material but there was a huge difference in what they did with it and the messages they sent to their audiences. One attacked whole groups of people; the other affirmed tolerance and made fun prejudice.

Meanwhile, it’s not simply the racial insensitivity that has disturbed people but Allen’s meanness of spirit. He was caught on tape insulting and bullying a young person.

He has not shown any real contrition. While he was out apologizing, his manager was busy negating the apology by continuing to whine about how unfair the whole thing was anyway. It leaves the impression that they never meant the apology but grudgingly had to make it. Like Scarlett O’Hara, they are very sorry they got caught.

Meanwhile Allen, Wadhams, and their conservative Republican allies are like the classic bully in the schoolyard. When someone their own size comes along and stops them from bullying the smaller children, they run home to their mommas whining “unfair, unfair.”

Come to think of it, I don’t know if their teeth are soft. But they sure have whiney throats.

Conservatives Running Amuck With Panic

It’s official, conservatives are running scared in the Allen-Webb contest. The latest SurveyUSA poll, conducted for WUSA-TV, has Allen at 48% to Webb’s 45%. That’s a statistical dead heat. (Not Larry Sabato has the results and, as usual, spot on analysis)

Of course, Democratic bloggers are ecstatic because of the very same news.

But Mason Conservative is already running his nightmare scenario that if Allen goes down, that means that Democrats will be in charge of the Senate. He’s even posted a list of all the Democratic senators who will become committee chairs. Oooh scary!

Instead of the whack jobs in there now who have enabled this President to piss away a budget surplus and put us into debt to enrich his wealthiest friends with tax cuts we may get fiscally responsible adults who can actually balance a budget. And instead of getting mired in a civil war in Iraq, letting our ports go unprotected, and throwing millions of taxpayers’ dollars at the ineffective Department of Homeland Security, we might actually get a coherent and effective program to fight terrorism at our borders rather than squandering our resources on inaccurate intelligence reports and ineffective defense programs.

Perhaps we’ll get a sensible energy program before gas sells for $10 a gallon. We might also get leaders who understand economic policy, global warming (which really is happening), and foreign policy. The people who are there now have botched up the Middle East, made us less safe than before and less prosperous too.

In their stead, we might get people with an intelligent plan, a coherent strategy, and some genuine compassion for the middle class.

Oh, and nobody is going to impeach Bush. But would it actually be a terrible thing to hold his Administration and the Republicans in Congress accountable for the mismanagement, incompetence, and corruption that have marked their time in office? Aren’t they the ones who always talk about the need to take personal responsibility?

Or is that only meant for ghetto kids? Meanwhile, does being a rich, white man mean never having to say you’re sorry?

Newflash - Tom Davis Really Is A Republican

One thing you should never do is call Tom Davis a RINO. The Congressman’s voting record is solid Republican. In fact, he has voted with President Bush 87% of the time, and even more incredibly, with Tom DeLay 88% of the time. He votes the GOP party line 89% of the time.

Which brings me to the next point. Davis is no centrist either. On issue after issue that would define a moderate, his votes rank with the solid conservative wing of his party.

For example, on children, family and education issues, Davis earned a solid 61% favorable rating from the very conservative Family Research Council and only 8% from the National Parent-Teacher Association. The liberal Children’s Defense Fund gives him a 0% rating. Meanwhile, the National Education Association (NEA), a non-AFL-CIO teachers’ association, which tends to tack liberal, gives him a 25% rating.

Generally, even pro business Republicans are labeled moderate if they are pro-choice, like Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe or Arlen Spector. And Tom Davis, at some point in his past, was considered moderate on this issue. But lately Davis has received a 91% rating from Right to Life, the granddaddy of the pro-life groups, and 40% from Planned Parenthood, and 0% from the pro-choice NARAL.

In addition, he famously signed a subpoena to have Terri Schiavo appear before the Government Reform Committee, which he chairs, so members could observe how she was fed and provided with hydration. It was a cheap ploy engineered by Davis, Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert to whip up support among the most extreme elements of the pro-life base and which the rest of the public reviled as heavy-handed government interference in a private family decision.

So, Davis can no longer even claim the center on social issues where even the most pro-business Republicans usually go in order to keep the coveted centrist mantle in moderate swing states.

And he doesn’t tack to the center on the business issues either.

Davis received a 100% rating from the Chamber of Commerce and 15% from the AFL-CIO.

But those statistics get comical when you realize how much union support Davis actually pulls in. Looking at Open Secrets, Davis received $10,00 from the National Association of Letter Carriers. He also received substantial contributions from the American Postal Workers. In the 2004 election cycle the following government employee unions contributed to his campaign coffers: AFGE, NEA, NTEU ,and International Firefighters.

Let’s do the math here. The NEA gave Davis a 25% favorable rating but contributed to his campaign? So did he American Postal Workers, AFSCME and AFGE, both of which also rated him at 0%. Meanwhile, the National Association of Government Contractors gave him a 100% favorable rating.

And it’s no wonder. With support for legislation like the following, they’d be nuts not to continue supporting him:

PRIVATIZING FEDERAL JOBS—H.R. 3058—A rule by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) covering outsourcing and privatization of work by federal agencies (Circular A-76) is tilted heavily in favor of private corporate contractors. The Bush administration has made privatizing government services a top policy priority. An amendment was introduced to the fiscal year 2005 Transportation, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill to prohibit funds from being spent to implement OMB's privatization plan. The bipartisan amendment would allow lawmakers the opportunity to rewrite the privatization process to be fairer to federal workers and more accountable to taxpayers. It passed June 30, 2005, 222-203 (R: 24-202; D: 197-1; I:1-0) AFL-CIO Position: Y=Right; N=Wrong

Davis voted this down. In other words, he voted wrong from the point of view of the people who enriched his coffers by thousands of dollars. Seems like these folks aren’t getting the bang for their bucks. If private industry trade groups consistently voted against their members’ interests at these rates they’d find their fannies out on the street in a membership rebellion. Maybe rank and file labor union members ought to start questioning what their union dues are being spent on too.

And, incredibly, in an area that has lots of military and retired military, Davis even managed to receive a 0 rating from the Disabled Veterans of America.

But Davis supported President Bush on the war in Iraq and voted in favor of it twice.

In addition, Davis voted in favor of extending the Patriot Act, for a Constitutional Amendment on flag burning. He voted to extend Bush’s tax breaks, which benefit the wealthiest 1% of the population, he voted for a Constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage, and he’s even voted for the privatization of Social Security.

Meanwhile, the 11th CD is trending blue. Its citizens are mostly not pro-life. Nor are they in favor of the privatization of Social Security, an unending conflict in Iraq, or the continued erosion of well paying federal jobs to private contractors whose workers do not enjoy the same health and pension benefits as federal workers.

From the snapshot of Tom Davis’ record, he does not appear to be in step with his district anymore. But at least you can’t really say he’s a RINO.

Wannabe Southerners

For the big flap about George Allen’s blunder on Friday, you can go here, here, and here.

It seems that Allen, speaking in Breaks, Virginia, a town near the Kentucky border, introduced a young Jim Webb volunteer, S.R. Sidarth, who’s been following him around, videotaping Allen’s speeches.

Allen decided to have a little fun at the videoptaper’s expense by introducing him to the crowd. It would have been fair game and maybe even nothing more than a bit of friendly joshing between the campaigns but it turned far uglier when Allen said:

"This fellow here over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is. He's with my opponent. He's following us around everywhere. And it's just great. We're going to places all over Virginia, and he's having it on film and its great to have you here and you show it to your opponent because he's never been there and probably will never come."

Bloggers, starting with Not Larry Sabato, went into overdrive trying to figure out what the ‘Macaca” label meant. Although Dick Wadhams, from Allen’s campaign, attempted to explain it as a reference to Sidarth’s “Mohawk haircut” a picture over at Raising Kaine shows clearly that Sidarth doesn’t have a Mohawk. They’re long out of style anyway so that was a lame explanation.

One suggested meaning was that Allen had mispronounced Macaque, a small, brown monkey. The term may also be a racial slur among the French speaking Tunisians. Allen’s mother is a French Tunisian so one line of speculation is that it was a term that might have been used in his family.

NLS, the Washington Post and Raising Kaine now all have copies of this videotape of Allen’s remarks, so you can go over to it and judge for yourselves.

The biggest problem with George Allen, though, is that he’s a wannabe Southerner who doesn’t get it.

Yes, there are bigots down South. There are also bigots in Canarsie, Brooklyn, parts of the Bronx, and certainly in Boston too. But embracing Southern culture doesn’t mean having miniature nooses in your office, hanging up the Confederate flag, and wearing cowboy boots when you are really from Southern California.

Lots of thoughtful Southerners from both major parties and of all political stripes have spent many years trying to heal the racial wounds of the past, especially in the South, while still trying to hold on to all that was good about Southern culture including its love of tradition, its romanticism, its wonderful storytelling tradition (let’s face it many of our nation’s best writers are Southerners), and it’s beautiful musical traditions. Everything from bluegrass to the haunting mountain folk songs to Nashville’s country sounds to blues.

And Southern cuisine is among the finest in America too from Texas, Tennessee and North Carolina barbecue to the wonderful lowland seafood dishes.

There’s a great deal of Southern culture – both white and black – to be proud of. Its racist past is not among of those things. And yet it’s precisely that which Allen seems to hold most dear. Could it be because he never really understood Southerners or true Southern culture?

It's a long way, after all, from the beaches of Southern California to the the real Virginia, which is Jim Webb's heritage. Let's face it, Webb is the real deal so he doesn't need to wrap a Confederate flag around himself and swagger and posture.

Advice On How To Make An Omelet

I promise to give you some great advice on how to make an omelet if you’ll just bear with me. It’s advice I picked up from a Russian prince. But first I’m going to take a detour back to the question of the Jim Webb’s “Born Fighting” slogan. Yes, I must.

An insightful reader wrote a comment on yesterday’s post stating that the slogan was ambiguous because she didn’t know whether Webb meant the bad kind of fighting – supporting the military, the neocons, the wars, etc. – or the good kind of fighting – sticking up for the underdog, the oppressed.

Before I answer with my thoughts on fighting, let me give you my bona fides. I am a former anti-war activist. A peace and love hippie from the sixties. Ok, in my case really from the seventies. But most of what we think of as the sixties happened in 1968 and after. And the anti-war movement really hit its peak in the early seventies. Woodstock, arguably the most iconic event of the sixties, took place August 17, 18 and 19, 1969.

In 1968, when I was 14, my boyfriend and I walked into a police station in Suffern, NY, a small suburban hamlet about 40 miles from New York City and handed a bemused police sergeant a daffodil. Daffodils, for some reason that I don’t recall anymore, became the universal hippie symbol for peace and love.

The cops didn’t know quite what to do with either the daffodils or us. Neither did the passersby on the street to whom we handed out flowers on a chilly early spring evening. It was cold enough that I was wearing a long winter coat over my ankle length granny dress. My hair was long and straight and parted down the middle. My 15 year-old boyfriend wore his hair almost exactly like mine, long and parted in the middle. He was attired in faded, ripped jeans and a denim work shirt. We were wearing the hippie uniforms of 1968.

But I have one more solid credential of my former hippiedom that’s even harder to challenge than my actions and appearance that night in March.

When I was 15, I went to the Woodstock Music and Art Festival in Bethel, New York. Actually, I hitchhiked to it. By the time I arrived, the fence at the entrance had been knocked down and in the ensuing chaos nobody bothered to collect our tickets. So I have all three days’ tickets in perfect, mint condition. I have been told they are worth a lot of money to collectors of antique memorabilia. That may be true, but I’ll never sell them. To me, they are priceless.

As I got older, I became more politicized and radicalized. I joined anti-war groups, including the Student Mobilization Committee. I lived a few towns away from the Fellowship of Reconciliation, one of the oldest pacifist organizations in America, located in Nyack-on-the-Hudson, New York.

I had lots of friends who worked there, including a few who sat out the war as conscientious objectors. FOR was a religious organization so its members were able to get the coveted CO status. That wasn’t easy because draft boards were very suspicious of draft dodgers and didn’t hand out conscientious objector exemptions to just anybody. But FOR’s credentials as a legitimate religious, pacifist organization were impeccable.

But I never joined FOR although I admired them greatly. I still do. But I’m not a pacifist. There are a lot of wars I’m still against. But a few that I thought were necessary too.

And I think that fighting is appropriate. But then I went from being an almost pacifist to a self-styled revolutionary while I was still in my teens. Of course, by the time I was in my 20s, I actually gave up romanticized fantasies of me and Che in the jungles. Instead, I became a reform Democrat and I never regretted it.

You see, I think that whenever possible peaceful change is always better than using violent means. And I believed then, and still do today, that America is a democracy. That means we have the power to change things and make a difference through the ballot box. And one thing that living through the Watergate era proved to me was that we are also still a nation of laws. Even those who hold the highest office who would subvert our Constitution for their own gain will get caught and punished.

I still have faith in America.

And I have great faith in the need to wage peaceful fights, but fights nonetheless. The voting booth and the ballot box, the strike and the picket line, the sit in and peaceful civil disobedience are all part of the arsenal of waging a fight for social justice in a democracy.

But so is the right to pick up a gun to defend one’s family and property. Rosa Parks recounted her memories of growing up watching the Ku Klux Klan march down the streets of her neighborhood in Alabama. She also remembered seeing all the black men standing on their porches, clutching their hunting rifles, as they watched the bigots march by.

And Mother Jones wasn’t just some sweet old lady who organized overworked children in the coalmines. She once pummeled a man nearly to death with her heavy boots when he broke into her home. Although the authorities arrested her and wanted to bring her to trial, the charges of attempted murder against her were dropped when the victim was identified as an ally of a prominent businessman with whom Mother Jones and her union were involved in a labor dispute.

There is only one kind of fighting. What distinguishes a moral and ethical fight from one that is an immoral abuse of violence is what it is you are fighting for. Without a fight, and often a bloody fight, many of the gains that were made by the working class, by blacks and by women would not have occurred.

Oh, and the advice on making an omelet. It comes from Mikhail Bakunin, a 19th Century Russian prince who was also a notorious anarchist. First you’ve got to break the egg.

Real Woman Are Born Fighting

KathyinBlacksburg, one of my favorite writers on Raising Kaine, wrote about some Democratic women who have given her and the Jim Webb campaign a hard time because of the “Born Fighting” logo that the campaign adopted. The logo was taken from Webb’s book by the same name about the history and heritage of the Scots-Irish. According to Kathy, some women object to what they perceive as the militaristic theme of Webb’s campaign.

I suspect their real objection is to the fact that Jim Webb is a former Marine and a graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis. In answer to their objection, I’d say that although I am pretty much anti-war when it comes to Iraq and I was also against the Vietnam War (I marched in a lot of anti-war demonstrations during those days), it’s time to grow up and realize that we don’t live in a perfect world. We need men and women willing to defend our country. That’s not the same as wanting to be aggressors who go looking for wars of choice. In fact, Jim Webb was an early opponent of the Iraqi war. And those who conceived of the notion of pre-emptive warfare were civilians who had never seen the inside of a military barrack, not the real soldiers.

Having said that, what exactly is wrong with being “born fighting” anyway? Although I mightily respect the Scots Irish that Webb wrote about – my husband is one of them – they are not the only ethnic group that has had to grow up fighting. In fact most of humanity has had to fight for every bit of economic or social justice they’ve ever won.

Here’s a quote to illustrate it:

“Pray for the dead. Fight like hell for the living.”

Wonder who said it? Was it some jingoist white man before blowing an Arab to smithereens in the Gulf?

No.

That quote came from Mother Jones, a labor icon who fought in the thick of many of the battles for working people to achieve economic and social justice. Born in Cork, Ireland, on August 1, 1837, she immigrated to Toronto, Canada, after the British killed her father, an Irish freedom fighter. Mother Mary Harris Jones was an organizer for the United Mineworkers Union and the Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the Wobblies. She organized children who worked at dangerous jobs in the coal mines and led several children’s strikes, where the young strikers carried signs saying “We Want Time to Play” and “We Want to Go to School,” which got the nation to focus on reforming child labor laws. She was a fierce warrior in the battles for workers’ justice. Mother Jones was in the thick of every major labor battle of the early 1900s. She was dubbed the mother of the labor movement and the Miner's Angel. She was born fighting.

If it weren’t for women with courage, daring and fighting spirit, every social justice movement would have been poorer and less effective. To be a warrior – to be born fighting – does not necessarily mean that you have to pick up a weapon, murder another human being, or extend the physical suffering of our fellow human beings. But it does mean standing up for injustice, risking personal comfort and even safety, and taking a stand for others.

A perfect example was Rosa Parks. She was a seamstress and maid who refused to give up her seat to a white person on a bus in segregated Montgomery, Alabama one day in 1955.

Back in the 50s in much of the South buses were segregated with the front reserved for white people. But when the buses got crowded, blacks were also required to give up their seats in the back to whites. There were cases of pregnant black women having to stand so young white men could sit. And in some cases, when there was no room left, blacks had to get off a bus to make room for white passengers. Yet they paid the same fare as whites did. One day Rosa Parks, long active in the early Civil Rights movement, had had enough of the injustice and decided to challenge it. When ordered to give up her seat, she refused and was arrested for it. Here is how she described what she did and why:

“People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.

I did not want to be mistreated, I did not want to be deprived of a seat that I had paid for. It was just time... there was opportunity for me to take a stand to express the way I felt about being treated in that manner. I had not planned to get arrested. I had plenty to do without having to end up in jail. But when I had to face that decision, I didn't hesitate to do so because I felt that we had endured that too long. The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became”

She has been called the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement. And she was born fighting.

In more modest ways, so are most women who get involved in politics.

Every woman who ever carried around a petition on a cold day in March to get signatures so her candidate could be on the ballot was born fighting. Every woman who ever worked a phone bank or canvassed door to door to win an election was born fighting. And every woman who ever marched on a blazing hot day in Selma, Alabama, or a freezing cold day in Washington, DC or New York City or anyplace else for a cause was born fighting. Cindy Sheehan setting up Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas was born fighting. And so were all the brave women in the union movement, the anti-war movement, the Civil Rights movement. You don’t have to pick up a gun to be born fighting. But you have to have courage, be willing to suffer for what you believe is right, and you have to say a resounding yes to justice.

Any woman who has a problem with that probably wouldn’t vote for Jim Webb anyway.

Who Really Cares About America?

Do you remember the Biblical story about King Solomon and the two women who claimed the same infant as theirs? One of the mothers had tragically lost her own baby and each woman was claiming that the surviving child was hers.

The women were brought before King Solomon, who was reputed to be the wisest leader in the ancient world, and he had to judge which one of these women was truly the infant’s mother. It was a custody case that would have daunted a lesser judge.

King Solomon ordered a guard to divide the baby in half and give one half to each woman. One of the claimants agreed that that was a fair decision. But the other cried out to stop it saying, “No, give her the child but spare its life.”

Solomon, of course, gave the baby to that woman declaring that she was the child’s real mother. Her love for her child was stronger than her desire for custody. All she wanted was her baby’s welfare regardless of her personal sacrifice.

While it’s hardly as dramatic, there’s a situation going on in Congress that reminded me of that story. Maybe it’s a stretch, but I often see weird connections that others don’t. Anyway, here’s the story.

Republican leaders in the House have cobbled together a bill that would raise the minimum wage to $7.25, which is what the Democrats and the AFL-CIO have wanted and Republican business lobbyists have opposed. They’ve claimed that any rise in the minimum wage would only lead to small businesses having to lay off workers because they couldn’t afford the additional salary expense. Certainly the US Chamber of Commerce and many other business trade groups have stridently maintained that claim during the entire nine years that the minimum wage has remained at $5.15 an hour.

But those clever Republicans have linked the raise in the minimum wage to a bunch of tax cuts that would benefit the wealth. Surprise, surprise!

Included in this trifecta, as the Republican lawmakers themselves have dubbed it, is a permanent cut in Estate Tax and a series of narrowly targeted tax cuts to businesses and wealthy individuals. Now the same business lobbying groups that have been opposing the minimum wage, including the National Federation of Independent Businesses, a small business lobbying group; the National Association of Manufacturers; the National Association of Wholesalers-Distributors; and the Tax Relief Coalition are tripping over each other to be the first to endorse it. Leading the way, the U.S. Chamber admitted that tax cuts, which benefit their wealthiest members, are more important than stopping the minimum wage.

Meanwhile, the Democrats and their allies in organized labor are opposed to this trifecta bill because they know that now is not the time for even more tax cuts for greedy rich people. They recognize that any bill that will lower federal tax revenues by $268 billion over the next decade on top of the already record deficits would be injurious to poor people. Shrinking tax revenues will almost certainly force draconian cuts in economic and social programs such as food stamps and Medicaid that lower income people depend upon, causing them more harm than benefit despite a wage hike.

Because our deficit is already so large, there probably will have to cuts to social programs some day anyway, but this shell game will only make them even deeper. So, the very people the Republicans say they want to help will actually be hurt far more by this scheme that does nothing more than line the pockets of the richest and greediest traitors in America.

By the way, rich and greedy are not necessarily synonymous. There are lots of wealthy people who are opposed to cutting the Estate Tax and who are earnest, responsible citizens that care about the fiscal health of this country.

But there is a very small minority of very wealthy people who have already plundered our Treasury. They don’t care about the costs of the war in Iraq, from which their businesses are benefiting through lucrative contracts. They don’t care about families that have to raise money for their sons and daughters to buy body armor because the Pentagon says that it can’t afford to supply the troops with lifesaving equipment. And they certainly don’t care about the children of the working poor who have no health insurance and would go hungry without food stamps. In fact much like that woman who lied and claimed the baby in King Solomon's day, they care more about their selfish desires than about the well-being of their fellow human beings.

Ironically, it's the working people of this country who care about the nation's fiscal health. Who care about America. They're the ones willing to forego the raise rather than see this travesty that would shrink tax revenues and balloon the deficit.

Who cares more about America. It's not the Chamber of Commerce and it's not the business lobbyists who have only contributed to a culture of corruption on Capitol Hill.