Month: June 2004

It comes as a relief to hear these words from the president:

“We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture,” Bush told reporters in the Oval Office. “The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being.”

It also comes as a relief to see that the White House says it is prepared to release all the relevant internal documents to prove the point. This is, indeed, a critical issue, at the core of the meaning of America. It is long past time that the administration proved its innocence on something about which there should be no doubt.

Yours truly fisks the Rather-Clinton interview.

Maybe he didn’t mean to. But here’s a fascinating nugget culled by the Washington Post:

Clinton’s own legal battle with independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr accounts for one of the book’s more peculiar revelations. In his August 1998 grand jury testimony, Clinton said he began an inappropriate sexual relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky in “early 1996.” His testimony, as was widely noted at the time, was in conflict with Lewinsky’s story: She testified the relationship began on Nov. 15, 1995, in the midst of a government shutdown.
Starr’s prosecutors, in their report to Congress, accused Clinton of lying about the date of their relationship in order to avoid admitting that he had sexual relations with an intern, as Lewinsky still was in the fall of 1995 before being hired for a paying job in the winter.
Without explanation, in his memoir Clinton departs from his grand jury testimony and corroborates her version: “During the government shutdown in late 1995, when very few people were allowed to come to work in the White House, and those who were there were working late, I’d had an inappropriate encounter with Monica Lewinsky and would do so again on other occasions between November and April, when she left the White House for the Pentagon.”

So he lied under oath. By his own admission. Does he take responsibility? Nah.

Here’s a revealing quote from the president on his political philsosophy:

“[T]he role of government is to stand there and say, ‘We’re going to help you.’ The job of the federal government is to fund the providers who are actually making a difference.”

He’s referring to a government-funded attempt to help people in troubled marriages. It would be hard to think of a realm more private than a marriage, but the president believes that the government has a role there. I’m sure his motives are genuine and sincere. But anyone still deluded in thinking that Bush conservatism means limited government should open their eyes. Bush believes in big government. He just believes it should be funded by debts the next generation will have to pay.

The Washington Post poll shows rising approval of president Bush’s handling of Iraq and terrorism, but a widening lead for John Kerry – eight points if you remove Nader from the survey. Hmm. This graph is particularly striking. I’d say that’s not too good news for the president. On the other hand, the same poll also shows that the economic turn-around is beginning to be felt. The Wall Street Journal equally shows Bush gaining in a handful of swing states – but the movement is all within the margin of error. What to make of all this? Not much at this stage – but the Post’s recording of a big swing away from Bush among independents strikes me as significant. I’m not the only McCainiac rattled by Bush’s growing closeness with the religious right and large errors in the conduct of the war. Of course, we haven’t seen much of Kerry lately either. No wonder the Democrat is moving up.

THE OTHER ABU GHRAIB STORY: I couldn’t agree with Nick Schulz more that the awful record of Saddam in Abu Ghraib merits dissemination in the media. I’m glad that some of the footage was finally shown on Fox News last night. And as readers know, I’ve been in favor of showing as widely as possible the horrors of the enemy. We have to look these monsters squarely in the face and see them for what they are if we are to sustain the morale necessary to keep taking the fight to them. But this does not in any way lessen the need for us to make sure that the U.S. government hasn’t endorsed or practised much milder but still reprehensible abuse and torture. Between those who want to downplay the evil of Saddam and those who want to look the other way at the Bush administration’s own conduct, there must be a middle way.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY: “To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of “dissenting” bravery.” – Hitch, telling it like it is, in Slate. It’s a tour de force, and reminds me that Moore is beneath contempt. Meanwhile, Moore is threatening to sue anyone who criticizes his movie for libel. Shafer eggs him on.

The latest stats from the military’s policy of discharging honest gay soldiers are encouraging in a small way. There’s been a big drop in discharges. Whether this is because a Republican is in the White House (no one did worse than Clinton in this respect) or whether we’re at war and we cannot afford to lose good soldiers is hard to tell. But consider this: in the last five years, we have lost 49 nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare specialists, 90 nuclear power engineers, 52 missile guidance and control operators, 150 rocket, missile and other artillery specialists, and 340 infantrymen. We’ve also lost 88 linguists, many of whom are expert in interrogation. It seems to me that this policy is stupid and cruel in peacetime. It’s madness when we are at war.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “In regards to your article “Reagan did not give me HIV” on the Advocate website: Huzzah. Every time I see Larry Kramer’s overwrought, specious work, I recall the character of the aunt in the poem “Matilda Who Told Lies and was Burned to Death” (from “Cautionary Tales for Children” by Hilaire Belloc, which is in no way suitable for children). One early stanza in the poem reads:

Matilda told such dreadful lies
it made one gasp and stretch one’s eyes.
Her aunt, who from her earliest youth
had kept a Strict Regard for Truth,
attempted to believe Matilda.
And the effort nearly killed her.

I have no desire that Larry Kramer, who tells lies, be burned to death, but I do sometimes think that he will nearly kill me. I do not even attempt to believe him any more: gay loyalty can only go so far. I welcome that there are writers like you still alive in my community, so that I don’t have to suffer the agony of shame by proxy for being gay like Kramer. I was lucky to have not become infected with HIV; many of my friends and boyfriends and a few of my heroes died from it. The second man whom I ever shared sex with died from AIDS on 25 June 1992. Joe Albanese was a soldier, secret service agent, political operative, and president of the Washington D.C. Gay & Lesbian Community Center. To me he was a loving, supportive friend from the day we met in 1983 until he died, almost 9 years later. I appreciate that you honor him and my other, dead friends, by writing forcefully, temperately, and truthfully.” More feedback on the Letters Page.

Mike Kinsley kills his own editorial. Classic. And good for him. His explanation? “It was an attempt at ironic reflection on the Hollywood decapitation. My editorial page colleagues convinced me it was inappropriate as an editorial. I agonized quite a bit, although looking back the next day, it was a clear case of ‘what on earth was I thinking?'” Now if he were blogging … Sometimes I’m amazed not at my occasional screw-ups, inconsistencies and conflicts … but that I haven’t been guilty of more of them. Hey, it’s a new medium. Cut us some slack.

Eugene Volokh weighs in.

“In a way that occurred before but is rare in the United StateS … somebody came to power as a result of the illegitimate acts of a legitimate institution that had the right to put somebody in power. That is what the Supreme Court did in Bush versus Gore. It put somebody in power. The reason I emphasize that is because that is exactly what happened when Mussolini was put in by the king of Italy. The king of Italy had the right to put Mussolini in, though he had not won an election, and make him prime minister. That is what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in. I am not suggesting for a moment that Bush is Hitler. I want to be clear on that, but it is a situation which is extremely unusual. When somebody has come in that way, they sometimes have tried not to exercise much power. In this case, like Mussolini, he has exercised extraordinary power. He has exercised power, claimed power for himself; that has not occurred since Franklin Roosevelt who, after all, was elected big and who did some of the same things with respect to assertions of power in times of crisis that this president is doing.” – Guido Calabresi, judge on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Time reports on the deepening mystery of what really happened at Abu Ghraib. We are getting information that electrocution of genitals, rape and murder are also part of the “coercive interrogation techniques” allowed at Saddam’s former torture-palace. All the more reason to find out if these methods were approved by higher-ups, all the way to the secretary of defense. I will be harangued for continuing to write about this. But it is a huge deal if torture has been sanctioned by this administration in secret and on the authority of only the president, against U.S. and international law. We need to know what is in the April 2003 memo entitled “Coercive Interrogation Techniques approved by the Secretary of Defense.” Did Rumsfeld authorize Abu Ghraib? Is he responsible? Is the administration knowingly scape-goating underlings for doing what they were told? The memo should help clear it up, and presumably exonerate Rumsfeld. So why won’t he clear his name? It should be subpoenaed, if necessary.

THE BBC EXPOSED: If you missed Tom Gross’s astonishing evisceration of the BBC’s news operation, go read it now. It’s devastating – and completely true.

BECAUSE THEY CAN: Don’t miss the Dallas Morning News’ reporting on how child-molesting priests have been protected by the Vatican and moved from country to country to avoid arrest and prosecution. It’s sickening, important and vital to keep our focus on.

THE PARTY OF GOD: Republicanism, reinvented as holy war. Or as close as Karl Rove and Ralph Reed can make it. My latest column on how the GOP is abusing faith for political ends, posted opposite.

APPEASEMENT WATCH: The foreign desk editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer went to Lebanon and Syria and discovered that the people there want to be friends with us – just not with our government. Stefan Sharkansky sticks the boot in.