A Couple of Fun Factoids - Palin Meets Her Doppelganger and Keep America Safe Fails to Rally

A couple of fun factoids from today.

• Sarah Palin will be in Denver on Thursday on what she likes to call her "road trip" but what others commonly refer to as a book tour. The woman who proudly proclaims herself a "real" American and pro-life, has been rated a Tier 4 by American Right to Life (ARTL), a very powerful anti-abortion grou and they plan to rally in opposition to her.Tier 4 is earned when an individual claims that they are pro-life, but "deny the personhood and God-given right to life of the unborn." Considered one of the more radical of the anti-abortion groups, ARTL sees the issue in black and white with absolutely no shades of gray: you see abortion as murder, or you don't. The fact that Sarah Palin appointed a pro-choice judge to the Supreme Court of Alaska was enough to lose her Tier 1 position. There are other factors that ARTL cites, but that was the biggie for them. I just find the whole thing ironic, and something you might expect to see in a sci-fi movie. You know, the character suddenly meets their doppelganger or other self? Except, in fiction, there is always some sort of explosive event when that happens as two selves cannot exist in the same time and place together. Here is Sarah Palin coming face to face with some of her lies and political manipulations, but this time, it is all coming from the right, and her religious right at that.

• Bill Kristol, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, and Liz Cheney tried to get a rally going to protest the decision by Eric Holder to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in federal court in New York. They each tweeted their followers (Rove has 92,000, Gingrich 1.2 million) to meet at 9:30 Wed. Nov. 18 at the Dirksen Senate Office Building to oppose Attorney General Holder's testimony as to why he had made this decision. Liz Cheney's new group, "Keep America Safe" is all about promoting the neo-con policies espoused by her father and she tweeted a reminder a couple of hours before the hearing. The fun fact part? Nobody showed up. Oh the hearing happened, and there were plenty of people there on both sides of the debate (see the post below on Senator Sessions), but there were also empty seats, and nobody identified as being a member of Keep America Safe either inside or outside the Dirksen Building. This leaves me with a nice, warm fuzzy feeling. 

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No, Maureen Dowd, It's Not Alpo

I expected the extreme right to attack President Obama for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. The National Republican Committee in the form of Michael Steele - not known for thinking before speaking - didn't surprise me when he said
:

"...the real question Americans are asking is, “What has President Obama actually accomplished?” It is unfortunate that the president’s star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights. One thing is certain — President Obama won’t be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action."

On Sunday, Bob Schieffer of Meet the Press said the award would change the way we look at the prize. In her column, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times said that because Gandhi never won the prize and because Kissinger did, "it ain't worth a can of Alpo" writing her column as a conversation between W and Clinton - suggesting that they are now BFF's because Obama's winning the prize had erased every reason for strain between the two of them.

Thomas Friedman, also of the times, demands that the prize should instead be given to the American military as they are the ones who have actually brought peace. WTF? Isn't the military made up of soldiers who are sent by their commanders to invade a country that did not attack us? Isn't that called waging war? How does he get waging peace out of that?


Bill Kristol, late of the Times, states that President Obama's receipt of the Peace Prize is anti-American. Excuse me? I find myself insulted by that. I'm an American. I'm not always pleased with the decisions made by the President, but he was elected by a majority of Americans. He has already accomplished a lot. The American people elected an overwhelming majority in both houses of Congress - a clear message that we reject the ideology of the Republican Party and of the previous administration.


The day of the award, the Taliban stated that President Obama did not deserve the award. On his show, Rush Limbaugh said that, amazingly enough, he agreed with the Taliban. And laughed.


And I could go on, and on, and on.


Regardless of what a few people with a very loud platform say, the majority of Americans approve of President Obama, approve of how he is doing his job, approve of his winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and are proud that the prize was awarded to an American. Most people understand that whenever something good happens to an American, we can all be proud.

He won the prize because he campaigned on a platform of ending the two wars the George Bush got us into. He campaigned on a platform of closing Guantanamo and ending torture. He campaigned on a platform of restoring America's place in the world community. He convinced the American people to elect him to change the direction of this country. Archbishop Desmond Tutu was awarded the Peace Prize for his work towards ending apartheid despite the fact that apartheid did not end for another 10 years. Martin Luther King, Jr., was awarded the prize although the issue of race is far from over in this country, Jimmy Carter won the prize for his work towards Middle East peace, although it is obvious peace is still a distant dream. Al Gore won for his work on global warming, yet the earth gets warmer every year.

Clearly, the committee rewards vision and possibility. Clearly, the committee respects work that begins healing. Clearly the committee sees the healing that has begun as President Obama travels the world and repairs the damage done by George Bush and his administration.

So yes, President Obama most definitely, according to the precedents set by the Nobel Committee does deserve the Peace Prize. Because it is, however, based as much on possibilities as actions, we can all look forward to watching him realize the change that he promised us.

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Did Hate Speech Kill Stephen Tyrone Johns?

In April of this year, the Department of Homeland Security produced a report, leaked to the media, that detailed home-grown, terrorist threat assessments of right-wing extremists. A report on threats coming from left-wing extremists had been released in January. It should be noted that these reports had been commissioned and data collected during the Bush Administration.

The report says that conditions similar to that leading to the militia movements of the 1990's - and the Oklahoma City bombing - are occurring now. Joan Walsh in Salon quotes Susan Page from an interview on MSNBC today, saying that, "... based on history: They include a prolonged economic downturn, the demonization of immigrants, the election of the first black president, fears about losing the right to own guns, a banking crisis inciting age-old paranoia about "Jewish cabals" and the return of many veterans to the States suffering from PTSD and other conditions while getting insufficient care."

When this report on potential threats by right-wing extremists was leaked, conservative talking heads immediately took offense, somehow believing that they were being personally attacked. I'm not sure how they felt linked to extremism, but hey, if the shoe fits ....

Rush Limbaugh insisted that right-wing groups had never done anything violent (!), while Michelle Malkin, who led the charge, called the report a "piece of crap" and said it was released at this time to smear those participating in the upcoming "tea parties." Columnist Bill Kristol called it "juvenile" and Rep. Michelle Bachman said, "To me, it looks like the extremists are those running the DHS." Continuing in this vein, Newt Gingrich demanded that the person who wrote this "outrageous" memo "smearing veterans" should be fired, and Rep. John Boehner said Napolitano herself had a lot of explaining to do. Rep. Peter Burgess said that Napolitano should step down.

I wonder how many of them regret those remarks today? I wonder, after the murder of Dr. George Tiller, and the murder of the guard at the Holocaust Museum today by a white-supremacist how many of them regret those remarks today?

Words have power. In our society, there is a price to be paid for free speech. We have a violent history and we know, based on our history, that there are people in our society who walk on the edge. People who are willing to pick up a gun, willing to make a bomb, and willing to die for a cause. When our talking heads are allowed to refer to legally practicing doctors as "baby killers," and say that our President should fail, that he is worse than al Qaeda. When torture is considered okay some of the time, and the law only applies to some of the people, then it's easy to see how someone can pick up a gun and shoot up a factory, or a church, or a museum.

Did this hate speech on our televisions cause von Brunn to murder Stephen Tyrone Johns today at the Holocaust Museum? I don't know. But it certainly didn't do anything to prevent it.

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Kristol Wants to Nuke North Korea

The last I heard, we have a new president. That being the case, the "Bush Doctrine" is no longer operable.

The Bush Doctrine touts preemptive war as the basis of our foreign policy - get them before they get us. We all know how well that worked out, or rather, some of us know how well that worked out.

On Fox New Sunday, Bill Kristol not realizing that he's an idiot, opined--in discussing North Korea's missile launch--that,

"I don't rule out the possibility of us deciding -- and I think it might be wise for us to decide -- to knock out a few. They're apparently rolling a long-term missile to a base to test another one, long-range missile to test another one. You know, it might be worth doing some targeted air strikes to show the North Koreans, instead of always talking about, 'Gee, there could be consequences,' to show that they can't simply keep going down this path."

Also on that same program, fellow conservative Brit Hume agreed with Kristol, but didn't think Obama would do it. This follows Newt Gingrich's demands since April to attack North Korea with lasers following their first attempted rocket launch.

Kristol didn't say why it would be wise to "knock out a few," and didn't discuss the consequences to South Korea, China, and Japan--not to mention future disarmament discussions. Newt still doesn't know that we don't have lasers of the type that he wants turned on North Korea, and none of them appear to have any faith in diplomacy, witness their snide comments about "Gee, there could be consequences."

It's real easy to sit there and tear something down, to idly discuss using nuclear weapons when it isn't their decision to make nor their consequence to bear. The continuing serial stupidity of the punditry.

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An Officer's Obligation by Matthew Alexander

Matthew Alexander writes about torture from an officer's perspective in An Officer's Obligation and provides what should be required reading for all the talking heads at Fox News, David Broder at the Washington Post, Bill Kristol, and Karl Rove. Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity should be required to read this on-air, Beck without any of his cutesy facial contortions and sad-sack put on.

They are fond of talking about the Constitution, about our soldiers, about how Obama has put the soldiers at risk by banning the use of torture, by releasing information on the practices of the Bush Administration, that the liberal right and the Democrats are somehow anti-veterans because of their deliberate mis-reading of a report written during the Bush Administration that states that returning veterans might be at risk of being recruited by right-wing extremist terrorist groups.

They so (deliberately I believe) misunderstand the military, the veterans, and the Constitution, that I'm not sure they could understand Mr. Alexander's point when he says:

Military officers have a sacred responsibility that is embedded in their oath of office: "I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same..."

He goes on to explain how:

The Constitution specifically prohibits cruelty to any person in the Eighth Amendment ... unusual punishments inflicted"). Those officers who ordered, authorized, or were complicit in the torture and abuse of prisoners violated their oath of office. The United States has a rich history of military ethics dating back to General George Washington during the Revolutionary War. According to General Washington, "Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any prisoner...by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country." He said this in 1775, during a time when the birth of our nation hung in the balance.

Probably his most important point, is as he speaks about the capture and interrogations of detainees in Iraq, men who did not provide valuable information. Mr. Alexander speaks about the value of these detainees as opportunities for his men to learn to improve their skills, to become better interrogators. He said:

We are Americans and we are smart enough to win the battle of wits in the interrogation room. We cannot afford to doubt our abilities. We should focus on improving our methods within the legal framework of Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Constitution. And military officers have a heightened responsibility to effect change and to lead our interrogator corps to its full potential. We are smart enough.

Mr. Alexander understands, in a way that the talking heads and politicians do not, that interrogation is about trust, not torture. That as a country of law, be are no better than terrorists is we use their tactics is we give up the law in order to protect it.

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