Bohemian Mama

Prosecutor dreams
I was with John Kerry in Vietnam on March 13, 1969. I saw him jump straight up in the air 500 feet and pull down an attacking enemy airplane with his bare hands.

Well, actually I was 10 years old and living in Eugene in 1969. But I imagined it! And some people I know (I'm not allowed to say who) were talking about it and I believe them!

Can I be a Clackamas County prosecutor now?

More remarkably, the 488 killed thus far this year died in just 239 days (2.04 daily average), while the 482 killed last year died during fully 287 days (1.68 daily average), which means that not only has 2004 been bloodier than 2003 in absolute terms, but in relative terms as well.

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea hurled invective at President Bush for a second day Tuesday, calling him a political idiot and human trash, and said six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions appeared doomed.

A day earlier, a Foreign Ministry spokesman for the isolated communist state described Bush as a tyrannical imbecile who put Adolf Hitler in the shade and said Pyongyang could see no justification to negotiate with his administration.

Six-party working-level talks on the communist North's nuclear weapons ambitions had been planned for August but have yet to materialize.

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair is refusing to fly to the US to receive a medal bestowed on him by the nation for his support over last year's Iraq war, a London newspaper reported today.

US President George W. Bush has put huge pressure on his closest ally to pick up the Congressional Medal of Honour in person, the Sunday Mirror said, quoting a senior British government source.

Mr Blair is immensely popular with large sections of the American public for his staunch support of the Iraq war and the White House believes a visit by the prime minister now would provide a much-needed boost to Mr Bush's re-election campaign, the weekly said.

"There has been a lot of telephone traffic between the White House and Downing Street over the medal in recent week," the Sunday Mirror quoted a senior government source as saying.

"George Bush wants the prime minister to come to Washington and pick up the medal, which is the highest honour America can bestow on a foreigner.

"But he has refused for more than a year now and for good reason. He cannot possibly accept an award for the Iraq war when British and American troops continue to risk their lives there."

Mr Blair is concerned also that a trip to the US now would effectively be giving a boost to Bush ahead of November's presidential elections.

"The Democrats are watching the situation very carefully and there would be uproar if Tony travelled to Washington to meet (Republican) Bush so close to the presidential elections," the government source said.

"But Bush isn't letting up. The White House has already let it be known that they feel slighted because of this and believe they can use this to put pressure on Blair to get him out there."

"More than 30 years ago I learned an important lesson. When you're under attack the best thing to do is turn your boat into the attack. That's what I intend to do today."

Speaking of the organization airing the ads that challenge his war record, Kerry said, "Of course, this group isn't interested in the truth and they're not telling the truth. ...

"But here's what you really need to know about them. They're funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Republican contributor out of Texas. They're a front for the Bush campaign. And the fact that the President won't denounce what they're up to tells you everything you need to know. He wants them to do his dirty work."

Kerry said, "Of course, the president keeps telling people he would never question my service to our country. Instead, he watches as a Republican-funded attack group does just that."

Fighting back, Kerry said if Bush wants to "have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: 'Bring it on.'" Bush served stateside in the Texas Air National Guard during the war.

KERRY’S POSITION: I voted to give President Bush the authority. Then President Bush f*cked it up.

Within the volunteer Oregon Army National Guard is a core of "double volunteers," as they call themselves: men and women who have stepped forward and met the exacting standards of the state's adjutant general's select honor guard. Those 20 or so soldiers represent the Guard at parades, fairs, festivals and -- with increasing regularity -- at soldiers' funerals.

Once those were mostly the funerals of veterans, old soldiers, but as the war in Iraq continues, those services are for their comrades-in-arms, four so far and another one to come. The soldiers killed in Iraq are younger, with more life unspent -- mirrored in the soldiers wearing slippery white cotton gloves who carry, in 15-inch lockstep, the heavy coffins.

Sometimes the men and women are strangers, but often they've met, trained together, heard one another's names. Maybe fought together.

Precisely, professionally, they bear the coffin, fold the U.S. flag and give it to the bereaved with these words: "As a representative of the United States Army it is my high privilege to present to you this flag. . . ."

But as author Flannery O’Conner noted, “Truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” That means no matter how much defensive spin spews from the White House, the Bush administration cannot escape the documented fact that it was clearly warned before the war that its rationale for invading Iraq was weak.

Top administration officials repeatedly ignored warnings that their assertions about Iraq’s supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and connections to al Qaeda were overstated. In some cases, they were told their claims were wholly without merit, yet they went ahead and made them anyway. Even the Senate report admits that the White House “misrepresented” classified intelligence by eliminating references to contradictory assertions.

In short, they knew they were misleading America.

And they did not care.

If you really want to see cable news scripts in action, look at the coverage of the Democratic convention.

Commercial broadcast TV covered only one hour a night. We'll see whether the Republicans get equal treatment. C-Span, on the other hand, provided comprehensive, commentary-free coverage. But many people watched the convention on cable news channels - and what they saw was shaped by a script portraying Democrats as angry Bush-haters who disdain the military.

[...]

CNN used to be different, but Campaign Desk, which is run by The Columbia Journalism Review, concluded after reviewing convention coverage that CNN "has stooped to slavish imitation of Fox's most dubious ploys and policies." Seconds after John Kerry's speech, CNN gave Ed Gillespie, the Republican Party's chairman, the opportunity to bash the candidate. Will Terry McAuliffe be given the same opportunity right after President Bush speaks?

Commentators worked hard to spin scenes that didn't fit the script. Some simply saw what they wanted to see. On Fox, Michael Barone asserted that conventioneers cheered when Mr. Kerry criticized President Bush but were silent when he called for military strength. Check out the video clips at Media Matters; there was tumultuous cheering when Mr. Kerry talked about a strong America.

Another technique, pervasive on both Fox and CNN, was to echo Republican claims of an "extreme makeover" - the assertion that what viewers were seeing wasn't the true face of the party. (Apparently all those admirals, generals and decorated veterans were ringers.)

[...]

But the real power of a script is the way it can retroactively change the story about what happened.

On Thursday night, Mr. Kerry's speech was a palpable hit. A focus group organized by Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster, found it impressive and persuasive. Even pro-Bush commentators conceded, at first, that it had gone over well.

But a terrorism alert is already blotting out memories of last week. Although there is now a long history of alerts with remarkably convenient political timing, and Tom Ridge politicized the announcement by using the occasion to praise "the president's leadership in the war against terror," this one may be based on real information. Regardless, it gives the usual suspects a breathing space; once calm returns, don't be surprised if some of those same commentators begin describing the ineffective speech they expected (and hoped) to see, not the one they actually saw.

A four-month investigation conducted by a Philadelphia researcher and independently confirmed by RAW STORY finally proves that President George W. Bush did not successfully complete his service with the Texas Air National Guard.

The president’s own payroll records — recently released by the White House in an effort to discredit claims that the president had failed to meet Guard requirements — instead indicate that he was absent without leave (AWOL) in 1972, and should have been placed on active duty for nearly four months.

“If you don’t show up, you’re absent without leave, by definition,” said Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower, Reserve Affairs, Installations and Logistics under Ronald Reagan from 1981-1985, Lawrence J. Korb. “You would be put on active duty and sent wherever they needed you.”

Korb examined Bush’s payroll records Monday. Asked if he thought Bush was AWOL, he said, “Based on these payroll records, unless he had permission, it would be.”

Bush could not have gotten permission, which he would have needed to get in advance, because he did not yet know of the months he was going to miss until May 1972. It not until May 1972 that he was offered a position to campaign in an Alabama Senate campaign – well after all the trainings that he might have applied.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 -Much of the information that led the authorities to raise the terror alert at several large financial institutions in the New York City and Washington areas was three or four years old, intelligence and law enforcement officials said on Monday. They reported that they had not yet found concrete evidence that a terrorist plot or preparatory surveillance operations were still under way.

[...]

Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland security adviser, said on Monday in an interview on PBS that surveillance reports, apparently collected by Qaeda operatives had been "gathered in 2000 and 2001.'' But she added that information may have been updated as recently as January.

The comments of government officials on Monday seemed softer in tone than the warning issued the day before. On Sunday, officials were circumspect in discussing when the surveillance of the financial institutions had occurred, and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge cited the quantity of intelligence from "multiple reporting streams'' that he said was "alarming in both the amount and specificity of the information.''

Despite the new terror warnings, the stock market gained ground, denting expectations that it would drop with the heightened security alert. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 39 points.