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Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Friday, February 02, 2007

Memory Can Just Suck 

...memory can be a tough thing to deal with, particularly when you are operating on the bad side of the tracks where memory is more a prosecutor than a friend. From the outside, though, memory is a tool that can be used to reach salvation - or if not that, at least some sort of epiphany that suggests a pathway to the light. The fundamental battle that the Bush administration and its assorted bands of fixers, hustlers, and flat-out waterhead winger supporters are fighting right now isn’t so much one of faithful patriotic rightists versus the dirty damned hippies of the whacked out anti-war left; it’s the battle of these loser minions versus the vast majority of Americans who, even if they aren’t stone-cold political junkies, have a memory. That memory is one of threats unredeemed, promises that were unkept, expectations that were unmet, and hopes that went unfulfilled. A meaningful majority of Americans have grown exceedingly tired of Gee Dub’s Grand Iraqi Nation-Building Adventure, not because some horrible cost of blood and treasure has been exacted but because nothing - not one single thing - that they said was going to happen or was the truth turned out to be such, and we are now stuck in a seemingly intractible conflict in the Middle East from which we are unlikely to extract ourselves with any sort of national grace intact...

I live among plain ol’ people. They don’t hang on the daily news like we politically active people do; they don’ have blogs, read blogs, or even by and large understand the concept. They do, however, know what they have been told by a host of talking faces that have been yapping in their general direction over the last five or so years: a nation simply awash with the sorts of evil chemicals and bugs that could destroy our country as we know it; a people anxiously awaiting the signal to begin flinging bushels of flowers at the feet of our conquering troops; a repressed population anxious to cast off the bonds of totalitarism and stick their collective necks in the yoke of democracy and bring an exciting new way of living to a significant Middle Eastern country. The people I live amongst aren’t stupid, although they are subject to the colorings and tailorings that the MSM so often provides. While they may fall for the discussions of Al Gore’s failings as a potential president and may have some “yeah, whaddabout” thoughts when the swift-boaters start flinging fecal matter against John Kerry’s wall, they heard and remembered the other stuff, too. They see what is going on in Iraq now, hearing that more troops are going to be sent, understand what continual redeployments mean to soldiers and their families, and - most surprising of all - understand that far too many of our boys and girls are getting killed and maimed by cold impersonal home-made bombs that take - in one way or another - the lives of our troops without an objective being taken or a particular piece of ground being captured and held...

This is where memory kicks in. Many of those plain ol’ folks I know are, like me, children of the Vietnam experience. What they are pretty sure they are starting to see is the same sad threadbare story that was spun during our misspent youth: talk about body counts but no evidence of land held, promises of more corners turned than seems geometrically possible, and the stern insistence by the ruling administration that objection to the aims, mission, and prosecution of the war is little less than treason. In a sense, there are two separate but converging types of memory at work these days. On one side is the clear stark memory of having been there before on the part of citizens of a certain age, a sort of memory that reeks of the lies we were told and the burdens we bore in payment for being a part of the Vietnam generation. On the other side is the memory that all Americans of any age can share of the promises and certitudes and guarantees that showered down upon us in the wake of 9/11, when Gee Dub and Big Dick told us that times were hard but everything would be alright if we only listened to and supported them. Those memories of the first part make it pretty clear to those of us of a certain age that we are headed down the same dark path that we traveled three decades ago, with the same grim outcome more likely than not waiting for us at the end of that trail. The memories of the second part guide us in understanding that not one single thing we were told by the Bush administration is as it was described to us and that they really didn’t have - and probably still don’t - the simplest clue about how to get our asses out of Dodge with something that bears the slightest resemblance to anything bearing a passing imitation to victory. Both senses of memory have been validated today by the revelation of a glimpse of the newest National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq. In short terms, it says that things are going to hell in a handbasket, and keeping current troop numbers plus surge in-country probably won’t really fix the problem, but that’s probably just as well because pulling troops under any sort of timetable won’t work out any better...

Memory sucks when it doesn’t work in your favor, and that is the bad place that Gee Dub and his little band of losers finds themselves at the moment. Polls exploring the question “how’s the President doing” are a stark demonstration of how collective memory operating at the simplest level finally began to repudiate all the lies, partial truths, and outright fantasies that have been used to explain, sustain, and justify that little Iraqi excursion. The currency of the controlling factions of the Republican party over the last decade has been a profound faith that memory didn’t matte because people didn’t remember. Sadly for them, memory is a demanding mistress, even at the rather ephemeral level at which so much of the American population operates. Finally, however, memory at the public level is becoming the bitch it always should have been...
Posted by: Jack K. / 9:50 PM 0 comments

Circular Firing Squad the Republican Way 

...sometimes you really can just mail it in. Today, for example, I find that there is no need whatsoever to trouble my beautiful mind hurling snark-grenades at the clowns, wingnuts, and waterheads who have generously offered to steer the Grand Old Party into the ditch and involve us in this almost imperialistic military adventure/quagmire in Iraq. I can just let Smokin' Joe Scarborough handle it for me...

It's pretty hard to argue (other than the obvious debate over intent and need in the first sentence) with the rather succinct way that Joe lays it out:

Even if you agree with me that this war was worth fighting as long as we believed Saddam Hussein had WMD’s aimed at America, at some point you have to face the facts: the Bush administration was wrong about those weapons, wrong about the nuclear program, wrong about their refusal to quell rioting early, wrong about Bremer’s gutting of the Iraqi army and police force, wrong about refusing to kill or capture al Sadr in 2003, wrong to tell the generals not speak of the coming insurgency, wrong to stubbornly refuse to give generals the troops they needed to win this war, wrong to make the “Mission Accomplished” declaration, wrong for the VP to claim that the insurgency was in its death throes and wrong to push a surge plan that the president’s top generals opposed.


The full list is longer - way longer - and Scarborough's emotional tone is darker and far less celebratory than mine would be - no doubt given the twin facts that a) his side is losing and 2) I enjoy modern examples of classic literary themes so it's a smashing good time to see these jerks whacked over the head with their own hubris. All in all, though, he comes pretty darn close to saying the sorts of things that I would say myself, only now I don't have to...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:00 AM 0 comments

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Tough Job Interviews 

...how bad must a fella want to have a job. First General George Casey, in his confirmation hearing to become Army Chief of Staff, lets slip that he isn't all that big a fan of the troop levels involved in Gee Dub's neck-snapping change-of-course "surge", then he has to cover that little faux pas with pleasantries about how it was understandable that his replacement, General David Petraeus, could want those troops. Then, to top it all off, he gets to listen to Senator John "What I Say Today Is What Counts; Never Mind That Other Stuff" slice and dice him over his management of the situation in Iraq over the last couple of years. Out west in the parts where I come from, about the only place you could get away with "the Straight Talker's" little line of BS would be somewhere between the sanctuary and the front steps of your local church; anywhere outside of that safe zone, the sort of riff that St John the First laid on Casey would probably get you shot in the face...

How McCain, who's military background includes being taught how to fly attack jets and then having the misfortune of being shot down over enemy territory, has accrued the knowledge to represent himself as having some superior viewpoint about the management of tens of thousands of troops engaged in a nation-wide ground combat is the sort of thing best left for better minds to ponder. The larger and more obvious fact is that McCain was engaging in a bit of presidential politics, triangulating in his own way to establish a buffer between himself and his recent best friend George W. Bush if - or most likely when - the 'surge' turns out to be a tragic, bloody failure and the whole stupid mess of Gee Dub's Grand Iraqi Nation-Building Adventure is swirling rapidly down the drain and there isn't a Plan B in sight. There isn't a job in the world that you would think would be attractive enough to make you willing to tolerate running up against the man who suffers from the strongest hunger in America to move into the White House and is willing to slap down, run over, or simply stab anyone necessary to get 'er done. But there ya' go. Casey will undoubtedly be confirmed, and McCain will get his pound of flesh in the pursuit of his desperate quest for the White House. That's about the toughest job interview you could ever imagine...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:11 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Goodbye, Molly 

...I first became acquainted with her years ago. It was probably the voice that I met first: a lilting, seductive Texas drawl, the sort of voice you just might leave the wife and kids for, filling my head with the sorts of sardonic observations about the failings and foibles of politicians both Texan and national that I - a faithful admirer and failed imitator of the best political humor writers - simply could not get out of my mind. Oh, but there was a bite to her, though. While one of my other heroes, the recently departed Art Buchwald, wrote more for the humor than the message, she had the message up front, in your face, wrapped up in a tart humorous coat. Once I delved more deeply into the writings of Molly Ivins, it became clear to me that she was clearly the sort of gal you would want to go out and have a few beers or a few shots with unless you were stupid and venal and political, in which case you could pretty much plan on being the butt of every joke laughed at around the bar that night...

Molly Ivins was - is - a national treasure for just about anyone who is not now or ever has been a member of the Republican party in the state of Texas - especially if their surname was Bush. Democrats didn’t escape her sharp wit, either, but her viewpoint as a progressive populist naturally led her to generally lay her whip to the flaccid fatty white flanks of the right-wing side of the political spectrum. She was undoubtedly not much read at the Crawford Ranch - that’s an obvious given, I suppose, and could apply to most works in English - nor would any of her books likely be found in the bookshelves in the main house of the Bush’s Kennebunkport compound, but she spoke to the heart of the matter for millions of Americans who could see that there was no there there in either Gee Dub’s Texas Education Miracle or the Compassionate Conservatism that seemed to be little more than a roadmap to making people blame themselves for the fact that they had to live in their cars and fight the pets over who got to eat the ‘Tender Vittles’. But she was well read elsewhere, and provided a voice for the common folk of a wide variety of political persuasion who just thought that most of the carryin’ on by politicians - especially Republicans who claimed they were for the little guy while doing everything possible just offstage to stick a shiv between the little guy’s ribs - was stupid and misguided and obvious...

She’s gone now, though, leaving only her words and her spirit behind. We won’t soon find another like her; that kind of spunk, sarcasm, and brilliant political insight is rare in any case, but to find it in a person that you just naturally understand could be a great friend if only you happened to meet in real life is like finding a new element for the Periodic Table. I never met Molly, and as one of the little people probably didn’t have much chance of doing so in any case, but I worshipped her from afar just like all the other little people who understood that she wrote for them. Molly’s regular columns were a touchstone, a mooring line to some sort of sanity over the last several years when it seemed as though there might not be a single non-blog voice that could express the sort of sarcastic disbelief at the actions of our so-called “leaders” that needed to be heard. She parsed the world in a way that all of the high-dollar talent at the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, and the slick-sided weekly news magazines could never even hope to match, much less emulate. She will be missed - sorely - and I fear that we will not see the likes of her again...

There’s a big ol’ full Texas moon hanging in the freezing Central Orygun sky tonight, so I’ll be headed out to the back deck now with a good bottle of whiskey and a shotglass to offer my 'propers', as my hillbilly ancestors would say. Here’s to you, Mz. Ivins; you were one of a kind and you will be missed. Goodbye, Molly...
Posted by: Jack K. / 9:42 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

The Score So Far: Good Guys 6, Scumbags 0 

...it probably shouldn't come as a surprise that - as the prosecution in the Scooter Libby trial rolls out its witnesses - there would be some pretty solid evidence against the defendent, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. What is starting to become surprising is the fact that none of the 6 witnesses who have been trotted out so far are the sort of people who would naturally flock to Patrick Fitzgerald's aid in bringing Scooter down. The facts in this case seem to be verging on the blindingly simple as far as the charges are concerned: Scooter Libby had a series of discussions, some of them startlingly specific, about the name and employment history of Joseph Wilson's wife days and weeks before the date he claimed he first learned about her CIA connection. Today we had Judith Miller, Bushco's most ardent pre-war cheerleader and the official spokeswoman for Mr. Chalabi and his clever little collection of faux "sources", indicating that Libby's efforts before the grand jury were both lame and misguided. So far, the best show in D.C. appears to be the presentation that Libby's lawyers will be making to try to blot from the jury's mind the ongoing hammerblows of revelation after revelation that ol' Scooter was running wild and free with his "All-Valerie-All-The-Time" gig in direct contradiction to his grand jury testimony...

As Fitzgerald explained some months ago, Libby is only a step down the trail on the journey to truth. His conviction, regardless of how satisfying it may feel, doesn't end the story, mostly because the story is more about who told him to do the deed. Lots of fingers are beginning to point toward Big Dick Cheney, and the ultimate test of how Republicans actually feel about the strength and power of the U.S. Constitution is going to be how seriously they will consider presentation of articles of impeachment on the House floor. We know from the last Democratic presidency that they can have a fairly low threshhold for impeachable offenses; the
Question of the Day will be how equitably they will apply their previously-held objections to presidential excess to an increasingly clear picture of Big Dick loosing the dogs of public relations war - including the intentional outing of a known CIA agent - against a critic to their drumbeat to launch the latest neocon version of the Crusades...

It is probably to hopeful to even think, much less say out loud, but there's getting to be a certain feel to what's going on in that courtroom that - in conjunction with the ongoing disaster in Iraq - is beginning to feel like the last months of the Nixon presidency. An unpopular president managing an unpopular war launches an unpopular military operation while the office of the vice president comes under legal scrutiny for impeachable misbehavior. The timelines aren't well-aligned for a perfect match, but the emotional heft of these days is beginning to bear a startling resemblance of those days of my misspent youth from thirty years ago. In any case, these seem like dying days for the most misbegotten failed two-term presidency in this country's history, and it's going to be a fascinating saga to watch...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:46 PM 0 comments

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Joe Lieberman - Kingmaker 

...there was no reason to expect anything less than this from Joe Lieberman. How he even became the vice-presidential nominee in 2000 is something for historians to sieve out of the wreckage, but the strange saga of his reelection campaign in 2006 was certain to guarantee that he would take the step that he is taking now. Ol' Joe counts - sort of - as a constituent of the Democratic Senate majority, but he almost needs to wrapped in duct tape to keep from being seen actually leaking bitterness over way that he was treated by the Democratic party. Joe is old-school (in the less flattering sense of the term) and had to be shocked almost to incontinence at the spector of a primary challenge that the Party didn't seem all that interested in stomping out. Coming back to win the general election as an independent has probably served to make Joe a more unstable factor in the balance of power in the Senate than if he had just been left alone to return as a reelected Democrat, but that's water under the bridge (or "over the deck", as Big Tony Scalia might say) and we just have to figure out how to get by with the consequences of what went down in Connecticut last fall...

On The Other Hand, as other second-rate pundits might say, What Happens in Connecticut Stays In Connecticut, and any dire warnings that Lieberman might choose to mumble about his future presidential endorsements have a sort of half-hearted threat-heft. Lieberman retained his seat through a mixture of circumstances that even he doesn't clearly seem to understand, and his influence across the population as a whole is far less powerful than he probably realizes. Joe Lieberman can cause all sort of mischief for the Senate Democratic 'majority', but that doesn't translate into the sort of juice that is going to matter when it comes to actually having an impact beyond some local level in any sort of national contest. Ol' Joe already wouldn't have mattered much in any state where the issue is in doubt, and his currency as represented by undying support for Gee Dub's Grand Iraqi Nation-Building Adventure runs a pretty stiff risk of being a coin that no particular realm cares to recognize. Joe can, now or later, endorse anybody that he cares to from the Democratic, Republican, or Americans Against The Abuse of Fur-Weasels Parties; he is confused by his inclusion on the 2000 Democratic ticket and blinded by his Republican-led 2006 reelection and he just doesn't understand that his influence in the Senate isn't something that will even slightly translate into influence in the 2008 presidential election. But he can dream....
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:49 PM 0 comments

Sequals Always Suck 

...hmm, let's see now. A native of Hope, Arkansas, after multiple terms as Governor, decides to run for president even though he has a history containing actions that run contrary to some of the core constituencies of his party. He's starting as a long-shot in the face of better-known and better financed names, but is willing to fling himself into the conflict anyway. OK, I saw this movie the first time it came out and, while it was a rock-em sock-em adventure, it is not one that bears repeating...

Mike Huckabee is no Bill Clinton, not by a long shot. A Baptist minister, a strong pro-life advocate, and a person not afraid to speak disparagingly about gay rights, he is - were it not for complaints about tax increases as governor - a poster child for the farthest right tendancies in the American electorate. Today's appearance on Meet the Press showed a man skillful enough to try to obsfucate the truly pernicious nature of his personal and political beliefs, but not one who is all that skillful at actually pull it off. Still, you almost have to feel sorry for the guy, because he does play a mean bass guitar (seriously here, an Arkansas governor who not only has all the above traits but musical pretensions besides; is this an off-the-rails Clinton doppleganger or what?), so we should mention him at least once. I mean, neither I or anybody I know is any more likely to vote for an ordained Baptist pastor than they are to vote for a practicing Mormon - and I'm talking about the conservative folks I know, serious, thoughtful people who in some rare cases are still willing to admit that they voted for George W. Bush - so we have no need of visiting this ground again. It is interesting, still to marvel at the degree of coincidence that life offers us sometimes....
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:10 PM 0 comments

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