Category: Politics

Daily Kos, who is among the top five liberal bloggers, got a gig working for Howard Dean as a political consultant. From his disclosure post, his focus is going to be on providing services for the Internet campaign.

Now, “rah rah bloggers affecting politics rah.” Take that as said. And, yeah, it’s interesting that Dean chose a blogger to manage his online community. But I think it’s more interesting contemplating the fact that Dean cares about his online community at all. Blogs are part of that. So are the Dean Meetups, which have touched far more people than the Dean weblog. (Note that the Meetups translate into real world action in the form of charity work.)

He’s certainly polling higher, so something’s working. I think his core messages are fairly powerful, and he’s found a good way to broadcast those messages. The next step is convincing his Internet constituency to amplify those messages and talk about them to people who could care less about the Internet. If he can make that happen, he’s got a pretty solid chance of winning the nomination.

Despite the constant attempts to play down the looting of the Iraqi National Museum, the full story is coming out. It is fairly clear, at this point, that a whole bunch of items were missing. It’s also pretty clear that many of them were simply hidden for safekeeping.

The lesson? We owe the Iraqis a debt of thanks for preserving the heritage of Iraq, since we were too busy to do so.

I think it’s about time to stop complaining that the media isn’t doing a good job of asking questions. In the end, the American public may or may not care about the WMD issue — although I hope they do — but it’s definitely out there. You can tell the media is covering the story when John Dean asks if lying about the reason for a war is an impeachable offense. He thinks it is, unsurprisingly. Meanwhile, the New York Times reports doubts about those two trailers.

Britain is now calling for the US to allow UN weapons inspectors back into Iraq. The poignant quote from Britain’s UN ambassador: “Even the closest ally cannot answer for the United States.”

They’re joined by the rest of the UN, of course. How much longer can we bear this undue influence in our affairs? Hasn’t Britain learned their lesson? Our friendship is not unconditional.

Various and sundry Iraq news continues to flow. This is gonna be long.

On WMD: we still haven’t found anything, although Bush said we did. Alas, two trailers that might or might not be WMD factories are not in any way WMD. Sort of in the same way that styrofoam and gas aren’t napalm. On the other hand, various sources are reporting that intelligence analysts felt pressured to find evidence of WMD before the war. Similar reports are coming out of the UK.

Just to forestall one comment: yes, even if Saddam destroyed all his WMD years ago, he failed to accurately account for them. If you’re comfortable invading Iraq due to bad paperwork, more power to you.

Lots of arguments about what might have happened to Saddam’s theoretical arsenal. One popular argument: he gave ‘em to terrorists, in which case it would seem that we’ve at least temporarily increased the threat level. However, Bush tells us that’s not true, in a stirring speech: “But one thing is certain: no terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime because the Iraqi regime is no more.” Or maybe he just forgot to say “besides the tons of chemical weapons I told you they had.”

Another current meme: we haven’t found Saddam, so why should we expect to have found WMD? This is an interesting turnaround from the hopeful noises Rumsfeld was making early in the war, when we were expected to believe Saddam was dead in a bunker. Also — and this is a subtle point, that many may have missed — Saddam is a single human being. Bush claimed that there were literally tons of chemical and biological weapons floating around. Saddam is independently mobile and rather small. Tons of chemical and biological weapons are not. I’m reliably informed that you need some sort of motorized device to move that kind of weight. I’m pretty sure you can’t actually extrapolate from one thing to the other.

Blix, God bless him, is still being the voice of sanity. “The lack of finds could be because the items were unilaterally destroyed by the Iraqi authorities or else because they were effectively concealed by them. I trust that in the new environment in Iraq, in which there is full access and cooperation, and in which knowledgeable witnesses should no longer be inhibited to reveal what they know, it should be possible to establish the truth we all want to know.” This is the closest anyone in the UN is coming to the Bush administration line.

Is that all the Iraq news? Heck no. There’s ongoing resistance in Falluja. This is in no way a surprising development, but it was not one that was widely accepted as a cost of the war by the war’s proponents. This surprise may explain the increasing delay in establishing an interim government.

Onward, ever onward. Turkey and the Kurds are not saber-rattling, and — it’s worth remembering this — Saddam is out of power. Which is a relief; don’t forget to read Salam Pax. That’s my good news for the day.

Den Beste notes a $500 million drop in American tourism over in France. Meanwhile, the ITA Office of Travel and Tourism notes a 7.6% drop in visitors to the United States for Q1 2003. This follows a 8.3% drop last year.

Putting that into perspective, a little over 600,000 fewer people visited the US in the first quarter of 2003. If each of those people would have spent an arbitrary $1,000, which is probably low, then the US has lost over $600 million in one quarter. The article on France implies that their drop is $500 million total. Per capita, $500 million represents more for France than $600 million does for the US, of course.

The point being not that we’re suffering more, because right now we aren’t. The point is that economic ties go two ways.

Addendum: what the heck happened to my dollar signs?

I have, on occasion, argued that attempting to control terrorism by controlling the states that sponsor terrorism is futile. It’s too easy for non-state sponsored terrorists to build weapons, and getting easier. As evidence, I offer the home-made cruise missile.

The similarities between this (here’s part two) and this are amusing as all hell. This doesn’t really say much about the people parodied, though, since both of ‘em are pretty similar to this (with another part two — will wonders never cease?).

Lesson: pundits are goobers.

Eric Rudolph — you know, the guy who bombed the Atlanta Olympics, a gay bar, and a couple of abortion clinics — was captured over the weekend. About time. It appears that sympathetic locals may have helped him stay a fugitive.

The Washington Post goes for the gusto and labels him a Christian terrorist. Given the typical bent of the Christian Identity movement, I don’t see why we shouldn’t just go all the way and label him a Christianofascist.

Rudolph is a powerful reminder that there is a native terrorist movement in this country. Further, it’s one that’s supported by a significant number of people.

I actually wasn’t gonna link to the long list of administration statements about Iraq’s WMD. But then I thought about it some more, and I came up with a thought experiment.

Let’s assume the best. Let’s assume Bush and the rest believed everything they said. Let’s assume Wolfowitz’s rationale for misinformation is justified.

Great. But now you know the government either a) bungles intelligence information, or b) is willing to stretch the truth a good long way to get your support. So when the next one comes around — when Bush starts talking about Iran’s Al Qaeda connections — how can you trust that? You gotta have more evidence than just his assertions, because they have been proven wrong before in similar situations, and that is true no matter who you blame or don’t blame for that inaccuracy.