Politics

Showtime is filming a two hour movie based on Bush’s 9/11 actions (original). This might be a good time to refer back to the CCR timeline of his movements on that day. I’m suspecting that since the movie is put together by a White House supporter who describes himself as “a member of the administration,” it won’t really touch on the sense of uncertainty one gets from that chronology. I’m pretty much gobsmacked, here. I’m not big on the “What liberal media?” call, because there are some aspects of our media which are very liberal — and some which are very conservative. However, I can’t believe Showtime is going to air a two hour campaign commercial. You can talk about the media loving Clinton if you like, but man, his movie was Primary Colors.

Now, that’s a truck (original).

The Freepers are getting all excited about stuffing the MoveOn ballot box. They’re so cute! Such a fervent belief in the democratic process! Not. But the priceless bit — I gotta quote the whole thing. Here. FOR THE THIRD TIME: This is not a FReeping opportunity - this is lunacy! These people are COMMUNISTS! THINK ABOUT IT …!! DO YOU REALLY WANT YOUR NAME ON A LIST ASSOCIATED WITH A COMMUNIST ORGANIZATION …?? ...

Phil Carter mused on the Iyman Faris plea bargain over the weekend, to good effect. He’s dug up a claim that the government threatened to declare Faris an enemy combatant in order to get him to plea bargain. Phil explains why this is bad at length. It goes beyond the immediate fact that someone’s either an enemy combatant or not.

Political junkies might be interested in this news (original). Howard Dean’s 17 year old son was arrested for stealing booze from a local country club today. No big deal; the Senate Majority Leader’s son was just arrested for DUI. Rove’ll try and spin it, though.

WMD explanation of the week: they were looted. Sure, several hundred tons of neurotoxins were looted. So effectively and so secretively that we haven’t found even a single looter. Sounds likely. But OK, let’s grant ‘em that one. Let’s also admit that US forces have had no luck finding the “looted” WMD. Isn’t the solution obvious? Bring back Blix’s team; they’re professionals. Let them get back to work. After all, the IAEA found looted uranium a whole lot quicker than we could.

I mentioned Paul Krugman’s piece on liquidity traps last month — I’d link to it again, but the NYT doesn’t have free archives. Pity. However, thanks to MetaFilter, I can show you this paper (original) (PDF) from the Dallas Federal Reserve. It’s a nice clean explanation of liquidity traps along with some speculation about ways to fend off the one we’re about to hit.

David Neiwert just published the final installment of the “Rush, Newspeak, and Fascism” series. Sorry about the self-link; he doesn’t have a table of contents anywhere. But he says there’s a PDF coming soon. Anyhow, this installment is fascinating material on the connection between religion and fascism, made all the more important and relevant by the recent Rudolph arrest. And, yes, it’s interesting when considering Islamic terrorism as well. Key coinage: “fascimentalism.”

It’s not time to vote yet. Maybe soon. Who knows? It’s a pretty tricky issue. The problem is that if elections are held now, you’re going to get either Islamic extremists or Baathist remnants in power. In many ways, Jay Bremer is right. The long-term goal of a democratic country would be poorly served by holding elections right this minute. This is not, however, news. Most anti-war people noted this problem many months ago. The problem is not that Bremer is putting off elections, it’s that he doesn’t have any clear plan on how to get to them — as predicted. Unfortunately, saying “So what will we do when we win?” was apparently a sign of anti-Americanism. ...

Charlie Stross draws comparisons (original) between the museum losses in Baghdad and hypothetical losses of equal scale in London. Imagine London bombed. The V&A trashed, the Tower of London and the Crown Jewels looted, the British Library complex on Euston Road burned (along with all those annoying old bits of paper like the original draft of Magna Carta, the Gutenberg Bible, and so on), the Natural History Museum used as a defensive fortification and shelled. (Goodbye, Apollo 10.) ...