I come from Florida, where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d’etat. We need to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. Over and over again after the election when you stole the election, you came back here and said get over it. No we’re not going to get over it and we want verification from the world.
US politics
The NYT finally apologises for their role in the war built-up
Better late then never, even if it’s somewhat weaselly. It’s “funny” to see how all those socalled reasonable people, quick to give Bush the benefit of the doubt were so very WRONG, yet even now are loath to admit it. I hope they’ve learned from it, but knowing the US media, probably not.
Over the last few months, this page has repeatedly demanded that President Bush acknowledge the mistakes his administration made when it came to the war in Iraq, particularly its role in misleading the American people about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and links with Al Qaeda. If we want Mr. Bush to be candid about his mistakes, we should be equally open about our own.
During the run-up to the war, The Times ran dozens of editorials on Iraq, and our insistence that any invasion be backed by “broad international support” became a kind of mantra. It was the administration’s failure to get that kind of consensus that ultimately led us to oppose the war.
But we agreed with the president on one critical point: that Saddam Hussein was concealing a large weapons program that could pose a threat to the United States or its allies. We repeatedly urged the United Nations Security Council to join with Mr. Bush and force Iraq to disarm.
As we’ve noted in several editorials since the fall of Baghdad, we were wrong about the weapons. And we should have been more aggressive in helping our readers understand that there was always a possibility that no large stockpiles existed.
Liberal critiques of Michael Moore
The eXile has the story:
This is pretty much the range of Left-intellectual criticism: hate him because he’s fat, aggressive, or, if you have to admit he’s good, then qualify that with lies about his ineffectiveness, which is exactly what he isn’t. This backstabbing Vichy Left attack on Michael Moore is exactly the reaction predicted in the eXile’s May 3, 2003 issue, when Dr. Dolan quoted Eileen Jones of Chapman College’s Film Department: “We’re going to see many, many reasons to repudiate Michael Moore in the coming months. He’s too bold, too outspoken, too smart, too effective — he really hits a nerve. And Lefties can’t handle it. He isn’t a statue of a long-dead Lefty saint, so he must be neutralized! Just wait’ll his next movie comes out, which is going to be a merciless, feature-length drawing-and-quartering of George W. Bush. Then we’ll see some fast and furious repudiations, lemme tell ya!” Folks, you’re supposed to prove our predictions wrong – you’re supposed to make us look like fools, not make yourselves look like predictable single-celled Left-organisms.
It has puzzled me for a long time that supposedly leftwing or liberal people would hate Michael Moore so. It’s no surprise rightwingers hate him, nor is it a surprise that socalled moderates profess to do so, desperate for a bit of rightwing credit, but why would genuine leftists or liberals do so?
Part of it must be the influence of rightwing propaganda: if every day you hear or read how big a liar Moore is, how sloppy with facts and how malicious he is, you might end up believing it yourself. Certainly that happened to me, until I saw Bowling for Columbine myself and realised the critics were all wet.
But as the eXile article in their nuanced way points out, part of it surely is jealousy. There is a liberal establishment in this country which is downright uncomfortable with anybody who threatens to upset the status quo. We saw that with Howard Dean who, if not that leftist, was at least aggressive and the
way he was treated by the Democratic Party’s powers that be. If you have a nice cosy job at a university somewhere, or working in some capacity in washington, no wonder if the very real problems America faces seem to be somewhat less than serious and anyone who draws attnetion to them seems somewhat hysterical…
Fairly unbalanced
Over at the American Street, Doug McDaniel makes swift work of Fox News’ claims about “New York Times ambushing” them:
Fox’s argument doesn’t hold water. You as a reporter do not owe Fox weeks and weeks to give you “their side of the story” in order to be fair and balanced. That is not the basis for objective journalism. You must, however, make sure that you have a documentary record (letters, memos, etc) or multiple human sources for claims made. You only have to be able to back up what you are saying. This whole concept of “equal time” which appears to be some twisted manifestation of political “equal time” just does not hold water.
The rise of hate crime
David Neiwert explains why hate crimes are on the rise again in the USA:
— The country is being led by a cadre of thoughtless fearmongers who do not hesitate to wave the bloody shirt of terrorism to silence their critics and stigmatize anyone who acts “different.” The harmful effects of this behavior from our leadership on the general populace is incalculable.
— A particularly shallow brand of patriotism — replete with jingoist sentiments, hatred of The Other, and a hollow symbolism — has been promoted in every possible avenue, from national television broadcasts to the corner drugstore. This kind of thoughtless “Americanism” is an important feature of many hate crimes (including the one Death on the Fourth of July focuses upon) and plays a significant role in forumulating the motivations for this violence.
— Most of all, a fog of intolerance has filtered across the national landscape over the past decade, thanks mostly to right-wing propagandists with massive popular reach: Rush Limbaugh, Michael Weiner (aka Savage), Dr. Laura, Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and the whole phalanx of their imitators. The thrust of the modern conservative movement has morphed from any sense of real conservative values into a relentless attack on the very notion of tolerance for anyone who is not part of that movement: liberals, gays and lesbians, other faiths, other colors.