In Case of Emergency, Dial 9/11

"9/11 changed everything" is the context by which everything follows. No speech about homeland security or Iraq should being without a reference to 9/11. -- GOP advisor Frank Luntz

President Bush had a 90 percent approval rating in the Gallup Poll conducted Sept. 21-22, 2001. He has 47 percent approval in the same poll today.

As the White House flounders for reasons to explain the record lows in the president's public support, perhaps they should consider the corrosive effect of their repeated attempts to play the 9/11 card whenever they get into political trouble.

Not far from Ground Zero, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove said that liberals wanted to "offer therapy and understanding" for the 9/11 attackers, insulting millions of Americans who supported the president in 2001, regardless of how we felt about the bitter recount battle that denied Gore the presidency.

Had a pollster called, I would have eagerly been counted among that 90 percent. Like many liberals, I supported the war to oust the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan. I would have supported the invasion of Iraq, had Saddam Hussein been complicit in the massacre of 2,996 people. I eagerly await the day Osama bin Laden pokes his head out of a mountain cave in remote Wherethehellistan and is greeted by a Daisy Cutter.

Now Bush's second-term agenda is in disarray: His plan to privatize Social Security is deader than Elvis, the news brings daily Gitmo allegations, and the Iraq insurgency shows no signs of getting weaker. The vice president tells Americans we'd be more confident in the war if we looked up throes in the dictionary.

So of course liberals are being told that we wanted to coddle the 9/11 attackers and are motivated by a desire to endanger our troops when we're not burning flags or pulling out feeding tubes at hospices. The White House criticizes our response to the savagery of 9/11 while remaining silent on the prospect of Bin Laden's capture, 1,383 days (and counting) after he murdered thousands of Americans.

As much as I want a positive outcome in Iraq, in spite of my opposition to the war, I can't see it happening under a White House more serious about fighting Democrats than terrorists.

Politics · 2005/06/24 · 7 COMMENTS · Link

Liveblogging Talk Radio

As the show broadcasts from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. weekdays, I post live links plugging the next hour. I wanted to see if the site's night owls would tune in and talk about it in real time.

On Monday, Colmes interviewed Cindy Sheehan, a mother who began Gold Star Families for Peace after her son died in Iraq. On the Retort, we discussed her desire for an impeachment inquiry, and I called such talk a fantasy.

Listen to the attached audio to see what Colmes did on the air less than two minutes after I posted the comment. I've included the entire nine-minute segment and a combative mother-vs-mother call Sheehan received later in the show.

Podcasts · Politics · Radio · 2005/06/22 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

The San Francisco Chronicle finds someone who claims to have been an Adidam devotee with Joan Felt:

... they had spent some wild times as devotees of onetime Marin County spiritual sect leader Da Free John, a.k.a. Bubba Free John, a.k.a. Dau Loloma, a.k.a. Da Love-Ananda, a.k.a. Franklin Jones.

Hales remembered Joan Felt talking freely about her association with Da Free John, the son of a Long Island window salesman who claimed to be an "incarnation of God" and whose nine wives included a Playboy centerfold.

"We had both been students of that cult and had left it," Hales said.

Journalism · Politics · 2005/06/21 · 1 COMMENT · Link

A domain geek weblog runs an interview with the guy who sold popebenedictxvi.com for $6,100:

The name was registered in February along with roughly 40 other possible pope names, the only variations that were missed were the names that Rogers Cadenhead registered, I'm still kicking myself for overlooking those variations.

The tone of the article makes "domaining," the term it uses to describe the practice of registering domains, sound like a quaint hobby akin to scrapbooking or quilting. But there aren't many hobbies that could net an $180,000 payday.

Domains · 2005/06/21 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

We've Got Kids in Harm's Way

I understand how dangerous it is there. I understand we've got kids in harm's way, and I worry about their families. And obviously, anytime there's a death, I grieve.

I can't think of a worse way for a president to restore flagging public support in a war than to describe our troops as children. The quote reminds me of Nineteen, the '80s pop song by Paul Hardcastle that declared the average age of combat troops in Vietnam was 19.

The average age of American casualties in Iraq is around 27, according to Drew Brown of Knight-Ridder.

Politics · 2005/06/21 · 13 COMMENTS · Link

Wikipedia's a Sticky Wicket

The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article on Wikipedia are disputed.

The Los Angeles Times gave up its wikitorial experiment after three days. Someone got their goat by adding one of the web's most infamous gross-out photos to the site.

Jeff Jarvis defends the honor of wikis, blaming the Times:

They didn't get that wikis are a collaborative medium where, even when people disagree, they try to find common ground, knowing there can be only one outcome, or else the wiki will, by its very nature, fail.

Look up any hot-button subject on Wikipedia, the most well-known and successful wiki, and you'll find a lot of contributors in the common ground, looking for a place to plant mines.

As an example, check out the entry on the mercury-based vaccine additive thimerosal and the ongoing nine-month flamewar among people removing each other's edits.

Any parent reading Wikipedia to learn about the suggested link between thimerosal and increased autism in children will be either reassured or alarmed, depending on who edited the page last. (Our highly recommended pediatrician in Jacksonville has signs declaring the practice "thimerosal-free.")

Here's how one of the warring thimerosal editors describes the work of another:

It falls into a pattern that is becoming all too familiar: he disputes everything he finds disagreeable as being false or biased; deletes whole sections if he disagrees with one word in it; asks for citations; disputes that the references provided are legitimate; deletes references if he feels there are too many; and then starts revert wars. On the thimerosal issue, I've repeatedly asked that if he's so confident that thimerosal is harmless that he wants to withhold information about the controversy, he should voluntarily inject himself with equivalent doses to what babies have gotten to prove his point.

Publishing · Parenting · Journalism · Wikipedia · 2005/06/21 · 5 COMMENTS · Link

They returned to their seats clutching their certificates of naturalization, government documents that declare in the poetry of bureaucracy one's bond to this land. Cherished pieces of paper, they say: I came from there, and now I am here.

The children were also clutching gift bags, courtesy of the mall. Along with those sacred certificates, they received a small teddy bear, a plastic cup, a noisemaker, free soap from one of the stores and two coupons. One coupon offered 20 percent off fashion accessories, and the other offered "hot" summer tank tops, two for $20, or four for $30.

Politics · 2005/06/19 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

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