Into the Abyss
(Still working on blog optimization issues)
As recently as one week ago I got into a heated argument with some people I know who still cannot believe – who won’t believe—that this administration has crashed. So pathetic, so impotent, so fearful and downright paranoid has become much of the American left that it cannot yet bring itself to comprehend that the Bush White House is going down in ignominy.
The only remaining question is: just how much of a political catastrophe is George W. Bush facing? Is it going to be a mere Category Five, Katrina-like debacle? Or are we looking at a full-blown Watergate-class political holocaust?
That’s the debate. That’s the suspense. There is no going back.
There is only a possibility of slowly sliding into oblivion or, conversely, roaring right over the cliff. Is Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald merely going to drill hole in the White House boat? Or is he going to dive-bomb it? Just ask Pat Buchanan, one of Watergate’s front row observers:
“…My guess is that there are multiple indictments coming, for lying to investigators, perjury, obstruction of justice, and disclosure of national security secrets for political purposes. And maybe conspiracy…”
Liberal lawyer Jeralyn Merritt at Talk Left argues that about the best that the Bushies can hope for is Rove and Libby volunteering to sacrifice themselves by immediately pleading out expected charges in the slim hope the scandal will soon blow over:
“…Reading between the lines from a legal standpoint, here’s how I interpret this, and remember, it’s just speculation: Fitzgerald is done. All that’s left are the pre-indictment plea deals. He’s previously made deals with John Hannah and David Wurmser. Now he’s offered them to Rove and Libby. As I’ve said before, it’s their "come to Jesus moment." I suspect both will accept the best deals their lawyers can negotiate. Rove will fall on his sword to protect Bush, and Libby will fall on his to protect Cheney…”
Perhaps. But with gas at $3 bucks a gallon, the war in Iraq stalled out, with Tom Delay’s mug shot making the rounds, a Rove-Libby copped plea isn’t likely to extinguish the flames of discontent.
And there are much darker scenarios out there for this crew. Chris Matthews spelled it out quite clearly on Hardball Friday night. Drawing from the fragmentary sources now publicly emerging, Matthews speculates that Fitzgerald may have broadly widened his probe. He might be looking at an organized vendetta by Cheney’s office to discredit Joe Wilson, beginning months before the infamous July 2003 Bob Novak column appeared.
Fitzgerald might be so bold, said Matthews, that the criminal charges he will bring could include the administration’s use of knowingly fraudulent WMD “evidence” to secure congressional approval of the war in Iraq.
Matthews might be all wet. But if he’s right, this is the holocaust scenario. A sleeper, slow-simmer scandal building into an inferno that consumes its principals. Says Mathews:
"What did the vice president and his people do, faced with the hot seat that they were sitting on, that they had somehow gotten accused of taking us into war under false pretenses. That’s the environment in which this whole thing may have been hatched. If there was law-breaking, it came out of the vice president and his people’s determination to protect themselves against the charge that they led us into a corrupt war, a war based on false pretenses.
That’s how hot this thing is.
If there are indictments, they’re going to be probably in the vice president’s office, they’re probably going to come next week and they are going to blow this White House apart.
It’s going to be unbelievable."
You bet. Even if Rove-Libby plead it out next week, this final chapter in the history of the George W. Bush administration is just beginning. Get ready for the parade of former insiders scurrying to abandon their Great Leader and spilling what beans are left.
October 21st, 2005 at 8:54 pm
Marc, I don’t think it’s fear and paranoia. I know how badly the Bush administration’s fucked up, but I’m also extremely _pessimistic_ that they’ll have to face anything for it.
A Nixonian _gotterdammerung_ would be awful nice. I’m hoping to see the Republicans disgraced even _more_, so badly that they don’t regain even a _large_ minority for the next hundred years. But I can easily imagine all of the Bush scandals given a pass; it’s so unpleasant, the country’s got too many troubles, we don’t want to seem partisan or vindictive, we just had that ugliness over Clinton…
But it’s not fear or paranoia. It’s just pessimism.
October 21st, 2005 at 8:59 pm
Well, Brian, what does that mean? Let’s say they’re given a “pass” as you say, so what? The issue is hardly whether or not an individual or two –even Rove or Libby– get pinched or go to jail. Instead, the issue is politics. Politically, the Bush admin is already dead. It just doesnt get much worse than this. The silience, the vacuum in terms of an alternative, an opposition is deafening, mind-boggling. We have no politics in this country. A dead administration. A brain-dead opposition. Lord, have pity on the rest of us/.
October 21st, 2005 at 10:29 pm
OT – I am happy……..
The comment font is now the perfect size and I can read with great comfort. Thanks!
Still waiting to be able to see the left side of the web page, know that too must be coming shortly – but for now this is good and will be able to read with great pleasure the comment sections………..overall new website is very nice!
October 21st, 2005 at 10:32 pm
Marc, every time you raise this issue almost all of the leftist bloggers go on to debate you about whether or not the right is really imploding–and they will continue to do so even as Rove and Libby are led off in handcuffs! So let me get in early and say this: What is the left opposition’s plan for America? The left is far more comfortable attacking the right than coming up with its own visions, and this has been true since at least the Reagan election of 1980 when all of this paranoia started, perhaps with some good reason then. Even during the Clinton administration, the Democrats were given a free ride to do basically nothing for the country. The health care disaster is a good example: Where was the grass roots movement to make universal health care work, one of the biggest issues facing the country?
So again, let’s just pretend that Marc is right about this for a moment and ask what we do if he is. Elect Hillary Clinton? We’ve been there before.
October 22nd, 2005 at 12:35 am
Well, I’m not worried. Uncharacteristically of him, Marc has fallen into the style of the leftist media, which presents situations of the Republicans in the very worst light with the added features of overreacting and substituting predictions of doom for complete and accurate facts. He’s playing to the audience.
The “horrible” Republican trials are for the most part trumped up minor charges by the Democrats blown out of proportion, market forces not controlled by the president, and natural disasters–for which the left likes to think that Bush caused. When all is said and done and the facts come out, the Republicans will weather these problems and will still run the country.
The liberals become apopletic and just about wet their pants and slobber all over themselves when they read predictions of the fall of Republicans– which won’t occur. They get even more excited when a common critic of the left, like Marc, rides into their camp.
The Democrats have no new ideas and the Republicans still control the Presidency and both houses of Congress. Does anyone really think that will change from these concerns raised? The Democrats have to do something themselves–something positive, but they won’t; and, the Democrats have their share of scandals and problems which can hurt them just as badly.
The left is like a football team that is three scores behind with two minutes left in the game and it’s figuring that maybe, just maybe, if it gets an onsides kick, if the other side fumbles, if it gets a break from the officials, and if all of its plays work perfectly for touchdowns–they could win. However, they have a deranged coach, no quarterback, players running in all directions, and only a handful of plays that everyone has seen and that fool no one. When the game is over, they’ll hit the showers as losers again and try again next week without making changes.
It’s ironic that the left calls George Bush stupid. When I consider how they think and react, I have to think, “How stupid can they get?” Believe me, I’m not worried.
October 22nd, 2005 at 12:49 am
Woody: What happened? Did u join the Democrat Denial Club? I dont care if what u call minor charges are trumped up, invented or fabricated. Politics is ONLY about perception. Currently, it isnt Marc Cooper but it’s 70% of voters who say the country is on the wrong track; about the same number say that Bush’s leadership on Iraq is ou of whack. Two out of three think the war wasnt worth it. It’s a Republican/conservative revolt Bush faces over Miers, not a liberal Democratic one. His social security/domestic agenda is absolutely dead. The Senate voted against him on the torture bill. And you may think it trivial but, really, some people actually are concerned when their House Majority Leader gets arrested. Finally, your boy’s got about a 35% favorability rating. NONE OF THAT IS MY DOING WOODY. Those are what Ariel Sharon means when he says “facts on the ground.”
Does that mean that the GOP is dead? No.
Does that mean that a Republican might not be elected in 2008? No.
Does that mean necessarily that the Democrats will take back one or both of the houses in 2006? Hardly. What it means is that the Bush administration is in uber-crisis, paralyzed, discredited and unpopular. If you deny that, then you better hope the Dems win next year because you are psychologically ready to join a party in constant denial.
October 22nd, 2005 at 1:42 am
It almost seems to good to be true, but this may be the undoing of this administration. I am cautiously optimistic – because, who knows…this adminstration was floundering in 2001 and 9/11 revived them, and damn – those terrorists seem to have good timing for this team.
Maybe another type of catastrophe will take place, where they prove themselves up to the task – but that might not even save them. Outside of that, this may be the begginning of the end for them.
October 22nd, 2005 at 2:35 am
Okay, I’m going to jump in again: The beginning of the end for them, and the beginning of what for the rest of us? A chance to elect Democrats to office? On what platforms, on what programs? Or is having a Democratic administration some sort of end in itself, because is salves progressive consciences.
October 22nd, 2005 at 2:36 am
Well, I guess I’m not really part of the left, so you’re not talking about me, but all I want right now is competent, wise, non-ideological government that makes the best decisions it can on the basis of empirical evidence.
I’m sure it doesn’t sound all that inspiring, but all the dems need to do to get my support is promise me that.
October 22nd, 2005 at 5:18 am
Woody: “What ? Me worry ?”
I think I’ve read that somewhere before…
October 22nd, 2005 at 5:28 am
Well Marc I’m going to shock you by agreeing with you completely. I used to think that we might get one or two indictments that would be bad and turn Bush into a lame duck but now I think its more serious.
The outing of Valerie Plsmr now seems to me to be the “Third Rate Burglary” that serves as the instrument of the administration’s undoing. We have a relentless prosecutor (and a pro not a political zealot like Starr) and, perhaps more important, an aroused media that is all over this story now with visions of Pulitzers dancing in their heads as well as the chance to be the new “Woodstein”,.
I think it possible that Fitzgerald will indict half a dozen or more people and possibly the list will include John Bolton and the VP. And the possibilty that he will name Bush an “unidicted coconspirator” is not out of the question. Then the fun really negins. Will he then send the evidence to the House Judiciary Committee , ala Leon Jaworsky, where Chairman Sensenbrenner will treat it like a very large dead rat. No Bill of Impeachment will get out of this Congress but watch for the bloodbath as the Dems run on a platform of ending the “Culture of Corruption} in Washington.
I’ve heard some suggest that Bush will fire Fitzgerald and pardon everyone like daddy did in Iran-Contra. Well this would make the “Saturday Night Massacre” look small. It would tear the country apart and would only satisfy the wingnit core of the GOP. How would you like to be a Republican Senator from any place outside the deep South and running for reelection in that case. Could even Diebold save them?
In short let the fun begin!
October 22nd, 2005 at 5:35 am
Woody is correct, this is a tempest in a teapot.
Marc is also correct, politics is perception, but perceptions change daily with the headlines. Granted that the MSM generate the vast majority of the headlines.
The Clinton Administration was pretty much in the same boat in ’94, albeit with different circumstances, and they survived and prospered. Will the Bush Admin do the same? Who the hell knows. I’m not happy with the current leadership on Miers, on spending, on lot’s of things, but I don’t have a vested interest in watching a melt down, Marc, reg and others do.
October 22nd, 2005 at 6:07 am
“I don’t have a vested interest in watching a melt down, Marc, reg and others do.”
Blame us – not yourself for shilling for this cabal! That’s all you’ve got left.
October 22nd, 2005 at 6:30 am
Even though there are those who still think Watergate was a partisan-driven tempest in a teapot, and there are certainly republicans who think the Plame investigation is nothing short of the same, the fact is that republicans drove whitewater/impeachment and it was a dem congress that drove Iran-Contra. I will admit that I see no real evidence of this, but maybe, just maybe the dems are now deliberately silent for the simple reason that the Bush admin is spinning into oblivion all on its own. They couldn’t drive it any faster or deeper even if they tried. Their silence on so many other issues is plenty disturbing to be sure, but the real test of the party is what happens if a storm of indictments does occur.
October 22nd, 2005 at 6:44 am
See the wingers squeal! You know they’re worried. Still, to be fair, go over to WHISKY BAR and read Billmon’s cautionary words on not getting overexcited. They come from no less an expert on Presidential meltdowns than John Dean. Billmon disagrees but notes that Dean has a good track record and his views have to be taken seriously.
On a related theme of the rats leaving I understand that the NEW YORKER will feature an article in which Brent Scowcroft is scathing in his criticism of GWB’s Foreign Policy. Last week Wilkerson. Who is next? Jim Baker?
October 22nd, 2005 at 6:50 am
Oh and I keep hearing the Democrats are silent with no ideas. Watch CSPAN folks! Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean and Dick Durbin, to name three well known memebers, say plenty but like the tree in forest if the MSM don’t cover it its not news. Now maybe if they got Katie Holmes preggers . . .
October 22nd, 2005 at 6:57 am
From UPI, 10/21, more eruptions from those among us who apparently have a vested interest in promoting a meltdown of the current Beltway Regime…more leftish carpers and complainers like Brent Scrowcroft, Larry Wilkerson and, uh, Dubya’s Dad:
“The Bush administration is bracing for a powerful new attack by Brent Scowcroft, the respected national security adviser to the first President George Bush.
A Republican and a former Air Force general, Scowcroft is a leading member of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment, and his critique of both of the style and the substance of the Bush White House, is slated to appear in Monday’s editions of the New Yorker magazine.
The article also contains some critical comments on the handling of U.S. foreign policy by the current President Bush from his father, whose 1989-1993 presidency is hailed for deft management of the end of the Cold War, German unification, the first Gulf war and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The new attack comes hard on the heels of the denunciation of ‘the cabal around Cheney’s office’ by Col. Larry Wilkerson, the chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell in a widely reported speech to the New American Foundation in Washington this week. Wilkerson said the national security decision-making process was effectively ‘broken.’
Scowcroft’s criticisms will be taken seriously at the highest levels of the Bush administration because he is seen as a mentor by some of its senior figures, notably Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose political career began when she worked under Scowcroft as an adviser on Soviet affairs.
The attack also comes as President Bush’s opinion poll approval ratings have sunk to around 37 percent, partly reflecting the ill-handled federal government response to Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of the Gulf coast. But majorities of Americans are also telling pollsters the country ‘is on the wrong track’ and saying the Iraq war was a mistake. “
October 22nd, 2005 at 7:02 am
It can turn a dime.
Florida will withstand Cat. 3/4 Hurricane ablely and competently.
The Miers nomination will be pulled and Luttig nominated in her place passifying the rabid conservative elites.
The Delay indictments will flounder because of the dubious tactics of Ronnie Earle.
The indictments against Libby and underlings for mishandling of classified materials are
adjudicated in the same manner as the penalty and fines administered to Sandy Berger. Libby will walk the plank for the WH.(Behind the scenes, it’s the CIA who will fold. If a nefarious WH was able to manipulate intelligence data, it’s because they had nothing. The CIA has been a collosal waste of funds.)
Iraq will move steadily towards Parliamentary elections in mid-December. The drawn down of troops will be begin at a small, steady increments.
All the same, the White House will not pull itself out of its nose-dive unless it moves against “the bridges to nowhere.” The inability to reign in spending on frivolous projects greatly annoys the American public. Unfortunately, the Democrats are unable to capitalize on this because they absolutely adore those bike paths and sculpture parks.
(where’s preview?)
October 22nd, 2005 at 7:21 am
The reality is that this entire Plame indictment threat could disappear and the Bush administration will still be in the throes of terrible problems it has created for itself by virtue of it’s own blindered ideology, corruption, cronyism and incompetence. I would say that Plamegate – even in the unlikely event that it turns into the “Nadagate” that the NYT’s con-hack John Tierney fancies – is less “tempest in a teapot” than another rather sizeable teapot being flung around the Bushniks heads as they duck and dodge their way through a rather virulent and persistent tempest – or string of tempests – mostly of their own making.
To put the present situation in proper perspective, remind yourselves that 9/11 was a terrible tragedy for this country, but it was also a moment that held great possiblities for us coming together. George W. Bush and his cronies recklessly squandered that opportunity and have ripped the country apart and substantially weakened us through their relentless partisan zealotry, serial dishonesty, aggressively inept policies and mis-management both at home and abroad. Very sad state of affairs…
October 22nd, 2005 at 8:11 am
An interesting parallel to what Marc denotes as the eerie vacuum from the supposed opposition Democrats is playing out in New York where you have a Republican mayor purchasing his next term in office from his billion-dollar personal fortune while the Democratic candidate seems to think that raising class issues would be in bad taste. And this in a city with a huge Democratic advantage.
The lines of attack against these disgusting, scumbag, overgrown fratboys are so obvious that I don’t see the need to reiterate them. But the fact that Democratic leadership is too intimidated to mount it suggests to me that they are expecting power to fall into their lap by default. The result if this does occur, I believe, will be a furtherance of the Republican program by friendlier if somewhat oilier types, who will be given a ‘pass’ by many of the people now howling in outrage.
October 22nd, 2005 at 8:25 am
I love to see indictments of Royalty from Rome. Indictments provide us at least a little stick to fight against the baseball bat abuse of power and position of the entrenched in Washington.
Look guys, why make this partisan. One side will wring their hands with glee when the indictments are coming down on the other, but they always come regardless of which party, of the two choices we have, are in majority at the time. Have we ever had an administration without at least one?
We need much more turnover in Washington. More than 90% are returned to office every two years, with many being lifers. Their priority interest is not our interest. It is accumulating enough money and dispensing enough pork in a two year period to keep their job. They work most bipartisantly when making laws or setting rules intended for this result.
Our gov’t is sick with the self-interest of getting reelected and the corruption of money it takes to do that. The catch-22 for us, who pay for their salary, perks, and pork only get to lobby them once every two year. I want more indictments because it is the only tool we have against them right now, but it is no where near a cure for the cancer.
October 22nd, 2005 at 10:16 am
reg wrote: “‘What ? Me worry ?’ I think I’ve read that somewhere before…”
Finally, I know what reg reads and the source of his wisdom! For a while, I thought it was the morning farm and market report covering pork and manure. (Hey, just kidding, reg.)
——————–
Marc, I’m not in denial. It’s just that perceptions and reality are very different. (In fact, you suggested that.) Polls and favorability ratings don’t define the reality. Generally, most people just parrot the “wisdom” and beliefs that they are fed, typically by the media. I guarantee the majority of people in those polls can’t name their representatives and senators. Should the course of this country be steered based upon what a herd of uninformed morons say?
I don’t agree that politics is ONLY about perceptions but, to give that point to you, politics is about perceptions at election time. The Democrats have their constant attack programs going on through CNN, CBS, etc. When it counts, the Republicans will counter with their own marketing and make sure that the public has all the facts–not just the distorted ones proffered by the Democrats. Then, they won’t be Democratic morons any longer but will be Republican voters.
Really, this is much ado about nothing. It will blow over.
October 22nd, 2005 at 10:55 am
Here’s one thing I don’t understand. As a Democrat, I had a lot of problems with Clinton, and Lewinskygate made me give up on him for good. Even though I despised Starr, I thought Clinton deserved every shot he took. And from what I’ve read, people like Marc Cooper were no less ready to rip Clinton for his actions. So, Roper and Woody, maybe it’s time for you to suck it up, act like honest men, and stop prioritizing politics over truth-seeking. If there were ever a chance to move forward and come together with other people you don’t normally agree with, it’s now.
October 22nd, 2005 at 11:12 am
Marc,
I have to agree with a lot of what Andrew says.
As for Woody, well whether it’s saying that “the AIDS virus can penetrate the skin of condoms”, consistently citing sources like Newsmax to back up his arguments or simply refuting arguments by offering John Cleese-esque contradiction, Woody isn’t in denial: he’s just fabricating his own reality.
October 22nd, 2005 at 11:40 am
Actually, Woody, I have been reading a lot recently about pork and manure and here’s an interesting chart that the communist bastards over at Club for Growth came up with on what happens when you put Republicans in control of federal spending:
Number of Pork Projects in Federal Spending Bills
2005 – 13,997
2004 – 10,656
2003 – 9,362
2002 – 8,341
2001 – 6,333
2000 – 4,326
1999 – 2,838
1998 – 2,100
1997 – 1,596
1996 – 958
1995 – 1,439
That looks something like a 1000% increase in federal pork under a GOP controlled Congress, and no end in sight with Republicans controlling Congress, Senate and the White House. The hypocrisy meter is screaming in the red. Can’t we at least rely on conservatives to do the one thing they’re supposedly good at – balance a damned budget. We could forgive the fact that your guys have always hated Social Security, fought civil rights, condone torture, allow corporate crooks (also known as “The Base”) to run amok, put your crazy uncles who’ve been living in the basement of some Beltway “think tank” in charge of key foreign policy decisions, try to get a lifetime job for your Aunt Harriet that she can’t get fired from to keep her occupied in her Golden Years, get us into messy foriegn wars we can’t get out of, never pass up an opportunity for a giveaway to an oil company and call this “energy policy”, consider smear tactics and funny fundraising “politics as usual”, whine when you get caught, bow down to Midwestern Mullahs and Redneck Ayatollahs, claim that Global Warming isn’t based on science but Creationism is, and refuse to tax the kinds of income that you don’t actually have to work to earn…but could you please not run us into the biggest deficits in history while you’re having all of that fun. Barry Goldwater would sure as hell be ashamed of the folks who call themselves “conservative” these days…all con and no conscience.
October 22nd, 2005 at 11:50 am
Reg…. Now THAT was a hot paragraph!
October 22nd, 2005 at 11:51 am
Andrew: “So, Roper and Woody, maybe it’s time for you to suck it up, act like honest men, and stop prioritizing politics over truth-seeking.”
Hey Andrew, I have plenty of problems with republicans, I blog about it, but you are dead wrong. You democrats are truly salivating over something that I do not honestly believe is either a crime (the Plame thing) or that the bush presidency is going to crater. Those in denial that they both salivate and have mental orgasms over what “might” happen and describe it as current fact are folk like Mark (A.), reg, Randy, Virgil and Richard. So take your implied belief that Woody and I are intrinsically dishonest and shove it.
Oh, and by the way Andrew, I believe that it is you guys that are “prioritizing politics over truth-seeking.”
October 22nd, 2005 at 11:56 am
reg is so ideological that he tends to (compelled to?) paint all who oppose him with a mile wide broad brush (reg, you really ought to get treatment for that)
But as it happens I agree with with him regarding pork and have lambasted congress (both parties) for it for a long time and will continue to do so.
October 22nd, 2005 at 1:06 pm
Here Rope-a-dope right back at you and woody riding on your swayback mare.
Republicans are so crooked they have to be screwed into the ground when they finally die. The good news for them is the folks who vote for them are so naive they don’t know it. Cluelessness or money=GOP vote. Stupoid sheep.
They’re always indicted for substantial legal infractions. The Dems charges are always trumped up propaganda, so the two are not equal.
Democratic ideas are far superior. It’s about ideas. Keep saying they have none, won’t make it a true statement.
October 22nd, 2005 at 1:31 pm
Mark, you’d be semi-rational if you weren’t so ideologically compromised. Wisdom and Punditry indeed!!
October 22nd, 2005 at 1:32 pm
GMR – I know that you don’t try to paper over the cracks quite as relentlessly as some and that there are some areas – probably more than have been discussed – where we agree. I’m no polemical Michaelangelo, so yes, I do use a broad brush…but it’s only about a foot-and-a-half wide.
October 22nd, 2005 at 1:35 pm
Also GMR, my mental orgasms have absolutely nothing to do with Karl Rove, thank you very much.
October 22nd, 2005 at 1:46 pm
well said reg, well said.
October 22nd, 2005 at 1:53 pm
Since we’re making nice, I’ll concede some drooling, but I don’t see the harm in that.
October 22nd, 2005 at 1:54 pm
Mark A. York:
Hmm, the issue being “Honesty” one would assume. This is from Mark A. York’s blog:
Of course, Marky is implying that his school was so tough almost everyone flunks out… but Marky graduated so he must be smart.
Unfortunately Marky, the CSUN folk have a taskforce on low graduation rates at that school, it tells a whole different story and you been busted.
Marky ain’t on the level folks
October 22nd, 2005 at 1:54 pm
http://www.csun.edu/academic.affairs/grtf/stu_survey.htm
October 22nd, 2005 at 1:58 pm
http://www.csun.edu/academic.affairs/grtf/grssfreport.htm
October 22nd, 2005 at 1:59 pm
Hey wait a minute, GM… CSUN was smart enough a school to have me booted out of the entire state educational system for five years (back in 1971)! I owe my entire career to those fine folks! Without that explusion I probably would have stayed in school and become a Jew for Jesus, or a Young Republican, or a Harvard MBA candidate, God Forbid!
Instead, CSUN thrust me at age 20 direct into the marketplace and made me a Marxist!
October 22nd, 2005 at 2:21 pm
I want to add one other point to the “Plamegate” issue, in the light of GMR’s notion that it’s not about much. I would have to agree that if one isolates this incident to whether or not Karl Rove and Scooter Libby tried to convince Robert Novak and a few others that Wilson’s wife had somehow plotted to send her husband to Niger, it seems like a narrow investigation. But the problem isn’t just some dirty tricks or incidental end runs around the responsibilities that come along with a security clearance. It’s a window into the much larger question of who manipulated intelligence to drag us into war and how far they went. I’m not about to debate that in this comment, but that’s what this is about and there’s no getting around the fact that “Plamegate” is a rather large window into something that they’ve tried to cover up. Just as a “third-rate burglary” was a window into the pathologies of the Nixon admnisitration, a window is now opening into the pathologies of the Bush administration. This is about shining more light on just how the Iraq war was sold to the American people. That’s no small thing, especially when nearly two-thirds of them have come to the conclusion that we should never have gone in there in the first place. And in my gut I believe that the drama is just beginning…
October 22nd, 2005 at 2:40 pm
“So take your implied belief that Woody and I are intrinsically dishonest and shove it.”
Looks like I hit a nerve there, Roper. But no, I’m not going to follow your lead and descend into childish antics (“shove it”). But you’ve yet to respond to my point: truth over politics. I did it with Clinton–can you do it with Bush? If not, well, then I’m not the one who needs to look in GM Roper’s mirror. Good luck.
October 22nd, 2005 at 2:40 pm
“CSUN thrust me at age 20 direct into the marketplace and made me a Marxist!”
Didn’t Socrates or someone say that the unironic life is not worth living…
October 22nd, 2005 at 2:51 pm
Hey GM.. I have no “vested interest” in watching these guys go down. I have none because I feel no part of any imaginary opposition to them. What I have is rather a sense of amusement to watch these arrogant twits get what they deserve. Their immeasurable hubris, their bottomless cockiness combinbed with their general incompetence, their excessive reliance on ideology, and -fundamentally– their lack of any visible compassion for those less fortunate than their crooked country-club financial sponsors conspire to demand a fiery climax. That they have set themselves aflame, that they are consuming themselves totally of their own doing, makes the spectacle even more satisfying.
so yes… this is time for the Conservate Gut Check. I have handed it out here pretty regularly against la-la Democrats living in denial. But now GM, it is — as was said in the post– Come To Jesus time for your side. Either you be mature and serious and stop making excuses and understand that GW fucked up big time and that he is now both truly unpopular and clueless OR risk facing the same future as the wandering Democrats. Blaming CBS and CNN for duping the populace with Democrat propaganda is about as silly as the Democrats blaming their own miserable impotence on Fox News.
Write down the date and time and keep it for future reference: I absolutely guarantee you todat after 30 years of reporting on politics, this administration CANNOT politically recover. That’s impossible. It would only recover –maybe– if there was a military attack on the mainland and that is something neither one of us want or would hope for.
By the way Clinton never recovered either. Gingrich overplayed his hand and went down in flames, but whatever susbtantial promise that Clinton held dissipated after the first year. He broke his opwn party in 94 with NAFTA and went on to triangualte his own congress. He was re-elected in 1996 because the idiot Republicans ran the only candidate worse than John kerry. But it was precisely the collapsed perception of Clinton and the Democrats around him that allowed GW Bush to win the five votes on the Supreme Court he needed in 2000. The Democrats collapsed. Bush limped in. 9/11 inflated him as it would any president. Now he will limp back out. Pathetic.
October 22nd, 2005 at 3:02 pm
Andrew:
Actually Andrew, the nerve you hit was very tiny, but it was the result of multiple cumulative attacks. For that, I apologize. However, so far two things are in play, your assertion that you “did it with Clinton” (being honest about his malfeasence etc.) and that you did it at the time. Both are essentially non-provable.
I may be very wrong about Bush and Company, hell, I’ve been wrong before. And if I am, I’ll stand up and say that I am. I am not convinced however that this is the case. I will say that I am disappointed with the Miers fiasco, if we were going to have a political brouhaha over a judge nominee, at least it should have been a strong sitting judge, then we could have tested the nuclear button at least on the filibuster issue.
No Andrew, you aren’t correct in my opinion, though events may prove me wrong.
October 22nd, 2005 at 3:57 pm
No Marc, it was the hectoring of the oh so fastidious media that found lying about blowjobs just too much to take – oh the humanity! What do we tell the children? And the moralizing of the likes of Sally Quinn and the rants of MoDo (now doing penance in the NYT by savaging Judy). All of the other so-called scandals were bullshit as Gene Lyons and Joe Conason demonstrated. And of course as Ken, the right Reverend, Starr showed in his final report. No one read that of course as they were getting to the hot parts about Monica.
No Clinton was more popular than Reagan when he left office and, more important, his policies enjoyed widespread support in the polling data. Something Reagan could never say. And the 2000 election? Read Dighby, read sommerby, read Eric Alterman or Mark Crispin Miller. The relentless attacks and ridicule of Gore by the MSM had more than a little to do with it. But that is water under the bridge. We’ll never see eye to eye on that.
But now the barnyard fowl are roosting and a lot of people realize just what a corrupt disaster these guys are. And the old hands are all getting their shots in. Go to Steve Clemons on WASHINGTON NOTE and see just how disgusted people Like Colin Powell and Brent Scowcroft are with Condi and Rummy. Of course they couldn’t bring themselves to resign in protest. That isn’t done these days.
I don’t know how deep this will go but we now are entering an interregnum. Bush is way beyond lame duckery and there is no way to remove him and get a sane, let alone, competent government. So all those worried about Imperial America should start worrying about a rudderless government for three years. Kind of reminds me of two other adminstrations. James Buchanan and Herbert Hoover. And we all know how well those ended!
October 22nd, 2005 at 5:25 pm
Nice survey there Roper. The graduation rate when you factor in the total enrollment of folks who tried to graduate is less than 12 percent after six years.
In the Cal State system, the country’s largest, CSUN has the lowest graduation rate of all the campuses. Naturally I was hyperbolizing to a certain extent for comedic effect, but no one will refute the low grad rate at CSUN, except for a Texan. They’re just that foolish by nature.
October 22nd, 2005 at 6:24 pm
Hyperbolizing? Comedic effect? ROFL… anyone reading your entry on your blog knows that for the bullshit it is. Mark, you got some serious problems boy, and me living in Texas has nothing to do with it-oh, and by the way, I’m not a Texan, I was born elsewhere and moved here.
October 22nd, 2005 at 6:26 pm
reg: “That looks something like a 1000% increase in federal pork under a GOP controlled Congress….”
Who defined pork? To Democrats, pork is money for national defense and money for school vouchers. Pork to me is all the federal give-away programs that the Democrats have systematically added since the Great Society going forward for the purpose of using federal tax money to buy votes for themselves. That’s where the pork exists.
————–
reg: “Can’t we at least rely on conservatives to do the one thing they’re supposedly good at – balance a damned budget.”
If the left admires that, then why does it fight any efforts to cut spending? Bush proposes a 5% increase in a program, and the Democrats propose a 10% increase and scream that Bush is CUTTING the program. A 5% increase in not a cut. I criticize Bush myself for giving in rather than standing up to the spend, spend, spend Democrats. The Democrats want big government and high taxes. They think that the money that people earn belongs to the government and that the government allows the workers to keep some. The money belongs to the workers first–not the other way around.
——————
Reg: “We could forgive the fact that your guys have always hated Social Security….”
Hate Social Securiy? Maybe the Republicans demand accountability and a program that is fiscally responsible. They want to make it work, and the Democrats say it’s fine. What a lie. Roosevelt created a program that would put corporate executives in jail if they funded a retirement plan like that.
—————
reg: “fought civil rights….”
Get your facts right. If it hadn’t been for the Republicans, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would have failed. And, don’t tell me that the “Southern Democrats” of the past are the Republicans of today. They’re not. I was involved and spent a lot of my time to get rid of Bull Conner (a Democrat) and his buddies and to replace him and other racist commissioners with Republicans who would lead rather than keep a city and state in the dark ages. As much as you know, reg, you don’t know half of what I do about that period and those issues and the ideals of the Republicans who replaced the segregationist Democrats. I lived it and lived with the consequences of the Democrats. The area still suffers from them.
——————–
reg: “condone torture…”
Don’t be stupid
——————
reg: “allow corporate crooks (also known as “The Baseâ€) to run amok….”
It seems to me that ENRON was happening under Clinton. Maybe you prefer labor unions run amok with corruption and stealing the dues of the members.
————-
reg: “(the rest of what you say)
Typical malarky. I’m not going to take more space to show how much nonsense the comments represent, but they are consistent with those of the left–lacking in facts and failing to pass honesty tests.
—————-
You mention that Goldwater would be ashamed of the conservatives. I can’t think of any Democrats who would be ashamed of the liberals, because the Democrats never had any principles or consciences.
===============
To Marc & others regarding “coming clean.”
I’m not being dishonest or closing my eyes to situations with the Republicans. I don’t live and die by what happens to George Bush–unlike many here, but for other reasons. I honestly and sincerely am not concerned about the “scandals” and problems. I sincerely believe that the left is overreacting and salivating over a fall that I don’t predict.
October 22nd, 2005 at 6:39 pm
Try this on for size your smear-monguering wingnut.
“Question # 1:
What is the problem with our graduation rates and why are we studying this question now?
Answer # 1:
A review of the CSU Accountability Report shows that graduation rates
for students at California State University, Northridge are among the
lowest in the CSU system. On average, less than 3% of first-time
freshmen graduate within four years with approximately 15% graduating in
five years and 28% graduating in six years. The numbers for transfer
students are similarly low with only 41% of transfer students graduating
within four years of entry, 48% within five years, and 51% within six
years.”
Even the Bush administration relied on my expertise for the last four months. If I’m suck a whack job why did they hire me?
I’m lying? ROFL indeed. Go F- yourself.
October 22nd, 2005 at 6:57 pm
The source: CSUN Facts
October 22nd, 2005 at 6:58 pm
CSUN Facts
October 22nd, 2005 at 9:28 pm
Here’s a view from no-friend-of-the-Republicans John Dean in FindLaw regarding the Plame investigation.
———————-
“While I may be letting the air out of some rising balloons, I think Fitzgerald’s silence has fed speculation that postulates indictments way beyond the realistic potentials.
(skip)
“In short, I cannot imagine any of them being indicted, unless they were acting for reasons other than national security. Because national security is such a gray area of the law, come next week, I can see this entire investigation coming to a remarkable anti-climax, as Fitzgerald closes down his Washington Office and returns to Chicago.
“In short, I think the frenzy is about to end — and it will not go any further. Unless, of course, these folks were foolish enough to give false statements, perjure themselves or suborn perjury, or commit obstruction of justice. If they were so stupid, Patrick Fitzgerald must stay and clean house.”
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20051021.html
—————–
Maybe he’s in denial.
October 22nd, 2005 at 11:41 pm
I’ve read Dean’s article in its entirely, and it is based on no insider information whatsoever. While no one will know what is going to happen until just before it does, the idea that outing a CIA agent could possibly be an act of protecting national security is illogical!
October 23rd, 2005 at 1:00 am
ï¼ï½ï½’ｃ　ｉｓ　ｒｉｇｈｔ．　Ａｎｄ　ｔｈｅ　ｗｒｉｔｉｎｇ　ｉｓ　ｒｉｇｈｔ　ï½ï½Ž ｔｈｅ　ï½ï½…ｄｉï½ã€€ï½—ï½ï½Œï½Œã€€ï½†ï½ï½’　Ｂｕｓｈ．
October 23rd, 2005 at 8:43 am
Here are some suggestions to cure the cancer of self-interest in Washington:
1. Change Congressional terms from 2 to 4 years. Gives them at least 2 years to work for us and 2 to work for themselves.
2. Limit terms to two each in House and Senate. This provides a total of 16 years in Washington before having to return to reality, as our founding fathers intended.
3 Require a waiting period of 8 years before becoming a lobbyist after leaving Congress. This stops their advantage and worth to a Corporation, at our expense of course, of being able to lobby the very people they served with in Congress. John Breau is the latest fat cat double dipper. I am so disappointed in him. I expected more, but the windfall is just to much and after-all, it’s legal.
SHAMEFUL!
4. Make it unlawful to raise salaries or add any perks in any year they spend more money than revenues. In no year could they raise it more than the cost of living plus the average % they underspent the budget over 4 years, a term in Congress (prevents ‘make-up-year’ raises).
5. Require them to post all contributions above $200 on their Congressional Web sites within 24 hours(exposes last minute attempts to influence an upcoming vote by special interest).
6. Require an independent professional audit of every Washington Bureau and Program every 4 years with results posted on their website withing 10 days (make them live by the standards they require of other business).
7. Require a fixed % of revenues be returned to the States it is collected in each year. Likewise, return more programs and power over them to the States(reduces Washington’s power and pork by reducing its fuel supply).
8-10. Your suggestions.
Look guys. This nation was put together as a Federation of States, with limited powers intended for the FEDeration. For fear it’s power would consume the States and eventually the peoples. For fear it would become a Kingdom of Kings collecting high taxes from the farmers toiling in field. For fear of loss of representation by the people.
You know and I know that much of that fear has come to pass. Once in Washington, the first goal of the power structure is to indoctrinate any newly elected Representative of the people, a rare occasion now of course, on how the game is to be played and what is required be a member of the Club. Look at Hastert. Does he not look exactly like a big pink porker, as well as all his predecessors.
While we are distracted by partisan arguments over side issues, Washington continues on their relentless path to more and more power. Isn’t it past time ‘we’ had a barbecue for a change, paid for by their power and serving swine.
October 23rd, 2005 at 8:48 am
Sorry for the long post Marc. It’s the week-end and I’ve been drinking.
October 23rd, 2005 at 10:32 am
RLC begins to make an interesting parallel between the role of the media in Wartergate versus Plamegate. If Watergate lionized the intrepid, investigative reporter and showed Americans the value and power of a free and active press, this scandal has given Americans pause as to the priorities and competence of the media. At a time when respect and trust in the press is minimal, this scandal has shown us how incompetent and unethical journalists can restrict access to information and harm the democratic process. Will Judith Miller and the incompetent response of the Times be remembered when pop history settles the narrative of the Plame affair? Or will the story merely be that of an incompetent, overreaching Republican machine?
October 23rd, 2005 at 10:56 am
Illogic is the wingnut’s foundation. And yet they deny it. Like Hemingway denied he was nuts. That’s why it’s an illness.
October 23rd, 2005 at 12:01 pm
Jim, Term limits have just worked peachy keen here in California.
To GM and Mark: Whether or not CSUN has high graduation rates it is true that students there take longer to graduate than four years on average for a lot of reasons including availability of classes, costs, work schedules and other. While the student body there there is fine I don’t think they compare to the the Ivys. But when I read that 80% of Harvard students receive Honors grades I’m reminded of Lake Woebegon where all the children are above average!
October 23rd, 2005 at 12:23 pm
That was the point I was making in my quip. Look I graduated from CSUN so I’m more than a casual observer in this. GM is a partisan pinhead out to paint any competition as liars and frauds. Unless the crooks happen to be Republicans then they get a pass. Not in my book.
My statement is solid. Cheney flunked out of Yale and that takes a lot of doing like Oliphant said. The reason being the privilged student body is coddled. No one gets a C even, so you have to be a real dipstick to be asked to leave.
October 23rd, 2005 at 12:34 pm
Woody..there are so many fallacies in your reply, I’m not going to bother with all of it.
On the civil rights issue, the Democratic party split itself over civil rights and the Southern Dems ran to the GOP where their racist asses were embraced as part of the newly anointed Southern Strategy. You can tell me “not to tell you this”, but it happens to be historical fact. You know it. I know it. Also that pork chart came from a conservative business group, The Club for Growth, so your yammerings have about as much credibility as usual. As far as the contemporary southern GOP not representing the white interests that the southern Dems used to embody, the configuration of the black vote in the South (which at one time was totally Republican and where the GOP maintained a significant black base even after FDR, but no more than a sliver since LBJ pushed for civil rights legislation and the Dixiecrats joined the GOP in droves) flies in the face of your ignorant asssertions.
October 23rd, 2005 at 12:45 pm
“I can’t think of any Democrats who would be ashamed of the liberals, because the Democrats never had any principles or consciences.”
You know Woody, I hate Bush and will be the first to admit it, but I’d never make a blanket statement like that about Republicans because there have been and are Republicans I respect. But you really are filled with hate…nothing seems to drive you other than a near-psychotic phobia about Democrats which leads you to say incredibly stupid, baseless things.
Also, your comments about “FDR’s program would land a corporate executive in jail” proves what I said about GOPers hating Social Security (which puts you clowns so far out of the American mainstream, it ain’t funny.) It also shows that (a) you haven’t been reading much about how corporations have been cheating on their pension programs and (b) you don’t have a clue as to how successful or solvent the SS program actually is and will continue to be with relatively minor fixes. Your head is really swimming in propaganda and bullshit. Which is why I have to remind myself not to engage you in much more than quips, because debating with you is like entering an alternate universe and, frankly, a waste of time.
October 23rd, 2005 at 1:03 pm
Senator Kay Hutchinson on Meet The Press: “I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality…”
So between Clinton’s lying about a sexual liason in a civil litigation and the clear and present fear of perjury indictments over grand jury testimony by key administration figures, perjury has become a “technicality” that is best ignored. Gotta love these folks…
October 23rd, 2005 at 1:10 pm
When it’s against them, well they’re against it and it becomes a minor technicality. What a pack of Rubes. Same thinking, or lack thereof as Woody et al. Perfect pretzel logic.
October 23rd, 2005 at 1:52 pm
One more thing about the Civil Rights Acts of ’64 and ’68 and partisan politics, Woody. The 10 southern Republicans in Congress voted with the Dixiecrat Dems. And Goldwater – who to his everlasting discredit opposed the Civil Rights act on “states rights” principles that overshadowed the fact that he was not himself a bigot – carried four Southern states in ’64 that had never before supported a Republican. By the ’68 civil rights act, the percentage of Republicans who voted pro decreased markedly, because the movement conservatives – who hated the civil rights acts and if you don’t believe me check out the National Review editorials of the day – had already begun their long march to take over the party. Nixon’s southern strategy was in place, establishing the GOP’s eminence as the party of conservative southern whites – which it quite obviously remains today.
October 23rd, 2005 at 3:48 pm
You know Woody, I hate Bush and will be the first to admit it, but I’d never make a blanket statement like that about Republicans because there have been and are Republicans I respect. But you really are filled with hate…nothing seems to drive you other than a near-psychotic phobia about Democrats which leads you to say incredibly stupid, baseless things.
Well reg, I have to confess. When I’m not dining on a steaming bowl of aborted fetuses or breaking the penises off of statues to sell to the cabal of homosexuals that run the Democratic Party, I’m busy seeking ways to develop government programs for the sheer degradation and humiliation of white males (never mind the fact that I am one), people of faith (never mind the fact that I’m Catholic), stay-at-home moms (like mine) and people who are from the southern US (where I’m from). God, why do I hate myself so much?!?!?!?
Woody, remember: click your heels three times and say “there’s no place like home.”
GM
I have to agree with reg about my mental orgasm. They tend to run towards the likes of Paz Vega.
October 23rd, 2005 at 4:29 pm
Where the hell do they get this crap?
October 23rd, 2005 at 4:59 pm
I’ve commented on other threads on this but Reg has it right. The Republican Party of Everett Dirksen, Nelson Rockefeller and Tom Kuekel is long gone and metamorphisised into a Southern based Dixiecrat Party that sends any number of signals that it is for Whites only with others permitted on sufferance. George Bush has tried to have it both ways by courting Latinos and Blacks but supporting programs and positions that would hurt them and restrict their franchise.
Case in point. The GOP controlled legislature in Georgia passed a bill that would require an ID to vote. No problem right? Well in order to get a valid ID you would have to go to certain centers – only one in Atlanta in Black areas for example – and pay 20 to 60 Dollars for it. A federal judge just invalidated it as an unconstitutional poll tax. Damn those activist judges anyhow! And Mr Roberts made it clear in his writings while at Justice that he would not have renewed the Voting Rights Act. Sorry but the late (and unlamented by me) Chief Justice first made his bones by trying to keep Mexican-Americans in Arizona from voting. He was also keen on racial covenants and restrictions. Anyone care to guess how this court would rule on BROWN? Certainly it would not be a unanimous decision. And, by the way, when did we start hearing about activist judges anyway?
So I’m tickled pink to see this Administration in big trouble on so many fronts with real scandals. Not the faux scandals pinned on the Clinton Administration by a GOP Noise Machine allied to a compliant Press and the DC Kool Kids who resented an interloper. As you righties like to say: “Get used to it”!
October 23rd, 2005 at 5:49 pm
I don’t know whether to shoot myself or go bowling.
October 23rd, 2005 at 7:35 pm
No one changed my mind.
reg, you know absolutely nothing about the truth of the Republicans replacing the racist Democrats in the South. I helped the Republicans in Birmingham and Alabama, because they wanted to do what was right and to help the state join the 20th century. I watched the evil of the Democrats in the South. The Republicans did not replace that evil. They brought positive change that was needed. I don’t “hate” Democrats, unless you define hate as exposing their failures and attitudes. Maybe it is you and the left that hates us for putting light on the truth. If anyone has a false “realitiy,” it’s you. Randy is too far gone, and it’s sad that he views himself as an intellectual.
October 23rd, 2005 at 7:36 pm
I hate bowling, but the alternative makes it look like fun.
October 23rd, 2005 at 8:16 pm
Randy is too far gone, and it’s sad that he views himself as an intellectual.
Coming from someone who believes that the AIDS virus can penetrate condoms, and who consistently makes claims without a shred of verification, that is truly risible.
Woody, you do not know me, despite your attempts to stereotype and pigeonhole my way of thinking. I certainly don’t know you. So I will afford you the courtesy of not presuming you that I know how you view yourself. I’ll trust that you’ll do the same.
October 23rd, 2005 at 8:36 pm
Woody those people you speak of don’t run the modern GOP in Alabama and you know it.
October 23rd, 2005 at 8:56 pm
Woody, I have this funny feeling that you think the reason the Bull Connors of the South are gone is because they were voted out of office by Republicans who’d been struggling for years for civil rights. If that’s even close to your narrative of Southern politics in the latter half of the 20th century, I’ve got the Edmund Pettis Bridge for sale and I’ll give you a great deal.
October 23rd, 2005 at 9:03 pm
Lee Atwater, GOP strategist, in a 1981 interview: “You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’ – that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.”
October 23rd, 2005 at 9:15 pm
“There is only a possibility of slowly sliding into oblivion or, conversely, roaring right over the cliff.”
I’d love to see Bush slide quickly into oblivion, but your scenarios are rather vague. Are you saying that Congress is going to turn around and investigate how we got into Iraq? Are you saying we are getting out of Iraq in, say, six months? Are you saying Bush’s tax policies are going to be reversed in the next two years? Or the bankruptcy bill? or the de-regulation of the energy sector, or the increasing Christianization of public health decisions that touch in any way on sex? In other words, how is this going to effect anybody outside of D.C.? When Watergate happened, it did have a political effect: there were investigations of the CIA, there were attempts to take power back from the executive to run foreign affairs monarchically, there was a labor and consumer movement that latched onto Nixon’s own creations, like the EPA and OSHA. In other words, there was a political effect of Nixon falling. But the political effect of Bush falling is… what? The success of the Bush administration is that even its failure doesn’t move the stakes. The dems are all pro-war. Not one of them has even spoken up as we are seeing corporation after corporation rob their work force of their pensions. As for health care and education — the Dems are much more timid than they were in 1992.
Now, that might be overly pessimistic. But your scenario seems to be about replacing the players in this situation comedy, not changing the plot.
October 24th, 2005 at 7:53 am
WARNING: If you are a Democrat or from the left, don’t read this.
======================
reg, regarding the Republicans replacing the Democrats in Birmingham, you know what you know by reading. I know what I know by being there. I think my way gives more accurate information.
Birmingham had serious racial problems going into the 1960′s. There was segregation in the schools, the parks, the restaurants, the buses, the ball park, the neighborhoods, and even rest rooms and water fountains–thanks to the Democrats. They even closed all the public parks and put up no trespassing signs just to keep from integrating them. Bull Conner pulled the police away when the Freedom Riders came into town and let the Klan beat them in the Greyhound station. M.L. King, Jr. said that Birmingham was the most segregated city in the South. Then, there was the church bombing that killed those girls. I knew the father of one of them. That was it. The citizens had seen enough and it was time to throw the corrupt Democrats out of office. In an involved process, the voters of the city (almost all white) were able to vote for a new government. Then, Albert Boutwell, a Republican mayor, and a new city council won to replace Mayor Art Haynes and Bull Conner and Jabbo Waggoner–who were the commisioners. After the vote, the mayor and commissioners refused to leave City Hall at the time that the new mayor-council was to go in. This went on for months, but is typical of Democrats hating to give up power–no matter how corrupt it is used. That situation, along with M.L. King, Jr protesting, made people claim that Birmingham the only city being ruled by two mayors and a King. Boutwell was former Lt. Governor and brought moderation and an end to civil rights protests as mayor and put the city back on a long, long path to respectability. He also repaved the main street in our neighborhood and planted crepe myrtles in the medium. It was needed, but that was our big reward. After Boutwell, George Seibels, another Republican, continued to repair the damage to race relations and the image of the city. Of course, there was a price to pay for Birmingham’s break with the Democrats. George Wallace, a Democrat known for saying “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever” and for “standing in the school house door” of the University of Alabama in an attempt to block integration of the school, made sure that Birmingham was raided for tax money and that tax money went to all the rural counties–run by Democrats. (As a side note, I knew and went to church with General Graham of the Alabama National Guard that was nationalized by Kennedy and who was the one that ordered and got Wallace to step aside.) As evidence of the Democrats’ revenge on the city is this–if you look at old highway maps during Wallace’s period in office, you will see that all interstate highways stopped at the Jefferson County line and the state built none in the city until long after the system was completed in all the major cities of the South and the Nation and there was no other stretches left to build in the state. It was in the counties run by Democrats and in the state government, still controlled by Democrats, that civil rights problems continued. Wallace was a populist, as are most Democrats who will say anything to get elected. (The Democrats then, and today, still say whatever it takes to get them into power without convictions. That’s why I make some of the remarks that I do about them.) So, the Republicans came in with noble intentions and lived up to expectations of healing the wounds between the races. To think otherwise shows lack of information on your part. All of you people who think you know so much because you read Democratic propaganda, need to wake up or get smart–which is probably asking too much.
———————
When the left claims that the Republicans continue to be racist (a term that it uses inaccurately), the people of that persuasion use examples of where the Republicans do right and the Democrats pander. Did you think that busing kids all over the county and taking them out of their neighborhoods and costing all of that money was right? Did you really believe that black kids could only learn if white kids were bused into their schools or if black kids were bused twenty miles to a white school? If so, you are ther racists. That was one of the more stupid moves by your side–another social experiment go awry. Kids, schools, taxpayers, cities,and civil rights suffered. Do you really believe that reverse discrimination, dressed up as affirmative action, is right? You probably do, but it goes against everything that equal opportunity means. You don’t want equal opportunity, you want equal results–even if the methods are dishonorable and violate the principles of our constitution. Then richard gives an example of racism by Republicans trying to stop vote fraud–of course, as expected, by using incomplete facts. Vote fruad cheats all legitimate voters of all races. Yet, the Democrats and a Clinton judge say that it’s discriminatory as it relates to the Georgia’s new voter ID law. Provisions were already being formulated to make sure that everyone could have easy access to proof of identity. Even if those provisions came up short, which they wouldn’t–consider that the Democrats can get bus load after bus load of their voters to the polls, including those who are dead, so how much harder would it be to help them get identification? But, how can the Democrats steal elections if they can’t bring in more voters for them than exceed the census of the area? It seems to me that Republicans have principles and the Democrats seek power by any means. And, oh yes, if this country suddenly and unexplicably turned facist and the Democrats thought they could get elected by jumping in front of the wave–they would do it. Yes, they would. They say whatever it takes to win elections with principles not being the motivator.
——————–
And, Randy, don’t preach to me about judging. Your wrote, “I certainly don’t know you. So I will afford you the courtesy of not presuming you that I know how you view yourself. I’ll trust that you’ll do the same.” You consistently make statements about me that are inaccurate representations, so you don’t live up to your own admonishment. I realize that you had a tough time growing up near Huntsville, and I’m very sorry for that. I read your story about those times and my heart ached for you and what those experiences must have done to you. Maybe you should look back and see that it was the laws passed by Democrats and their fights against civil rights that kept industry and business and jobs from your area and made things tougher for your family and you–and that still carries over today as businesses back then never came back or gave the state a second chance. It goes beyond that, but you can only point the finger at the Democrats for those bad schools, bad jobs, and tough lives that you and others faced where you lived. Maybe your attmpts at intellectual commentary really represent misplaced bitterness. I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist, but one might be in order to help you see if that’s a childhood problem that should be faced and resolved.
——————–
So, when I read the comments of the left and the Democrats, can you understand why I think that that side is uninformed or stupid–or dishonest? Democrats change to get elected. Just hope that you aren’t on the wrong side when they change again. If you’re not dishonest, then get informed and get informed from the right sources. You’re not curious enough to seek truths that aren’t spoon-fed to you. But, you can change and start today to re-evaluate what you believe and why you believe it. Maybe you will learn something that can make you better and that can help you to make this country better. The process doesn’t begin by digging in your heals and attacking me. Start with working on yourselves.
============
Democrats and leftists may resume reading, unless you ignored the warning at the top.
============
October 24th, 2005 at 8:55 am
Woody, I’m familiar with the Birmingham history you recount…but what it misses is that the people driving the civil rights movement were the liberals that you still hate. The Dixiecrats are history, the national Democratic party (inconsistently and too slowly) made the choice to split itself if necessary by isolating the segregationist wing, and as any Republican strategist can tell you, the GOP embraced many of those same Dixiecrats enthusiastically and rather dramatically. Your focus is so narrow in “explaining” what’s going on that it’s useless as a historical narrative of the shifts in partisan politics that were spurred by the civil rights movement.
If the GOP were the saviours of blacks against Democrats, why have blacks embraced the Democrats so overwhelmingly? Oh yeah, it’s because they have been pandered to. There’s truth in the “pandering” argument because pandering has become the soul of much politics, as there’s plenty of truth in the grotesque pandering of the GOP to some of the worst people in the country (the Mullahs, the old Dixiecrats, etc.) But go back and read that Lee Atwater quote if you want a clue as to why black people vote Democratic. Frankly, the image that people like you promote of blacks being Democrats because they’re being pandered to is racist to the core. Name a group that politicians in this country of one party or another don’t pander to – but “pandering” generally entails real programs and policies that these constituencies support out of self-interest or ideology. But with blacks it’s “pandering”. It’s also a fact that the GOP has become obsessed with suppressing the black vote. The execrable William Rehnquist got his start in Republican politics by engaging in overtly racist vote suppression, as Randy pointed out, and made it to the top of the Supreme Court for his efforts. Nobody in the GOP seemed embarrassed by that. Bottom line is still the obvious – if you’re right about the GOP being the party of civil rights, why the hell did the old racists par excellence – Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms – become revered icons of the party and black voters abandon it.
You routinely practice the politics of denial, and this is another example. I don’t have time to discuss the complexities of redress policies over the years such as busing and affirmativve action, but I’ll tell you up front that anybody who thought that they could eliminate legal segregation and consider the playing field leveled, problem solved so let’s move on, weren’t believers in “equal opportunity” but of sweeping lingering problems under the rug. Incidentally, your hero of Birmingham, Albert Boutwell was a devout segregationist who’d migrated from the White Citizens Council to minimal pragmatism in the face of black protest. Boutwell was a sponsor of segregationist bills in the Alabama legislature that were designed explicitly to foil the Brown decision. These “moderates” appeared less indecent than the Bull Connors because the were forced to choose between their cherished racist laws and a complete breakdown of the city, but without their toleration and support the bloodthirsty types could never have occupied the positions they had for all of those years. Too little too late…an example of white folks trying to cover their ass and then take credit for damage control. Screw that… If the GOP was the party of civil rights, the people who fought for civil rights when Boutwell was a shameless Dixiecrat pol who could “out-nigger” the worst of them, would be part of the Republican coalition. They are not…
October 24th, 2005 at 11:30 am
After the church bombing in which six people were killed, here was Boutwell’s reaction:
“Mayor Albert Boutwell, tears streaming down his cheeks, announced the city had asked for help. ‘It is a tragic event,’ Boutwell said. ‘It is just sickening that a few individuals could commit such a horrible atrocity. The occurrence of such a thing has so gravely concerned the public…’ His voice broke and he could not go on.” http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/randall/birmingham.htm
reg, you’ve completely and intentionally mischaracterized Albert Boutwell. His reaction to the bombing was sincere and from the heart–not some faked image like you saw with Clinton trying to act sad at Ron Brown’s funeral and the like. Boutwell’s son went to my school and we knew the family. You can google all you like and pick and choose information, much of which is inaccurate and misleading, both factually and from “the times and place and values” standpoint; but, I can assess the man as a person a lot better than you can with the means that you have.
Don’t forget, too, that George Wallace, a Democrat, after losing the election to Patterson said that he would “never be out-niggered again.” Get the quotes and your parties right.
So, you’re calling me a racist when you say, ” Frankly, the image that people like you promote of blacks being Democrats because they’re being pandered to is racist to the core.” Okay, let’s ignore truths and stick with political correctness. Well, you can. My statement is true. I don’t know what Atwater said or even if he’s correct (I was born before him), but the issue of blacks backing Democrats has more to do with Democratic give-aways than Republican take-aways. LBJ gave the blacks a Great Society that put them on the Democratic Plantation–making them slaves to that party rather than giving them opportunities to be independent. LBJ learned from Roosevelt how to buy votes with tax money. Also, LBJ pushed the voting rights acts, appointed Thurgood Marshall, and bought civil rights “leaders” with publicity and grants (which still continues today–see Jesse Jackson)–all for the purpose of *appearing to care* but really to get votes. The Democratic Plantation is alive and well today thanks to that strategy for votes–not, I repeat, not principles.
When I talk with blacks (and I probably talk to more a day than you see in a week) and we discuss issues completely, I find that they are Democrats for about the same reason that they are Baptists or whatever–because their parents were and they are expected to be the same. Gradually, that’s changing. One of my favorite conservatives is a black man who ran for and almost won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senator in Geogia. He says a lot of the same things that I do, but you would call him a racist–no, I take that back–an Uncle Tom, if I’m right. That’s right, call them a bad name and keep them in their place. It’s the same as black kids who get criticized for “acting white” when they make good grades. You guys are great at name calling. The truth eventually catches up to you so you just yell louder, but one day that stops working–and it will be soon.
You said, “…the people driving the civil rights movement were the liberals that you still hate.” Once again, you’re wrong. If you want to know more, the business community, nothing but a bunch of rich conservatives from over the mountain, pushed for changes. They had something at stake–unlike the movie stars and outsiders who wanted their fame. Frankly, and this can get complicated, the so-called “liberals that I hate” probably made race resolutions harder than easier–but, you would call me a racist again if I explained this to you. Once again, it’s always easy for a liberal to call names than deal with the truth.
Go back to your text books and google searches. I’ve found so many errors in both, but I know it makes you feel good to find some of the fine claims that back up your pre-conceptions.
In the meantime, you can stop telling me that you know more than I do on the subject. Selected research and elegant writing is only that–and it is misleading only serves to promote a bankrupt and corrupt agenda of the left.
This is so far off-topic that it really doesn’t belong here. Maybe I can connect it to the subject by saying that the smears against the Republicans today are consistent with the smears from the 1960′s–both in force and in being wrong. Do more complete research.
October 24th, 2005 at 12:55 pm
Maybe your attmpts at intellectual commentary really represent misplaced bitterness. I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist, but one might be in order to help you see if that’s a childhood problem that should be faced and resolved.
Woody, there is probably no greater evidence of your intellectual laziness than the fact that rather than engage an argument on its merits, you make the insinuation that those who make the argument are mentally disturbed or bitter because they don’t agree with you.
It’s called projection, Woody.
October 24th, 2005 at 1:36 pm
There isn’t a lick of truth in anything Woody says. It’s the one thing you can always count on around here.
October 24th, 2005 at 1:55 pm
I’m not going to pick Woody’s piece apart bit by bit, although If I had time it wouldn’t be difficult. Without belaboring the point, there is nothing I said about Albert Boutwell that mischaracterizes him. My sources on Boutwell weren’t from Google, incidentally. That the sight of children being murdered made Boutwell cry is to his credit. But it would have been more to his credit if he’d repudiated his friends in the White Citizens Council long before it was a time for tears. I’ll let Martin Luther King have the last word on Boutwell, who he specifically mentioned in his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” .
KING: Some have asked: “Why didn’t you give the new city administration time to act?” The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor. will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant ‘Never.”
October 24th, 2005 at 2:02 pm
Woody, I also have to say that your statement putting the business community at the forefront of fighting for civil rights is an obscenity – about on par for historical revisionism with Holocaust denial. And you really give your game away with the line about “liberals made race relations worse.” Shameless, ignorant, transparent…
October 24th, 2005 at 2:50 pm
Randy, no projection in this case. I’ve told you before that you were impulsive, jumped to conclusions, and had a bad temper. Ask your wife or sibling if that accurately describes you. I’m right. I didn’t call you a psycho, so give me credit for restraint. There’s no intellectual laziness on my part. You just think so because you fail to accept ideas and evidence contrary to your own. You even blew up because I simply disputed your outlandish claims about aspects of human induced global warming. Get to a doctor for you and a library for information.
—————
reg, you are the only person I know that has connected Boutwell to the White Citizens Council. If it’s true, the connection has to be so slight or explainable that it is meaningless except for your purpose to smear a Republican that beat a Democrat and started racial progess. That’s too hard for you to accept. Tell me how great Bull Conner, a Democrat, was. How about George Wallace? Maybe you admired Lester Maddox. I can also connect Democratic Senator Robert Byrd to the KKK very easily, and that organization was a terrorist group. I guess that discredits everything he has done. On Boutwell, I knew the family. You didn’t. Martin Luther King didn’t even know him except as a mayor–not as a person. King could have waited and worked with Boutwell, and he seems to have prematurely judged him. You waited and have mis-judged him. One other important point, you have to judge someone by their place in time with the values that prevailed then–not now. Otherwise, you could today say that Kennedy was a right-wing conservative with his crazy tax cuts for the rich. If you can’t put yourself in the position of people back then and where they were and with the values of that time, then you’re not fit to analyze history. I don’t think you can.
October 24th, 2005 at 2:53 pm
Woody said: ” Frankly, and this can get complicated, the so-called ‘liberals that I hate’ probably made race resolutions harder than easier–but, you would call me a racist again if I explained this to you. Once again, it’s always easy for a liberal to call names than deal with the truth.
Then, reg said: ” And you really give your game away with the line about “liberals made race relations worse.†Shameless, ignorant, transparent…”
See! I called it.
October 24th, 2005 at 4:22 pm
Woody, you’re so far off the deep end on this it’s pathetic, but you can check Dianne McWhorter’s epic book on the Birmingham struggle, “Carry Me Home”, for information on Boutwell’s connections with the White Citizens Council (or as it’s known today, Council of Conservative Citizens). McWhorter is also a native of Birmingham, incidentally – her father, from an elite white family, was a segregationist so this isn’t the work of some detached academic or Northern Liberal who doesn’t understand “the culture” or “the values of the period”. She’s also got about a dozen footnotes per page and her information on Boutwell’s ties to the WCC is well documented. Also it’s interesting to see a conservative embracing cultural relativism – I thought that was the liberal’s disease.
Don’t dig yourself in any deeper.
October 24th, 2005 at 4:28 pm
MLKjr as quoted in my prior post above: “For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity.”
Woody: “King could have waited and worked with Boutwell…”
I just can’t feel sorry about the invective Woody… given some of your statements and twisted history you appear to be pleading with me to turn up the heat.
October 24th, 2005 at 4:33 pm
“You just think so because you fail to accept ideas and evidence contrary to your own. You even blew up because I simply disputed your outlandish claims about aspects of human induced global warming. Get to a doctor for you and a library for information.”
And you don’t? Geez louise. You can’t dispute those claims with facts that’s for sure, only textbook ignorant naysaying. As a scientist I can damn sure refute anything you could come up with on global warming for a certainty. The only ones who do refute it are wingnuts.
October 24th, 2005 at 5:37 pm
My feeling about the status of the administration is similar to Marc’s. What makes the Plame investigation a big deal is that whatever it may not be, it is about a coverup of the Big Lie that got us into a shootin war in Iraq. If there is a coverup of the administration’s campaign against the Wilsons, it would be a sort of meta-coverup.
It is pretty clear that what the Bush White House and Cheney Blair House were doing was worse than what the Nixon folks were doing in the Watergate Hotel. That doesn’t mean they will crash harder than Nixon, necessarily, but I don’t think the right will be successful in shrugging this off as “criminalization of politics.” In the end, I’m thinking more people will look at it as a high crime or misdemeanour, with a patina of treason.
It’s hard to believe that Cheney would be indicted, but it is evident that he and his folks are the true believers among the true believers. We will see.
Pretty soon the big story will be on the other side of the aisle…just what the heck will the Democrats do and what alternatives will they offer?
October 24th, 2005 at 5:47 pm
Woody…one more thing on Boutwell…you characterize him as a Republican. I don’t know if he joined the Republican Party in his twilight years, but Boutwell was Democrat through most of his political life, serving as the Democratic Lt. Governor of Georgia up until 1963, the year he was elected mayor of Birmingham. So your entire argument, using Boutwell as Exhibit A for how Republicans saved the South from segregation, is specious from about a dozen different directions.
October 24th, 2005 at 5:47 pm
What Mark A. York said. You are projecting.
Woody, you’re now just trying to provoke me. I won’t take the bait. You want to insult me, do it to my face and not from the security of your keyboard.
You do not argue; you contradict. You do not marshall facts to support your case. I am not alone in my making this argument. You then have the unmitigated audacity to insult me and insinuate that I am insane.
Considering your efforts to make your case, I don’t believe that you’re deserving of a reasoned argument, but I’ve tried to make them with you and all I’ve been met with is the equivalent of nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah.
I had tried in the past to appeal to a sense of decency in you. How foolish of me to think you had one.
October 24th, 2005 at 6:58 pm
(side stepping the spitting match, although I think I may have gotten some of that stuff on my shoes)
Michael Crosby, I too doubt if Cheney will be indicted. Nevertheless, a recently posted NY Times piece is fairly interesting. It says that insider attorneys maintain that Libby didn’t get the info about Wilson’s wife from journalists at all—as he keeps making out—but from Dick Cheney, and he got it weeks before Valerie Plame-Wilson’s identity became public. (This means that, at that two and a half hour meal Scooter was having with Judy, he was telling *her*, not the reverse.)
Here’s one somewhat intriguing ‘graph:
“Mr. Libby’s notes indicate that Mr. Cheney had gotten his information about Ms. Wilson from George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, in response to questions from the vice president about Mr. Wilson. But they contain no suggestion that either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby knew at the time of Ms. Wilson’s undercover status or that her identity was classified. …”
Well, okay, yeah. But, since she WAS in fact undercover, and her identity WAS classified—call me crazy, but if Cheney was asking about Wilson, which one assumes was not an inquire made as part of idle conversation, I think the guy who told Cheney, who happens to be the FREAKING HEAD OF THE CIA, probably mentioned those rather salient facts, at least in, y’know, passing.
Here’s the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/24/politics/24cnd-leak.html?ei=5094&en=db7d02c93e5913ef&hp=&ex=1130212800&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1130203834-Dhehu3yO7gjCqEEoiZw7pQ
October 24th, 2005 at 7:01 pm
Uh…I meant “inquiry..” (sigh.)
October 24th, 2005 at 9:08 pm
I just blogged about that quote. It’s forward motion.
October 24th, 2005 at 9:44 pm
reg, re. “Dianne McWhorter’s epic book on the Birmingham struggle, ‘Carry Me Home’,” I remember when it came out and thought most of it was good. I did not read the entire book–strictly because of other priorities and time limitations. However, I discussed it with others and they pointed out numerous errors in the book to me, even though I was defending the effort. Off hand, I don’t remember specifics because it has been too many years, but at the time I realized that those people were right. There were errors in several of her facts and interpretations. You can have a lot of sources and footnotes and still have mistakes get through, as many an author will tesitify. That’s why you can’t even rely on one source even considered to be excellent, because it’s not perfect.
Also, and this may seem a little brash, but my family didn’t know her family, and if she was so prominent then someone in my family would have known them. Birmingham was that kind of town. Maybe with more information I could make a connection, but I doubt it.
Also, a family member of mine worked for the Birmingham Post Herald and covered the demonstrations. He shared his first hand observations with me. I know what he saw and what he heard. That’s something that’s not in your books.
BTW, Boutwell’s home was in Birmingham, which is in Alabama, so your point about him holding office in Georgia is in error–if you can admit it. Hey, what’s the difference? One hick southern state is just like any other.
You sure hate to give any kind of credit to any Republicans–even from forty years ago. Pretty sick.
—————
Mark York says; “As a scientist I can damn sure refute anything you could come up with on global warming for a certainty.”
I know for a fact that you can’t. I am absolutely certain. In fact, I’m actually laughing out loud over that. I’ve seen your site and your background. Your credentials are no where close to those of legitimate scientists who work in the climate field and who have disputed and disproved exaggerated claims on the subject by the left. Science prevails over politics with honest researchers. (Still laughing.)
—————–
Randy wrote: “Woody, you’re now just trying to provoke me. I won’t take the bait. You want to insult me, do it to my face and not from the security of your keyboard.”
Randy, I’m not trying to bait you. I’m saying what comes to mind when I compare your historical reactions to psychos that I’ve observed in the past–not saying that you’re a psycho, but maybe. Were you coming down here to see me in person? Well, I wouldn’t waste my time to see you, and I wouldn’t tell you the truth to your face because you can’t control your temper and I wouldn’t trust you. Do you think that your demand somehow protects your manhood? How pathetic. I have given sufficient facts to support my positions. You just always say that they’re never enough, which is a convenient way of avoiding true debate. It’s always “Give me a few more facts before I consider your position.” There is never an end to that kind of argument which only serves to run from the discussion. You hate to be proven wrong, but it’s not as hard as you think.
————–
Okay, guys. I’ll back away again. reg is the only one who has made points worthy of consideration, so I appreciate that. It’s pretty sad that the left is too proud, or probably too afraid, to accept other views and interpretations. It must be hell having built your beliefs on sand.
Hi, rosedog. I don’t mean you by that last paragraph.
Okay, I’m still laughing. You guys have been a great audience. Really.
October 24th, 2005 at 9:47 pm
Still laughing. This is great.
October 24th, 2005 at 10:14 pm
Hi Woody…..and Reg….
Interesting discussion, despite all the spit flying.
October 25th, 2005 at 4:39 am
Woody…I won’t even comment on the basis of your taking issue with McWhorter except to say that one of the key footnotes she cites regarding Boutwell’s background is a woman, Virginia Hamilton, who was a reporter for The Birmingham News and taught at several of the state’s universities…I don’t know if your daddy knew her daddy so she obviously can’t be vouched for as a historian … and althought I erroneously wrote Georgia rather than Alabama, if you knew a goddam thing that was FACTUAL about the subject you’ve been holding forth on, you’d know that Boutwell was a long-time Democratic politician and held office as the Democratic Lt. Gov. in your home state until 1963…which renders your entire intial premise specious on the face of it – aside from issues of “interpretation”.
October 25th, 2005 at 4:44 am
Oh, and if it’s any help, Diane McWhorter is a cousin of Sidney Smyer…does that one ring a bell ?
October 25th, 2005 at 7:29 am
reg, all politicians in Alabama had to run as Democrats back then, because the Democratic primary was essentially the general election. If you didn’t run as a Democrat in that primary, then you could forget getting elected. Therefore, everyone was a Democrat–even when they weren’t. Even we always voted in the Democratic primary, although we were Republicans. See, there’s always an explanation that you can’t find in your books. The Republicans didn’t even hold a state primary. Later, they began to hold a state convention to nominate candidates in Birmingham’s municipal auditorium which is now named–get this–Boutwell auditiorium! So, now you know the rest of the story. (You might know the auditorium better from the wrestling matches that were held there.)
Hey, my mom had her masters in history and taught in a university in Birmingham. reg, not to boast, but I would be right to take a former comment of yours and say that her IQ is greater than yours and mine together–and, I’ll give you credit for having one of a lot more than eight. She’s forgotten more about history and that era than most people ever learned. She knew everyone in town. Virginia Hamilton sounds very familiar, so I’ll ask mom about her.
I did know a lot of bad historians from colleges, though. I had a book called “Know Alabama” which was written by a historian, and it had a section about how well the slaves were treated and another great chapter on how Andrew Jackson killed all those Indians at Horseshoe Bend. Maybe Ms. Hamilton contributed to that.
Sidney Smyer rings no bell at all. Unless my memory is foggy, he didn’t belong to the Birmingham Country Club or to the Chamber of Commerce. He could have been the one that ran the elevator to the press box at Legion Field.
By the way, the Chamber and those evil businessmen did have a lot to do with the racial changes in the city. It was there that I met Chris McNair whose daughter was killed in the church bombing. The Chamber gave a place for the two sides to work together. Neither the blacks nor the whites wanted a city that was shunned by corporations and cost them jobs–particularly during a time when the steel mills were cutting jobs because of Japanese steel and pollution curbs. Civil rights extended beyond moral issues and also covered economic issues–and the businessmen of all races were together on that.
Except for a possible follow-up on Virginia Hamilton, this closes out this topic for me. I hope that you were able to learn something of that era that you didn’t know before. I’m always glad to help.
—————-
rosedog wrote: “Interesting discussion, despite all the spit flying.”
rosedog! You are not supposed to say spit–as in spitting on Vietnam soldiers returning. If steve hears of this he’ll come back and start using that term again.
October 25th, 2005 at 7:59 am
As Lt. Columbo says, “Just one more thing.”
You may want to read about Condoleezza Rice’s visit to Birmingham and Tuscaloosa this past weekend. Here’s part of it.
————–
“Forty-two years after the church bombing that killed four little girls and inflamed the civil rights movement, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice helped honor them Saturday by recalling one of the victims as a friend with whom she played with dolls and sang in musicals.
“On the second day of a trip to highlight the civil rights era as an example for countries struggling to achieve democracy, Ms. Rice and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of Britain visited the 16th Street Baptist Church, where the bombings occurred, and watched as plaques honoring the girls were unveiled.
“‘As God would have it, they were at Sunday school when America experienced homegrown terrorists of the worst sort,’ Ms. Rice said in an emotional ceremony at a park across the street from the church, which was bombed in 1963. In her speech, she sought to connect her childhood in the segregated South to her work as the first African-American woman to be the nation’s top diplomat.
“‘It was meant to shatter our spirit,’ she said of the bombing. ‘It was meant to say that we shouldn’t rise up. Just a few weeks after Dr. Martin Luther King said, ‘I have a dream,’ it was meant to tell us that, no, we didn’t have a dream, and that dream was going to be denied.’
“For listeners, particularly Mr. Straw and visiting Britons, the ceremony was a reminder of how much had changed since the city of Ms. Rice’s birth was known as ‘Bombingham,’ when it was inconceivable that someone from her tight-knit, middle-class, churchgoing community could rise to such prominence.”
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2005/10/condoleezza-shows-jack-straw-grits-and.html
—————-
But, she did. Give her credit for that. She also got to make the coin toss for the Alabama – Tennessee game–on the field where Bear Bryant once had all-white teams and in a university that was segregated when Rice was younger. Better, people loved her for being there Saturday.
October 25th, 2005 at 9:11 am
“Sidney Smyer rings no bell at all. Unless my memory is foggy, he didn’t belong to the Birmingham Country Club or to the Chamber of Commerce. He could have been the one that ran the elevator to the press box at Legion Field.”
According to McWhorter’s account, her cousin Sidney Smyer was the head of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce when these events transpired . That her version doesn’t mesh with yours even further damages her credibility…
October 25th, 2005 at 9:22 am
” know for a fact that you can’t. I am absolutely certain. In fact, I’m actually laughing out loud over that. I’ve seen your site and your background. Your credentials are no where close to those of legitimate scientists who work in the climate field and who have disputed and disproved exaggerated claims on the subject by the left. Science prevails over politics with honest researchers. (Still laughing.)”
And I’m giving you the finger you stupid fool. My credentials are damn sight better than yours on the matter.
And for backup I have these folks. realclimate
Laughing? Look in the mirror dumbo.
October 25th, 2005 at 9:28 am
This has to be most clueless idiot on the net. http://gmroper.com/
October 25th, 2005 at 10:04 am
The real story:
big thaw
October 25th, 2005 at 10:04 am
a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/25/science/earth/25arctic.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1130259786-gX/rLu/AjYkA1317czo6Fg”>Big Thaw
October 25th, 2005 at 10:05 am
Big Thaw
October 25th, 2005 at 12:28 pm
Earlier, reg wrote: “Woody, I also have to say that your statement putting the business community at the forefront of fighting for civil rights is an obscenity – about on par for historical revisionism with Holocaust denial.”
Then, reg continued: “According to McWhorter’s account, her cousin Sidney Smyer was the head of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce when these events transpired.” (This was in the context of a race relations “study group” and behind-the-scenes meetings of businessmen and Bull Conner to end segregation, which Smyer started and Jim Head took over and completed.)
Gosh, reg! There goes your claim that businessmen had nothing to do with repairing race relations. Or, are you still convinced that such claims are consistent with the Holocost denial? How unfortunate that you went to great depths to show that I was wrong and you proved yourself more wrong with the same stroke.
As I correctly stated, I couldn’t remember Smyer from my childhood memories–being a student and not in business; but, most of what he did was in secret, so it’s not surprising. On the other hand, you couldn’t understand and admit to the positive role of businessmen from your studies as an adult.
It’s possible that my parents and/or grandparents knew Smyer, but very,very,very likley didn’t run in his circles since he was a stauch segregationist. I recognized other names from the book including one that my grandfather simply referred to as that “lying SOB.”
I think that I did pretty well re-creating the entire Birmingham civil rights struggle completely from memory–even down to the names of the commissioners. I scored high on accuracy for a 42 year-old memory–plus I only had 2 1/2 hours sleep last night and very little the night before. It must make you sick, since you continue to look for every fine point that you can to discredit whatever I say, but you discredit yourself with such pettiness.
Are you too proud and stubborn to admit that the situation that I presented is an accurate representation of events at that time? (I am not projecting. I apparently only project for psychos.)
Oh wait, the tabulations are in…. The judges rule that I win! Thanks for being such a gracious second place finisher.
Tell me when you would like to hear about the de-segregation of the schools. That could be another chapter for you to tell me that I don’t know what I lived.
October 25th, 2005 at 12:35 pm
Mark, I’m not about to waste any more time here by arguing human induced global warming here. You wrote: “This has to be most clueless idiot on the net. http://gmroper.com/ ” Why don’t you go to that site, go to the search bar down on the left, and type in global warming. Then you can make snide remarks on each of the entries that appear. Have fun!
October 25th, 2005 at 1:28 pm
“There goes your claim that businessmen had nothing to do with repairing race relations”
I didn’t make that claim…you’ve created a straw man. I said that they responded only under dire pressure of civil right activists – Smyer, like Boutwell, was an old line segregationist until it became untenable and – frankly – bad for business. They were in no sense at “the forefront of the movement for civil rights” and any such suggestion is sheer historical revisionism. They were dragged kicking and screaming by their betters…
October 25th, 2005 at 1:32 pm
“the forefront of the movement for civil rights†– that was my quote not yours, but you put forward the business men as having “pushed for changes” as some alternative reality to the people who actually forged the movement for civil rights. Which is totally turning the history on it’s head in terms of both the direction the changes came from and the motives of those who ultimately acquiesced.
October 25th, 2005 at 2:17 pm
You’re better off not commenting on anything factual Woody. The mentality of anyone on that site would be fallacial just like you. Scientist’s like myself don’t associate with such foolishness and ignorance to established fact.
October 25th, 2005 at 2:57 pm
reg, in the 1950′s, Atlanta and Birmingham were the same size and rival cities. But, one had racial progress and growth while the other didn’t and declined. What was the difference? In large part, it was the timing of the responses of the business communities.
In the 1950′s, the Georgia legislature annexed the suburbs into Atlanta bringing in the business leadership that the city needed to grow. Ivan Allen, who owned a large office supply chain, was a leader of that growth. Alabama’s legislature fought Birmigham, so the leadership remained in the suburbs isolated from the problems of the central city–both from seeing the problems and, primarily, from being able to influence the corrupt power structure inside the city limits.
One acted fast and the other acted slow until it was too late. But, in both cases, it took the business communities to make it work.
Bull Conner didn’t listen to preachers or to university presidents or to “outside agitators.” However, he was forced to listen to the businessmen, and they knew how to cut him a deal to get rid of him. Without them, change would only have occured in a way that I can’t imagine.
Give the business community its due.
BTW, in the book I found a very serious error. The author stated that Bull Conner filled the holes at the city golf courses with cement so that people couldn’t sneak past the “no tresspassing” signs and play the courses. Well, we went over to Highland Golf Course (Boswell at the time) and played golf to our hearts’ content. The grass wasn’t mowed as often and they didn’t put up the flags on the greens, but they left the cups in the ground with no cement and didn’t bother us as we played. It was free golf all summer!
Honestly, the book you have referenced is very good, but there are some differences in what the author wrote and what other people remembered and knew to be true. Most of those differences don’t matter–some do. I suspect that the author would admit as much, as more information has come to light and people have questioned certain selections over the years.
October 25th, 2005 at 5:38 pm
This is my last comment on the subject, Woody
Woody, often when someone resorts to calling his political opponents psychos, they tend to reveal more about themselves than the person about whom they are commenting.
For what it’s worth, I have had no problem engaging conservatives without engaging in insults. As repellent as I find your views, I have not resorted to questioning your sanity. Too bad you couldn’t afford me the same courtesy.
October 25th, 2005 at 7:23 pm
Or address factual offerings in retaliation for for credential ad hominems.
October 25th, 2005 at 7:47 pm
Iraq has just approved its Constitution by a large majority. The march toward the final solution to the Middle East malignancy, democracy, continues on plan. Other people in surrounding nations are asking for their ballots.
All else is is background chatter by the near sited. History will be the final judge. It will be kind indeed.
October 26th, 2005 at 8:47 am
Horseshit.
October 26th, 2005 at 2:02 pm
Randy wrote: “For what it’s worth, I have had no problem engaging conservatives without engaging in insults. As repellent as I find your views, I have not resorted to questioning your sanity. Too bad you couldn’t afford me the same courtesy.”
Randy, I politely disagree, because I have been on the receiving end of many insults from you. You take offense, but you overlook your own offenses to others.
I have tried to be cordial with you in the past, only to be rebutted with your attacks and insults against me personally rather than just my views. Frankly, I gave up expecting any reasonable discourse with you. There’s nothing to be gained if you’re nice to someone and he continues to be discourteous in return. Sometimes you jumped to wrong conclusions and got angry, making the situation worse. Other times you gave no value to any opinion other than your own. I ultimately quit posting and reading at your site for those reasons.
Rather than my detailing every problem here, which isn’t of interest to others, let me recommend that–if you have any interest or curiousity about how you have come across in the past–you might want to review some of our past exchanges, put yourself in my position, and ask yourself if you handled your responses well. Consider even those above where you repeated a comment of mine from another site and another time and out of context in an attempt to discredit me rather than deal with the issues that I raised on the topics here. Have your responses been the type that you would want from others to you?
Now, it’s possible that your offenses against me represent a blind spot rather than character flaws, which is easier to correct. I hope that’s the case.
If we have a gentlemens’ understanding about the conduct for future exchanges, it’s possible that our discussions can be more in line with what Marc wants and with what doesn’t bore readers–and, allow us to expand our own knowledge.
I’m sorry that I insinuated that you were a pschopath. Concerns about personality traits or blind spots don’t rise to that level.
I hope you receive my comments as a positive step to correct past problems and to go forward. We should take this off-line at this point, but maybe this exchange might help any other person who reads it and has trouble with discussions.
Take your time and think before you respond. Don’t assume that you’re right until you have had time to thoughtfully review and consider what has been presented. Words that are thoughtful and humble go further than words of that are not.
October 26th, 2005 at 4:41 pm
Yeah like slamming a resume in science, and a Bush administration employee as a scientist for Christ’s sake, as being incompetent to discuss climate science and global warming with unqualified wingnuts. Please spare us your personal blind spots in the future.
October 26th, 2005 at 5:22 pm
Okay, Mark. I’m sorry. Let’s all have a cyber-group hug.
I still don’t accept wild claims about the effects of human induced global warming. If you want to know what’s really going on then read this serious stuff:
Global Warming Update! 10/15/05
http://www.gmroper.com/archives/2005/10/global_warming.htm
October 26th, 2005 at 6:52 pm
And you’re a damn fool. That crap is not serious: This is Real Deal
Now go hug yourself.
October 26th, 2005 at 7:30 pm
Due to the Russian roulette commenting over there only one made it through. I’ll leave my link to speak for itself, but the political weatherman Dr. Gray who predicts hurricanes needs to get out more often. Real scientists don’t blame politicians, in this case Al Gore, for their lack of understanding on a scientific point. Or that the natural systems on the planet are connected. The guys a 75-year-old winger. It happens.
October 26th, 2005 at 7:39 pm
It’s not serious??!!! You mean, although the trend line in the decline in pirates and the trend line for global warming track closely, that they are not related? How, then, can I trust other trend lines which track similarly but lack less historical data?
I saw today that some meteorogists presented conclusions about global warming to Congressmen and used data from about ten years ago to show the trends. Wouldn’t an accurate model require data for several thousand years with more variables than we measure now?
I think we need to be a little more sure about causes and consequences before we throw money down a rat hole. Let’s start by blaming the sun and our variable orbit around it before we ruin economies and lives.
This reminds me of chicken little and the sky falling.
Wow, you want me to hug myself. That hurts. Don’t you like to hug men?
October 26th, 2005 at 8:36 pm
I’m afraid you’re just a fool based on this “new” Evidence. You haven’t read my link. Ask them. These are top scientists involved in the process. Woody I’m afraid people of your political persuasion just aren’t serious thinkers, while masguerading as serious “critics” of those who are. It only fools other just like you. I suggest study, if you can handle it at your age.
October 26th, 2005 at 8:45 pm
I still don’t quite know how this thread moved from Plame to Flame (i.e. global warming) and what all the fuss is over the pirates vs. temperature chart, which is a joke that illustrates an important truth: correlation does not imply causality. On the other hand, I don’t know what the chart has to do with predictive modeling. Having last done research in GCM modeling some 25 years ago, I wonder where things have gone with all the increase in computer power and accretion of historical data, not to mention learning from errors. Does this RealClimate site offer such a review?
October 27th, 2005 at 8:40 am
It started because genius here called Randy a psycho for accepting, as does the scientific community as a whole, human-caused global warming. As scientists we understand cause and effect, what qualifies and what doesn’t moreso than ideological accountants with agendas of denial.
Realclimate takes on naysayer faux claims such as the hockey stick refutation by a fiction writer, Michael Crichton and subscribers like Sen. Imhoff. Why don’t you ask them?
October 27th, 2005 at 9:50 am
I’ll try to keep out of the line of fire then. Your suggestion regarding RealClimate sounds fair enough.
October 27th, 2005 at 11:49 am
It’s not a matter of line of fire. It’s where the truth lies. They have it.
October 27th, 2005 at 12:53 pm
Civil truth I see you pointed out over at GM’s that Woody’s also a plagiarist as well. Nice work.
October 28th, 2005 at 2:26 pm
Civil truth I see you pointed out over at GM’s that Woody’s also a plagiarist as well. Nice work.
Mark, I appreciate your unexpectedly promoting me to junior investigator, but I’m not aware of anything I’ve posted which suggests that Woody is a plagiarist. Please enlighten me.
October 28th, 2005 at 4:34 pm
“More good news on global warming, courtesy of EU Rota which reports that piracy is alive and well off the coast of Somalia complete with a graph that should look familiar to you sharp-eyed readers of GM’s Corner.”
Turns out they did cite a blog as the source, that clears the plagiarism but not the foolishness of the claim.
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