Outside the Perimeter

He hopes to get revenge

Under a banner headline "Politics of Hope" with a picture of John Edwards, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a story on the front page about former Georgia Senator Max Cleland. The headline of the article was and interesting choice: "Cleland relishes his 'resurrection'".

The article talks about the renewal of Max Cleland:

Cleland left both legs and an arm in Vietnam and struggled to recover his life. Two years ago, he took what he has called his "second grenade" when he lost his U.S. Senate seat after one term.

Politics, the thread of Cleland's life, suddenly was cut. He was bitter. He talked heatedly about the "slime machine" that took him down. He went into a deep depression.

Tonight, he'll take the stage in one of the most coveted of convention roles to introduce the party's nominee for president, a man he calls his "brother and closest personal friend," John Kerry.

"It's a miracle," Cleland says of the journey. "No, it's beyond a miracle."

And it's a part of what he calls his personal resurrection.

And who has been persecuting poor ol' Max Cleland? Satan, perhaps? No, it was the Republicans. But in the ethos of Max Cleland, I repeat myself.

James Carville, speaking this week at a rally featuring Cleland, sums up the Dem argument:

Carville told the gathering that Cleland will go down in history for the injustice he suffered in 2002 at the hands of "Saxby Shameless."

Recalling the historic battle cries of "Remember the Alamo" and "Remember the Maine," Carville declared, "We're going to make a solemn pledge. We're going to 'Remember Max.' "

Neither Carville nor Cleland points the finger at the people who actually got Cleland out of office, the voters, myself included, of Georgia.

Now that Carvel mentions it, 'Remember the Maine' is an interesting rally cry to use to parallel Cleland's experience. An investigation in 1976 found that the Maine actually self-destructed. Though unintended, the analogy is very appropriate.

Cleland exploded just last week when conducting a conference call on behalf of John Kerry: (Source article here):

In a conference call with reporters, Cleland said the president went to war in Iraq “because he concluded that his daddy was a failed president” for not having removed Saddam Hussein from power after the first Gulf War. Therefore, Cleland explained, the younger Bush decided to “be Mr. Macho Man” by removing Saddam himself.

Cleland also said the president “flat-out lied” when he asked Congress to authorize war in Iraq. “He told us four things,” Cleland said, listing Bush’s claims of Iraq weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons programs, attempts to acquire yellowcake uranium in Africa, and ties to al Qaeda. “All of that was a pack of lies,” Cleland said.

Cleland, obviously never one to let a couple of bi-partisan Congressional reports get in the way of a good conspiracy theory, will be introducing the John Kerry when he accepts the Democratic nomination. Cleland will also continue to represent the Kerry campaign throughout the election.

The party of "the politics of hope" sure better hope their poster child against Republican evil does not tear the happy face off of the Democratic campaign . Cleland has revenge on his mind, and there is no telling what will set off the next secondary explosion.

That was no bunny suit!

Has anybody else seen the new Care Bear? Just in case not, here is a picture of it:

Waffle Bear talks too, but his exact message depends on who is squeezing his hand. You can hear such messages as:

I don't own an SUV. We have a big Suburban.
I gave my medals away. I kept my medals.

And, of course:

I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.

and many, many more!

Now, the AJC distorts the U.S. Constitution

Recently, the fattest targets at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, my local paper, have been the liberal columnists at the paper. Today Cynthia Tucker, the editorial page editor, decided to take on the United States Constitution generally and the Electoral College specifically. In the column, Tucker has expresses a very real concern - that because of the Electoral College Presidential candidates don't spend much, if any, time campaigning in states where the vote is not competitive. This affects the State of Georgia, since the state is considered safe for President Bush and since the President will probably receive a majority of the popular vote to win all of our Electors.

Tucker then goes on to explain how she thinks the Electoral College works (emphasis mine):

This unwholesome system reflects an artifact of American history -- the electoral college. Even though the nation's Founding Fathers are lauded for their democratic principles, they really didn't trust the common man (they didn't bother giving the franchise to women) to directly elect presidents. So they set up the electoral college as a buffer between voters and the outcome of the election. Each state is assigned a certain number of electoral votes based on population; the winner of any state gets all the state's electoral college votes, no matter how narrow the margin of victory.

She then proposes her solution:

The United States of America is a single nation with a strong central government, not a loose confederation of states. It's time for a blue-ribbon, bipartisan commission to study abolition of the Electoral College. (Such a commission would be viewed with less suspicion if it were created by a president who won by a landslide).

In other words, Tucker is proposing that the U.S. Constitution be amended to abolish the Electoral College. A long and difficult process at best.

However, if Tucker were actually familiar with what the Constitution says about the selection of electors, she would know that changing the Constitution would not be required to change the way a State selects electors for a Presidential election. From Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution (emphasis mine):

Clause 2: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

The meaning of the Constitution is clear, it is the job of each State's legislature to determine how it's electoral votes are awarded. True, most states have opted for the winner-takes-all method (whoever wins the popular vote in a state gets all of the Electors). But two states, Nebraska and Maine, do not.

As a matter of fact, any state can change how their electoral votes are awarded. Not by amending the U.S. Constitution, but by changing state law. If the State of Georgia wanted to award it's Electoral College votes proportionally based on the popular vote - all we would need to do is to pass the appropriate state law.

This would put the State of Georgia in play, force Presidential Candidates to actively campaign here, and change the dynamic of the Presidential election. All without amending the United States Constitution.

One wonders why Tucker wrote a column about the Electoral College without bothering to find out first how it actually works. But as you can tell from my posts of the last week or so, the AJC never lets the facts get in the way of many of their opinions. I believe the AJC owes it's readers more respect by getting their facts straight before offering their opinion.

Ole Timey Fun!

When carpetbaggers came down South to pedal their bogus wares, we Southerners used to have a traditional method of greeting. Since Michael Moore is headed for a visit to Texas, I thought these links might come in handy to someone living around Crawford:

You'll need one of these. Actually, you better make it two because you have a lot of area to cover.

And then a half dozen or so of these.

Moore, after all, does appreciate the good old days, so you should help him out.

I, Robot

John Kerry emerges from his maintenance pod as he continues on the road to the Democratic Convention.

There was no word if the NASA engineers were successful in updating Kerry's software to the new MicroPander 2.0 version.

AJC Liberal Columnists having a hard time

With Cynthia Tucker off in Michael Moore land, you would think that at least one of the liberal columnists at the AJC would have a worthwhile column. Instead, we get this today from Jay Bookman, where he questions the House of Representatives taking up a bill to keep the courts from redefining marriage. At the end of the column, Bookman writes:

As that debate and vote took place Thursday, the 9/11 commission was delivering its report to the president and the American people, pointing out that we had been vulnerable to attack on Sept. 11 because our nation's leaders had failed to act and had failed to treat terrorism as a priority. Shortly afterward, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said that it was unlikely that any action would be taken on the panel's recommendations this year.

It seems the House is too busy with other things.

However, in a news article in the AJC, we find this statement (subtitled, 'Bush considers unilateral measures. Get it? Unilateral):

Republican leaders in Congress once had said they would not get to the matter until October, but said Friday they will hold hearings in August, between the two political conventions.

and that

Bush's aides said the panel's most ambitious recommendations, including the creation of the counterterrorism center and national intelligence director, are likely to require approval from Congress. But with Republicans controlling both chambers, Bush's endorsement could prod action before the Nov. 2 election.

One wonder's if Tucker and Bookman actually read the news (even what passes for it in their own newspaper), or if they are just making it up as they go along.

Liberal Logic

I saw F9/11 a couple of weeks ago, and one of the conspiracy theories fascinated me. The movie establishes a connection between President Bush and the Taliban, because representatives of the Taliban happened to visit Texas once while President Bush was the governor of the state. There was not an allegation that Bush met with, talked to, or even knew the Taliban reps were in the state. But somehow showing President Bush's picture and a picture of some of the Taliban one right after another in a movie is all the proof we need to show that President Bush and the Taliban were in cahoots.

It ironic when you consider the same people who develop their world view on the mere word of Michael Moore insist that al Queda and Iraq never had a connection. This is despite two non-partisan reports released since the movie that offer better evidence than a few feet of film spliced together.

From the 9/11 report:

With the Sudanese regime acting as intermediary, Bin Laden himself met with senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995. Bin Laden is said to have asked for space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but there is no evidence that Iraq responded to this request . . . [but] the ensuing years saw additional efforts to establish connections. (p.61)

In March 1998, after Bin Laden's public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Laden. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through Bin Laden's Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis. (p.66)

Similar meetings between Iraqi officials and Bin Laden or his aides may have occurred in 1999 during a period of some reported strains with the Taliban. According to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered Bin Laden a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Laden declined, apparently judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than the Iraqi alternative. The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides' hatred of the United States. But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States. (p.66)

From the Senate Intelligence Report:

George Tenet provided the Senate Intelligence Committee this assessment in a closed session on September 17, 2002: "There is evidence that Iraq provided al Qaeda with various kinds of training--combat, bomb-making, [chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear] CBRN. Although Saddam did not endorse al Qaeda's overall agenda and was suspicious of Islamist movements in general, he was apparently not averse, under certain circumstances, to enhancing bin Laden's operational capabilities. As with much of the information on the overall relationship, details on training are [redacted] from sources of varying reliability."

According to a CIA report called Iraqi Support for Terrorism, "the general pattern that emerges is one of al Qaeda's enduring interest in acquiring chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) expertise from Iraq."

The Iraqi regime 'certainly' had knowledge that Abu Musab al Zarqawi -- described in Iraqi Support for Terrorism as "a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner" -- was operating in Baghdad and northern Iraq.

Let me put it another way: Don't you think if any of the wacko theories from the Moore movie had a shred of credibility that Democratic leadership in Congress would be screaming to launch an investigation?

That's what I thought.

AJC distorts the words of President Bush

In today's version of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the editorial board comes out in favor of "unbiased, independent analysis."

When talking about the different opinions that different government departments developed, they have this quote from a pre-war report from the State Department:

However, in a prewar classified report, BIR analysts begged to differ, warning that "liberal democracy would be difficult to achieve" in Iraq and that "electoral democracy, were it to emerge, could well be subject to exploitation by anti-American elements."

First, I am trying to remember an example of a country where liberal democracy was NOT difficult to achieve. (Hmmm. The U.S.? France? Czechoslovakia? Israel? Somebody help me out here.) In fact, liberal democracy is difficult to achieve anywhere.

The Kicker: The AJC says that President Bush had unrealistic expectations of the difficulty in bringing democracy to Iraq:

Before the war, the Bush administration was arguing that the Iraqi people would eagerly embrace democracy, and that a democratic Iraq "would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region," as the president put it.

But the AJC either did not read down to the bottom of the speech they quoted, or are deliberately ignoring the rest of it.

The quote they used was lifted from a speech by President Bush on February 26th, 2003. At the end of this speech, President Bush tells exactly his vision building Democracy in Iraq:

Much is asked of America in this year 2003. The work ahead is demanding. It will be difficult to help freedom take hold in a country that has known three decades of dictatorship, secret police, internal divisions, and war. It will be difficult to cultivate liberty and peace in the Middle East, after so many generations of strife. Yet, the security of our nation and the hope of millions depend on us, and Americans do not turn away from duties because they are hard. We have met great tests in other times, and we will meet the tests of our time.

Irony fully emerges when you consider the rest of the State Department quote the AJC uses: "electoral democracy, were it to emerge, could well be subject to exploitation by anti-American elements." Well, that's true.

However, I would not call the AJC anti-American. But they sure as heck are anti-Bush. And by deliberately misrepresentation President Bush's words, they show that they will use any means, even deception, to achieve their anti-Bush ends. In other word, don't expect any "unbiased, independent analysis" out of the AJC anytime soon.

Shut Up and Sing

This is an interesting quote from Linda Ronstadt:

"This is an election year, and I think we're in desperate trouble and it's time for people to speak up and not pipe down. It's a real conflict for me when I go to a concert and find out somebody in the audience is a Republican or fundamental Christian. It can cloud my enjoyment. I'd rather not know."

I am sure her celebrity sized ego has something to do with it, but has she not considered that her fans, of which I was one, would rather not know her politics so out enjoyment is not clouded?

Or are we obligated to stay quiet if what she says angers us. In other words, is her freedom of speech more important that ours because she is famous?

Side Note: I can't point to it, but I have heard some question why Ronstadt was doing the Eagles song "Desparado". I don't know if this has anything to do with her choice, but I believe at least some of the Eagles started out as a back-up band for Ronstadt.

It's Football Season!!

In the news today is the story of Sandy Burger, former National Security Advisor, and some missing documents from the National Archives. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, apparently following the lead of the New York Times, buried the story on the last page for news in Section A of today's paper. The documents still missing relate to the actions of the Clinton Administration’s efforts to stop al-Queda during the Millennium Celebrations.

You remember the brave actions of the Clinton Administration to foil Millennium Celebration attacks by al-Queda. During his media coronation, Richard Clarke was fond of telling the story, both in print and in interviews, of how the vigilance of the Clinton Administration was demonstrated by the foiling of al Queda plots during the Millennium. It has been argued, however, that the Clinton Administration was more lucky than good.

At the very least, you would think this story would raise enough questions that it might be in a more prominent place in the AJC than on the last page for news in the bottom right had corner of the page. However, in a move one guesses was designed to bring hard hitting stories to the masses in the suburbs, the feature article on the front page of the AJC was about football practice starting at high schools in Georgia.

Anybody have any theories about the placement of the story if Condi Rice had been involved instead of Sandy Berger?