Uh-oh. Here we go again:

'President Bush increased the administration's pressure on Iran on Saturday, saying there were indications that the country was speeding forward in its production of a key ingredient for nuclear weapons fuel, a move he said was "a very serious matter'' that undercut Iran's denials that it was seeking to build weapons.'

I just hope we demand a little more hard evidence this time, before we let Bush & Co. start dropping bombs.

I saw Control Room this weekend: phenomenal. What is most compelling about it is how clearly it shows the complexity of war, and the media's roles in war, and the complexity of the relationships between the Arab world and the Western world.

This made me step back and realize that there are no right and wrong sides in this situation. It's been so easy, I think, to become subsumed in a totalizing position on this war--distaste (er, hatred) for Bush & Co., and certainty that we should not be in Iraq, quickly balloon into a simplified perspective about all of it. Watching this movie drew out my understanding of the endless ambiguities, the impossibilities of rightness or wrongness in the Middle East right now.

Be very afraid.

Even Howard Dean hears the call for a more responsible media. From his speech at Yale for a "The Media and the Election: A Postmortem" symposium, he cracked the whip on our failing media institutions, pointing out that corporate ownership, and a too-heavy focus on entertainment, are making it impossible for the media to fulfill their role in the democratic process.

And another excellent article on media failures by Frank Rich. This one is, well, much more chilling. And I applaud him. We need to hold the media accountable, we need to point out their failures, and we need to make sure they stop happening.

Some words of wisdom regarding the networks from Alessandra Stanley. (And an example of my favorite kind of writing--humour and sarcasm as trojan horse for pointing out the very sad and pathetic parts of our political and popular culture.)

Hmm. Curious.

This is what I like to hear:

'In a conversation with the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, Mr. Powell once referred in frustration to Mr. Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz as "[expletive] crazies," according to a recent British biography of Tony Blair.'

And other fun tidbits from Kristof.

Christopher Hayes's article on undecided voters is both funny and painful. But the most significant point comes at the very end, after he's revealed just how little connection people have with politics, and how separate they believe it is from their lives. He writes,

As far as I can tell, this leaves Democrats with two options: either abandon
"issues" as the lynchpin of political campaigns and adopt the language of
values, morals, and character as many have suggested; or begin the long-term and
arduous task of rebuilding a popular, accessible political vocabulary--of
convincing undecided voters to believe once again in the importance of issues.
The former strategy could help the Democrats stop the bleeding in time for 2008.
But the latter strategy might be necessary for the Democrats to become a
majority party again.

This is not even a question in my mind, and the former suggestion not an option. Adopting non-policy-based language just to get candidates elected directly contradicts any efforts to seriously re-engage citizens in politics, and re-create that political language Hayes is talking about.

People were more engaged in politics, and shared a common language and understanding of how policy fit into their lives, up until the last twenty years or so. It is not impossible, although it's not easy, to bring this engagement back. But it's worth it, and if we allow the degeneracy of politics the Republicans have instituted to continue, with our blessing and collusion, it will just become harder.

Yet more proof that the right wing likes to use "ethics" and "morality" when it suits them, and disregard them when it doesn't.

The House is trying to change current rules so that a member who is indicted by a state grand jury can still hold a leadership position. It's assumed they're doing this so that, in the eventuality that DeLay is indicted in Texas, he can retain his leadership position.

Aha, but "House Republicans adopted the indictment rule in 1993, when they were trying to end four decades of Democratic control of the House, in part by highlighting Democrats' ethical lapses. They said at the time that they held themselves to higher standards than prominent Democrats..."

They claim that they're changing the rule now because DeLay's potential indictment is nothing more than political revenge by partisans in Texas. It's amazing how they can turn everything around and blame it on the Democrats.

Er, scary:

'Porter J. Goss, the new intelligence chief, has told Central Intelligence Agency employees that their job is to "support the administration and its policies in our work,'' a copy of an internal memorandum shows.
"As agency employees we do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies," Mr. Goss said in the memorandum, which was circulated late on Monday. He said in the document that he was seeking "to clarify beyond doubt the rules of the road."'

Does anyone know of any very thorough books on the history of CIA? I've become a bit obsessed in recent months (again, blame Chomsky). I'm reading The Cultural Cold War right now, which deals primarily with CIA propaganda campaigns after World War II, in Europe and elsewhere, to promote "liberty" and "freedom," as defined in a capitalist democracy. It's interesting, and includes a lot of history of the development of the Agency, but I want more.

Oh, gross. This is not the right way for the Democrats to gain votes and strength in the national spotlight. This just makes liberals look even more weak in our standards and beliefs, more easily changeable.

We cannot water down or change fundamental and important aspects of our beliefs in order to win votes. We can't become mini-Republicans to win, because then it will mean nothing that we did win. I don't argue against trying to win more religiously-minded people to the Democratic party, but we can't do it by pandering to the worst aspect of that population. We have to find those whose faith and religiosity includes ideas about social justice, honesty, and helping fellow citizens. We we can win over those who are backing Bush & Co. by pointing out just how far their actual policies are from Christian morality. Show their hypocrisy, and they will lose support.

Er, I hate watching people make bad choices, and knowing I have very little power to do anything about it.

In the "Too Much Analysis" category: Maps and Cartograms of the 2004 election.

Ultimately pointless, but amusing nonetheless. Acid trip geography.

What I'm reading these days: Against Love by Laura Kipsis (again), The Plot Against America by Phillip Roth, Manufacturing Consent by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, Election by Tom Perotta, The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin, Heir to the Glimmering World by Cynthia Ozick. Bracing myself to read: Don Quixote.

This is probably not something Phillip Roth expected people to come away from his most recent novel, The Plot Against America, thinking about, but I'm thinking about it nonetheless. And maybe it's some kind of misguided nostalgia talking, but Robert Putnam adroitly points out that I'm not misguided feeling this way:

Technological advancements in newsmedia dissemination have weakened American communities and their relationships to politics, and the relative absence of a social base for political knowledge-gathering has drastically affected the workings of American politics.

It's a small example, and a friend of mine rightly pointed out that this is not the whole story behind our current political disengagement. But here is the picture that Roth painted in my mind: Prior to the widespread appearance of television, and television news, people had to go to theaters to watch the news, where they were surrounded by many other people, all also there to watch the news. They sat in dark rooms, and learned, collectively, what was going on in the world.

This simple act created a sense of community that we are sorely lacking, and which is a fundamental necessity in a functioning democracy. Now, we can all come after an arduous day at work, and watch the nightly news while we're cooking dinner and trying to make our kids do their homework, half paying attention, and feeling that we're actively engaged and knowledgeable, because, hey, at least we watch the nightly news. There's no effort involved, and, more significantly, there's no community involved. Everyone is in his own home, watching his own television, and not, afterwards, talking about what he just saw with everyone else who just watched the same thing.

There are new communities developing--I will use this word once, and only once, ever in the history of my writing here: the blogosphere. But one has already to be politically curious and driven to bother seeking this community out in the first place. It is simply too easy now to disavow any community, and any connection to politics, and to news events generally.

And the eternal question--how to re-engage people, in an intelligent and reality-based way, in public policy? Do we, as my friend's comments perhaps inadvertantly imply, need another Great Depression? Another Great War? Or are we too jaded and satiated by SUVs for things even of this magnitude to be able to impact us anymore?

Maybe I'm just too disheartened and full of hatred for humanity these days to formuate a rational argument, or even a rational thought, anyways.

We're going to hell, in a nicely tailored Kate Spade handbag. Sweet, dude.

The outcry over Specter's innocuous comments just points up the hypocrisy of the right wing. They attack liberals for attempting to apply "litmus tests" to any potential Supreme Court judges, claiming that it's flawed and partisan to ask a potential judge how he feels about abortion, or whether he would try to overturn Roe v. Wade. But they freak out and cry foul against one of their own when he merely mentions that an explicitly anti-abortion judge might have a hard time in confirmation hearings. Apparently, it's only considered a "litmus test" if the Democrats are asking the question. The illogic of this whole issue makes my head spin, so much, obviously, that I'm rendered inarticulate.

Charles Krauthammer has a good point: the whole "moral issues drove Bush's re-election" story is a media-concocted load of crap. He deftly juggles and re-arranges survey statistics (which seems to be a necessary skill these days) to point out that War and Foreign Policy, and Economic Issues, were, in fact, of much greater concern to the electorate.

But in his attempt to point out how something so unfounded and meaningless is picked up and ballooned out by the media in order to have a coherent story and sell advertisements, he falls prey himself to another annoying media habit: accusing the "liberals" of, well, of everything, or at least of being patently ridiculous.

Aren't the Republican Party leaders themselves claiming a great moral mandate, and attributing their win to the religious right? Wasn't it Karl Rove's great strategy to mobilize those missing evangelicals? Bush has made no secret of leading with his faith, relying on churches and other religious organizations to help him campaign. How is this suddenly a liberal bogeyman? Why is it brilliant strategizing for the Republicans to scream wildly about morality and God, but a sign of liberals' humiliation and sense of moral superiority to talk about how the Republicans are screaming wildly about morality and God?

Newpapermen irk me. I can't believe I sometimes still want to be one of them.

I thought our federal judges and Supreme court judges were supposed to be the best of the best. Why would we want someone who's barely qualified nominated to our highest courts? Someone who practiced law without a license in two separate instances?

From Washingtonpost.com's Washington in Brief:

Nomination Hearing Set for Griffith

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) has scheduled a nomination hearing Tuesday for Thomas B. Griffith, President Bush's choice for an open seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, committee sources said.

Griffith's nomination has been stalled by revelations that he practiced law without a valid license in the District and Utah. Hatch's office scheduled the Tuesday hearing before the Judiciary Committee without naming the nominee to be considered, but committee sources said Hatch has indicated it is for Griffith, a former counsel to the U.S. Senate and now the general counsel for Brigham Young University in Utah.

Hatch told reporters last week that he hoped to hold Griffith's hearing before Congress adjourns its lame-duck session in the next two weeks and Hatch's committee chairmanship ends, even if there is no time to have the Senate vote on Griffith's nomination this year.

After an unusually long investigation into Griffith's past this summer and fall, the American Bar Association on Sept. 29 gave Griffith a vote of "qualified," with a large minority voting "not qualified." That is the lowest possible passing grade the bar association gives judicial nominees.

Of the 10 Bush administration appeals court nominees who received the same rating, six were confirmed to the bench.

What are "moral issues?" A recent Zogby poll reveals exactly what I suspected in the first place--the values people voted on aren't so narrow as to include only gay marriage and abortion. The morality of being in Iraq, and the values of social and economic justice in America were higher on people's minds than either of the two "moral issues" the Republicans keep talking about. You can read a more articulate break down of that poll here.

Oh, thank buddha. At least one small piece of good news has entered my life in the past week: Ashcroft is out.

I find it pretty humourous, and awfully indicative of the non-reality based lives of Bush & Co., that he had this to say about his tenure as Atty General:

"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved."

Oh, certainly.

Eh, fuck him. Maybe they'll finally uncover the statue of Justice, with her indecent bare breasts.

Larry Thompson, the oft-mentioned possible successor of Ashcroft, doesn't seem too bad. Ok, his "crack down" on corporate crime was a bit of a joke. But I feel less wary that he'll bring us into a Handmaid's Tale kind of religious right future.

In the Oh, really? How very interesting files:

"In a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, the oil services company [Halliburton] said that the Justice Department expanded its investigation into Halliburton, that government probes have found that bribes may have been made in Nigeria and that A. Jack Stanley, a former senior executive, may have been involved. "

And you don't say?

"[T]he FBI expanded a probe into charges of contract irregularities by Halliburton in Iraq and Kuwait. Lawyers for a Pentagon official said the FBI requested an interview with her over her complaints that the Army gave a Halliburton unit preferential treatment when granting it a $7 billion contract to restore Iraq's oil fields. "

And more...

"The Justice Department's Public Integrity Section is examining whether Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, when he served in the Senate, violated criminal campaign funding laws or federal disclosure laws relating to the transfer of a mailing list to his campaign committee. "

Oh, I'm not done:

"Also proceeding is special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's probe into the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's employment to columnist Robert D. Novak. Novak said his sources were two senior administration officials."

(All quotes stolen straight from Dana Millbank's White House Notebook.)

Did I just read this?

"African Americans continued to marginalize themselves, again voting nearly unanimously (88 percent) for the Democratic nominee."

Yes. Yes, I did. And I read it here.

(Alright, so it is George Will, but still--wow.)

Apparently, the leaders of the left are experiencing "waves of angst."

This guy is, at least:

"'I think we have come to an ending point in a long transition that began in 1968,' said Donald L. Fowler, a former national chairman of the party. 'During that time, the old Roosevelt Democratic majority coalition has creaked and cracked away under various kinds of racial, religious, social and international forces, and this election was the end point in that transition. I think we live in a country that is majority Republican now.'"

I don't think this country is majority Republican. I think this country is really dominated by people who don't much care one way or the other, and really just want their own lives to be better. They'll vote for whoever they think will accomplish that for them, if they vote at all. Think about it: just barely 60 per cent of voters was a "record turn out." The way you do better than that is to engage all those people who don't give a shit about politics at all, and make them realize that it can, and will, effect their daily lives. I think we've started that monumental project, but it's going to take time. And all these freaked out lefties need to stop wringing their hands, and keep working.

I was hoping Kerry would keep himself visible and take on a stronger role in the Senate after this election, and it sounds like he's hoping to do so, too. Pete Wallsten writes about Kerry's future, and the future of the DNC, here. This is particularly refreshing, after all the "Kerry failed us" talk I'm getting so sick of hearing:

"'There's a tradition,' [Robert] Farmer said. 'Nixon ran and lost and then won, Reagan ran and lost, then won. In this case, you'll have to look at the field and say to yourself, 'Could another candidate have won states that John Kerry didn't win?' And my sense is that I don't think anybody could have done much better than John Kerry did.'"

I have avoided saying anything thus far post-election, mostly because my rage and frustration were so blinding, nothing coherent or meaningful could come out. But here we are, a week later, and I think I'm finally calm enough to put my thoughts (of which there are too many) into some kind of intelligible form.

The only question I've been able to ask myself, like some kind of malfunctioning Stepford-robot, for the past week is, how did this happen? How is it at all possible that this man, rather than being impeached, was re-elected? What colossal failures, and on whose watch, occured to allow Bush & Co. another term in office?

And, of course, as everyone is asking (in more or less irritating and nauseating ways), where do we go from here? There has been much chattering about the "confusion" of the Democratic party, like we're all running around in circles, with dazed looks on our faces, bumping into walls and knocking each other over. The prevalent image of the Democratic party now is one of struggle and (very polite) infighting, as we bicker over what direction the party should take, and how we go about reclaiming the "red states." (Some people have other ideas about what to do with those red states--I don't think they're entirely wrong).

There are two huge thoughts that have been taking up most of my mental space, two things that we need to take a very close look at, and bring into a brighter spotlight nationally. (Well, there are certainly more than two, overall, but I'm starting small.) First, and foremost in my mind right now (blame Noam Chomsky) is the role of the media in our national politics.

Bob Herbert, in the New York Times yesterday, argued that "ignorance played at least as big a role in the election's outcome as values." I can't argue with that, and I've been saying it for months. Herbert points out all the completely untrue things that Bush supporters believed as they cast their ballots last week: that Iraq is definitively connected to Al Qaeda, that weapons of mass destruction certainly were found in Iraq, that Bush is not, in fact, a big, fat, evil lying man. (Er, alright, that last part wasn't actually in Herbert's column.) The American people have been hugely mislead, and many have not been set straight.

Of course we can blame Bush & Co. for that. They based their campaign on distortions and lies, and have made it a signature element of their administration to ignore facts they'd rather were not true. But there is something else we can blame, as well, and I was a bit perturbed that Herbert didn't mention it in his column.

The mainstream media have fallen down on the job. Their role as government watchdog is a freakin' joke. Of course, this is really nothing new, but I think perhaps their complicity with government has reached new heights (or would that be depths?) of ridiculousness. I could string together a very dirty laundry list of various media omissions, biases, propaganda-machine moments, and outright lies. It is a filthy and corrupted institution in need of serious surgery. That would be step one.

And major-topic-I'm-obsessing-over number two? What the hell are "morals" anymore, anyway? If Bush & Co. could win another term thanks to all those people who cited "moral issues" as their main concern in this election, the very idea of morality is seriously up for debate. And I think it damn well should be. I think it's time for the Democratic party, and the left generally, to pick up this ball and run with it. If the right wants morality to be a pillar of electoral strategy, that isn't a problem. Because if you look closely, beyond the rhetoric and the push-button "moral" issues that have been dominating this field for the past decade, if you start thinking about real morality, there's no question who stands up to criticism here. I'm sorry, but fig fat liars who send people to die in a war meant to benefit themselves and their business partners simply do not meet my criteria for morality.

There are many, many things I've been pondering for this past week. But they all tend to center around these two poles, gravitating back and making me realize the same things, over and over. And these are the things I will continue to talk about, and much more loudly than I have been. Because we cannot let this happen again. And I'll be damned if I let them run around freely with their "mandate."

"Voters who cited honesty as the most important quality in a candidate broke 2 to 1 in Mr. Bush's favor."

Thus proving that no one in this country pays attention to anything.

I think I'm going to throw up.