Six years ago it appeared that George Bush had triumphed over Al Gore when questionable counting of votes in Florida denied him the presidency. Today, however, it appears that Al Gore is the one who triumphed.
With the win for "Inconvenient Truth" as Best Documentary at the Academy Awards on Sunday night, Gore continues his streak of being right on all the major issues of the day and recognized world wide for his work to make the world better. The world, and belatedly America, has figured out that Gore is a visionary, that his understanding of the world is one that works.
Even the Washington Post pointed out Gore has gone from failed presidential contender -- and a politician who at times gave new meaning to the word cardboard -- to the most unlikely of global celebrities.
On the other hand, George Bush and his underlings are working to prevent his legacy from being driving the Middle East into war, the U.S. into debt, and the world into chaos. Bush, unlike Gore, appears to be wrong about everything, and the Inconvenient Truth is that Bush is fast becoming irrelevant.
How did this happen? In 1999 and 2000 the right wing, along with the media, worked to portray Gore badly. However on election day 2000 the American people responded, giving Gore a popular vote victory. Unfortunately the electoral college decision came down to a state run by Bush's brother and anyone can guess the outcome. Just enough votes were tossed or not counted to prevent Gore from winning.
Bush, in second place in the popular vote and second place in the electoral college vote prior to Florida, benefited from "tie goes to the loser" approach. Unfortunately Americans didn't react to this electoral theft. Why? Because of the false image attached to Gore. Today much of that image is gone.
"People say to me that Al Gore is so different now," said Inconvenient Truth director, Davis Guggenheim. "Why wasn't he like this when he ran for president?" Meaning that Gore now appears relaxed, confident, happy, and not stiff, robotic, pinched. "They say Al has changed. But I don't think so. We've changed. The setting has changed. He's the same. When you're running for office, you're a target every moment you are in front of the camera. Now, he's in a different place and we see him in a different way."
Still the media can't completely stop making fun of Gore, as William Both painted Gore as one who following the 2000 election was "more Willy Loman than Green Avenger." Perhaps that will finally change when Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize later this year.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Who Really Needs to Apologize?
One of the questions surrounding the Democratic presidential nomination campaign is whether Sen. Hillary Clinton should apologize for her 2002 vote to authorize war against Iraq.
While that may be an interesting question, in reality the people who should apologize are those who worked to put George W. Bush in the White House. During the 1990s legions of Clinton critics (see Vast Right Wing Conspiracy) worked to turn the public against President Clinton and in 2000 those efforts paid off with making the election in Florida close enough for the Republicans to steal.
After six years of incompetence in the White House some of Clinton's enemies, such as Christopher Ruddy and Richard Mellon Scaife apparently have come to a realization that was obvious oh so many years ago to those outside the media and GOP and while not making amends at least aren't making matters worse.
"Clinton wasn’t such a bad president,” Mr. Ruddy told the New York Times. “In fact, he was a pretty good president in a lot of ways, and Dick feels that way today.”
While the Times did find space to run the article it hardly makes up for the distorted coverage of the Clinton's and Whitewater. The Times were perhaps only outdone by the Wall Street Journal, where Robert Bartley's personal animosity got the better of the page and thoroughly embarrassed the paper.
While the eight year campaign (The Hunting of the President) was unsuccessful in removing President Clinton, many in the media adopted the next step and worked on the "War Against Gore." This two year battle focused on making Gore look bad while giving Bush a free pass.
The Daily Howler pointed out that former Washington Post political editor John Harris wrote "The Way to Win " A number of members of the Gang of 500 are convinced that the main reason George W. Bush won the White House and Al Gore lost was that Gore’s regular press pack included the trio of Katherine “Kit” Seelye (of the New York Times), Ceci Connolly (of the Washington Post), and Sandra Sobieraj (of the Associated Press).
So despite conservatives despising the MSM, the MSM played a major role in installing what historians are already call the Worst President in American History. Yet rather than stepping back, apologizing for being a doormat for the GOP, the media has decided that the answer is to be rougher on Democrats, so bad that even the Washington Post ombudsman criticized a story on the sale of house by former Sen. John Edwards to a party he had never meet for a price well below the original asking price.
The reporter cried that basically Presidential candidates need complete transparency and should expect this type of investigation (unless you are named George W. Bush then we all look away.)
It's time for a members of the Washington Typists to get rid of their double standards on how they cover politics, stop typing up GOP releases, and stop being the conduit for GOP hit jobs. But one of the steps to recovery is to apologize for all all the harm they have caused. But Democrats shouldn't hold their breath waiting for an apology.
While that may be an interesting question, in reality the people who should apologize are those who worked to put George W. Bush in the White House. During the 1990s legions of Clinton critics (see Vast Right Wing Conspiracy) worked to turn the public against President Clinton and in 2000 those efforts paid off with making the election in Florida close enough for the Republicans to steal.
After six years of incompetence in the White House some of Clinton's enemies, such as Christopher Ruddy and Richard Mellon Scaife apparently have come to a realization that was obvious oh so many years ago to those outside the media and GOP and while not making amends at least aren't making matters worse.
"Clinton wasn’t such a bad president,” Mr. Ruddy told the New York Times. “In fact, he was a pretty good president in a lot of ways, and Dick feels that way today.”
While the Times did find space to run the article it hardly makes up for the distorted coverage of the Clinton's and Whitewater. The Times were perhaps only outdone by the Wall Street Journal, where Robert Bartley's personal animosity got the better of the page and thoroughly embarrassed the paper.
While the eight year campaign (The Hunting of the President) was unsuccessful in removing President Clinton, many in the media adopted the next step and worked on the "War Against Gore." This two year battle focused on making Gore look bad while giving Bush a free pass.
The Daily Howler pointed out that former Washington Post political editor John Harris wrote "The Way to Win " A number of members of the Gang of 500 are convinced that the main reason George W. Bush won the White House and Al Gore lost was that Gore’s regular press pack included the trio of Katherine “Kit” Seelye (of the New York Times), Ceci Connolly (of the Washington Post), and Sandra Sobieraj (of the Associated Press).
So despite conservatives despising the MSM, the MSM played a major role in installing what historians are already call the Worst President in American History. Yet rather than stepping back, apologizing for being a doormat for the GOP, the media has decided that the answer is to be rougher on Democrats, so bad that even the Washington Post ombudsman criticized a story on the sale of house by former Sen. John Edwards to a party he had never meet for a price well below the original asking price.
The reporter cried that basically Presidential candidates need complete transparency and should expect this type of investigation (unless you are named George W. Bush then we all look away.)
It's time for a members of the Washington Typists to get rid of their double standards on how they cover politics, stop typing up GOP releases, and stop being the conduit for GOP hit jobs. But one of the steps to recovery is to apologize for all all the harm they have caused. But Democrats shouldn't hold their breath waiting for an apology.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Why Are We in Iraq?
Two of the biggest news stories of the new year have been the trial of the Vice President's aide, Lewis Libby, and Congress's attempt to pass a resolution opposing the surge of additional troops to Iraq.
The two events are bookends in a sense to the war in Iraq; the Libby trial uncovered the administration's attempts to hide the potentially falsified reasons to go to war and now Republican's are attempting to hide the reasoning for the surge opposition resolution (attempting to frame the resolution as not supporting the troops as opposed to rejecting George Bush and makking Iraq responsible for Iraq).
If there is to be an honest discussion and decision about the resolution, and the future U.S. role in Iraq, then the Democrats, media and public are going to have to get actively involved in the debate and act on reason rather than fear.
The reason the United States got in the war in Iraq is that there was an unwillingness, not unsurprisingly after 9/11, to question the what was viewed as the administration's "attempt" to protect the country. Today, as the Washington Post reported, some congressional leaders are calling the Iraq war "the worst foreign policy mistake in the history of this country."
Today, too many people say that "if we knew now what we knew then, there wouldn't have been a vote to go to war." Well that's fine, but perhaps what's need is more comments like former Sen. John Edwards, who said that the vote authorizing the vote was a mistake. The only way the U.S. is going to regain the respect of the world, and get them involved in solving the Iraq problem is to admit our mistakes.
Without that admission there is little reason for foreign governments to get involved in our mess. The 9/11 Commission said that among the failures that took place which allowed the 9/11 attacks was "one of imagination." Unfortunately today too many people still have their war blinders on and are not willing to look at the big picture.
The country must ask ourselves why we are still in Iraq? Is it to fight terrorists or to take sides in a civil war? Without understanding why we are there will limit our planning, leading to additional failures.
The two events are bookends in a sense to the war in Iraq; the Libby trial uncovered the administration's attempts to hide the potentially falsified reasons to go to war and now Republican's are attempting to hide the reasoning for the surge opposition resolution (attempting to frame the resolution as not supporting the troops as opposed to rejecting George Bush and makking Iraq responsible for Iraq).
If there is to be an honest discussion and decision about the resolution, and the future U.S. role in Iraq, then the Democrats, media and public are going to have to get actively involved in the debate and act on reason rather than fear.
The reason the United States got in the war in Iraq is that there was an unwillingness, not unsurprisingly after 9/11, to question the what was viewed as the administration's "attempt" to protect the country. Today, as the Washington Post reported, some congressional leaders are calling the Iraq war "the worst foreign policy mistake in the history of this country."
Today, too many people say that "if we knew now what we knew then, there wouldn't have been a vote to go to war." Well that's fine, but perhaps what's need is more comments like former Sen. John Edwards, who said that the vote authorizing the vote was a mistake. The only way the U.S. is going to regain the respect of the world, and get them involved in solving the Iraq problem is to admit our mistakes.
Without that admission there is little reason for foreign governments to get involved in our mess. The 9/11 Commission said that among the failures that took place which allowed the 9/11 attacks was "one of imagination." Unfortunately today too many people still have their war blinders on and are not willing to look at the big picture.
The country must ask ourselves why we are still in Iraq? Is it to fight terrorists or to take sides in a civil war? Without understanding why we are there will limit our planning, leading to additional failures.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Three Year Old News
Washington is all abuzz over the trial of Scooter Libby as it uncovers a number of disturbing facts about both the Bush administration and also the media.
Unfortunately these discoveries comes three years too late. While the news may give the public something to think about during the 2008 election, that knowledge would have made a difference in 2004, which would have made a big difference nationally and internationally in the past two years.
However the administration did not want the public to know that as the Washington Post headline put it 'Dubious' Intelligence Fueled Push for War in Iraq, nor did they want the public to know they outed a CIA operative in response to being criticized.
And the media, who was used to out the operative, did not want the public to know about the cozy relationship they had with the current administration. Allowing the public to know that would mean they might question the media's attacks on Sen. John Kerry.
It was Eric Boehlert of Media Matters who had to point out that "for long stretches, the special counsel easily supplanted the timid D.C. press corps and become the fact-finder of record for the Plame story. It was Fitzgerald and his team of G-men -- not journalists -- who were running down leads, asking tough questions and, in the end, helping inform the American people about possible criminal activity inside the White House."
The media, which knew who was responsible for the outing of Valerie Plame, wasn't interesting in telling the public about its relationship with the administration, could have written the story long ago but didn't.
One can only image how the public would have reacted to the news that the administration was wrong and outed a spy, especially in Ohio.
Unfortunately these discoveries comes three years too late. While the news may give the public something to think about during the 2008 election, that knowledge would have made a difference in 2004, which would have made a big difference nationally and internationally in the past two years.
However the administration did not want the public to know that as the Washington Post headline put it 'Dubious' Intelligence Fueled Push for War in Iraq, nor did they want the public to know they outed a CIA operative in response to being criticized.
And the media, who was used to out the operative, did not want the public to know about the cozy relationship they had with the current administration. Allowing the public to know that would mean they might question the media's attacks on Sen. John Kerry.
It was Eric Boehlert of Media Matters who had to point out that "for long stretches, the special counsel easily supplanted the timid D.C. press corps and become the fact-finder of record for the Plame story. It was Fitzgerald and his team of G-men -- not journalists -- who were running down leads, asking tough questions and, in the end, helping inform the American people about possible criminal activity inside the White House."
The media, which knew who was responsible for the outing of Valerie Plame, wasn't interesting in telling the public about its relationship with the administration, could have written the story long ago but didn't.
One can only image how the public would have reacted to the news that the administration was wrong and outed a spy, especially in Ohio.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Fuzzy Math
When George Bush submitted his budget to Congress this week he suggested that adoption would help led to eliminating the deficit by 2012. What he didn't tell people was his budget was built on fuzzy math.
Instead he sent out Republican National Chairman Mike Duncan to say "The President should be applauded for submitting a budget that works to eliminate the deficit."
In reality, after three straight years of the national debt increasing by more than $550 billion, the administration is again on target for a similar increase, with the debt already up $200 billion in four months.
Over the past year the administration has prided itself on how it had cut the deficit in half. However the administration accomplished this by comparing the estimated deficit to eventual deficit. In 2004, at one point the White House projected a deficit of $521 billion, yet the actual deficit was $412 billion. This year's deficit is expected to be around $250 billion, half of the $512 but not half of $412.
Also, to an extremely large estimate the Bush administration has been helped by taking excess Social Security payments to pay over their drunken sailor spending habit. (The International Herald Tribune pointed out that In 2006 the federal government received $185 billion more in Social Security taxes than it paid out in benefits.)
If one looks at the nearly $600 billion increases in the national debt one gets a better picture of the mismanagement. Unfortunately the excess social security receipts won't last forever and will end around the time the budget is supposedly balanced, requiring a future administration to clean up anothe Bush administration mistake.
Instead he sent out Republican National Chairman Mike Duncan to say "The President should be applauded for submitting a budget that works to eliminate the deficit."
In reality, after three straight years of the national debt increasing by more than $550 billion, the administration is again on target for a similar increase, with the debt already up $200 billion in four months.
Over the past year the administration has prided itself on how it had cut the deficit in half. However the administration accomplished this by comparing the estimated deficit to eventual deficit. In 2004, at one point the White House projected a deficit of $521 billion, yet the actual deficit was $412 billion. This year's deficit is expected to be around $250 billion, half of the $512 but not half of $412.
Also, to an extremely large estimate the Bush administration has been helped by taking excess Social Security payments to pay over their drunken sailor spending habit. (The International Herald Tribune pointed out that In 2006 the federal government received $185 billion more in Social Security taxes than it paid out in benefits.)
If one looks at the nearly $600 billion increases in the national debt one gets a better picture of the mismanagement. Unfortunately the excess social security receipts won't last forever and will end around the time the budget is supposedly balanced, requiring a future administration to clean up anothe Bush administration mistake.
Friday, February 02, 2007
It's Official! Gore Won Florida!
With a Bush no longer controlling the Governor's office, and recognizing that previous actions by his state cost candidates elections, the new Florida Governor announced he would work to eliminate voting machine that do not accurately reflect the will of the voters.
By getting rid of previous systems didn't work, the Governor basically admitted that the two closest national races in Florida were counted incorrectly, meaning that Al Gore won Florida in 2000. Opponents may try to spin the Governor's action as trying to solve problems raised in 2006, but the proposed system would not return to 2000 style counting, but would eliminate the flawed system that cost Gore the election.
As the AP pointed out Florida's voting system attracted national attention in 2000 when dimpled, pregnant and hanging chads on punch card ballots held up a final count in the presidential election. Florida was eventually decided by 537 votes after the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in, handing the election to George W. Bush.
Numerous ballots were not counted in Florida in 2000, primarily in areas that voted heavily Democratic and actions of the government were later found to be "grossly derelict."
Malfunctions in touch screens in 2006 enabled a Republican to win by 369 votes despite more than 18,000 electronic ballots recording no vote and there was no way to confirm that was the voter's intent.
New Gov. Charlie Crist (R) said he wants to spend $32 million on a proposed a system that would create a paper trail of votes. The plan, which needs legislative approval, aims to have all counties producing paper trials by the 2008 presidential election.
By getting rid of previous systems didn't work, the Governor basically admitted that the two closest national races in Florida were counted incorrectly, meaning that Al Gore won Florida in 2000. Opponents may try to spin the Governor's action as trying to solve problems raised in 2006, but the proposed system would not return to 2000 style counting, but would eliminate the flawed system that cost Gore the election.
As the AP pointed out Florida's voting system attracted national attention in 2000 when dimpled, pregnant and hanging chads on punch card ballots held up a final count in the presidential election. Florida was eventually decided by 537 votes after the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in, handing the election to George W. Bush.
Numerous ballots were not counted in Florida in 2000, primarily in areas that voted heavily Democratic and actions of the government were later found to be "grossly derelict."
Malfunctions in touch screens in 2006 enabled a Republican to win by 369 votes despite more than 18,000 electronic ballots recording no vote and there was no way to confirm that was the voter's intent.
New Gov. Charlie Crist (R) said he wants to spend $32 million on a proposed a system that would create a paper trail of votes. The plan, which needs legislative approval, aims to have all counties producing paper trials by the 2008 presidential election.
"What we're talking about here is democracy, and it is precious," Crist said.
Left unsaid in Gov. Crist's comments was "we f#@ked up, sorry Florida, America, and the World."
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