New American Dark Ages
Mexico’s Fox, in Book, Chides and Praises Bush – washingtonpost.com
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 19, 2007; Page A19ANTIGUA, Guatemala, Sept. 18 — President Bush and Vicente Fox
once portrayed themselves as diplomatic allies and close friends, but
the former Mexican president takes some jabs at Bush in a new
autobiography, calling him “the cockiest guy I have ever met in my
life” and a “windshield cowboy” afraid to ride a powerful horse.
Administration: Watchdogs Gone Wild
ELECTORAL JUSTICE — CONSERVATIVE FILIBUSTER BLOCKS DC VOTING RIGHTS BILL: Yesterday, a majority of senators
voted to give Washington, DC residents a full member of Congress for
the first time in its 206-year-history. Yet the 52-42 vote was not
enough to overcome Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) filibuster. The bill, which was passed by the House on April 19, would also have granted a fourth representative to Utah. “It’s time to end the injustice,
the national embarrassment that citizens of this great capital city
don’t have voting representation in Congress,” said Sen. Joseph
Lieberman (I-CT), a co-sponsor of the bill, before yesterday’s vote.
The Senate’s actions marked the first time the full chamber “had
considered the D.C. voting rights issue since 1978, when it passed a
constitutional amendment that would have given the city voting
representatives in the House and Senate. The amendment died seven years
later after getting approval from only 16 of the 38 states required for
ratification.” Ilir Zherka of DC vote,
an organization that supports DC residents’ right to representation,
stated, “For the first time in 30 years, we secured the vote of a strong majority of Senators in favor of DC voting rights.
We are outraged that a minority of Senators, led by Senators Mitch
McConnell and Trent Lott, prevented the majority from voting on our
bill.”
Ex-Judge Is Said to Be Pick At Justice – washingtonpost.com
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, September 17, 2007; Page A01President Bush has selected retired federal judge Michael B. Mukasey as his new attorney general, sources said yesterday, moving to install a law-and-order conservative at the Justice Department while hoping to avoid a confirmation fight with Senate Democrats. …
“While he is certainly conservative, Judge Mukasey seems to be the kind
of nominee who would put rule of law first and show independence from
the White House, our most important criteria,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a frequent critic of the Gonzales Justice Department, said in a statement. …The view from Democrats and their allies yesterday seemed to be that
Mukasey was about the best they could hope for from Bush. Ralph Neas,
president of the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way,
predicted Mukasey’s confirmation, assuming he is willing to answer
“legitimate questions” from the Senate Judiciary Committee.“He seems like a bona fide conservative Republican, not a right-wing
ideologue,” Neas said. “He seems like someone who would attract strong
bipartisan support and who could help restore public confidence in the
Department of Justice.”
– – – – –Justice: Who Is Michael Mukasey?
PROGRESS REPORT
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/progressreport/2007/09/mukasey.html
Forget the ridiculous study on liberal vs conservative brains — biology is only part of determinism and we can all be so much better or worse than we were born to be. This study is much more important, albeit not surprising: Conservatives dominate opinion pages and use that platform to decry the dominance of liberals. Snicker. Nice work, if you can get it.
Never fear. I’ve always felt the easiest way to discredit conservatives is to let them talk. mjh
Media Matters – Black and White and Re(a)d All Over: The Conservative Advantage in Syndicated Op-Ed Columns
The results show that in paper after paper, state after state, and region after region, conservative syndicated columnists get more space than their progressive counterparts. As Editor & Publisher paraphrased one syndicate executive noting, “U.S. dailies run more conservative than liberal columns, but some are willing to consider liberal voices.”
Though papers may be “willing to consider” progressive syndicated columnists, this unprecedented study reveals the true extent of the dominance of conservatives:
# Sixty percent of the nation’s daily newspapers print more conservative syndicated columnists every week than progressive syndicated columnists. Only 20 percent run more progressives than conservatives, while the remaining 20 percent are evenly balanced.” …
# In 38 states, the conservative voice is greater than the progressive voice — in other words, conservative columns reach more readers in total than progressive columns. In only 12 states is the progressive voice greater than the conservative voice.
# In three out of the four broad regions of the country — the West, the South, and the Midwest — conservative syndicated columnists reach more readers than progressive syndicated columnists. Only in the Northeast do progressives reach more readers, and only by a margin of 2 percent.
# In eight of the nine divisions into which the U.S. Census Bureau divides the country, conservative syndicated columnists reach more readers than progressive syndicated columnists in any given week. Only in the Middle Atlantic division do progressive columnists reach more readers each week.
Though they have suffered slow but steady declines in readership over the last couple of decades, newspapers remain in many ways the most important of all news media. The Newspaper Association of America estimates that each copy of a weekday paper is read by an average of 2.1 adults, while each Sunday paper is read by an average of 2.5 adults,3 pushing total newspaper readership for daily papers to more than 116 million and Sunday papers to more than 134 million. This means that some columnists reach tens of millions of readers, and one, conservative George Will, actually reaches more than 50 million.
Furthermore, newspapers are the preferred news medium of those most interested in the news. According to a 2006 Pew Research Center study, 66 percent of those who say they follow political news closely regularly read newspapers, far more than the number who cite any other medium.4 And an almost identical proportion of those who say they “enjoy keeping up with the news” — more than half the population — turn to newspapers more than any other medium. These more aware citizens are in turn more likely to influence the opinions of their families, friends, and associates.
Syndicated newspaper columnists have a unique ability to influence public opinion and the national debate. And whether examining only the top columnists or the entire group, large papers or small, the data presented in this report make clear that conservative syndicated columnists enjoy a clear advantage over their progressive counterparts.
http://mediamatters.org/reports/oped/
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From Center for American Progress Progress Report
“This study serves as a conclusive counter to the claims of conservatives voices like Bill O’Reilly, who asserted that “there’s no question the media in America is heavily liberal — every study shows that,” and Michelle Malkin, who wrote off the “liberal media” when some newscasters refused to wear Iraq ribbons on their lapels.”
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/progressreport/2007/09/loyal_bushies.html
As we remember this day, think about what might have been accomplished world-wide, especially in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Palestine, if we hadn’t pissed away our blood, time, money and respect on Iraq. mjh
The New Al-Qaeda Central
Far From Declining, the Network Has Rebuilt, With Fresh Faces and a Vigorous Media Arm
By Craig Whitlock,Washington Post Foreign Service
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — When Osama bin Laden resurfaced Friday in a 26-minute videotaped speech, his most important message was one left unsaid: We have survived.
The last time bin Laden showed his face to the world was three years ago, in October 2004. Since then, al-Qaeda’s core leadership — dubbed al-Qaeda Central by intelligence analysts — has grown stronger, rebuilding the organizational framework that was badly damaged after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, according to counterterrorism officials in Pakistan, the United States and Europe.
It has accomplished this revival, the officials said in interviews, by drawing on lessons learned during 15 years of failed campaigns to destroy it. In that period, bin Laden and his followers have outfoxed powerful enemies from the Soviet army to the Saudi royal family to the CIA. …
On June 24, 2003, President Bush declared al-Qaeda’s leadership largely defunct. At a Camp David summit, Bush praised Pakistan’s Gen. Pervez Musharraf, crediting his country with apprehending more than 500 members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
“Thanks to President Musharraf’s leadership, on the al-Qaeda front we’ve dismantled the chief operators,” Bush said. Although bin Laden was still at large, his lieutenants were “no longer a threat to the United States or Pakistan,” Bush added. …
Many U.S., Pakistani and European intelligence officials now agree that al-Qaeda’s ability to launch operations around the globe didn’t diminish after the invasion of Afghanistan as much as previously thought. …
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Al-Qaeda’s Return – washingtonpost.com
The terrorists have a sanctuary once again.
MANY FACTORS contributed to the awful success that al-Qaeda achieved six years ago today: tactical and policy mistakes by the United States, the diabolical skill of the terrorists, even the clear, cobalt-blue sky on that initially beautiful morning. But probably nothing was more important than the haven in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan that gave al-Qaeda the time and space it needed to train, recruit and plan for highly complex operations. Accordingly, the greatest victory the United States and its allies have yet recorded against the terrorist network was the ouster of the Taliban from Kabul and the scattering of al-Qaeda’s depleted ranks across Southwest Asia.
Yet as the United States mourns and commemorates the worst act of terrorism ever carried out on U.S. soil, and reflects thankfully on the fact that it has not been repeated, there are ominous signs that al-Qaeda is back as a coherent, global force capable of inflicting damage on the United States. Al-Qaeda never really went away, of course, as grieving families of its victims from London to Baghdad can attest. But the emergence of the first authentic Osama bin Laden video in three years, the arrest of German-based al-Qaeda operatives near Frankfurt, and the reinfiltration of hundreds of al-Qaeda-aligned Taliban fighters and intended suicide bombers into Afghanistan point toward one alarming conclusion: Al-Qaeda is once again able to operate from a consistent haven. According to the latest National Intelligence Estimate on al-Qaeda, the organization “has protected or regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability” inside Pakistan.
Thompson Runs to The Right By Michael D. Shear, Washington Post Staff Writer
DES MOINES, Sept. 6 — Fred D. Thompson took his bid for the White House to the campaign trail Thursday, vowing to compete aggressively for the support of Iowans and pitching steady, experienced and conservative leadership.
“I still have the same common-sense conservative beliefs I did when I ran in 1994,” the former senator said in a speech at a Des Moines conference center, a not-so-subtle reference to criticism about the changing positions of his main Republican rivals, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. …
In Thursday’s speech, he pledged fidelity to a series of conservative principles — limited government, an aggressive foreign policy and lower taxes — and promised a commitment to securing the borders and appointing conservative judges. …
A national anti-tax group Thursday proclaimed that his record has the “hallmarks of a pro-growth economic conservative,” but the Club for Growth cautioned that the senator has an “enigmatic” record on tort reform and must explain his support for limits on political speech.
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A Conservative for . . . 1994? By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Fred Thompson, who proposes to be what Republicans need to overcome their malaise, may himself be part of the problem.
And the problem is that conservatism as a philosophy no longer produces ready-made answers to the quandaries that face the country or the voters. Republicans do not need to debate who is conservative enough. They need to argue about what conservatism is. …
Republicans, says [Tony Fabrizio, a neutral Republican pollster], who conducted a similar study a decade ago, are more conservative than ever but in ways more complicated than many appreciate. [mjh: Snicker. Guffaw. Yup, they’re deeeeep thinkers.]
That will make Thompson’s effort to become the Man for All Conservatives much more difficult. And Mickey Edwards, a former Republican congressman whose book “Reclaiming Conservatism” will be published in the spring, says that providing the backdrop for the contest is a conservative “awakening that we completely lost our way.”
This means that making conservatives feel good will not be enough for Fred Thompson. He needs to show where he will lead a movement shrewd enough to know that it is now in the wilderness.
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ConservativesBetrayed.com
Fred Thompson, the Faux Conservative By Richard A. Viguerie
The American people want a President who will finally bring conservative values—honesty, faith, a belief in limited government, and respect for the family as the core of society—to the White House. After eight years of Democratic Big Government under Clinton and eight years of Republican Bigger Government under Bush, they certainly deserve a break.
They won’t get it with Fred Thompson.
Fred Thompson is just playing a conservative for your consumption. In real life he’s a typical Washington insider.
Granted, most Republican politicians play that game to a greater or lesser degree. But Thompson does it so well that it becomes truly difficult to separate the acting from the reality.
Bush shows gift of gaffe at APEC summit | Politics | Reuters
Even for someone as gaffe-prone as U.S. President George W. Bush, he was in rare form on Friday, confusing APEC with OPEC and transforming Australian troops into Austrians.
Bush’s tongue started slipping almost as soon as he started talking at a business forum on the eve of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Sydney.
“Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for your introduction,” he told Prime Minister John Howard. “Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit.”
As the audience of several hundred people erupted in laughter, Bush corrected himself and joked, “He invited me to the OPEC summit next year.” Australia has never been a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Later in his speech, Bush recounted how Howard had gone to visit “Austrian troops” last year in Iraq. There are, in fact, no Austrian troops there. But Australia has about 1,500 Australian military personnel in and around the country.
Upon finishing his speech, Bush took the wrong way off-stage and, looking slightly perplexed, had to be re-directed by Howard to a centre-stage exit.
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN0637479920070907?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/progressreport/2007/09/50_years.html