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Longhaired preachers come out every night; Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right. - Joe Hill, The Preacher and the Slave
As John McCain and his presumptive vice-presidential running mate, Joe Lieberman, toured the Middle East together (Joe to remind John of who is on first in Iraq so as to correct gaffs born of John's ignorance or old age, and John to demonstrate that notwithstanding his occasional gaffes, he still has the intellectual ability to be president of the United States) it was useful to keep in mind the words of one of John's recently announced supporters, John Hagee.
It was especially useful since instead of hunting and exposing the fox as responsible media should do when in pursuit of truth, the media has been docilely led and influenced by the fox in the fox's unceasing attempts to savage Barack Obama because of the words of his friend and pastor, Jeremiah Wright. A reading of the sermon that inspired the fox's incessant diatribe reveals that the sermon is no worse than, and in many respects considerably more thoughtful than, the hatred expressed by John McCain supporter, John Hagee (Hagee) over the years.
Hagee's calumny has made anything even hinted at by Reverend Wright seem bland. He has explanations for just about everything bad that has ever happened and, amazingly, and as MediaMatters, the press watchdog site has noted, they all relate back to God's and Hagee's view of current events.
Interviewed by Terry Gross on National Public Radio's Fresh Air on September 18, 2006 Hagee explained his and God's thinking. About Hurricane Katrina he said that on the day of Katrina's arrival, a homosexual parade had been planned in that city. As a result of that and a generally dissolute life style pervasive in that city, he explained: "I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are-were- recipients of the judgment of God for that. . . . And I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans." Asked by Ms. Gross whether Muslims have a mandate to kill Christians and Jews he replied that the Quran "teaches that very clearly." Muslims and gays are not the only groups that have received the benefit of the Lord's thinking as explicated by Hagee.
On February 28, 2008, Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League For Religious and Civil Rights, commented on the Hagee's endorsement of John McCain the preceding day saying: "[F]or the past few decades, he [Hagee] has waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church. For example, he likes calling it 'The Great Whore,' an 'apostate church,' the 'anti-Christ,' and a 'false cult system.' . . . In Hagee's latest book, Jerusalem Countdown he calls Hitler a Catholic who murdered Jews while the Catholic Church did nothing. 'The sell-out of Catholicism to Hitler began not with the people but with the Vatican itself' he writes." Of course Mr. Donohue is not totally objective. He's a Roman Catholic.
Hagee also knows how to raise money. On July 27, 2006, in a longer profile of the minister, the Wall Street Journal reported on a fund-raiser sponsored by Hagee's 16,000 member Cornerstone Church. In the church bulletin, "The Cluster", the fundraiser was announced with a catchy lead-in. It said: "Slavery in America is returning to Cornerstone." The teaser ended with the sentence "Make plans to come and go home with a slave."
John McCain was delighted to be endorsed by Hagee. Following the endorsement he said: "All I can tell you is I'm very proud to have pastor Hagee's support." He was not asked to explain whether that meant he, too, shares that John's feelings about Muslims, Catholics, and the joys of slavery. A few days after the endorsement and told of Hagee's comments about Catholics, John McCain partially followed Barack Obama's lead and repudiated any of Hagee's comments if they were "anti-catholic or offensive to Catholics.
John McCain's acceptance of the endorsement by the other John may well have been influenced by his mentor, Joe Lieberman. Joe is a big fan of both Johns. He hangs out with the John who's running for president. He admires the other John.
In July 2007, Lieberman was a speaker at a convention of "Christians United for Israel," a group of which the other John is founder and national chairman. In thanking the other John for inviting him, Joe said: "I would describe Pastor Hagee with the words the Torah uses to described Moses, he is an "Eesh Elo Kim," a man of God because those words fit him; and, like Moses he has become the leader of a mighty multitude in pursuit of and defense of Israel. . . . If ever there was a man who will be blessed because he has blessed Israel, Pastor Hagee, it is you. . . ."
Whether John McCain is blessed because John Hagee blessed him - only time will tell.
Nature teaches beasts to know their friends. - Shakespeare, Coriolanus
There are advantages to be gained from taking possession of a country rather than simply befriending its leader. Consider the different fates of Iraq and Pakistan.
Iraq is a possession of George Bush. Though sovereign in theory, Iraq was powerless to contradict President Bush when he said it was all right for Turkey to invade that country. All Iraq could do was have its prime minister, Nouri al Maliki, make a phone call to Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime minister, to let him know of the need to "respect Iraq sovereign authority." The call preceded the invasion. Being sovereign, however, Iraq could play host to Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad even though Mr. Bush dislikes him and he is the leader of one of the countries that might be described as the Bush-Cheney axis of hatred.
Pakistan is a country whose leader Mr. Bush has befriended without first invading his country. Although he continues to instruct Pakistan on how it should conduct its affairs, he lacks the clout he has in Iraq. As a result, the country's citizens and officials have enjoyed thumbing their noses at Mr. Bush, notwithstanding his friendship with its president, Pervez Musharraf. Most recently the nose thumbing by the good citizens and officials in Pakistan pertained to elections and judges.
Before the Pakistani elections on February 18 that resulted in the election to parliament of a majority of members of Mr. Bush's two least favorite parties in Pakistan, Mr. Bush expressed his hope that Mr. Musharraf's party would retain its parliamentary majority. In an interview with Charles Gibson on ABC's "World News" on November 20, 17 days after Mr. Musharraf had summarily dismissed Iftikar Mohammed Chaudhry, Chief Justice of Pakistan's highest court and placed him under house arrest, Mr. Bush described Mr. Musharraf as "somebody who believes in democracy". That would have been a somewhat awkward statement if made by anyone other than the singularly obtuse Mr. Bush, since it ignored the fact that Mr. Musharraf became what he was by sponsoring a military coup, had 17 days earlier replaced not only the chief justice of the Pakistan supreme court but all the other justices, and declared martial law in order to make sure that the elections that were to be held in 2008 would be completely fair and open.
The elections did not turn out as Messrs. Musharraf and Bush had hoped. They were, instead, a disaster from the men's respective points of view. Mr. Musharraf's party was soundly defeated and a coalition now exists between the two opposing parties who have agreed to unite in their opposition to Mr. Musharraf.
According to a report in the New York Times, shortly after the February 18 elections the U.S. Ambassador, Anne Patterson, met with Benazir Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, the head of the Pakistan Peoples Party, one of the parties that emerged victorious from the February 18 elections. Believing herself divinely ordained if not by God, by Bush, she informed Mr. Zardari that the man from whom she came and whose emissary she was, favored the non-reinstatement of Mr. Chaudhry as chief justice. On the other hand, she let it be known, the reinstatement of all the other judges was now acceptable to the United States, an outcome that had been hinted at before the elections took place. She could have saved her breath.
On March 9, a press conference was held by Nawaz Sharif, leader of Pakistan Muslim League-N and Asif Ali Zardari. Reading from a prepared text Mr. Sharif said: "In today's summit meeting between the coalition leaders of the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-N, it was decided that the restoration of the deposed judges as it was on November 2, 2007 shall be brought about through a parliamentary resolution to be passed in the national assembly within 30 days of the formation of the federal government."
Commenting on the Ambassador's attempts to influence Mr. Zardari as reported in the Times, Tariq Mahmood, a former president of the Pakistan Supreme Court Bar Association said he told the ambassador that the United States should "appreciate the results of the election. My message was very simple. You love democracy, you live in a democracy, why do you want to deprive us? You are always supporting the dictator."
Mr. Mahmood doesn't realize that Mr. Bush doesn't' recognize the difference between invading a country and befriending a dictator. He should hope that Mr. Bush doesn't figure it out. If he does, he may decide that it would be in his best interest to invade Pakistan to help it become the kind of a place Mr. Bush thinks it should be. But this is one of those rare occasions when the world is a better place because of Mr. Bush's profound ignorance.
As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it? - William Marcy "Boss" Tweed, 1871
How is the Democratic party to re-enfranchise the voters in Michigan and Florida?
They have been disenfranchised through the wrong-headed actions of their fellow party-member with the result - unless corrected - that their delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver will attend in a mute state destined to create such chaos as to insure the election of Republican presidential nominee John McCain.
The most frequently heard solution to enfranchisement of the disenfranchised is that there be another primary in those states, either through the caucus system, a mail-in vote or an actual election. In any of those scenarios Senators Clinton and Obama would have an opportunity to campaign in Florida and Michigan on an equal footing and the voters would have an opportunity to make their wishes known. The downside, we are solemnly told, is that some of those who voted earlier may, for a variety of reasons such as death, be unable to vote in a second election thus rendering meaningless their earlier votes, votes which the entire debate already demonstrates was meaningless.
Since the only way the errors of the past can be corrected and a Democratic debacle avoided is through a second election, the question the average citizen is asking is simple: Why the delay in setting the date? The answer, not surprisingly, is money. Since money is the answer, the next question is where can the money be found? And herewith the suggestion (not original with the writer) and the consequences (that are).
There is no reason to burden the taxpayers of Michigan and Florida with the cost of the election nor is there any reason to burden the Democratic party establishment with the cost. According to the Associated Press, Michigan Democratic chairman Mark Brewer, said it would cost the state party $8 million to $12 million to set up party-run election sites and allow voting by mail or over the Internet. The same report quoted Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida as saying that conducting a primary in Florida would cost between $22 million and $24 million whereas voting by mail would cost approximately $8 million and a caucus process about $4 million.
Whichever method is decided upon, the best solution is to permit the two campaigns to share the cost equally, a cost they can well afford. In February alone, Hillary Clinton raised $35 million and Barack Obama raised $55 million. The total cost of new elections in both states would cost somewhere between $36 million and $48 million, depending on what kind of an election is held. If the campaigns pay for the two elections, the Clinton campaign would have $11 million left from its February winnings and the Obama campaign would have $31 million left.
Here are the happy consequences of that outcome.
The candidates would have $18 million and perhaps as much as $24 million less to pay for television advertising. This would free Democrat and Republican alike from thousands, if not, indeed, hundreds of thousands of hours of perfectly meaningless television ads that benefit none but the candidates - if them - and the television stations who profit thereby.
Without the need to produce so many ads, those whose job it is to compose the ads could devote more of their time to polishing their skills and making sure that the ads they still have money to produce are grammatically correct. As a result, viewers would not be subject to the incessant question of "Who" we'd like to have answering the telephone in the event of an emergency. (That usage, sponsored by the campaign of a Wellesley College graduate, almost certainly confirms in the minds of many, that "who" is the correct word to use in that particular sentence structure thus guaranteeing its infliction on the rest of us for years to come.)
Of course, deflecting the $48 million televised assault on our senses is but a temporary reprieve. If the campaigns continue their successful fund raising, in the next four months they will raise between them close to half a billion dollars, more than enough to pay for other assaults on our senses and rendering the reprieve brief at best.
A brief reprieve, however, coupled with the enfranchisement of the citizens of Florida and Michigan is not something at which to sneer.
See the conquering hero comes;
Sound the trumpet, beat the drums. -- Thomas Morrell, Joshua
Iraq is a sovereign and free country. That means it gets to decide whom to invite for dinner and sleepovers. It was made free by George W. Bush. That means he gets to decide who can invade Iraq. He made the first decision before Iraq was a free and sovereign country and that decision is what turned it into a free and sovereign country. That was back in 2003.
Having nothing much else to do in 2003, Mr. Bush decided an invasion of Iraq would be one way of creating the kind of legacy every president is searching for. A good war seemed like an insurance policy for his reputation. Accordingly, he fabricated some facts that if believed by others, he believed, would justify an invasion of Iraq. He presented them to the legislative bodies that needed to approve war and, the approval in hand, he proudly sent his armies to conquer Iraq and install a government that would be to his liking.
The war did not turn out exactly as he had hoped although he kept telling his people that it was going really well and that democracy was being installed in a country that had been subject to the whims of another ruthless ruler, Saddam Hussein. The war is still going on and no one knows how it will end but its ending is not what concerns Mr. Bush who is only concerned about his reputation. What is important to him, as to a small child pretending to be a great warrior, is that he be remembered as the president who led the country in a time of war even though it was a conflict he had created.
With Mr. Bush's invasion of Iraq completed, Mr. Bush approved an invasion of that country by another foreign power, even though Iraq in fact has its very own leaders who probably thought that since they were in charge, they would get to decide when, if ever, another power would be given permission to invade.
The Kurdish Workers Party or PKK that lives in the northern part of Iraq has long been an annoyance to the Turkish government since it keeps crossing the border of Iraq to enter Turkey and engage in combat with Turkish troops. Since the Iraqis have been unable to halt the incursions, Turkey undertook to do that on its own.
Crossing the border with troops into a foreign country would under normal circumstances be defined as an invasion of that country even if the invaders said they had only a limited purpose. In this case it was not an invasion. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan personally told George Bush of his plans to invade before the invasion took place. Mr. Bush did not object. Mr. Erdogan also let Mr. al-Maliki know. Mr. al-Maliki was less understanding. According to his spokesman he telephoned Mr. Erdogan and informed him of the "need to respect Iraq sovereign authority." Mr. al-Maliki may have forgotten that George Bush said the invasion was OK. Scott Stanzel, White House spokesman said that: "We were notified and we urged the Turkish government to limit their operations to precise targeting of the PKK to limit the scope and duration of their operations . . . ."
The Iraqis may be surprised that Mr. Bush is the one who gets to give another country permission to invade Iraq. They shouldn't be. As was explained by one "senior U.S. official" in a CNN broadcast in August 2007, "any country with 160,000 foreigners fighting for it sacrifices some sovereignty." He got that right. The Iraqis still have some rights although they're not quite as good as deciding who gets to invade it. They get to decide who gets to come on state visits aside from Americans and that's how they happened to invite Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to pay them a visit. Mr. Ahmadinejad was able to freely travel around. He got to drive from the airport to the green zone (unlike George Bush who, being a bit of a 'fraidy cat notwithstanding his bravado, always goes in by helicopter). It is rumored that Mr. Ahmadinejad will be bringing $1 billion in loans to Iraq to enable it to rebuild its infrastructure, something Mr. Bush has been trying unsuccessfully to do for many years.
Not everyone in the U.S. administration was happy with the visit. One senior Bush administration official told Reuters the U.S. was concerned Iraq could cozy up too much to Iran. This official said: "There is still significant evidence of Iran's illicit meddling in Iraq. . . This has to stop." Nonetheless, said the same official: It " is important to remember that this is a sovereign Iraqi decision and we have faith that the Iraqis will be able to deal with his visit." They were. They would probably have preferred to have the power to deal with the visit from the Turkish army. They didn't.
