know your rights, pt. II...

a postcript to my earlier posts following the brutality at the rnc.

[from pitchfork...]

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists Issue Surprise Charity EP

To say that Ted Leo was dismayed by the violence at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, would be an understatement. So he decided to take his anger and do something about it. As he writes, "The surveillance, pre-emptive detention, arrest, and beating of journalists, protesters, and watchdogs by the St. Paul police department, the Ramsey County sheriff's department, and the FBI was so egregious that it couldn't be allowed to pass without comment."

The ever-outspoken punk rocker gathered his Pharmacists and hit the studio to lay down the two original songs and two covers that comprise the Rapid Response EP, available right this very instant for digital download from Touch and Go.

In the liner notes for the EP, Leo explains, "Real people were hurt in St. Paul, and real people have bills to pay, and real people need funding to continue their good works. We (the band and I) were all feeling these events as deeply as we could from our 1200 mile remove, and so as not to feel entirely powerless, and in an attempt to contribute SOMETHING to that continuation of those good works, we wrote a song and recorded it, along with another new one we'd already been working on that's pertinent to election time politics, and two covers we enjoy and that also have timely sentiments." Those covers are of crust punk bands Amebix and Cock Sparrer."

All proceeds from the EP will go to Democracy Now! and the Minneapolis chapter of Food Not Bombs. It's available exclusively through Touch and Go at the moment, but will make its way to other online retailers after two weeks. Touch and Go is offering a sliding scale of payment for the EP, based on how much you'd like to donate to the cause.

[from the album's liner notes...]

EP Liner Notes From Ted Leo

For a very brief moment, it seemed like people were actually reporting the truth. The surveillance, pre-emptive detention, arrest, and beating of journalists, protestors, and watchdogs by the St. Paul police department, the Ramsey County sheriff's department, and the FBI was so egregious that it couldn't be allowed to pass without comment. I heard WNYC's Bob Hennelly compare the treatment of RNC protestors to the fact that Trojan condoms had a product booth inside the building at the Republican National Convention, saying, "It seems as if free speech exists only for those who can pay for it." I heard the name "Amy Goodman" actually spoken by, and written about in, the "mainstream media" after her roughing up at the hands of the St. Paul police. The story of the ABC cameraman who was smacked around and had his video camera smashed was about to bring down the righteous indignation of a formerly complacent press. And the license and viciousness and carelessness with which these acts and the banal bullying that seemed to be a constant around them - infiltration of peaceful (and not so peaceful) groups by police spies and agents provacatuer - the omnipresent pepper spray repeatedly maiming eyes that were only challenging with looks - stun guns, tear gas, and concussion grenades launched on a citizenry trying yet again to be heard - was finally coming under proper scrutiny. Was there violence launched against delegates, property, and police as well? I'm sure there was. And the majority of it is to be dismissed and condemned, but some of it has be to be understood as what was likely a natural response to this culture of military free-reign that pumps our protectors up to believe that we, exercising our rights as Americans, are an enemy to be crushed without concern and without reason. How they get away with it all... How they get away with anything they want to! We yammer on about the efficacy of trickle-down economics, but we ignore the trickle down effect that eight long years of example of contempt for the standards of the very same reasonable society this government claims to desire to defend, and the cynical exploitation of the populace via their fears and willingness to allow any transgression against their rights in the name of comfort (to inadvertently quote Shelter), but the proof of that trickle-down effect is all around, and was on display during the RNC in St. Paul. And this was actually being discussed somewhere other than within the remnants of punk fanzine culture and marginal message boards!

And then came the Sarah Palin Side Show, and we've all moved on (but let me dive in, yet again, for one second to relate it to the point I was making above, and ask a question: how is it that a candidate for vice president, one allied with the "anti-big government" "pro-individualism" and even pro-states' rights faction - can openly mock concern for an individual's rights in the face of government accusation - endorse a "shoot first, ask questions later" policy - and actually be considered for a post that requires deference to and upholding of the Constitution? In the world that they've created, there is no accountability). But real people were hurt in St. Paul, and real people have bills to pay, and real people need funding to continue their good works. We (the band and I) were all feeling these events as deeply as we could from our 1200 mile remove, and so as not to feel entirely powerless, and in an attempt to contribute SOMETHING to that continuation of those good works, we wrote a song and recorded it, along with another new one we'd already been working on that's pertinent to election time politics, and two covers we enjoy and that also have timely sentiments. It's a small thing, but as the particle collider that cranked up at CERN yesterday will continue to reveal, all big things are made out of smaller things. Thanks for your contribution in purchasing this EP.

A few words about the songs...

First of all, don't get on my case about recording quality, excessive compression, distortion, etc. - the point was to get this down and get it out as quickly as possible, so we just used our usual cruddy demoing set-up, and I mixed it down into, >ulp<... Garage Band. Also, I've been listening to not much but the last two Darkthrone records recently, so... that's probably had some effect on my vision of "production values." Also, I know that at one point it sounds like I'm saying "Amy GoodWIN," but it's just that I had never actually sung the song before, and I was rushing through it, not paying much attention to annunciation - I think I deserve the benefit of the doubt on that one, but you can still consider this a pre-emptive "clarification."
"PARANOIA: Never Enough" - written specifically for this event and this release. I wrote it on Thursday in Rhode Island, we recorded it on Friday in New Jersey. Hope you enjoy.
"Mourning in America" - it's about race as a campaign issue. If it makes it onto our next LP, it will no longer be campaign season, but the frustrating irony is that in a few years time, it'll probably be "timely" again.

"I Got Your Number" - it's pretty explicitly about media manipulation of political thought, I think. I also think it's about time Cock Sparrer got a reassessment and a bit of the respect they deserve in the Punk Pantheon.

"Nobody's Driving" - apparently Amebix is getting back together. I applaud that. Hugely inspirational. Daryl K. introduced me to them way back when we were in Citizens Arrest. After repeated listens to the EP with just the previous three songs, I felt like it needed another. I spent the afternoon yesterday doing a more elaborate version of this - two guitars, two tin whistles, an air organ, backing vocals, etc. - but wasn't really feeling it. I recorded over it by just playing and singing it live and alone - one guitar and one voice. Be forewarned - unless Touch and Go somehow manages to do some mastering to this before it gets posted, the first guitar chord comes in a little hot - if you're listening in headphones, you might want to turn it down a notch when "I Got Your Number" ends.

So that's it!

And again - this isn't meant to be some grand sweeping statement on our part - it's just a way for us to contribute SOMETHING real to the lives of real human beings, and show our material support for those whose actions and thoughts we value in this ideological struggle.

Enough said.

Thanks to James, Marty, and Chris for getting right behind this idea, along with Molly at Indivision, and everyone at Touch and Go. It feels good to work with good people!

And thanks again to you for helping Democracy Now! and Food Not Bombs.

Stay informed, stay alive - resist and survive.

xo - TL

~lee.

back to work...

[from the new york times...]

September 14, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

The Palin-Whatshisname Ticket

By FRANK RICH

WITH all due deference to lipstick, let’s advance the story. A week ago the question was: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? The question today: What kind of president would Sarah Palin be?

It’s an urgent matter, because if we’ve learned anything from the G.O.P. convention and its aftermath, it’s that the 2008 edition of John McCain is too weak to serve as America’s chief executive. This unmentionable truth, more than race, is now the real elephant in the room of this election.

No longer able to remember his principles any better than he can distinguish between Sunnis and Shia, McCain stands revealed as a guy who can be easily rolled by anyone who sells him a plan for “victory,” whether in Iraq or in Michigan. A McCain victory on Election Day will usher in a Palin presidency, with McCain serving as a transitional front man, an even weaker Bush to her Cheney.

The ambitious Palin and the ruthless forces she represents know it, too. You can almost see them smacking their lips in anticipation, whether they’re wearing lipstick or not.

This was made clear in the most chilling passage of Palin’s acceptance speech. Aligning herself with “a young farmer and a haberdasher from Missouri” who “followed an unlikely path to the vice presidency,” she read a quote from an unidentified writer who, she claimed, had praised Truman: “We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity.” Then Palin added a snide observation of her own: Such small-town Americans, she said, “run our factories” and “fight our wars” and are “always proud” of their country. As opposed to those lazy, shiftless, unproud Americans — she didn’t have to name names — who are none of the above.

There were several creepy subtexts at work here. The first was the choice of Truman. Most 20th-century vice presidents and presidents in both parties hailed from small towns, but she just happened to alight on a Democrat who ascended to the presidency when an ailing president died in office. Just as striking was the unnamed writer she quoted. He was identified by Thomas Frank in The Wall Street Journal as the now largely forgotten but once powerful right-wing Hearst columnist Westbrook Pegler.

Palin, who lies with ease about her own record, misrepresented Pegler’s too. He decreed America was “done for” after Truman won a full term in 1948. For his part, Truman regarded the columnist as a “guttersnipe,” and with good reason. Pegler was a rabid Joe McCarthyite who loathed F.D.R. and Ike and tirelessly advanced the theory that American Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe (“geese,” he called them) were all likely Communists.

Surely Palin knows no more about Pegler than she does about the Bush doctrine. But the people around her do, and they will be shaping a Palin presidency. That they would inject not just Pegler’s words but spirit into their candidate’s speech shows where they’re coming from. Rick Davis, the McCain campaign manager, said that the Palin-sparked convention created “a whole new Republican Party,” but what it actually did was exhume an old one from its crypt.

The specifics have changed in our new century, but the vitriolic animus of right-wing populism preached by Pegler and McCarthy and revived by the 1990s culture wars remains the same. The game is always to pit the good, patriotic real Americans against those subversive, probably gay “cosmopolitan” urbanites (as the sometime cross-dresser Rudy Giuliani has it) who threaten to take away everything that small-town folk hold dear.

The racial component to this brand of politics was undisguised in St. Paul. Americans saw a virtually all-white audience yuk it up when Giuliani ridiculed Barack Obama’s “only in America” success as an affirmative-action fairy tale — and when he and Palin mocked Obama’s history as a community organizer in Chicago. Neither party has had so few black delegates (1.5 percent) in the 40 years since the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies started keeping a record.

But race is just one manifestation of the emotion that defined the Palin rollout. That dominant emotion is fear — an abject fear of change. Fear of a demographical revolution that will put whites in the American minority by 2042. Fear of the technological revolution and globalization that have gutted those small towns and factories Palin apotheosized.

And, last but hardly least, fear of illegal immigrants who do the low-paying jobs that Americans don’t want to do and of legal immigrants who do the high-paying jobs that poorly educated Americans are not qualified to do. No less revealing than Palin’s convention invocation of Pegler was the pointed omission of any mention of immigration, once the hottest Republican issue, by either her or McCain. Saying the word would have cued an eruption of immigrant-bashing ugliness, Pegler-style, before a national television audience. That wouldn’t play in the swing states of Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, where Obama already has a more than 2-to-1 lead among Hispanic voters. (Bush captured roughly 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004.)

Since St. Paul, Democrats have been feasting on the hypocrisy of the Palin partisans, understandably enough. The same Republicans who attack Democrats for being too P.C. about race now howl about sexism with such abandon you half-expect Phyllis Schlafly and Carly Fiorina to stage a bra-burning. The same gang that once fueled Internet rumors and media feeding frenzies over the Clintons’ private lives now express pious outrage when the same fate befalls the Palins.

But the ultimate hypocrisy is that these woebegone, frightened opponents of change, sworn enemies of race-based college-admission initiatives, are now demanding their own affirmative action program for white folks applying to the electoral college. They want the bar for admission to the White House to be placed so low that legitimate scrutiny and criticism of Palin’s qualifications, record and family values can all be placed off limits. Byron York of National Review, a rare conservative who acknowledges the double standard, captured it best: “If the Obamas had a 17-year-old daughter who was unmarried and pregnant by a tough-talking black kid, my guess is if they all appeared onstage at a Democratic convention and the delegates were cheering wildly, a number of conservatives might be discussing the issue of dysfunctional black families.”

The cunning of the Palin choice as a political strategy is that a candidate who embodies fear of change can be sold as a “maverick” simply because she looks the part. Her marketers have a lot to work with. Palin is not only the first woman on a Republican presidential ticket, but she is young, vibrant and a Washington outsider with no explicit connection to Bush or the war in Iraq. That package looks like change even if what’s inside is anything but.

How do you run against that flashy flimflam? You don’t. Karl Rove for once gave the Democrats a real tip rather than a bum steer when he wrote last week that if Obama wants to win, “he needs to remember he’s running against John McCain for president,” not Palin for vice president. Obama should keep stepping up the blitz on McCain’s flip-flops, confusion, ignorance and blurriness on major issues (from education to an exit date from Iraq), rather than her gaffes and résumé. If he focuses voters on the 2008 McCain, the Palin question will take care of itself.

Obama’s one break last week was the McCain camp’s indication that it’s likely to minimize its candidate’s solo appearances by joining him at the hip with Palin. There’s a political price to be paid for this blatant admission that he needs her to draw crowds. McCain’s conspicuous subservience to his younger running mate’s hard-right ideology and his dependence on her electioneering energy raise the question of who has the power in this relationship and who is in charge. A strong and independent woman or the older ward who would be bobbing in a golf cart without her? The more voters see that McCain will be the figurehead for a Palin presidency, the more they are likely to demand stepped-up vetting of the rigidly scripted heir apparent.

But Obama’s most important tactic is still the one he has the most trouble executing. He must convey a roll-up-your-sleeves Bobby Kennedy passion for the economic crises that are at the heart of the fears that Palin is trying to exploit. The Republican ticket offers no answers to those anxieties. Drilling isn’t going to lower gas prices or speed energy independence. An increase in corporate tax breaks isn’t going to end income inequality, provide health care or save American jobs in a Palin presidency any more than they did in a Bush presidency.

This election is still about the fierce urgency of change before it’s too late. But in framing this debate, it isn’t enough for Obama to keep presenting McCain as simply a third Bush term. Any invocation of the despised president — like Iraq — invites voters to stop listening. Meanwhile, before our eyes, McCain is turning over the keys to his administration to ideologues and a running mate to Bush’s right.

As Republicans know best, fear does work. If Obama is to convey just what’s at stake, he must slice through the campaign’s lipstick jungle and show Americans the real perils that lie around the bend.

~lee.

david foster wallace was one of my favorite writers and a fucking genius and it is a goddamned fucking shame that he killed himself. there i said it.

i am going to postpone any other activity here today, and here's my tribute* to david foster wallace.

[from the onion...]

Girlfriend Stops Reading David Foster Wallace Breakup Letter At Page 20

BLOOMINGTON, IL—Claire Thompson, author David Foster Wallace's girlfriend of two years, stopped reading his 67-page breakup letter at page 20, she admitted Monday.

Thompson

"It was pretty good, I guess, but I just couldn't get all the way through," said Thompson, 32, who was given the seven-chapter, heavily footnoted "Dear John" missive on Feb. 3. "I always meant to pick it up again, but then I got busy and, oh, I don't know. He's talented, but his letters can sometimes get a little self-indulgent."

Foster, the award-winning author of The Broom Of The System and the 1,079-page Infinite Jest, met Thompson in March 2001 through mutual friends.

A political-science professor at Illinois State University, where Wallace teaches creative writing, Thompson said pages 4 through 11 of the letter chronicled the deterioration of the relationship "fairly well." She specifically cited Item 64, on page 7, from the section, "How I Can Tell Things Have Changed":

"It used to be that if you were away from the table or in the next room or otherwise unable to witness this admittedly unsavory and wholly intrusive activity on my part, in little spasms of unhealthy obsession I would peek into your Day Runner Personal Planner so as to gauge how much together-time we would have during the upcoming week at a glance; lately, however—if you are at all able to move past this revelation of my no-two-ways-around-it unforgivable and unjustifiable invasion of privacy and on to the rather telling point—I have found myself either viewing the week-at-a-glance in actual anticipation of our time apart or, even when opportunities for unfettered peeking presented themselves, ignoring your Day Runner Personal Planner altogether such as just last week when, stooped in rummaging position, I opted to remove from your bag and guiltily read cover-to-cover a copy of Fine Cooking magazine, therein choosing to glean particulars about the cultivation, culinary traditions, and preparation of white asparagus over those of our precious little time together."

Enlarge Image

An excerpt from the break-up opus.

In addition to compiling the many reasons why the relationship was no longer working, Wallace's letter featured sections on "Why We Could Never Grow Old Together," "Ways It—Us, The World, And Everything—Has All Changed," and "Things I've Never Told You (That Will Certainly Change Your Mind About Me)."

"One thing I found annoying was that you had to read all the way to the middle to figure out what things on the first page of the letter were talking about," Thompson said. "For instance, he kept referring to somebody named The Cackler without explanation until page 11, at which point I finally found out that The Cackler is my friend Renée—essentially forcing me to read the whole first 11 pages over again. And then there are all the footnotes. I always felt he overused those in his valentines, too."

Thompson said she believes Wallace penned the breakup opus during a January lecture trip to the University of New England in Biddeford, ME.

"When he came back, he handed me a big manila envelope," Thompson said. "He said that during the trip, he confronted himself about some things he'd been avoiding, and that he needed to start living his life in a whole different way. He said the contents of the envelope would explain everything. I was just like, 'Okay, whatever, David.'"

Thompson said she did not immediately open the envelope.

"I assumed it was one of his tomes about, I don't know, the reasons why he isn't going to eat processed sugar anymore, or why he threw out his TV," Thompson said. "Or something like the one where he said, in 88 numbered points, why he didn't want a birthday party."

"Or, God, I almost forgot," Thompson added. "There was the letter where he explained how he now wants to be called 'Dave' and included a page-long description of every single 'Dave' and 'David' he's ever known in his entire life."

On Feb. 5, two days after receiving the letter, Thompson received a voicemail message from Wallace asking her what she thought of it. The message prompted her finally to open the envelope and "crack" the letter. That evening, Thompson slogged through the first 20 pages of the dense, complex Breakup Letter For Claire–Rough Draft, eventually putting it down to begin making dinner. The next morning, she moved the letter from her coffee table to a desk drawer, where it still remains, unfinished.

"Maybe I'll pick it up again," Thompson said. "I'd sort of like to see how it ends. Then again, knowing David, it probably just leaves a whole bunch of loose ends untied."

~lee.

*thanks, sarah schindler.

what we got here we call a hodge- podge...

told myself yesterday no posting yesterday due to september 11th. too bad mccain can't say the same.

off to lake tahoe in a bit. have a great weekend.

[from salon...]

Friday, Sept. 12, 2008 11:50 EDT

Plouffe: "Today is the first day of the rest of the campaign"

Barack Obama's campaign has been hit by some friendly fire this week. Democrats have been watching John McCain's rise in the polls, and Sarah Palin's new celebrity status, with some fear, and haven't been shy about telling the press that they're concerned the Obama campaign isn't responding effectively.

Without acknowledging the public expressions of concern, Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, seemed to respond in a memo released Friday morning. In it, Plouffe says, "We will respond with speed and ferocity to John McCain’s attacks and we will take the fight to him... We will not allow John McCain and his band of Karl Rove disciples to make this big election about small things."

The full memo is below.

Summary

With both conventions and the vice-presidential selections behind us, the campaign is now heading into the final stretch. The race has settled into a tight race nationally with Obama well-positioned in the key battleground states, a historic enthusiasm gap, and a debate being waged on Obama's home turf -- change.

In recent weeks, John McCain has shown that he is willing to go into the gutter to win this election. His campaign has become nothing but a series of smears, lies, and cynical attempts to distract from the issues that matter to the American people. But as Barack Obama said earlier this week "enough is enough." This election is too important and the challenges too big to spend the next 54 days talking about trivial non-issues.

Today is the first day of the rest of the campaign, and today we are releasing two new ads that go directly at the fundamental issue in this race: John McCain is out of touch with the American people and unable to address the challenges facing the country in the 21st century and bring about real change, and that Barack Obama is the candidate who will bring about change that works for the middle class.

We will respond with speed and ferocity to John McCain's attacks and we will take the fight to him, but we will do it on the big issues that matter to the American people. We will not allow John McCain and his band of Karl Rove disciples to make this big election about small things.

Senator Biden will be integral to that effort, both in pushing back on the lies that we'll continue to see from our opponents, and in keeping the debate focused on delivering for everyday Americans. After all, that's what Joe Biden has done throughout his career: passing the Crime Bill to put more cops on our streets, passing to the landmark Violence Against Women Act, and serving as a steadfast voice every day for those more concerned about the price of gas and saving for retirement than the latest political charade in Washington.

A Change Election with Two Converts

For the entire general election campaign, the McCain campaign has insisted that years in Washington should be the yardstick by which Americans measure their next President. But in recent days, and with his selection of a running mate with no Washington experience, Senator McCain has abandoned his core argument. Now he and his strategists have belatedly come to the realization that, after eight disastrous years, the American people are demanding change.

So the candidate who just months ago was openly boasting that he has been a faithful supporter of George W. Bush's policies, and would continue them as President, now is improbably scrambling to offer himself as the candidate who will deliver the change America needs -- even as President Bush holds a fundraiser for him today in Oklahoma.

This is a debate we welcome. It is the debate America needs.

For two decades, Barack Obama has challenged political insiders and outworn thinking to bring about real, meaningful change that helps people, not special interests. From welfare reform, to tax relief for working families, to health care for children of working families who lacked coverage, Obama has been at the forefront of fights that have made a difference in the lives of everyday Americans.

In Washington, Obama has been a consistent opponent of the Bush policies that have hobbled our economy and weakened the middle class, and his proposals for the future would steer us away from that disastrous course.

He's challenged leaders of both parties by passing landmark reforms that took dead aim at the campaign contributions and favors through which corporate lobbyists have rigged the system. He worked across the aisle to pass laws reining in no-bid contracts and opening the budget process to the American people.

And Obama has lived by those principles in this campaign, refusing the contributions of Washington lobbyists and political action committees and imposing those same rules on the Democratic National Committee. Lobbyists don't run his campaign. And when he's President, they won't run his White House.

But what about John McCain?

Can we really expect change from a Senator who supported the Bush policies 90 percent of the time? Who has said the Bush policies have brought about "great progress economically" and who just three weeks ago proclaimed the economy fundamentally strong?

The fact is that while he mouths the word "change," Senator McCain's record and proposals scream "more of the same." His plans for the economy, energy, health care, education and Iraq barely stray from the Bush policies that are in place today.

And can we really expect change from a candidate whose campaign is being run by some of the most powerful corporate lobbyists in Washington?

While Senator McCain loudly declares that he will tell the special interests in Washington that their day is "over," they are working overtime to elect him.

Seven of the top officials in his campaign are lobbyists. Between them, they have lobbied for Big Oil, the drug and insurance industries, foreign governments -- even Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. His campaign manager routinely lobbied for corporations who had business before the Senate Commerce Committee that McCain chaired.

Corporate Lobbyists and PACs have contributed millions of dollars to his campaign and the Republican National Committee on his behalf.

Does anyone believe they are spending their time, money and energy to put themselves out of business?

That is not change. It's more of the same.

A debate about delivering change is a debate we're happy to have. Because no matter how many times McCain and Governor Palin use the word "change" or try to reinvent their own records, one thing stays the same: the fact that when it comes to the economy, education, Iraq, or the special interests' stranglehold on Washington, they both are stubborn defenders of the past eight years and they both promise more of the same.

One final note:

Senator McCain has called the news media "his base" because of the friendly treatment he has received. And he undoubtedly is counting on his "base" to overlook the gulf between his newly minted "change" message, and the realities of his record and campaign.

His lobbyist-manager said Sunday that Governor Palin would only submit to questions about her record, statements and views when they determine that the news media will treat her with due "deference"-a startling and arrogant new standard for public officials in our democracy.

But we trust that the obvious conflicts between their rhetoric and records, their promises and their plans will not go unreported in the last 53 days of this campaign.

― Alex Koppelman

[from various places...]




Can you tell the difference?

Miss South Carolina, Miss Teen USA 2007:



Second Runner-up, Miss Alaska 1984:



~lee.

today's prayer...

[from the tribute to heroes...]





~lee.

hell, pt. IV...

[from the washington post...]

A Portrait of a Man Defined by His Wars

By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 10, 2008; A01

Five days before Christmas 2001, a little more than three months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that redefined his presidency, George W. Bush sat in the Oval Office for the first of what would become a series of six interviews about how he had chosen to exercise his most consequential power -- that of commander in chief.

At 55, he was a young president, filled with certainty. The war in Afghanistan appeared to be going well. The U.S. military had overthrown the Taliban regime and was hammering al-Qaeda sanctuaries. He kept photos of al-Qaeda leaders in his desk and showed how he had crossed through the pictures with a large "X" as each suspected terrorist was killed or captured. He explained: "One time early on, I said: 'I'm a baseball fan. I want a scorecard.' "

He confidently laid out grand goals. "We're going to root out terror wherever it may exist," he said. He talked of achieving "world peace" and of creating unity at home. "The job of the president," he said, "is to unite the nation."

Seven years later, as he sat for a final interview, President Bush remained a man of few doubts, still following his gut, convinced that the paths he chose in Afghanistan and Iraq were right. But in important ways, he was a different man entirely. It was more than the inevitable aging, more than the grayer hair, more than the deeper lines in his face or the noticeable paunch or the occasional slouching in his chair. During the first years of the Iraq war, the president spoke about "winning," or "victory." By May 2008, he had tempered his rhetoric. Twice in the last interview, he mentioned "win," then immediately corrected himself and substituted "succeed," a subtle but unmistakable scaling back that reflected the murky realities of a war with no foreseeable end.

Since the fall of 2001, about a half-million men and women of the U.S. military have served in Iraq. More than 4,100 have died, and another 30,000 have been seriously wounded. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed. As Bush prepares for the final four months of his presidency, almost 140,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, about the same number that undertook the ground invasion. The next president will inherit not just this war, but the ongoing and costly one in Afghanistan.

Any scorecard for the Bush presidency would focus on his performance as commander in chief: Did he set up and enforce a decision-making system worthy of the sacrifice he has asked of others, particularly the men and women of the U.S. military? Was he willing to entertain debate and consider alternative courses of action? Was he slow to act when his strategies were not working? Did he make the right changes? Did he make them in time? And was the Bush administration a place where people were held accountable?

These questions arose often during my seven years of reporting for four books on Bush and his wartime presidency. Interviews with dozens of administration officials and military officers, though focused on the events that dominated Bush's two terms in office, inevitably painted a portrait of the man, how he governed and what he is leaving behind. Those interviews, along with contemporaneous notes of meetings, show that President Bush often displayed impatience, bravado and unwavering personal certainty about his decisions. Perhaps most troubling to some in his administration, the result sometimes was a delayed reaction to realities and advice that ran counter to the president's gut instincts.

Just as war defines a nation, a president's leadership in war defines him.

* * *

David Satterfield, a senior diplomat known as "the Human Talking Point," had watched the president up close for several years from his vantage point as Iraq coordinator for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Satterfield had reached some highly critical conclusions not shared by Rice: If Bush believed something was right, he believed it would succeed. Its very rightness ensured ultimate success. Democracy and freedom were right. Therefore, they would ultimately win out.

Bush, Satterfield observed, tolerated no doubt. His words and actions constantly reminded those around him that he was in charge. He was the decider. As a result, he often made biting jokes or asides to colleagues that Satterfield found deeply wounding and cutting.

Bush had little patience for briefings. "Speed it up. This isn't my first rodeo," he would often say to those making presentations. It was difficult to brief him because he would interject his own narrative, questions or off-putting jokes. Discussions rarely unfolded in a logical, comprehensive fashion.

Bush's governing style caused a debate within the administration, particularly among those in the military and the intelligence agencies. In the summer and fall of 2006, when the violence in Iraq reached its peak, Bush continued to assert that the war strategy was working. Military analysts such as Derek Harvey, a retired Army colonel who became an adviser to Gen. David H. Petraeus when Petraeus took over as the Iraq commander, wondered about the consequences of assuring the public for months that the strategy was succeeding and then abruptly changing course in favor of a "surge" of troops.

Harvey, an early pessimist about the prospects for the war, had become a cautious optimist by May 2008. He saw much to suggest that the worst might be over: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had removed 1,400 Shia from the ministry of interior for sectarian actions. The number of vehicle bombs had dropped from a high of 130 a month in March 2007 to 30 a month in May 2008 -- still a significant number, but most were detonated at checkpoints and killed far fewer people. Only occasionally did a vehicle bomb penetrate large markets to inflict the massive casualties reminiscent of 2006-07.

Even if Iraq turned out well, though, Harvey believed that it would not rescue the Bush legacy. For too many years in Harvey's view -- from 2003 to the end of 2006 -- the president had not been frank about the costs, duration and challenges of what had been undertaken in the Iraq war. As Harvey shuffled from Washington to Baghdad and back, he wondered about the president. "What was he really seeing," he thought, "and why did it take so long for him to understand?"

* * *

In one of our early interviews, President Bush said of the path he had chosen: "I know it is hard for you to believe, but I have not doubted what we're doing. I have not doubted. . . . There is no doubt in my mind we're doing the right thing. Not one doubt."

It wasn't so hard to believe. During the interviews, he repeatedly declared that his certainty was an asset. "A president has got to be the calcium in the backbone," he said. "If I weaken, the whole team weakens. If I'm doubtful, I can assure you there will be a lot of doubt. If my confidence level in our ability declines, it will send ripples throughout the whole organization. I mean, it's essential that we be confident and determined and united.

"I don't need people around me who are not steady. . . . And if there's kind of a hand-wringing going on when times are tough, I don't like it."

He spoke a dozen times about his "instincts" or his "instinctive reactions," summarizing them once by saying, "I'm not a textbook player; I'm a gut player."

* * *

For Bush's closest advisers, how the president governed can best be judged by the results he has achieved, or will eventually achieve.

"I have believed from day one that Iraq was going to change the face of the Middle East. I've never stopped believing that," Secretary of State Rice said during a meeting at the State Department in May 2008. She acknowledged, however, that "there were times in '06 when I wondered if it was going to change the face of the Middle East for the better or not."

Rice rejected the notion that the Middle East had been stable and that the Bush administration had come along and disturbed it by invading Iraq. Those who felt that way simply didn't know what they were talking about.

"What stability? Saddam Hussein shooting at our aircraft and attacking his neighbors and seeking WMD and starting a war every few years? Syrian forces, 30 years in Lebanon? Yasser Arafat stealing the Palestinian people blind and refusing to have peace?"

Rice considered the war nothing less than "the realignment of the Middle East. On one side, you've got Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the Gulf states" supporting non-extremists. "At the other side, you've got the Iranians, Hezbollah, Hamas," with Syria shifting sides, she said. She felt there had never been a greater cohesion of American allies in the Middle East than in 2008, even if those countries didn't want to be on the front lines supporting the United States publicly.

"There's nothing that I'm prouder of than the liberation of Iraq," she said without hesitation. "Did we screw up parts of it? Sure. It was a big, historical episode, and a lot of it wasn't handled very well. I'd be the first to say that."

She agreed that on Inauguration Day 2009, no new president, Democrat or Republican, was going to say that the Bush administration had fixed the Middle East. But she asserted that over time, a democratic Iraq would emerge, Iran would be transformed or defeated, Lebanon would be free of Syrian forces, and a Palestinian state would exist.

"We didn't come here to maintain the status quo. And the status quo was cracking in the Middle East. It was coming undone. And it was going to be ugly one way or another. . . . With the emergence of Iraq as it is, it's going to be bumpy, and it's going to be difficult but big. Historical change always is. There are a lot of things, if I could go back and do them differently, I would. But the one I would not do differently is, we should have liberated Iraq. I'd do it a thousand times again. I'd do it a thousand times again."

* * *

By the summer of 2008, Vice President Dick Cheney was getting ready to move on. After four decades in government, he believed he'd had quite a run. The administration had planted a democratically elected government in the heart of the Middle East and, he maintained, administered a major defeat to al-Qaeda. The Bush anti-terrorist policies, in his view, were sound. Despite the controversy and allegations of torture, he believed that the administration had established an effective and necessary interrogation program for high-value detainees, even though harsh techniques such as sleep deprivation and waterboarding, or simulated drowning, had been used against multiple detainees.

Early on, Cheney set out to make his vice presidency a consequential one. He had been at the center of the action, shaping policy and working to strengthen presidential powers. But everything had its price: If his chosen path meant leaving office as a symbol of belligerency and excess, he was willing to pay.

Cheney's hard-nosed approach to the vice presidency mirrored his view of the presidency itself. "What's the definition of the job of president?" I asked him in a 2005 interview. "My definition," I said, "is to determine what the next stage of good is for the majority of people in the country . . . and then develop a plan to carry it out."

"That's not the way I think about it," Cheney replied. "I tend to think about it more in terms of there are certain things the nation has to do, things that have to get done. Sometimes very unpleasant things. Sometimes committing troops to combat, going to war. And the president of the United States is the one who's charged with that responsibility. . . .

"The stuff you need the president for is the hard stuff. And not everything they have is hard. They do a lot of things that are symbolic, and the symbolic aspects of the presidency are important. And they can inspire, they can set goals and objectives -- 'Let's go to the moon' -- but when they earn their pay is when they have to sit down and make those really tough decisions that in effect are life-and-death decisions that affect the safety and security and survival of the nation, and most especially those people that we send into harm's way to guarantee that we can defeat our enemies, support our friends and protect the nation.

"That's the way I think of it."

* * *

In our final interview, on May 21, 2008, the president talked irritably of how he believed there was an "elite" class in America that thought he could do nothing right. He was more guarded than ever, often answered that he could not remember details, and emphasized many times how much he had turned over to Stephen J. Hadley, his loyal and trusted national security adviser. There was an air of resignation about him, as if he realized how little he could change in his eight months left as president.

He alternately insisted that he was "consumed" by the war, "reviewing every day," before adding, "But make sure you know, it's not as though I'm sitting behind the desk and totally overwhelmed by Iraq, because the president's got to do a lot of other things."

By his own ambitious goals of 2001, he had fallen short. He had not united the country, but had added to its divisions and had become the most divisive figure in the country. He acknowledged to me that he had failed "to change the tone in Washington." He had not rooted out terror wherever it existed. He had not achieved world peace. He had not attained victory in his two wars. Bush himself has noted this, declaring in a Sept. 15, 2007, speech that success in Iraq "will require U.S. political, economic and security engagement beyond my presidency."

As the Bush presidency becomes history, the wars he began will become part of another president's story. "There's going to be a new president-elect who will come in here," I said in our final interview. "Not as a Democrat or a Republican, but as the president, what are you going to say to the new leader about what you are handing off in Iraq?"

Bush thought about it for a moment. His answer seemed to reflect his revised expectations. "What I'll say is, 'Don't let it fail.' "

Brady Dennis and Evelyn Duffy contributed to this report.

~lee.

you can't say you are waging a war on religious extremism if you are trying to put a religious extremist a heartbeat away from the presidency...

two posts in one day? this one was too good to not.

[from salon...]

What's the difference between Palin and Muslim fundamentalists? Lipstick

A theocrat is a theocrat, whether Muslim or Christian.

By Juan Cole

Sep. 09, 2008 | John McCain announced that he was running for president to confront the "transcendent challenge" of the 21st century, "radical Islamic extremism," contrasting it with "stability, tolerance and democracy." But the values of his handpicked running mate, Sarah Palin, more resemble those of Muslim fundamentalists than they do those of the Founding Fathers. On censorship, the teaching of creationism in schools, reproductive rights, attributing government policy to God's will and climate change, Palin agrees with Hamas and Saudi Arabia rather than supporting tolerance and democratic precepts. What is the difference between Palin and a Muslim fundamentalist? Lipstick.

McCain pledged to work for peace based on "the transformative ideals on which we were founded." Tolerance and democracy require freedom of speech and the press, but while mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin inquired of the local librarian how to go about banning books that some of her constituents thought contained inappropriate language. She tried to fire the librarian for defying her. Book banning is common to fundamentalisms around the world, and the mind-set Palin displayed did not differ from that of the Hamas minister of education in the Palestinian government who banned a book of Palestinian folk tales for its sexually explicit language. In contrast, Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it."

Palin argued when running for governor that creationism should be taught in public schools, at taxpayers' expense, alongside real science. Antipathy to Darwin for providing an alternative to the creation stories of the Bible and the Quran has also become a feature of Muslim fundamentalism. Saudi Arabia prohibits the study, even in universities, of evolution, Freud and Marx. Malaysia has banned a translation of "The Origin of the Species." Likewise, fundamentalists in Turkey have pressured the government to teach creationism in the public schools. McCain has praised Turkey as an anchor of democracy in the region, but Turkey's secular traditions are under severe pressure from fundamentalists in that country. McCain does them no favors by choosing a running mate who wishes to destroy the First Amendment's establishment clause, which forbids the state to give official support to any particular theology. Turkish religious activists would thereby be enabled to cite an American precedent for their own quest to put religion back at the center of Ankara's public and foreign policies.

The GOP vice-presidential pick holds that abortion should be illegal, even in cases of rape, incest or severe birth defects, making an exception only if the life of the mother is in danger. She calls abortion an "atrocity" and pledges to reshape the judiciary to fight it. Ironically, Palin's views on the matter are to the right of those in the Muslim country of Tunisia, which allows abortion in the first trimester for a wide range of reasons. Classical Muslim jurisprudents differed among one another on the issue of abortion, but many permitted it before the "quickening" of the fetus, i.e. until the end of the fourth month. Contemporary Muslim fundamentalists, however, generally oppose abortion.

Palin's stance is even stricter than that of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2005, the legislature in Tehran attempted to amend the country's antiabortion statute to permit an abortion up to four months in case of a birth defect. The conservative clerical Guardianship Council, which functions as a sort of theocratic senate, however, rejected the change. Iran's law on abortion is therefore virtually identical to the one that Palin would like to see imposed on American women, and the rationale in both cases is the same, a literalist religious impulse that resists any compromise with the realities of biology and of women's lives. Saudi Arabia's restrictive law on abortion likewise disallows it in the case or rape or incest, or of fetal impairment, which is also Gov. Palin's position.

Theocrats confuse God's will with their own mortal policies. Just as Muslim fundamentalists believe that God has given them the vast oil and gas resources in their regions, so Palin asks church workers in Alaska to pray for a $30 billion pipeline in the state because "God's will has to get done." Likewise, Palin maintained that her task as governor would be impeded "if the people of Alaska's heart isn't right with God." Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei of Iran expresses much the same sentiment when he says "the only way to attain prosperity and progress is to rely on Islam."

Not only does Palin not believe global warming is "man-made," she favors massive new drilling to spew more carbon into the atmosphere. Both as a fatalist who has surrendered to God's inscrutable will and as a politician from an oil-rich region, she thereby echoes Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has been found to have exercised inappropriate influence in watering down a report in 2007 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Neither Christians nor Muslims necessarily share the beliefs detailed above. Many believers in both traditions uphold freedom of speech and the press. Indeed, in a recent poll, over 90 percent of Egyptians and Iranians said that they would build freedom of expression into any constitution they designed. Many believers find ways of reconciling the scientific theory of evolution with faith in God, not finding it necessary to believe that the world was created suddenly only 6,000 ago. Some medieval Muslim thinkers asserted that the world had existed from eternity, and others spoke of cycles of hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Mystical Muslim poets spoke of humankind traversing the stages of mineral, plant and animal. Modern Islamic fundamentalists have attempted to narrow this great, diverse tradition.

The classical Islamic legal tradition generally permitted, while frowning on, contraception and abortion, and complete opposition to them is mostly a feature of modern fundamentalist thinking. Many believers in both Islam and Christianity would see it as hubris to tie God to specific government policies or to a particular political party. As for global warming, green theology, in which Christians and Muslims appeal to Scripture in fighting global warming, is an increasing tendency in both traditions.

Palin has a right to her religious beliefs, as do fundamentalist Muslims who agree with her on so many issues of social policy. None of them has a right, however, to impose their beliefs on others by capturing and deploying the executive power of the state. The most noxious belief that Palin shares with Muslim fundamentalists is her conviction that faith is not a private affair of individuals but rather a moral imperative that believers should import into statecraft wherever they have the opportunity to do so. That is the point of her pledge to shape the judiciary. Such a theocratic impulse is incompatible with the Founding Fathers' commitment to tolerance and democracy, which is why they forbade the government to "establish" or officially support any particular religion or denomination.

McCain once excoriated the Rev. Jerry Falwell and his ilk as "agents of intolerance." That he took such a position gave his opposition to similar intolerance in Islam credibility. In light of his more recent disgraceful kowtowing to the Christian right, McCain's animus against fundamentalist Muslims no longer looks consistent. It looks bigoted and invidious. You can't say you are waging a war on religious extremism if you are trying to put a religious extremist a heartbeat away from the presidency.

~lee.