Agenda vs mission

Rex Murphy's column Leaders are so-so, so we yo-yoin today's Globe is terrific. I think he hits the nail right on the head
What gains the Tories have made from the Liberal follies and mischief is as much as they are going to make. From here, they have to manufacture new support on their own ground and on their own issues. Which is both an advantage and a threat. Mr. Harper is going to face a real testing. The public in essence will use that testing to answer the question of the election: Should this man and his party be the beneficiary of their anger and disappointment with the Liberals?
It is also the critical point in Paul Martin's campaign. His trip to Normandy for D-Day celebrations will allow for a natural hiatus from the campaign. It will give him the space to start this whole effort anew. Which he has no choice but to do.
He must drop the previous scripts, isolate himself from the campaign mechanics, the dubious artists of spin and campaign management, and speak -- to borrow a phrase -- straight from the heart. Why has he sought this job? What does he, really, want to do with it? Why is Paul Martin running? This is a message that can only come from him.
It is possible for him to earn a second look from the voters, but he has but this one chance to do so. An outburst of authenticity could burn off the smear from the sponsorship mess. It could disentangle him from the McGuinty tax-hike harpoon.
For both leaders, this is the crucial turn of the campaign.
Mr. Harper needs to state his agenda. Mr. Martin needs to state his mission.

Shorter Christie Blatchford

Christie Blatchford"I'm pro-choice, of course, but birth control is so easy to get and pregnancy out of wedlock is not shameful anymore, not like it was when I was a girl, so any woman with an unwanted pregnancy these days must be an ignorant slut who deserves to be hassled about having an abortion."

June thoughts

It was about a year ago that I started to notice there was something going wrong in Iraq.
At that time, I was anti-Bush because of the Patriot Act and Guantanamo Bay and the preemptive war doctrine, and various other Canadian things like Arar and the border and softwood lumber, etc, etc. I had been opposed to the war in Iraq, and I was very glad that the Liberals had kept us out of it. But I had basically stopped paying a lot of attention to Iraq, thinking that things were basically progressing there, even though they hadn't found any weapons nor had they found the Husseins. More important to me was finding stories about Afganistan, where Canadian troops were fighting, even though Afganistan had basically disappeared from the news. But I thought, in spite of my earlier forebodings, that maybe Iraq was settling down and maybe Tony Blair could force some progress on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
Then the constant drip, drip, drip of casualties began -- story after story, all with basically the same headline "US soldier killed in Iraq" "Two US soldiers killed in Iraq" " Tikrit blast kills three US soldiers" "Road bomb kills US soldier" -- on and on, day after day. I started to think the news editors were making mistakes, posting the previous day's story again. I kept thinking "but I read this already" as the stories kept on coming. As June, 2003 progressed, I thought maybe I was the one who was out-of-step -- the mainstream media didn't seem to notice or be bothered by these constant stories of casualties.
I had been reading Liberal Oasis occasionally since before the war started, but then I started following his links and reading further, discovering Josh Marshall and Antiwar.com and Eschaton and Counterspin. Then Dean started speaking out against the war, and he found such a response that I realized many, many Americans shared his anti-war view. And it was such a relief to realize that I was not alone in thinking that Iraq was a disaster for America. So that's basically what started this whole blog thing for me.

Does anyone remember "Seven Days in May"?

Capitol Hill Blue: Bush's Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides
A month ago, I posted some questions about Bush's erratic behaviour. Now here is a bit of a rag, Capital Hill Blue, with some stories too:
. . . the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as "enemies of the state." Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home. . . . In interviews with a number of White House staffers who were willing to talk off the record, a picture of an administration under siege has emerged, led by a man who declares his decisions to be “God’s will” and then tells aides to “fuck over” anyone they consider to be an opponent of the administration. “We’re at war, there’s no doubt about it. What I don’t know anymore is just who the enemy might be,” says one troubled White House aide. “We seem to spend more time trying to destroy John Kerry than al Qaeda and our enemies list just keeps growing and growing.” Aides say the President gets “hung up on minor details,” micromanaging to the extreme while ignoring the bigger picture. He will spend hours personally reviewing and approving every attack ad against his Democratic opponent and then kiss off a meeting on economic issues. “This is what is killing us on Iraq,” one aide says. “We lost focus. The President got hung up on the weapons of mass destruction and an unproven link to al Qaeda. We could have found other justifiable reasons for the war but the President insisted the focus stay on those two, tenuous items , , , when the director challenged the President during the meeting Wednesday, the President cut him off by saying 'that's it George. I cannot abide disloyalty. I want your resignation and I want it now."

Real "real life"

The Circling the Wagons
What an odd but interesting column - Brooks writes
"In a perfectly rational world, citizens would figure out which parties best represent their interests and their values, and they would provisionally attach themselves to those parties. If their situations changed or their interests changed, then their party affiliations would change."
Well, I never thought Canada was particularly rational, or Britain, or France, etc, but this is exactly what happens in all of those countries. The parties have a core of supporters, but there is a large (likely 50 to 60 percent) swing vote.
Then Brooks says "But that is not how things work in real life [presumably he is actually talking only about American life, but he doesn't specify]. As Donald Green, Bradley Palmquist and Eric Schickler argue in their book, 'Partisan Hearts and Minds,' most people either inherit their party affiliations from their parents, or they form an attachment to one party or another early in adulthood. Few people switch parties once they hit middle age. Even major historic events like the world wars and the Watergate scandal do not cause large numbers of people to switch."
Perhaps this is how Americans are, though I do not believe it really, but this is definitely not how the rest of the world works.
Brooks continues "Drawing on a vast range of data, these political scientists argue that party attachment is more like attachment to a religious denomination or a social club. People have stereotypes in their heads about what Democrats are like and what Republicans are like, and they gravitate toward the party made up of people like themselves."
And isn't this scary? This seems to accept partisanship as a state of being so profound, so deeply rooted, that it is impossible to change it.
Rubbish! What these political scientists apparently didn't consider, and Brooks neither, is that the US style of partisanship, which has only been in existance since the mid-80s really, is an aberration. This isn't the way most democracies actually work. People in the United States are no stupider than people anywhere else. And if the rest of the world doesn't consider political affiliation to be a genetic trait, why should America? Its that attitude that got you into Iraql

Calgary WINS !!!!!

The Conservative vision of Canada - let's punch out anyone we don't agree with

Here's an ugly picture -- Old issues continue to haunt Harper When a gay activist tried to pin Harper down on his gay marriage stance, "Tory supporters then hit Mr. Smyth with signs and an elderly man punched him in the face before police intervened."
How can anyone believe the country would be better off if these yahoos were in charge?

Strike Two

So lets see -- Harper says he won't change the languages act, though the designated Tory languages critic says they should. And Harper says he won't hamper women's access to abortion, though the designated Tory health critic says they should. So what, exactly, would the Tories do?
This quote from 16th paragraph of this Globe and Mail story is actually the led:
"While the party's platform has not yet been fully released, Mr. Harper's position on abortion is that he would not bring forward any changes to the law. However, if a backbencher pressed the issue, he would allow a free vote." (emphasis mine) Well, you can bet that some Reform backbenchers will "press the issue" so to speak.
Welcome, Canada, to the chaotic world of "free votes", where you elect someone without a clue about what they will do once elected. Free votes are basically a license for every kook and nutcase in Canada to get busy -- organizing pressure groups in ridings, picketing constituency offices, running newspaper and radio ads to get their local MP to vote their way.
Excuse me, Mr. Harper, but in Canada we have PARTIES which have PLATFORMS. Based on the platform, people decide who they will vote for during the ELECTION CAMPAIGN. Then the party which RECEIVES THE MOST VOTES gets to enact its platform by, if necessary, exerting party discipline over its own members to make sure they vote for the platform which the MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE supported. Its called parliamentary democracy.
It doesn't work very well when, two weeks into the campaign, a party doesn't yet have its platform organized -- "trust us" is not a platform. And it doesn't work at all if, once elected, an MP is constantly subjected to pressure from individuals or organizations in his riding to vote their way, regardless of what his electorate wanted.

Coalition of disgrace

Mike Wilson writes a good blog reminding us of how the Reform and the Bloc worked together in 1992 to defeat the Charlottetown Accord.
Sadly, today the Reform/Conservative party returned to it's old ally, making it official that Stephen Harper will seek to form a coalition of disgrace with the Bloc Quebecois in order to gain power in Ottawa.
I like that term, coalition of disgrace -- I hadn't been able to articulate how dismayed and distressed I felt when this alliance first began to be talked about in the news.
These Conservatives parade their vitrue -- but how can they call themselves principled if they would join with the Bloc just to grab onto power? Its disgusting.

The Boomerang Effect

This was a front page story on today's Washington Post: From Bush, Unprecedented Negativity
Kerry is getting respect from reporters. I've noticed lots of regular coverage on the AP wire reporting his policy speeches. Even more important, though all the negative stuff and the lying to make the opponent look bad worked with McCain and with Gore, its not tripping up Kerry. Rather, its boomeranging on Bush.
I think reporters and editors are ashamed of themselves for how gullible they were about Gore and the Iraq war. They'll never admit it, but now they're reporting that Bush, Cheney and the RNC lie, no matter how much the White House hates them saying it. Threats about being cut off by the Bush campaign no longer work with the media, now that Bush needs them more than they need him. Better yet, all the lying has produced additional coverage about WHY they are lying.
Scott Reed, who ran Robert J. Dole's presidential campaign . . . said the Bush campaign has little choice but to deliver a constant stream of such negative charges. With low poll numbers and a volatile situation in Iraq, Bush has more hope of tarnishing Kerry's image than promoting his own. "The Bush campaign is faced with the hard, true fact that they have to keep their boot on his neck and define him on their terms," Reed said. That might risk alienating some moderate voters or depressing turnout, "but they don't have a choice," he said.

True believers

Gay-rights activists denied communion
The priests in Chicago were gutless and anti-Christian, but the priests in St. Paul were true to their faith. Its too bad that some will see it the other way around.

The man with a mustache is here

This LA Times story Some Find Ties to CIA, Baath Party Worrisome provides some background on Iraq's newest leader, Iyad Allawi, who is described as "worrisome" for people who want a democratic Iraq. So why pick him at all?
. . . one Western diplomat said that Allawi's Baathist past, his prominence as an Iraqi exile leader and his ties to the CIA had all kept him from being the preferred candidate of either the Bush administration or Brahimi. Appointing Allawi to the premiership, the diplomat said, 'hardly communicates the message of a clean break with the past,' that the international community has been pushing for as a sign that the planned U.S. return of sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30 is more than symbolic. 'He's probably not much more popular inside Iraq than Chalabi,' said Judith Yaphe, a specialist on Iraq. 'There are going to be charges that he's corrupt because he has been supported by the CIA for a long time. But nobody's going to be pure.' In the end, she said, the U.S. agreed because 'there was a potential for the Iraqi Governing Council to try to stiff us.' And the U.S., with the clock ticking toward its self-imposed deadline, needed to find a candidate that the council would back. In the end, Baram said, 'any politician who would take this job of prime minister will be on parole and be under scrutiny to make sure he is not using the job to secure his political future.'
And if it turned out that he WAS using the job to secure his own future, then what is the US or even the UN going to do? Another 'regime change'? Another invasion? Forget about it.
Here's the strong man with a mustache, and the US is agreeable because they don't have any other choices anymore, and this guy appears to be a tiny bit more pro-American than Al Sadr. As I have said before, Iraq will never have actual free elections -- Allawi's top priority is going to be to resurrect the army and maintain oil production -- he's not going to be worrying about setting up a commission to draft a constitution, or establishing a voter registration system, or developing a legislative assembly.
Here are my predictions for how it will go -- I think its likely that he will first work out a deal with the religious and tribal and Kurdish leaders to use their militias for security, basically turning over to them the troublesome and problematic cities while he gains control over the money and oil production revenue -- why would he want to be running the cities now anyway, considering how chaotic they are? He will demand that US troops leave the country, and the US will be happy to comply. Then as the city militias collapse from overwork and underfunding, while Allawi's new Iraqi army grows and rearms, he will be able to reassert his authority in the cities too -- and work out some kind of federal relationship with the Kurds. The end result, in about a year or two, and provided he doesn't get assassinated along the way, will be a new dictatorship for Iraq.
And I predict that Abu Gharib will never be torn down -- its too useful both as a symbol for Allawi and as a facility for anyone who dares to ask why there is no democracy in Iraq.

Watch Prom Queen on Tuesday night

Watch CTV for Prom Queen on Tuesday, June 1 at 9pm ET
Its about the Marc Hall case, where a boy had to sue the school board to take his date to his high school prom. So please watch it -- apparently CTV is getting hatemail, and the production company's offices were trashed the other day, so we need to prove that there is a wide audience for a story like this.
There was an old episode of MASH on the other night when Hawkeye is dealing with a gay soldier. And it struck me how much things have changed in the media, how stories like Marc Hall's are seen now as human rights stories, not sexuality stories. It used to be that "gay" stories were actually about straight people, because the filmmakers assumed that the only important or interesting part of the story was how a straight person dealt with a gay/lesbian person -- the "villian" often seemed to be the gay person himself or herself, who had made everyone else so uncomfortable. Oh well, I suppose it was a start. But now, "gay" storylines are about how a gay person feels himself or herself, and usually in relation to a civil rights issue, and the "villian" is the homophobe. This has changed in a very short time, really.
But there is still enough hate to go around, unfortunately. PFLAG has lots of resources, by the way, for anyone who is gay or who has gay friends or children. I once read somewhere that PFLAG says that the best way to end prejudice against gay people is to know one.

Reform in sheep's clothing

The Globe and Mail: Martin comes out swinging in Quebec
Right on, Paul
"We will not plunge Quebeckers and other Canadians back into the unity battles and language struggles of old," Mr. Martin said. "We find ourselves with a separatist leader like Gilles Duceppe who is afraid to speak of separatism during an election campaign. Then we have the two supposed national leaders in Stephen Harper and Jack Layton who would open old wounds and fan the flames of division. We don't need to go down that road and we don't want to go down that road."
I feel the same way about the divisive issues that the Reformer Conservatives would raise again in Ottawa if they ever got into power -- the charter, abortion rights, gay rights, women's rights, bilingualism, multiculturalism, environmental protection, social services, higher education funding, Aboriginal funding, would all swirl down the drain.
Ontario may not believe me -- but Ontario doesn't know Reform like we know them here in the West. And Reform is who the Conservatives ARE -- Joe Clark was right, he knows them.
Don't ever think, Ontario, that you're just sending your own premier a little message by voting Conservative this time, and that the Conservatives will hold back. They will swagger into Ottawa and act as though they have a mandate to do anything they want. And don't think that it really won't make any difference to Canadian policies if the Conservatives are in power -- if you thought the Bush neocons were bad for ideological rigidity, just wait until you see Reform in action.
Here is the 2003 Reform website from BC. Quotations from its platform and principles:
Special interest groups should provide their own financing and have no access to public funding . . Reform BC supports the elimination of the “Charter of Rights and Freedoms” in its entirety, and the return of the common law . . . Transfer payments would be in reverse. The federal government would no longer control the decision-making process regarding the amount returned to the provinces. Instead, provinces would decide the amount to contribute to the federal government in return for federal services . . . Provincial governments should be given exclusive jurisdiction over consumption taxes, including GST revenues. We need to implement a comprehensive, fair and simple single rate (flat) tax . . . Decreasing the government sector wage bill by at least 15 percent through a variety of measures, including staff reductions, privatization initiatives, wage policies, “no-strike” public sector labour policies, increased efficiency and program cuts . . . Marketing boards should be eliminated and replaced by voluntary cooperatives if warranted by the nature of the market or product . . . Reform BC supports greater choice in education through the introduction of a voucher system within both a public and private school system . . . the terms of employment for public sector employees should exclude the right to strike . . . Canada is not officially a bilingual country. It is bilingual only in the House of Commons. Reform BC believes official bilingualism is inappropriate in British Columbia . . . The introduction of a “Three Strikes and You’re Out” policy. Under this policy, anyone who has been convicted three times of an indictable offence would automatically receive a sentence of a minimum of 20 years, with no possibility for parole . . . A provincial (or preferably, national) referendum on the reinstatement of capital punishment . . . We will assert and defend provincial regulatory jurisdiction over firearms, to the exclusion of federal regulatory jurisdiction . . . Members of the judiciary should be subject to recall . . . Reform BC supports the abolition of the Human Rights Commission . . . The Reform BC supports the abolition of parole and parole boards, since the justice system already makes adequate provision for time off for good behaviour . . . Canada was built on a foundation guided by fundamental values and principles which supported the value and dignity of the individual and the importance of the family unit. The Party defines “family” as individuals related by blood, marriage or adoption, and defines “marriage” as the legal union of two people of the opposite sex. . .
Here is the Reform 1993 campaign platform -- their policy on bilingualism hasn't changed.

Bilmon is back, with a vengence

Billmon
The Whiskey Bar is open again, with a brilliant post describing the totality of US failure in Iraq.
So this is what failure looks like -- and, realistically, it's much too late to look to the UN or NATO or our Arab "allies" to save us from the consequences of the administration's folly. Strategic failure on such a grand scale is obviously going to have huge repercussions, not just in Iraq, not just in the Middle East, and not just for the war against Al Qaeda. Much more than 9/11, a U.S. defeat in Iraq . . . has at least the potential to change, if not everything, then lots of things -- from the U.S. political balance of power, to the future of NATO, to the health of the global economy. Old debates -- about the limits of U.S. power and the consequences of U.S. decline -- may be resurrected. America's attractiveness as a destination for foreign investment -- the main prop beneath our current prosperity -- could be undermined. But the ultimate consequences of the Iraq fiasco are really almost impossible to predict. In other words, while we may not be looking into the abyss (to borrow Gen. Hoar's phrase) we are certainly peering out over a dark and fog-covered landscape. Still, we do what we can. So over the next few weeks, I'm going to . . .focus on these unknowns -- Rumsfeld's unknown unknowns, so to speak. The most critical of these, of course, is Iraq itself, and the U.S. position in the Middle East (the most immediate casualty of Shrub's boneheaded play). This sucking chest wound - and what, if anything might be done to heal it - should be the topic of my next post.
Rock on, Bilmon.
When John Kerry is elected, he is going to face a hell of a mess. Here are the first steps as I see them. Regardless of who is in control of Congress, Kerry can:
1. Apologize to the world for America's 9.ll hysteria.
2. Close Gitmo and every other CIA and Homeland Security secret prison in America and around the world. Tell the military and the CIA to put up or shut up -- if they can charge people, do so. If they cannot, let them go home.
3. Host a summit of world leaders and the foreign service staff to announce a new era in international relations and security cooperation.
4. Put Gore in charge of Homeland Security with a mandate to focus on all of the clear and present dangers which that department has avoided. Require the CIA and the FBI to brief him every single day.
5, Send Clinton to the Middle East, with mandate and money for a Palestinian homeland. Then send him to North Korea to make a deal.