Vol. 1

This is the first of a weekly catalog of quotes, news and shamelessly biased commentary driven by the odious and seemingly willful ignorance of mainstream media in their "coverage" of actual meaningful news. For more on that particular subject, the media, the BHC highly recommends Billy Moyer's recent speech to the National Conference on Media Reform, http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1112-10.htm

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Hitchens: Master Strategist

"Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream . . . and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. . . . We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect rule Iraq. . . . There was no viable 'exit strategy' we could see. . . . Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different -- and perhaps barren -- outcome."
-- G.H.W. Bush, B. Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 1998, pp. 489-490


"pseudo-realism ... it's not as practical or as hard-headed or as prudent as it purports to be."
-- C. Hitchens. Danner/Hitchens debate: "Has Bush Made Us Safer?" , Nov 11, 2003, Wheeler Hall, U.C.Berkeley


Hitchens clearly imagines himself much more strategically astute than former National Security Advisor (under Ford and G.H.W.Bush) Scowcroft who also was Professor of Russian History at West Point and Head of the Political Science Department at the Air Force Academy and former President and Director of the CIA Bush on such matters. Amazing. Of course, his statement is completely devoid of reasoning, as though what Bush and Scowcroft have said is self-evidently without merit, despite the fact that things in Iraq look now to be exactly as Bush and Scowcroft asserted they would some five years ago. How clueless can you be, Hitchens?

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Diebold Democracy.

The BHC has been reading some rather disturbing things about "election" in Florida, a word which now seems wholly inappropriate for what went on down there. Some people are still examining all the irregularities there and for good reason. The voting machines and software being promoted for the next presidential election, mostly by Republicans, are the same which were manipulated in Florida:

www.markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com/

Some or most of you may have heard that the CEO of Diebold, Walden O'Dell, is a major fundraiser for President Bush. In a letter to fellow Republicans, O'Dell said that he was "COMMITTED TO HELPING OHIO DELIVER ITS ELECTORAL VOTES TO THE PRESIDENT NEXT YEAR." * Now, if that doesn't knot up your shorts, try out this unwholesome little turd:

Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, used to run the company that built most of the machines that count votes in his state -- and that he still owns a stake in the firm. Election Systems & Software, the world's largest election supply company, based in Omaha, Neb. ES&S was owned, in part, by a merchant banking holding company called the McCarthy Group and that the firm's chairman, Michael McCarthy, was Chuck Hagel's campaign treasurer. After searching news archives, Harris found that during Hagel's first campaign, in 1996, the Nebraska media reported that he had been president of ES&S -- which at the time was called American Information Systems.**

The bottom line is Bush could win whether anyone votes for him or not.

*http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/09/23/bev_harris/)
**http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/02/20/voting_machines/index.html

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Sensitivity Training

Sometimes the jaw-dropping qualities of the blather coming out of the mouths of Washington apparatchiks is just astounding. Some no name DoD "official" is quoted in the NYTimes today:

"Don Rumsfeld is a former member of the House of Representatives, and I think he's very sensitive to the role of Congress in our system of government,"

How comforting to know that the Secretary of Defense has such sensitivity. Of course, this is a vapid lie, since the story is about Rumsfeld ignoring a letter from the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John Warner (R-Va), and clearly indicates, as do most or all of his performances to date, that he has absolutely no regard for the role of Congress and no doubt finds it to be just a troublesome collection of insipid dullards intent on preventing him from executing the righteous mission of the Bush administration. The guy is such an arrogant prick, even Republicans are pissed off with him. Now that's gotta take some work.

quote from:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/24/politics/24RUMS.html?hp

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Support the Troops...or not.

When the BHC first saw this statement, it was really impossible to believe. Maybe we can all glean the Republican sensibility about the guys doing the dirty work:

"The story of what we've done in the postwar period is remarkable. It is a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day."

- U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt (R-WA)

It should be noted that he is yet another congressional clown-hawk who never served in the military. The closest he got to combat was entering the Washington Bar Association in '72.

Now, this quote is part of the GOP yowling about how the bias press won't play up the "good" news in Iraq. New schools, new fire trucks, which, of course, is good but, come on, we don't get that here. The media is all about covering bad news, no matter where it is. Have they never noticed this?

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The Worst

Many a site had noted statements by George Akerloff, 2001 Noble Laureate in Economics, in an interview with Der Speigel back in July:

"I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign and economic but also in social and environmental policy. This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for people to engage in civil disobedience."

- G. Akerlof, UC Berkeley,
2001 Nobel Laureate, Economics
Der Spiegel, July 29, 2003

This was a fairly noteworthy call to arms from a Noble Laureate, so it was dutifully sent this off to a few folks. A response cam back which completely floored us here at the BHC:

"While I certainly think the Bush administration has shown ineptitude and a lack of vision on a number of fronts, and Congress has been somewhat lame on the Republican side and downright pathetic on the Democratic, Akerlof's assertion that this is the worst US govt ever suggests that he thinks that our history began some time around WWII. He ought to read a little 19th century history and try again."

The utter mindlessness of the above just couldn't be let alone. The assertion that the highly respected, Nobel prize winning economist must be a little light on his reading is simply gauling. The volley had to be returned:

Ineptitude and lack of vision? hmm, that sounds like just about any other government and such a innocuous description of the Bush administration might give one pause to ask just where in the world have you been for the last 6 months? There can be no question that the Bush administration is a strikingly unique high-water mark for coporate/government cronyism which actually launched a war to the benefit of no one but the oil-soaked chums of the administration (chums, hell, they are the administration). That this war was justified under a thin (very thin indeed) guise of false claims of WMD, imminent threat and humanitarianism -- and what a crock that is -- is most assuredly behaviour which, to date, is wholly unprecedented. Bush and his band of merry men have created, not only the extant mayhem in Afganistan, but another Middle-east cauldron and have absolutely no idea of what to do next (except, of course, to make sure that Halliburton, et al, get their contracts signed) or even how to get the hell out of there without looking exactly like that which they are: dumbfounded. This despite all the warnings predicting the exact scenario playing out before us today.
And what has happened to that "Contract with America" of the '94 Repubilican Congress? You know the one where the GOP was going balance the budget and keep it that way, cutting all that unnecessary government. Were they not the ones pushing a Balanced Budget admendment to the Constitution? Guess that kind went to the back burner. Good God, a war, a soaring deficit and tax-cuts. Tax cuts during a war costing a billion/week while running a deficit? That is also unprecendented behaviour and Akerlof is entirely correct: that is not normal government policy. It just plain is not. Can we even begin to understand the utter, sickening hypocrisy of the Bush cant, "support the troops" while simultaneously proposing a $14 billion budget cut of the Veterans Administration? Given the their transgressions to this point, the VA budget hack may seem like a minor aside though I think it demonstrates the callousness of these creeps.
There is just no way nineteenth century corruption even comes close to what is going on right now. It is not on the same scale at all. Nineteenth century cronyism and graft was backyards and barbeques by comparison. US military excursions have evolved from purely defensive employs to today's global use of the US military to support and extend US national and corporate interests. And, yes, maybe in 40 years, we'll have a whole new level of graft to contend.

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WTO Smack-down:

"The World Trade Organization issued a final ruling yesterday that the steel tariffs imposed by President Bush violate international trade rules...."

There is a certain justice here, something not generally expected from the WTO. For those who thought the WTO might just be front for American corporate hegemony (like we at the BHC), this comes a quite bitch-slap for Bush. Recall that when Bush signed the steel tariffs into law, March 2002, steel using industries, which account for a vastly larger percentage of the workforce, went ballistic, as did other nation's steel producers. Given the fact that US Steel producers employ only about 200,00 Americans and steel-using industries employ an order of magnitude greater number of people, the steel tariff is so lacking in economic logic or rationale, it is really hard to imagine what the Bush administration was thinking. Their constant braying about free trade and free markets also looks completely fatuous, which of course, it is. But then, that is nothing is new for this administration. Now they find themselves in a political situation emergence from which will not be without scathing. What could be the motivation here? Political contributions? The Bushies seem to have more than enough of that. Something a little less political perhaps: pride in American steel. It goes way back and it is at the core of mid-west economic sentiment. Right along with the auto industry, the two of which grew up together, which American taxpayers and consumers have also bailed out before and Pride goeth before the fall....

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More WTO

Given the larger of context of the actions of the Bush administration, the following is an astounding statement. Complying with the WTO is an absolute must. No such concerns abide them on UN decisions, however:

"Although I may not agree with every decision at the WTO, it's important that we comply when decisions go against us," Grassley said. "Complying with our WTO obligations is an important sign of American leadership."
-Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa)
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Plenty more where this came from....