The USA should live or die by it's original principles, and never allow an enemy's inhumanity to influence us.
Scott Horton
Monday, February 19, 2007
"Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause... for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country."
-George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775
Before America had a Constitution, a Bill of Rights or a Congress - before the institution of the Presidency - it had its first surviving institution, which was the Army. And its first commander-in-chief - the only one to bear that title without simultaneously being president - was the great militia veteran of the French and Indian War, a man whose experience in warfare towered over others, George Washington. From the outset of their confrontation with the British monarchy, the Americans were labeled as traitors and insurgents. They were denied the status of honorable soldiers in arms and were treated shamefully. Even as Washington issued the order quoted at the outset, he knew that all 31 of the prisoners taken by the British at Bunker Hill had died in captivity, many under unsettling circumstances. Of the 2,607 Americans taken prisoner at the capitulation of Ft Washington, all but 800 had died in captivity by 1778. The continental press was filled with accounts of the brutal and inhuman treatment of Americans taken by the British throughout this period. Against a loud public outcry of "eye for an eye," George Washington stood fast. He made it a point of fundamental honor (and that was his word) that the Americans would not only hold dearly to the laws of war, they would define a new law of war that reflected the humanitarian principles for which the new Republic had risen. These principles required respect for the dignity and worth of every human being engaged in the conduct of the war, whether in the American cause or that of the nation's oppressor. They also required respect for the religion and cultural values of foreign peoples. He wrote, "While we are contending for our own liberty, we should be very cautious of violating the rights of conscience in others, ever considering that God alone is the judge of the hearts of men, and to Him only in this case are they answerable." Following the Battle of Trenton in 1776, Washington set firm rules for the treatment of prisoners in American custody. "Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren who have fallen into their hands," he wrote. In all respects the prisoners were to be treated no worse than American soldiers; and in some respects, better. Through this approach, Washington sought to shame his British adversaries, and to demonstrate the moral superiority of the American cause. He also anticipated that the prisoners, treated with such attention and care, would reconsider their loyalties by the end of the war and embrace the American cause (his expectation was fulfilled - nearly all of the surviving prisoners of Trenton, for instance, settled in America and attained citizenship, many after US military service). But Washington makes clear that he took this approach in the end because of his experience in the wilderness, and the lesson he learned there: soldiers who mistreated prisoners, who took up cruel practices, were bad and unruly soldiers - the discipline and morale of the entire fighting force was undermined by such conduct. For Washington, the issues were clear on both a moral and practical level, and his guidance was given with firm conviction. Washington's rules on the treatment of prisoners were doctrine of the United States Army for 227 years. From Washington's perspective, they were not marginal matters. Rather, they defined the United States in relationship to the rest of the world.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Reaction to Abu Ghraib
The prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib were a terrible departure from the honorable traditions of our military. The 1949 Geneva Conventions set the bare minimum prisoner treatment requirements, and the US actually has a long history of exceeding those minimum standards. To order our troops to act below the bare minimums is dumb and dishonorable. It is not only bad for the prisoners and the war effort, it is also disrespectful and degrading for US soldiers. I don't think I have to tell you who I blame for this permanent stain on US honor.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Suspension of Habeas Corpus
First of all, I want to concede that my prior assertions that Bush is the first president ever to suspend the writ of habeas corpus were flat wrong. I have been doing more research in order to become more informed. I stand corrected.
The law reads: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." This writ has origins over 700 years old, and was designed to protect the common people against the unilateral indefinite detention by a king. Basically it means if you put a man in the box you have to charge them with a crime and bring them before a court. I view the historical suspension of the writ in the US as meaning "better to be safe than sorry".
Bush is the fourth US president to suspend habeas corpus. Andrew Jackson suspended it for 2 months because of an invasion (War of 1812 with British) & Lincoln suspended it because of a rebellion (Civil War, bloodiest war US has ever fought). Lincoln was indicted for this action (which he ignored because DC was surrounded by hostile confederate militias), and Jackson was fined and prosecuted by Congress. Also in the early 1870s, President Grant suspended habeas corpus temporarily in nine counties in South Carolina, as part of federal civil rights action against the Ku Klux Klan. If you know of more please let me know. Though I could find no information on it, I am wondering if the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII was considered suspension of the writ. Pearl Harbor was clearly an invasion, but maybe the detention was not considered indefinite since everyone was released after Japan surrendered.
The previous suspensions happened between 130-200 years ago - there were no phones, satellites, internet, etc. I think the US is a much more settled country, with instant information technology that makes suspending the writ a more extreme measure than in the past. For example, Jackson had to send a handwritten letter by messenger from Washington DC to the troops in New Orleans, basically saying "round em up, lock em up, stop the bloodshed and we'll sort it all out later". Too much dawdling or caution could have meant the end of the country, and information traveled at a horse's pace. To the argument that 9/11 constitutes an invasion - I say that's giving way too much credit to 19 illiterate Saudi punks. Most importantly, I don't think the war on terrorism will ever be over. Suspending the writ for a year after 9/11 until we could accurately determine how much danger we were in, maybe, but forever does not seem justified. I don't understand why it would be hard to charge someone with a crime and prove their guilt. My fear is that the cornerstone of our criminal justice system may be gone forever. As you know, I have spent a couple of nights in the box - albeit for good reason. I don't want anyone to be indefinitely detained by the US government based on rumors, innuendo, or a hunch.
The law reads: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." This writ has origins over 700 years old, and was designed to protect the common people against the unilateral indefinite detention by a king. Basically it means if you put a man in the box you have to charge them with a crime and bring them before a court. I view the historical suspension of the writ in the US as meaning "better to be safe than sorry".
Bush is the fourth US president to suspend habeas corpus. Andrew Jackson suspended it for 2 months because of an invasion (War of 1812 with British) & Lincoln suspended it because of a rebellion (Civil War, bloodiest war US has ever fought). Lincoln was indicted for this action (which he ignored because DC was surrounded by hostile confederate militias), and Jackson was fined and prosecuted by Congress. Also in the early 1870s, President Grant suspended habeas corpus temporarily in nine counties in South Carolina, as part of federal civil rights action against the Ku Klux Klan. If you know of more please let me know. Though I could find no information on it, I am wondering if the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII was considered suspension of the writ. Pearl Harbor was clearly an invasion, but maybe the detention was not considered indefinite since everyone was released after Japan surrendered.
The previous suspensions happened between 130-200 years ago - there were no phones, satellites, internet, etc. I think the US is a much more settled country, with instant information technology that makes suspending the writ a more extreme measure than in the past. For example, Jackson had to send a handwritten letter by messenger from Washington DC to the troops in New Orleans, basically saying "round em up, lock em up, stop the bloodshed and we'll sort it all out later". Too much dawdling or caution could have meant the end of the country, and information traveled at a horse's pace. To the argument that 9/11 constitutes an invasion - I say that's giving way too much credit to 19 illiterate Saudi punks. Most importantly, I don't think the war on terrorism will ever be over. Suspending the writ for a year after 9/11 until we could accurately determine how much danger we were in, maybe, but forever does not seem justified. I don't understand why it would be hard to charge someone with a crime and prove their guilt. My fear is that the cornerstone of our criminal justice system may be gone forever. As you know, I have spent a couple of nights in the box - albeit for good reason. I don't want anyone to be indefinitely detained by the US government based on rumors, innuendo, or a hunch.
When I discovered Ron Paul
This guy would be a healthy dose of common sense for our country - he has no chance of getting elected. Pasting two separate, similar articles on his history below.
#1: You've probably read Radley Balko on Fox news - he is the libertarian columnist.
Ron Paul, the Real Republican?
Tuesday , February 20, 2007
By Radley Balko
When you read about a vote in Congress that goes something like 412-1, odds are pretty good that the sole "nay" came from Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas. He so consistently votes against widely popular bills, in fact, that the Washington Post recently gave him the moniker "Congressman 'No.'"
Paul isn't a reflexive contrarian--he doesn't oppose just to oppose. Rather, he has a core set of principles that guide him. They happen to be the same principles envisioned by the framers of the U.S. Constitution: limited government, federalism, free trade and commerce -- with a premium on peace.
When most members of Congress see a bill for the first time, they immediately judge the bill on its merits, or if you're more cynical, they determine what the political interests that support them will think of it, or how it might benefit their constituents.
For Paul, the vast majority of bills don't get that far. He first asks, "Does the Constitution authorize Congress to pass this law?" Most of the time, the answer to that question is "no." And so Paul votes accordingly.
This hasn't won him many friends in Congress, or, for that matter, his own party. It hasn't won him influential committee assignments or powerful chairmanships, either. Those are generally handed out to the party animals who vote as they're told. An incorruptible man of principle in a corrupt body almost utterly devoid of principle, Paul is often a caucus of one.
Paul recently announced his intentions to run for president in 2008. For the few of us who still care about limited government, individual rights, and a sensible foreign policy, Paul's candidacy is terrific news. Not because he's likely to win. He's a not-terribly-powerful Congressman who's a pariah in his own party – which also happens to be the minority party. Not the ideal presidential dossier.
Paul has already run for president once, on the Libertarian Party ticket. He returned to Congress as a Republican in 1996, even though the party machinery opposed him in the primary. He has since won re-election with progressively larger margins of victory, bucking the conventional wisdom about the political value of pork barrel spending and district patronage. Paul, for example, refuses to support federal farm subsidies, despite the fact that much of his district relies on agriculture. His constituents re-elect him anyway.
Paul's presence in the race is important because he'll put issues on the table that would otherwise be completely ignored. His presence in the primary debates alone will make them far more substantive and interesting than they've been in a generation. One example is the continuing disaster that is the drug war, which Paul rightly believes to be both immoral and unconstitutional. Paul also opposed the war in Iraq from its inception. Those two issues alone will differentiate him from every other candidate on the stage.
But Paul can then swing to the right of every other candidate on federal spending, regulation, the Nanny State, and the growth of government. On these issues, he can reliably and credibly serve as the party's conscience, and browbeat the sitting senators and congressmen running for president for their votes issues like the prescription drug benefit, the surge in federal spending, and the party's complicity in the corrupt earmarking process.
I don't agree with Paul on everything. His stance on monetary policy (he wants to return to the gold standard) is a bit out-there for my taste. He favors strict limits on legal immigration, and is far more alarmist about illegal immigration than I think is necessary.
Of course, the immigration issue will likely be a benefit, not a liability, to Paul in the primaries. He's also a registered OB/GYN who has delivered more than 4,000 babies – and is anti-abortion.
While Paul probably can't win the GOP nomination, there's a chance he can survive deep enough into the primaries to foster a national debate on issues like drug prohibition, as well as force the Republican Party to do some soul-searching, and perhaps reconnect with its limited government, Barry Goldwater roots.
Ideally, Paul's bona fides on immigration, abortion, federalism, constitutionalism, and limited government will win him credibility with and respect from primary voters, giving him leverage to take principled stands and spur discussion on issues like the drug war, privacy, foreign policy, and civil liberties. He could at least win enough votes and support to last well into the spring, forcing the other candidates to adopt parts of his agenda, and the press to cover his platform.
Under the less optimistic scenario, Republican Party leaders, primary opponents, and the punditocracy punish Paul for his principles, and demagogue his position on Iraq, the drug war, and federal meddling in our personal lives. Talk radio, conservative leaders, and the party machinery dismiss him as an unserious candidate, and primary voters take their cue. Under this scenario, Paul bows out early, the remaining candidates press on with business as usual, and the Republican Party continues down its unfortunate recent trajectory.
Which scenario plays out probably depends on how much primary voters actually care about the GOP's recent embrace of big government. That is, which is more important to core Republican voters: Limited government, or using big government to promote a conservative agenda?
Ronald Reagan once said that libertarianism is "the very heart and soul of conservatism" (Reagan was great at communicating the princples of limited government, if less great at actually implementing them). Of all the candidates so far declared, only Paul can credibly lay claim to the legacy of the Reagan-Goldwater revolution. How well he does, how long he lasts, and who ends up defeating him will reveal whether there's any limited government allegiance at all still stirring the Republican Party.
#2: George Will is a great writer with true conservative principles...
What the Founding Fathers Really Intended
George Will
Washington Post
February 2007
Rep. Ron Paul says he can find in the Constitution's enumeration of the federal powers—Article I, Section 8—no reference to rice. By George F. Will Newsweek Feb. 26, 2007 issue - Some rice farmers from Congressman Ron Paul's district were in his office the other day, asking for this and that from the federal government. The affable Republican from south Texas listened nicely, then forwarded their requests to the appropriate House committee. It may or may not satisfy their requests in some bill dispensing largesse to agricultural interests. Then Paul will vote against the bill.
He believes, with more stubbornness than evidence, that the federal government is a government of strictly enumerated powers, and nowhere in the Constitution's enumeration (Article I, Section 8) can he find any reference to rice. So there. "Farm organizations fight me tooth and nail," he says, "but the farmers are with me." Of course they can afford to indulge their congressman's philosophical eccentricity because lots of other House members represent rice farmers, so rice gets its share of gravy. Still, Paul is a likable eccentric, partly because he likes his constituents while disliking what he considers their incontinent appetite for government. Why, "If you ignore what they say about rice, they are nice people." He would help them by ending the trade embargo with Cuba, to which they used to sell a lot of rice.
The 71-year-old Ob-Gyn doctor has delivered more than 4,000 babies and (it must seem to other House members) an even larger number of speeches in the House deploring most of what the government does. This week he will be in New Hampshire announcing his second presidential candidacy.
In 1988, during a 12-year sabbatical from Congress, he was the Libertarian Party's nominee, and finished third. He received just 0.47 percent of the popular vote, but his 432,179 votes were four times more than the total that elected President John Quincy Adams in 1824, so there. This time he is seeking the Republican nomination, so he will be on the Manchester, N.H., stage April 4 for the first Republican candidates' debate.
There, like Longfellow's youth "who bore, 'mid snow and ice, a banner with the strange device, Excelsior!" Paul will unfurl his banner emblazoned with James Madison's Federalist Paper No. 45: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined." Paul, who really believes in limited government, will infiltrate that confabulation of sedate candidates in order, he says, to find out "how many real Republicans are left." This could be entertaining, meaning embarrassing.
Do any other House Republicans agree with him? "Every one of them, at times. But none of them all the time." Paul relishes his role as The Least Malleable Republican. Last week Paul, who voted not only against the 2002 authorization for war but the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act (he thinks "regime change" and its inevitable aftermath, "nation-building," are optional follies) was vehemently supporting the House resolution disapproving of the president's Iraq policy.
Most congressional offices are decorated with photos of representatives gripping and grinning with presidents and other eminences. Paul, who thinks the presidency has swollen to anticonstitutional proportions, has photos of two Austrian School economists, Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, who warned against what Hayek called "the fatal conceit" of governments thinking they can allocate wealth and opportunity more reasonably than can markets. Paul's office has a picture of one president—Grover Cleveland, the conservative Democrat who asked, "What is the use of being elected or re-elected unless you stand for something?"
Paul thinks everyone is born an instinctive libertarian, "wanting to be let alone." Unfortunately, "the school system beats it out of you." Paul voted both for the ban on partial-birth abortion (a fetus is alive, leave it alone) and against the ban on same-sex marriage (none of the federal government's business). He refused to allow any of his five children (three of whom are doctors) to accept federal student loans, and he will not accept his congressional pension. He voted against campaign-finance regulation in 2002 and the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act in 2006, denouncing the former as the left's attack on free speech and the latter as the right's attack. Because they are "not authorized within the enumerated powers of the Constitution," he regularly votes against awarding gold medals to distinguished figures, including—gasp—the Gipper.
Even before the Founders' generation passed from the scene, the government was slipping off the leash that Madison said—and Paul says—the Constitution puts on it. (Where did Jefferson find constitutional authority for making the Louisiana Purchase?) Still, Paul is not only a cheerful anachronism but a useful one. He forces us to consider the continuing relevance of some old arguments, and he reminds us that much of the reverence for the Founders is more rhetorical than operational.
#1: You've probably read Radley Balko on Fox news - he is the libertarian columnist.
Ron Paul, the Real Republican?
Tuesday , February 20, 2007
By Radley Balko
When you read about a vote in Congress that goes something like 412-1, odds are pretty good that the sole "nay" came from Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas. He so consistently votes against widely popular bills, in fact, that the Washington Post recently gave him the moniker "Congressman 'No.'"
Paul isn't a reflexive contrarian--he doesn't oppose just to oppose. Rather, he has a core set of principles that guide him. They happen to be the same principles envisioned by the framers of the U.S. Constitution: limited government, federalism, free trade and commerce -- with a premium on peace.
When most members of Congress see a bill for the first time, they immediately judge the bill on its merits, or if you're more cynical, they determine what the political interests that support them will think of it, or how it might benefit their constituents.
For Paul, the vast majority of bills don't get that far. He first asks, "Does the Constitution authorize Congress to pass this law?" Most of the time, the answer to that question is "no." And so Paul votes accordingly.
This hasn't won him many friends in Congress, or, for that matter, his own party. It hasn't won him influential committee assignments or powerful chairmanships, either. Those are generally handed out to the party animals who vote as they're told. An incorruptible man of principle in a corrupt body almost utterly devoid of principle, Paul is often a caucus of one.
Paul recently announced his intentions to run for president in 2008. For the few of us who still care about limited government, individual rights, and a sensible foreign policy, Paul's candidacy is terrific news. Not because he's likely to win. He's a not-terribly-powerful Congressman who's a pariah in his own party – which also happens to be the minority party. Not the ideal presidential dossier.
Paul has already run for president once, on the Libertarian Party ticket. He returned to Congress as a Republican in 1996, even though the party machinery opposed him in the primary. He has since won re-election with progressively larger margins of victory, bucking the conventional wisdom about the political value of pork barrel spending and district patronage. Paul, for example, refuses to support federal farm subsidies, despite the fact that much of his district relies on agriculture. His constituents re-elect him anyway.
Paul's presence in the race is important because he'll put issues on the table that would otherwise be completely ignored. His presence in the primary debates alone will make them far more substantive and interesting than they've been in a generation. One example is the continuing disaster that is the drug war, which Paul rightly believes to be both immoral and unconstitutional. Paul also opposed the war in Iraq from its inception. Those two issues alone will differentiate him from every other candidate on the stage.
But Paul can then swing to the right of every other candidate on federal spending, regulation, the Nanny State, and the growth of government. On these issues, he can reliably and credibly serve as the party's conscience, and browbeat the sitting senators and congressmen running for president for their votes issues like the prescription drug benefit, the surge in federal spending, and the party's complicity in the corrupt earmarking process.
I don't agree with Paul on everything. His stance on monetary policy (he wants to return to the gold standard) is a bit out-there for my taste. He favors strict limits on legal immigration, and is far more alarmist about illegal immigration than I think is necessary.
Of course, the immigration issue will likely be a benefit, not a liability, to Paul in the primaries. He's also a registered OB/GYN who has delivered more than 4,000 babies – and is anti-abortion.
While Paul probably can't win the GOP nomination, there's a chance he can survive deep enough into the primaries to foster a national debate on issues like drug prohibition, as well as force the Republican Party to do some soul-searching, and perhaps reconnect with its limited government, Barry Goldwater roots.
Ideally, Paul's bona fides on immigration, abortion, federalism, constitutionalism, and limited government will win him credibility with and respect from primary voters, giving him leverage to take principled stands and spur discussion on issues like the drug war, privacy, foreign policy, and civil liberties. He could at least win enough votes and support to last well into the spring, forcing the other candidates to adopt parts of his agenda, and the press to cover his platform.
Under the less optimistic scenario, Republican Party leaders, primary opponents, and the punditocracy punish Paul for his principles, and demagogue his position on Iraq, the drug war, and federal meddling in our personal lives. Talk radio, conservative leaders, and the party machinery dismiss him as an unserious candidate, and primary voters take their cue. Under this scenario, Paul bows out early, the remaining candidates press on with business as usual, and the Republican Party continues down its unfortunate recent trajectory.
Which scenario plays out probably depends on how much primary voters actually care about the GOP's recent embrace of big government. That is, which is more important to core Republican voters: Limited government, or using big government to promote a conservative agenda?
Ronald Reagan once said that libertarianism is "the very heart and soul of conservatism" (Reagan was great at communicating the princples of limited government, if less great at actually implementing them). Of all the candidates so far declared, only Paul can credibly lay claim to the legacy of the Reagan-Goldwater revolution. How well he does, how long he lasts, and who ends up defeating him will reveal whether there's any limited government allegiance at all still stirring the Republican Party.
#2: George Will is a great writer with true conservative principles...
What the Founding Fathers Really Intended
George Will
Washington Post
February 2007
Rep. Ron Paul says he can find in the Constitution's enumeration of the federal powers—Article I, Section 8—no reference to rice. By George F. Will Newsweek Feb. 26, 2007 issue - Some rice farmers from Congressman Ron Paul's district were in his office the other day, asking for this and that from the federal government. The affable Republican from south Texas listened nicely, then forwarded their requests to the appropriate House committee. It may or may not satisfy their requests in some bill dispensing largesse to agricultural interests. Then Paul will vote against the bill.
He believes, with more stubbornness than evidence, that the federal government is a government of strictly enumerated powers, and nowhere in the Constitution's enumeration (Article I, Section 8) can he find any reference to rice. So there. "Farm organizations fight me tooth and nail," he says, "but the farmers are with me." Of course they can afford to indulge their congressman's philosophical eccentricity because lots of other House members represent rice farmers, so rice gets its share of gravy. Still, Paul is a likable eccentric, partly because he likes his constituents while disliking what he considers their incontinent appetite for government. Why, "If you ignore what they say about rice, they are nice people." He would help them by ending the trade embargo with Cuba, to which they used to sell a lot of rice.
The 71-year-old Ob-Gyn doctor has delivered more than 4,000 babies and (it must seem to other House members) an even larger number of speeches in the House deploring most of what the government does. This week he will be in New Hampshire announcing his second presidential candidacy.
In 1988, during a 12-year sabbatical from Congress, he was the Libertarian Party's nominee, and finished third. He received just 0.47 percent of the popular vote, but his 432,179 votes were four times more than the total that elected President John Quincy Adams in 1824, so there. This time he is seeking the Republican nomination, so he will be on the Manchester, N.H., stage April 4 for the first Republican candidates' debate.
There, like Longfellow's youth "who bore, 'mid snow and ice, a banner with the strange device, Excelsior!" Paul will unfurl his banner emblazoned with James Madison's Federalist Paper No. 45: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined." Paul, who really believes in limited government, will infiltrate that confabulation of sedate candidates in order, he says, to find out "how many real Republicans are left." This could be entertaining, meaning embarrassing.
Do any other House Republicans agree with him? "Every one of them, at times. But none of them all the time." Paul relishes his role as The Least Malleable Republican. Last week Paul, who voted not only against the 2002 authorization for war but the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act (he thinks "regime change" and its inevitable aftermath, "nation-building," are optional follies) was vehemently supporting the House resolution disapproving of the president's Iraq policy.
Most congressional offices are decorated with photos of representatives gripping and grinning with presidents and other eminences. Paul, who thinks the presidency has swollen to anticonstitutional proportions, has photos of two Austrian School economists, Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, who warned against what Hayek called "the fatal conceit" of governments thinking they can allocate wealth and opportunity more reasonably than can markets. Paul's office has a picture of one president—Grover Cleveland, the conservative Democrat who asked, "What is the use of being elected or re-elected unless you stand for something?"
Paul thinks everyone is born an instinctive libertarian, "wanting to be let alone." Unfortunately, "the school system beats it out of you." Paul voted both for the ban on partial-birth abortion (a fetus is alive, leave it alone) and against the ban on same-sex marriage (none of the federal government's business). He refused to allow any of his five children (three of whom are doctors) to accept federal student loans, and he will not accept his congressional pension. He voted against campaign-finance regulation in 2002 and the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act in 2006, denouncing the former as the left's attack on free speech and the latter as the right's attack. Because they are "not authorized within the enumerated powers of the Constitution," he regularly votes against awarding gold medals to distinguished figures, including—gasp—the Gipper.
Even before the Founders' generation passed from the scene, the government was slipping off the leash that Madison said—and Paul says—the Constitution puts on it. (Where did Jefferson find constitutional authority for making the Louisiana Purchase?) Still, Paul is not only a cheerful anachronism but a useful one. He forces us to consider the continuing relevance of some old arguments, and he reminds us that much of the reverence for the Founders is more rhetorical than operational.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Fascism?
The dictionary defines fascism as having these integral parts: (nationalism, censorship, authoritarianism, militarism, corporatism, totalitarianism, collectivism, anti-liberalism, anti-communism). I do not automatically equate liberal with socialist/communist, though I understand the argument that extreme economic liberalism leads to socialism leads to communism. I think getting worked up about the shitty lives of poor, lazy, incompetent, underacheiving, handout-taking, irresponsible, undisciplined people would be a waste of my time. As discussed before, the cost proportion of welfare compared to other items in the federal budget is like comparing a pound to a ton. Not saying it's a super excellent great idea that should be expanded, just that it is an issue that gets way more attention than it deserves. The most drastic slashing of welfare spending was signed into law by a liberal president who also campaigned on the issue.
I don't see how anyone can think this president is not actively divisive when he says a vote for the opposition is a vote for the terrorists. I think the record-setting number of presidential signing statements Bush has used to disregard laws is cowardly, authoritarian, and offensive to our democracy. The FISA law passed by Congress in 1978 requires oversight when wiretapping American citizens - this law has been violated for more than 5 years. Conveniently, the day before the enabling republicans lost control of Congress last month, the administration said it will now use oversight, and that there was no need to prosecute past crimes. What a load of shit (like a rapist telling a judge don't send me to jail, cuz my rapin' days are over). No one is arguing not to wiretap terrorists, just do it legally and use oversight. You can't value transparency in goverment and also support this secretive and incompetent administration. Subpoenas are the mechanism Congress uses to check the executive branch. The republican Congress in the 90's sent over 1,000 supoenas to Bill Clinton (average one a day) - that is checks and balances. Throughout indefinite suspension of habeas corpus, illegal wiretapping, adoption of torture, massive intelligence failures, preemtive invasion of a country that was never a threat to us and not behind 9/11, disappearing people to secret prisons in Syria, the total number of subpoenas sent to dubya in six years was exactly zero. There has been no oversight at all on King George. I am not endorsing the democratic party; I am saying we must not reward an incompetent presidency dripping with cronyism, who is fighting islamic terrorism symbolically instead of strategically. I'm not blaming every single problem in the world on the president. But I think silence on these issues of creeping fascism would offend my hero TR.
I don't see how anyone can think this president is not actively divisive when he says a vote for the opposition is a vote for the terrorists. I think the record-setting number of presidential signing statements Bush has used to disregard laws is cowardly, authoritarian, and offensive to our democracy. The FISA law passed by Congress in 1978 requires oversight when wiretapping American citizens - this law has been violated for more than 5 years. Conveniently, the day before the enabling republicans lost control of Congress last month, the administration said it will now use oversight, and that there was no need to prosecute past crimes. What a load of shit (like a rapist telling a judge don't send me to jail, cuz my rapin' days are over). No one is arguing not to wiretap terrorists, just do it legally and use oversight. You can't value transparency in goverment and also support this secretive and incompetent administration. Subpoenas are the mechanism Congress uses to check the executive branch. The republican Congress in the 90's sent over 1,000 supoenas to Bill Clinton (average one a day) - that is checks and balances. Throughout indefinite suspension of habeas corpus, illegal wiretapping, adoption of torture, massive intelligence failures, preemtive invasion of a country that was never a threat to us and not behind 9/11, disappearing people to secret prisons in Syria, the total number of subpoenas sent to dubya in six years was exactly zero. There has been no oversight at all on King George. I am not endorsing the democratic party; I am saying we must not reward an incompetent presidency dripping with cronyism, who is fighting islamic terrorism symbolically instead of strategically. I'm not blaming every single problem in the world on the president. But I think silence on these issues of creeping fascism would offend my hero TR.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Presidential Candidates
I am going to take being called "a librul!" as a compliment, in the sense that I am violently anti-facist. I do not support any president, whom I consider my employee, using fear to acquire new authoritarian powers and pit Americans against each other. I believe the president and the enabling republican congress has broken the law by illegally wiretapping American citizens. I think that he has lied to us about US use of torture being a few bad apples when his VP and Secretary of Defense have their names on the memos approving techniques that violate Geneva conventions, and about secret prisons (in Syria! WTF!). I think that prewar intelligence on Iraq's capabilities that did not support the plan for unprecedented preemptive war was deceptively suppressed and discounted, the costs intentionally set too low, and dissenters in the administration were fired, and the nuclear threat was purposely hyped. As far as criticism of Romney below, my intent was to demonstrate that people of both parties change their mind for votes, and that primary voters have too much control over candidate selection. You may continue to merely dimiss all this as partisan rhetoric or conservative bashing. How many partisan liberals would you guess voted for Bush in 2000? I did, and I feel deceived.
I too have become more conservative on abortion since becoming a father - the pro-life advocates are 100% correct that widespread use of ultrasound has a dramatic effect. Not sure why you chose the 12-week max termination time, though I don't necessarily disagree with it (is that when the heart starts beating?). That cutoff point is something most Americans will never agree on.
On candidates, I cannot stand the sight/sound of Hillary and do not think she's our next president. Obama has developed an apparent case of foot-in-mouth lately with his comments on US troops. Newt is probably the most principled small government conservative. I might like Rudy if he would stop sucking bush's teat for one minute - he talks about him like he's some king sent from the lord above - please. Concerning John McCain - I lost respect for him since supporting him in 2000, because I think he is a bush apologist, and I don't understand how he can bring himself to hug the man who so viciously attacked his wife during campaign 2000. Don't know anything about Richardson - will do more research.
I too have become more conservative on abortion since becoming a father - the pro-life advocates are 100% correct that widespread use of ultrasound has a dramatic effect. Not sure why you chose the 12-week max termination time, though I don't necessarily disagree with it (is that when the heart starts beating?). That cutoff point is something most Americans will never agree on.
On candidates, I cannot stand the sight/sound of Hillary and do not think she's our next president. Obama has developed an apparent case of foot-in-mouth lately with his comments on US troops. Newt is probably the most principled small government conservative. I might like Rudy if he would stop sucking bush's teat for one minute - he talks about him like he's some king sent from the lord above - please. Concerning John McCain - I lost respect for him since supporting him in 2000, because I think he is a bush apologist, and I don't understand how he can bring himself to hug the man who so viciously attacked his wife during campaign 2000. Don't know anything about Richardson - will do more research.
More TR
Here's a quote from Theodore Roosevelt, written in the middle of World War I, as part of a 1918 Op-Ed for The Kansas City Star. This should be required reading for anyone who believes that critical statements toward the president constitute treason:
"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."
"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."
Torture and 24
*Andrew Sullivan:
The adoption of torture as an authorized interrogation technique by the United States was innovated by president Bush, vice-president Cheney, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and officials in the Justice Department and Pentagon in the wake of 9/11. It has been documented in hundreds of cases in every theater of war, and authorized by presidential directive, waiving the Geneva Conventions if "military necessity" demands it. Last September, Karl Rove made a strategic decision to use the torture issue as a last, desperate campaign tactic - to see if he could out-Bauer the Democrats. Jane Mayer's latest contribution reporting the shift of America from a law-abiding country to a torturing nation is this piece on the hit television show, "24." It's a very effective drama and pure fantasy for pro-torture conservatives. Conservative pundit Laura Ingraham has even confessed to finding scenes of brutal interrogations therapeutic: Joel Surnow, (the creator of "24") once appeared as a guest on Ingraham's show; she told him that, while she was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, "it was soothing to see Jack Bauer torture these terrorists, and I felt better." Surnow joked, "We love to torture terrorists — it's good for you!"
Mayer helps show how the near-non-existent "ticking clock" scenario has been popularized by "24" in such a way as to normalize torture in the public consciousness. In five seasons of "24", there have been sixty-seven torture scenes, and all of them are portrayed as effective, productive, and justified. Military cadets, weaned on "24", now tend to see nothing wrong with it. Soldiers in the field have internalized the show's ethics. One witness to this is Tony Lagouranis, a former army interrogator in Iraq. He tells Mayer that some soldiers in Iraq just replicated the "24" scenes in real life - even though torture is still nominally illegal under American law for the regular military (the Bush administration has created a special CIA torture unit to do the job instead).
Lagouranis is a good witness for what has actually been happening in the war:
"In Iraq, I never saw pain produce intelligence," Lagouranis told me. "I worked with someone who used waterboarding ... I used severe hypothermia, dogs, and sleep deprivation. I saw suspects after soldiers had gone into their homes and broken their bones, or made them sit on a Humvee’s hot exhaust pipes until they got third-degree burns. Nothing happened." Some people, he said, "gave confessions. But they just told us what we already knew. It never opened up a stream of new information." What's truly disturbing is how enthusiastic the Republican establishment is about this adoption of torture as the American way.
(http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/070219fa_fact_mayerto)
The adoption of torture as an authorized interrogation technique by the United States was innovated by president Bush, vice-president Cheney, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and officials in the Justice Department and Pentagon in the wake of 9/11. It has been documented in hundreds of cases in every theater of war, and authorized by presidential directive, waiving the Geneva Conventions if "military necessity" demands it. Last September, Karl Rove made a strategic decision to use the torture issue as a last, desperate campaign tactic - to see if he could out-Bauer the Democrats. Jane Mayer's latest contribution reporting the shift of America from a law-abiding country to a torturing nation is this piece on the hit television show, "24." It's a very effective drama and pure fantasy for pro-torture conservatives. Conservative pundit Laura Ingraham has even confessed to finding scenes of brutal interrogations therapeutic: Joel Surnow, (the creator of "24") once appeared as a guest on Ingraham's show; she told him that, while she was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, "it was soothing to see Jack Bauer torture these terrorists, and I felt better." Surnow joked, "We love to torture terrorists — it's good for you!"
Mayer helps show how the near-non-existent "ticking clock" scenario has been popularized by "24" in such a way as to normalize torture in the public consciousness. In five seasons of "24", there have been sixty-seven torture scenes, and all of them are portrayed as effective, productive, and justified. Military cadets, weaned on "24", now tend to see nothing wrong with it. Soldiers in the field have internalized the show's ethics. One witness to this is Tony Lagouranis, a former army interrogator in Iraq. He tells Mayer that some soldiers in Iraq just replicated the "24" scenes in real life - even though torture is still nominally illegal under American law for the regular military (the Bush administration has created a special CIA torture unit to do the job instead).
Lagouranis is a good witness for what has actually been happening in the war:
"In Iraq, I never saw pain produce intelligence," Lagouranis told me. "I worked with someone who used waterboarding ... I used severe hypothermia, dogs, and sleep deprivation. I saw suspects after soldiers had gone into their homes and broken their bones, or made them sit on a Humvee’s hot exhaust pipes until they got third-degree burns. Nothing happened." Some people, he said, "gave confessions. But they just told us what we already knew. It never opened up a stream of new information." What's truly disturbing is how enthusiastic the Republican establishment is about this adoption of torture as the American way.
(http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/070219fa_fact_mayerto)
Monday, February 05, 2007
Fidel Castro & Molly Ivins
Not sure why some folks can compare liking Molly Ivins to liking Fidel Castro, but I decided to google the stinkin' geezer anyway. It's easy to find a list of actors or media personalities who have met with and said good things about Fidel Castro (Ted Turner, Robert Redford, Jack Lemmon, Ralph Nader, Jack Nicholson, Diane Sawyer, Jesse Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Dan Rather, Naomi Campbell, Chevy Chase, Kevin Costner, more I'm sure). While some of those names came as a surprise to me, I don't consider any of those people to be in control of US government policy - they're just rich and famous. Let's apply your logic to someone who has real power acting as an apologist for a facist strongman. Will you denounce president Bush for saying he knows Vladimir Putin is a good man with a good heart ("I know this because I looked him in the eye.")? Bush gave Putin the extra special personal treatment by inviting him into his Texas home and carting him around his pretend ranch in the pickup. Ex KGB agent Putin has rigged elections, rolled back democratic reforms, gassed a theater full of innocent people, assasinated political enemies, eliminated press freedom, and opposed many aspects of the US war on terrorism, such as pressuring hostile countries and helping us control nuclear proliferation. It's hard to to take Bush's words about worldwide "freedom on the march" seriously when you watch him gladhanding a scumbag like Pootie-Poot. Same goes for the Bush Family's nauseating rimjobs for the Saud Family, leaders of Egypt, etc, who fund terrorists and approve of whipping women in the face because they danced in public.
I like Molly Ivins because she stood up to the powerful. Conservative commentators stand up to the elite (at least when republicans are in power). There is a big difference in my mind - I just do not care about mouthy movie stars like you do, and I think their influence is overstated and only brought up to sterotype and to generate outrage. It's not hard to bash hollywood loonies becase they are an easy target, but it takes guts and patriotism to go after the powerful. Ivins was no Castro apologist. She used the power of ridicule to denounce and lampoon him as a crazy old man with a fragile ego who abused women and children, and who has jailed more journalists than any country in the world except China. She used ridicule against leaders who abuse their position of power. Any enemy of freedom of the press was an enemy of Molly's and that is why she is one of my heros.
I like Molly Ivins because she stood up to the powerful. Conservative commentators stand up to the elite (at least when republicans are in power). There is a big difference in my mind - I just do not care about mouthy movie stars like you do, and I think their influence is overstated and only brought up to sterotype and to generate outrage. It's not hard to bash hollywood loonies becase they are an easy target, but it takes guts and patriotism to go after the powerful. Ivins was no Castro apologist. She used the power of ridicule to denounce and lampoon him as a crazy old man with a fragile ego who abused women and children, and who has jailed more journalists than any country in the world except China. She used ridicule against leaders who abuse their position of power. Any enemy of freedom of the press was an enemy of Molly's and that is why she is one of my heros.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Bill O'Reilly
The childhood background O'Reilly portrays on TV is a big lie. His dad was not some clock punching construction worker - he was an oil company accountant. O'Reilly has repeatedly stated that his father's salary was $35,000 in 1980, which translates to $82,000 in 2005. That's at least a solid middle-class salary. After 5 years of college and 7 years working, I wish I made that much. His family moved to Long Island when he was 2, where he later attended a private boys academy, a small and expensive private college, then spent his junior year of college abroad, attending Queen Mary College at the University of London.
Do you believe O'Reilly knows the impression he gives when he uses the term "working class"? I think he knows that many people understand the traditional meaning of "working class." O'Reilly deliberately downgrades his past to make himself seem a more suitable spokesmen for the little guy. If we re-define "working class" to mean anyone at all who works for a living, that renders the definition virtually meaningless, since it encompasses everyone from the minimum wage earner, to O'Reilly's oil company accountant father, to Bill Gates. I would call that "spinning". O'Reilly has been a journalist for decades. Old Bill rakes in $50,000 per speaking engagement and has a salary of $9,000,000 per year. Like it or not, he is one of the elite. While he does good work fighting the child molesters and bitching about powerless movie stars, he hardly criticises the corrupt republican politicians who have held the real reigns of power in this country for six years. His father made enough money that his wife could stay at home in a house in the most expensive city in the USA, and also send his son to private schools. If you believe household incomes less than $100K is working class today and the O'Reilly household was just under that level. Consider that in 2006 the median US household income was $46,000, with only the top 16% making over $100K per year. With nearly 2/3 of US households making less than 60K, I would not fell sorry for the adjusted-income O'Reilly family coming in at $92,000.
*I would classify US household incomes per below (population % based on 2005 numbers):
$20K or less as impoverished (22%)
20K-60K working class (42%)
60K-100K middle class (21%)
100K-200K upper middle class (13%)
200K+ (top 2%)
BTW, O'Reilly really hates Mexicans for racial and cultural reasons. If you take offense at my charge of racism, do you believe Bill would have the same unhinged reaction if the USA were being overrun by illegal immigrants who were tall, blonde, leggy Swedish swimsuit models who arrived here looking for wealthy white American husbands? This is about the appearance and behavior of the immigrants, not their legal status.
Do you believe O'Reilly knows the impression he gives when he uses the term "working class"? I think he knows that many people understand the traditional meaning of "working class." O'Reilly deliberately downgrades his past to make himself seem a more suitable spokesmen for the little guy. If we re-define "working class" to mean anyone at all who works for a living, that renders the definition virtually meaningless, since it encompasses everyone from the minimum wage earner, to O'Reilly's oil company accountant father, to Bill Gates. I would call that "spinning". O'Reilly has been a journalist for decades. Old Bill rakes in $50,000 per speaking engagement and has a salary of $9,000,000 per year. Like it or not, he is one of the elite. While he does good work fighting the child molesters and bitching about powerless movie stars, he hardly criticises the corrupt republican politicians who have held the real reigns of power in this country for six years. His father made enough money that his wife could stay at home in a house in the most expensive city in the USA, and also send his son to private schools. If you believe household incomes less than $100K is working class today and the O'Reilly household was just under that level. Consider that in 2006 the median US household income was $46,000, with only the top 16% making over $100K per year. With nearly 2/3 of US households making less than 60K, I would not fell sorry for the adjusted-income O'Reilly family coming in at $92,000.
*I would classify US household incomes per below (population % based on 2005 numbers):
$20K or less as impoverished (22%)
20K-60K working class (42%)
60K-100K middle class (21%)
100K-200K upper middle class (13%)
200K+ (top 2%)
BTW, O'Reilly really hates Mexicans for racial and cultural reasons. If you take offense at my charge of racism, do you believe Bill would have the same unhinged reaction if the USA were being overrun by illegal immigrants who were tall, blonde, leggy Swedish swimsuit models who arrived here looking for wealthy white American husbands? This is about the appearance and behavior of the immigrants, not their legal status.
DA BEARS
Great article by Michael Wilbon below. When we lived in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, Bears vs Patriots was the first Super Bowl I ever saw.
Between These Bears and Those Bears, There's No Denying There's No Comparison By Michael Wilbon Thursday, February 1, 2007; E10
MIAMI -- To most of the pro football world, the 1985 Chicago Bears are a museum piece, one of the great and fascinating Super Bowl teams, but a one-hit wonder and certainly not as important to the game as the multiple champions in San Francisco, Washington and Dallas. But in Chicago, the '85 Bears are a living, ghostlike being, the most beloved team and the greatest source of civic pride in the city's history, much bigger than even Michael Jordan's Bulls. Kids who weren't even born on Jan. 26, 1986, when the '85 Bears won the franchise's only Super Bowl, know far too much about Ditka and Sweetness, Refrigerator Perry and the Punky QB, Buddy Ryan and his quarterback-mangling "46" defense. And because not a day goes by without them being not just mentioned, but held up as evidence of the city's toughness, the 2007 Bears can't escape the comparison. A year ago, when this group of Bears made the playoffs and emerged as, potentially, Chicago's second Super Bowl team, most of the players were stunned by how often they were compared with the '85 team and quite a few clearly resented questions from reporters and people on the street. But having had a full year to understand how and why that team consumes Chicago, there's no more eye-rolling when the subject is broached. It's as often talked about as the wind-chill. "A guy asked me the other day if a win here in Miami would mean we could turn the page on the '85 Bears," tight end Desmond Clark said this week. "And I told him we cannot turn the page on the '85 Bears. Not ever. We can add to the history by writing our own chapter, but there's always going to be that question in Chicago: 'How would you guys stack up with the '85 Bears?' "
Once upon a time, like last year, it seemed the question annoyed the team's most decorated and admired player, linebacker Brian Urlacher. If it did, it doesn't now. Asked how the two squads compare, Urlacher said: "There's no comparison. One, they won a championship and we haven't. Two, look at the numbers. They're everything people say they were and more. They took the ball away, they sacked quarterbacks, they blitzed. And when they weren't blitzing, the offense thought they were. They were physical, smart. They were everything." They were even things very un-NFL, which is another reason people won't let go, from the midseason recording of "Super Bowl Shuffle" to the way Mike Ditka and Ryan feuded openly, to William "The Refrigerator" Perry's blasts into the end zone. One day during the '85 season at the Bears' headquarters, Ditka stuck his head into the press room as he was about to climb into a limousine to go tape his weekly television show. Ditka asked if anyone would like a ride and a little champagne. It wasn't yet 7 p.m., so the writers thanked him and reminded him they were on deadline. "You guys don't know how to live," he said.
The modern Bears play football and that's about it. It's a team loaded with smart and conversational players who simply color inside the lines. There are some similarities in structure. Both were led by great defenses that were anchored by great middle linebackers, Mike Singletary then and Urlacher now. The strength of both offenses was the running game, the incomparable Walter Payton and Matt Suhey back then, Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson now. Jim McMahon, the best quarterback the team has had since the 1940s, had modest statistical input but was the soul of the team. Rex Grossman, while 15-3 this season, could sparkle in victory Sunday against the Colts and still not measure up to the rebellious McMahon. The '85 Bears had a prolific young kicker in Kevin Butler, as do these Bears in Robbie Gould. Devin Hester, blindingly fast as he is, couldn't be any faster than Willie Gault, the track star from Tennessee. Whatever these Bears have, it seems like the '85 Bears could trump them, except for Urlacher, whom even old-school Chicagoans have embraced as a worthy successor to Bill George, Dick Butkus and Singletary.
Lovie Smith's Bears could win a championship Sunday and still not be viewed as legendary. The history of the NFL simply cannot be written without studying Ditka's Bears, if for no other reason than they redefined defensive dominance and changed the way the modern offense operated. As Joe Theismann said in a conversation earlier in the week, using three and four receivers to spread the field became the primary way to counter the "46" defense. "Their whole defensive concept," said Theismann, who played for the Redskins against those Bears both in the 1984 playoffs and in the '85 regular season, "was built on speed and aggression. They made you speed up things so much you rushed through the things you were trying to do as an offense. Everybody was afraid to go to three wide because of the pressure they put on you, when in fact it would have been the best way to play against the '85 Bears defense."
Instead, offenses would employ two tight ends, which would leave them with one fewer receiver and still unable to block the line of Richard Dent, Steve McMichael, Fridge, Dan Hampton, the linebacking unit of Singletary, Wilber Marshall, Otis Wilson, and the blitz-crazed safeties, Dave Duerson and Gary Fencik. It seemed at the time like only the cornerbacks, Mike Richardson and Leslie Frazier, covered anybody and everybody else met at the quarterback. "The whole thing," Theismann said, "was designed to confuse the blocking scheme." And it worked like no other defense ever for that one season and the next, until McMahon got hurt and the Redskins ended the Bears' run in a playoff game in Chicago. And while the city moved on and reveled in Jordan's Bulls, it has continued to look for an NFL championship team, a bullying, nasty, defense-first, quarterback-eating team.
Clark, who will play tight end Sunday, said he purchased a DVD history of the '85 team and has been watching it every night. "You have to embrace history," he said, "even if you're in the position of being compared to it." Defensive end Alex Brown was at least a little skeptical when he arrived in Chicago a few years ago and kept hearing about those Bears. So he sat down and watched tape of entire games. "Being compared to that team is something I understand now," Brown said. "It's the only Super Bowl team Chicago has, and it was a special team, special to the point that 21 years later it's still celebrated. So you know they must have been special. You get compared to that, it's hard."
Between These Bears and Those Bears, There's No Denying There's No Comparison By Michael Wilbon Thursday, February 1, 2007; E10
MIAMI -- To most of the pro football world, the 1985 Chicago Bears are a museum piece, one of the great and fascinating Super Bowl teams, but a one-hit wonder and certainly not as important to the game as the multiple champions in San Francisco, Washington and Dallas. But in Chicago, the '85 Bears are a living, ghostlike being, the most beloved team and the greatest source of civic pride in the city's history, much bigger than even Michael Jordan's Bulls. Kids who weren't even born on Jan. 26, 1986, when the '85 Bears won the franchise's only Super Bowl, know far too much about Ditka and Sweetness, Refrigerator Perry and the Punky QB, Buddy Ryan and his quarterback-mangling "46" defense. And because not a day goes by without them being not just mentioned, but held up as evidence of the city's toughness, the 2007 Bears can't escape the comparison. A year ago, when this group of Bears made the playoffs and emerged as, potentially, Chicago's second Super Bowl team, most of the players were stunned by how often they were compared with the '85 team and quite a few clearly resented questions from reporters and people on the street. But having had a full year to understand how and why that team consumes Chicago, there's no more eye-rolling when the subject is broached. It's as often talked about as the wind-chill. "A guy asked me the other day if a win here in Miami would mean we could turn the page on the '85 Bears," tight end Desmond Clark said this week. "And I told him we cannot turn the page on the '85 Bears. Not ever. We can add to the history by writing our own chapter, but there's always going to be that question in Chicago: 'How would you guys stack up with the '85 Bears?' "
Once upon a time, like last year, it seemed the question annoyed the team's most decorated and admired player, linebacker Brian Urlacher. If it did, it doesn't now. Asked how the two squads compare, Urlacher said: "There's no comparison. One, they won a championship and we haven't. Two, look at the numbers. They're everything people say they were and more. They took the ball away, they sacked quarterbacks, they blitzed. And when they weren't blitzing, the offense thought they were. They were physical, smart. They were everything." They were even things very un-NFL, which is another reason people won't let go, from the midseason recording of "Super Bowl Shuffle" to the way Mike Ditka and Ryan feuded openly, to William "The Refrigerator" Perry's blasts into the end zone. One day during the '85 season at the Bears' headquarters, Ditka stuck his head into the press room as he was about to climb into a limousine to go tape his weekly television show. Ditka asked if anyone would like a ride and a little champagne. It wasn't yet 7 p.m., so the writers thanked him and reminded him they were on deadline. "You guys don't know how to live," he said.
The modern Bears play football and that's about it. It's a team loaded with smart and conversational players who simply color inside the lines. There are some similarities in structure. Both were led by great defenses that were anchored by great middle linebackers, Mike Singletary then and Urlacher now. The strength of both offenses was the running game, the incomparable Walter Payton and Matt Suhey back then, Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson now. Jim McMahon, the best quarterback the team has had since the 1940s, had modest statistical input but was the soul of the team. Rex Grossman, while 15-3 this season, could sparkle in victory Sunday against the Colts and still not measure up to the rebellious McMahon. The '85 Bears had a prolific young kicker in Kevin Butler, as do these Bears in Robbie Gould. Devin Hester, blindingly fast as he is, couldn't be any faster than Willie Gault, the track star from Tennessee. Whatever these Bears have, it seems like the '85 Bears could trump them, except for Urlacher, whom even old-school Chicagoans have embraced as a worthy successor to Bill George, Dick Butkus and Singletary.
Lovie Smith's Bears could win a championship Sunday and still not be viewed as legendary. The history of the NFL simply cannot be written without studying Ditka's Bears, if for no other reason than they redefined defensive dominance and changed the way the modern offense operated. As Joe Theismann said in a conversation earlier in the week, using three and four receivers to spread the field became the primary way to counter the "46" defense. "Their whole defensive concept," said Theismann, who played for the Redskins against those Bears both in the 1984 playoffs and in the '85 regular season, "was built on speed and aggression. They made you speed up things so much you rushed through the things you were trying to do as an offense. Everybody was afraid to go to three wide because of the pressure they put on you, when in fact it would have been the best way to play against the '85 Bears defense."
Instead, offenses would employ two tight ends, which would leave them with one fewer receiver and still unable to block the line of Richard Dent, Steve McMichael, Fridge, Dan Hampton, the linebacking unit of Singletary, Wilber Marshall, Otis Wilson, and the blitz-crazed safeties, Dave Duerson and Gary Fencik. It seemed at the time like only the cornerbacks, Mike Richardson and Leslie Frazier, covered anybody and everybody else met at the quarterback. "The whole thing," Theismann said, "was designed to confuse the blocking scheme." And it worked like no other defense ever for that one season and the next, until McMahon got hurt and the Redskins ended the Bears' run in a playoff game in Chicago. And while the city moved on and reveled in Jordan's Bulls, it has continued to look for an NFL championship team, a bullying, nasty, defense-first, quarterback-eating team.
Clark, who will play tight end Sunday, said he purchased a DVD history of the '85 team and has been watching it every night. "You have to embrace history," he said, "even if you're in the position of being compared to it." Defensive end Alex Brown was at least a little skeptical when he arrived in Chicago a few years ago and kept hearing about those Bears. So he sat down and watched tape of entire games. "Being compared to that team is something I understand now," Brown said. "It's the only Super Bowl team Chicago has, and it was a special team, special to the point that 21 years later it's still celebrated. So you know they must have been special. You get compared to that, it's hard."
Laura Ingraham
I had never heard of this person before I saw her on Faux Newz - I just got done struggling thru my copy of Laura Ingraham's book "Shut Up and Sing". I think she may have at most 2 good points, otherwise it's just hot air. This book is truly silly and her argument boils down to: these knee-jerky celebrities disagree with what I think so they should shut up. Her point about corporations who move offshore to avoid taxes is a good one, and slamming US complicity in supporting a massive illegal immigrant work force is also fair. But it's wrapped up in so much other nonsense that it's impossible to take her seriously.
Worst of all is the now constant trick of right-wing blowhards such as Bill O'Reilly to label everyone they hate as "elite", while painting themselves as the common folk. That is laughable enough, but also there isn't much that Ingraham can contribute that other republican pundits such as Coulter & Hannity haven't already done. I suspect that she is just trying to get her slice of the pie. She has a whole lot of superficial content about celebrities - BFD. Barbara Streisand, James Woods - really, I don't care what either one thinks; I can make up my own mind about the issues. I'm so sick of hearing what Sean Penn has to say about the war in Iraq or what Charlton Heston has to say about guns for that matter. I don't see what makes her more qualified to express an opinion than the "elites" of which she is so critical - certainly not her education at UVA. Of course there is also thick promotion of religion. Those who don't want religion in public places are automatically contributing to the moral decline of our society, even if they attend church or practice a religion privately? Barf!
A few weeks ago Kate and I saw an HBO rerun of Laura on Politically Incorrect behaving like a spoiled teenager, lashing out with obnoxious screeches to another guest. She could not see how ridiculous and terrible her behavior was, (though I also did not agree with Chris Rock humiliating her by calling her a bitch a few minutes later). She hates gays, the Dixie Chicks, the French - either because she is clearly threatened by them, or they don't toe the line. Her unfiltered sourness is what makes extreme wingers so easy to dislike. This is a boring white-bred country-club patriotism book about the "Hollywood elite" which is code for anyone the author doesn't like.
Worst of all is the now constant trick of right-wing blowhards such as Bill O'Reilly to label everyone they hate as "elite", while painting themselves as the common folk. That is laughable enough, but also there isn't much that Ingraham can contribute that other republican pundits such as Coulter & Hannity haven't already done. I suspect that she is just trying to get her slice of the pie. She has a whole lot of superficial content about celebrities - BFD. Barbara Streisand, James Woods - really, I don't care what either one thinks; I can make up my own mind about the issues. I'm so sick of hearing what Sean Penn has to say about the war in Iraq or what Charlton Heston has to say about guns for that matter. I don't see what makes her more qualified to express an opinion than the "elites" of which she is so critical - certainly not her education at UVA. Of course there is also thick promotion of religion. Those who don't want religion in public places are automatically contributing to the moral decline of our society, even if they attend church or practice a religion privately? Barf!
A few weeks ago Kate and I saw an HBO rerun of Laura on Politically Incorrect behaving like a spoiled teenager, lashing out with obnoxious screeches to another guest. She could not see how ridiculous and terrible her behavior was, (though I also did not agree with Chris Rock humiliating her by calling her a bitch a few minutes later). She hates gays, the Dixie Chicks, the French - either because she is clearly threatened by them, or they don't toe the line. Her unfiltered sourness is what makes extreme wingers so easy to dislike. This is a boring white-bred country-club patriotism book about the "Hollywood elite" which is code for anyone the author doesn't like.
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