I’m frightened by the events in Spain.

My fear is on several different levels, on several different issues. Each of them is worthy of a much longer essay by someone much smarter than I am, but since I’m what I’ve got and the time I have is what it is, here you go.First, because we’ve shown how easily such little effort can move to such massive tragedy. I’ve believed for a while that we have both an emerging conflict with Islamism and an internal conflict coming from those whose relations to Western culture – hell, to any culture – are fractured by weak philosophical underpinnings. Whether it’s a mad Muslim-American veteran and a teenage boy in search of identity with a rifle, or an angry white Christian veteran and a truckload of fertilizer-based explosives, or a gang of – whoever – with backpacks and construction explosives – the ability and need of the few and weak to kill and terrorize the many and strong seems to be getting stronger.

Second, because we’ve now shown that terrorism works. I don’t know nearly enough about Spanish politics (and, in reality, neither do most of the commentators left and right, weighing in on this) to dissect the cause of the shift – whether it was disgust at the government’s manipulation, craven appeasement, or some complex human combination of these and other reactions – it sure appears clear that the terrorist act toppled a government. That’s a far greater effect than 9/11 – they only toppled two buildings. People are smart creatures because we learn what works and we go back do it more often. People who want to change regimes have been shown they can do it with eleven backpacks and 165kg of explosives.

That means they will do it again.

And finally, and most frighteningly, because reading the news, the columns, and the blogs, I see one thing very clearly. Everyone is looking at the events of 3/11 through the prism of their positions on 3/10. The hawks see what supports their positions, the doves what supports theirs.

I am seeing more simple-minded rationalization around this issue than I think I’ve seen in quite some time, and that frightens me and ought to frighten you all. Because the path through this will come from our ability to reason and plan together – to show solidarity in word and deed, and thereby resolve to pursue whatever path is ultimately chosen. I see very little solidarity, and a deepening fracture.

I think my task in writing for the next little while will be to delineate that fracture and try and suggest some paths back toward the bridges that may span it.

Me:
I chose this ring for you because it sparkles and is brilliant and because I hope that when you look at it every day, it will remind you of how I see you – brilliant and sparkling and precious. But you are more dazzling to me than any jewel, and your love far more precious than gold. Take this ring as a token to remember forever that you are wonderful and that I am so lucky to be yours.

Her:
I present you with this ring because it symbolizes the unique and awesome person you are. You impress me in so many ways. You are my model of strength and determination. Yet, like the lovely swirls of gold and silver on this ring, everything in your life is touched with sweetness and compassion. I am lucky and happy to be a very important part of your life. Take this ring and my love and devotion.

Just talking to a friend in Sacramento, catching up on the latest gossip, and he pointed me to my favorite hypocrite, Don Perata, CA State Senator from Alameda County.

Perata is a mainstream, pro-union, pro-environment, anti-gun Democrat. Who has a CCW (Concealed Weapons Permit – something random citizens like myself basically can’t get unless we live in a rural county). Now there’s nothing immoral about being anti-gun. I certainly don’t think there’s anything immoral about getting a CCW; I don’t doubt that I’d find one handy.

But being a leader in restricting gun rights in the Legislature while demanding those same rights for oneself – that’s pretty creepy no matter which side of the issue you’re on.

But that’s old news.

The new news is even better. It appears that not only has he steered significant business to a local political consulting firm, Staples Associates, owned by local political consultant Timothy Staples – but he’s been on Staples’ payroll at the same time, to the tune of a a hundred-million dollar slush fund, which is being investigated as we speak.

But when I first talked about SkyBox Liberals a long time ago, it was all about “…making sure you and your friends can be very comfortable while you think and write and feel very very seriously about it.

I have to weigh in on one thing in the news (note the great job I’m doing at ignoring news and putting blogging aside…where does that 12-step program meet, again?) – the KCRW/Loh contremps.

I’ve wanted to stay away from it for a variety of meatspace reasons, but got my face rubbed in it just the other day.

One of our commenters, Blackberry, posted a couple of comments which certainly read as pretty offensive, which ended in this thread:

We can even put a sign over the camps, right Blackberry? Something along the lines of “Arbeit Mact Frei”.

That’s been done to death though, I suppose.

Posted by: Porphyrogenitus on March 7, 2004 07:26 PM

No, it will be in English.

Posted by: Blackberry on March 7, 2004 11:58 PM

That made me pretty damn unhappy, and I felt that I needed to do something, so I added:

Blackberry, you’re feeling kind of troll-like to me here. And since by our policy, the post author determines who can comments on posts, I’m going to politely ask you to disassociate yourself from the explicit intent of your last comment – that setting up camps is something you want to do.

A.L.

Posted by: Armed Liberal on March 8, 2004 12:09 AM

So I offered Blackberry an opening to clarify his comments, both here and in email (turns out his email bounces), and he didn’t pick it up and he’s gone.

Which of course goes to the issue of free speech, which is much in the news both here in LA and on the East Coast. The big-league versions of this, with Howard Stern vs. Clear Channel and Sandra Tsing Loh vs KCRW.

First, I ought to note that I’m not unaware of the fact that I just reduced Blackberry’s audience’ that in essence, I challenged his freedom of speech. So I’m not one who believes in absolute freedom of speech. In this case, I see the comments here as important parts of a meaningful conversation, and while I will never yank someone for disagreeing with me, I will yank someone – on either side – who I think is damaging the conversation by driving people away or being gratuitously offensive.

I don’t hold much of a brief for Stern; I’ve heard him once or twice, and while I do like ‘lad’ humor (the UK magazine Superbike is my favorite motorcycle magazine), there’s some deep core of assholery in him that I just don’t find appealing. And I remain mystified why people who trade some shred of their self-respect for a chance to go and be mocked in front of an international audience. Kind of like the people who go on Jerry Springer to confess sleeping with their wives’ sisters…why, exactly, did this strike you as good idea?

And the general coarsening of media life makes me kinda sad. It’s not like I’m some fucking Emily Post (get it?), but there’s an erasing of the line between appropriate and inappropriate that makes me sad.

So on one hand, I’m not very interested in Stern, and I think it’s well within Clear Channel’s rights to carry who they see fit.

But last night, I’m reading Isaacson’s great biography of Ben Franklin, and I just got to the ‘Apology for Printers‘, and here’s a key quote (go read the whole thing, though):

That it is unreasonable to imagine Printers approve of every thing they print, and to censure them on any particular thing accordingly; since in the way of their Business they print such great variety of things opposite and contradictory. It is likewise as unreasonable what some assert, That Printers ought not to print any Thing but what they approve; since if all of that Business should make such a Resolution, and abide by it, an End would thereby be put to Free Writing, and the World would afterwards have nothing to read but what happen’d to be the Opinions of Printers.

I’ve bolded this because it represents a basic truth that we need to remember.

So unless Clear Channel (and Warner/AOL, and Disney/ABC) are willing to ‘print such a great variety of things,’ the only things we’ll hear and know are those which meet their opinions. And that’s not such a good idea. And to have the federal pecksniffs creating the “Broadcast Decency Act of 2004” begins to push too damn far; what is the bright line between socially indecent and politically indecent, I’ll open by asking.

Now it’s easy to rail at corporate repression, and paint careful connections between repressive politics and selective media, but before we talk about the mote in Clear Channel’s eye, let’s talk about the log in KCRW’s. For those of you outside of Southern California, KCRW is the leading NPR station in the region, and possibly in the country, in terms of audience and influence.

It has a button on the Mighty Odyssey dashboard, but I do click away from it usually pretty quickly; the overall air of sanctimony, combined with questionable facts presented as Revealed Gospel.

And, in total keeping with that sanctimony, one of their commentators, local writer (and Friend of Cathy Seipp), Sandra Tsing Loh said ‘fuck’ as a verb on one of her taped shows – and it was repeated – and suddenly she’s a nonperson. There’s nothing on the KCRW website acknowledging the controversy. Her past shows are gone from the archives. It’s like Big Brother’s hand waved, and suddenly she was Photoshopped out of the pictures.

I’m sure you know about it, but I’ll suggest Cathy Seipp’s post (which comes with the added perk of Ruth Seymour’s personal email as well as that of the trustees Ruth Seymour works for) as an overview, along with Matt Welch’s as good political screed on the issue.

Let me start by positioning myself. I’m the guy who doesn’t have a television set. I don’t listen to Rush or to Howard Stern, and when Kevin and Bean (the local corporate alt-rock shock jocks) have their sidekick Ralph give ‘Sex U’, I change the channel.

But I think I’m gonna start listening to all of them now.

Because what’s going on frightens me.

I don’t think that the men in black helicopters are leaving their Illuminati meetings and determining what media we get to listen to.

But I do think that we have a media elite – and Ruth Seymour, the executive director of KCRW-for-life is certainly as much a part of it as Michael Eisner – maybe more so, since her job is more secure.

And that media elite, rather than promoting open discussion, and accepting challenge, as Franklin anticipated, is, to echo Ruth Seymour, not only marginalizing those it finds unpleasant, but working to institutionalize them at the same time. Seipp has some quotes:

The next morning she got a call from programming director Ruth Seymour, who said that KCRW was dropping her show. “She said, ‘It’s unconscionable in these times for you to leave the station without making sure that was bleeped,’” Sandra recalled. “Then she said she’s sending a memo to the station, not using my name for some reason … I don’t understand that part … but saying that the engineer is on probation.”

“And then she said, ‘Sandra, I know this comes at a hard time. I don’t know what’s going on with you. But please, Sandra, get some help!’”

Sorry, Ruth, but the only one who needs help is the increasingly intolerant left.

Look, I swear in writing on this blog a lot, and I am somewhat of a pottymouth in person. But I do believe that what Loh did was wrong, and deserved criticism and possibly even sanction. But KCRW’s actions are just beyond the pale.

I’m old enough to remember when being progressive stood for openness and toleration. So is Ruth Seymour, so there’s just no damn excuse.

I know it’s nitpicky, but no one on Apollo 13 said ‘Houston, we’ve got a problem.’ From the official transcript:

55:55:20 – Swigert: “Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.”

55:55:28 – Duke: “This is Houston. Say again please.”

55:55:35 – Lovell: “Houston, we’ve had a problem. We’ve had a main B bus undervolt.”

If it’s not too much to ask the Kerry staff to just spend five minutes checking things like this…c’mon guys, credibility counts.

So it’s Saturday night here in California, and the topic for me is the best news of all, my upcoming wedding. We’re waist-deep in preparations for what is going to be a moderately small (120-person) wedding; but we’re getting to use a very cool venue – I can’t say more without risking the pseud, sadly – and we’re the first wedding that’s been held there. So everything is an issue. What can we do, given union rules, without needing staff for a full day? Exactly where can the chairs go, and will the fire marshall approve? And so on…we’ve almost got all the issues knocked down.

And tonight, as I’m relaxing from a day of faxes and calls, while TG is away at a concert, I get to think about what we’re doing it all for.

Because in a week, we will stand in front of our friends and family, and united as a community, TG and I will both get to share the joy we find in each other and take public responsibility for each other and our relationship.

But it’s not the responsibility, but the joy that I want to talk about; it’s the amplification of joy that takes place when you stand in a circle of people who care about you – and who you care about – and they focus their attention on you and the joy that you’re feeling right then.

And I’m anticipating that joy quite a bit.

For the next week, I’ll be busy, and then for a while I’ll be gone.

As I’ve said in the past, please try not to kill each other or blow anything up while I’m gone.

Well, this sure sounds like some good news…

During his 14-month stay, he went to the beach only a couple of times – a shame, as he loved to snorkel. And though he learned a few words of Spanish, Asadullah had zero contact with the locals.

He spent a typical day watching movies, going to class and playing football. He was fascinated to learn about the solar system, and now enjoys reciting the names of the planets, starting with Earth. Less diverting were the twice-monthly interrogations about his knowledge of al-Qaida and the Taliban. But, as Asadullah’s answer was always the same – “I don’t know anything about these people” – these sessions were merely a bore: an inevitably tedious consequence, Asadullah suggests with a shrug, of being held captive in Guantanamo Bay.

On January 29, Asadullah and two other juvenile prisoners were returned home to Afghanistan. The three boys are not sure of their ages. But, according to the estimate of the Red Cross, Asadullah is the youngest, aged 12 at the time of his arrest. The second youngest, Naqibullah, was arrested with him, aged perhaps 13, while the third boy, Mohammed Ismail, was a child at the time of his separate arrest, but probably isn’t now.

Tracked down to his remote village in south-eastern Afghanistan, Naqibullah has memories of Guantanamo that are almost identical to Asadullah’s. Prison life was good, he said shyly, nervous to be receiving a foreigner to his family’s mud-fortress home.

The food in the camp was delicious, the teaching was excellent, and his warders were kind. “Americans are good people, they were always friendly, I don’t have anything against them,” he said. “If my father didn’t need me, I would want to live in America.”

Asadullah is even more sure of this. “Americans are great people, better than anyone else,” he said, when found at his elder brother’s tiny fruit and nut shop in a muddy backstreet of Kabul. “Americans are polite and friendly when you speak to them. They are not rude like Afghans. If I could be anywhere, I would be in America. I would like to be a doctor, an engineer _ or an American soldier.”
(emphasis added)

(hat tip to norm’s blog)

You know that amendment Arnold’s people are talking about – the one where they eliminate the citizenship requirement to run for President?

Maybe we can use it for Tony Blair; after all, just because he was PM in the UK, he’s not otherwise Constitutionally disqualified from being elected President. He made a helluva speech yesterday (hat tip to Harry’s Place):

I know a large part of the public want to move on. Rightly they say the Government should concentrate on the issues that elected us in 1997: the economy, jobs, living standards, health, education, crime.

I share that view, and we are. But I know too that the nature of this issue over Iraq, stirring such bitter emotions as it does, can’t just be swept away as ill-fitting the pre-occupations of the man and woman on the street.

Real threat

This is not simply because of the gravity of war; or the continued engagement of British troops and civilians in Iraq; or even because of reflections made on the integrity of the prime minister.

It is because it was in March 2003 and remains my fervent view that the nature of the global threat we face in Britain and round the world is real and existential and it is the task of leadership to expose it and fight it, whatever the political cost; and that the true danger is not to any single politician’s reputation, but to our country if we now ignore this threat or erase it from the agenda in embarrassment at the difficulties it causes.

I want to quote the whole thing here, it’s just so damn good, direct, human (in the sense of humanizing the decisions which he felt he had to make), and in my mind, right. But go click through, now please, and read it.

Pass this speech around to your friends. Let’s make sure everyone sees it as we try and make up our minds about what we have done and what we need to do. Then scroll down, and compare it to Kerry’s keynote on security and terror, and understand why I can’t just jump on his bandwagon.

Lots of people have been pointing me at the speech Kerry made here in Los Angeles last week. I actually thought about going; I have a friend at UCLA who I could have blackmailed into getting me in. But I just couldn’t get excited enough about Kerry to take a day and do it. which, sadly, kinda sums up my view of him right now. Here’s the speech, for those of you who may have missed it, with some interspersed comments:

It’s an honor to be here today at the Burkle Center … named in honor of a good friend and one of America’s outstanding business leaders.

Day in and day out, George W. Bush reminds us that he is a war President and that he wants to make national security the central issue of this election. I am ready to have this debate. I welcome it.

I am convinced that we can prove to the American people that we know how to make them safer and more secure … with a stronger, more comprehensive, and more effective strategy for winning the War on Terror than the Bush Administration has ever envisioned.

As we speak, night has settled on the mountains of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. If Osama bin Laden is sleeping, it is the restless slumber of someone who knows his days are numbered. I don’t know if the latest reports … saying that he is surrounded … are true or not. We’ve heard this news before.

We had him in our grasp more than two years ago at Tora Bora but George Bush held U.S. forces back and instead, called on Afghan warlords with no loyalty to our cause to finish the job. We all hope the outcome will be different this time and we all know America cannot rest until Osama bin Laden is captured or killed.

I’m working on a post complimenting the Bush Administration for what I’ve come to believe is actually a smart policy in Afghanistan. The Afghans are a proud people who are damn good at war, and have been since the time of Alexander the Great. They have fought off invasions by Hindus, Russians, Indians, and the British, and there is no reason to expect that they would not fight against an occupying force of Americans just as strongly. But we aren’t occupying them; by keeping our forces at a minimal level, and explicitly targeting Al Quieda and Talib forces, we have gotten a kind of pass from the general population. Afghanistan, one of the most primitive and tribal nations on earth, isn’t going to become Belgium any time soon, and it would be a waste of effort for us to try. Our goal should be incremental improvements in the conditions and politics of the country, and denial of the territory and population to organized use by Al Quieda and their supporters.

And when that day comes, it will be a great step forward but we will still have far more to do. It will be a victory in the War on Terror, but it will not be the end of the War on Terror.

This war isn’t just a manhunt … a checklist of names from a deck of cards. In it, we do not face just one man or one terrorist group. We face a global jihadist movement of many groups, from different sources, with separate agendas, but all committed to assaulting the United States and free and open societies around the globe.

Hang on, now…

On one hand, the failure to nab Bin Laden at Tora Bora was critical – on the other, Bin Laden isn’t the one we’re facing…OK, I’m slightly puzzled now.

As CIA Director George Tenet recently testified: “They are not all creatures of bin Laden, and so their fate is not tied to his. They have autonomous leadership, they pick their own targets, they plan their own attacks.”

At the core of this conflict is a fundamental struggle of ideas. Of democracy and tolerance against those who would use any means and attack any target to impose their narrow views.

The War on Terror is not a clash of civilizations. It is a clash of civilization against chaos; of the best hopes of humanity against dogmatic fears of progress and the future.

Wow!! I like this part a lot; he sounds like he’s been reading me or Den Beste a bit…

Like all Americans, I responded to President Bush’s reassuring words in the days after September 11th. But since then, his actions have fallen short.

I do not fault George Bush for doing too much in the War on Terror; I believe he’s done too little.

Where he’s acted, his doctrine of unilateral preemption has driven away our allies and cost us the support of other nations. Iraq is in disarray, with American troops still bogged down in a deadly guerrilla war with no exit in sight. In Afghanistan, the area outside Kabul is sliding back into the hands of a resurgent Taliban and emboldened warlords.

I’ll disagree with ‘disarray’ here; the recent passage of a draft constitution, the basic willingness to work within a political framework, declining US casualties (even as the guerilla war and terrorist acts continue) – I continue to believe that we’re moving forward in Iraq, albeit bureaucratically and slowly. That’s how reality works. In Afghanistan, see above; I think that be limiting our military ‘footprint’ there, we’re doing the right thing.

In other areas, the Administration has done nothing or been too little and too late. The Mideast Peace process disdained for 14 months by the Bush Administration is paralyzed. North Korea and Iran continue their quest for nuclear weapons … weapons which one day could land in the hands of terrorists. And as Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld has admitted, the Administration is still searching for an effective plan to drain the swamps of terrorist recruitment. The President’s budget for the National Endowment for Democracy’s efforts around the world, including the entire Islamic world, is less than three percent of what this Administration gives Halliburton … hardly a way to win the contest of ideas.

And how, exactly, would Kerry stop North Korea and Iran from their pursuit of nukes? By proselyting democratic values (a good thing on it’s own)? I’ll certainly agree that we’re doing a mediocre job at best on the meme-spreading front, but it’s damn easy to say ‘I’ll get North Korea to back off on their nuke program,’ and a hell of a lot harder to say how you’re going to do it.

Finally, by virtually every measure, we still have a homeland security strategy that falls far short of the vulnerabilities we have and the threats we face.

OK, I’ll buy that as well.

George Bush has no comprehensive strategy for victory in the War on Terror … only an ad hoc strategy to keep our enemies at bay. If I am Commander-in-Chief, I would wage that war by putting in place a strategy to win it.

We cannot win the War on Terror through military power alone. If I am President, I will be prepared to use military force to protect our security, our people, and our vital interests.

But the fight requires us to use every tool at our disposal. Not only a strong military … but renewed alliances, vigorous law enforcement, reliable intelligence, and unremitting effort to shut down the flow of terrorist funds.

To do all this, and to do our best, demands that we work with other countries instead of walking alone. For today the agents of terrorism work and lurk in the shadows of 60 nations on every continent. In this entangled world, we need to build real and enduring alliances.

Let’s see – on one hand, Pakistan is actively cooperating in turning over bad guys to us, and will be allowing some limited access to the Afghan border as we look for Bin Laden; Germany, on the other hand, is acquitting 9/11 suspects. From an interview with that well-known unilateralist Mohamed El Baradei:

MARK URBAN:
Do you think the invasion of Iraq empowered your work in Iran or Libya?

MOHAMED EL BARADEI:
I think it empowered my work in some sense. It showed an inspection was working in Iraq, that we managed to disarm Iraq through an inspection. It empowered my work by telling people you should give me more time to complete my job. You need to be patient. These things take time. In that sense, it also empowered my work because people are taking verification very seriously, they know that this could make the difference between war and peace.

MARK URBAN:
So to some extent, they have been intimidated, those regimes or not do you think?

MOHAMED EL BARADEI:
I think maybe a positive message that came out of Iraq, that the international community will not tolerate proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and in that sense it helps me of course with my work.

And from the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram:

“Abu Ammar, now you know more than anyone else how many opportunities the Palestinian people have missed because of you. This is not my business … but it is your business and the business of your people, which sooner or later will call you to account. Your people are like the folk proverb that says, ‘He who cannot see the sun through the sieve is blind.’ This sieve is the Middle East and the events that have occurred in Kuwait and Iraq, in the Sudan, and in Libya.

What ever could he be talking about? OK, back to Kerry:

Allies give us more hands in the struggle, but no President would ever let them tie our hands and prevent us from doing what must be done. As President, I will not wait for a green light from abroad when our safety is at stake. But I will not push away those who can and should share the burden.

And how, exactly, is this different from what Bush did in the runup to Iraq? This is a critical issue – balancing our need to defend our own interests against the value of alliance, but without some clear context, it’s right up there with ‘increase shareholder value‘ as empty air.

Working with other countries in the War on Terror is something we do for our sake … not theirs. We can’t wipe out terrorist cells in places like Sweden, Canada, Spain, the Philippines, or Italy just by dropping in Green Berets.

Nope. Which goes to the heart of the weakness in the ‘law-enforcement’ model. Without the cooperation of states – some of which, you’ll recall, actively or tacitly support the terrorist goals – how do we arrest the bad guys in a country where their activities are being supported at the highest levels of government?

It was local law enforcement working with our intelligence services which caught Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramsi Bin al Shibh in Pakistan and the murderer known as Hambali in Thailand. Joining with local police forces didn’t mean serving these terrorists with legal papers; it meant throwing them behind bars. None of the progress we have made would have been possible without cooperation … and much more would be possible if we had a President who didn’t alienate long-time friends and fuel anti-American anger around the world.

And how likely is it that the Pakistani police would have been quite so cooperative if there hadn’t been a couple of divisions just across the border?

We need a comprehensive approach for prevailing against terror … an approach that recognizes the many facets of this mortal challenge and relies on all the tools at our disposal to do it.

First, if I am President I will not hesitate to order direct military action when needed to capture and destroy terrorist groups and their leaders. George Bush inherited the strongest military in the world … and he has weakened it. What George Bush and his armchair hawks have never understood is that our military is about more than moving pins on a map or buying expensive new weapons systems.

America’s greatest military strength has always been the courageous, talented men and women whose love of country and devotion to service lead them to attempt and achieve the impossible everyday.

But today, far too often troops are going into harm’s way without the weapons and equipment they depend on to do their jobs safely. National Guard helicopters are flying missions in dangerous territory without the best available ground-fire protection systems. Un-armored Humvees are falling victim to road-side bombs and small-arms fire.

Here’s an issue he can capture; the lack of up-armored Humvees, the lack of armor, the ammunition factories working three shifts. Somebody is supposed to plan this stuff.

And families across America have had to collect funds from their neighbors to buy body armor for their loved ones in uniform because George Bush failed to provide it.

The next President must ensure that our forces are structured for maximum effectiveness and provided with all that they need to succeed in their missions. We must better prepare our forces for post-conflict operations and the task of building stability by adding more engineers, military police, psychological warfare personnel, and civil affairs teams.

And to replenish our overextended military, as President, I will add 40,000 active-duty Army troops, a temporary increase likely to last the remainder of the decade.

So far, so good. That was one of my points, so I’ll buy right into this.

Second, if I am President I will strengthen the capacity of intelligence and law enforcement at home and forge stronger international coalitions to provide better information and the best chance to target and capture terrorists even before they act.

And you’ll do that…how? By violating our civil rights even more?

But the challenge for us is not to cooperate abroad; it is to coordinate here at home. Whether it was September 11th or Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, we have endured unprecedented intelligence failures. We must do what George Bush has refused to do … reform our intelligence system by making the next Director of the CIA a true Director of National Intelligence with real control of intelligence personnel and budgets. We must train more analysts in languages like Arabic. And we must break down the old barriers between national intelligence and local law enforcement.

Those barriers exist for a reason; there’s something about blending intelligence and law enforcement that makes us all feel pretty damn creepy – or like we’re living in the EU.

In the months leading up to September 11th, two of the hijackers were arrested for drunk driving … and another was stopped for speeding and then let go, although he was already the subject of an arrest warrant in a neighboring county and was on a federal terrorist watch list. We need to simplify and streamline the multiple national terrorist watch lists and make sure the right information is available to the right people on the frontlines of preventing the next attack.

But we can’t take any of those steps effectively if we are stuck with an Administration that continues to stonewall those who are trying to get to the bottom of our September 11th intelligence failures. Two days ago, the Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert refused the request of the bipartisan 9-11 commission for just a little more time just to complete their mission. This after the Commission has had to deal with an Administration that opposed its very creation and has stonewalled its efforts.

He didn’t hesitate to pick up the phone and call Denny Hastert to ram through his Medicare drug company benefit or to replace a real Patients Bill of Rights with an HMO Bill of Goods. This President told a Republican fundraiser that it was in the “nation’s interest” that Denny Hastert remain Speaker of the House. I believe it’s in America’s interest to know the truth about 9-11. Mr. President, stop stonewalling the commission and stop hiding behind excuses. Pick up the phone, call your friend Denny Hastert and tell him to let the commission finish its job so we can make America safer.

Hang on…let’s go to the staff memos:

1) Pull the majority along as far as we can on issues that may lead to major new disclosures regarding improper or questionable conduct by administration officials. We are having some success in that regard…

3) Prepare to launch an independent investigation when it becomes clear we have exhausted the opportunity to usefully collaborate with the majority. We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation at any time– but we can only do so once. The best time to do so will probably be next year…

Summary

Intelligence issues are clearly secondary to the public’s concern regarding the insurgency in Iraq. Yet, we have an important role to play in the revealing the misleading — if not flagrantly dishonest methods and motives — of the senior administration officials who made the case for a unilateral, preemptive war. The approach outline above seems to offer the best prospect for exposing the administration’s dubious motives and methods.

No offense, but I’d have strong second thoughts about cooperating with that committee, too. Back to Kerry:

Third, we must cut off the flow of terrorist funds. In the case of Saudi Arabia, the Bush Administration has adopted a kid-glove approach to the supply and laundering of terrorist money. If I am President, we will impose tough financial sanctions against nations or banks that engage in money laundering or fail to act against it. We will launch a “name and shame” campaign against those that are financing terror. And if they do not respond, they will be shut out of the U.S. financial system.

ROTF. Right, I’d love to see a U.S. President pick up the phone and tell Citibank to pack up all that Saudi money and send it home, and Alan Greenspan that we’re cashing out the Saudi T-Bills and shipping the cash to Europe. I’d love it, that is, until the world financial markets imploded.

Fourth, because finding and defeating terrorist groups is a long-term effort, we must act immediately to prevent terrorists from acquiring nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. I propose to appoint a high-level Presidential envoy empowered to bring other nations together to secure and stop the spread of these weapons. We must develop common standards to make sure dangerous materials and armaments are tracked, accounted for, and secured. Today, parts of Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal are easy prey for those offering cash to scientists and security forces who too often are under-employed and under-paid. If I am President, I will expand the Nunn/Lugar program to buy up and destroy the loose nuclear materials of the former Soviet Union and to ensure that all of Russia’s nuclear weapons and materials are out of the reach of terrorists and off the black market.

Man, that’s what we’re talkin’ about. I propose to appoint a high-level Presidential envoy empowered to bring other nations together to secure and stop the spread of these weapons. That’s pretty much exactly what people are afraid Democrats are going to do – appoint envoys. Given a choice between a President who sends Marines and one that sends envoys to sip tea and ‘bring other nations together’ – the nations that are profiting, financially and politically, from WMD component sales – I’ll tell you where my money is going.

Next, whatever we thought of the Bush Administration’s decisions and mistakes … especially in Iraq … we now have a solemn obligation to complete the mission, in that country and in Afghanistan. Iraq is now a major magnet and center for terror. Our forces in Iraq are paying the price everyday.

Yes, they are…at a rate comparable to the rate of deaths in a number of major American cities…a rate that is declining.

And our safety at home may someday soon be endangered as Iraq becomes a training ground for the next generation of terrorists.

Because jihadi terrorists haven’t managed an operation on U.S. soil yet…

It is time to return to the United Nations and return America to the community of nations to share both authority and responsibility in Iraq, and take the target off the back of our troops. This also requires a genuine Iraqi security force. The Bush Administration simply signs up recruits and gives them rudimentary training. In a Kerry Administration, we will create and train an Iraqi security force equal to the task of safeguarding itself and the people it is supposed to protect.

We must offer the UN the lead role in assisting Iraq with the development of new political institutions. And we must stay in Iraq until the job is finished.

Unless the UN wants us out, of course…does anyone else see a contradiction in that statement?

In Afghanistan, we have some NATO involvement, but the training of the Afghan Army is insufficient to disarm the warlord militias or to bring the billion dollar drug trade under control. This Administration has all but turned away from Afghanistan. Two years ago, President Bush promised a Marshall Plan to rebuild that country. His latest budget scorns that commitment.

We must … and if I am President, I will … apply the wisdom Franklin Roosevelt shared with the American people in a fireside chat in 1942, “it is useless to win battles if the cause for which we fight these battles is lost. It is useless to win a war unless it stays won.” This Administration has not met that challenge; a Kerry Administration will.

But nothing else will matter unless we win the war of ideas. In failed states from South Asia to the Middle East to Central Africa, the combined weight of harsh political repression, economic stagnation, lack of education, and rapid population growth presents the potential for explosive violence and the enlistment of entire new legions of terrorists. In Saudi Arabia and Egypt, almost sixty percent of the population is under the age of 30, unemployed and unemployable, in a breeding ground for present and future hostility. And according to a Pew Center poll, fifty percent or more of Indonesians, Jordanians, Pakistanis, and Palestinians have confidence in bin Laden to “do the right thing regarding world affairs.”

OK, I like the direction he’s going with this.

We need a major initiative in public diplomacy to bridge the divide between Islam and the rest of the world. For the education of the next generation of Islamic youth, we need an international effort to compete with radical Madrassas. We have seen what happens when Palestinian youth have been fed a diet of anti-Israel propaganda. And we must support human rights groups, independent media and labor unions dedicated to building a democratic culture from the grass-roots up. Democracy won’t come overnight, but America should speed that day by sustaining the forces of democracy against repressive regimes and by rewarding governments which take genuine steps towards change.

Again, a good, broad statement that doesn’t map well to the actual behavior of the EU or Russia. So who’s going to stand beside us as we proselytize? Most of the UN conferences have been pro-Palestinian and anti-Western; are we going to suddenly somehow remake the UN?

We cannot be deterred by letting America be held hostage by energy from the Middle East. If I am President, we will embark on a historic effort to create alternative fuels and the vehicles of the future … to make this country energy independent of Mideast oil within ten years. So our sons and daughters will never have to fight and die for it.

It’s all about the oillll. Give me a fucking break. If it was about the oil, the French and Japanese armies would be leading the way – they’re the ones who depend on Persian Gulf oil. And we would have entered into long-term agreements with Saddam to rebuild his oilfields, buy his oil, and lift the sanctions. It pisses me off to hear this at high levels. Having said that, I do think that we’d be smart is isolate ourselves from the impact of Persian Gulf supply and price changes as well as the increasing vulnerability of our energy infrastructure; to do that means that we have to rethink our energy economy just a bit.

Finally, if we are going to be serious about the War on Terror, we need to be much more serious about homeland security. Today, fire departments only have enough radios for half their firefighters and almost two-thirds of firehouses are short-staffed. We should not be opening firehouses in Baghdad and closing them down in New York City. We need to put 100,000 more firefighters on duty and we need to restore the 100,000 police on our streets which I fought for and won in 1994 but which the Bush Administration has cut in budget after budget.

We need to provide public health labs with the basic expertise they need but now lack to respond to chemical or biological attack. We need new safeguards for our chemical and nuclear facilities.

OK, another good one.

And our ports … like the Port of Los Angeles … need new technology to screen the 95 percent of containers that now enter this country without any inspection at all. And we should accelerate the action plans agreed to in US-Canada and US-Mexico “smart border” accords while implementing new security measures for cross border bridges. President Bush says we can’t afford to fund homeland security. I say we can’t afford not to.

And I say that if you think you can screen the 95 percent of the containers that come into the Port of Los Angeles – the port that’s about six miles from my house – and still maintain anything like the current levels of traffic, you’re high. You might screen some percentage of them once they are off the ships, but the vulnerability is in the port infrastructure itself; that’s the high-value, high-leverage target.

The safety of our people, the security of our country, the memory of our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, neighbors and heroes we lost on September 11th call on us to win this war we did not seek.

And our children’s future demands that we also do everything in our power to prevent the creation of tomorrow’s terrorists today. Maybe there’s no going back to the days before baggage checks and orange alerts. Maybe they’re with us forever. But I don’t believe they have to be. I grew up at a time of bomb shelters and air raid drills. But America had leaders of vision and courage in both parties. And today, the Cold War is memory, not reality.

I believe we can bring a real victory in the War on Terror. I believe we must, not only for ourselves but for all who look to America as “the last best hope of earth.” I believe we can meet that ideal … and that’s why I’m running for President.

Well, there are some nuggets in there.

Of course giving speeches is easy; but if that’s how we judged our Presidents, we’d be electing Sean Penn. We have to look at the complex history behind the man and the speech as well, and Kerry’s history doesn’t get my motor running too hard. But I’m reading, and listening, and trying to learn.

Just for grins, over the next week, I think I’ll write the speech I wish Kerry would give; let’s see if I can make something interesting out of it. Maybe I’ll even do the one I wish Bush would give, too…

A lot of what I do is deal with broken projects; systems that don’t work, software development that’s way behind or on schedule but shedding necessary features.

When things don’t work, there’s seldom a ‘smoking gun’; you have to dig a bit to try and find out what’s going on, toss up hypotheses and check them out, and one of the things I say a lot is “How would we know if that’s true?” The coders are claiming the database is performing badly; the DBA’s are claiming the application servers are misconfigured. OK, how would we know if any of those are true? Because once you can ask that question and get an answer, you’re on the path to defining tests which will let you make some firm statements.

So here’s an article about the election yesterday and e-voting:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Voters across the United States encountered scattered problems with new touch-screen systems on Tuesday as they voted in primary elections, but by and large the machines ran smoothly, state election officials said on Wednesday.

Voters in some polling stations in San Diego and Oakland, California, were turned away after officials had trouble starting up the machines, while others in Maryland and Georgia had to use paper ballots, officials said.

Aside from setup problems, the machines functioned smoothly, officials said.

“We had no technical issues at all, just the normal human stuff,” said Linda Lamone, Maryland state administrator of elections.

OK. How would we know if that’s true? We don’t, and more importantly, we can’t.

Folks, I’m coming to the conclusion that this is the most urgent issue on the table today. More important than fighting Islamist terrorism, more important than domestic security, more important than economic policy, and let me tell you why I feel that way.

It’s about legitimacy. Legitimacy matters, both domestically, and internationally. Here’s an example:

“Cherie Blair still believed that Bush had stolen the White House from Gore,” author Philip Stephens wrote in his book “Tony Blair: The Making of a World Leader. ”

Although Tony Blair was pragmatic about Bush’s victory, Mrs Blair was far less sanguine about the Supreme Court decision that gave him the keys to the White House.

She believed Al Gore had been “robbed” of the presidency and was hostile to the idea of her husband “cosying” up to the new President.

Even as they flew to Washington for their first meeting with the presidential couple, Mrs Blair was in no mood to curry favour, the book stated.

You want to imagine the impact when some disgruntled tech spins a story about deliberate, untraceable, errors coded into the machines that gather election results? When there has been a close, hotly contested election, and the presidency is at stake?

Kagan has written substantially on the importance of legitimacy in the international sphere; his positions are discussed in this column:

The researcher believes that “a great philosophical schism” has broken out between the continents because of sharp disagreements over the acceptability of the use of military force. The actions of the United States in Iraq have become a test case, in which what is at stake is “the future reputation of the United States, its reliability, and its legitimacy as a world leader”.

Kagan’s assessment of the present situation is right, as such. The United States has never been so powerful and so influential as it is now, but the wisdom and motives of its policies have probably never been so extensively and deeply questioned.

The country’s overwhelming strength makes it possible for it to wield its power even without legitimacy, but always at a high price. Acceptance is replaced by resentment, friendship by fear, and allies by vassals. Not even the most hard-line hawks in the United States can seriously want such a world, but the movement during the term of President George W. Bush has been in that very direction.

It’s still possible to push this back; but it’s going to take substantial action to do so.

I’ll suggest a simple standard: no e-voting system should be used unless it prints a human-readable ballot which can be stored in a ballot box, and unless the officials in charge of voting agree to test a significant sample of the paper ballots against electronic results, and to use paper ballots in the event of recounts.

And electronic scanners that count marked ballots should be subject to the same audit/test/recount requirements (note that as I understand it, the punchcard-reading scanners tend to be simple totalizators, which are harder to game – let me know if this is wrong).