Baby Steps

It pays to be a liberal Democrat:

This morning, when Dems met behind closed doors to get ready for the vote, members gave a standing ovation to the three key liberals who helped make this bill possible: Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey and Maxine Waters.

The kicker: All three were preparing to vote against the bill, and everyone there suspected as much -- but the three were applauded anyway.

The scene -- which was recounted in Congress Daily (sub. only) and confirmed to me by a Hill source -- was a reminder of the strange route House Dems took to passage of this milestone bill. As reported here yesterday, the three key liberal members decided at the last minute to back the bill. But because they wanted to oppose the bill themselves as a matter of conscience because it lacked the tough language enforcing withdrawal that they wanted, they went to other liberal members of the Out of Iraq caucus and let them know that they'd have no problem if they voted for it.

"These three went and got enough other votes to provide a margin of victory beyond their own three No votes," the source says. Thus the standing ovation for them.

I love it when liberals show that they have the political will and deft, legislative shrewdness to score a win for the cause.

In the end, this is exactly how we will prevail...

Manufacturing Dissent

Updated below

One of the main reasons why I like liberalism is that we are free to criticize our own...even if we do it all too frequently. It's our honesty that's key: brutal as it may be, it's rarely malevolent. It's simultaneously our greatest strength and our biggest weakness.

At the risk of ruffling some feathers I have to say, though, that I've long had a problem with Michael Moore's style and his tactics...and I think a documentary like this, made by left-wing liberals, is perhaps exactly what he deserves (and needs) most:


I just can't really see Moore's films as true documentaries. For real documentaries, I'll continue to watch Errol Morris or Ken Burns.

But I still love Moore's movies nonetheless. They're candy; like liberal political porn. My only fear is that this documentary will soon be touted and exploited by the right wing...certainly an unintended consequence by the filmmakers.

The irony, however, is that a documentary like Manufacturing Dissent can only strengthen the liberal cause in the end, as our introspection only serves to inform us and thus lead to more well-crafted positions, less vulnerable to superficial attacks.

Or so I hope.

UPDATE: As predicted, the right-wing has picked up on Manufacturing Dissent. Here's a snippet from a FOX interview with the documentarians:

"At its core here, Martha, what we're talking about is truth-telling via the media," [co-director Rick Caine] said. "So for us to sit here and act like Michael is the only person buffalo-ing the American public I think is a little disingenuous."

MacCallum failed to flinch at that, telling the two that they had obviously set out to show that Moore "wasn't what he was pretending to be, right?"

No, they said, they set out to tell the truth, whatever it happened to be.

"If someone is willing to lie for the cause, like a major news organization, for instance, it causes all kinds of problems for democracy. ... The media has to tell the truth. I don't care which side of the divide you're on. We've got to knock off the lies and tell the truth so the American public can do the right thing," Caine said.

Good on them for sticking to the point, and subtly sticking it to the right-wing's biggest mouthpiece. Check out the link above for the video, care of News Hounds.

(Crooks and Liars also has the video.)

Reservoir of Anti-Muslim Hate

On the heels of my last post about conservative posturing comes this gem:

A House Republican leadership group said Monday that Democrats should retract an offer to let the nation's largest Islamic civil liberties organization use a Capitol conference room for a seminar.

The House Republican Conference referred to the Council on American-Islamic Relations as "terrorist apologists" and called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) to cancel the forum scheduled for Tuesday.

Never mind that the group "had launched public service ads on TV against terrorism and had worked closely with the FBI and other government agencies." It's simple: Just dismiss what doesn't fit the narrative.

"It's really disappointing," said CAIR national communications director Ibrahim Hooper, that whenever there's an attack from elective officials "we don't even ask any more which party it is. It should be a concern to ordinary Republicans that the party is being viewed as a reservoir of anti-Muslim hate."

I don't think Party leadership is concerned, because that's the point: Rather than understand your "enemies" (or bother to understand the distinction between Sunni/Shi'ite or mainstream vs extremist Islam), they prefer to hate and smear foes for political expediency.

Making knee-jerk, ill-informed policy decisions has proven effective so far, hasn't it? Things are going pretty well, right?

Know Thine Enemy

Now, know that I truly do understand who this nation's enemies are.

It's clear that any person or group that truly threatens - not merely offends - the values that makes (made?) this nation a world leader in the concepts of "freedom, justice and liberty" as enshrined in our Constitution would be considered an enemy.

To be clear: We're not talking about laissez-faire "economic freedom" at the expense of a functioning government, vigilante justice at the expense of the rule of law, nor any personal "liberty" that ignores basic civil and/or human rights.

And let's be consistent. These concepts of "freedom, justice and liberty" can be just as imperiled from within as they are from external forces. --You might say that the lack of any proven threat from Iraq to the U.S. is merely one of the reasons I opposed the Iraq War from the outset...well, that, and the fact that it was obvious to anyone paying attention that the threat lay elsewhere.

And while that threat regroups in the mountainous regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, another threat to our collective values has slowly gained prominence from within: The threat of contrived masculinity.

Glenn Greenwald has concisely articulated this thought, which has percolated in my mind for far too long without finding its voice to be effectively communicated:

[The current, extremist conservative movement] is a cult of contrived masculinity whereby people dress up as male archtypes like cowboys, ranchers, and tough guys even though they are nothing of the kind -- or prance around as Churchillian warriors because they write from a safe and protected distance about how great war is -- and in the process become triumphant heroes and masculine powerful icons and strong leaders. They and their followers triumph over the weak, effete, humiliated Enemy, and thereby become powerful and exceptional and safe.

[snip]

John Dean and Bob Altemeyer have both documented this dynamic as clearly and convincingly as can be. People who feel weak and vulnerable crave strong leaders to protect them and to enable them to feel powerful. And those same people crave being part of a political movement that gives them those sensations of power, strength, triumph and bravery -- and they need a strong, powerful, masculine Leader to enable those feelings. And they will devote absolute loyalty to any political movement which can provide them with that.

That is just the basic dynamic of garden-variety authoritarianism, and it is what the right-wing, pro-Bush political movement is at its core -- far, far more than it is a set of political beliefs or geopolitical objectives or moral agendas. All of it -- the obsessions with glorious "Victory" in an endless string of wars, vesting more and more power in an all-dominant centralized Leader, the forced submission of any country or leader which does not submit to the Leader's Will, the unquestioning Manichean certainties, and especially the endless stigmatization of the whole array of Enemies as decadent, depraved and weak -- it's just base cultural tribalism geared towards making the followers feel powerful and strong and safe.

The saddest irony is that if these folks truly had their way, we would indeed be living in a country not unlike the USSR or North Korea. Their leading pundits like to crow loudly about "liberal treason," but fail to understand (or, rather, choose to misunderstand) that liberals want nothing more than to restore the very things that have made and may continue to make this country great (see: "values" remarks above). No more is this sick irony revealed than in their own rhetoric:

On the March 5 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, which aired at 6 p.m. ET...[Michael] Savage lashed out at "[t]hose scum-sucking vermin. Those left-wing rats" who he claimed "won't be happy until we're all on prayer rugs waiting to have our heads cut off." He continued: "You ought to be happy, you liberal SOBs, that I am only a talk-show host. You ought to thank God that I have no avariciousness [sic] in my soul. You ought to thank God that I'm not power mad like you liberals, because if I ever ran for office, I can guarantee you, you wouldn't be in business too long. I can guarantee you you'd be arrested for sedition within six months of my taking power. I'd have you people licking lead paint, what you did to this country."

So much for American diversity and freedom of thought, should Savage ever be "taking power." This is one of their top-3(!) commentators! No leading liberal commentator or pundit is spewing such accusations or threats.

I find it remarkable that some right-wing commentators like to maintain that the "adults are back in charge" after the scandals of the Clinton era. Again, the irony is sadly lost on today's extremist conservative movement that the actions of its Administration and its leading pundits are more akin to an adolescent with an exaggerated inferiority complex. Their actions certainly do not demonstrate any semblance of true strength.

And *that*, as anyone who has gone through puberty knows, is the true enemy within.

"All we do is sell books..."

Your Liberal Media, once again not telling the "good news" coming out of Iraq, such as the following:

"At 11:40 a.m., a car bomb exploded on this storied street, killing as many as 26 people and injuring dozens, according to police officers at the scene. It shattered an area once known for liberal ideas, an intellectual haven that in the heady days after the U.S.-led invasion pulsed with the promise of freedom."

"For many victims, the attack brought questions about the effectiveness of a new security crackdown that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has already declared a success. Nearly three weeks after its launch, the number of violent attacks has dipped, but bombings continue to plague Baghdad.

On Monday, U.S. and Iraqi troops continued their carefully orchestrated security sweeps into the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City, with Iraqi forces taking a more visible role than the Americans. Meanwhile, gunmen opened fire on Shiite pilgrims, killing seven in several areas of Baghdad, police said."

[snip]

"When Saddam Hussein was in power, Mutanabi Street exuded a defiant spirit that reverberated through its bookstores and the famed Shabandar Cafe. Here, intellectuals, over cups of sweet tea, engaged in lively debates.

But in recent months, the street had become a casualty of Iraq's incessant violence. As thousands of educated Iraqis left, many of the original booksellers closed shop. Others were kidnapped or killed. Many fled the country. Checkpoints, street closings and a Friday curfew kept customers away.

Still, the street was a hive of activity in the mornings, mostly because of a brisk trade in stationery products. Abbas said he believes that's why the street was attacked."

[snip]

"All we do is sell books," said Amer Kasim, 38, struggling for an explanation.

Then again, depending on your point of view, maybe the "good news" is that "liberalism" is being attacked everywhere, not just in the United States.

You suppose there are any extreme conservatives who believe this? Perhaps the same extremists who claim liberals want soldiers to die and wish America would "lose" in Iraq and elsewhere?

Pathetic and sick...and again, incidentally, patently wrong.

Someone Please Put Seymour Hersh In Charge

As Glenn Greenwald and others have chronicled, an amazing recent trend in politics today is rewarding those who are and have been disastrously wrong on anything to do with Iraq since 2003, and marginalizing those who have been presciently right.

One of those who have been so right on Iraq is Sy Hersh. Bill Maher interviews him here on the mind of Cheney and his Administration, and it's a frightening portrait of misguided priorities and errant vision.



(Thanks to C&L for posting this.)