Op-Ed

Is there meth in Ted Haggard's heaven? Does it rot your teeth? In his 2005 Barbara Walters interview, Haggard says you can eat all the food you want in heaven and never gain weight. Can you shoot all the meth you want and never lose your teeth or grow emaciated? What about unprotected sex with gay prostitutes? Do you get divine protection against AIDS? Or only if you give regular spiritual advice to the President, and help the Republicans blame gays for America's family problems

Now that Haggard has been outed by a gay prostitute for having sex with him and buying meth, and has resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals,

I wonder what it will take for the good people in the pews to call leaders like Haggard, Jerry Fallwell, and James Dobson to account for their mean-spirited hypocrisy. And maybe even to approach the world with more forgiveness and less vindictiveness. I hope they won't just move on to other seductive leaders who similar project their fears and flaws on whoever they chooses to demonize.

Our President is pretending that the Democrats have no plan for Iraq, and the media is repeating that pretense unchallenged.  But a lot depends on which Democrats we look to.  DNC Chair Howard Dean has no more plan than Bush himself.  Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich published a plan in 2003 -- that's THREE YEARS AGO -- that puts Bush, his party, and some of the Democrats to shame.  Here it is, unaltered, from 2003:

The Kucinich Plan to Bring Our Troops Home

Dennis Kucinich:

"You, sir, should be horsewhipped."

Nothing like a little intimidation to liven up my ongoing meditation on a just society. To be threatened with e-mail violence by a Marine Corps major (ret.) steeped in righteousness - wow, how deliciously personal and unfair. What a lovely mixture of bile and adrenaline it sets to bubbling. What a temptation it creates to respond in kind.

Instead, I've decided to make this conversation - about violence, ignorance, idealism - public. This is bigger than both of us, sir.

I stand accused, for writing a column defending a young Marine deserter who fled apparent criminal abuse at the hands of fellow Marines (returning Iraq vets who acted as though they were haunted by the demons of PTSD), of "disrupting the good order and discipline" of the Corps, and of an almost treasonous failure, judging by the tone of the letter and the proposed punishment, to appreciate how good I've got it: "It is the likes of men . . . you belittle and criticize that provide you with the privilege of the free speech you so eagerly abuse."

There's a small college town in New York state called Oneonta.  Some of the students at the state university there organized an event Monday night that had terrific turnout, and for once the crowd at a college political event was made up of mostly college students.  I'm used to seeing adults in the majority at campus events related to political activism.

I was one of 10 speakers on a variety of topics related to the influence of campaign "contributions".  My topic was war.  The other speakers were excellent, and the students were well informed.  That is, some of them were.  One anonymous person submitted this question on a card during the Q and A part of the event:

"Mr. Swanson – Can you address the counter-argument to your idea.  That if we leave Iraq a worse leader will take power and attack the US again?"

Again?

AUSTIN, Texas -- I'm still worried sick. The R's have seized the news cycle! Which says more about how dim American politics are than anything I can think of.

            Apparently, the Michael J. Fox affair didn't have enough meat to it, and even Rep. Mark Foley is out of the game, so now we have the semi-hemi-demi-gaffe from John Kerry, who is not in fact running for anything.

            If Kerry had been given as many breaks for misspeaking as George W. Bush has, he'd be a professor of grammar by now. And this all shows what the Bush regime has -- attacks on Kerry, Clinton, Kennedy, Pelosi, liberals! -- not any actual policies to help them.

"There's no doubt in my mind, with your help, Dave Lamberti will be the next United States congressman." -- President George Bush last week, endorsing Jeff Lamberti

AUSTIN, Texas -- Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., has announced his candidacy for the president of the United States. Until now, he's barely been noticed as a guy who took money from Brent Wilkes and Mitchell Wade, whose bribes to Randy "Duke" Cunningham led to his resignation from Congress and a plea of guilty to bribery charges. Hunter is widely expected to be the next congressman indicted in this scandal.

            As for the chair of the House Armed Services Committee's presidential candidacy, we have been thinking of scarcely little else around here. It's about time we had some good news.

The White House has arranged to announce two days before the November 7, 2006, elections a guilty verdict for Saddam Hussein and, no doubt, plans to finally murder him. Meanwhile an appeals process is delaying until at least five days after the elections release of photos of members of the U.S. military and its contractors raping and murdering children and adults at Abu Ghraib.

While use of the death penalty is one of many American practices that much of the world views as barbaric, there can be little doubt that Saddam Hussein is guilty of major crimes stretching far beyond those he's been tried for, and including many in which the United States has been complicit.

Mark Crispin Miller is a very serious guy. We met recently over coffee at a quaint little cafe near New York University, where he teaches communications and media. Mark's been sounding the alarm on election fraud for years, convinced that both Al Gore and John Kerry were robbed of the presidency in 2000 and 2004. And he's afraid, very afraid, that the problem these days is worse, not better. Listening to him talk, watching his gestures, hearing his doomsday scenarios, it's easy to get caught up in it. And it makes you angry to think he's right. We vowed to riot in the streets should Democrats lose again in November. What I love about Mark is that you get the feeling he'd actually do it.

Get ready for a special tour of a renowned outlook, conjured from the writings of syndicated New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. As the leading media advocate of “free trade” and “globalization,” he is expertly proficient at explaining the world to the world. If we could synthesize Friedman’s brain waves, the essential messages would go something like this:

Silicon chips are the holy wafers of opportunity. From Bangalore to Bob’s Big Boy Burgers, those who understand the Internet will leave behind those who do not.

I want to tell you about Rajiv/Mohammed/George, now doing awesome business in Madras/Amman/Durham. Only a few years ago, this visionary man started from scratch with just a vision -- a vision that he, like me, has been wise enough to comprehend.

So, Rajiv/Mohammed/George built a business on the digital backbone of the new global economy. Now, the employees fill orders on a varying shift schedule, and time zones are always covered. Don’t ask what they’re selling -- that hardly matters. They’re working in a high-tech industry, and the profits are auspicious. This is the Future. And it is good. Fabulous, actually.

The judgment of history is closing in on us. A new study in a respected British medical journal has put the "excess death" toll in post-invasion Iraq at a soul-numbing 650,000, which, of course, can't be true.

No way. Can't be.

Those who have wedded themselves to this war, beginning with President Bush, prefer the figure 30,000 - a nice, safe number, apparently, which won't gum up the media. What's 30,000 dead? It's a few corpses past "whatever." It's Kankakee, Ill., Paducah, Ky., Hoboken, N.J. It is, in short - among the dwindling ranks of the gung-ho - a small price to pay for a war as important as this one.

So let's pause and absorb the number Bush and his apologizers are willing to concede: 30,000. Let it stand naked in the spotlight for a moment, out of the shadow of those six-figure estimates that make it seem trivial, and listen to the silent heartbeats:

"Ahmad Walid al-Bath, 33, a Jordanian taxi driver, became the first casualty of the war on March 20 (2003). He had stopped to make a phone call at a public telephone office when a missile hit it, killing him. He (left) a wife and a 10-month-old child. . . .