Op-Ed

AUSTIN, Texas -- I rarely find fault with Washington journalist Josh Marshall and his thoughtful Blog "Talking Points Memo," but I beg to differ on this occasion.

            "My God," writes Marshall, "when they say down the memory hole, they ain't kiddin'! There now seems to be a secret competition -- perhaps it was announced and I just didn't hear it -- for the Iraq-hawk who can come up with the most ingenious, Orwellian, up-is-down rewriting of the history of the year-long lead-up to the Iraq war."

            Marshall goes on to discuss a few entrants in the secret contest but then votes, prematurely I believe, to award the palm to Bill Safire of The New York Times. Safire's recent column about "hyping the 'hoax' charge" is the most elegant of its kind: Suddenly those who ask, "So where are these weapons of mass destruction we went to war to over?" are the problem.

NEW YORK CITY -- Much as I hate to interrupt what is apparently a deeply felt triumphalism on the American right, now that it's over, does anyone see any reason for our having invaded Iraq?

I realize that's what we all kept trying to figure out before the invasion, but don't you think it should at least be visible in hindsight? Good thing we won the war, because the peace sure looks like a quagmire.

These are early days, certainly, to attempt a full historical evaluation. Could be a case of the forest and the trees. Perhaps we're well along the road to having everything work out magnificently, and I'm just missing it. Still, I can't see anything that's going right.

AUSTIN, Texas -- This is a gross scandal. The Center for Public Integrity has a stunning study out on the concentration of ownership in telecommunications. The even more stunning news is that the Federal Communications Commission, which theoretically represents you and me, is about to make all of it even worse. And behind this betrayal of the public trust is nothing but rotten, old-fashioned corruption. It's the old free-trip-to-Vegas ploy, on a grand scale.

The Public Integrity people examined the travel records of FCC employees and found that they have accepted 2,500 trips, costing nearly $2.8 million over the past eight years, paid for by the telecommunications and broadcast industries, which are, theoretically, "regulated" by the FCC. The industry-paid travel is on top of about $2 million a year in official travel paid for by taxpayers.

AUSTIN, Texas -- It was horrible and sickening, but I could not stop watching the final days of the Texas Legislature. Fellow Texans, the ripple effects of this disaster will come to haunt us all.

Just for starters, this budget is going to cost about 144,000 jobs. Perhaps its most serious effect is on public hospitals. A health-care system so fragile that it is almost overwhelmed now -- turning away ambulances for hours at a time, unable to admit a single patient -- will be swamped after this. The counties will be desperate, the cities not much better. Every area of social service has been cut, not because we have a $9 billion deficit but because House Republicans do not believe government SHOULD help people.

By now, it's a media ritual. Whenever the U.S. government raises the alert level for terrorism -- as when officials announced the orange code for "high risk" on May 20 -- local, regional and national news stories assess the dangers and report on what's being done to protect us. We're kept well-informed about how worried to be at any particular time. But all that media churning includes remarkably little that has any practical utility.

Presumably, the agencies that are supposed to help safeguard the public don't need to get their directives via network news or the morning paper. As for the rest of us, the publicity is very close to useless -- unless we're supposed to believe that feeling anxious makes us safer or looking sideways at strangers will enhance our security.

BOISE, Idaho -- When last we left the saga of Texas' few living elected Democrats, they had fled the state pursued by minions of the law -- legislators on the lam. These courageous citizens, fleeing vile Republican oppression in their state capital, took refuge at the Holiday Inn in Ardmore, Oklahoma.

Reporters embedded with the law-breaker law-makers in Ardmore say the perps remain unrepentant.

Meanwhile, back at the capitol, mighty was the wrath of the Republicans left holding session without a quorum. Bills died by the dozens as the lawmakers wanted by the law bollixed up the legislative works (bills not passed through second reading as of May 15 die automatically, a bit of legislative process the fleeing Dems cunningly used to their advantage).

Gov. Goodhair Perry, who keeps saying he wants more civility and bipartisanship, denounced the AWOL solons as "cowardly," childish" and "irresponsible." It was a bad day for bipartisanship.

AUSTIN, Texas -- They just went too far, that's all. This session of the legislature has been as brutal, callous and indifferent to the welfare of the weakest, the most frail, youngest and oldest Texans as it is possible to get. The level of pure meanness is just stunning. They have just gone too damn far.

The session was pretty well summed up by Rep. Senfronia Thompson when she illustrated what was going on by taking the House rulebook to the podium with her and dropping it on the floor. There is no rule of procedure, fairness, common sense or decency that has been observed by the Republican majority in the Texas House.

This is not about partisan politics -- although that has certainly reared its ugly head. In case you hadn't noticed, every major newspaper in this state has criticized the plans and performance of the legislature this session, often in harsh language. Those wild-eyed radicals at the Dallas Morning News and Houston Chronicle are just disgusted with the tacky display these people have been putting on.

A new poll tells us that -- by a two-to-one margin -- Americans "use clearly positive words in their descriptions of the president." The Pew Research Center, releasing a nationwide survey on May 7, declared "there is little doubt ... that the war in Iraq has improved the president's image" in the United States.

Such assessments stand in sharp contrast to views of George W. Bush overseas. In mid-March, the Pew center put out survey results showing that "U.S. favorability ratings have plummeted in the past six months" -- not only in "countries actively opposing war" but also in "countries that are part of the 'coalition of the willing.'"

So, why do most Americans seem at least somewhat positive about Bush, while the figures indicating a "favorable view of the U.S." are low in one country after another -- only 48 percent in Britain, 31 percent in France, 28 percent in Russia, 25 percent in Germany, 14 percent in Spain and 12 percent in Turkey? In large measure, the answer can be summed up with one word: media.

AUSTIN, Texas -- "We ought to be beating our chests every day. We ought to look in a mirror and be proud, and stick out our chests and suck in our bellies, and say, 'Damn, we're Americans!'" -- Jay Garner, retired general and the man in charge of the American occupation of Iraq.

Thus it is with a sense of profound relief that one hears the news that Garner is about to be replaced by a civilian with nation-building experience. I realize we have all been too busy with the Laci Peterson affair to notice that we're still sitting on a powder keg in Iraq, but there it is. In case you missed it, a million Iraqi Shiites made pilgrimage to Karbala, screaming, "No to America!"

Funny how media attention slips just at the diciest moments. I doubt the United States was in this much danger at any point during the actual war. Whether this endeavor in Iraq will turn out to be worth the doing is now at a critical point, and the media have decided it's no longer a story. Boy, are we not being served well by American journalism.

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- In Pensacola, Fla., a crowd of pink, plastic flamingos on the lawn means someone is having a birthday. The flamingos are usually for a major, zero-ending birthday, so on the day you turn, say, 50, you walk out of the house, and there are 50 pink flamingos to greet you. I report this to prove that travel is culturally broadening.

Also on the Redneck Riviera, an annual sporting event I trust will soon attract national television coverage: the Mullet Toss. Kenny Stabler, formerly with the Oakland Raiders, throws out the first mullet in the yearly fish fling, and then, less famous mullet chuckers compete.

Near as I can tell from a quick visit, the major problem along the Florida Panhandle is rapid development. Same old same old, except that both the old-timers and the newcomers have a strong interest in preserving the natural beauty of the place. By now, everyone knows what happens if you don't control growth. The phenomenon known as "strip commercial" appears -- endless stretches of tacky, plastic, franchise food joints.