Duty to Warn

A Zogby International poll taken on the eve of the Republican National Convention in New York City found 49.3% of New York City residents believe that some of our leaders “knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act.” The key question is how many members of the Bush clan knew, or does Cheney have them on a need-to-know basis only.

The American Civil Liberties Union and voting rights groups won a key victory in Florida on August 27 when an administrative law judge in Tallahassee struck down a new state rule that banned manual recounts in counties that used touch screen voting machines. Since the two leading makers of touch screen voting don’t provide paper trails, their machines make it impossible to have a recount. Florida state officials claimed that since the e-voting machines lack the capacity to determine “the voter intent” in close races, there was no need to allow for recounts with the error-prone machines.

Texas populist Jim Hightower, also known as the anti-Bush, spoke at a TrueMajority event in Bexley on August 13. Hightower signed copies of his new book Let’s Stop Beating Around the Bush. The highlight of Hightower’s talk was his detailed account on how George W. Bush came to own a “ranchette” in Crawford, Texas. Hightower speaks with great authority as the state’s former Commissioner of Agriculture.

As Hightower told us, Karl Rove, referred to as “Bush’s brain,” decided that Dubya needed a ranch in 1999 if he wanted to be elected President. After all, Ronald Reagan had a ranch and so did that last Texas President, Lyndon Johnson.

“There’s nothing Bush likes better than having a photo op of him clearing brush,” Hightower explained. “Bush is always inviting the media out to take pictures of him clearing brush. In my experience real ranchers spend virtually no time clearing brush. They’re usually tending cattle. But Bush bought a ranch in farm country, and the cattle you see as part of the photo op aren’t even his. They’re somebody else’s that he rents the land to.”

MASON, Texas --- Letter from a non-swing state. Every political reporter and his hamster is covering the swing states. Here's the news from the rest of the country. This column is dedicated to all the Democrats in the red states and all the Republicans in the blue states, with affection for all.

In Mason, Texas, pop. 2,148, there are new yellow ribbons up all over town in memory of young Mathew Puckett, the first Mason man to die in military action since World War II. Though Masonites are united in sorrow, the debate over Iraq has only become more embittered. "Now they've killed one of ours. Now you have to support the troops," say the Republicans.

"Now don't you wonder, 'Should we be there?' Now don't you have to ask, 'What good are we doing?'" say the Democrats.

Local Democrats participated in the Mason County Round-Up parade this year. A few people waved at them from regular shoulder-height, but more waved from hip-level, just with their hands, not wanting to attract attention. It's not popular to be a Democrat in Mason County.

SARASOTA, Fla. -- Media watch alert: a curious double distortion in the media mirror, as the situation in Iraq unravels before our eyes. Iraq gets less media play for two reasons -- one an old media fault, and the other political.

As the story gets worse, it also becomes more familiar. We've heard it before, quite a few times, and consequently it doesn't get as much play. "Seven Marines Killed" or "Scores Are Dead After Violence Spreads in Iraq" would have been HUGE stories a year ago. Now they're just another bad day in Iraq, nothin' new here, no news. Back to the hurricane (which is also becoming unpleasantly old news).

The United States has a long history of protecting and preserving freedom of the press. As early as 1789 Madison's version of the speech and press clauses, introduced in the House of Representatives on June 8, 1789, provided: ''The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable."

In the last 40 years the United States emerged as a worldwide leader insuring uninhibited public debate on governmental matters. This principal was permanently weaved in the social fabric of America Society in 1964 when a unanimous Supreme Court stated in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964): ''we consider this case against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.''

AUSTIN, Texas --- Oh for heaven's sake, doesn't anyone know how to research a story anymore? I have never seen anything as silly as this ridiculous Republican chorus that, aha!, Ben Barnes is a Democrat and so we know he's lying!

        The question is not whether Ben Barnes is a Democrat. Ben Barnes has never claimed to be nonpartisan or not to have any affiliation with the Kerry campaign. Of course he does. He's been a major Democratic player for years. The question is whether Ben Barnes is telling the truth about how he got George W. Bush in the Texas Air National Guard.

        The ridiculous little blowhard Sean Hannity crowed on Fox "News" that "Ben Barnes testified under oath in 1999 that no member of the Bush family ever contacted him about getting into the Air National Guard." How true. Nor has he changed his story one whit. Barnes testified in 1999 that the man who called him about little George Bush was Sid Adger, Poppy George Bush's dear and good friend. Let's ask Poppy about Sid Adger and see some of that "famous Bush loyalty."

Soon after the American death toll in Iraq passed the 1,000 mark, I thought of Saadoun Hammadi and some oratory he provided two years ago.

At the time, Hammadi was the speaker of Iraq's National Assembly. "The U.S. administration is now speaking war," Hammadi said. "We are not going to turn the other cheek. We are going to fight. Not only our armed forces will fight. Our people will fight."

The date was Sept. 14, 2002. The venue was an ornate room inside a grand government building in Baghdad. And the gaunt elderly official was determined to make an impression on the four American visitors. So, with steel in his voice, Hammadi added: "I personally will fight."

Looking across the room, I tried to imagine this frail man pointing a rifle at American troops. He sounded awfully brave. And who was to say he wouldn't be on the front lines of Iraqi resistance to the invaders? Yet it was hard to picture him wielding a weapon against the armed forces of the world's only superpower.

AUSTIN, Texas -- The wire services are reporting that we just lost seven Marines in Fallujah. To use Linda Ellerbee's line, "And so it goes ..."

        The way it does not, NOT go is as claimed last week at the Republican convention. I feel like the janitor in that photo of Madison Square Garden after the party, facing a sea of garbage that needs to be collected and thrown out. Even after several days and with alert bloggers to help, it's hard to catch all the lies. The number of things John Kerry is supposed to have said that he never said was the largest category.

        -- Kerry never said we need to have a "sensitive war." (Bonus points if you can find Bush's references to our need for more sensitivity.)

        -- Kerry never said we need other countries' permission to go to war.

        -- Kerry has never failed to "support our troops in combat."

He's lost his voice since, but the best thing John Kerry did at the Democratic convention was to challenge the bullying. He talked of the flag belonging to all of us, and how "standing up to speak our minds is not a challenge to patriotism [but] the heart and soul of patriotism." By doing this, he drew the line against the pattern of intimidation that the Bush administration has used to wage war on democracy itself.

A former Air Force Colonel I know described the administration's attitude toward dissent as "shut up and color," as if we were unruly eight-year-olds. Whatever we may think of Bush's particular policies, the most dangerous thing he's done is to promote a culture that equates questioning with treason. This threatens the very dialogue that's at the core of our republic.