DebateGate

Two articles from the Guardian:

Americans should be proud
Simon Jenkins
November 8, 2006 02:43 PM

Link

The ugly American mark two is dead. Overnight six years of glib European identification of "American" with right-wing fundamentalism is over. The gun-toting, pre-Darwinian Bushite, the Tomahawk-wielding, Halliburton-loving, Beltway neo-con, damning abortion as murder and torturing Islamo-fascists has been lain to rest, and by a decision of the American people. Americans should be proud and the world should take note.

Yesterday's result could hardly have been more emphatic. George Bush's election wizard, Karl Rove, said he would make America's midterm elections "a choice not a referendum". He would ask them to choose a congress not vote on his boss. The electorate did both. In a high turnout the majority rejected the tenets of the religious right and of "big government" neo-conservativism. They expressed concern over the corruption and warmongering of Washington and the state of their economy in Bush's hands. For the Republicans there were no consolations.

The new congress is mandated to press ahead with a higher minimum wage, an end to pork-barrel budgeting, immigrant amnesty, energy conservation, stem cell research and radical changes to the drugs bill and welfare generally.

Most of these may fall by the wayside, but they have behind them the winds of a mandate. Congress must find a way of curbing Bush's uncontrolled federal expenditure if a new Democrat president after 2008 is not to endure agonies of retrenchment. Whether Bush will decide to cooperate with such change in the hope of rescuing his floundering presidency is up to him. Certainly the only Republican of any stature, the war sceptic Senator John McCain, seems disinclined to help him.

A CNN exit poll of swing issues put Iraq, terrorism, the economy and corruption of equal concern to voters, with the Republicans scoring badly on them all. The politics of fear has now lost its post-9/11 traction. Republicans mouthing dire threats of "islamo-fascists" under every bed are scorned. The most ferocious ad I saw had a solitary figure on any empty set telling Americans that they had become less popular round the world, that terrorism had become worse, that Americans were less safe, that gasoline was more expensive and Osama bin laden was still free - all because of one thing, "the war in Iraq".

Over 60 per cent of electors want American troops withdrawn now or soon. The White House ran on a "pro-victory" ticket and lost. Yesterday's reports from Baghdad indicated widespread expectation and relief that American policy in that country is about to change. The American military is known to want to leave and Iraqis, whether those in power welcome it or not, sense the occupation is de facto over. At such a moment insurgency knows it has won, however long it takes the occupying power to go. Retreat becomes the only option. A wretched era of American interventionism has come to an end. A new day has dawned.

America has spoken
Martin Kettle
November 8, 2006 05:18 AM

Link

America has spoken, George Bush told the nation this morning two years ago, and it had given him its trust and his confidence. He would continue his policies at home and abroad, buoyed by the public's endorsement. Now, two years further on, America has spoken again - but this time in a very different tone and with the opposite conclusion, issuing a direct warning to the leader it re-elected 24 months ago to change his policy in Iraq. The cheering can be heard not just in America itself but around the planet.

So the big question this morning and over the coming weeks and months is this: which George Bush will respond to the American voters' verdict in the 2006 midterms? Will it be the same apparently humble and responsive president who said he heard the popular verdict in 2004 and would act on it? Or will it be a defiant president, who opts to spend his final two years in office in conflict with the new legislature that Americans have chosen to represent them?

If Vice-President Dick Cheney is any guide, these will be two years of defiance. Speaking in Colorado Springs last Saturday, Cheney announced that the administration would continue "full steam ahead" with its policy in Iraq, irrespective of the results of yesterday's elections. "It may not be popular with the public," he told ABC News. "It doesn't matter, in the sense that we have to continue what he think is right. That's exactly what we're doing. We're not running for office. We're doing what we think is right."

Not a good start. But the Bush administration has never had to practice either humility or compromise before. For the past six years, it has had a Republican Congress on its side. But not any longer. Now it has to adapt or die. Last night, largely because of Iraq, the Democrats finally brought an end to the most partisan period of Republican legislative rule in modern American history. The tide of the Gingrich revolution which swept in in 1994 was swept back out yesterday, 12 years later. It is far too early to say whether this represents the final eclipse of the moral, fiscal and ideological conservatism of the last dozen years. But that often brutal conservatism has at last been pushed back at the federal level. This is therefore a historic moment in American domestic politics.

The loss of the House of Representatives was a decisive one, towards the upper end of Democratic expectations signalled by recent polls. The Republican House seats tumbled as predicted in many states - Indiana, Kentucky, Connecticut, New York, Florida and Colorado among them. The likely failure, at the time of writing, to recapture the Senate was of a piece with that result. The Democrats did very well there nevertheless, capturing Senate seats in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, edging close to victory in Montana and Virginia, and fighting off serious challenges in Maryland and New Jersey. But with Republicans battling hard to hold on in Missouri and Tennessee, the distant prospect of a Democratic double victory looked to be just out of reach.

Many conservatives will be in denial about these results this morning. They will be as angry in defeat as they have so often been angry in victory. They will try to dismiss them as a poor performance, falling short of Democratic expectations and thus in some bizarre way a vindication of the administration. But these elections have been a decisive rebuff not just to the president but also to the arrogance that has increasingly been the hallmark of both the Bush administration and the Republican congressional leadership.

Ugly triumphalism has been a central feature of the past dozen years. Too many Republicans have too often spoken and behaved as though their earlier electoral victories entitled them to ride roughshod over the very idea that large numbers of Americans passionately disagreed with their approach. The redistricting on which these elections have been fought was a case in point - a blatant gerrymander designed to prevent ethnic minorities and liberals from being properly represented in Washington. Rightly or wrongly, the new Democratic masters on Congress will be looking for some payback here.

As the results of the 2006 midterms begin to settle in, American politics will seamlessly move on to the next contest. The 2008 presidential stakes will get under way before Christmas, with John McCain announcing his bid for the Republican nomination and a clutch of other Republicans - Mitt Romney, Chuck Hagel, Bill Frist and Rudi Giuliani among them - all preparing to challenge him. On the Democratic side the big questions concern Hillary Clinton's real determination to stand (her husband has been telling friends that a run is by no means certain) and whether Barack Obama will try to translate his current wave of popularity into a White House run which many believe would be premature. This is not a revolutionary moment. Many of the Democrats who ousted Republicans in the House yesterday are strong moderates. Do not expect any important Democrat to stray very far from the centre-ground for the next two years.

In the final analysis this was, by common consent, an electoral defeat for George Bush and for his Iraq war. Nothing matters more to the world than for America to find and follow a new path in its relations with the nations with which it shares the planet. A planned withdrawal from Iraq is central to that necessary project and has been made likelier by these elections. Yet no one should delude themselves into imagining that the change of direction will be sudden, decisive or easy. Bush is a lame-duck president presiding over an unpopular war - yet it remains to be seen whether he will either wish or be forced into a reversal of the Iraq policy. Perhaps Donald Rumsfeld will ask to step down -- as the gossip in Washington has it that he will. America has indeed spoken. A new direction, the Democrats' cliche du jour, is the clear message. Bush would be mad not to listen. But the Iraq agony is not going to end any time soon.

Why our shift?
Steve Rose
Chairman
The Johnson County Sun
October 5, 2006

This is a sneak preview.

As we prepare ourselves to make political endorsements in subsequent issues, I can tell you unequivocally that this newspaper has never endorsed so many Democrats. Not even close.

In the 56 years we have been publishing in Johnson County, this basically has been a Republican newspaper. In the old days, before the Republican civil war that fractured the party, we were traditional Republicans. That is, we happily endorsed Jan Meyers for Congress, Bob Dole for U.S. Senate, Nancy Kassebaum for U.S. Senate; virtually every Republican state legislator from here, with a few rare exceptions; and most governors, although we did endorse the conservative Democrats George and Bob Docking and John Carlin.

The point is, I can name on two hands over a half century the number of Democrats we have endorsed for public office.

This year, we will do something different. You will read why we are endorsing Kathleen Sebelius for governor and Mark Parkinson for lieutenant governor; Dennis Moore to be re-elected to the U.S. Congress; Paul Morrison for Kansas attorney general; and a slew of local Democratic state legislative candidates. These are not liberal Democrats. They are what fairly can be described as conservative Democrats, and we can prove that in our forthcoming endorsements.

But I could not help but put in perspective a more global phenomenon that has led us to re-evaluate our traditional support for Republicans.

This change may come as no surprise to our most cynical conservative readers who would dismiss me (and others on the editorial board) as being a moderate Republican and, therefore, the same as a Democrat. To them, there is no difference.
 
But the shift, frankly, shocks me, because I have pulled the lever over and over since my first vote in 1968 for Republicans. If I was a closet Democrat, I must have hidden it well, especially from myself, since I always beat up on Democrats in my columns. I have called them leftists, socialists, and every other name in the book, because I thought they were flat-out wrong.

And, for the most part, I still do. I am opposed to big government. I have little use for unions. I never liked the welfare plans. I am opposed to weak-kneed defense policies. I have always been for fiscal prudence. I think back to the policies of most Democrats, and I cringe.

So, what in the world has happened?

The Republican Party has changed, and it has changed monumentally.

You almost cannot be a victorious traditional Republican candidate with mainstream values in Johnson County or in Kansas anymore, because these candidates never get on the ballot in the general election. They lose in low turnout primaries, where the far right shows up to vote in disproportionate numbers.

To win a Republican primary, the candidate must move to the right.

What does to-the-right mean?

It means anti-public education, though claiming to support it.

It means weak support of our universities, while praising them.

It means anti-stem cell research.

It means ridiculing global warming.

It means gay bashing. Not so much gay marriage, but just bashing gays.

It means immigrant bashing. I'm talking about the viciousness.

It means putting religion in public schools. Not just prayer.

It means mocking evolution and claiming it is not science.

It means denigrating even abstinence-based sex education.

Note, I did not say it means "anti-abortion," because I do not find that position repugnant, at all. I respect that position.

But everything else adds up to priorities that have nothing to do with the Republican Party I once knew.

That's why, in the absence of so-called traditional Republican candidates, the choice comes down to right-wing Republicans or conservative Democrats.

And now you know why we have been forced to move left.

Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - books
Why I've lost faith in Richard Dawkins
Michael Dibdin
October 30, 2006

A recent book called The God Delusion addresses one of the key issues of our time - does Richard Dawkins exist, and if so how does he manifest himself to us? For my part, I truly believe that Dawkins has appeared to me at traditional places of worship such as Hay-on-Wye, Cheltenham and Edinburgh. Hundreds of my fellow pilgrims affirmed that they had also witnessed the apparition, but such evidence cannot be regarded as conclusive. We're only too well aware of the human capacity for mass hysteria, particularly considering how long it took to get served at the bar.

Others have appealed to the canonical texts as proof not only of Dawkins' existence but also the dual modalities of his being. For most believers, he is the charming, articulate media don who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten books over to explaining evolution in terms even you could understand. It is indeed a challenging test of faith to reconcile this Dawkins with the fire-and-brimstone authoritarian given to smiting the heathen and heretics such as Stephen Jay Gould, who interpret the Darwinian commandments in a revisionist form, thundering, "Thou shalt have no other gods before meme."

It's hard to know what to believe, but the basic argument will be familiar to anyone who has ever been doorstepped by proselytising atheists. The evolution of the species and the origins of the universe are now essentially understood and agreed upon by the competent authorities. Belief in any God is therefore almost certainly false and quite certainly redundant. Even if such a being did exist, it would be an irrelevance, a Holy Ghost in the machine. To adapt Whistler's retort to the woman who compared him to Velazquez, why drag God into it? Worse still, religious belief, like so many addictions, is not only foolish, but bad. Just look at all the horrors that have been perpetrated in its name. Now contemplate the infinite wonders of a God-free universe. Enjoy!

Okay, here's an equally trite response. Try telling the victims of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot that the world would be a better place if it were run by atheists. Try telling Samuel Beckett he should be happy to be here. Compare Edward Gibbon's cynical view that the various forms of worship in the Roman empire "were all considered by the people as equally true, by the philosopher as equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful". Unless Dawkins can demonstrate that religious believers necessarily and consistently behave worse than anyone else - and he can't - then on this point his case collapses.

As regards belief, we now pretty much know which neuron receptors fire when you kiss your lover. The facts are not in dispute, but between that knowledge and your experience lies an explanatory abyss. The same applies to Dawkins' much-touted memetics, one of those theoretical retrofits that are unverifiable, non-predictive and exist solely to prop up an academic discipline, in this case evolutionary psychology, and the funding that comes with it. But neurological research is at least real science, while the tautological loop offered by memetics - roughly, nothing succeeds like success - is equally unhelpful at explaining why you love this person rather than that one, or the one over there. And if memes can't explain your experience, they can't explain it away, any more than they can what William James called the religious experience. You either have it or you don't, but if you do then no amount of argument is going to persuade to the contrary, any more than those "I don't know what you see in her" comments will persuade you that you aren't in love.

But Dawkins' real target is not God, or even the majority of religious believers; rather, it is the disproportionately powerful community of single-issue American fundamentalists who are trying to have intelligent design, the con-artist formerly known as creationism, put on the high school curriculum. Academics are notoriously territorial, and Dawkins' habitat is under threat from an invasive species and he feels an instinctive urge to defend it. Fair enough, but he's botched the job.

Intelligent design is a mordantly ironical term since the whole hoax is founded not on the G word but the S word: stoopid. PJ O'Rourke wrote of the Bible belt: "I almost don't have the heart to make fun of these folks. It's like hunting dairy cows with a high-powered rifle and scope." Dawkins has no such compunction, but it's pointless to argue the toss with people incapable of grasping the difference between a theory and a belief. This is a secular issue, not a religious one. If loony-tune fundies want to believe that the sun revolves around a flat earth, good luck to them. If they want the schools to teach it to my kids, I'll see them in court.

Microsoft's Charles Simonyi shelled out a couple of his millions to endow Dawkins' chair as Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford. In other words, he's a hired PR guy with a fancy title. After this shallow rant, whose tone is eerily reminiscent of Tony Blair at his most nauseatingly sanctimonious, Simonyi might well wonder whether he's getting an adequate bang for his buck. The God Delusion not only adds nothing to Dawkins' earlier impeccable contributions to the public understanding of science but is likely to have a disastrous effect on its public perception, confirming the mistaken but sadly prevalent view of scientists as mean-spirited reductionists intent on bulldozing away the fragments that millions of people around the world have shored against their ruin. I don't believe that science need be done like that and neither did Charles Darwin, so I suppose I've lost my faith. I just don't believe in Richard Dawkins any more.

If we can avoid the political hackery for a moment, I have a serious question.

I remember the problems associated with Bosnia pretty well. Some of them were similar to Iraq, though there were clear differences as well.

There were many people in the United States who opposed United States involvement in Bosnia. Many said it was Europe's problem and that we shouldn't be involved. Another common statement was that the Balkan's had centuries of history of violence and that we could not possibly stop that. When we sent peacekeepers in, there was apprehension. This region had seen a few years of the nastiest warfare. It was primarily meaningless violence with snipers in Sarejevo shooting any civilian they saw to an occasional village where every living creature was slaughtered, including livestock.

Indeed, Europe even saw the worst massacre since World War II with the Srebrenica Massacre in 1995.

Yet, overall and despite occasional violence and the later addition of Kosovo to the task, Bosnia has been an overall success story. It was horrible and it could have been dealt with earlier, but for that matter so could Saddam. There are still US forces in Bosnia and Kosovo as well as many other national forces. The history of violence and even early mention of Vietnam-like circumstances never came to pass.

Now, there were plenty of factional problems in Bosnia and Kosovo. I won't even list all the numerous factions involved. There were religious differences. There were outside influences from other countries. There were plenty of weapons and certainly the opportunity existed for it to become a bogged down affair.

What are the major differences in Iraq and Bosnia? Is there anything this administration could have learned from President Clinton's handling of Bosnia (let's not make this hackery, we can all remember Somalia)? Were the military and political aspects of Bosnia handled better or differently? Was having NATO and UN support a major factor in the success?

Oh, why can't the Guardian be more like a US newspaper? Start by giving those mucky facts a good wash right now

Jane Bussmann
Monday October 23, 2006

Guardian

I moved to Los Angeles to get away from the Guardian and its British take on the "facts". Here in America, our facts have two showers a day and use beard trimmers all over. However, every time I come home to do a comedy show about child-snatching Ugandan warlords, I notice that the British are still buying this newspaper. It makes me so mad, I took time out from shooting fox cubs to give your news a good wash. Here are some current news stories, from the Guardian and other mucky UK sources, translated for Americans and brought up to American veracity standards.
In Guardian: Blair - troops may quit Iraq in 10-16 months

In the US: No U-turn from Blair on war

Britain's prime minister confirmed the 2007 withdrawal was planned all along and in no way a reaction to General Sir Richard Dannatt's calls for troops to pull out. Blair insisted he "agreed with every word" of Dannatt's announcement: "What sounded like him saying my entire plan for Iraq was totally fucked up and suicidal was just joshing between friends," said the prime minister. "I'm best mates with whatsisname. We often share a lager beer. Anyway, I'm not worried because he's off to Iraq so he'll probably be dead soon."

In Guardian: US troops face trial over abuse and murder claims

In the US: Marines foil insurgent origami warplane plot

Three marines are accused of abducting Hashim Ibrahim Awad, shooting him and tampering with his body. The Marine Corps' commander acknowledged that placing an AK-47 and a spade near the corpse to make it appear as if he had been shot while preparing to set a roadside bomb may have looked to observers like a clumsy attempt to frame an innocent civilian, but explained that this was only because the wind had blown away the pile of origami cranes Awad had been making with the intention of flying a crane-borne missile into the green zone.

In Guardian: Bush issues doctrine for US control of space

In the US: Oilfields found on the moon

President Bush has promised the Man in the Moon will be freed by 2008. "It is America's duty to liberate him from the tyranny of ... of ... Tony, help me on this," the president explained. A search of CIA doodle archives later established beyond doubt that a space dictator, probably looking something like a bear, had gassed 100,000 lovely little Moomintrolls.

In Guardian: Tycoon rips £75m Picasso

In the US: Elbow hole in old painting really no big deal

And this is not the first time billionaire hotelier Steve Wynn's art collection has made headlines. Last summer, Wynn's wife shrunk the Bayeux tapestry. Wynn was reportedly furious as he regularly urged his spouse to indicate she wished to reuse it by putting it back on the rails.

In Guardian: Britain now No 1 al-Qaida target

In the US: It's Britain's turn to stand up to terror

Al-Qaida hates Britain and everything it stands for. The only way for Brits to fight back is using enormous quantities of petrol to keep America strong. Al-Qaida are apparently terrified of cars, especially really big SUVs which are mentioned in the Qur'an as the utility vehicle of the infidel. The best method of ensuring your family's safety from terrorists is to sit in your car with the engine running until 2010.

In Guardian: No magic bullet to solve crisis, Bush adviser warns

In the US: Rumsfeld plans to carry on kissing lucky stone installed in Oval Office through 2007

In Guardian: US stops Venezuela planes deal

In the US: US trade analysts inform Spain that Venezuela smells of poo

Furthermore, America warns Venezuela to return its Power Rangers. Venezuela is urged to wait downstairs for its mum to collect it because America is not coming out of its bedroom.

In Guardian: Oliver Stone plans film on Afghanistan invasion

In the US: Taliban begs director to make other warlords look boring instead

Stone announces Farrell, Jolie to headline incomprehensible three-hour saga featuring long nude scene with a python that wishes it was dead.

In Guardian: America has finally taken on the grim reality of Iraq

In the US: Pentagon no longer using the term amputee

Injured veterans will now be referred to as Owners of Bonus Socks.

In Guardian: North Korea sanctions agreed

In the US: US and UK agree not to attack North Korea

"But if this carries on, we may liberate them" - Blair

In Guardian: Madonna defends Malawi adoption

In the US: Baby loses one national identity, gains four

The singer's representative stated: "The baby will be raised at Guy and Madonna's British home and will therefore speak a mixture of Trustafarian patois and mid-Atlantic mockney." Both adoptive parents have predicted a career in showbusiness for their new infant. Critics agreed, noting that the baby would be successful and popular with audiences, since it wasn't produced by Guy Ritchie.

On FemaleFirst.co.uk: Britney's yummy mummy diet

In the US: Pop star adopts 40 abandoned cheeseburgers

In Hello! magazine: Bono's wife Alison holds charity T-shirt launch

In the US: World healed: official

This landmark fashion and politics summit, added to the release of special Bono-edition Nike trainers with red bits, signals to Africans the length of the oldest continent that it's time to quit whining and get over it.

On bbc.co.uk: Michael rapped for smoking drugs

In the US: George Michael rapped for smoking drug, claims: "This stuff keeps me sane and happy"

Singer claims marijuana medically necessary, cures old-man wang addiction for literally minutes at a time.

· This week Jane read The complete texts of US politician Mark Foley to his teenage congressional pages: "Should be available in schools; would end all human intercourse overnight." Jane watched Green Wing series two: "But as luck would have it, I was already running a bath, and always travel with a boxcutter. Soon I won't remember a thing."

Are we lousy imperialists?

I mean that word in a completely neutral connotation, as a nation that has essentially conquered another nation in an effort to re-shape it. I ask the question sincerely as well. Some people have said that we aren't using strong enough tactics with the local populations. Should we look back on Britain, France, Belgium, Portugal, or Spain and create a modern imperialism?

Are ideas and discussions on terrorism, Iran, WMD, hearts & minds, and sectarian violence cluttering and confusing the situation? Would a thorough policy on imperialism remove problems with mixed objectives and inconsistent goals?