The U.S. Versus John Lennon

(crossposted at The Blue Herald)


A new documentary is coming out, entitled The U.S. Versus John Lennon, made by David Leaf and John Scheinfeld. Much of the film draws on the research of historian Jon Wiener and his book, Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files. Essentially, the FBI tried to shut Lennon’s political activism down, and they succeeded – even though one of their own reports, establishing that Lennon was a peace activist opposed to violence, contradicted their stated reason for going after him.

While J. Edgar Hoover is no longer around to abuse his nearly unchallenged power at the FBI, with news reports earlier this year that the Pentagon and other federal agencies illegally kept records on various peace groups because they considered them national security threats, the documentary is quite timely. It’s always struck me as sad and troubling that while dissent is a core America principle, fiercely fought for by our founding fathers, it seems there’s always a sizable faction in America that views peaceful dissent as unpatriotic. When peace activists demonstrate, legally and peacefully, the Secret Service, FBI, police or other agencies will not only survey them but often attempt to identify and monitor them as well. While it’s understandable to monitor a demonstration near, say, the White House, there’s a undeniable, long track record of deeper paranoia from the authorities regarding peace activists. (Although it must be said, some older sheriffs and police chiefs, former demonstrators themselves, exercise more common sense.) When people demonstrate peacefully, they are in fact showing the ultimate respect for the United States Government – it says they believe in the process of law, of dialogue, and are, for instance, not interested in the violent overthrow of the government. Despite this, some factions – most often, in the Defense Department or law enforcement – view them as threats. Thus may a middle-aged lesbian vegetarian be classified as a potential terrorist.


Jon Wiener discusses John Lennon and the FBI with Terry Gross on Fresh Air here.

He has a website dealing with the FBI files here.

The site for the documentary is here.

And the official John Lennon website is here.

The trailer is below.

Hypocrite-in-Chief

(crossposted at The Blue Herald)

(photo: Ron Edmonds / AP)

President George W. Bush 's speech employed his usual army of dancing straw men. His latest disingenuous and questionable assertions deserve greater, more detailed attention, as they're sure to form the basis for the latest GOP talking points deployed on political talk shows this weekend and in the weeks to come. But two blazing hypocrisies deserve immediate highlighting.

President Bush simply cannot get through a single news conference without contradicting himself. Already, within the course of a couple weeks, he's presented Osama bin Laden (who he let escape at Tora Bora and still has not captured) as a dread menace and then someone not to worry about. (Huh? Think Progress also notes that "Bush Rewrites History on Zarqawi Statements.") But in addition to trotting out some of his "greatest hits," within this single news conference, Bush simultaneously excoriates a journalist for dabbling in "hypotheticals," but then employs hypothetical situations himself for further fear-mongering. He also lambasts the United Nations for waiting for an invitation to enter Sudan to stop the killing there, but then justifies not hunting down bin Laden because the United States needs an invitation first from Pakistan, our supposed ally in the "War on Terror."

The Washington Post has a transcript here. (It's a short conference worth reading in its entirety, but I've quoted at length here to provide full context for Bush's remarks.)

Bush first gets extremely testy with David Gregory of NBC news for questioning him about the potential danger to U.S. troops if the Geneva Convention is undermined. Rather than address this very relevant, core question, Bush lashes out at it as an irrelevant "hypothetical":

(emphasis mine)

QUESTION: Thank you very much.

Mr. President, critics of your proposed bill on interrogation rules say there's another important test. These critics include John McCain, who you've mentioned several times this morning.

And that test is this: If a CIA officer, paramilitary or special operations soldier from the United States were captured in Iran or North Korea and they were roughed up and those governments said, "Well, they were interrogated in accordance with our interpretation of the Geneva Conventions," and then they were put on trial and they were convicted based on secret evidence that they were not able to see, how would you react to that as commander in chief?

BUSH: My reaction is, is that if the nations such as those you name adopted the standards within the Detainee Detention Act, the world would be better. That's my reaction.
We're trying to clarify law. We're trying to set high standards, not ambiguous standards.

And let me just repeat: We can debate this issue all we want, but the practical matter is, if our professionals don't have clear standards in the law, the program is not going to go forward.

You cannot ask a young intelligence officer to violate the law. And they're not going to. They -- let me finish please -- they will not violate the law.

You can ask this question all you want, but the bottom line is -- and the American people have got to understand this -- that this program won't go forward if there's vague standards applied like those in Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention. It's just not going to go forward.

BUSH: You can't ask a young professional on the front line of protecting this country to violate law.

Now, I know they say they're not going to prosecute them. Think about that, you know. "Go ahead and violate it, we won't prosecute you." These people aren't going to do that.

Now, we can justify anything you want and bring up this example or that example. I'm just telling you the bottom line. And that's why this debate is important and it's a vital debate.

Now, perhaps, some in Congress don't think the program is important. That's fine. I don't know if they do or don't.

I think it's vital and I have the obligation to make sure that our professionals who I would ask to go conduct interrogations to find out what might be happening or who might be coming to this country -- I got to give them the tools they need, and that is clear law.

QUESTION: This is an important point, and I think it...

BUSH: The point I just made is the most important point, and that is the program is not going forward.

You can give a hypothetical about North Korea or any other country. The point is that the program is not going to go forward if our professionals do not have clarity in the law.

BUSH: And the best way to provide clarity in the law is to make sure the Detainee Treatment Act is the crux of the law. That's how we define Common Article 3. And it sets a good standard for the countries that you just talked about.

Next man?

QUESTION: But wait a second. I think this is an important point.

BUSH: I know you think it's an important point.

QUESTION: But, sir, with respect, if other countries interpret the Geneva Conventions as they see fit, as they see fit, you're saying that you'd be OK with that?

BUSH: I am saying that I would hope that they would adopt the same standards we adopt; and that by clarifying Article 3 we make it stronger, we make it clearer, we make it definite.

And I will tell you again, you can ask every hypothetical you want, but the American people have got to know the facts.

And the bottom line is simple: If Congress passes a law that does not clarify the rules -- if they do not do that, the program's not going forward.

QUESTION: This will not endanger U.S. troops in your...

BUSH: Next man?

QUESTION: This will not endanger...

BUSH: David, next man please. Thank you.

Took you a long time to unravel, and it took you a long time to ask your question.

Bush refuses to address the central concerns about his proposed legislation. While torture is immoral, illegal, and ineffective, the chief objection Powell, McCain, Warner, Graham, many Democrats, and many JAGs have recently advanced is that throwing out this important element of the Geneva Convention will endanger our troops because then any other nation can also ignore the same rules.

But while Bush dismisses this as a "hypothetical," he is more than happy to indulge in hypothetical scenarios himself when it means stoking more fear. In response to a later question, he says:

(emphasis mine)

I said the other night in a speech this is like the ideological war of the 21st century, and I believe it. And I believe that if we leave that region, if we don't help democracy prevail, then our children and grandchildren will be faced with an unbelievable, chaotic and dangerous situation in the Middle East.

Imagine an enemy that can't stand what we believe in getting ahold of oil resources and taking a bunch of oil off the market in order to have an economic punishment. In other words, "You go ahead and do this, and if you don't, we'll punish you economically."

BUSH: Or imagine a Middle East with an Iran with a nuclear weapon threatening free nations and trying to promote their vision of extremism through Hezbollah.

I find it interesting that young democracies are being challenged by extremists. I also take great hope in the fact that by far the vast majority of people want normalcy and want peace, including in Iraq; that there is a deep desire for people to, you know, raise their children in a peaceful world; a desire for mothers to have the best for their child.

That has not -- this isn't -- you know, Americans, you've got to understand, this is universal. And the idea of just saying, "Well, you know, that's not important for us, to me or the future of the country" is just not acceptable.

Bush of course slips in one of his beloved straw men near the end. No major critic of Bush's foreign policy is saying the future of Iraq, or compassion for those who are suffering, is unimportant. In fact, for many Bush critics, it's compassion for our troops and for ordinary Iraqis, currently dying at a rate of roughly 100 per day, that motivates their criticism of Bush's unwavering, ineffective policies.

Bush then uses a question about the United Nations to lambast it for its foot-dragging on Darfur, implying it lacks the resolve and the, y'know, manly courage it takes to invade a nation:

(emphasis mine)

QUESTION: Mr. President, as you prepare to go up to the United Nations next week to address the General Assembly, Secretary Kofi Annan has been critical of some U.S. policies, particularly in Afghanistan, lately.

How would you characterize the relationship between the United States and the United Nations at this point?

BUSH: First of all, my personal relationship with Kofi Annan is good. I like him. We've got a good personal relationship.

I think a lot of Americans are frustrated with the United Nations, to be frank with you.

Take, for example, Darfur. I'm frustrated with the United Nations in regards to Darfur. I have said, and this government has said, there's genocide taking place in Sudan.

BUSH: And it breaks our collective hearts to know that.

We believe that the best way to solve the problem is for there to be a political track as well as a security track.

And part of the security track was for there initially to be African Union forces, supported by the international community, hopefully to protect innocent lives from militia.

And the A.U. force is there. But it's not robust enough. It needs to be bigger. It needs to be more viable.

And so the strategy was then to go to the United Nations and pass a resolution enabling the A.U. force to become blue-helmeted -- that means become a United Nations peacekeeping force -- with additional support from around the world.

And I suggested that there also be, you know, help from NATO nations in logistics and support in order to make the security effective enough so that a political process could go forward to save lives.

The problem is, is that the United Nations hasn't acted.

BUSH: And so, I can understand why those who are concerned about Darfur are frustrated. I am.

I'd like to see more robust United Nations action. What you'll hear is, "Well, the government of Sudan must invite the United Nations in for us to act."

Well, there are other alternatives, like passing a resolution saying, "We're coming in with a U.N. force in order to save lives."

I'm proud of our country's support for those who suffer. We provided by far the vast majority food and aid.

I'm troubled by reports I hear about escalating violence. I can understand the desperation people feel for women being pulled out of these refugees centers and raped. And now is the time for the U.N. to act.

So you asked of levels of frustration. There's a particular level of frustration.

I also believe that the United Nations can do a better job spending the taxpayer -- our taxpayers' money. I think there needs to be better management structures in place, better accountability in the organization.

BUSH: I hope the United Nations still strongly stands for liberty. I hope they would support my call to end tyranny in the 21st century.

So I'm looking forward to going up there. It's always an interesting experience for a West Texas fellow to speak to the United Nations. And I'm going to have a strong message; one that's hope -- based upon hope, and my belief that the civilized world must stand with moderate, reformist-minded people and help them realize their dreams. I believe that's the call of the 21st century.

So Bush states there's something lacking in the United Nations in waiting for an invitation to enter the Sudan (assuming that is even a fair characterization to begin with).

Yet in a later question, asking about why bin Laden has not been caught, he says:

(emphasis mine)

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.

Earlier this week, you told a group of journalists that you thought the idea of sending special forces to Pakistan to hunt down bin Laden was a strategy that would not work.

BUSH: Yes.

QUESTION: Now recently, you've also...

BUSH: Because, first of all, Pakistan is a sovereign nation.

QUESTION: Well, recently, you've also described bin Laden as a sort of modern day Hitler or Mussolini. And I'm wondering why, if you can explain, why you think it's a bad idea to send more resources to hunt down bin Laden wherever he is.

BUSH: We are, Richard. Thank you. Thanks for asking the question.

They were asking me about -- somebody report -- well, you know, your special forces here. Pakistan -- if he is in Pakistan, which this person thought he might be who was asking me the question -- Pakistan's a sovereign nation. In order for us to send thousands of troops into a sovereign nation, we've got to be invited by the government of Pakistan.

BUSH: Secondly, the best way to find somebody who is hiding is to enhance your intelligence and to spend the resources necessary to do that. And then when you find him, you bring him to justice.

And, you know, there is a kind of an urban myth here in Washington about how this administration hasn't stayed focused on Osama bin Laden. Forget it. It's convenient throw-away lines, you know, when people say that.

We have been on the hunt, and we'll stay on the hunt until we bring him to justice. And we're doing it in a smart fashion, Richard, we are.

And I'll look forward to talking to President Musharraf.

Look, he doesn't like Al Qaida. They tried to kill him. And we've had a good record of bringing people to justice inside of Pakistan, because the Paks are in the lead. They know the stakes about dealing with a, you know, a violent form of ideological extremists.

BUSH: So we will continue on the hunt, and we've been effective about bringing to justice most of those who planned and plotted the 9/11 attacks, and we still got a lot of pressure on them.

The best way to protect the homeland is to stay on the offense and keep pressure on them.

Last question.

Pakistan is supposed to be our ally in Bush's "War on Terror." Bush even claims the President Musharraf wants us to catch bin Laden. But despite this, Bush is somehow not able to send in troops to catch bin Laden? Huh? Where's his cowboy swagger now? Not only does Bush's answer possess no internal logic, or stand up to common sense, it contradicts his earlier assertion about the United Nations! (Not to mention, The Washington Post reports that the trail for bin Laden is "stone cold," and while Tony Snow protests that is inaccurate, it's safe to say Pulitzer-winner Dana Priest has much more credibility on the subject. Might the real issue be the Bush administration's lousy track record on the matter, and that he can't blame the United Nations for that? )

Bush and his administration lie, distort and obfuscate so often, so virulently, the biggest challenge for the legitimate, responsible media is deciding which flimsy assertion to examine. Kudos to those reporters who asked Bush tough questions, and for those that supported their fellow reporters. It's time for all of us to keep the pressure on.

The Looming Tower

(crossposted at The Blue Herald)



It’s hard to keep up with all the good books out there, especially the rush of great non-fiction. I suspect the authors have been inspired by the unbelievable actions of a ridiculous cast of characters in the White House it would be hard to invent.

One of the new, great books is The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright. But even if you can’t find time to read it, you can still sample some great interviews and reviews on it.

Author Lawrence Wright has a great interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air here. (Another page of NPR interviews and coverage can be found here.)



Lawrence Wright and Steve Coll discussed the book over several days in Slate here.

Wright replied to Washington Post readers’ questions about bin Laden earlier this week for the anniversary of 9/11 here.

And finally, you can read the New York Times reviews from Dexter Filkins here and Michiko Kakutani here.

9/11/06

(crossposted at The Blue Herald)

To counteract the evil that is ABC’s propaganda piece, I thought I’d revisit some older 9/11 writings more evocative of what I feel to be the real spirit of the day. 9/11 does not belong solely to Bush. Or solely to conservative filmmakers. Or solely to liberals. Or solely to Americans.

While I find at least one of these pieces a bit overwritten now, I still like the underlying idea and feeling. I’m sure each of us has our own take on 9/11, and that’s what’s important.

Here’s the 9/11/05 post.

Here’s the pre-blog piece I sent to some folks a few weeks after 9/11/01.

And here’s the pre-blog piece I sent out on 9/10/02.

Peace. Shalom. Mir. Shantih shantih shantih.

A Quick Reaction to Part One of The Path to Propaganda

(crossposted at The Blue Herald)

Holy crap.

I’ll do a more in-depth review of ABC’s Path to Propaganda, err, Path to 9/11, later on. I’m sure other sites will give a detailed run-down of the glaring flaws of Part One.

But the quick review: it is indeed worse than we heard. I am an avid film buff. But I have never seen anything on Western TV remotely like this. I've seen laughable historical fiction, but it was labeled as historical fiction. I've seen earnest documentaries that failed. But I have never seen a major American network fund and air an outright propaganda piece. The only comparison that comes to mind is some of the Nazi propaganda films of the 30s, especially a feature film they commissioned with popular actors to legitimize the T-4 euthanasia program that was the predecessor of the death camps. Those pieces were of course far more vile than what these evangelical Christians and harcore rightwingers have created. But to purposefully distort history, for a rabidly partisan agenda, on network TV, is absolutely astounding. It’d be one thing if this was another bullshit book from a National Review writer of dubious intellect practicing sloppy scholarship. But this was blessed by ABC!

(Why is it, when the Bush administration and their cheerleaders do something “unprecedented,” it’s always bad? Isn’t that rather disturbing?)

Were liberals to craft something comparable, it would probably have to involve George W. Bush depicted as a petulant child, yelling at subordinates, making horrible decisions, utterly manipulated by Cheney, and throwing his feces at a portrait of Bill Clinton. (Although sadly, only the last item strains credulity). Or perhaps if a film showed Laura Bush ordering young virgin AIDS patients slaughtered so she could bathe in their blood, that might approach it. Or there’s German knights dropping babies into fires, as in Alexander Nevsky. It’s really pretty astounding. The ABC “docudrama” reeks of the standard macho bullshit that defines mediocre films, where the craven suits interfere with the cop who knows what’s right, in that fantasy world where cops are never wrong, never force false confessions, never nab the wrong person, never beat up or imprison someone who doesn’t deserve it, and civil liberties are the greatest enemy to our safety. The problem is, this “docudrama” goes beyond standard mediocre fare, and also is much more subtle, at least to the uninformed, about its cartoonish mischaracterizations. It centers on real events, and is an truly evil attempt to shape our national mythology and collective memory of a very important event. It purports to be true. As much as Bush himself invokes 9/11 inappropriately, and accuses his critics of being terrorist sympathizers, even he has never ventured so far into slander. It is only his allies and proxies that will push that far, but even they have held back (at the mainstream ones have) until now.

Any exec at ABC that witnessed or approved this monstrosity deserves our eternal scorn. The worst part is, past the disclaimer, that the piece quotes the 9/11 Commission Report and implies their “docudrama” is unbiased and represents the findings of the Report.

I'm not sure I've ever been more ashamed of the American media.

And no coverage, no coverage of this propaganda should possibly avoid pointing out that the piece is factually inaccurate and a gross distortion of the truth. A honest evaluation of the Clinton administration, however scathing, would be fine. But they are damned for things that did not happen. It’s important to note that some outlets have slammed ABC and the project, and that’s both welcome and essential. But I’ve also already seen some of the usual “he said-she said” crap coverage. The sad truth is that those that lie always have an advantage in the “civilized” media, and the media has felt comfortable slamming Dems for at least the past 15 years while they’re scared to do so with the Republicans. The Dems need to raise holy hell, and the media need to step up and play honest referee, stating unequivocally, “this is grossly factually inaccurate.”

The ABC project is one of those litmus tests. Anyone who praises this film is a utter hack and loses all credibility forevermore (unless perhaps they acknowledge their mendacity later on). Any media outlet that does not call “bullshit!” on this project is worthless as a source.

The propaganda is so blatant, any fair-minded, reasonably intelligent and reasonably well-informed person would know it must be crap. The rightwing nuts are a lost cause. Who cares what they think (to the extent they can generate independent thought versus parroting the latest GOP talking points). But for the independents? The sane, moderate conservatives? The non-news junkie liberals? For those that watched the ABC piece hoping to learn something new? The message is, repeatedly, that 9/11 is the Clinton administration’s fault. Regardless of what happens in part 2 – and won’t it be interesting to hear Bush’s primetime address! – the “blame Clinton” agenda is inescapable and central to the piece. It’s the whole point of it.

Good newspapers, such as The Washington Post, have repeatedly pointed out that Saddam Hussein was not involved in 9/11. Clinton’s record and Bush’s records on terrorism prior to 9/11 are available. But as Post writers have pointed out to frustrated readers in online discussions, there’s no law forcing the general populace to read the papers. Much of the right information is out there, but no everyone consumes it.

This makes it all the more important that the correct information is reported, and blatant falsehoods are challenged, because serious damage is very easily done with bad initial reporting. I hope the late night talk shows take this “docudrama” on, for example. And I’m sure after they pick their jaws off the floor, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will think of a creative way to skewer this travesty. I have a very real fear about the midterm elections in November. There is absolutely no doubt this piece was made to influence those elections, not necessarily by ABC, but by the filmmakers. And I fear the general public may get snowed yet again. It’s impossible to keep up with all the lies the GOP machine spews out daily, but this is one of those craven gambits that should be made to come back to haunt them, and ABC. Why not use it to look at the actual records of Clinton and Bush? What about that bin Laden PDB, George? Or all those warnings about al Qaeda your people received from the Clinton administration?

O’Brien in 1984 the man in power who knows better but does evil deeds anyway, infamously tells Winston, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — for ever." They may have Big Brother on their side, but we have George Orwell. And Socrates. And MLK. And JFK. And FDR. And thousands of other real heroes versus their manufactured
Commander Codpiece and his sycophantic cheerleaders. It’s time for a liberal boot to their lying faces.

Kurtz Covers ABC "Docudrama"

(crossposted at The Blue Herald)

It's a good sign that one of our major newspapers is now writing on ABC's anti-Clinton, pro-Bush propaganda piece The Path to 9/11. The article's author, Howard Kurtz, sometimes gets a bad rap, but having read him for a long time now, I feel while he's more conservative than he realizes, at his best he does valuable work. This will likely be an influential piece that allows others to do further, necessary digging, and I'm sure Kurtz will cover the issue this weekend on his CNN show as well.

While it's infuriating to hear spin and lies from ABC and the film's producer in the article, the ending paragraph is very encouraging (emphasis mine):

The assault on "The Path to 9/11" assumed the trappings of a campaign yesterday. Four senior House Democrats -- John Conyers Jr., Jane Harman, John D. Dingell and Louise M. Slaughter -- have written Iger to demand that the inaccuracies be corrected. Spurred by the Center for American Progress, which is headed by Clinton chief of staff John D. Podesta, 25,000 people have sent letters of protest to ABC.

Let's keep that number growing!

Update: MSN.com is now headlining Kurtz' article, and the AP now has a story out on this (headlined on Yahoo, among other places), in which Madeleine Albright denounces the "docudrama" as "false and defamatory."

Berger objected to a scene that he was told showed him refusing to authorize an attack on Osama bin Laden despite the request from officials. "The fabrication of this scene (of such apparent magnitude) cannot be justified under any reasonable definition of dramatic license," he wrote.

Lindsey and Band objected to advertisements for the miniseries, which they said suggested that Clinton wasn't paying enough attention to the threat of terrorism.

"While ABC is promoting "The Path to 9/11" as a dramatization of historical fact, in truth it is a fictitious rewriting of history that will be misinterpreted by millions of Americans," they said. "Given your stated obligation to 'get it right,' we urge you to do so by not airing this drama until the egregious factual errors are corrected, an endeavor we could easily assist you with given the opportunity to view the film."

Given that this sucker cost $40 million to make, and that it involves politics and 9/11, there is zero chance that at least some ABC bigwigs did not sign off on this.

Rove Discussed on Fresh Air

(crossposted at The Blue Herald)

Fair is foul and foul is fair;
Hover through the fog and the filthy air.
— Macbeth, 1.1, 12-13

Continuing our Macbeth theme!

On Fresh Air for Wednesday, 9/6/06, Terry Gross spoke with journalist Wayne Slater, co-author of The Architect a new book on Karl Rove (Slater is part of the same team that wrote Bush’s Brain). An excerpt is here at the Huffington Post (HP link courtesy of the indefatigable Dan Froomkin).

Lady Mac is Back

(crossposted at The Blue Herald)


There's lovely symbolism in the fact that ABC's The Path to 9/11 casts Penny Johnson, best known as the Lady Macbeth of 24, Sherry Palmer, as Condoleezza Rice. Rice is a very intelligent woman, and I share her appreciation for classical music, but she's shown a brazen willingness to lie, repeatedly, to cover the collective asses of Bush and his other cronies. She's much smoother than a bully like Bolton, or the strange bulldog-éminence grise that is Dick Cheney, with his I-dare-you-to-call-me-a-liar poker approach. But her culpability is just as deep and vile.

One of the central lies in the "docudrama" features Johnson as Rice talking about how concerned President Bush is about the PDB, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside U.S."

Wait, does that mean it's no longer a historical document?

Does that mean that Bush didn't tell the CIA agent who flew to Crawford to brief him personally (since Bush is not a big, y'know, reader), "All right, you've covered your ass now" …?

It's just like Bin Laden being boogeyman number one one day and not a threat another; none of the Bushies or their cheerleaders can keep their stories straight. Even though it be by proxy, The Path to 9/11 is merely the latest but surely not the last attempt to re-write history and reality to their liking.

Rightwing Revisionism from the House of the Mouse

(crossposted at The Blue Herald)


The more I hear about ABC's upcoming "documdrama" The Path to 9/11 (Al Franken had David Brock of Media Matters on this morning) the more infuriated I get. It is propaganda. It not just a hack job, it is a hatchet job. I would not object so much if it was appearing in movie theaters, where viewers could attend or ignore it as they wished, but it is appearing on ABC and claims to be based on the 9/11 Commission Report, yet directly contradicts that same report on key issues in order to smear Clinton and his team while ignoring and whitewashing the Report's findings (and subsequent findings) on Bush and his team's performance. What's appalling is that when CBS was going to show The Reagans, a TV-made biopic of the famous couple, conservatives were outraged over Ronald Reagan being depicted as being callous and indifferent to the plight of gays with AIDS, with the line, "Let those who live in sin die in sin." While I despised Reagan's politics and the immense harm his policies inflicted, and it's fair to say he was callously slow to address the AIDS crisis (as he likely would not have been had its victims not been mostly gay men), I agree with the criticism that that line of dialogue was unfair. (I still question, though, how much weight anyone should or would give to most TV biopics, since most are godawful.) However, let us now see the double standard in the "liberal" media. Conservatives can complain about a single line in a TV biopic, but it's fine to re-write history while simultaneously presenting it as fact. ABC's docudrama is being presented as honest, true, accurate, and serious. As such, the standards for it are much higher, and perhaps an extremely conservative, personal friend of Rush Limbaugh's is not the best person to be making such a piece. Perhaps when conservative activists, bloggers and pundits are given advance copies to talk it up, and liberal and non-partisan sources have been largely banned from seeing it, something stinks to high heaven. What the hell is wrong with ABC and Disney? How can Harvey Keitel be involved in this?

This is not a trivial issue. This is exactly the sort of crap that has influenced the past two presidential elections, and the reason why so many Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11. ABC has chosen to pander to the far right at the expense of truth. And why, or why, make such a horrendous pander right before a crucial midterm election? It's not as if there are no mildly conservative, responsible filmmakers out there. This was heavily reviewed and approved. And how can Thomas Kean, always shy about critiquing Bush, have any credibility anymore if he signed off on this as an advisor, when he knows it cites his work to promote outright lies?

Here's the ABC site for "The Path to 9/11" ("Keeping it honest" is a hoot). Editor & Publisher managed to obtain a copy of the piece and gives a summary here . Media Matters has a piece here. Firedoglake has so much coverage on this you'd best just hit the site and scroll back through, but expert researcher and bullshit detector Sheldon Rampton outlines some of the basics here, Jennifer Nix poses a great list of questions here, and Jane Hamsher provides some links to take action here.

GOP Presidential Hopeful Can't Keep His Dystopias Straight

(Crossposted at News You Can Abuse)

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has just called stem cell research "Orwellian." (His specific language seems to apply to in-vitro fertility treatment as well.) Reuters reports:

"I believe it crosses a very bright moral line to take sperm and eggs in the laboratory and start creating human life," Romney told reporters. "It is Orwellian in its scope. In laboratories you could have trays of new embryos being created."

It's of course ironic for any Republican to invoke Orwell, since were Orwell alive today, he would be absolutely skewering them. Many a smug conservative over the years has tried to characterize Animal Farm and 1984 as solely critiques of the Soviet Union, but these are shallow readings that allow conservatives to pat themselves on the back while ignoring any reflection about themselves or about our own systems of governance and the media. Orwell, of course, was anti-bullshit above and beyond anything else, and the abuse of power has never been limited to only one nation or ideology. And while 1984 was intended as a cautionary tale, Karl Rove saw it as a how-to manual.

But it's unfair to lump Romney entirely in with all the Bush crew, since his views have never exactly coincided with theirs. However, for about a year now, he has attempted the interesting balancing act of trying to maintain his moderate credentials in liberal Massachusetts while simultaneously pandering increasingly to social conservatives in the national audience.

But I shall not oppose Romney's presidency due to his latest pandering. No, I shall oppose him because of his ignorance of classic science fiction. We must draw the line somewhere!

Romney talks about stem cells as "Orwellian," a term that most often refers to the future society depicted in 1984. However, 1984 deals primarily with the use and abuse of language, media and social structures, all to better control the perception and thought of the populace in a future totalitarian society. Romney really should have said "Huxleyian," referencing another famous dystopian novel, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. In Brave New World, society is stratified into a caste system according to genetic make-up, with "Alphas" ruling the roost over "Betas" and others of "inferior" genetic stock. The government, of course, regulates all human birth and grows everyone in labs, with quotas for how many Alphas versus Betas they make, and with normal sexual intercourse and reproduction an oddity.

How could Romney possibly have missed this? Did he really think that "Huxleyian" doesn't send the same dire chill down the spines of reactionary social conservatives, who Fox News tells us is one of the most literate and well-informed demographics in our large, diverse nation? Can such a man really be trusted with the future of our nation?

While I fully expect that the majority of Americans will be ignorant of science fiction, if Romney wishes to make it as a national candidate, it would behoove him to bone up on the subject. Nor should he regulate himself only to the classics. Pulpy science fiction, and flat out bad science fiction, both provide a wealth of ideas undreamt of by the comparatively unimaginative Orwell and Huxley. Reagan seemed to believe his missile defense project, "Star Wars," would create something akin to a science fiction force field. These days, it's instead a "bullet hitting a bullet," but missile defense continues to be the pointless mammoth pork project that will not die, regardless of how many failed tests and rigged demos the manufactures provide. That is a legacy, and true national leadership. Similarly, clearly someone in the White House is not afraid to read really bad science fiction. Who can forget Bush's call to send a man to Mars? Who can forget his dire warnings about the encroaching terror of human-animal hybrids? Who can forget how the nation rallied to him over both these initiatives, giving him a sizable boost in the polls, and cowing the Democrats? Democrats must only read Danielle Steel, or something equally useless, like Dickens, evidenced by their continual, tiresome whines about the plight of the poor and the need for a decent living wage. Who can be bothered with such matters when there are foreign lands to invade? What's the point of having the coolest military toys on the planet if we can't show them off? Why should we bother talking about universal health care, when we should outfitting sharks with laser beams on their frickin' foreheads?

Are you listening, Governor Romney? We must keep attentive to the crucial science fiction gap. When we stop reading science fiction, the terrorists win.

Reuters also reports that Romney has followed in the ranks of other Republicans by offering "an amendment that would have banned the creation of embryos for research purpose." This is, of course, a political pander offering a solution for a non-existent problem. No embryos need to be created for research, and no one has proposed this, not only because it would be unethical, but because there's a vast supply of embryos from fertility clinics that would otherwise be discarded (most reports put the number at about 400,000). Romney's move, consequently, is actually much more "Orwellian" than what he decries, since what he's really offering is the same old politician's bullshit.

Laser beams, Mitt. I'm tellin' ya.

(Literary and cultural ignorance seems to be a recurrent theme for conservative political pundits and politicians. When then-candidate for Chief Justice John Roberts said his favorite film was Doctor Zhivago (based on the celebrated novel by Boris Pasternak), Fox pundits expressed concern that "it was a little Commie." Of course, Zhivago, like Pasternak himself, was a victim of the Communists! But all things Russian must be bad, and all Soviet-era novels must praise the Soviet state, goes the thinking – why bother reading the book, watching the movie, or even reading a summary? Bush claims to have read Camus' The Stranger and "three Shakespeares" this summer, but he's not the only Republican who needs to brush up on his reading. However, in the meantime, terrorists can vie with Martians for who hates "our freedoms" the most, or who most direly needs our women.)

Update: D'oh! I may have spoken too soon on one item – Reuters recently reported, this very day, "U.S. Interceptor Downs Missile in Test Over Pacific." The test itself cost $85 million. I'll be interested to see more details, since some previous tests have been rigged demos. Missile defense is deserving of its own, serious, substantive post, but I'll mention a few items here: I'll be genuinely impressed if they can get a viable system to work. Even if it does work, the question is, is it cost-effective, and much more importantly, is it the best use of our resources? Isn't the best "missile defense" making sure we secure any loose nukes in Russia and other parts of the world, with good police work, good economic policy and good diplomacy? Realistically, how much of a threat is a missile attack, versus a "dirty bomb" or biological attack? Finally, if whether by accident or design, defense contractors have finally developed, or are close to, a viable system, bravo – but there's still the question of how much wasteful spending and mismanagement accompanied the project, and that remains an extremely serious, continuing concern. The Pentagon has consistently failed audits and throws good money after bad, some of that due to the usual bureaucratic dance of "spend it or lose it," but when your annual budget is roughly $400 billion, and $1 trillion in funds cannot be accounted for, you've got problems. Simply properly managing funds for the Defense Department would free up billions of dollars for other use. One would hope that the sincere proponents of missile defense – those who aren't working for defense contractors - would support that.