Novak "Outs" Kerry

Bob Novak, the great patriotic journalist who helped the Bush team out Valerie Plame, the CIA specialist in "weapons of mass destruction," as an undercover operative, has now discovered that 30+ years ago, John Kerry was giving speeches at the same place as a couple of people Novak doesn't approve of! Turnabout's fair play for Kerry Chicago Sun-Times 02/19/04.

A 34-year-old flier lists speakers for an anti-Vietnam War rally at Valley Forge State Park, Pa., Sept. 7, 1970. Included were two of that era's most notorious leftist agitators, the Rev. James Bevel and Mark Lane, plus actress Jane Fonda, a symbol of extreme opposition to the war. Leading off the list was a less familiar name: John Kerry.

Oh, golly! John Kerry might have been seen in the same room once upon a time with some antiwar minister I've never heard of, a Kennedy-assassination conspiracy-theorist and a newly activist actress. Tainted for life! Kind of like mad-cow prions or something.

As Hesiod soberly observes:

Simple history will suffice to blow this idocy away. Jane Fonda made her infamous trip to Hanoi in 1972.

John Kerry LEFT Vietnam Veterans Against the War by the end of 1971 to run for Congress.

In other words, Kerry was no longer active in the anti-war movement by the time Fonda went nuts and took a flight to Hanoi. So, if he appeared at an anti-war rally with her in 1970, who gives a f***? What relevance does that have to what she did two years later? How does that, in any way, suggest that Kerry endorsed or condoned her actions in 1972? ...

In fact, Kerry expressed strong disagreement with what Jane Fonda did AT THE TIME SHE DID IT.

But ... Mark Lane, John Kerry - Kerry could have been in on the Kennedy assassination cover-up! In tinfoil-hat territory, reality is what you want it to be. Just ask Rush Limbaugh.

Sideshow Watch

Hey, if they're going to put AOL political blogs on the Sideshow list, we may as well keep up with them, huh?

The legendary one-post blog Sid's Journal is still there. And it still says the same thing. Democrats make her sick. John Edwards is a Communist. (Actually I think she means all Democrats are Communists, but the paragraph is about Edwards.) Paying taxes is "totally against everything this country was founded on." Howard Dean and General Clark are gay ("fruitcakes" is her word.)

Gosh, when you can crank out a post of that quality, you might as well leave it there alone to be admired for a few weeks!

Then there's Armandt's Un-Common Sense who's put up a Thursday post, "Hanoi John Kerry." His "All About Me" box says that he's neither a Democrat nor a Republican.  His other posts include more accusations of treason and such by Democrats, criticism of countries that had the good sense not to drink the Bush kool-aid on Iraqi "WMDs", grumping about Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy and so forth.

It seems he's much more not-a-Democrat than not-a-Republican. I was looking through some of his older posts but stopped in order to savor this in-depth political analysis from 09/13/03, un-Americans, about people who wanted the United Nations to approve war in Iraq:

Your U.N.-American goals are just that, un-American! ... [Y]our entire system of thinking is purely anti-US.  That's right, anti-American.  ...  When a soldier goes down, you wring your hands in delight at the chance to trash US foreign policy.  When democracy is defended overseas, your political agenda at home is offended.  ... There is nothing to say for you, except that you are TRAITORS.  If you want to cheer against soldiers and democracy, then get on the other side of the line.  Afghanistan and Iraq would be a good place for you to start!

We should introduce this guy to Chuckie!

Iraq War: Chalabi - We lied; tough luck, suckers

Ahmed Chalabi, the favorite candidate of Richard Perle and the neoconservatives for the new Saddam of Iraq - a pro-Western one like Saddam used to be, of course - is pretty much admitting flat-out that he lied about the "weapons of mass destruction" and he doesn't care.

Chalabi stands by faulty intelligence that toppled Saddam's regime Daily Telegraph (UK) 02/19/04

Mr Chalabi, by far the most effective anti-Saddam lobbyist in Washington, shrugged off charges that he had deliberately misled US intelligence. "We are heroes in error," he told the Telegraph in Baghdad.

"As far as we're concerned we've been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important. The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat. We're ready to fall on our swords if he wants."

But then, why should he care? A scamster scams. Why would he apologize to anyone when it's successful in getting him what he wanted?

And his start-up firm is doing nicely courtesy of the American taxpayer, too: Start-Up Company With Connections Newsday 02/15/04.

Both of the above links came via the new blog The Dreyfuss Report at TomPaine.com.

Iraq War Critics: James Webb on the Risks of Occupation

They can't say they weren't warned. This piece from September 2002 by James Webb, Secretary of the Navy under the Reagan Administration, represents a pragmatic conservative criticism of Bush's Iraq War policy. One made when there was still time to choose alternatives to invasion and occupation. Heading for Trouble Washington Post 09/04/02.

... American military leaders have been trying to bring a wider focus to the band of neoconservatives that began beating the war drums on Iraq before the dust had even settled on the World Trade Center. Despite the efforts of the neocons to shut them up or to dismiss them as unqualified to deal in policy issues, these leaders, both active-duty and retired, have been nearly unanimous in their concerns. Is there an absolutely vital national interest that should lead us from containment to unilateral war and a long-term occupation of Iraq? And would such a war and its aftermath actually increase our ability to win the war against international terrorism? ...

America's best military leaders know that they are accountable to history not only for how they fight wars, but also for how they prevent them. ... With respect to the situation in Iraq, they are conscious of two realities that seem to have been lost in the narrow debate about Saddam Hussein himself. The first reality is that wars often have unintended consequences -- ask the Germans, who in World War I were convinced that they would defeat the French in exactly 42 days. The second is that a long-term occupation of Iraq would beyond doubt require an adjustment of force levels elsewhere, and could eventually diminish American influence in other parts of the world.

Webb points to some factors that make Iraq distinctly different from postwar Japan. And, relying on some (now) obviously low estimates of what kind of occupation force would be required, he says:

In Japan, American occupation forces quickly became 50,000 friends. In Iraq, they would quickly become 50,000 terrorist targets.

No, Bush and Rummy can't say that nobody warned them.

San Jose Bishop McGrath on *The Passion*

This is a thought-provoking column on the discussion surrounding Mel Gibson's Passion by San Jose Bishop Patrick McGrath: Whatever 'The Passion' Message, the Church Renounces Anti-Semitism San Jose Mercury News 02/18/04. This is a mainstream Catholic perspective he expresses in this article.

While the primary source material of the film is attributed to the four gospels, these sacred books are not historical accounts of the historical events that they narrate. They are theological reflections upon the events that form the core of Christian faith and belief.

The reader can easily misunderstand the gospels when they are viewed through the lens of contemporary conceptions, attitudes and prejudices, as well as those of intervening millennia. The attribution of anti-Semitism to the gospel narratives is one such misunderstanding.

I wouldn't express the idea in that last sentence in that form, though I sympathize with the theological intent he expresses. Some of the mode of expression in the Gospels was meant to distance the Christians from the Jews and reflected conflicts with particular Jewish groups in the communities that produced the Gospel narratives.

It is a distortion by Christians who forget these facts: Jesus was a Jew, the apostles were Jews, the writers of the New Testament (as well as the Old Testament, also known as the Hebrew Scriptures) were Jews, and the audience for which the Old and New Testaments were written was primarily Jewish. It was not until several generations after the writing of the gospels before Jewish Christians (the first believers in Jesus) began to consider themselves not to be Jews. It is an inescapable fact that first-century Jewish writers would depict the drama of the passion of Jesus in light of their own perceptions. We, however, have a responsibility to history as well as to the present to bring a different understanding to our relations with one another.

He includes a brief story about an ecumenical Catholic-Jewish service in 2000. "An elderly man approached me and related how, when he was a young boy some 70 or 80 years earlier, he had been attacked by other boys who called him 'Christ-killer.' Even after all of the years, this man broke down in tears at recounting the story."

Chuckie Watch 34: Chuckie Gits Apocalyptic

Chuckie's up to his neck in the Dark Side in his latest post: Coming Christian Confrontation. Chuckie seems to think that the black helicopters are on their way to round up the Christians. My guess is that he saw part of Night of the Living Dead on TV and is having nightmares of Christian-hating zombies stalking around saying, "We're coming to git you, Chuckie." Chuckie has paranoid flashes when he's deep into the Dark Side.

Chuckie says:

Take a good look around you and you’ll see a consorted effort to belittle and discredit Christians and if you don’t believe it think about this.

Look at the reaction to Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ. It has been called anti-semitic and not historically accurate. I haven’t seen the movie but I think that the accuracy is probably what bothers it’s detractors.

Gosh, Chuckie, what kind of "anti-Christian" types might think that a movie that has hordes of murderous Jews killing Jesus in a blood-spattered spectacle might be anti-Semtic? Who, who, who could those people be?

This is the kind of weird play-acting you find among some of the less savory types on the Christian Right. I'm not sure it would be better in general, but it would be less nauseating, if they just came right out and said, "The Jews are Christ-killers because the Bible tells me so."

But Chuckie's more willing to overtly trash Muslims:

No other religion is persecuted like Christians. Although it’s a well-known fact that radical factions of Islam are sponsoring terrorism around the world. You seldom hear a disparaging word about their religion.

Uh, no, Chuckie, you don't. Except for on every conservative Web site and every conservative magazine you pick up.

As his column goes on, he starts to see visions or something, because he goes into how the ACLU will one day have to recognize that Jesus Christ is King and bowing and confessing and such. I wonder if Chuckie's into some real hard-shell religious kick like Christian Reconstruction or something.

Or maybe he's just gotten into Rush Limbaugh's stash. Either way, Chuckie, it ain't pretty.

The Bad News or the Good News?

I just saw this article in the Nashville Tennessean: Southern Baptists move closer to split 02/18/04.

This is not about splits within the US Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), although a number of congregations have broken with the SBC over the last decade because of the national group's insistence on a hardline fundamantalist theology and and a so-called "literalist" approach to Biblical interpretation.

This is about a move, which seems likely to succeed in the SBC, "toward severing ties with the Baptist World Alliance, a group of Baptist entities that it helped form 99 years ago." The SBC's doctrinaire position seems to go together with an increasingly authoritarian bent within the organization, which in many ways contradicts the Baptist emphasis on individual spiritual experience and local church autonomy. SBC critics of the international organization accuse it of "accepting liberal theologies, expressing anti-American sentiments and being openly hostile to Southern Baptist representatives and beliefs."

Denton Lotz, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance ... said he did not understand why Southern Baptists were choosing to separate from Baptists who had experienced persecution in Russia, South Africa, India, Pakistan and other parts of the world.

That was one of the points made by Janet Hoffman, national president of the Women's Missionary Union and one of the committee members who voted against the recommendation.

To the extent that the SBC is embracing a rigid theology and marrying itself to conservative politics and social intolerance, it may be good news in more ways than one that they are taking the classic Protestant route of splitting off from the larger church organization.

On the other hand, the point Lotz and Hoffman make about the SBC seeming to withdraw its practical solidarity from Baptists in countries where they are actually persecuted is important. Because the Religious Right plays up the notion of Christians as being persecuted, in America (!!) and other countries. Lotz and Hoffman are saying to them: you claim concern about persecution of Christians abroad, but you're abandoning an important vehicle for combatting it.