“And it came to pass that in the winter of 1935, the shadow of a Great Depression lay over all the land. And nowhere was this Depression more deeply felt than in Mississippi, in the dark days of the Deep South. For it was there, in the little town of Tupelo, that Papa Vern and Mama Gladys were dwelling in a tiny, two-room wooden shack among the poorest of the poor.
Their faces were gaunt and careworn and their spirits were heavy for they had not two sticks to rub together to make a fire, and they were reviled as outcasts known cruelly as white trash. Papa Vern was greatly dejected and unemployed and engaged in all manner of scams to survive. And his heart trembled for the future, for Mama Gladys was big with child. And when her time was upon her, the midwife was called, and that night of the holy birth would bring both joy and tragedy. For Mama Gladys was delivered of twins and the first was stillborn. And he was called Jesse and was later buried in an unmarked grave, in a shoebox tied with a red ribbon.
The second son was called Elvis and He survived.
Yet the outcome was long in doubt for both Mama Gladys and the baby Elvis were weakened by the terrible ordeal of His birth and the death of His twin brother.But even as the tiny Elvis fought for His life, wailing louder than the cold wind outside the dismal shanty, many miracles did occur which heralded His arrival.
A mysterious blue light appeared outside the shack that was seen by Papa Vern and Mama Gladys. And the light was seen also by three wandering musicians who had followed it from afar. They appeared at the door bearing humble gifts for they were but poor and itinerant bluesmen. The first was named Furry and he offered a gallon of wine to warm the family and keep from them the chill of the drafty shack. The second was named John Lee and he brought pills of many colors which would keep the family awake and alert during the long hours of their vigil over their newborn son. The third was named Robert and he was the greatest musician of all. And his gift was the most precious of the three, a great can of oil, which Mama Gladys used forever after to fry the foods that would make her son grow big and strong.
And after they bestowed their gifts, the three bluesmen gazed upon the baby Elvis, saying, ‘Let us give praise for this miraculous babe for, surely, on this day and in this unknown shack in the little town of Tupelo, one is born who will reveal to the world a new way of music, and all the world shall some day proclaim Him King.”
And so it was to be. Amen. Celebrate Him this Holy Day of Twinity in the Sprit of The Rock. For he is Elvis, our Rock and our Roll.
I figured out how to make a playoff system for college football work.
The highlights of this plan
16 teams make the tournament - 5 At large bids and 11 conference winners
All the major bowls are preserved.
All major bowls are played in the first round.
Conference winners get automatic bids to bowls that they are affiliated with traditionally. PAC10 & BIG 10 will ALWAYS play each other in the ROSE Bowl on New Years Day. The SEC goes to the Sugar, the ACC to the Orange, BIG 12 to the Fiesta. New affiliations are made with other conferences like the MWC and the Cotton Bowl.
There is still an orgy of football on 12/31, 1/1, and 1/2.
The second and third rounds are on different days than the NFL playoffs.
The national championship game is on the weekend between the AFC & NFC Championship games and the Super Bowl.
Drawbacks
Tournament must be seeded every year to ensure a fair playing field or announced well in advance to ensure that the matchups are random.
The ROSE Bowl game is a tough first round matchup for both teams placing them at a competitive disadvantage. But hey! There are no easy roads to the national championship.
There are two weeks between the semi finals and the championship game.
Some bowls may be moved from day to day each year to make the schedule work.
There is no AUTOMATIC place for Notre Dame. Join a conference fellas!
Early voting in five states showed that voters' choice are being flipped to the opposite candidate on all four major e-voting machines — Diebold TSx, Sequoia Edge, ES&S iVotronic, and Hart InterCivic eSlate.
Three counties in Texas report vote-flipping on the Diebold and ES&S machines. Three counties in Florida report vote-flipping on the ES&S and Sequoia machines. One county in Illinois, on the Sequioa Edge, and one county in Arkansas, on the ES&S iVotronic. In some cases, when the voter selects one candidate, the machine shows an opponent is selected instead.
"He touched the screen for gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis, a Democrat, but the review screen repeatedly registered the Republican, Charlie Crist."
Douglas Jones, a computer scientist at the University of Iowa, says he's heard similar stories from voters in several states, including one computer scientist in South Carolina who said that his attempts to vote for one candidate on the iVotronic were repeatedly changed to an opposing candidate by the time he got to the voter verification screen."
Officials normally explain the vote-flipping as calibration errors — touches on the screen are simply registering incorrectly They point to the 15-step process that poll workers can do to re-calibrate the screen.
But vote-flipping on the eSlate can't be explained as a calibration error, since the eSlate doesn't have a touch screen. Voters use physical dials and buttons to move the highlight on the screen and make their selections.
A professor at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky (Calloway County) used the eSlate in early voting and reports that his straight-party votes were switched to the opposite party in contested races:
"I tried to vote a straight ticket, but when I checked the final page, which summarizes one's vote, I noticed that I had voted for some of the candidates of the other party. I went to the first screen again and ticked the straight ticket box for the Democratic party, and, again, I found that for all of the contested races the Republican boxes were ticked.
"I had to go through individually to tick the Democratic boxes. I'm not a Democrat, and I don't suspect vast right-wing some conspiracy. I'm just telling those of you who will be voting soon to check the summarizing page carefully, regardless of your voting preferences."
UPDATE Now the ES&S iVotronics in Sarasota County Florida aren't flipping, just deleting votes from the summary screen. Several people from different polling places report that their votes for Jennings (Dem candidate for 13 Cong Dist) don't appear on the review screen. They have to go back and vote for her again.
Look kids, the Republicans are already casting doubt on the veracity of exit polls! Exit polls are the same tools that are used to determine if election fraud has occured in other countries. The latest example is in the Ukraine in 2004 where the fixed election was overturned.
I wonder if the exit polls will match the vote totals in areas that have electronic voting systems that cannot be audited? It's funny how the GOP cites instances where the exit polls did not match vote totals in 2002 & 2004. Maybe it's because there were irregularities during those elections as well.
Keep an eye on the irregularities, dirty tricks, and vote totals today. In 2004 all of teh "computer glitches" seemed to break in favor of the Republican party. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. That's curious! If they were true computer malfunctions shouldn't they have favored the Democrats half the time?
This information page is one part of the Public Relations strategy of "crafting a narrative". Partisan hacks use these "factual" examples (otherwise known as talking points) to defend why the Republicans kept control of one or both houses of Congress. The other part of this narrative is the focus on polls that show the national race tightening. If you have been on Drudgereport the last few days you have seen what I mean.
FYI the bullshit stream flows this way. RNC headquarters to Drudge (and other righty bloggers) to conservative talk radio to Fox News to other cable news outlets to the networks and major newspapers. Sometimes the bullshit stream stops at Fox News. In that case it is called "energizing the Republican base".
I can see a talking head on TV tonight at 11pm saying, "Well, I guess the exit polls were wrong again and the races really were closer than we thought. The Republicans did make a surge in the last week. I think we are seeing the effect of the Saddam Hussein verdict and John Kerry's gaffe about the troops."
Biased And Inaccurate Predictions Have Led To Poor GOP Exit Poll Showings In Past Three National Elections _______________________________________
FAST FACTS ON EXIT POLLING
Election Experts Believe Exit Polls Give An Edge And Sway Towards Democrat Candidates.
National Exit Polls Will Skew In Favor Of Democrats This Year, Due To Large Numbers Of Uncontested Democrat Seats In The House Of Representatives.
Early Exit Polling Returns In 2004 Were Widely Inaccurate, Declaring Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) To Be The Next President Of The United States And Republicans Barely Holding A One Seat Majority In The U.S. Senate.
In The 2002 Midterm Elections, Exit Polling Produced Unusable Data.
In 2000, Exit Polling Malfunctioned And Incorrectly Projecting Vice President Al Gore As The Winner Of The Crucial Battleground State Of Florida.
EXIT POLLS TRADITIONALLY HAVE A DEMOCRAT BIAS
Exit Polls Give Democrats An Edge:
Exit Polling Always Tends To "Give An Edge To Democratic Candidates." President of Mitofsky International, Warren Mitofsky: "Mitofsky said exit polls have always tended to give an edge to Democratic candidates ..." (John Cook, "Early Exit Polls Overstated Kerry Results, Media Group Says," Chicago Tribune, 1/20/05)
"[Mitofsky] Said That For Reasons That Remain Unclear, Democratic Voters Are More Likely Than Republicans To Agree To Interview Requests From Pollsters."(John Cook, "Early Exit Polls Overstated Kerry Results, Media Group Says," Chicago Tribune, 1/20/05)
Democrats More Likely Than Republicans To Respond To Exit Polls:
October 2006 Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Poll Found Democrats Were More Likely To Respond To Exit Polls Than Republicans.
72% Of Democrats Responded They Were Very Or Somewhat Likely To Fill Out Questionnaire, Compared To 66% Of Republicans. (Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Poll, 10/26/06)
44% Of Democrats Claimed They Were Very Likely To Fill Out Exit Poll Survey, Compared To 35% Of Republicans.(Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Poll, 10/26/06)
Democrats (37%-10%) And Republicans (25%-18%) Agreed That Democrats Are More Likely To Share How They Voted With A Pollster They Do Not Know.(Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Poll, 10/26/06)
In 2006, Exit Polls Skew In Favor Of Democrats, Due To Large Numbers Of Uncontested Seats In The House:
In 2006, There Are Over 40 Uncontested Democrat Seats And 10 Uncontested GOP Seats, Which Will Overstate National Democrat House Vote In Exit Polling.(National Journal Website, www.nationaljournal.com, Accessed 11/6/06)
In 2004, There Were 39 Uncontested Republican Seats, Compared To 30 Uncontested Democrat Seats. (National Journal Website, www.nationaljournal.com, Accessed 11/6/06)
In 2002, There Were 45 Uncontested Republican Seats, Compared To 36 Uncontested Democrat Seats.(National Journal Website, www.nationaljournal.com, Accessed 11/6/06)
IN 2004, EXIT POLLING PREDICTED OVERWHELMING DEMOCRAT VICTORIES
In 2004, Exit Polls "Got All Of The Bush States Wrong" - Predictions Were "Most Skewed" Since Exit Polling Began:
Exit Polls Showed Across-The-Board Failure. "[T]he networks did get the exit polls wrong. Not just one of them. They got all of the Bush states wrong." (Dick Morris, "Those Faulty Exit Polls Were Sabotage," The Hill, 11/4/04)
"It Was Dej? Vu All Over Again With Major Embarrassment For Exit Pollsters Since It Was Clear That They Way Underestimated Bush's Support In States Like Virginia That The President Won Handily Once The Real Vote Came In."(Deborah Orin et. al., "Voters Choose Double Dubya," New York Post, 11/3/04)
USA Today: "In fact, the 2004 numbers were the most skewed since joint exit polling began in the 1980s." (Editorial, "Exit Polls' Cloud Crystal Ball," USA Today, 1/20/05)
The [Cleveland, OH] Plain Dealer: "Add in poor weather, data programming errors and other technical glitches, and the end product, calculated to give major news operations an inside glimmer as to which way the vote was going, instead produced the most inaccurate information in the past five presidential elections." (Editorial, "The Pollsters Were Pole-Axed," The [Cleveland, OH] Plain Dealer, 1/23/05)
San Francisco Chronicle: "If exit polls have a role at all, they need to be staged carefully and handled with caution. Along with improved methods, the report [by firms who came up with flawed 2004 exit polls] suggested that no numbers be released to news organizations until near the end of Election Day. That's the least poll-takers can do." (Editorial, "Exit-Poll Errors," San Francisco Chronicle, 1/21/05)
In 2004, National Election Pool (NEP) Incorrectly Projected Victories For Sen. John Kerry (D-MA):
"ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, Fox, And NBC ... Created The National Election Pool To Provide Tabulated Vote Counts And Exit Poll Surveys ... These Six Major News Organization, In A Joint Decision ... Appointed Edison Media Research And Mitofsky International As The Sole Provider Of Exit Polls ..." (Exit-Poll.net Website, http://www.exit-poll.net/, Accessed 10/24/06)
"In The 32 States With Exit Poll Estimates For Both A Presidential Race And A Senate Race The Average Error On The Difference Between The Top Two Candidates Was 5.0 Points In The Democratic Direction For President And 3.6 Points In The Democratic Direction For Senate." (Edison Media Research And Mitofsky International, "Evaluation Of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004 For The National Election Pool," 1/19/05, p. 20)
Iowa: NEP Projected Sen. Kerry Winning By 1% - President Bush Carried Iowa By .7%;
Nevada: NEP Projected Sen. Kerry Winning By 1.4% - President Bush Carried Nevada By 2.6%;
New Mexico: NEP Projected Sen. Kerry Winning By 4.2%- President Bush Carried New Mexico By .8%;
Ohio: NEP Projected Sen. Kerry Winning By 6.5% - President Bush Carried By 2.1%;
Virginia: NEP Projected Sen. Kerry Winning By 0.5% - President Bush Carried Virginia By 8.2%.(Edison Media Research And Mitofsky International, "Evaluation Of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004 For The National Election Pool," 1/19/05, p. 21-22)
NEP's Exit Poll Projections Underestimated President Bush's Support In Several Key States:
Minnesota: NEP Projected Sen. Kerry Winning By 14.3% -- Sen. Kerry Won By 3.5%;
New Hampshire: NEP Projected Sen. Kerry Winning By 15% -- Sen. Kerry Won By 1.4%;
North Carolina: NEP Projected President Bush Winning By 3.6% -- President Bush Won By 12.4%;
Pennsylvania: NEP Projected Sen. Kerry Winning By 13.8% -- Sen. Kerry Won By 2.3%;
Wisconsin: NEP Projected Sen. Kerry Winning By 5.7% -- Sen. Kerry Won By .4%.(Edison Media Research And Mitofsky International, "Evaluation Of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004 For The National Election Pool," 1/19/05, p. 21-22)
NEP's Exit Poll Projections Had Republicans Winning Only 51 Senate Seats Instead Of 55 Seats They Hold Now:
Alaska: NEP Projected Former Gov. Tony Knowles (D-AK) Senate Victory; Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) Won;
Florida: NEP Projected Dem Betty Castor (D-FL) Senate Victory; Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) Won;
Kentucky: NEP Projected Dem Dan Mongiardo (D-KY) Senate Victory; Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) Won;
North Carolina: NEP Projected Dem Erskine Bowles (D-NC) Senate Victory; Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) Won.(Edison Media Research And Mitofsky International, "Evaluation Of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004 For The National Election Pool," 1/19/05, p. 23)
Political Professionals Agree 2004 Highlighted Exit Polling's Failures:
Zogby International's John Zogby: "I'm not sure that I will ever believe an exit poll again ... How could they have been so way off? They were worse than virtually every pre-election poll." (John Cook, "Early Exit Polls Overstated Kerry Results, Media Group Says," Chicago Tribune, 1/20/05)
Zogby: "The sum total of what we got today is enough to suggest that there should never be exit polls again." (Donald Lambro, "Polling Firms Blame Youth, Leaks For Errors," The Washington Times, 1/20/05)
The Washington Post's Director Of Polling Richard Morin: "[T]he 2004 election may have finally stripped exit polling of its reputation as the crown jewel of political surveys, somehow immune from the myriad problems that affect telephone polls and other types of public opinion surveys." (Richard Morin, Op-Ed, "Surveying The Damage," The Washington Post, 11/21/04)
Morin: "Instead, this face-to-face, catch-the-voters-on-the-way-out poll has been revealed for what it is: just another poll, with all the problems and imperfections endemic to the craft." (Richard Morin, Op-Ed, "Surveying The Damage," The Washington Post, 11/21/04)
President Of Mason-Dixon Polling Firm Brad Corker: "Exit Polls Are Often Wrong". "[B]rad Coker, president of the Mason-Dixon polling firm that called Bush's 2.5-percentage-point win in Ohio practically right on the nose for The Plain Dealer, says ... exit polls are often wrong." (Ted Diadiun, "Rest Assured, We Checked Out Election 2004 Thoroughly," The [Cleveland] Plain Dealer, 6/18/06)
"Herb Asher, An Ohio State University Political Scientist, Said Election Results Don't Necessarily Reflect Exit Polls."(John Nolan, "Forty Voters Want November Election Results Thrown Out," The Associated Press, 12/14/04)
Asher: "We all know that exit polls can be wrong. Exit polls are basically a sample." (John Nolan, "Forty Voters Want November Election Results Thrown Out," The Associated Press, 12/14/04)
CNN's Bill Schneider: "The lesson here is put not your faith in exit polls ... particularly if the exit poll is close ... Exit polls are designed for analysis. ... They are not very good ..." (William Douglas, "Turnout: The Early Exit Polls Mostly Wrong," Detroit Free Press, 11/4/04)
Then-CNN Anchor Judy Woodruff: "People want to jump on (exit polls) because they are the first little sliver, little shred of evidence ... It's dangerous to seize on those numbers and assume anything - and yet that's what happened." (Michelle Mittelstadt, "Exit Poll Group Assailed For Erroneous Early Results," The Dallas Morning News, 11/4/04)
Pollster Andrew Kohut: "[D]oing [exit polls] on the fly has led us astray." (Michelle Mittelstadt, "Exit Poll Group Assailed For Erroneous Early Results," The Dallas Morning News, 11/4/04)
EXIT POLLS WERE ALSO WIDELY INACCURATE IN 2002 AND 2000 ELECTIONS
FLASHBACK FACT: In 2002 Midterms, Exit Polls Were Scrapped Due To Inaccuracy:
VNS Consortium Scrapped 2002 National Exit Polls Because It Could Not Guarantee Accuracy. "Voter News Service abandoned its state and national exit poll plans for Election Night, saying it could not guarantee the accuracy of the analysis which media organizations use to help explain why people voted as they did." ("VNS Abandons National Exit Poll Operation, A Setback For Revamped Elections System," The Associated Press, 11/6/02)
"The Exit Poll Failure Was A Major Setback For VNS - A Consortium Consisting Of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox And The AP. VNS Had Completely Rebuilt Its System In Response To The 2000 Election, When Television Networks Twice Used Its Information To Make Wrong Calls In The Decisive Florida Vote For The Presidential Election."("VNS Abandons National Exit Poll Operation, A Setback For Revamped Elections System," The Associated Press, 11/6/02)
Zogby International's John Zogby: "The early [2002] exit-poll data was awful. ... And it came with the caveat that it was unreliable. Can you imagine a doctor saying that about a diagnosis? What a mess!" (Beth Gillin, "Media Organizations Discuss What Went Wrong With Exit-Poll Service," The Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/7/02)
FLASHBACK FACT: In 2000 Presidential Campaign, Exit Polls Were Badly Flawed In Critical State Of Florida:
In 2000, Exit Polls Were Badly Flawed In Critical State Of Florida. "[S]ome bad assumptions led Voter News Service, the television network exit poll consortium, to make and then retract two dramatic election-night predictions on the winner of the presidential race in Florida." (Richard Morin and Claudia Deane, "Why The Fla. Exit Polls Were Wrong," The Washington Post, 11/8/00)
Networks Blame Incorrect Projections On Erroneous Exit Polling. "[The networks] concluded the problems were largely due to bad information supplied by Voter News Service, an exit poll consortium run by television networks and Associated Press." (Elizabeth Jensen and Megan Garvey, "TV Election Gaffes Called Statistical, Not Political," Los Angeles Times, 2/9/01)
CBS' Director Of Surveys Kathy Frankovic: "In the Tampa area, the exit poll results from the [sample] precincts turned out to be more Democratic than the vote turned out to be." (Richard Morin and Claudia Deane, "Why The Fla. Exit Polls Were Wrong," The Washington Post, 11/8/00)
Experts Lament Exit Polling's "Poor" Predictions In 2000. "Paul Biemer, a statistician hired to review the VNS methodology, reported that 49 percent of those surveyed leaving the polls declined to respond. In the parlance of his trade, Mr. Biemer said 'a non-response rate of this magnitude is a potential source of statistical bias in the model projections ...' In other words, exit polls are poor predictors." (Jules Witcover, Op-Ed, "Voters Don't Need Instant TV Results," The [Baltimore, MD] Sun, 2/16/01)
Faulty Media Reports In 2000 Impacted Florida Panhandle And Congressional Races:
"About 7:50 P.M. EST Tuesday, Less Than An Hour After Most Of The Polls Closed In Florida, Both CBS And NBC Declared Mr. Gore The Winner In That State, A Decision Based Largely Upon Exit Polls Conducted By Voter News Service. Fox News, CNN And ABC Followed Within Minutes." (John Godfrey, "Tauzin Plans Hearings On Gaffe," The Washington Times, 11/10/00)
"A Survey Conducted By John McLaughlin & Associates Found That The Early And Incorrect News Network Announcements Declaring Al Gore The Winner In Florida May Have Influenced Thousands Of Last-Minute Voters In The Central Time Zone Section Of The Florida Panhandle Not To Vote. The Premature Announcement Discouraged Many Registered Voters Who, According To [The] Survey's Results, Would Have Voted Like The Rest Of Their Neighbors - Overwhelmingly For George W. Bush."(McLaughlin & Associates Website, "Panhandle Poll Summary," www.mclaughlinonline.com, Press Release,
Rachel raised $210 for the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk on Octover 22nd. I would like to publicly thank the following folks for giving to this worthy cause.
Steve Aunt Sharon Uncle Don & Aunt Elaine Winston & Mary Autumn Nicole Ed & Cheri Ginsu
My mommy and daddy (Angela & Graham) are walking with me in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk this Sunday. We need YOUR support to make sure that I never have to worry about this disease when I get older.
I am walking because I never met my Great Aunt Irene who had this disease. I will be wearing her name during the walk to honor her courage and memory. If you would like me to honor a friend or a relative of yours please send me their name when you make a pledge (send the name to grahamstewart@usa.net). I promise to send a cute picture of myself modeling the name of the person you want to remember or the survivor you want to honor.
All donations go to the American Cancer Society to fight breast cancer in our community. Please give what you can, any amount is appreciated.
Love, Rachel
PS If you get this email after Sunday 10/22 you can still donate on my page.
Click here to visit my personal page. If the text above does not appear as a clickable link, you can visit the web address: http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR?px=1242704&pg=personal&fr_id=2130&et=5legRltM7lRkBcBYx6Sb1w..&s_tafId=60381
I have no idea if this is bad news or not Apparently there have been a large number of PUT OPTIONS taken out for 10/6/06. Basically, a PUT OPTION is when someone is betting that the stock or commodities market is going to go down. A PUT OPTION is a bet that there will be a drop in value for a specific stock, fund, or commodity (I think).
Why would there be a larger number of options taken out for that day, does somebody know something that the rest of us don't?
A faithful reader and commentator, "A. Magnus" writes the following email, posted to FMNN General Feedback:
"Do you like October suprises? Is there a big bang coming to hit the markets? If you believe that those in the know use insider information before major events then you might be interested on the HUGE number of October 6th put options for the big indexes. Check out the concentrated puts on the Diamonds DOW Trust (DIA):
I just watched a clip of the majority leader in the House of Representatives talking about our mission in Iraq. John Boehner said that Iraq was important because if we were not fighting the terrorists in Iraq then they would be in Boston or New York.
Personally, I am sick and tired of this illogical argument. If anyone is stupid enough to mutter this around me I will give them the following:
If a terrorist really hated America and wanted to kill us why would he go to Iraq, where we have 130,000 troops with state of the art equipment, to kill Americans. Isn't it easier to walk down the street in Boston, New York, or Miami and suicide bomb a cafe?
POP QUIZ
Which will get more attention and cause more TERROR, killing a handful of well armed soldiers in Iraq that will be ignored by the media, or splattering tourists all over Fisherman's Wharf in San Fransisco?
ANSWER
Terrorists are crazy, not stupid. They would pick the event that had the most impact. Just because they have not hit us here in the US since the Anthrax attacks of 10/2001 does not mean that the strategy in Iraq is working. The same assholes are trying just as hard to attack America on our own soil. They don't care about the sideshow in Iraq. Being able to operate a terrorist campain in Baghdad does not have the same impact as an attack on US soil. And they know it.
The headlines about them are, of course, entirely wrong.
It is not essential that a past president, bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster, finally lashed back.
It is not important that the current President’s portable public chorus has described his predecessor’s tone as “crazed.”
Our tone should be crazed. The nation’s freedoms are under assault by an administration whose policies can do us as much damage as al Qaida; the nation’s marketplace of ideas is being poisoned by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would’ve quit.
Nonetheless. The headline is this:
Bill Clinton did what almost none of us have done in five years.
He has spoken the truth about 9/11, and the current presidential administration.
"At least I tried," he said of his own efforts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. "That’s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They had eight months to try; they did not try. I tried."
Thus in his supposed emeritus years has Mr. Clinton taken forceful and triumphant action for honesty, and for us; action as vital and as courageous as any of his presidency; action as startling and as liberating, as any, by any one, in these last five long years.
The Bush Administration did not try to get Osama bin Laden before 9/11.
The Bush Administration ignored all the evidence gathered by its predecessors.
The Bush Administration did not understand the Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S."
The Bush Administration did not try.
Moreover, for the last five years one month and two weeks, the current administration, and in particular the President, has been given the greatest “pass” for incompetence and malfeasance in American history!
President Roosevelt was rightly blamed for ignoring the warning signs—some of them, 17 years old—before Pearl Harbor.
President Hoover was correctly blamed for—if not the Great Depression itself—then the disastrous economic steps he took in the immediate aftermath of the Stock Market Crash.
Even President Lincoln assumed some measure of responsibility for the Civil War—though talk of Southern secession had begun as early as 1832.
But not this president.
To hear him bleat and whine and bully at nearly every opportunity, one would think someone else had been president on September 11th, 2001 -- or the nearly eight months that preceded it.
That hardly reflects the honesty nor manliness we expect of the executive.
But if his own fitness to serve is of no true concern to him, perhaps we should simply sigh and keep our fingers crossed, until a grown-up takes the job three Januarys from now.
Except for this.
After five years of skirting even the most inarguable of facts—that he was president on 9/11 and he must bear some responsibility for his, and our, unreadiness, Mr. Bush has now moved, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards re-writing history, and attempting to make the responsibility, entirely Mr. Clinton’s.
Of course he is not honest enough to do that directly.
As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him, by proxy.
Thus, the sandbag effort by Fox News Friday afternoon.
Consider the timing: the very weekend the National Intelligence Estimate would be released and show the Iraq war to be the fraudulent failure it is—not a check on terror, but fertilizer for it.
The kind of proof of incompetence, for which the administration and its hyenas at Fox need to find a diversion, in a scapegoat.
It was the kind of cheap trick which would get a journalist fired—but a propagandist, promoted:
Promise to talk of charity and generosity; but instead launch into the lies and distortions with which the Authoritarians among us attack the virtuous and reward the useless.
And don’t even be professional enough to assume the responsibility for the slanders yourself; blame your audience for “e-mailing” you the question.
Mr. Clinton responded as you have seen.
He told the great truth untold about this administration’s negligence, perhaps criminal negligence, about bin Laden.
He was brave.
Then again, Chris Wallace might be braver still. Had I in one moment surrendered all my credibility as a journalist, and been irredeemably humiliated, as was he, I would have gone home and started a new career selling seeds by mail.
The smearing by proxy, of course, did not begin Friday afternoon.
Disney was first to sell-out its corporate reputation, with "The Path to 9/11." Of that company’s crimes against truth one needs to say little. Simply put: someone there enabled an Authoritarian zealot to belch out Mr. Bush’s new and improved history.
The basic plot-line was this: because he was distracted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton failed to prevent 9/11.
The most curious and in some ways the most infuriating aspect of this slapdash theory, is that the Right Wingers who have advocated it—who try to sneak it into our collective consciousness through entertainment, or who sandbag Mr. Clinton with it at news interviews—have simply skipped past its most glaring flaw.
Had it been true that Clinton had been distracted from the hunt for bin Laden in 1998 because of the Monica Lewinsky nonsense, why did these same people not applaud him for having bombed bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan and Sudan on Aug. 20, of that year? For mentioning bin Laden by name as he did so?
That day, Republican Senator Grams of Minnesota invoked the movie "Wag The Dog."
Republican Senator Coats of Indiana questioned Mr. Clinton’s judgment.
Republican Senator Ashcroft of Missouri—the future attorney general—echoed Coats.
Even Republican Senator Arlen Specter questioned the timing.
And of course, were it true Clinton had been “distracted” by the Lewinsky witch-hunt, who on earth conducted the Lewinsky witch-hunt?
Who turned the political discourse of this nation on its head for two years?
Who corrupted the political media?
Who made it impossible for us to even bring back on the air, the counter-terrorism analysts like Dr. Richard Haass, and James Dunegan, who had warned, at this very hour, on this very network, in early 1998, of cells from the Middle East who sought to attack us, here?
Who preempted them in order to strangle us with the trivia that was, “All Monica All The Time”?
Who distracted whom?
This is, of course, where—as is inevitable—Mr. Bush and his henchmen prove not quite as smart as they think they are.
The full responsibility for 9/11 is obviously shared by three administrations, possibly four.
But, Mr. Bush, if you are now trying to convince us by proxy that it’s all about the distractions of 1998 and 1999, then you will have to face a startling fact that your minions may have hidden from you.
The distractions of 1998 and 1999, Mr. Bush, were carefully manufactured, and lovingly executed, not by Bill Clinton, but by the same people who got you elected President.
Thus, instead of some commendable acknowledgment that you were even in office on 9/11 and the lost months before it, we have your sleazy and sloppy rewriting of history, designed by somebody who evidently read the Orwell playbook too quickly.
Thus, instead of some explanation for the inertia of your first eight months in office, we are told that you have kept us "safe" ever since—a statement that might range anywhere from zero, to 100 percent, true.
We have nothing but your word, and your word has long since ceased to mean anything.
And, of course, the one time you have ever given us specifics about what you have kept us safe from, Mr. Bush, you got the name of the supposedly targeted Tower in Los Angeles wrong.
Thus was it left for the previous president to say what so many of us have felt; what so many of us have given you a pass for in the months and even the years after the attack:
You did not try.
You ignored the evidence gathered by your predecessor.
You ignored the evidence gathered by your own people.
Then, you blamed your predecessor.
That would be a textbook definition, Mr. Bush, of cowardice.
To enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase the truths of the past.
That was one of the great mechanical realities Eric Blair—writing as George Orwell—gave us in the book “1984.”
The great philosophical reality he gave us, Mr. Bush, may sound as familiar to you, as it has lately begun to sound familiar to me.
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power...
"Power is not a means; it is an end.
"One does not establish a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
"The object of persecution, is persecution. The object of torture, is torture. The object of power… is power."
Earlier last Friday afternoon, before the Fox ambush, speaking in the far different context of the closing session of his remarkable Global Initiative, Mr. Clinton quoted Abraham Lincoln’s State of the Union address from 1862.
"We must disenthrall ourselves."
Mr. Clinton did not quote the rest of Mr. Lincoln’s sentence.
He might well have.
"We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country."
And so has Mr. Clinton helped us to disenthrall ourselves, and perhaps enabled us, even at this late and bleak date, to save our country.
The "free pass" has been withdrawn, Mr. Bush.
You did not act to prevent 9/11.
We do not know what you have done to prevent another 9/11.
You have failed us—then leveraged that failure, to justify a purposeless war in Iraq which will have, all too soon, claimed more American lives than did 9/11.
You have failed us anew in Afghanistan.
And you have now tried to hide your failures, by blaming your predecessor.
And now you exploit your failure, to rationalize brazen torture which doesn’t work anyway; which only condemns our soldiers to water-boarding; which only humiliates our country further in the world; and which no true American would ever condone, let alone advocate.
Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space. And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.
All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and -- as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul -- two more in the Towers.
And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.
I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.
And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.
However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none of us could have predicted this.
Five years later this space is still empty.
Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.
Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.
Five years later this country's wound is still open.
Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.
Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.
It is beyond shameful.
At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial -- barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field -- Mr. Lincoln said, "we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."
Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.
Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground." So we won't.
Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they're doing instead of doing any job at all.
Five years later, Mr. Bush, we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir, on these 16 empty acres. The terrorists are clearly, still winning.
And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.
And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation. There is its symbolism of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.
The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.
Those who did not belong to his party -- tabled that.
Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -- ignored that.
Those who wondered of his qualifications -- forgot that.
History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.
Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.
The President -- and those around him -- did that.
They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."
They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.
The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."
The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."
Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.
Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.
Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible for anything in his own administration.
Yet what is happening this very night?
A mini-series, created, influenced -- possibly financed by -- the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.
The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.
How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11?
Just as the terrorists have succeeded -- are still succeeding -- as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero.
So, too, have they succeeded, and are still succeeding as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.
This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from March of 1960. But as Disney's continuing sell-out of the truth (and this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things.
And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone" broadcast a riveting episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."
In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm. Suddenly his car -- and only his car -- starts. Someone suggests he must be the alien. Then another man's lights go on. As charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced. An "alien" is shot -- but he turns out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help. The camera pulls back to a near-by hill, where two extra-terrestrials are seen manipulating a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there's no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it's themselves."
And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves tonight: "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men.
"For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own -- for the children, and the children yet unborn."
When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:
September 11the should be a day of National Remembrance. The National Day of Remembrance will honor all American victims of terror from Oklahoma City, to the USS Cole, to the embassy attacks in Africa, to September 11th. This will not be a holiday in the traditional sense; there will be no car sales, picnics, or three day weekends. Everybody will go to work. Most of those victims of terror were at work when they died. Their memories are honored by the fact that their fellow citizens refuse to be terrorized and continue on with life as normal as possible.
Workers will give their day’s wages to charity. Whether that charity is local, national, or tied to victims of terror or not is unimportant. What is important is that citizens are giving to their communities honor the innocent victims of these tragedies.
If you do not work on September 11, whether it is a weekend or other day off, you will give one day's labor to charity. Whether you take September 11 and work for eight hours that day or spread your labor over a longer period of time is up to you. What is important is that you pledge to spend one day helping your local or national community above and beyond what you are doing now.
In addition to these acts of giving, Americans will fly their flag on September 11 as a symbol of national unity.
Imagine what one day of giving would do for our country. I plan on starting this year.
Please forward this to your friends and your political representatives.
The ego and the Self dwell as intimate friends in the same body, like two golden birds perched in the same tree. The ego eats the sweet and sour fruits of the tree, while the Self looks on detached. For as long as you identify with the ego, you will feel joy and sorrow. But if you know you are the Self, the Lord of Life, you will be free from suffering; the supreme source of light; the supreme source of love. You will transcend duality and live in a state of Oneness.
-Mundaka Upanishad
Reprinted from "The Wisdom of the Hindu Gurus," edited by Timothy Freke, published by Godsfield Press. The book can be purchased online through Amazon.
