Donle’s Daily Dispatches

Volume 1 Issue 176         Today’s News and Views     Thursday, June 22, 2006

Sign My Guest Book

View My Guest Book

Get Your Free Guest Book

Donle's Daily Dispatches RSS News Feeds

Latest news and opinion headlines from NPR, BBC, NY Times, etc.

See the cost in your community

Update of US Casualties in Iraq: 2511

Update of US Casualties in Afghanistan: 310

Figures provided by

the Iraq Coalition Causality website

Support Our Troops

IMPEACH Bush/Cheney

Hoosiers for Peace requests the honor of your presence…

What: Share Sunday Gravy with Local Progressives at Pasta for Peace. Good Food, Stimulating Conversation, Inspirational Music, Film, and Art and a Silent Auction. Did we mention the pasta was shaped like peace signs? To reserve your seat, call 202-9302 or e-mail heather@hoosiersforpeace.org. Seats are limited and going fast.

When: June 25, 2006 from 1 to 4 p.m. (with dinner at 2 p.m.)

Where: Indianapolis Peace and Learning Center (6040 DeLong Rd.) in Eagle Creek Park.

Why:  Now is the time to spread the word to mainstream America to unite and stand up for peace. Hoosiers for Peace is sponsoring a statewide advertising campaign, which is focused on uniting the community to call for peace. This campaign will cost $14,000. This money will be used to pay for a full-page ad in the Indianapolis Star to ask more than 700,000 Hoosiers to call for peace. To find out more visit www.hoosiersforpeace.org

Cost: Adults $20, Children 5-12 $7, Children under 5 eat free. All proceeds will go towards the advertising campaign. Seats are limited, contact Heather for tickets today: 202-9302 or e-mail heather@hoosiersforpeace.org.

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. 
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

May 7, 2006

Dear Peacemakers,

Will you help to spread and encourage peace? With a record number of American soldiers dying in April 2006 and possible military action against Iran becoming daily news, now is the time to spread the word to mainstream America to unite and stand up for peace.

Hoosiers for Peace is sponsoring a statewide advertising campaign, which is focused on uniting the community to call for peace. This campaign will cost $14,000. This money will be used to pay for a full-page ad in the Indianapolis Star to ask more than 700,000 Hoosiers to call for peace. We are contacting dozens of organizations to make a proposal to form a coalition to raise funds and send a collaborative message to Hoosiers to Call for Peace. The message is: Call your friends, your family, and your representatives and ask them to support the Call for Peace.

Like most Americans, we oppose war based on the following, which will be reflected in the advertisement:

A.    War Kills. More than 2,400 American Soldiers have died and nearly 1,000 Hoosier soldiers are in harms way.

B.    War depletes our resources. Billions of dollars are going to sustain war efforts while ordinary citizens struggle for social services.

C.    War will not make us secure. Studies have shown that the U.S. is no more secure today than it was before 911.

Hoosiers for Peace, a website sponsored by Progressive Indiana, requests your support to make this advertisement a success. We will use the advertisement to call for peace. Each group in the coalition  working on this project will be listed in the ad. Each group will be asked to raise $1000 by October 1, 2006. Below are some suggestions for fundraising:

1.                Letter Writing Campaign: Contact your family and friends and ask them to support this call for peace. Tell them how many people we can reach and ask them to make a generous donation and spread the word. You may collect the money through your organization or you may refer them to Progressive Indiana. Donations may be sent through our secure online giving by going to www.progressiveindiana.org and click on donate now or log onto www.hoosiersforpeace and click on donate now. Checks may also be made payable to Progressive Indiana and mailed to:

                Progressive Indiana

                P.O. Box 55253

                Indianapolis, Indiana 46205-0253

2.                Host a house party. Go grassroots and organize a pasta dinner or backyard barbecue and ask for a donation from each guest. Play poker and donate half of each pot to the campaign for peace. Have a bake sale through your church or place of employment.

3.                Plan a small event.  Invite your community to an event and ask for donations for the ad. Small concerts, speakers, and socials are some ideas for these events. Get creative and network!

We need at least 14 groups to join the coalition and many more people to join the campaign to help fill in possible gaps. If we join together we can make this happen and we can bring Hoosiers together through this ad. As we Honor the Dead, Heal the Wounded, and call for an End to the War we can stand united for peace. We can make a difference by showing ordinary Hoosiers that there are many people like them working for peace. Please contact us as soon as possible if you would like to participate in this campaign. With a little work and collaboration we can make a large impact on our community.

In Peace,

Heather Allen-Garde

Director, Hoosiers For Peace

heather@hooisersforpeace.org

heatherreneeallen@yahoo.com

317/202-9302

It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it – Eleanor Roosevelt

David Korten

Butler University

June 26, 2006

7pm

Reilley Room

Atherton Hall

Suggested Donation is $5.00

For more information

Click here

Listen to Air America Radio while reading today's news and views

Today's News and Views

President Bush goes no where throughout the world without a major protest except for here in the USA.  He should receive no pass here in the Midwest. Therefore, the Military Families Speak Out Missouri/Midwest is launching a campaign to let GWB know we want our troops home NOW!!! and take care of them when they return whenever and wherever he shows up in the Midwest.  Our chapter includes Oklahoma,  Kansas, Missouri, and Southern Illinois and we are working with the soon to be launched MFSO Indiana and Iowa chapters. 

Bush's schedule is always on short notice so it is time we form an Immediate Response Network so no matter where he shows up we will be there to Speak Out.  We hope that all that share our view of "bring home our troops NOW!!!" will join us and support us in this effort. 

We currently have commitments from members of VFP, and MFSO from Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and Illinois.

"If W. gets a pass by the Peace and Justice Movement in any city or community in the USA from now on, then we have chosen to have nothing
to say as to the continued War in Iraq."
Carl Rising-Moore
Field Organizer Camp Casey Chapter. Crawford Texasl

Contact Information:

Stacy Hafley, MFSO Missouri/Midwest President  (573)875-8920  MFSOMissouri@aol.com 

Tina Richards (573)247-8059  MFSO Missouri/Midwest Events Coordinator MFSOMOEvents@aol.com

Directions

http://www.ritzcarlton.com/hotels/st_Louis/contact_us/default.asp

http://maps.yahoo.com/dd_result?

March Route

http://maps.yahoo.com/dd_result?newaddr=Forsyth+and+N.+Jackson&taddr=100+Carondelet+Plaza&csz=clayton%2C+mo&country=us&tcsz=clayton%2C+mo&tcountry=u

Rob Kall: It's the Occupation, Stupid; Dem Language Lesson Desperately Needed

By Rob Kall

Thom Hartmann really gets it right in his article, Reclaim the Issues - "Occupation, Not War" . There's no war in Iraq. It's an ugly, failing, incompetently planned occupation. The war went great. Our technology and soldiers did great. Then the real challenge-- dealing with the occupation-- began, and Bush and the Republicans have failed miserably at it. They went in without a plan, except, perhaps to give loads of pork to companies that supported Republicans and they have continued to incompetently manage the occupation.

Every Democratic legislator should be, if necessary, electro-shock trained to never use the term "war" to describe the disaster in Iraq. It's an occupation, a horror story, a testimony to vast incompetence and failed leadership.

When Harry Reid says it is time we get out, he should be saying it is time to end the occupation, to phase out the occupation. We need to get the press to start talking about occupation. We need to challenge the press to stop mislabeling their coverage as war coverage. We need to contact the networks that "brand" the "war" with coverage graphics, music and special names that include the word "war."

And let's dump the "war on terrorism" language too. This language, invented by right wing language gurus, is misleading and only causes us to pursue useless efforts.

It's one thing to misuse the word war to talk about a war on drugs or a war on cancer. Wars are fought between nations. You don't declare war on a person or an organization. Al Qaeda has not declared war on the Rotary or the Southern Baptist convention, or the Catholic Church. That's because you can't.

You can fight terrorism. You can fight drug abuse. You can put together resources to fight cancer. But when it comes to groups spread across the the planet, in many countries, you can't declare war. You might have skirmishes. But you need to think of different kinds of strategies, more like the ones used to take on organized crime-- the Mafia, Columbian drug smugglers.

The stupid, politically motivated mislabelling of the problem as a war has caused us to waste thousands of US lives tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. Bush and his rubber-stamp republican liars and fools (one, the other or both) have idiotically taken us down a path that has no hope of resolving the problem of terrorism.

Democrats who gullibly continue to use the languaging that the Republican spinmeisters crafted to frame things to meet their political needs are being duped and helping the Republicans. The Democrats must take control of the language "war." They must refuse to respond to journalist questions that use that framing.

It will probably take some training sessions for them to get the hang of it. Thom Hartmann could do a great job. The Democratic party should have Hartmann do a training session for the Democrats in the house and senate. (Sorry, but Lakoff is too much of an ivory tower academic. The members of congress need and deserve a language expert who is also a brilliant speaker and historian.)

Let the media attend. Let them learn and understand how the right wing language experts have been using them, so they can tell the difference between being real reporters and media dupes of the right wing. Some media people will continue to use the right wing "language" since they're part of the right wing echo chamber team. Some will see what's really going on and start functioning as real, independent journalists. It will be interesting to see which "journalists" actually "get it."



Authors Bio: Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, and organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. He is a frequent Speaker on a wide range of subjects. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.

Copyright © OpEdNews, 2002-2006

Without DeLay, Has the GOP Lost Its Moral Compass?

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060619_ivins_republicans/

Posted on Jun 19, 2006

By Molly Ivins

AUSTIN, Texas—Gee, the Republicans seem to have lost their moral compass since Tom DeLay quit. Who knew it could get worse without that pillar of rectitude from Texas? What a snakes’ nest of corruption and nastiness.

The latest involves Speaker Denny Hastert and a land deal.

Hastert had sold to a developer a 69-acre portion of a 195-acre farm that had been purchased in his wife’s name. The developer also purchased an adjacent plot of roughly equal size owned in trust by Hastert and two of his “longtime supporters.” The area west of Chicago is growing madly, and Hastert—through an earmark appropriation process—dedicated $207 million in taxpayer dollars as the first appropriation on the Prairie Parkway, which will run 5.5 miles from the Hastert land. Went through in the fall of 2005. Three months later, Hastert and his partners sold the land for a $3-million total profit, $1.8 million to Hastert.

In a staggering display of brass-faced gall, Hastert is now claiming a freeway running 5.5 miles from his land is not close enough to affect the price of the farm. Then what did the developer pay the extra $3 million for? Hastert is said to be furious with the Sunlight Foundation, which broke the story, and the Chicago newspapers, which pounced on it gleefully. This is what I don’t get about Republicans. Apparently they think they are genuinely entitled to get these special deals.

Also making news is California Rep. Jerry Lewis, who is in deep with a lobbying firm that is El Stinko. This wouldn’t matter so much if Lewis were just another congressman, but he is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, the one that hands out the money. Lewis’ family and friends have profited nicely from contractors and lobbyists who court his favor. Such cozy arrangements.

Just for example, one Lewis aide, who had gone to work for the lobbying firm and then returned to the congressman’s staff, was paid $2 million by the firm in 2004 while on the public payroll.

With a fine sense of ethical behavior, members of the House have voted to continue earmarking, including $500,000 for a swimming pool in Lewis’ district (bringing the total federal money allotted for this pool to $1 million).

Meanwhile, back on the Jack Abramoff and related fronts (lest we forget good old Dusty Foggo, ex-No. 3 at the CIA), a letter had been found, despite initial denials by the Department of Homeland Security, from the now-convicted ex-Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham recommending that the government use the limo firm that allegedly ferried whores to the poker parties given by defense contractors who were paying off Cunningham.

Don’t Democrats have scandals, too? Yes, Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana is in deep doo-doo. Among other things, the Fibbies found $90,000 in cash in his freezer. So the Democratic caucus kicked him off his important seat on the Ways and Means Committee. Republicans just keep on trucking.

Meanwhile, the entire Department of Homeland Security is beginning to look like a Republican playground. According to The New York Times, over 90 former officials at DHS or the White House Office of Homeland Security are now “executives, consultants or lobbyists for companies that collectively do billions of dollars’ worth of domestic security business.” Now isn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king?

Can Republicans run anything right? Where is the CEO administration that was supposed to straighten out government? It may be that Bush deserves credit for having initially opposed a DHS, knowing that Republicans would make a giant new federal agency. But he later changed his mind and supported the thing. The rest of us thought we were getting an agency that would provide homeland security, but what an endless saga of misspent money, stupid decisions, waste, fraud, abuse and political logrolling—and still no port protection.

It seems to me there is a direct connection between the Republicans’ inability to run anything governmental ("Heckuva job, Brownie") and the fact that they don’t believe in government. The simplest purposes of government have long been defined for us—to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. It is, or should be, a benign enterprise, making life better for citizens.

I carry no special brief for government—many years of studying the Texas Legislature will disenchant anyone. But if you are put in charge of government, the least you can do is run it well. Bill Clinton took government seriously—he was interested in how to make it work better, interested in government policy. Clinton declared the era of Big Government over and indeed pruned the federal structure and finished with a surplus. Bush is giving us fat, bloated, inefficient, corrupt government, all of it running on a huge deficit—not counting the expense and growing body count in Iraq. As the man said: “2,500 is just a number.”

To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
Copyright © 2006 Truthdig, L.L.C

Shill Wind

All of Washington's political reporters read ABC's The Note. That's why they keep missing the story.

By Eric Boehlert

In the spring of 2005, a story came along that was so important, so history-altering that it threatened to revive a killer press instinct that had been dormant for the previous four years. Of course, it helped that it was a Clinton-flavored scandal: That May, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's former campaign finance director, David Rosen, went on trial for his handling of a 2000 fundraiser staged in Hollywood to benefit Clinton's campaign for the U.S. Senate. Rosen was accused of hiding, or underreporting, $800,000 worth of costs. At the time, CNN political editor John Mercurio suggested that Rosen's funny money trial "reminds people of Whitewater" and the "sleazy side of the Clinton administration that [Hillary] and the president are both trying to forget."

Taking the lead in trumpeting the importance of the Rosen trial was ABC's The Note. An inside-baseball daily tip sheet for a readership it has dubbed the "Gang of 500" (politicians, lobbyists, consultants, and journalists who help shape the Beltway's public agenda), The Note is posted online every weekday morning and is widely viewed as the agenda-setter for the political class. On 14 different days between May 2 and 27, The Note posted cumulatively nearly forty links to Rosen-related articles, calling them "must-read." A typical Note entry came on May 10, highlighting "The opening and closing paragraphs in Dick Morris' New York Post column--perfectly explaining why the David Rosen story is going to be with us for a while."

On the day before the Rosen verdict, The Note listed "Waiting for the Rosen verdict" as the number-one priority among the Gang of 500. The next day, a federal jury acquitted Rosen of any wrongdoing. How did The Note handle this news about the trial it had hyped? By ignoring it. The next edition of The Note included a long round-up of must-reads from the Memorial Day weekend. Rosen's not-guilty verdict was not among them.

The abrupt disappearance of the story shouldn't have surprised close readers of The Note, which ABC's website has posted publicly since January 2002. In theory, what drives The Note is anything that's generating Beltway buzz. "We try to channel what the chattering class is chattering about, and to capture the sensibility, ethos, and rituals of the Gang of 500," Mark Halperin, ABC's political director and founder of The Note, once explained. Too often, though, The Note's definition of buzz has been whatever Beltway Republicans are chattering about. The Note has been nourished on an era of total Republican rule. It shows.

Too cool for school

The first thing you notice about The Note is that it sounds like it's written by high school students. Smart high school students--really smart students, even--but nevertheless teenagers who crack themselves up with their wit, rely on hard-to-decipher references to up their hip insider quotient, and have a penchant for words like "ginormous" and multiple exclamation points. Cutesy, creepy, and relentlessly effusive towards the media elite, The Note confirms the old adage that life really is like high school, with The Note filling the role of cheerleader-meets-yearbook editor, keeping tabs on where the cool kids are eating lunch, what they're wearing, and who's having the big party this weekend. In The Note's eyes, Beltway reporters are wonderfully talented, and everyone deserves a raise (e.g., "Will New York Times management recognize how great [reporter] Anne Kornblut is and act accordingly?")

No doubt this incestuous and over-the-top backslapping is meant to be taken somewhat tongue-in-cheek. (The Note does boast a sense of humor.) But after a while, the compliments--the egregious stroking of the press--become so pervasive that readers suspect The Note actually believes the press valentines, that New York Times columnist John Tierney is "successful and dashing," that his colleague Adam Nagourney is a "poet/historian," that former U.S. News & World Report's Roger Simon flashes "brilliance, élan, and grace," that the work of Time's Mike Allen is "indescribably delicious," that Newsday's Glenn Thrush is "super savvy and smart," and that "Time's [former managing editor] Jim Kelly is more powerful than all but 23 United States Senators." (If you were truly in the know, The Note implies, you'd know exactly which 23 they mean.)

Interestingly, although the tone of The Note is often too-cool-for-school, it never crosses over into actually being edgy. In fact, The Note doesn't mock conventional wisdom so much as idolize it. It's been dismissive of Democrats, reluctant to dwell on Bush's second-term collapse, eager to dwell on Terri Schiavo (at first), scornful of the Downing Street memo, uninterested in Iraq, nostalgic for Clinton-era scandals, fearful of Republican attacks, and generally awestruck by the Bush White House and its galaxy of all-stars. (According to The Note, Mike Gerson may just be the "greatest presidential speechwriter of all time.") "To read ABC News's 'The Note,'" wrote The Nation's Eric Alterman, "is to enter a world in which the President and his advisers are treated in a manner not unlike the way US Weekly treats 'Brad and Jen.' "

To suggest The Note is enamored of GOP talking points is no exaggeration. From July 15, 2005: "Who wrote (and edited) the latest very awesome Republican talking points defending Rove that address the Novak situation and much more?" "Hats off to the White House communication team for handling the run-up and staging of this so well," The Note wrote glowingly of the White House decision to stage a meeting between members of the 9/11 Commission and Bush. As for a White House-led public relations blitz designed to improve the tattered image of Saudi Arabia, The Note cheered, "The scheme you came up with is so clever, we think it should be used as a case study in political campaign management schools."

In The Note's view, right-wing writers are reasoned, savvy, and powerful players. Indeed, the best way to get a read on Democrats is to pay attention to what conservative columnists are saying about them. Favorites include John Podhoretz at the New York Post (who labeled Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean a "lunatic leftist") and the "must-readable" New York Times's David Brooks, crowned by The Note as "the best columnist today writing about the Democratic Party" (Like Podhoretz, Brooks regularly ridicules Democrats.) Syndicated columnist Bob Novak and the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes are hailed by The Note as wise men whose work should not be missed.

Meanwhile, liberal counterparts to such partisans are either ignored or mocked. The Times's Frank Rich, arguably the most influential liberal columnist in the country, essentially does not exist in the pages of The Note. The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne, another potent and powerful voice on the left, should be read, according to The Note, simply to get "a window into what anti-Bush liberals are now all thinking inside their brains."

Bubblicious

All of this backslapping and cheerleading might just be a particularly cloying incarnation of the Beltway media bubble. But The Note doesn't just comment on the goings-on of politics; it also helps set the coverage. For at least the past year, The Note's judgment of what constitutes a major story and what doesn't has been alarmingly off.

Let's begin in March of 2005. The Note was all onboard for the Terri Schiavo saga, at one point linking to twenty separate Schiavo stories in one day. It also thought Republicans had themselves a winning issue with the right-to-life story: "The Republican leadership seems to have succeeded in framing the discourse around a moral question." At the same time, on March 21, The Note's parent, ABC News, released the findings from a Schiavo poll that found 67 percent of Americans thought elected officials were acting for political advantage rather than for the principles involved. The Note did its best to spin the results in favor of the White House, writing that the Republican intervention in the Schiavo matter had been met with "some public opposition." Only in the 2005 Beltway media environment could a controversial GOP initiative that was rejected by a broad cross-section of Americans--including 58 percent of self-identified conservative Republicans--be described as having been met with "some public opposition."

Two days later, detecting widespread mainstream criticism of the Republicans' heavy-handed intervention, The Note reported it was "perhaps the beginning of a media backlash." [Emphasis added.] When Bush's own poll numbers began an immediate decline in the wake of the Schiavo intervention--dropping seven points in seven days, according to one national survey--editors at The Note scratched their heads, declaring it was impossible to figure out "what exactly accounts for the President's droopy poll numbers."

The Note's tin-ear problem continued in September, amid the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. As Bush's job approval ratings plunged to new lows, The Note reported that the White House was winning the spin war: "Mr. Bush still hasn't found his footing or his voice on this story, but his side clearly won the last news cycle in raw political terms." That same day, though, pollster John Zogby reported that Bush's job approval rating had just hit the lowest mark of his entire presidency. The following week, The Note belatedly acknowledged that "living with [approval] ratings in the 40s is White House reality for now." The truth was, based on ABC's own polling, that the White House had been living with approval ratings in the 40s for five months. The post-Katrina news was that Bush had tumbled into the 30s. The Note was oblivious.

One month later, it also appeared to miss the Oct. 6 CBS poll that reported Bush's approval rating hitting a new low. On the two days after the poll was released, The Note linked to nearly one hundred must-reads, but not to the CBS report. When an astonishing October poll from NBC revealed that just 2 percent of African-Americans approved of Bush's job performance, The Note ignored that, too. (Months earlier, though, The Note had passed along the conventional wisdom that the Republican outreach effort to minority voters "will probably bear fruit.")

In November, The Washington Post reported its latest polling data, showing that the political advantages the Republican Party had built up since 9/11 regarding a whole host of issues--Iraq, Social Security, taxes, spending, and ethics--had completely evaporated. The poll also found that Democrats had opened a gaping 17-point lead in a poll that asked Americans which party they intended to vote for during the 2006 congressional elections. The Note, whose only real editorial mission is to chronicle the ups and downs of the two major parties, completely ignored the Post's report.

Wrapping up a year in which The Note seemed to be on a different news planet from the rest of the country, in March of 2006, the publication weighed in on the biggest political topic of the moment: the Dubai ports deal that was once again driving down the president's poll numbers. 72 percent of Americans said they were following the story on the news. The Note's comment on the controversy was this: "Port security: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz (If you expected The Note to report on the meaning of the flap, the delay, the brouhaha, the whole thing--you expected wrong. Wake us when it's over.)" The Note had better things to talk about: "the sleep habits of [Time magazine's] Mike Allen."

Ginormously wrong

For all this deference to RNC talking points, The Note undoubtedly wishes to avoid being a tool of any party. It isn't FOX News, after all, and few of its staffers are right-wing partisans. Why, then, has The Note been so pliable?

Part of the explanation is specific to The Note: it's young, and, more than most media outlets, it's a product of the Bush era. Starting off as a purely internal rundown of the day's must-read stories for staffers at ABC's political news team, The Note first became public in January 2002. This was, of course, shortly after a national calamity, and criticism of the president was understandably muted. But such restraint may well have helped shape journalistic habits that would carry over into less exceptional times. Without any pre-Bushian institutional memory, The Note had no obvious alternative to itself.

But most of the reasons for The Note's effective, if inadvertent, RNC shilling have to do with broader factors affecting the mainstream media in general. These include a consolidated media landscape in which owners are multinational corporations, many of which share interests with the GOP. Equally important has been a tight Republican grip on Congress and the White House, which, combined with hardball tactics, has allowed Republicans to intimidate the press corps. Adding to the chorus has been a deep-pocketed right-wing noise machine ready to pounce on any traces of "bias," which has caused the press to veer defensively to the right. (The Note frets whenever Rush Limbaugh takes issue with its work but scoffs whenever liberal critics do the same.) And journalists, despite their reputation for leftish politics, understand that advancing their careers will be difficult if they're perceived as being overtly left or contemptuous of Republicans. By contrast, being tough on Democrats ups their credibility and is rewarded.

By now, over a year into a second Bush term with almost three more to go, the consequences of media blindness and timidity--and the role of outlets like The Note in perpetuating it--have become clear enough. Counteracting it, however, is a different matter. Clearly, he-said, she-said conventions of reporting are inadequate when "he-said" is fact and "she-said" is fiction. And allowing the loudest partisans to set the parameters of debate can result in a very skewed view of left and right. Coming up with a remedy won't be easy. Meanwhile, though, journalists looking for guidance might want to cut down on The Note and think about whether it really plugs them in or simply perpetuates the problem. Sure, The Note is an indispensable guide to the chatter of the GOP. This has been interesting and helpful for the Gang of 500. It just hasn't done much good for the rest of us.

Copyright © 2006
The Washington Monthly

Lieberman Vs. the Democrats

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, June 21, 2006; A21

Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman is as seasoned a pol as anyone can find, but he seems to have forgotten the very purpose of elections.

In a remarkable interview he recently gave to The Post's David S. Broder [op-ed, June 18], the Democrats' 2000 vice presidential nominee sounded appalled that his fellow Democrats might, in his state's upcoming August primary, reject his reelection bid because he doesn't think his party should criticize the president on the conduct of the Iraq war. (By most indications, his primary opponent, businessman Ned Lamont, is mounting a strong challenge.)

"I know I'm taking a position that is not popular within the party," Lieberman told Broder, "but that is a challenge for the party -- whether it will accept diversity of opinion or is on a kind of crusade or jihad of its own to have everybody toe the line. No successful political party has ever done that."

That's a rather stunning assertion. If parties were based on the acceptance of diversity of opinion on the most important issues of the day, they would lack the definition to be parties at all. And the conduct and duration of our involvement in Iraq is, by the measure of every single poll, the No. 1 issue in the minds of the American people -- a majority of whom believe that the Bush administration has botched the war about as badly as a war can be botched.

Now, maybe I've had this backward all my life, but I thought that elections were held to enable voters to choose between candidates espousing different points of view on the most important issues. Lieberman seems to believe that elections exist to enable voters not to choose -- indeed, to "accept diversity of opinion." And that if voters have the temerity to go ahead and choose anyway, they have crossed the line between party and sect in their zeal "to have everybody toe the line."

Toe the line? On Iraq? The Democrats? What line would that be? Last week, when the Republican leadership in the House brought forth a resolution that rejected setting a timetable for withdrawing troops and that called the war an integral part of the fight against global terrorism, 42 Democrats voted yes and 149 Democrats voted no. This week two groups of Democratic senators have introduced rival resolutions on Iraq policy in the Senate: one calling for the withdrawal of most ground troops by July 1, 2007, and the other calling on the president to begin phased redeployment of troops by the end of this year.

Whatever the Democrats' flaws, moving in lock step on Iraq isn't one of them. Indeed, the Republicans seem to have concluded that the uniformity of their own message on Iraq -- unpopular though it may be -- plays better than the Democrats' cacophony.

Lieberman's problem is not that he faces expulsion from a sect but that he has chosen to stand outside what remains a big, messy tent of a party. Moreover, he seems to have reversed the roles that the two parties play when it comes to Iraq.

By criticizing the president on the war, he has said, the Democrats are playing partisan politics. His opponent, Lieberman told Broder, criticized him for breaking "Democratic unity. . . . Well, dammit, I wasn't thinking about Democratic unity. It was a moment to put the national interest above partisan interest."

How's that again? To criticize Bush on the war is partisan, while refusing to criticize Bush on the war affirms the national interest? That's taking a rather partisan -- a pro-Bush partisan -- view of the national interest. Lieberman is surely right that one party has exploited the war for partisan gain, but that party is the GOP. From forcing through a resolution authorizing the war on the eve of the 2002 elections to last week's vote in the House, the Republicans have continually used the war to play gotcha with any Democrats from swing states or districts with the guts to dissent from the administration's non-reality-based view of the conflict.

In talking with Broder, Lieberman also expressed a kind of wry nostalgia for the pre-primary days when political bosses could assemble slates of candidates essentially by themselves. But the last stand of the bosses came in 1968, when machine-appointed delegates to the Democratic National Convention nominated Hubert Humphrey for president even though the voters in those states that had held primaries had favored the anti-Vietnam War candidacies of Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy. Thereafter, delegates in every state were selected in primaries and caucuses, as party leaders concluded that voters would demand -- and even deserved -- a say on issues as fundamental as Vietnam. To Joe Lieberman's apparent dismay, Iraq is just such an issue, and the voters of his state are just irresponsible enough to judge him on it.

meyersonh@washpost.com

© 2006 The Washington Post Company