DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

“26 members of Congress criticized CBS for rejecting the [MoveOn.org commercial].”

“Apparently, [CBS] is more comfortable with dirty old men than innocent kids.”

The “Center for American Progress” has published a document called State of the Union Response to point out over 20 misrepresentations in Bush’s speech. Did Bush lie, or is this politics-as-usual? You be the judge.

The State of the Union speech was a slickly spun piece of PR. I wish the opposition could have had someone stand up afterwards to offer a televised rebuttal. Sure, it’s understandable that Bush’s speech was basically an advertisement for the current administration. In my opinion, the American president should be held — and should hold him or herself — to a higher standard.

I didn’t intend to repeat Wes Clark’s campaign slogan there (“A Higher Standard of Leadership”)… this is really how I feel. No president should be allowed to twist the truth like Bush has. Here’s just one example: Bush said, “Jobs are on the rise.” That depends on your perspective. Since Bush took office, 2.3 million jobs have been lost, according to Calvin Woodward of the AP. So Bush’s speech makes a great soundbite, and his claim would hold up in court once the Bush points out that he was referring to exactly one month of the last 36, but the message people heard has little to do with reality.

The official bio of US Attorney General John Ashcroft claims Ashcroft has pledged to “reduce the incidence of gun violence and combat discrimination so no American feels outside the protection of the law.”

Yet Ashcroft is a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, and once appeared on the cover of the NRA’s magazine, America’s 1st Freedom. The magazine described Ascroft as “a breath of fresh air to freedom-loving gun owners.”

How exactly does arming the populace reduce gun violence? It doesn’t follow. If you wanted to reduce gun violence, it seems to me the first thing you’d do is take away all the damn guns. But Ashcroft opposed a ban on the sale of assault weapons.

According to Vanity Fair, Ashcroft is as dishonest about discrimination as he is about gun control. VF quotes Ashcroft’s interrogation of nominees to the federal courts: “What in the Constitution guarantees rights to homosexuals?” His question seems to imply that gays don’t qualify as Americans — that they’d need to be specifically mentioned in the Constitution, else they don’t inherit the same rights as non-gays. I think it’s safe to say that in Ashcroft’s America, just about all gays would feel “outside the protection of the law.”

Here’s another great quote from the Vanity Fair piece:

When, in 1985, a young man named Paul Offner applied for the job of head of Missouri’s social services, Offner tells me, [then-governor] Ashcroft said, without preamble, “Mr. Offner, let me start by asking you if you have the same sexual preference as most men.”

If that’s not discrimination, then I guess I don’t know what discrimination is.

Well, this is disturbing.

When President Bush travels around the United States, the Secret Service visits the location ahead of time and orders local police to set up “free speech zones” or “protest zones,” where people opposed to Bush policies (and sometimes sign-carrying supporters) are quarantined. These zones routinely succeed in keeping protesters out of presidential sight and outside the view of media covering the event. (Source: How the Secret Service protects Bush from free speech)

Why is it disturbing, other than the loathsome same-old-same-oldness of it all?

1. This has been going on for at least six months, yet this is the first I’ve heard of it. I read Google’s news page and the SF Chronicle daily. I skim the NYTimes and LA Times frequently. I’m not uninformed. And yet a story as ugly as this has escaped my attention. Is the media complicit with its own manipulation? I guess the media isn’t as liberal as conservatives claim.
2. I find the Bush administration’s sarcastic use of the term “free speech zone” despicable. Bush’s supporters are allowed to line the roadways, but dissenters are evacuated to a cage a half-mile away, far from the view of TV cameras. How is that “free speech?”

   The precedent of naming something for what it is not is an old Bush (or, really, Orwell) trick; it worked well with Bush’s “Clean Air” act. For my part, I’m not fooled… just disgusted.

3. What Bush is doing is probably unconstitutional. Imagine that, a US President ordering regular and frequent violations of the 1st Amendment. Then again, I shouldn’t assume Bush is aware of any of this. This is more likely the work of the puppet masters.

The obvious solution is to stealth-protest: show up at Bush’s next rally with pro-GOP signage, but then after the Secret Service has sanitized the crowd of dissenters, strip away the “more blood for oil” text (or whatever such a feel-good Bush rally sign would display — really, I can’t imagine) to reveal something more honest and heartfelt like “I’m about to be arrested for exercising my 1st Amendment right to assemble peaceably!”

I don’t mean to get all political, but if you think George W. Bush is a raving lunatic hell-bent on the destruction of the entire planet, you might be interested to know about MoveOn.org’s campaign to run television ads highlighting the President’s failed policies. (Now that I have broadband, I can download the videos in less time than it took MoveOn to film them.)

Today’s news: George Soros and a number of other wealthy people are pledging to match all MoveOn’s member contributions. For every dollar you give, Soros will give another fifty cents, up to $5M total.

Soros said some fascinating things: “America, under Bush, is a danger to the world.” And more foreboding: “My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitized me.”

I have no sense of what the middle of the country (i.e. Reno to Boston) feels about the issue. Out here on the left coast, everybody is so liberal that cursing this or that aspect of the Bush administration is like background noise, attenuated down to the point that you’d only notice it if it stopped. Or if he instituted some new atrocity, like cutting down yet another old-growth forest under the name of “Healthy Forests Initiative.” Sigh.

Anyway, I’m all for voter education. Put the perspectives on the table and let the voters decide for themselves.