Unintended consequences

When you search for a quick fix to a problem, you always run the risk of causing unintended harm. Such is the case with the bill President Bush recently signed into law that would fence 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. Intended to appease law-and-order conservatives, the bill is causing concern among Texas ranchers who live along the border. They're worried they'll lose farmland to the fence, be cut off from river water needed for irrigation and livestock, or even be fenced off from the rest of their country.

Too Many Secrets

Claims of "national security" have reached a new level of ridiculousness, recently. Not only does Bush have a secret plan to end the war in Iraq (according to Conrad Burns), apparently Dennis Hastert has a secret list of successors to the post of Speaker of the House. The list was created to "ensure a calm transition if terrorists were to hit the Hill" and of course Hastert's office won't let us see it because it's "a matter of national security." But it could determine who replaces Hastert if the page scandal forces him to resign. The names are assumed to be GOP loyalists hand-picked by Hastert; there's speculation that Doc Hastings (R-WA) might be on it. Hastings, the current Ethics Committee chairman, also happens to be in charge of the Foley investigation.

Liberal Eagle's top five

For the week ending October 20:

1. Elliott Smith, "Pretty (Ugly Before)"
2. Tom Waits, "Kommienezuspadt"
3. The Decemberists, "Summersong"
4. Bob Dylan, "The Levee's Gonna Break"
5. George Harrison, "All Things Must Pass"

To the doom prognosticators:

If your motivation for writing that the Democrats might, despite everything, lose is a reasoned and reasonable fear that they could in fact blow it, then you have every right to do so. Free speech and all.

But please do me a favor. If you're writing that the Democrats might lose just to be a contrarian, or so that if something does go wrong you'll look like the only smart one, I'd really sort of prefer it if you'd shut up until after the election.

Thank you.

Liberal Eagle's inaugural weekly top five

Hardly original to me, but I think at the end of every week I'm going to post what songs I'm particularly digging, here.

So, this time, it's:

1. Tom Waits, "Alice"
2. Guster, "Ramona"
3. Neko Case, "Hold On Hold On"
4. Suzanne Vega and DNA, "Tom's Diner"
5. Kings of Convenience, "Stay Out of Trouble"

World War II envy

For Christopher Hitchens, the war is apparently all about him.

It would seem, if this account of Hitchens's conduct is accurate, that the reason he's so gung-ho in favor of both the War In Iraq, and everything else Bush and co. have done in the name of "fighting terror," is a desperate need to feel like the modern equivalent of those brave steely-eyed anti-Nazi and anti-Communist voices who stood up to the evil bad guys when fainter hearts wanted to negotiate.

I believe it. I've always been a bit puzzled by the apparent belief, on the part of war supporters, that a handful of unwashed guys living in caves, however homicidal, and a two-bit dictator who had nothing to do with them are the modern equivalent of Hitler or Stalin. I'm sorry, but they're not, folks. It takes more than being a bad person to make you a Hitler-sized threat. You also have to have a lot more power and, frankly, much grander designs than these people have.

We have to deal with them, sure. But this is not 1939. This is not 1961.

And personally, I'm happy about that. While I'm not happy about things like 9/11, I'll take the modern geopolitical era over the terrifying conflicts of the mid-20th century.

But you always hear World War II and the Cold War invoked, the suggestion being that anyone who isn't in favor of our current military entanglements, who isn't wetting himself with fear on a daily basis, is an "appeaser" of Neville Chamberlain's stripe.

That's nonsense. And I always waver between two explanations. For Rumsfeld, when he makes that comparison, I do think he's just trying to manipulate us, pressing buttons he knows are powerful in order to stifle dissent.

But for people like Hitchens, the true believers, I really do think there's a longing to be remembered by history as one of the brave, clear-eyed realists who stood up to history's great chellenges, which creates a powerful incentive to see everything in stark, apocalyptic terms.

What's frightening is, I think Bush is in the second category. He wants to be Lincoln, he wants to be Truman, he wants to be one of those presidents. He wants it so badly that he's mentally turned Saddam into Hitler.

I'm unsettled by the notion that from the top down, the events of our era are being driven by people who have invented monsters so they can look cool slaying them.

And another thing...

Addendum, of sorts, to Gull's last post. Yeah--that Monitor article does really blow away the very idea that what Osama bin Laden wants more than anything is for us to pull out of Iraq. But I want to add that that was always a ridiculous notion, on the face of it.

Al Qaeda's stated goal, for as long as it's existed, has been to provoke a "holy war" between Islam and the west. Their theological basis for this is complex and best left to people who know much, much more about Islam than I do, but the idea that what they want now is for us to stop being mired in a hopeless war in an Arab Muslim country that is, by all accounts, driving Muslims into radicalism and anti-western violence by the thousands is, at best, logically indefensible.

"...prolonging the war is in our interests." -- Senior Al Qaeda leader

Next time you hear someone argue that a U.S. retreat from Iraq would only benefit Al Qaeda, consider this:

...a letter that has been translated and released by the US military indicates that Al Qaeda itself sees the continued American presence in Iraq as a boon for the terror network, which has recently shown signs of expanding into the Palestinian territories and North Africa.

"The most important thing is that the jihad continues with steadfastness ... indeed, prolonging the war is in our interest," says the writer, who goes by the name Atiyah. The letter, released last week, was recovered in the rubble of the Iraqi house where Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, former leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed by a US bomb in June.

If the letter is accurate, it provides a window into the group's strategic thinking on Iraq that differs starkly from the one the Bush administration has been expressing publicly - a view the president reiterated Wednesday when he said that Al Qaeda believes that "America is weak, and if they can kill enough innocent people we'll retreat. That's precisely what they want."

(Christian Science Monitor, How Al Qaeda views a long Iraq war)

It's not the crime...it's the tabloid headlines

For the record, I am not above being happy that Republicans are finally being called to account for something they did, and I do think covering up for a sexual predator, even one who appears not to have actually had sex with any of his victims or even tried very hard, is reprehensible and Hastert deserves to lose his rather enormous seat over all this.

But what is it with scandals with, at best, symbolic significance for most of us being the only ones the press is willing to notice?

The Bush-era Republicans lied us into a disastrous war and arguably committed crimes against the very idea of democracy in two presidential elections. And what finally blows up in their faces? A scandal with no broader policy implications whatsoever.

Richard Nixon waged secret war in Laos and Cambodia; the man committed multiple war crimes. So what brought him down? An incompetent burglary. A political petty trick.

I guess I'm saying, I just wish the American press was more interested in doing the people's business than in writing entertaining headlines.

GOP damage reports start to trickle in

The first polls that show the damage from the Foley scandal are starting to arrive. Electoral Vote notes today that the most recent SurveyUSA poll for New York's 26th District has Democrat Jack Davis leading incumbant Republican Tom Reynolds 50% to 45%. This was formerly considered a safe district, but Reynolds is deeply involved in the Foley scandal. He apparently knew of Foley's "overly friendly" emails to pages in 2005 . He's also the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, which has received over $100,000 from Foley in the time since Reynolds heard of the messages. The Committee has declined to return the money.