Archive Listing
June 17, 2005 - June 10, 2005

Thursday, July 29, 2004

THE BUSH TWINS. This time the rightwingers lose. Fair is fair and our three-punk panel of judges have agreed unanimously that the first prize winner in our contest to caption the photo above goes to an entrant who is clearly no fan of the president or his daughters. But that's the thing about humor; it is no respecter of politics or particular political views. We had many entries from both sides of the aisle, and the pro-Bush crowd scored their share of decent punchlines. We also had ambitious contestants who were trying to write "outside the box" as the current argot goes. One submitted a pair of captions averaging 50 words apiece. One preferred to caption the Vogue fashion photo rather than the contest picture. And one hit on the novel idea of writing a caption for the president instead of his daughters. Since this entry was within the contest parameters (barely), unique in its viewpoint, and passably funny, we decided to award it an Honorable Mention. Here it is:


Our Third Place winner leads a group of entries who see the twins as unexpectedly bright bulbs:


Second Place goes to this little partisan gem:


As we mentioned above, First Place goes to an entrant who doesn't seem to care for the Bushes. The difficulty the panel faced was not in choosing him as the winner, but in deciding which of three captions was the best. As it happened, each of the judges selected a different one of the three as best overall. So we're going to share them all with you, in no particular order:


First prize, as promised, will be an autographed copy of The Boomer Bible. Whatever his political views, the recipient should nevertheless find much to laugh at and agree with in the book, which tends to treat almost everyone with equal disrespect. At any rate, we hope you enjoy it.

Second prize is a Shuteye Train T-shirt.

Third prize is a Boomer Bible Ball Cap.

All winners will be notified by email, so that we can arrange to send the materials to correct mailing addresses.

Thanks to everyone who participated. We enjoyed reading the entries, and many were as amusing as some of them were, well, not amusing. Maybe we'll do it again sometime.

Now... back to the exciting conclusion of the Democratic Convention....

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Mother Teresa

A BIG NIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY. There were some real heavy hitters at the convention Tuesday night, but they'd been told to leave the loaded gloves at home, so we got pale, sanitized imitations of Teddy Kennedy, Dick Gephardt, Tom Dashle, and Howard Dean. The singular source of all their hatred was, by DNC edict, forbidden to be mentioned by name. This gave Dubya something of the stature of Yahweh -- he whose name may not be uttered lest thunder and lightning consume the speaker from on high. Only Dean seemed as if he could barely restrain himself from unleashing the stupefying left hook he became famous for on the campaign trail. At times, his face twisted briefly into the familiar grimace, and more than once he began listing individual states, which is the trademark sign of an incipient Dean psychotic episode. But the heavy hand of enforced pretended civility prevented him, in the end, from giving the delegates what all of them yearn for like so many thirst-maddened vampires -- the feast of Bush blood that substitutes in their lives for the light of the sun.

That may help explain why the convention crowd reacted so fervently to the evening's featured speaker, Ms. Teresa Heinz Kerry, who appeared before them as a vision in red and buoyed their hopes with an accent that really could have originated in Transylvania, though some of us also detected a soupcon of Gabor glamour and maybe half a cup of Garbo hyper-theatricality. The speech had been billed as an opportunity for us ordinary Americans to get Ms. Heinz Kerry's inside insight into the charm and gravitas of John Kerry, but thankfully, we were spared the tedium such an approach would have ensured. Instead, the queen of the night chose to tell us practically everything she could think of about Teresa Heinz Kerry. Was it a prescient gratitude for the non-John-Kerryness of her remarks that caused the delegates to mount such a prolonged and evidently spontaneous demonstration upon her entrance? Or was there some subterranean,Transylvanian-esque telepathy that inspired every single delegate on the floor to think of exactly the same placard -- color-keyed to the lady's costume -- to hoist and wave as they adored her greatness?

Alas, such questions can only be answered in full by Democrats. The rest of us must piece together what partial answers we can infer from evidence such as the speech script itself. That's why we labored mightily to copy down as much as we could of it from the TV before the pencils dropped from our numbed and exhausted fingers about 40 minutes in. So all we have for your persual is the beginning, but it speaks for itself, we think. Here is a great personage waxing eloquent on her own favorite and most admired great personage. It's enough to make one fall mute with astonishment. To set the scene: her son Christopher introduces her, she enters, the crowd goes wild, and then she begins to speak:

KERRY: Tank you. Tank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Tank you. I love you, too.

Tank you.

Tank you, Christopher. Your [INAUDIBLE] would be [INAUDIBLE] of you and [INAUDIBLE].

(APPLAUSE)

And I love you. And I love our [INAUDIBLE].

My name is Teresa Heinz Kerry.

(APPLAUSE)

KERRY: And by now, I hope [INAUDIBLE] no surprise that I have something to say.

(APPLAUSE)

And tonight, as I [INAUDIBLE] campaign, I would like [INAUDIBLE] you from my heart. For all you Latinos, el libro está en la mesa y el telefono fue inventado por [INAUDIBLE] Bell...

(APPLAUSE)

... for all you Franco-Americans, la plume de ma [INAUDIBLE] tante est dans la salle de bain, [INAUDIBLE], n'est-ce pas...

(APPLAUSE)

.. for all you Italian Americans, e puo far portari su i [INAUDIBLE] bagagli, per favore, e posso avere un altro [INAUDIBLE] asciugamano...

(APPLAUSE)

... for all you Portuguese Americans, [INAUDIBLE] um cerveza se faz favor, onde e lavabo...

(APPLAUSE)

... and for all you African-Americans, yo jimmy hat be [INAUDIBLE] fly!

(APPLAUSE)

This is a much powerful moment for me. Like many other [INAUDIBLE] like many of you, and like even more your [INAUDIBLE] and grandparents, I was not borned in this country.

And as you will have seen, I [INAUDIBLE] in East Africa, in Mozambique, in a land that [INAUDIBLE] a dictatorship. My father, a wonderful, caring man who [INAUDIBLE] for 43 years, and who taught me how to understand [INAUDIBLE], only got to [INAUDIBLE] for the first time when he was 73 years old.

KERRY: That's what [INAUDIBLE] dictatorships.

As a young woman, I [INAUDIBLE] University in Johannesburg, South Africa, which was then not segregated.

But I [INAUDIBLE] Apartheid everywhere around me. And so with my [INAUDIBLE] marched in the streets of Johannesburg against [INAUDIBLE] higher education.

(APPLAUSE)

This was the late 1950s at the dawn of [INAUDIBLE] America. And, as history records, [INAUDIBLE] South Africa failed, and the Higher Education [INAUDIBLE] passed. Apartheid tightened its [INAUDIBLE] Nelson Mandela [INAUDIBLE] to Robben Island.

I learned something [INAUDIBLE] still. There is a value in talking [INAUDIBLE] anybody may be noticing it, and whether [INAUDIBLE] to do.

(APPLAUSE)

KERRY: And if even those who are in danger can raise their [INAUDIBLE], isn't it more that is [INAUDIBLE] us, in this land where[INAUDIBLE] birth?

I have a very personal feeling about how [INAUDIBLE] America is, and I know how precious [INAUDIBLE] a sacred gift, [INAUDIBLE] who have lived it and [INAUDIBLE] defending it.

(APPLAUSE)

My right to speak my mind, to [INAUDIBLE], to be what some have called "opinionated"...

(APPLAUSE)

... is a right I deeply and [INAUDIBLE] cherish.

HEINZ: And my only hope is that [INAUDIBLE] women, who have all earned their right to their opinions...

(APPLAUSE)

... instead of being labeled [INAUDIBLE] will be called smart and [INAUDIBLE], just like men.

She went on like that for quite a while -- quite a very long while, in fact -- and eventually she even mentioned her husband. She admitted frankly and candidly that she was married to him and that she was aware he was running for president. At some point in there, we could swear she was quoting Lincoln, or trying to quote Lincoln, or translating Lincoln into Portuguese, but whatever it was, everyone in the Fleet Center was profoundly moved.

You would have been moved too if you had been there. Almost certainly. We think.

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Monday, July 26, 2004

OUR FRIENDLY UNCLES. The big three networks have decided that covering the conventions is less important than showing us reruns of people eating worms and undergoing total head rebuilds on so-called "Reality TV." This has left the three ancient network anchormen stranded, like the beached (and overpaid) whales they are. Even The New York Times has felt it necessary to document their humiliation:

This has left the anchors seeking new ways to stand out on a landscape that has changed vastly since Mr. Rather, 72, Mr. Jennings, 65, and Mr. Brokaw, 64, covered their first conventions in 1956, 1964 and 1968, respectively.

In a particularly uncomfortable moment, the three men found themselves on the wrong end of a lecture on Sunday about their networks' paltry convention plans in a panel discussion at Harvard University. Stern words came from the PBS anchor Jim Lehrer and the CNN anchor Judy Woodruff, both of whom work for networks that are offering many more hours of coverage.

"We're about to elect a president of the United States at a time when we have young people dying in our name overseas, we just had a report from the 9/11 commission which says we are not safe as a nation, and one of these two groups of people is going to run our country,'' Mr. Lehrer said. "The fact that you three networks decided it was not important enough to run in prime time, the message that gives the American people is huge.''

As the lecture hall echoed with applause and the three men bristled, Mr. Lehrer added, "As a citizen, it bothers me.''

The three anchors of the biggest networks - whose newscasts' combined audience of nearly 30 million still dwarfs that of cable news - were hardly in a position to disagree.

Chances are, they'll still be cashing their paychecks even though none of them had the cojones to stand up to the whoremasters in news management.

Saturday, July 24, 2004

THE CHOSEN. Few things raise our Celtic ire more than watching and listening to all the talking heads -- the political pundits of our day -- ignoring a very simple historical fact that spins around the periphery of our current discussion of the Iraq War, most notably the roles of Senators Kerry and Edwards. Senator Kerry's unchallenged doubletalk when asked if he is in favor of the war in Iraq is a constant reminder of the interviewers' failure to pursue the invisible question at the center of the war debate.

Let's start at the beginning. The President does not declare war. The Constitution of the United States assigns the responsibility to declare war to the legislative branch, defined in Article I, Section 8; Clause 11, "To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water." Article II, Section 2; Clause 1 of the Constitution gives the task of waging war to the executive branch of our government. It states, "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States." Thus it falls to the President to carry out all declared wars on behalf of the United States and its citizens. These two parts of our constitution function in a very special way. First, they place the military power of the United States under civilian rule. Second, they divide the authority to commit and command these forces. Now why was this done?

Well, interestingly enough, the founders seemed to think that an executive, say, the Commander in Chief, might become overly ambitious and cavalierly dispose of the lives of U.S. citizens and U.S. treasure if he could go wherever he pleased with whatever force he desired. They had seen enough of this in the principalities and kingdoms of Europe. So they ensured that no war could be fought by the United States without the legislative branch of the government declaring one. Then, and only then, can the executive branch proceed to wage war.

On December 8, 1941, Congress did just that. President Roosevelt asked for and Congress granted a declaration of war. It is brief enough to be set here for your review:


Three days later, the same declaration of war was issued against Germany, as follows:


Thus began World War II as far as the United States was concerned.

The war against Iraq under President George W. Bush has not been so clear. Something very strange was done. Congress, in what would become Public Law No: 107-243, wasn't as straightforward. The Congress worked from October 2, 2002 through October 16, 2002 on House Joint Resolution 114 ("HJRes114"), which can be read HERE.

Much more lawyerly than the World War II declarations, HJRes114 winds through a series of WHEREAS clauses that recite how we got here from Iraq's aggressive foray into Kuwait in 1990. It states that "the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated." It reminisces about those halcyon days in 1998 where, in Public Law 105-235 (August 14, 1998), "Congress concluded that Iraq's continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international peace and security, declared Iraq to be in `material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations' and urged the President `to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations.'" (It reminds us of those awful insurance policy forms that are incomprehensible to any normal human being.)

And there is more from the golden Clinton years -- regime change. That's right. It is Public Law 105-338 (October 31, 1998), which "expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime." Congress has a sense? What does that mean?

There is sooo much more. Such as:


It even cites the United Nations' Resolution 678 authorizing the use of all necessary means to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 660 (1990) and subsequent relevant resolutions.

This long WHEREAS section concludes with "Whereas it is in the national security interests of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region."

This means War! Right? Well, not exactly. It means that the House and Senate jointly resolve to support diplomatic efforts and the use of United States Armed Forces. Both? Yes, both. How does this work?

Well, it works like Section 3 (b) says it works in big, bold letters:


Presidential determination? What the hell is that? Did we miss this in the Constitution?

What it means is that Congress abdicated its duty under Article I, Section 8; Clause 11 of the U.S. Constitution to declare war. Who did it give the care of this duty to? That's right, President George W. Bush. So, instead of Congress weighing the evidence and declaring war on a hostile nation, it spent nearly a week wrestling with the problem only to hand it back to the President and say, "Whatever you think."

You'd think that if a guy was willing to give away the store like this, he'd have to be pretty convinced it was time to go to war. Well, why not say that? Because if things don't work out as you hope they will, nobody can blame you. After all, you can say "PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION" meant whatever you want to say it meant for years to come.

But that was way back in October of 2002. We're now in 2004 and boy-oh-boy are the guys that voted for Public Law No: 107-243 mad, especially Senators Kerry and Edwards, the very guys that voted for this thing.

If Senators Kerry and Edwards ceded their right to declare war to the Executive Branch and have proceeded to say that the Executive Branch unwisely took the country to war, the central issue has to be: Why did they cede their constitutional authority to such a man - a man they speak of as if they never regarded him as fit for the role of commander-in-chief?

Can't somebody ask them why "PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION" seemed like such a great idea in 2002 and is such a dreadful idea now? Can we expect more constitutionally challenged decisions like this from them in the future or was this just a one-time thing?

Friday, July 23, 2004

SWARTHMORON OF THE WEEK. It's been a rocky road of late for cartoonist Garry Trudeau, who has had a long and celebrated career with the comic strip Doonesbury. Used to unending praise, he's probably found it difficult to accept that his time in the sun may finally be passing. But the spring and summer of 2004 have pestered the great man with slaps, spats and downright disrespect, and he has begun to react with irritation.

What is it that got under his skin? Was it the nagging rumor that he's too high and mighty to draw his own cartoons, which resurfaced as recently as April of this year, when all the attention was supposed to be on poor B.D.'s war wound?

I guess everyone now knows that "Doonesbury" character B.D. is going to have his leg amputated. If not, let me spoil the surprise.

Garry Trudeau, the strip's author (but not illustrator), wants us all to understand that bad things happen in war, and that people make big sacrifices.

Thanks for the tip. I had no idea.

Personally, I don't think a cartoon leg is much of a sacrifice.

When I first read the item, I thought, "Gee, that sucks." Then I remembered I had stopped reading "Doonesbury" in the Eighties. About fifteen years after Trudeau hired a beard to do all the drawing for him...

In case you're wondering why I mentioned the fact that Trudeau doesn't draw "Doonesbury," it's because he doesn't credit the artist who does the work. Nice, huh?...

I've been checking around the web, and I found out Trudeau denies that his inker, Don Carlson, draws the strip. Trudeau claims it's a false rumor that came from an "Entertainment Weekly" story. Funny, I believe I read it in a cartoonist trade magazine back in the Eighties. I probably still have the issue.

Or was it the sudden appearance of articles that suggested Trudeau had lost his satirical edge and his sense of humor to boot? He couldn't have enjoyed reading critiques like this one in the July issue of Reason Online:

Trudeau's career arc mirrors the evolution of baby-boom liberalism, from the anti-authoritarian skepticism of the 1970s to the smug paternalism of the Clinton years. In 1972 the strip was engaged with the world; in 2002 it is engaged with itself.

I mean that literally. In 1972 Doonesbury rewarded intelligence; in 2002 it rewards familiarity with its own mythology and conventions. In 1972 it trusted readers to know the politics and pop culture of the day; in 2002 it trusts us to understand that a floating waffle represents Bill Clinton, a floating bomb represents Newt Gingrich, and a floating asterisk represents George W. Bush. The strip has grown so self-referential that it makes jokes about its own self-referentiality, with Sunday strips devoted to charting the relationships among the characters. And so Doonesbury folds in upon itself, and Trudeau ends up producing his own fan fiction.

Which is worse? Shots like that from the intelligentsia or brickbats from the peanut gallery like this one from May?

Mr. T, well-known lefty author of a very well done political strip, decided to pitch a hissy-fit, en francais, in his Sunday strip.

Mr. T pretends to express the outrage of Franco-Americans all over the country at the frog-bashing of recent days.

Hmm....

Evidence has been piling up for days of illegal weapons collaboration and outright espionage, through which the French assisted in Saddam's accumulation of military equipement banned by the sacred UN Security Council, and kept Saddam up to date on everything they (the French) knew about what the US was up to during the runup to the war.

All, it appears, in return for contracts of various sorts and illegal sweet deals for oil.

Perhaps this was not the time to rise up in fake frog outrage in defense of all Franco-Americans.

Who knows? Perhaps it has been some combination of all these factors that caused M. Trudeau to boil over. At any rate, he started letting off steam in mid-July about -- who else? -- his old Yale classmate George W. Bush:

Trudeau('s) first cartoon illustrated an article in the Yale Daily News on Bush, then a senior, and allegations that his fraternity had hazed incoming pledges by branding them with an iron. This... caused The New York Times to interview Bush, who (in Trudeau's memory) told the Times "it was just a coat hanger, and ... it didn't hurt any more than a cigarette burn." Trudeau quipped: "On doit penser ce qu'est sa vue d'ensemble de la torture aujours d'hui."

And that's not all he had to say about Bush. The same article in Editor & Publisher quotes these pungent remarks from a Rolling Stone interview:

Shortly after this little explosion, the beleaguered cartoonist experienced the unkindest cut of all, also reported in Editor & Publisher:


Naturally, M. Trudeau could not be silent about this outrage. He responded with great heat yesterday:


Is it just us, or does Trudeau seem a bit out of touch with his audience in these remarks? Nothing we can put our finger on, but some, you know, je ne sais quoi that makes him appear distant, even cold. We hope he finds a way to get over it. Or not.

Thursday, July 22, 2004