alternative hippopotamus

At 9:15 this morning I left my apartment in NW Washington. There’s no easy way of getting from my part of town to Georgetown University Hospital. The campus, which is part of the University complex, is on Reservoir Road, a few blocks from anywhere easy to get to. So, I took my bike. With some trepidation, I’ll add, when I did the same trip a month ago my bike was stolen. Not at the hospital complex, I reasoned, so this should be okay.

People watch the bike racks at Georgetown Hospital. Guards, sometimes, but you can see others standing conspicuously, making sure that your bike is safe. If you are at the hospital, it’s for a reason, and the last thing anyone wants to see is insult added to whatever injury you may be there for in the first place.

There’s a voicemail on my cellphone. It’s from my mother who has the worst cellphone in the universe. The message goes: “crackle, crackle, not, crackle, different, go the place, crackle, from last time.” I try to call back, but to save her phone’s battery, which dies out after a few minutes of the phone being turned on, my mother turns it off. Later, I suggested that she look into something that’s more like my cellphone, which saves power unless someone is calling you. She points out that her cellphone costs $10 a month, while mine costs $60. She has a point. If you really want to talk to someone, the truth is, you find a way.
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Ooh, a blogging thingy on the Onion website. Maybe the middle-aged slackers who run washingtonpost.com will start paying attention, and do as the Onionists do:

Bush: Maybe U.S. Military ‘Just Not Very Good’

WASHINGTON, DC —"Maybe our men and women overseas just aren’t what they’re cracked up to be," said the President Bush of the thorough lack of quality in personnel.

The point of the article is, of course, that a critical component of the Bush world view is that Bush can’t be wrong. Bush gets his wisdom from his gut, and his gut gets it from an omniscient Judeo-Christian being, with a lesser emphasis on the Judeo part.

I also wanted to mention that the Onion now distributes itself for free on the streets of downtown DC is likely to have an effect on the nature of our political discourse. It showed up in the spring, roughly at the same time Politico showed up. The cause and effect of that timing is beyond the abilities of this hippopotamus to explain.

Picture Dick Cheney sitting in a diner somewhere in NJ. Lynne Cheney walks in giggling, a well-thumbed copy of “Sister” under her arm. Liz Cheney enters, her mind in a whirl, caught between two worlds: foreign policy advisor to the McCain campaign, and her secret desire to be Rupert Murdoch’s dominatrix. Mary Cheney enters last, her newborn child she holds in one arm. The other she uses randomly to punch out customers in the diner.

They sit. Dick thumbs through entries on the vintage jukebox. He pauses at “1812 Overture. -A. Tchaikovsky.” A popular hit when he and Lynne began dating. Liz asks for onion rings. Dick has already ordered for the table, with extra DDT, just the way she likes them.

Then everything goes to black.

That’s my version of the story. Sally Quinn has a slightly less oblique version:

Cheney is scheduled this summer for surgery to replace his pacemaker, which needs new batteries. So if the president is willing, and Republicans are able, they have a convenient reason to replace him: doctor’s orders. And I’m sure the the vice president would also like to spend more time with his ever-expanding family.

The idea being that Cheney gets replaced by Fred Thompson, the country loves Republicans again, and everyone lives happily after.

I don’t really know that Cheney would go for something like that. I think Bush would, however. Like all presidents, he’s got to be thinking of his legacy. Right now, that legacy is to be the dumbest, lamest, most imcompetant, most partisan, most hated president in the history of the US. Add to that, the rest of the world likes him even less. Except for maybe Albania.

So, that’s something Bush would at least consider.

More: I was just reading Dan Froomkin’s White House Watch live on-line. Regarding the Washington Post series on Cheney, this is a pretty darned good question:

St. Catharines, Ontario: Hi Dan. The Cheney piece in the Post starts off with “Cheney is not, by nearly every inside account, the shadow president of popular lore,” then extensively details how nothing the president sees has gone unfiltered by the vice president. Is the possibility of “Dubya” being merely a figurehead so frightful that the mainstream media — and perhaps the American public — can’t bring themselves to say it?

Dan Froomkin: I can’t quite explain that. It was one of the few assertions in the series that was not supported by ample evidence.

And while I’m not saying that it’s abundantly clear from reading the series that Bush is just a figurehead, it’s certainly a reasonable interpretation, and deserves to be addressed head on.

Although the series begins by asserting that Cheney is not the shadow president of lore, the bulk of what’s exposed indicates just the opposite. Maybe this is journalist humor (JoHu)?

Allow me to pick on Politico for a moment. While I found this article on groups who lobby for bicycle commuting to be interesting, this paragraph didn’t sound right to my ears:

About 57 million Americans ride bikes, according to a 2002 survey sponsored by the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The bicycling community is an eclectic collection of schoolchildren, bike messengers and everything in between. Many of these riders have their own organizations.

“[A]n eclectic collection of schoolchildren, bike messengers and everything in between.”

Okay, I give up. What’s between a school child and a bike messenger? What’s outside of those two extremes? I’m just saying that while I can see how you can have an eclectic collection of people of all nationalities, or an ecclective collection of musicians, I don’t think you can have an eclectic collection of everything between an apple and an orange.

I’m picking on the use of the word “between.” But there’s a bigger problem. One reason that people don’t bike to work is that other people like themeselves don’t bike to work. People are uncomfortable with doing things that are even a little outside of the orthodoxy. And, for good reason. Society tends to punish those who act in a way that’s outside of convention.

Let me give a real example from my college days. The summer before I started college we got a letter describing things we should bring with us for the fall. One item on the list was a backpack. I got by very well with cheap briefcases. But everyone else was going to be wearing backpacks, so I thought well, I’ll give it a shot.

Here’s what happened. I was wearing my backpack to campus one day when some people I knew from the dorm saw me and started to laugh. I asked them what was so funny. They told me that what was funny was that I was wearing my backpack the same way that a hiker would wear it with a strap over each shoulder. But people on the campus all wore their backpacks just over one shoulder. So they thought I looked pretty funny.

That’s how closely the idea of convention is defined. Wearing a backpack over both shoulders invites ridicule.

Soon after this incident, I put my backpack in the closet and went back to cheap briefcases.

There’s a quote from today’s Washington Post piece on Cheney that has gone thus far un-dissected in the blogosphere. It’s hardly a trivial point, even though it’s located well into the article. I would argue that this speaks volumes about Cheney’s approach to government:

In the years that followed, crossing Cheney would cost some of the same officials their jobs. David Gribben, a friend from graduate school who became the vice president’s chief of legislative affairs, said Cheney believes in the “educational use of power.” Firing a disloyal or poorly performing official, he said, sometimes “sends a signal crisply.” Cheney believes he is “using his authority to serve the American people, and he’s obviously not afraid to be a rough opponent,” Gribben said.

I read this and thought immediately of Ron Suskind’s “One Percent Doctrine.” Suskind describes Cheney’s philosophy towards Iraq as setting an example in a way that closely resembles the “Educational use of power.” (page 123)

“The primary impetus for invading Iraq, according to those attending NSC briefings on the Gulf in this period, was to make an example of Hussein, to create a demonstration model to guide the behavior of anyone with the temerity to acquire destructive weapons or, in any way, flout the authority of the United States.

“In Oval Office meetings, the President would often call Iraq a “game changer.” More specifically, the theory was the United States- with a forceful action against Hussein- would change the rules of geopolitical analysis and action for countless other countries.”

Continuing on this theme, I’d argue that the “educational use of power” was one of the motives behind the whole Plame affair. It wasn’t just that Wilson needed to be discredited. After all, Libby could just as easily have written an op-ed in the NYT that rebutted Wilson’s original op-ed. Wilson needed to be destroyed, and this would set a chilling example for future critics.

I was just reading this memo from Frank Luntz to the Bush White House on the environment. Given this was 2002, and the Rovians were pretty sure they could ride the 9.11/Iraq card for the next generation, this is really quite prophetic:

The environment is probably the single issue on which Republicans in general – and President Bush in particular – are most vulnerable. A caricature has taken hold in the public imagination: Republicans seemingly in the pockets of corporate fat cats who rub their hands together and chuckle maniacally as they plot to pollute America for fun and profit. And only the Democrats and their goodhearted friends from Washington can save America from these sinister companies drooling at the prospect of strip mining every picturesque mountain range, drilling for oil on every white sand beach, and clear cutting every green forest.

The fundamental problem for Republicans when it comes to the environment is that whatever you say is viewed through the prism of suspicion. As with education, Social Security and so many other issues, the Democrats have been expert at constructing a narrative in which Republicans and conservatives are the bad guys. And if Americans swallow that story, then whatever comes later is mere detail.

Richard Pombo, former Repub Rep from California, may have thought it was really funny when he proposed that Roosevelt Island be paved over and made into condos. Up until Nov 7 he may have thought it was funny, anyway.

It’s conventional wisdom in Democratic circles that no one changes their vote over environmental issues. But, I’m not so sure that’s true. And, it sounds like people like Luntz don’t think it’s true, or they wouldn’t have conducted the polling that led to this memo.

I’m suggesting that this may be part of the rationale of the Republicans voting for the Senate version of the Energy Bill. It sounds like Ted Stevens didn’t even bring up his usual song and dance about drillingl in the Arctic Reserve. That’s progress.

I see that the usual suspects on the right are up in arms about this MSNBC article detailing political contributions from journalists. Apparently, a lot of journalists donated to Democrats. Amazing!

Not really so amazing. Journalism, per se, is about documenting events in a way that an anonymous Bush advisor once described as “reality-based”. This same advisor claimed that the Bushies had learned how to create their own reality: (ref)

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

I have to ask, is that the kind of attitude towards reality that you’d want from a journalist?

The most interesting donation I noticed was that of Raphael Roman, a host of a television show on WNET, a PBS affiliate in NYC:

(R) PBS affiliate in New York, Thirteen/WNET, Rafael Roman, host of “New York Voices,” $250 to President Bush in July 2004, and $300 to Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota the same month.

Donating to Republicans is one thing, but Bush?

Earlier today at TBA in a session titled Curbing the Imperial Presidency, Bob Fertik asked panelist Joe Conason about the possibility of impeaching the president. Joe responded that bringing up the impeachment of either the president or the vice president would be a mistake politically, but that it would be appropriate to look at impeaching the AG.

I hear Joe Conason’s sentiment expressed fairly often. Since he’s a very bright guy I’m surprised he doesn’t see the implications of his statement. If impeachment is not there as an option, there’s no mechanism to hold the Executive branch accountable. In most administrations the idea of appearing to be defying the law would be such a significant check that this alone would prevent an executive and his advisors from openly breaking laws passed by Congress.

As it turns out, this isn’t most administrations.

As Think Progress notes:

Federal agencies ignored 30 percent of the laws Bush objected to in signing statements last year, according to a report released today by the Government Accountability Office. In 2006, President Bush issued signing statements for 11 out of the 12 appropriations bills passed by Congress, claiming a right to bypass a total of 160 provisions in them.

The president, as head of the Executive branch, directs heads of the agencies to follow his signing statements rather than the laws as passed by Congress. Agency heads have the choice of obeying the president, or obeying the law, in which case they might lose their jobs.

And, what exactly is Congress’ remedy for this? Passing more laws? I think you can see the problem.

Aside from impeachment, the only option is expressing public disdain for the president’s actions, and hope that the accumulation of disdain results in the president turning over a new leaf. Quantum mechanically, that’s discribed as a zero probability event.

Part of my concern here is that when Joe Conason dismisses Bob Fertik in a forum like this, he’s telling him to sit down, be quiet, and keep his hands folded in his lap. The president is not accountable, and those who would like to see accountability should get over it.

Holy moly you gotta see Obamania first hand to believe it. When Obama says “Unlike some residents of the White House, I actually believe in the Constitution,” it might as well be Springsteen playing the opening chords of Born to Run. That’s how the crowd rocks to the groove of his stump speech.

There is something about him, particularly seeing him live, that makes you just a bit less cynical.

Your moment of Obamania here.

One of the most amusing talks today had to be the The War of Ideas: How Conservatism Has Failed.

I particularly liked Max Blumenthal’s intro to a documentary short he shot at CPAC. Here he explains what motivated him to create this short.