Short Stories, Long Odds

Things could be going better.

My success as a politico is unchallenged. I am 1-0, in that the student Senate campaign I helped mount for my pal Chris Braddock at Moorehead State resulted in my first victory as a consultant. It was a small race, but everyone has to start somewhere. Like all candidates, Chris deserves most of the credit for winning his seat, although I will take credit for suggesting that he rock the double-windsor to my grave.

But that is not in Texas, where much help is needed. I am mostly to blame for my relative lack of success in kick-starting things so far, because my frustration with the UNT College Democrats and my busy schedule have both contributed to a dropoff in my participation: I quit going to meetings.

It isn’t just the college group that’s been without my presence. I’ve also been not making it to County Democrat and DFA meetings. The non-college groups were significantly more receptive to my ideas and the composition of the people involved, although small, is quality all the way around.

My frustrations with the college group stem from my tendency for takeover and their resistance to that. To their credit, they identified some key issues and have worked hard this semester to bring those to the discussion – they tabled on HB16, the Iraq War anniversary, and other things. The fact that they did those things shows me they are capable of doing more.

It is quite possible my demeanor was offputting, but I felt then as I do now – that these are important, pivotal times for both our party and our country. The time of the maverick has come.

So, with that in mind, I don’t know if I should just start going to meetings again, start my own group, or run for State Representative. It isn’t as if I got in a slapfight with the College Dems, I just ran out of time and patience and so I cooled my heels while time is a semi-luxury.

In other brief Texas politics news, Barbara Aradnofsky is getting next to zero coverage in the media or the interweb – even the Burnt Orange Report has next to nothing about her in the last month. This doesn’t paint much of a rosy picture for her, considering all the play Chris Bell is getting out of 70% chance of running for Governor. Also, Rick Perry hates blogs and Kay Bailey Hutchison takes cheap shots at the French. You can catch up on it all at the Burnt Orange Report’s Texas Politics page.

I mean, honestly, Kay. The French?

I haven’t had a whole lot of time this week, but I wanted to direct everyone to a few things and relate a story.

First, there’s this, from Senator Bill Frist (R – New Canaan):

He’s having a telecast about how Democrats have declared aggressive war against Christians because Democrats don’t want to let a small (and I mean small) portion of Bush’s judicial nominees through to the bench.

Secondly, David Horowitz reaches new levels of ridiculousness with Discover The Network, wherein he equates and ilkifies Mohammed Atta the 9/11 terrorist with other murderous America haters like Dennis Kucinich and Noam Chomsky.

Why is it so hard for these guys to understand what’s going on? You can say someone is wrong, or that you don’t agree with what they’re doing, without hating them. Without being ANTI-them.

So, right. The story:
A friend of mine was with her father and some long-time family friends, and the conversation eventually turns to politics, and the bent is definitely to the right. After a while, the husband of the family friend pair turns to her.

“You’re being awfully quiet!” he says.

She says, “Well, I don’t think I’d have much to contribute.”

He looks faux-abashed and says “You’re not a Democrat, are you?”

She says, “Well yeah, actually, I am.”

He looks perplexed for a second and says “I thought you were a Christian, though.”

She says “Well, I am.”

He continues to look perplexed, and says “Huh! I thought all Christians were Republican.“

Or perhaps, what is and is not actually news. Or even, the halflife of news.

We’ve been inundated with the Pope for the last week. The Pope is still dead everytime I turn on my TV. I think airing his funeral was fine – he is, after all, an historic figure and as such deserves airtime – but the amount of coverage dedicated to the Pope in the last week created some serious problems.

For instance, this story ran on Sunday, April 3rd, and it gives details concerning an attack on Abu Ghraib by about 60 insurgents. At least 50 US soldiers were injured in the attack, that number up from the initially reported 20 and later updated to 44. Did you hear about this? You probably didn’t. It made page A-16 of the New York Times.

At the end of March 2005, the number of United States soldiers wounded in Iraq was 11,442. I don’t know how many of them lost limbs or eyes or will be broken for life, but war injuries tend to not be skinned knees.

Here’s an interesting accompanying fact for you – did you know that if you get wounded in action and cannot finish your tour of duty, if you received a signing bonus you have to pay it back? It enters repayment 30 days after you go home, and it shows up on your credit. I’m willing to bet this is also something you didn’t hear of.

Prince Charles got married today to Camilla Parker Bowles. He’s the man who might be King someday (if the monarchy lasts that long) so I understand why this would make the news. Maybe a 30-second segment with some shots of the ceremony. That’s fine. Hell, I’ll even give you a minute for it.

But I watched CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC in a rotation for three hours this morning, and I didn’t hear one word about the massive anti-American protest in Iraq. Nor did I hear about the CBS cameraman who was shot and then arrested by coalition forces.

You would think a story about a journalist getting shot and arrested in the midst of a conflict that the newspaper guild CWA and the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists purport carries an extremely high casualty rate for media personnel would make the news. They even said so in a letter to President Bush. It is, in fact, news about the news, and it doesn’t make the news.

I called Cornyn’s office in DC today about the nuclear option, and his staffers were nice enough. You would never think that in an adjacent room, the flesh of infants was being eaten.


Okay, okay! I’m a professional journalist, so I shouldn’t imply that Cornyn dines on babies. My bad. He is no Tom DeLay, right? Or is he?

I can say, however, that John Cornyn is guilty of sedition against America, of dare I say it, UNAMERICAN ACTIVITIES and that Tom DeLay is too.

In case you missed it, John Cornyn and Tom DeLay have been full of things to say about the federal, independant judiciary. Here are two of DeLay’s greatest hits:

• “[need to take a] look at an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president.”
• “Mrs. Schiavo’s death is a moral poverty and a legal tragedy. This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change. The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today.”

Now think about this for a second. What if, say, Al Franken had said that last one? Or me? What if I got up and in so many words, said “You fuckers are gonna pay.” That almost sounds like… a threat, doesn’t it? How is this not an invitation to violence against federal judges? How is this different than some other fundamentialist religious zealot in the Middle East calling his followers to war? Threatening a federal judge is a felony, and in this case, he threatened them all.

This is not only a threat, it is a naked threat. Considering that DeLay’s camp is circling the wagons and, as I mentioned earlier, threatened to crush and / or excommunicate anyone who doesn’t back up DeLay to the political death, and that he’s also trying to enlist the House Judiciary Committee to figure out why the courts, in his words, “failed,” it is clear that Team NeoCon is gearing up for war. Ideological war, political war, and sadly, the war of implication.


So once again we return to the fact that if the Neocons don’t get what they want, they get really, really mad. It is clear that DeLay and his ilk are crybabies. The system worked the way it was supposed to, in every form and fashion, and now the independant judiciary is being made out to be judicial terrorists.

So what could be more un-American? What could possibly be more un-American than openly deriding public servants carrying out the prescribed course of American governance and adhering to the rule of law? What could be more un-American than openly threatening those who do their jobs in service to their country?

Senator John Cornyn (R – Tex) provides the answer and the example:

“I don’t know if there is a cause-and-effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. . . . And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters, on some occasions, where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in, engage in violence. Certainly without any justification, but a concern that I have.”

For one thing, Republicans have zero space to argue about unaccountability. Team Neocon should have had plenty of comeuppance coming to them for their willful ignorance of international law, and the guys truly responsible for Abu Ghraib – not the least of which being one Donald Rumsfeld – give glassy eyed stares of mild confusion in response to the idea that someone other than low-level grunts should maybe end up in court. They are fundamentally unassailable and are of the opinion that accountability came in the form of the general election.

But this is beside the finer point of what John Cornyn said. This wasn’t a Senator caught off-guard at a party after a couple of beers, these were prepared remarks given on the floor of the Senate. I watched him say it, and I could tell that he knew what he was saying was dangerous. I know he understands what he said – that violence against judges is understandable because of judicial activism. By political implication, as a concern he believes that this is the natural order of things, and that this will happen again.

He gives the footnote about how these things happen “without any justification,” but he links them in a cause-and-effect pairing that says what? It gives qualifiable reason for violence against Federal judges. It says “you are getting what’s coming to you.”

So we have DeLay trashing American institutions because they function as intended and threatening any who dare to stand against his hamfisted powergrabs, even if those stands are taken in the course of doing the job you’re charged with doing. We have John Cornyn telling the American people that if judges are going to make politicized decisions, they are going to have to endure violence.

What’s the binary? If we apply the standard of violence against government officials in return for politicized decisions in matters of law, does that mean that violence against members of Congress is also understandable, even in the absence of justification? Does this mean that, along DeLay’s lines, the judiciary can openly attack the Congress when the Congress thumbs its nose at the court system? What will the judiciary do to Congress for their subsumation of jurisdiction into its decision-making progress? For Congress’ destruction of federalism and the seperation of powers?

Does this mean that the Supreme Court, the ultimate arbiter of the US Constitution, can visit some sort of retribution upon Congress for its disregard of the Constitutionally mandated seperation of powers?

DeLay and Cornyn represent the warriors of primacy in the Neocon assault on the fundamental way of American life and our institutions of democratic government. Like Odysseus, or perhaps even more appropriately Dr. Faustus, the tip of the Neocon spear is being wielded by classic over-reachers. They’ve gone unchecked for so long that they don’t realize they are in trouble. Mark my words: if they do not alter their present course, if they continue to act as if everything is business as usual despite the fact that they’ve raised the ire of general America, they are going to thoroughly self-destruct. Its gonna be WAY worse than Team Gingrich’s breakdown after the 94 midterms.

It has already begun. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is about to bring the Nuclear Option to the table for debate, so he had to back off, saying that he believes “we have a fair and independant judiciary today.” He can’t align with DeLay and his pals because his proposal of the Nuclear Option absolutely cannot appear to be, at least cannot OVERTLY appear to be, an attack on the judiciary.

Of course, it IS an attack on the judiciary, among other things, but what you’ve seen here is a public fracture within Republican leadership for nothing more than strategic reasons. Frist isn’t backing DeLay up in his jihad against judges, so does that mean Frist is about to get nailed?

There is no place for moderation among the Christianist political movement. It is all or nothing. If they refuse to learn, they will die out, and it will not be quiet or dignified. Political language is in no way an exact science or a zero-sum game. Politicians construct those that listen to their statements in such a way as to engage what the listener already knows. When Bush said “you’re either with us or against us” there was no question as to what the binary was between “us” and “not us.” Consider this, consider what DeLay and Cornyn have said, and you should be able to arrive at the truth concerning what kind of war they are starting to wage.

I have been hounded by some readers about my lack of mention of the Iraq War’s anniversary. “How could you forget this and also important items x and y?” I have lacked the mention of many important things, so let me catch up on them all at once:

• War Anniversary
  I’m not surprised we’re still there. I expect to be there for a while longer. I heard an adorable suggestion of opening the matter up to a referendum of the Iraqi people, but voting the first time was hard enough, am i rite? The Iraq Assembly did, however, elect a Kurd as President today. In my infinite analytical wisdom, I think that’s pretty neat. Now if only the Sunnis could get some representational play.
• Blair calls the general election for May 5
  This may spice things up in Iraq a bit, but only if Tony goes nuts before May 5 and pulls everyone out [Probability ----- 0%]. Tony Blair and Labour are going to scream at the Tories about how they held up the anti-terror bill. They will also take a page from the GOP playbook and accuse the Tories of hating Britain. Tony had better figure something out and fast, or the favored and excellent Labour Party will lose their government because of him. One of my professors suggested to #10 that Tony resign, at which point Gordon the New (Old) RockStar would take over and have an election in October. I imagine that wouldn’t fly so well with Tony. I’ll be watching the polls, but if Tony drags down the ship of Labour’s state, don’t expect anything to change in Iraq. Conservatives there are like they are here in matters of war.
• The Pope dies
  He’s the Pope! What can I say. I’m about the farthest thing from a devout Catholic there is without being a Protestant (ha ha) but Pope was allright with me. He had what amounted to a personal conductor, and Maestro Levine earlier this week related a story about how the Pope had arranged for the Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra’s commemoration of the Holocaust to be held at the Vatican, lit menorah and all. He also sent Levine’s son a 16th century menorah for his bar mitzvah. Oy, a mensch the Pope was!

  PS. I’m pushing for a black or Chinese pope.

• Tom DeLay and John Cornyn
  They get their own post.
• Site additions
  Besides the forums, I’ve added a few new sections to the sidebar – ‘Recently Published’ and ‘Scholarly Works?’ Recently published are links to things I’ve written that were recently published in other places, either print media or other sites. Scholarly Works are drafts of research I’m doing at the University of North Texas, note the ‘drafts’ delineation. The theories are in tact but the grammar may not be. Sort of a works in progress you can check out if you are educationally masochistic or want to argue with me about something.
• Intelligence report findings
  Was that everything? Are we set now? Curveball delivered the inactionable intel that we acted on anyways and then promptly disappeared. Take careful notice of whether the press brings this up again after Popestock and the carefree way the White House lays the blame at the feet of the intelligence community.

More on DeLay and Cornyn and the independant judiciary and why I’m pissed off at Democrats in a bit.