Liberal Voices

Binary conservatives

    It seems in today's world, radical conservatives see things with a binary view. Right or wrong. Good or evil. Us or them.
    Take the statement made by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert after a bill authorizing expanded wiretaps passed the House 232-195: "Democrat Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and 159 of her Democrat colleagues voted today in favor of more rights for terrorists ... So the same terrorists who plan to harm innocent Americans and their freedom worldwide would be coddled, if we followed the Democrat plan."
    Or the comments made by Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, after the same vote: "The Democrats' irrational opposition to strong national security policies that help keep our nation secure should be of great concern to the American people."
    It was the message of the day, so it shouldn't be surprising that they were alike. What was amazing is that they would accuse their colleagues of wishing harm to citizens. No rational person could think that Liberals or Democrats (they aren't necessarily the same thing) could support a terrorist attack on the United States. To make such a statement is outrageous.
    Yet two of the highest ranking officials in the government said just that.
    The world is a far more complicated place than the two parties would have us believe. It's not us and them. It's not right or wrong.
    What the people need more than additional wiretaps, is some honesty from both parties, less demonizing of one another and recognition that people can disagree and without being unpatriotic.

Bush battle plan

     It appears the Bush administration is gearing up for a bombing of Iran, a move that will make us all less safe and more vulnerable to attack from those who see us as their enemy.
    The news comes from Time magazine and The Nation in reports that say the Navy is preparing a strike force of ships to sail to the Persian Gulf near Iran. The reports suggest that in late October, when the ships could arrive, that the U.S. could bomb the sites of Iran's nuclear projects.
    We've seen this pattern before. President Bush appears before the U.N., as he did earlier this week, calls for negotiations, but prepares to go to battle unilaterally.
    These actions come as President Bush's nose was tweaked by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the U.N. when Chavez called Bush the "devil." While Chavez was intentionally being outrageous, he won applause for his comments. Chavez has also been traveling around the globe building support for his claims that the U.S. is acting as if it owns the world.
    As the remaining Superpower on the planet, the United States clearly has a target pasted on its back. Our actions to invade Iraq and occupy the country and now to threaten Iran only reinforce what Chavez has been saying. It won't be long before other countries, concerned about our next move, decide they need to act against the United States before we get even more out of control.
    President Bush claims he wants to protect America. His actions are putting us at greater risk and they don't reflect the will of the country.
    Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the other conspirators misread Iraq and they are about to make the same mistake again. An attack on Iran would be wrong. We can only hope Congress has the courage to stop this outrage before we find ourselves in World War III.

The impact of illegal immigration

    Most of the mail we get is from conservatives. Much of that is focused on immigration and how America has much to lose because of illegal immigrants. We tell them that we believe America's borders need to be secure, but that immigrants are not the threat that conservatives would have us believe.
    And so we were interested in a series of stories that appeared last weekend in the Journal News in Hamilton, Ohio, and a story that moved on the Associated Press over the weekend.
    The Journal News decided to find out what impact illegal immigration has on their area, so it began to research the matter. It found that immigrants generally do more to help our economy than to hurt it.
    According to the Journal News, "Most of the people living in Butler County illegally are young and generally healthy ... For the most part, they contribute to social programs they are not eligible to use by paying withholding taxes and sales taxes." The information came from Dennis Sullivan, an economics professor at Miami University. Sullivan believes the cost of illegal immigration is about $200 to $300 per person per year. The story also found a differing view. That came from Steven A. Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C.
    "Illegals do use a lot less in services than everybody else, but they also pay a lot less because they are so poor," Camarota said. "It's not because they don't work."
    The main motivation to enter a country illegally is poverty, Camarota said.
    Many of the people coming into the United States without permission are poor and uneducated, he said.
    Illegal immigrants, and their children, do use social services, Sullivan and Camarota agreed. Health care and local welfare assistance are the two programs most used.
    The newspaper reported that the local hospital has begun to notice how much it is spending on treating illegal immigrants. It also found that a federal program to help pay the cost of that treatment spent $6 million in Ohio last year. The newspaper also found that illegal workers, using forged Social Security cards, paid money into the federal system that they can't benefit from upon their retirement.
    Says the Journal News: "The Social Security Administration withheld $7 billion dollars worth of wages in 2003 without knowing to whom they belonged, said Mark Lassiter, administration spokesman. He said there's no way to tell how much of those wages came from illegal workers."
    It's difficult to tell the economic impact illegal immigrants have on the country because the impact is generally not measurable. It's also clear that the impact primarily comes because the immigrants remain poor even after they come to the U.S.
    Perhaps the only way to tell the impact of illegal immigration would be to remove the entire population for a year and see ... which brings us to the Associated Press story.
    The AP told the story of Stillmore, Ga., a community of about 1,000 that has radically changed since federal officials carted off more than 100 illegal immigrants in a recent raid. The story quotes local residents as describing their community as a "ghost town" with empty homes.
    The AP story tells us: "We're poor but proud," Mayor Marilyn Slater said. The immigration raid "reminds me of what I read about Nazi Germany, the Gestapo coming in and yanking people up," she said.
    It also says, "These people come over here to make a better way of life, not to blow us up," complained Keith Slater, the mayor's son, who owns a convenience store that has lost 80 percent of its business since the raids. "I'm a die-hard Republican, but I think we missed the boat with this one."
    One of our recent letter-writers says immigrants have failed to assimilate into our culture. We couldn't disagree more. Illegal immigrants have found jobs because Americans have hired them regardless of their legal status. They pay taxes and largely stay out of trouble because they want to remain invisible. Being discovered would send them back to the life they have worked so hard to abandon.
    Liberals and conservatives will see the issue differently. Liberals will look for ways to raise illegal immigrants out of poverty so they are self-sufficient and contribute to their own lives as well as society's well-being. Conservatives will complain that illegal immigrants are taking services and resources to which they are not entitled.
    Conservatives would have us send illegal immigrants back to their home countries, but that doesn'tsolve their problems or ours. The fact is that illegal immigrants are part of our country and our economy. Both of us would be harmed by parting ways.
    We live in a world that we create. Our choice as liberals is to make that world a better place for everyone rather than openly exploit the weak, then complain when they try to improve their lot in life.

Conservative arithmetic

    There's a new math in the country. Conservative arithmetic.
    You start with a pile of money -- more than you need to pay the bills. We'll call this our surplus and we'll get this money from our Uncle Bill who managed to save it up and leave to us for our future.
    We'll subtract from this surplus the money it takes to pay our bills. Normally we'd use our income to pay for our spending, but our Uncle George, who's now in charge of the budget, says the surplus isn't needed and he wants to give the money back. Not everyone will get an equal slice of that surplus, or even a share proportionate to what they put in. Instead, the rich will get most of it, even though the portion they paid was a far smaller share of their earnings than the rest of us paid. Uncle George says we wouldn't know how to best use the money, so it's better to give it to people who already have a lot of it.
    Uncle George also says we need to buy some new things -- like a Middle Eastern country -- so we're going to increase our spending.
    The surplus ran out pretty quickly, so Uncle George began borrowing money to pay the bills. This pleased Uncle George and his radical conservative friends very, very much.
    Why? Because they know some day the party must end and the government won't have the cash to pay for all its spending. When that time comes, they can get rid of all those expensive government programs they hate so much -- like Social Security, Medicare, student loan programs, the Environmental Protection Agency (those pesky owls!) and much, much more.
    What will we be able to do about it? Not much because the government's broke and we have to either cut spending or raise taxes. Since no one wants to pay more in taxes, the conservatives will just shrug and pull out their scissors. Snip, snip, snip and decades of social programs disappear.
    And the conservatives will be very happy because they won't lose anything, except the risk of paying higher taxes. It's the people who were helped by those social programs that will lose their health coverage and retirement benefits. The rich already have that covered.
    That's how conservative math works -- you just keep subtracting from others until you have a surplus you can call your own.

Conservative horse trading

    A Tennessee horse show has provided a clear example of how differently Conservatives and Liberals see the world.
    The event was the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration. The finale was canceled after the USDA disqualified five of eight horses in the event because of evidence of "soring." The action causes horses to shift their weight to their rear legs and exhibt the kind of high-stepping action show judges like to see.
    Soring, which is opposed by the American Veterinary Medicine Association, is defined in the Horse Protection Act of 1970, as:

• An irritating or blistering agent has been applied, internally or externally, by a person to any limb of a horse;
• Any burn, cut, or laceration has been inflicted by a person on any limb of a horse;
• Any tack, nail, screw, or chemical agent has been injected by a person or used by a person on any limb of a horse; or

    Any other substance or device has been used by a person on any limb of a horse or a person has engaged in a practice involving a horse, and, as a result of such application, infliction, injection, use, or practice, such a horse suffers, or can reasonably be expected to suffer, physical pain or distress, inflammation, or lameness when walking, trotting, or otherwise moving.
    For Liberals, the idea of harming an animal for a human vanity hobby is unthinkable.
    Conservative Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, Senate Majority Leader and possible presidential candidate, says not so fast. Frist is proposing changes to the law that would allow inspectors to turn a blind eye to soring.
    Officials at the walking horse event have complained that the USDA and other inspectors are inconsistent in their rulings. Frist's changes are intended to clarify the rules and bring consistency to the inspections.
    Frist, a medical doctor, says inspectors should only disqualify horses if there are signs of inflammation -- an indication that an injury took place recently. Inspectors have been disqualifying horses when they see scars that are indicative of past soring.
    For Frist, one of the country's leading conservatives, soring is OK unless the evidence is so clear that it can't be ignored. In other words, it's OK as long as you don't get caught. His legislation would make it easier to not get caught.
    Examples such as this make it clear that Liberals and Conservatives really do speak different languages. It's no wonder we can't agree. Liberals see themselves as part of the environment with a responsibility to live in harmony with the ecosystem. Conservatives see humans as the dominate life form with full rights to act as they please.
    Such hubris is difficult for Liberals to comprehend.
    For more information on soring, we'd suggest visiting the American Horse Defense Fund site or read what the American Veterinary Medicine Association has to say on the practice.

The Neo-Conservative Whip of Terror

On the main Liberal Voices web site, columnist Behind The Orange Curtain Jim writes weekly about national issues. We thought this week's column was particularly on point and wanted to share it with our blog readers. To read more of Jim's writings, visit his Liberal Voices page.

    For five years Americans have been periodically roused into a track of fear, often at politically opportune times, with predictions of terrorist strikes or imminent terrorist threats. The most recent terrorist plot, the liquid caper, though declared unviable by some experts, though surrounded with secrecy, and though accompanied with some skepticism, reportedly involves a real plot. Many have been arrested and charged.
    Republicans have focused most of their message on terror: emphasizing threats, touting the war, and convincing American voters that we are safer with Republicans than we are with Democrats. Apparently, the message continues to resonate with voters.
    Much of this success is owed to the Republican control of the White House and the two houses of Congress, which comes with a neoconservative lock on the media’s message. Also managed well is the repetition and timing of the message as well as the defilement of all dissenters. Both efforts tend to intimidate weak-kneed Democrats. At the same time, the continued disorganization, defensiveness, equivocations, and disunity of the Democrats has made the party appear weak and ineffectual.
    How true is the basis of the message, that the Republicans are better against terror? Has the new spending – more than $300 billion for Iraq, billions for Homeland Security – and the ever-growing restrictions on human rights made the world safer? National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) statistics seem to indicate otherwise.
    In 2003 a total of 208 terrorist attacks resulted in 625 dead and 3,546 injured; in 2004, 3,168 attacks left 1,907 dead and 6,704 wounded. Last year’s statistics report 11,111 total attacks with 14,602 dead and 24,705 injured. Of the latter, 30 percentwere attacks in Iraq. This indicates a whopping 50 times more attacks in two years -- from 2003 to 2005!
    If you’ve been watching the headlines in 2006 regarding the Iraqi war, one would assume that the percentage of attacks within Iraq will be much higher than the preceding year, though many of the current average of 100 deaths per day must be attributed to a civil war rather than terrorism, a civil war our presence has exorcised. Nevertheless, the conclusion is that worldwide our policies have made the world less safe against terror.
    But what about terrorist attacks in the United States? Since 9/11 we have had none, and Bush administration leaders claim ceaselessly that their policies have made the difference here in the United States. In the Foreign Affairs article of September/October, entitled “Is There Still a Terrorist Threat,” John Mueller indicates otherwise. Institutional Spying, surveillance, and plots revealed in headlines have accrued little in the way of terror-related convictions, he asserts. And the fear-mongering instituted by Rove forces is just that. Since 9/11 the number killed by al Qaeda-type attacks outside of Afghanistan and Iraq gives us a one in 90,000 chance of being killed, the odds of being killed by a comet or a meteor.
    In summary he says, “The reasonable -- but rarely heard -- explanation is that there are no terrorists within the United States, and few have the means or the inclination to strike from abroad.”
But the fear-mongering continues.
    The closer midterm elections, the more desperate and the more shrill are the voices of Bush's top aides, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Both delivered strident speeches last week describing the conflict in Iraq as a crucial part of the "war on terror," rousing grisly ghosts of World War II and the Cold War and calling opponents of the war appeasers, going back seventy years to the appeasement of Hitler for the comparison.
According to a new study by three Columbia University researchers, three things will happen when Bush forces address the public. The media will repeat their remarks. Public fear of terrorism will increase. And the president's poll numbers will rise. A direct correlation between such Bush administration speeches and the Bush approval ratings in polls is clear. Even less than a year ago, the rise in his approval rating had been as much as 8 percentage points after a major terror speech.
    Bush ratings aside, al Qaeda is interested in more than simply killing Americans in American cities. Bin Laden has described his goal as bringing America into conflict with Muslims along "a large-scale front" which it cannot contain and al Qaeda strategists report that they want to expand what they call the "jihadist current," eroding American power and prestige and separating the United States from its allies. To achieve the organization's multiple objectives, for example, Abu Bakr Naji, an al Qaeda strategist, advocates provoking America into direct military intervention in the Islamic world. For that strategy, the Iraqi war and the proxy war with Hezbollah were made to order.
    According to Jessica Stern, the author of Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill, when she first started interviewing members of bin Laden's international Islamic front in the late 1990s, only zealots and terrorists found the jihadist idea appealing. In the last few years, her interviews with Muslim youth in Europe have made it clear that Jihad has now become a "cool" way to express dissatisfaction with the status quo, even for new converts to Islam. The latest UK bomb plot reveals plotters who fit this profile.
    In fact, its quite easy to support charges that current Bush administration policies -- the war on Islam’s doorstep, Bush’s imperialistic foreign policy, and the administration’s divide-and-conquer mentality help achieve major goals of terror. All help to promote fear among American citizens, appear to help recruitment for Jihad (even casual recruits like UK bomb plotters), disrupt democratic governments here and abroad (Lebanon for one), promote division among western leaders (Bolton in UN), and divert Western resources away from productive endeavors -- all in all, things which weaken the structure of what terrorists see as a corrupt culture. And these are achievements over a scant five year period.
    Yes, the whole discussion is polarizing, but necessary. The healthy growth of the democratic prize we have cherished and nurtured for over two hundred years requires us to excise the cancer that has been feeding disunity, disruption, and polarization. Don’t doubt for a moment that these policies have been calculated and measured for the Bush administration’s agenda: establishing and maintaining neoconservative dominance.
    In reality the real fight against terror over the past five years has been the people’s fight. For too many politicians, the fight against terror is only incidental to their goal of achieving political dominance. In a democracy, the fight has always been consigned to the people.
If we are too busy, too inattentive, the politicians will gladly set the path, but don’t bet it will be the right path.

Perpetuating lies

    Monday night President Bush used the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks as an opportunity to boost his political capital and perpetuate lies and misstatements to which the administration has already admitted. Fortunately MSNBC's Keith Olberman called the president on the move, but that came before the President made his speech. President Bush also called for Americans to put aside their differences and do things his way.
    In a televised address, Bush said, "America did not ask for this war, and every American wishes it were over."
    Clearly the President has a very short memory. America did ask for the invasion and tried to rally support for it. When only Great Britain and a handful of other countries agreed to go along without United Nations support, the President charged ahead. America asked for the war and when the world said no, conservatives decided to invade anyway because it fit into their plans.
     In his Monday speech, President Bush also said, "Whatever mistakes have been made in Iraq, the worst mistake would be to think that if we pulled out, the terrorists would leave us alone. They will not leave us alone, they will follow us."
    Once again the administration is trying to link terrorism with the illegitimate battle in Iraq.
When backed into a corner, administration leaders acknowledge that Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks and nothing to do with terrorism. The fighting there is among various groups who want control of the country. There are terrorist groups operating in the country, but they are there to gain and train recruits. Our invasion is the best thing that could have happened to their recruitment program.
    The President is right. Leaving won't make the terrorists go away. Winning -- however that is defined -- won't make them go away either. The conservatives know that and they're quite pleased with the idea because it allows them to maintain a fictitious war on terror.
    This administration continues to lie and distort the truth. America deserves better.

Attack on ourselves

    Today is a day for memories. It's important that we not forget what happened to America on Sept. 11, 2001.
    It's also a day that should not receive too much attention.
    Americans were stunned as they watched one plane, then another crash into the World Trade Center in New York. We were saddened to learn of the aircraft that smashed into the Pentagon and a fourth plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. We were uplifted by stories of courage and
touched by the personal stories of those who died.
    But each year since, we have relived the attacks. This year, the fifth anniversary, brings an even greater spotlight on the event and we live those emotions all over again.
    As we do so, we give those who attacked us what they want.
    Terrorism's goal is to frighten us. To make us feel less safe. To be afraid to be America for fear that we will have to pay a price. Each time we relive the event, the terrorists strike again and we become their weapon.
    To our way of thinking, each 9/11 should be a quiet day of remembrance. A day we should not forget and never a day that advances the goal of terror.

Drop the war metaphor

From the Rockridge Institute

    Language matters, because it can determine how we think and act.
    For a few hours after the towers fell on 9/11, administration spokesmen referred to the event as a “crime.” Indeed, Colin Powell argued within the administration that it be treated as a crime. This would have involved international crime-fighting techniques: checking banks accounts, wire-tapping, recruiting spies and informants, engaging in diplomacy, cooperating with intelligence agencies in other governments, and if necessary, engaging in limited “police actions” with military force. Indeed, such methods have been the most successful so far in dealing with terrorism.
    But the crime frame did not prevail in the Bush administration. Instead, a war metaphor was chosen: the “War on Terror.” Literal — not metaphorical — wars are conducted against armies of other nations. They end when the armies are defeated militarily and a peace treaty is signed. Terror is an emotional state. It is in us. It is not an army. And you can’t defeat it militarily and you can’t sign a peace treaty with it.
    The war metaphor was chosen for political reasons. First and foremost, it was chosen for the domestic political reasons. The war metaphor defined war as the only way to defend the nation. From within the war metaphor, being against war as a response was to be unpatriotic, to be against defending the nation. The war metaphor put progressives on the defensive. Once the war metaphor took hold, any refusal to grant the president full authority to conduct the war would open progressives in Congress to the charge of being unpatriotic, unwilling to defend America, defeatist. And once the military went into battle, the war metaphor created a new reality that reinforced the metaphor.
    Once adopted, the war metaphor allowed the president to assume war powers, which made him politically immune from serious criticism and gave him extraordinary domestic power to carry the agenda of the radical right: Power to shift money and resources away from social needs and to the military and related industries. Power to override environmental safeguards on the grounds of military need. Power to set up a domestic surveillance system to spy on our citizens and to intimidate political enemies. Power over political discussion, since war trumps all other topics. In short, power to reshape America to the vision of the radical right — with no end date.
    In addition, the war metaphor was used as justification for the invasion of Iraq, which Bush had planned for since his first week in office. Frank Luntz, the right-wing language expert, recommended referring to the Iraq war as part of the “War on Terror” — even when it was known that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 and indeed saw Osama bin Laden as an enemy. Fox News used “War on Terror” as a headline when showing film clips from Iraq. Remember “Weapons of Mass Destruction?” They were invented by the Bush administration to strike terror into the hearts of Americans and to justify the invasion. Remember that the Iraq War was advocated before 9/11 and promoted as early as 1997 by the members of the Project for the New American Century, who later came to dominate in the Bush administration. Why?
    The right-wing strategy was to use the American military to achieve economic and strategic goals in the Middle East: to gain control of the second largest oil reserve in the world; to place military bases right in the heart of the Middle East for the sake of economic and political intimidation; to open up Middle East markets and economic opportunities for American corporations; and to place American culture and a controllable government in the heart of the Middle East. The justification was 9/11 — to identify the Iraq invasion as part of the “War on Terror” and claim that it is necessary in order to protect America and spread democracy.
    What has been the result?
    Domestically, the “War on Terror” has been a major success for the radical right. Bush has been returned to office and the radical right controls all branches of our government. They are realizing their goals. Social programs are being gutted. Deregulation and privatization are thriving. Even highways are being privatized. Taxpayers’ money is being transferred to the ultra-rich making them richer. Two right-wing justices have been appointed to the Supreme Court and right-wing judges are taking over courts all over America. The environment continues to be plundered. Domestic surveillance is in place. Corporate profits have doubled while wage levels have declined. Oil profits are astronomical. And the radical rights social agenda is taking hold. The “culture war” is being won on many fronts. And it is still widely accepted that we are fighting a “War on Terror.” The metaphor is still in place. We are still taking off our shoes at the airports, and now we cannot take bottled water on the planes. Terror is being propped up.
    But while the radical right has done well on the domestic front, America and Americans have fared less well both at home and abroad.
    What was the moral of 9/11?
    To Osama bin Laden, the moral was simple: American power can be used against America itself. This moral has defined the post 9/11 world: the more America uses military force in the Middle East, the more damage is done to America and Americans.
    The more Americans kill and terrorize Muslims, the more we recruit Muslims to become terrorists and fight against us.
    The war in Iraq was over in 2003 when the US forces defeated Saddam’s army. Then the American occupation began — an occupation by insufficient troops ill-suited to be occupiers, especially in a country on the brink of a civil war, where neither side wants us there.
    The number of lives lost on 9/11 is currently listed as 2973. As of this writing 2662 Americans have been sent to their deaths in Iraq, a Muslim country that did not attack us. At the current rate, within months more Americans will have been sent to their deaths by Bush than were murdered at the hands of bin Laden.
    9/11 was a crime — a crime against humanity — and terrorism is best dealt with as crime on an international level.
    It is time to toss the war metaphor into the garbage can.
    The war metaphor is still intimidating progressives. To come out against “staying the course” is to be called unpatriotic, weak, and defeatist. To say, “no, we’re just as strong, but we’re smarter” is to keep and reinforce the war metaphor, which the conservatives have a patent on.
    It is time for progressives to jettison the war metaphor itself. It is time to tell some truths that progressives have been holding back on. What has worked in stopping terrorism is just what has worked in stopping international crime — like the recent police work in England. What has failed is the war approach, which just recruits more terrorists. In Iraq, the war was over when we defeated Saddam’s army. Then the occupation began. Our troops are dying because they are not trained be occupiers in hostile territory on the cusp of a civil war.
    Bush is an occupation president, not a war president, and his war powers should be immediately rescinded. Rep. Lynn Woolsey’s resolution to do just that (H.R. 5875) should be taken seriously and made the subject of national debate.
    I am suggesting a conscious discussion of the war metaphor as a metaphor. The very discussion would require the nation to think of it as a metaphor, and allow the nation to take seriously the truth of our presence in Iraq as an occupation that must be ended. You don’t win or lose an occupation; you just exit as gracefully as possible.
    Openly discussing the war metaphor as a metaphor would allow the case to be made that terrorism is most effectively treated as a crime — like wiping out a crime syndicate — not as an occasion for sending over a hundred thousand troops and doing massive bombing that only recruits more terrorists.
    Finally, openly discussing the war metaphor as a metaphor would raise the question of the domestic effect of giving the president war powers, and the fact that the Bush administration has shamelessly exploited 9/11 to achieve the political goals of the radical right — with all the disasters that has brought to our country. It would allow us to name right-wing ideology, to spell it out, look at its effects, and to see what awful things it has done, is doing, and threatens to keep on doing. The blame for what has gone wrong in Iraq, in New Orleans, in our economy, and throughout the country at large should be placed squarely where it belongs — on right-wing ideology that calls itself “conservative” but mocks real American values.
    Metaphors cannot be seen or touched, but they create massive effects, and political intimidation is one such effect. It is time for political courage and political realism. It is time to end the political intimidation of the war metaphor and the terror it has loosed on America.

The devil with one eye

Liberal media? CBS and ABC put that one to rest this week. ABC is being criticized for its upcoming miniseries on 9/11 and reported inaccuracies that it contains. The program is being aired by the network's entertainment division.
    However, over on CBS, the network is using its news division to advance conservative views. Of the two events, this is by far the more outrageous action.
    CBS showed its colors by giving conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh 90 seconds on its flagship evening network news show to air a right-wing rant on 9/11. Freshman anchor Katie Couric tagged the piece with a note that other points of view will be presented in coming weeks.
    Thursday's piece was the third in what CBS is calling its freeSpeech series. The network's web site calls it "a segment of opinion and commentary from a wide range of Americans. This original segment is intended to create a candid and robust dialogue among viewers about issues important to them, their families and the nation." Opinions on different topics are given each night and they are labeled as opinions.
    It's a good idea to give people who don't regularly get before a camera a chance to share their views. Whether they are conservative or liberal, we think the idea of free speech is good and should be extended beyond the companies that can afford to foot the bill for nationwide reach.
    But Rush Limbaugh? His daily audience rivals that of the CBS Evening News and he doesn't need the network's help to spread his gospel.
    And it's not like people can't find out what he thinks. If they can get access to a radio or web site, Rush's opinions are there to be found.
    CBS did nothing to enlighten or educate the public by giving Rush Limbaugh 90 seconds of very prime air time. It was ill-conceived and showed either how far CBS News had strayed from common sense or its total lack of understanding about journalistic ethics and responsibilities.
    This was a serious stumble that is on par with Dan Rather's failure to check to see if the documents he was using to attack President Bush were genuine. The network's news division has gone from CBS News to CBS Propaganda.
    It's scarcely important whether the errors were in favor of liberals or conservatives, CBS is not a network to be trusted.