Keith Olbermann Rips Rumsfeld

As we’ve come to expect from the Bush administration, its members and their supporters, when confronted with criticism, their immediate response has been to accuse their critics of: being terrorist sympathizers, disloyal Americans or, simply, traitors. So, of course, it’s no surprise that Donald Rumsfeld has resorted to the same old tactics. Here’s how the Washington Post reports Rumsfeld’s attacks against war critics:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned yesterday that "moral and intellectual confusion" over the Iraq war and the broader anti-terrorism effort could sap American willpower and divide the country, and he urged renewed resolve to confront extremists waging "a new type of fascism."

Drawing parallels to efforts by some nations to appease Adolf Hitler before World War II, Rumsfeld said it would be "folly" for the United States to ignore the rising dangers posed by a new enemy that he called "serious, lethal and relentless."

In a pointed attack on the news media and critics of President Bush’s war and national security policies, Rumsfeld declared: "Any kind of moral and intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong can severely weaken the ability of free societies to persevere."

And while elected Democratic party members have released strong rebuttals against Rumsfeld’s attacks, I’ve not come across a more articulate response than Keith Olbermann’s on-air commentary:

And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country faces a "new type of fascism." As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that — though probably not in the way he thought he meant it. This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.

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Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute… I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow. But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed, "confused" or "immoral." Thus forgive me for reading Murrow in full: "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty," he said, in 1954. "We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. "We will not walk in fear - one, of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of un-reason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men; "Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were - for the moment - unpopular."

Better yet, why don’t you check out Keith Olbermann’s entire video commentary, courtesy of Crooks and Liars:

Bill Kristol: Completely and Tragically Wrong

Bill Kristol or William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, is one of those Ivory Tower-never-served-in-the-military neo-cons that cheered and pushed for the US invasion of Iraq (see some other Chickenhawks here). Yet, Billy Kristol is fond of sending other people’s kids to war; so much so, in fact, that his Fox News co-commentator, Juan Williams, jokingly refers to Kristol as "The General" and questions his over reliance on military force.

With that in mind, why is Billy "The General" Kristol taken seriously anyway? Of course, the so-called liberal media must find hour-upon-endless-hour of jabbering heads to fill their precious airtime, so they gladly hand the mike over to "The General" — he’s always got a war to sell, which makes for neat content.

But, isn’t it about time that more people conclude as Alex Koppelman concludes here? Alex Koppelman writes:

Bill Kristol is rarely unsure about anything; Sunday was no exception. Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Kristol told host Chris Wallace that "the notion that a retreat in Iraq would not embolden terrorists elsewhere in the Middle East, and terror recruiters in the suburbs of London, is ludicrous… It’s just factually true that our pulling out of Iraq will be bad for us in the global war on terror."

Now, I can’t say for sure that Kristol is wrong. What I can say for sure is that we have absolutely no basis to believe Kristol was right. Kristol, after all, has a long track record of getting Iraq completely, and tragically, wrong. In April of 2003, he went on NPR’s "Fresh Air" to say:

On this issue of the Shia in Iraq, I think there’s been a certain amount of, frankly, Terry, a kind of pop sociology in America that, you know, somehow the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There’s almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq’s always been very secular.

Good one, Bill.

In February of 2003, he and Lawrence Kaplan told the National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez that "having defeated and then occupied Iraq, democratizing the country should not be too tall an order for the world’s sole superpower."

That one’s turned out well.

Yet Fox still considers Kristol a legitimate pundit on the subject. Why, for God’s sake? He has absolutely no experience or knowledge relevant to the subject. And again and again he has proven that any opinion coming from his mouth on the subject will be proven wrong.

The right’s media critics have made it their mission to call for the regulation of the media by means of attacking the First Amendment, threatening those of us in the press who dare to do our jobs with the threat of violence. Maybe it’s time for the rest of us to call for a little media regulation of our own, to ask that our pundits have some sort of license to spew, or at the very least have the ability to prove they know what the hell they’re talking about. At the moment, the ability to produce a quick, uncomplicated talking point seems to be the only qualification.

Go read Alex Koppelman over at the HuffingtonPost.com, he’s got more to say.

How Can We Trust Again?

Here’s what five and change years of a bitterly partisan, utterly opportunistic and completely self-serving Republican administration has wrought on our country, just when Americans should not be doubting our own government (AFP, 08.10.2006):

Bush Seeks Political Gains from Foiled Plot

CRAWFORD, United States (AFP) - US President George W. Bush seized on a foiled London airline bomb plot to hammer unnamed critics he accused of having all but forgotten the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Weighed down by the unpopular war in Iraq, Bush and his aides have tried to shift the national political debate from that conflict to the broader and more popular global war on terrorism ahead of November 7 congressional elections.

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His remarks came a day after the White House orchestrated an exceptionally aggressive campaign to tar opposition Democrats as weak on terrorism, knowing what Democrats didn’t: News of the plot could soon break.

Vice President Dick Cheney and White House spokesman Tony Snow had argued that Democrats wanted to raise what Snow called "a white flag in the war on terror," citing as evidence the defeat of a three-term Democratic senator who backed the Iraq war in his effort to win renomination.

Man, where to begin!?

Sadly, all I can say is that this morning, when I first heard of the news coming out of Britain, I immediately thought, Wow, just on schedule for the mid-term elections.

This is where we, Americans, are. Some of us simply cannot believe anything that this administration and its allies, whether domesitic or from abroad, tell us. I honestly cannot trust anything that even carries a whiff of the now infamous Rovian taint, since the tactics that now associated with that name so permeate the actions of this administration and of the Republican party.

Can the Kent State Massacres Happen Again?

Could this happen again on American college campuses?

Had he not been gunned down by National Guard troops on the Kent State University campus on May 4, 1970, Jeffrey Miller would be 56 years old this year. Instead, Miller’s life ended at age 19 and the thing for which he will forever be remembered is being the body over which young Mary Ann Vecchio cried in despair in a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo that quickly came to symbolize a deeply-divided nation.

It was 36 years ago today that Miller, Allison Krause, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder, were massacred by Army National Guardsmen at a Vietnam war protest on the Kent State campus. It was a watershed event that touched off a nationwide student strike that forced hundreds of colleges and universities to close and signaled the zenith of American opposition to that war.

Bob Geiger asks if the Kent State massacres could take place again.

Bush: America’s Worst President

Don’t take my word for it, read it for yourself.

George W. Bush’s presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace. Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents. And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.

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And these figures were gathered before the debacles over Hurricane Katrina, Bush’s role in the Valerie Plame leak affair and the deterioration of the situation in Iraq.

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Calamitous presidents, faced with enormous difficulties — Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Hoover and now Bush — have divided the nation, governed erratically and left the nation worse off.

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More than half the country now considers Bush dishonest and untrustworthy, and a decisive plurality consider him less trustworthy than his predecessor, Bill Clinton — a figure still attacked by conservative zealots as "Slick Willie."

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On September 10th, 2001, [Bush] held among the lowest ratings of any modern president for that point in a first term. (Only Gerald Ford, his popularity reeling after his pardon of Nixon, had comparable numbers.) The attacks the following day transformed Bush’s presidency, giving him an extraordinary opportunity to achieve greatness. Some of the early signs were encouraging. Bush’s simple, unflinching eloquence and his quick toppling of the Taliban government in Afghanistan rallied the nation. Yet even then, Bush wasted his chance by quickly choosing partisanship over leadership.

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The heart of Bush’s domestic policy has turned out to be nothing more than a series of massively regressive tax cuts — a return, with a vengeance, to the discredited Reagan-era supply-side faith that Bush’s father once ridiculed as "voodoo economics." Bush crowed in triumph in February 2004, "We cut taxes, which basically meant people had more money in their pocket." The claim is bogus for the majority of Americans, as are claims that tax cuts have led to impressive new private investment and job growth. While wiping out the solid Clinton-era federal surplus and raising federal deficits to staggering record levels, Bush’s tax policies have necessitated hikes in federal fees, state and local taxes, and co-payment charges to needy veterans and families who rely on Medicaid, along with cuts in loan programs to small businesses and college students, and in a wide range of state services. The lion’s share of benefits from the tax cuts has gone to the very richest Americans, while new business investment has increased at a historically sluggish rate since the peak of the last business cycle five years ago. Private-sector job growth since 2001 has been anemic compared to the Bush administration’s original forecasts and is chiefly attributable not to the tax cuts but to increased federal spending, especially on defense. Real wages for middle-income Americans have been dropping since the end of 2003: Last year, on average, nominal wages grew by only 2.4 percent, a meager gain that was completely erased by an average inflation rate of 3.4 percent.

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[T]he Bush administration — in seeking to restore what Cheney, a Nixon administration veteran, has called "the legitimate authority of the presidency" — threatens to overturn the Framers’ healthy tension in favor of presidential absolutism. Armed with legal findings by his attorney general (and personal lawyer) Alberto Gonzales, the Bush White House has declared that the president’s powers as commander in chief in wartime are limitless. No previous wartime president has come close to making so grandiose a claim. More specifically, this administration has asserted that the president is perfectly free to violate federal laws on such matters as domestic surveillance and the torture of detainees. When Congress has passed legislation to limit those assertions, Bush has resorted to issuing constitutionally dubious "signing statements," which declare, by fiat, how he will interpret and execute the law in question, even when that interpretation flagrantly violates the will of Congress.

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Another president once explained that the judgments of history cannot be defied or dismissed, even by a president. "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history," said Abraham Lincoln. "We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation."