NYTimes Editorial:

Yesterday, the same day New Yorkers were warned there was a "specific threat" of a bombing on their subways, President Bush delivered what the White House promoted as a major address on terrorism. It seemed, on the surface, like a perfect topic for the moment. But his talk was not about the nation's current challenges. He delivered a reprise of his Sept. 11 rhetoric that suggested an avoidance of today's reality that seemed downright frightening.

The period right after 9/11, for all its pain, was the high point of the Bush presidency. Four years ago, we hung on every word when Mr. Bush denounced Al Qaeda and made the emotional - but, as it turned out, empty - vow to track down Osama bin Laden. Yesterday, it seemed as if the president was still trying to live in 2001. It was eerie to hear him urge Americans to take terrorism seriously. There wasn't any reason to worry about that even before subway riders were being told about the threat of a terrorist attack on their commute home.
...
The president's inability to grow beyond his big moment in 2001 is unnerving. But the fact that his handlers continue to encourage him to milk 9/11 is infuriating. For most of us, the memories are fresh and painful. We mourn the people who died on Sept. 11, as we mourn Daniel Pearl and other Americans, not to mention innocents from other countries, who were murdered by terrorists. The administration's penchant for using them as political cover is offensive. It threatens to turn our wounds, and our current fears, into cynical and desperate spin.

It doesn't "threaten"--it has done so. Continuously. And nothing but that.

He can't "grow beyond" anything. He's not a president, not a politician, not a person. He is nothing, and nothing comes out of the hole in his non-face.

Veto this, Bitch!

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Setting up a possible veto showdown with the White House, the Senate voted overwhelmingly for an amendment to a Pentagon spending bill that sets standards for the treatment of prisoners in U.S. military custody.

The measure, sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, would require American troops to follow interrogation standards set in the Army Field Manual and bar "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" of prisoners in U.S. custody.

On Wednesday night, senators voted 90-9 to include the provision to the $440 billion Defense Department spending bill now wending its way through Congress.

The nine monsters who voted against it:

Allard (R-CO)
Bond (R-MO)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Stevens (R-AK)



Heroes and Patriots:

Capt. Ian Fishback

Sergeant Joseph Darby


At least now I can slink off into a corner and die of Avian Flu knowing something good happened once.

By the way Fishback is getting raked over the coals right now. Hopefully, someone will set up a legal defense fund for him. He's going to need it after the ogres get done sharpening their knives.

Bush is punishing America for not having enough faith in the War on Terror/Iraq.

We could have been saved, but we didn't believe. Now we'll have to fight them on our own streets instead of "over there."

God help us.

Odds a third of the country is dead by next Easter?

Anyone?

CFP: The Secret Lives of the Conservatives (10/24/05; KSU CSC, 3/9/06-3/11/06)

I invite papers for a panel to be held at the fifteenth annual Cultural Studies Conference at Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, March 9-11. Papers can be on a wide variety of topics related to the conference theme of privacy and secrecy and the public sphere.

Papers on specific instances are welcomed, and papers considering a variety of issues and concerns: tabloidization and the neutralization of the political; the personal as political; hypocritical Puritanism; the defense by offense; vast right wing conspiracies; "outing" as a political tactic; scandal amnesia; "spin" and tactical framing; true evil beneath the compassionate, Christian front; why nothing makes a difference; left tactics and despair; the politics of denial and shame; business secrecy vs. personal secrecy; liberal vs.conservative secret lives; sexual dysfunction in conservatives; Laura Bush's private life; scholarly muckraking and shockjocking.

Send brief, 200 word abstracts by email, not attachment, to Don Hedrick, along with a very brief bio, to Don Hedrick, Department of English, Kansas State University, at hedrick@ksu.edu, by October 24. Inquiries welcome.

David Frum on Harriet Miers (via TPM Cafe):

In the White House that hero worshipped the president, Miers was distinguished by the intensity of her zeal: She once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met.

Wow.