October 14, 2005

The BuzzFlash Mailbag

The opinions expressed in the Mailbag are not necessarily those of BuzzFlash. Read the BuzzFlash FAQ for info on submitting to the Mailbag.

To: Mary Alice Robbins, Texas Lawyer

Re: Ad Attacking Earle Airs in Austin

Your article in Texas Lawyer concerns allegations about Mr. Earle's motivation for prosecuting Mr. Delay-- in particular, paid ads that portray Mr. Earle as politically partisan.

The article closes with, "Earle did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment on the ads."

Regardless of Mr. Earle commenting or not, isn't it part of your job as a reporter to look at Mr. Earle's record?

Texas Prosecutor Ronnie Earle has in fact prosecuted more Democrats than Republicans.

I wish you would report this pretty basic fact along with the allegations of his being a partisan attack dog.

Sincerely,

Robert Millman

It's said the democrats offer no vision for governing. I think we do, it's simple. Most Americans want to rebuild this countries infrastructure with USA's citizens doing the work. We need better highways, schools, hospitals and a more efficient health care system as well as a more effective, more compassionate government. Please stop the police brutality and make them serve and protect like they are supposed to and get rid of the bad apples. Thanks and good luck.

Leon King
Tampa/Fl.

Dear Buzz,

All this talk about the military taking care of emergencies is a really scary slippery slope. I think it is just one step to dictatorial control. I lived a year in Spain back in the 60's when Franco was in control and the Guardia Civil was walking all the streets with machine guns in hand. It made for a very stressed feeling in the population. I never saw anyone even talk when those guys were around. Let's not let that happen here.

A regular BuzzFlash reader.

Last Week, George Bush nominated Harriet Miers, his former personal attorney, to ascend to the Supreme Court. This was met with horror by Paleo-conservatives, who felt that she had no track record of core conservative values. Religious conservatives were also aghast that she was not a known foe of women's reproductive rights.

This all seemed like a huge gaff until James Dobson, noted leader of Focus on the Family and outer of Spongebob Squarepants, assured his listeners that she was their kind of people. (wink, wink)

So, if Harriet Miers is confirmed as the next Supreme Court Justice we can only assume that Roe v. Wade will be revisited with predictable results. Dark days are upon us, but do not fear.

I am again proposing a compromise in which a woman can keep her right to choose whether or not to have a child while simultaneously, drastically reducing abortions. It does not involve drugs, adoption or surgery and is in keeping with moral Christian values.

Ladies, Stop Having Sex With Republicans!

You can do this! Form support groups. Create witty sayings like "Friends don't let friends screw Republicans." Let's see which head the likes of Clarence Thomas, and Anton Scalia are actually thinking with.

To paraphrase Nike...

Just Don't Do It!

Paul Skogstrom
Northeastern United States

Subject: Pledging Alliegance

Dear Buzzflash,

If Harriet Miers is confirmed to the Supreme Court, this will be our new Pledge of Allegiance:

"I pledge allegiance to President George W. Bush and to the Republican Party for which he stands, one Party over God and the Nation divided with Liberty and Justice for None."

We probably already have this state of affairs even without Harriet Miers. But this will be the rubber stamp of SCOTUS.

M. W.
Medicine Park, OK

RE: "Let This Leak Go", By Richard Cohen, Washington Post, October 13, 2005

"The best thing Patrick Fitzgerald could do for his country is get out of Washington, return to Chicago and prosecute some real criminals…Go home, Pat."

Memo to Richard Cohen from President Bush --

"I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors."

President George H. W. Bush
on the 26th of April, 1999, at the dedication ceremony of the George Bush Center for Intelligence.

That, of course, was President George Herbert Walker Bush -- Bush 41, Bush the Elder, Bush the Smarter, Bush the Better (although it's hard to think of any President who isn't better than P43 -- at least Ulysses S. Grant could write).

But, of course, Mr. Cohen wants Patrick Fitzgerald to get out of Washington before he causes Bush the 43rd's Administration any more trouble than he already has.

He wants Judy and Scooter to be free to enjoy the aspens out West once again.

He wants the white-collar criminals, career incompetents, and treasonous punks in the White House to continue to be free to out their political enemies' wives as CIA agents and free to continue their preemptive assault on Iraq and on all but the rich in America.

And that's not a crime to him? That's trivial? Maybe to a cocktail party pundit, an inside-the-Beltway boy, a Bush-league suck-up. But not to me. And not to most of America, I'd wager.

"Patriotism may be the resort of a scoundrel, but yelling about leaks is a close second," flippantly says Richard Cohen, even though these "leaks" to the press could be found to be treason and could also have endangered the lives of other, unknown CIA operatives. No, to Mr. Cohen, that's just run-of-the-mill "collateral damage," business as usual in his Washington. Because Rove and Libby and the other, as-yet unnamed co-conspirators in the Bush Administration didn't actually intend to have Valerie Plame physically assassinated, but intended rather to "assassinate the character of her husband," Joseph C. Wilson, that means they're not "real criminals".

And therefore, the special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, should return to Chicago to search for "real criminals" and leave Washington to its hairdressers, its dog walkers, and its syndicated columnists. Oh, yes, and its politicians and their henchmen. "Good people" who happen to do "bad things" like start wars based on lies. And then, when called on their lies, try to assassinate the characters of the truth tellers who oppose them.

Mr. Cohen's use of the term "good people" in any connection to this Administration is debatable. George W. Bush may be nice to his dog, Barney, but couldn't you also say that he has done some very "bad things" to the world? His father famously had trouble with the "vision thing", but I think that P43 comes across more like a real-life, near-sighted Mr. Magoo. This Bush is fully capable of confusing the faces and indeed the countries of a fundamentalist religious terrorist and a brutal secular dictator. He invades the country of Saddam the Dictator, who did our country no harm (but did have a big pot of oil) rather than chasing after Osama the Terrorist, who did actual, grievous harm to our country, but then fled into mountains where there was no oil.

Bush the Elder had contempt and anger for those who would betray the trust of our covert intelligence agents like Valerie Plame and considered those betrayers "the most insidious of traitors." Bush the Lesser merely has contempt for the American people and continues to employ men like Rove and Libby and others of their invidious, insidious ilk to protect him from the tellers of the truth and to smear them with lies when necessary.

And "strong women" of the "free press" like Judith Miller (who was a journalistic handmaiden for the Neocon lies that led to the war on Iraq) and "weak men" like Richard Cohen (who makes excuses for people with more power than he) both have to stop going along and protecting those in positions of power from the unwanted truth -- that "good people" who do "bad things" deserve to be punished.

The bottom line is that lying politicians who commit criminal acts need to go to jail if justice is to prevail in this world.

And if Richard Cohen doesn't like that, perhaps he's the one who should go home, tail tucked neatly between his legs. Like the "bad Barney" he is.

Sincerely,

David Wyles
Playa Del Rey, CA

Iraqis begin another "long walk to freedom" tonight with the emphasis on "walk." In a country larger than California, there will be almost 20,000 fewer places for Iraqis to vote than there are in California in an average election. Add to this the requirement that everyone travel by foot to a polling station and you have a recipe for an election that could be called "free and democratic" only by the delusional or this administration. And to pretend that this referendum on a temporary constitution, cobbled together for a Bush administration photo-op, is "crucial for ending the violence" is simply ridiculous. It will, of course, have precisely the same effect as the last made for TV election - that is, no effect whatsoever.

Albert Clark, NY

Dear Buzzflash:

I was not surprised at all to hear of Bush's latest pre-scripted publicity stunt to soldiers via direct video link. I was however surprised to hear, at least on a FOX radio affliate that the incident was mentioned at all, and then it even carried a slant that indicated (hold on to your pacemaker battery) that Bush was WRONG to stage this event. It sounded like the episode was a huge reality jarring shock to his favorite sycophant network. While we can't forget that Neal Cavuto asked the President if his failure to force a Social Security overhaul was the fault of Michael Jackson, it's still great fun to hear a suck-up network eat crow, among other things. With the Plame incident heating up and slowly but surely bringing the one-time White House untouchables into the formerly unknown territory of having to accept responsibility, more and more Republicans will be forced to decide whether backing Bush means their own political death. I'm rooting for political death.

Scott
Fayetteville, AR

It would appear all the interest in poverty that was plastered across the television screens after Katrina and gushing forth from the mouths of the politicos has petered out.

What happened? Aren't we poor anymore? Or is it that the poor are only a good sound bite when they are starving to death and you can show dying babies?

We, the folks below the poverty line are disheartened. Many of us don't bother to vote because we don't think it will make any difference. Do you think it makes a difference if it is a Democrat or a Republican who ignores your plight? Just wait until we all have to show a universal I.D. card that many won't be able to afford then watch the number of voters below a certain income level really decrease.

There are 43 millionaires in the Senate. Are we to believe that they can understand how difficult it is to just survive in this country when you are below the poverty line? I often hear people touting us as the richest nation on earth. Couldn't prove it by me.

Don't tell me about what color poverty is. Poverty is green. The green of decent paychecks that raise us up and move us on. Green so that we can give our kids a better life.

Give us decent jobs with a decent salary and get the hell out of our way. Instead we get outsourcing by our own government. If our government had any integrity whatsoever it would not outsource one single job as long as there was an American who was out of work.

We don't expect integrity or compassion from corporations. These mindless, soulless leviathans have always ignored or dismissed their responsibility to be a positive force in the nation that has enriched them. Instead they send their profits off shore and outsource jobs in the name of corporate greed. When we are unable to afford your products because every penny we have will be spent trying to heat our homes what will you do? All those fancy pants rich folks who got the big tax breaks ain't gonna be shopping at Wal-Mart sweetie.

Marjorie L. Swanson
Kenosha, WI

It seems next week television viewers will have a choice of High Crime criminal court television, or, watching the predictable Saddam trial. (Like there's a chance in hell Sadddam will be found innocent; what sort of drama is that? oh, I know, bad drama). Bush will need any distraction he can get. But Bush's hopes of a distracting Saddam television drama while indictments pour into the Oval office could be worst off for him. Saddam's trial will draw attention to the illegality of the Iraq invasion, the very thing for which the Plame (Treason) crime was committed to enable. I suspect Rove is guilty and spending his time preparing for jail because the White House propaganda machine seems to have come undone these last couple of weeks.

Brian Michels
NYC

On Wednesday Al Gore committed the one sin that the Conservative movement can never forgive, he told the truth. When asked how America would be different if his election had not been stolen by the Republican political machine and its allies on the Supreme Court he said, "We would not be routinely torturing people." Ok, in all honesty he said more than that, but it was those words that really seem to have the rights' panties in a bunch. Unable to rebut his statements with facts, conservative commentators have been reduced to simply calling him insane. A spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, called Gore's comments "fictitious rants that border on dangerous," and went on to say, "To accuse Americans of participating in 'routine torture' is absurd."

Ever since the first allegations of abuse of prisoners began to surface conservatives have loudly labeled such allegations fictitious, insane, absurd and dangerous. And when proof was produced we were told that it was "an isolated incident" and the work of "a few bad apples." The argument has always been that these were crimes committed by individuals and not the official policy of the Bush regime, but policy is as policy does. That acts of torture have been committed on our nation's behalf by members of its military and intelligence apparatus is now a matter of public record. That these acts were part of a pattern is painfully clear.

We have the photos from Abu Ghraib. We have the FBI reports from Gitmo. We have the account from Captain Fishback of the 82nd Airborne. We have the flight records of prisoners who have been "rendered" to other nations to be tortured. We have the memo in which Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld signed off on specific torture techniques. We have the memo in which then White House Counsel, and current Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales provided the legal defense for those acts. But the single greatest proof that torture is the policy of the Bush White House is summed up in one word "veto." Mr. Bush, who has to-date lacked the moral courage and political balls to veto anything, has threatened to veto a vital military spending bill because the Senate attached an anti-torture amendment to it. The only reason to veto anti-torture legislation is if torture is policy.

So why, if torture is policy, are the conservatives so upset? Why don't they just get behind Mr. Bush and defend the policy rather than pretend it doesn't exist? Are they afraid that Dear Leader and his cronies will be brought up on war crimes? Maybe, but the law never seemed to get the way of other conservative leaders like Tom Delay and Bill Frist, and besides, as I noted earlier, they've got AG Gonzales' providing legal cover. The answer to these questions is made clear by Jonah Goldberg, an editor at large of the National Review Online and well-known conservative opinion maker:

"what undermines what we stand for... is the publication of all this information."

That's right, as far as conservatives are concerned torture isn't a crime against humanity, it's a PR problem. The simple truth that under conservative leadership America is "routinely torturing people," would hurt them in the polls so they are trying to keep it quite. The fact that they are dishonoring our nation in the process seems to be irrelevant to them.

Theo McCarthy
Greenbelt MD

I haven't looked up the margin of error for the poll that put African-American support for Bush at 2%, but it seems pretty likely that the spread could put him in negative territory. That little boy is a uniter, after all.

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: The religious right

The Religious Right is angry with Bush for nominating Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court instead of someone who is clearly going to overturn abortion. They are threatening to turn against Bush like they do every time they don't get their way. But what they don't get is that Bush doesn't need them any more. He's been reelected and he can't run again. So Bush isn't appointing someone for the Religious Right - he's appointing someone for himself - someone who's going to be loyal to him personally. Bush doesn't care about abortion or religion. It's just an act. It's all fake. Both sides are always ready to stab the other in the back if they don't get what they want. They just need to learn not to believe their own lies.

Marc Perkel
San Francisco, CA.
marc@perkel.com

Subject: HOW TO VOLUNTEER FOR RECALL TO ACTIVE DUTY

Dear Buzz,
Today I received my fall issue of Army Echoes (The bulletin for the retired soldier). One of the articles said "applications for recall to active duty to support the Global War on Terror are being accepted from retired soldiers". WTF! I'm not sending my children and I'm sure as hell not going back to fight for the corporation. We need to bring the troops home. The real fight to preserve our freedom is taking place right here, right now.

David McCardle (Retired Master Sgt)
Moundsville, WV

If just a few congressional representatives would cross over and switch parties, we could get on to cleaning out this destructive bunch in the white house. E-mail your Republican representatives and suggest it to them as a way to save themselves from this coming purge next year. If just a handful switch and Nancy Pelosi becomes speaker of the house we will have Impeachment hearings and rid the country of Bush, Chaney, Rumsfeld the whole bunch, and bring our Sons & Daughters home. A side bar if it happens soon enough Nancy could appoint this Supreme Court nominee of her choice. For those of us who have all Democrats and independents we can send e-mails to Republicans and let them know what the mood of the country really is. Also Op Ed pieces in every newspaper would be great.

Andrew, A Renton Barber
Renton, Wa.

Does anyone else think this nomination might be a ruse? Maybe they expect this one to fail. Then they can push through who they really want. It all just seems too convenient.

Rich
Amherst, NY

To Mr. Walter Scott and Parade Magazine,

I am an American citizen who also is a journalist on VHeadline.com, which is a Venezuelan news site, where I deal with facts and not allegations. Serious journalists and not spinmeisters deal with facts and not allegations . It has come to my attention you answered this gentleman Robert Henry with erroneous answers. First of all, President Hugo Chavez is not a Marxist; he is a democratically elected president who won his re-election by a 59 percent margin. Venezuela is a democracy and not a Marxist regime as you so falsely stated.

But your biggest and most erroneous statement is that Pres. Chavez is funding terrorists and revolutionaries throughout Latin America. As a journalist for VHeadline.com, I have found no evidence of this allegation made by your magazine. In fact, I find quite the opposite where through the profits made from CITGO oil, which is a Venezuelan oil company, those profits go to 1,100 feeding centers to feed the poor in Venezuela. You may also wish to relay to your readers that this administration refused an aid package by this country and President Chavez for our Katrina victims. You may also wish to relay to your readers where this administration turned down an aid package where Cuba stood ready to send our Katrina victims 1,500 well trained and well qualified doctors who treated the tsunami victims in Sri Lanka.

Seeing that your magazine mainly deals with the entertainment world, I would suggest that you leave the answering of these questions to journalists such as me who write for e-publications such as VHeadline.com. By delivering such dishonest information to your readers, you have shown that you hold no credibility when relaying any information to them.

I will be forwarding this letter sent to you to Roy Carson who is both the editor and publisher for VHeadline.com.

Sincerely,
Mary MacElveen
Columnist for VHeadline.com