A Million Monkeys Typing

The two-day dialogue between Condoleezza Rice and members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at times resembled material from "Catch-22" and at other times seemed to reflect "Dr. Strangelove." Other than a few hard questions from Democrats Joe Biden and Barbara Boxer, at no time did it remotely resemble reality.

You'd have thought from the way committee members treated Rice that she'd just arrived in Washington and had no part to play in, and no real knowledge of, the foreign-policy disaster that was President Bush's first term.

Hard questions from Barbara Boxer? The Senator who protested Bush's election victory in the Senate because a 118.000+ vote margin in Ohio wasn't enough? The Senator who's basic line throughout her questions was to call Dr. Rice a liar? Apparently, the Strib has pretty low standards. See what Captain Ed has to say about Boxer's questioning. And again, the Strib uses the opportunity to mislabel Bush's foreign policy a disaster. The fact is until the outcomes in Afghanistan and Iraq are known, there is no way to judge Bush's foreign policy yet. But there's more:

And yet in a hearing on whether she has the stuff to be secretary of state, she had the temerity to lecture Boxer, asking her to "refrain from impugning my integrity." Well if not now, when?

The Star Tribune apparently hasn't noticed that Boxer showed by claiming the only reason stated by the US for going to war with Iraq was WMD that she either is a liar or doesn't read the legislation she votes on, as shown by the text of the resolution authorizing force in Iraq.

The Strib then praises Kerry and Boxer for voting agains the confirmation "on principle" - as if the folks who voted differently didn't have any. All in all, more drivel from the Star Tribune editorial board

A little defensive

If not for Roger Moe and Tim Penny splitting the votes of real Minnesotans, Tim Pawlenty might be making coffee and answering phones at the Taxpayers League of Minnesota.

If "no new taxes" is a core value and part of "mainstream" Minnesota, why does the governor sound so defensive about it every time he mentions it in public?

On our National Day of Embarrassment, each of the president's three constituencies celebrated in its own way.

The Rich were much in evidence. Though they had to pay to party, they could be sure of a good return on the investment.

The Ideologues (apart from the vice president) stayed behind the scenes. With wars to plan and peoples to free, the whole globe is their inaugural ball.

The Gullible, whom the Rich and the Ideologues manipulated yet again, watched the festivities on TV -- admiring the rhetoric, coveting the gorgeous gowns and praying to God their children will not be sent to Iraq.

Note the contempt for people who voted for Bush. In the eyes of people like the letter writer one has to be evil or stupid to vote for Bush. This by the way, is the kind of letter that is more likely to appear on the letters page than the next one, which does a nice job of trashing a key part of the Stib's 1/20 editorial about Condoleezza Rice:

Beyond Boxer and WMD

I was embarrassed to watch Sen. Barbara Boxer in the hearings for Condoleezza Rice. Not only did she appear as a petulant, bloviating, spiteful partisan, but her command of the facts was extremely lacking. This was evident when she stated that the congressional vote for war was based solely on evidence of WMD.

She did this in order to portray Rice as a liar. Either Boxer doesn't understand exactly what she voted on or she is, in fact, the liar. The resolution actually cited at least seven reasons, separate and distinct from weapons of mass destruction:

• Iraq's harboring of Al-Qaida terrorists.

• Iraq's support for international terrorism.

• Iraq's "brutal repression" of its citizens.

• Iraq's failure to repatriate or give information on non-Iraqi citizens detained and captured during Gulf War I, including an American serviceman.

• Failing to properly return property wrongfully seized during the Kuwait invasion.

• The attempted assassination of former President Bush in 1993.

• America's national security interests in restoring peace and stability to the Persian Gulf.

The last was included in the interest of fairness. I don't want to create the impression that the Strib completely ignores those who write in disagreement with the Star Tribune's positions. One is just more likely to see letters like the first two.

In Seattle, more than 1,000 people participated in walk-outs at the University of Washington and Seattle Central Community College, where students marched through buildings, pounding on doors and encouraging others to leave.

The demonstrators marched from the community college to a rally downtown, calling for "no work, no school, no business as usual."

Isn't this rather self-defeating? I mean, deny yourself a day of your education to make a useless, petulant protest about the outcome of an election that your side lost, fair and square? How constructive!

Then we have this:

At a mock inauguration in Baltimore, a woman wearing a Bush mask gave a pretend speech, stumbling over her words, and a guitarist played Bob Dylan's "Gates of Eden," which opens, "Of war and peace the truth just twists." Passing cars, buses and taxis honked horns in support, and a pedestrian raised a fist.

Here we have a pair who can't come up with any thing useful to say, so they try to demonstrate that the personal is the political by making a personal attack on the President. Another fine example of those oft-stated, self-proclaimed liberal Democratic values of tolerance and fairness in action.

Three blocks from the White House, protesters tried to rush a security gate and a flag was burned. Police briefly locked down the area, trapping some 400 to 500 spectators.

Annie Katz, 52, of New York, was at the rear of a group of protesters, but she said the experience was worth it despite the bad view. Katz said she was upset by the 2000 election, but "I'm angrier this time, since I'm angry about the war."

U.S. soldiers in dress uniforms and blue coats were greeted with chants of "no more wars."

Try to start a riot, insult our soldiers. How classy...

Police said at least 10 people were arrested during the inaugural ceremonies. Sgt. Scott Fear of the U.S. Park Police said four women who were protesting the wearing of furs were arrested after they disrobed in the near-freezing temperatures.

I hope the crowd was at least entertained. Next up, we have some vandals...

Witnesses said the protesters started pulling down flags and inaugural banners from lampposts, and said police used pepper spray on some protesters.

Stuff like this is intended to change peoples minds? I wonder what these same people will say in four years if a Democrat is elected and Republicans put on a similar display of childish, whiny, sore-loserism?

The United States stands ready to offer all appropriate assistance to those nations most affected including Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Thailand, and Indonesia, as well as the other countries impacted. Already relief is flowing to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. We will work with the affected governments, the United Nations, non-governmental organizations, and other concerned states and organizations to support the relief and response to this terrible tragedy.

This makes it clear to me, anyway, that the $35 million is an initial figure that will go up as the need is determined. Here is the initial breakdown of aid on it's way from the U.S. government. Note the two naval groups that the Star Tribune didn't mention. In a response to a question about the economic damage to the region, Secretary of State Powell had this to say:

This is a very important point because not only do we have to deal with the immediate humanitarian disaster, but the rebuilding effort and doing something about the economic impact of the loss of the tourist industry in some of these places. This will take time.

And so as you prepare for one of this relief operations, it has a certain cycle: an initial infusion of money, initial infusion of humanitarian assistance; and then longer term programs of investment and reconstruction help, loans, and working with the governments concerned to help them rebuild their industries. And the United States is in for the immediate humanitarian relief part of this and also for long-term reconstruction so that the economies can get back up on solid footing and that the people who have lost homes will have assistance in building homes and rebuilding their businesses.

And so this is going to be a massive effort. It's going to take a great deal of money. And I'm pleased with the response that we're seeing from the international community, and the United States will continue to add to the commitment we have already made as the need is known and after we've had a chance to, of course, consult with the Congress.

Note that he didn't say that 35 million was all the aid the US was going to give, and indicated that more would be forthcoming after getting a better idea of the need and consultation with the Congress (I expect that is required, for the amounts of money that will be needed). I don't think the Strib's criticism is fair on this point.

Why else do I think this editorial is cynical and unfair?

• The Star Tribune criticizes the president for staying in Crawford rather flying immediately to Washington. Apparently the work couldn't be done unless the President is physically in DC. Here's a clue, guys: the President is never really on vacation. He's either working more or working less. The president's entourage has plenty of telecommunications capability to organize our relief efforts from Crawford. Either the Strib has no clue about telecommunications, or they just wanted to be negative. I think the latter.

At this early date, the Star Tribune is rather careless to be firing rhetorical cannonballs. If their concern had actually been for the tsunami victims in South Asia, they could have just made an argument for more aid and recognized that this is the very beginning of the relief effort. Instead, they attacked the President. Need any more be said?

Update: The US government has now pledged $350 million of aid to tsunami victims.

The end of the year is a time to bury the hatchet, so congratulations to Powerline, the Twin Cities blog that last week was named Time magazine's "Blog of the Year!"

Now let me get a new hatchet.

These guys pretend to be family watchdogs but they are Rottweilers in sheep's clothing. They attack the Mainstream Media for not being fair while pursuing a right-wing agenda cooked up in conservative think tanks funded by millionaire power brokers.

They should call themselves "Powertool." They don't speak truth to power. They just speak for power.

I wish I didn't have to do it, because I already get ripped a lot on the site, which thankfully also has had some nice photos of bikini-clad candidates for Miss Universe to keep me company. But I accept Powerline's contempt; I am only a Mainstream Media man, while Big Trunk and Hind Rocket are way cool. They blog.

I work for a dopey old newspaper committed to covering the news fairly while Powerline doesn't make boring commitments. They are not Mainstream Media. They are Extreme Media. Call them reliable partisan hacks.

That's what they call me: A reliable partisan hack, even though they sometimes like columns I write about dumb things Democrats do. I have criticized many dumb Democrats, but Democrats don't matter these days. All the power is in the hands of Republicans, and Powerline's job is to make life easier for them. Mine isn't.

A story: In 1990, I reported that this newspaper's endorsement of DFL Gov. Rudy Perpich was decided by then-publisher and Perpich crony Roger Parkinson. He had quashed the decision of the newspaper's editorial board, which had voted in favor of the Republican challenger, Arne Carlson.

The truth got out, the Republican won and the public was served. If Extreme bloggers, who know nothing that happened before last Tuesday, had the same commitment to serving the public, I wouldn't have a problem. But like talk radio, they are dominated by the right and are only interested in being a megaphone without oversight, disclosure of conflicts of interest, or professional standards.

Let's see. Coleman is upset at being called a partisan hack, then cites an incident from almost 15 years ago to prove that he's not partisan. One that involved criticizing the paper he didn't work for at the time (I think he worked for the Pioneer Press at the time). Couldn't find anything more recent, Mr. Coleman? As for the partisan thing, when's the last time that a conservative or a Republican (the two are often not the same) viewpoint got a fair hearing in your column? By the way, who/what are Extreme bloggers? He doesn't really say, except to accuse them of being ignorant and having short attention spans. By that description, the Powerline gang doesn't qualify for Extremeness. It makes more sense to refer to Nick Coleman as an Extreme columnist.

Powerline is run by Ivy League lawyers, one of whom (Johnson) is a vice president at TCF Bank in Minneapolis and works for Bill Cooper, an ex-state Republican Party chairman. Johnson and Hinderaker are fellows at the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank that seems to be obsessed with gays and guns and wants to return us to the principles of our founders, although I can't determine if that includes Ben Franklin's skirt chasing.

Mainstream or Extreme? We report, you decide: Last month, Claremont gave its Winston Churchill Award to that visionary statesman and recovering drug addict, Rush Limbaugh!

Time magazine's "Blog of the Year" is not run by Boy Scouts. It is the spear of a campaign aimed at making Minnesota into a state most of us won't recognize. Unless you came from Alabama with a keyboard on your knee.

But Extreme bloggers don't tell truths. They tell talking points. Powerline is the biggest link in a daisy chain of right-wing blogs that is assaulting the Mainstream Media while they toot their horns in the service of ... what? The downtrodden? No, that was yesterday's idea of the purpose of journalism. Extreme bloggers are so hip and cool they can make fun of the poor and the disadvantaged while working out of paneled bank offices.

But enough. It's time for auld acquaintance to be forgot. So as a gift to Powerline, let me try my hand at some blogger-style "fact-checking."

1) "It's totally unexpected," Johnson, the banker, told the newspaper after Powerline won "Blog of the Year."

But the Aw Shucks Act doesn't fly. Powerline campaigned shamelessly for awards, winning an online "Best Blog of 2004" a week before the Time honor. That online award was a bloggers' poll, and Powerline linked its readers to the award site 10 times during the balloting, shilling for votes.

2) "We keep it very much separate from our day jobs," said Hinderaker, meaning the boys don't blog at work.

But they do. Johnson recently had time at his bank job to post a despicable item sliming Sen. Mark Dayton. If I had the money they think I do, I'd put it all in TCF. Then I'd pull it out.

3) Powerline sells thousands of dollars in ads, including one for T-shirts that say, "Hung Like a
Republican."

But does Powerline or its mighty righty allies take money from political parties, campaigns or well-heeled benefactors who hope to affect Minnesota's politics from behind the scenes? We don't know, and they don't have to say. They are not Mainstream. They are Extreme.