Month: June 2005

Leggy Maguire.

Oops…this has been languishing in the bookmarks for a few days — our first look at Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown, with Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon, Jessica Biel, and Alec Baldwin. As several others have noted, it all looks a bit Garden State-ish, but I’ll probably still give it a spin.

Spaced.

“Current U.S. space policy presents a paradoxical picture of high ambition and diminishing commitment…Pursuit of the NASA Plan, as formulated, is likely to result in substantial harm to the U.S. space program.” A new report by experts at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy finds the Dubya space program is a mess. The two writers (both active during the Clinton years) do praise new NASA head Michael Griffin, who may be the only Bush appointee out there that I have positive feelings for. But, in keeping with the general unilateralism of Dubya’s tenure, the scientists bemoan the demise of international cooperation in recent years, with our move to weaponize space a particular stumbling block.

A Conspicuous Silence.

“There’s not much these days that the two parties in Washington can rally around, as evidenced by the increasingly shrill tone here. You might think that one thing on which everyone in both parties could agree would be a resolution apologizing for the Senate’s failure, over many decades, to make it a federal crime for racists to hunt black people like animals and hang them from trees.” Terry Neal wonders why eleven GOP Senators refused to sign the recent anti-lynching resolution. (Cliopatria‘s Robert KC Johnson posted a list of the eleven Senator’s responses from Roll Call a few days ago.)

As I’ve said earlier, I can see how a mea culpa that’s coming anywhere from thirty to 130 years late may not be the most useful legislation ever passed by the Senate. But, when it comes time to mark your name down against an abomination like lynching, why not take the opportunity? To paraphrase Karl Rove, moderation and restraint is not what I feel when I see African-Americans strung up and mutilated by mobs of white folk. But, for one reason or another, a sizable number of the GOP think different. Therapy and understanding for the attackers, perhaps?

Rove’s New Low.

“Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers…I don’t know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the twin towers crumble to the ground.” No, Karl, you felt confusion and stark abject terror…or is there some other reason why our Fearless Leader spent that fateful day (post-Pet Goat, of course) AWOL in the skies over Louisiana and Nebraska, leaving Mayor Giuliani to rally the nation?

At any rate, I’m sensing a pattern here…Soon after a GOP rep invokes 9/11 to flog a flag-burning amendment, White House strategist Karl Rove wallows in 9/11 and liberal-bashing before a GOP crowd here in NYC. Phew, talk about a Hail Mary. That dated soft-on-terror swill isn’t going to get lame duck Dubya’s domestic agenda off the ground, Karl. So you’d best start scroungin’ through that bottomless bag of dirty tricks for a different silver bullet. This outrageous claptrap is sad, pathetic, and demeaning…even coming from a right rotten bastard like Rove. Update: The Dems respond, and the White House digs in.

Speaker for the Dead.

Here’s an oldie-but-goodie from the GOP…by a margin of 286-130, the House pass another variation on the anti-flag-burning amendment. “‘Ask the men and women who stood on top of the (World) Trade Center,’ said Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham, R-Calif. ‘Ask them and they will tell you: pass this amendment.'” Yes, I’m sure the victims of that day were calling their loved ones by cellphone during those horrible moments to voice their support for a freakin’ flag-burning amendment. Have you no shame, Mr. Cunningham?

Don’t Mention the War.

“Taken in context, Durbin’s premise — that the techniques characterized in the FBI memo are consistent with those deployed by ‘mad regimes’ — is worth debating. But of course, such invocations are never debated in their precise context.” In light of Senator Dick Durbin’s recent apology for bringing up Nazis to discuss Gitmo, the WP discovers Godwin’s Law.