The assassination of a beautiful mind

Even the utterance of the word 'assassination' has a profane sound to it.

Thursday morning I was sitting on my living room floor playing with my 23-month-old daughter trying to stretch out every last moment of joy left in the holiday season with her when I realized it was time for her favorite TV program on Nickelodeon. Suddenly I found my holiday joy and spirit being tempered by a feeling of nausea that descended over me. Staring back at me from my TV screen was a CNN “Breaking News” headline: “Benazir Bhutto Assassinated.” Even though I wasn’t surprised, the fact it had happened in exactly the way one would have expected it still had the shocking and sickening impact the perpetrators intended.

Other than this description of the feelings and horror I was experiencing there isn’t much more one can say about her murder in context with the current situation in Pakistan. I’ll leave that to the brilliantly informed and analytical mind of Juan Cole. Having said that, there are a couple of observations I would like to add from a personal perspective and one of them is to ask the obvious rhetorical question the American mainstream media seems incapable of asking: where is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice?

From Dr. Rice’s point of view, which always seems to be from the back of a milk carton under the header “missing,” whenever a foreign policy initiative pushed by her goes awry, she continues to demonstrate one of the two major aspects of consistency in her tenure as head of the state department. First, she always seems to be conspicuously absent at those critical moments of failure when the world stage demands a clarification of some kind on the American position and what actions or inactions need to be taken. As for the other aspect, it is the ever present state of shock and surprise on her face whenever she does happen to appear publicly before the reverberations of one of her monumental blunders has had time to settle down to the level of normal confusion that is now standard under her tenure. After all it was the New York Times that reported on the moves initiated by her and the WH to pressure Musharraf into talks over a power sharing arrangement with the former Prime Minister. This was all due to the hope of introducing an ingredient of stability into a critical Middle Eastern ally with a fluid political environment awash in volatility from a variety of directions both internally and externally. Dr. Rice’s reverse German WWI gambit paralleling Lenin’s passage through their country to Russia as a destabilizing factor was sure to fail on its own terms considering Bhutto’s family history and legacy.

Dr. Rice’s stunning inability to read history and misinterpret its parallels with today’s international political climate continues to stagger the mind. Progressive tendencies to pejoratively compare her and the team of stumbling and bumbling jingoists that continue to serve as the arbiters of policy in the rump U.S. government of the executive branch to Machiavelli does a disservice to the cold, antiseptic, and pro-monarchist philosophy of the Italian diplomat. Though in contrast, humanizing Machiavelli's policies is quite a feat for this group.

The main reason for my shock and near sickening sadness is the fact I liked the public face of Ms. Bhutto. I liked her intellect and seemingly fearless motives, as she acted on what she believed was the best interest of her country at the risk of her own life. I am positive the intellect she always publicly demonstrated made her keenly aware of the Deus ex machina role she was expected to play for American regional interests. Despite this handicap from the Islamic world perspective, I also don’t believe for one moment she cared what that role implied. She was an incredibly shrewd politician who found herself in a position to use the American State Department for her own means to an end as much as it was the other way around. I once saw a quote from her autobiography where she gave the reason she left the comforting world of Western stability: “I didn’t chose this life, it chose me.” These are words that could have just as easily been uttered by the likes of Robert F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, or Mahatma Gandhi. She was the first female in her family to appear in public without a burqa, which, despite Salmon Rushdie’s lampooning, was an early indication of her strong will. I like to think my affinity for the public aura she emitted had noting do to do with the prejudicial reasons indicated in an obituary from one of the United Kingdom’s online news services, The Telegraph:

“Her glamorous good looks and fluent English led to a sustained love affair with Western politicians and journalists, many of whom had known her at either Harvard or Oxford. For those with the standard Western prejudices against the Islamic world, she had the added assets of a pronounceable name and a tolerant religious outlook. She did not organize anti-American rallies or issue fatwas against best-selling authors.”

That last sentence in itself demonstrates a racially prejudicial view it seems to object to and acts as a disservice to any thinking person, no matter what region of the world they are from when considering her educational background and the fact she was grounded in sensibilities one would not otherwise expect to find in an environment of religious ideological extremism.

I’m not sure what would have been had she lived and there is no doubt she had her flaws both personally and politically. I’m only sure of what the possibilities she offered were despite the somewhat negative and sobering analysis offered from the Telegraph on the legacy she carried with her upon her return to the Pakistan:

“In Pakistan she was often far less popular than her foreign press made out. To her opponents she was more English than Pakistani, more Western than Eastern. Her Urdu, although fluent, was ungrammatical, while her Sindhi, her family's mother tongue, was almost non-existent. It was also said hat she lacked a coherent political philosophy and tended to dissipate her energies on party politicking. During her first 20-month spell as prime minister, from 1988 to 1990, she failed to pass a single piece of major legislation, admittedly due in large part to the constraints imposed on her by a hostile and still-powerful military. […]Her tight monetary policy produced a dramatic reduction in the budget deficit, pulling the country's economy back from the brink of collapse, and earning it a clean bill of health from the IMF and World Bank.”

Despite the White House simpleton’s black and white perspective of the world and the volatile mixture of Middle Eastern cultural, religious, and political mechanizations it’s a wonder and a miracle she survived as long as she did.

Yes. ‘Assassination’ is an ugly and profane word. Its use has always demonstrated the inhumanity of the person and individuals who employ it and overwhelm and undermine the cause they support. Though martyrdom’s plight seems to serve a higher cause for the unjustly murdered its result is always short lived when the realities of the long view set in.

As I said, I liked the public face of Ms. Bhutto. Without putting a finger on the exactness of it let’s just say she seemed be a tranquil oasis in a dessert empty of sanity and reason, whether real or illusionary.

Welcome to Truman's Conscience v2.0

On Sunday, February 12, 2006 Truman's Conscience was launched. Though I wasn't happy with the blog's initial look I felt it would suffice until I could come up with a more user friendly design within the boundries of my limited HTML abilities. After quite a bit of hand wringing and a lot of blundering around I was finally able to get a design I am happy with for the relaunch. For a novice, such as myself, when it comes to HTML code it has been touch and go. Though there are still a few bugs to be ironed out (such as the formatting of archived posts) I hope this new blog will offer a more enjoyable experience for those few of you that drop by. I have taken the liberty of reposting below my orginal inaugural post that seems more relevent now than ever before. I hope you enjoy the new format and offer any suggestions you may have for improvement. All suggestions will be considered as long as it is in my power.

As of this inaugural post, it has been fifty-three years, three weeks, two days and four hours since Harry S. Truman’s official term of office expired. As each decade passes since that moment it only serves to underline the flourishing legacy he left behind that is still with us today. With the exception of Abraham Lincoln, it is doubtful a better representative of the common man with an evolving progressive mind could be found. At first, our 33rd President came out of Missouri with a parochial outlook couched in the southern prejudices of the time. With a progressive mind and a conscience that always strived for fairness one can only marvel at the evolving ideals and a sense of justice he would harness as the arc of his ascension in public life spiraled upward growing beyond his humble origins.His biographer, David McCullough, called him, "….a man of uncommon vitality and strength of character."

As the embodiment of one being faced with a world that had evolved beyond his capacity to view it with the sensibilities of a time long past he became much more than that. Our greatest President, Abraham Lincoln once profoundly observed, "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present….we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country." Only a progressive mind such as that of Harry Truman could understand the meaning of Lincoln’s profound sense of what is needed to face a world that seemed at the time to be so fraught with unmeetable challenges and peril. His strength of character and profound sense of self-awareness eventually enabled him to reach beyond himself and those around him in order to harness the ideas and energy that would allow him to, "….think anew, and act anew," as Lincoln prescribed. Now we find ourselves being led by the conservative mind in a post cold-war world conflicted with ambiguity and contradictions about our place and where we fit in to it. As we lurch and reach backward for tired old prescriptions that did not serve us well in the past our burden is added to as they serve to only soothe the closed mind of raw emotions driven by those that are easily angered and quick to judge. Progressive ideas are marginalized and ridiculed by a conservative mindset that prefers the simple solutions of yesterday and quick fix answers serving a consumer driven public massaged by the commercial blandness of mass consumption and the low expectations of a status quo society.Now more than ever we need new voices that call for us to, "…..think anew, and act anew."

We need new voices that ring with the clarion call for change to wash away the "dogmas of the quiet past that are inadequate to the stormy present." This blog is an attempt, in a very small way, to join that chorus and harmonize with those that feel that sense of urgency before it is too late to save the progressive ideals we fought so hard for and achieved. We need new voices that are driven by the conscience of Harry Truman and the sense of justice and fairness it embodied. Welcome to Truman’s conscience. My name is Michael and I’m the custodian of this small effort to harmonize with the voices of change and the call for justice in a political climate driven by fear and moral certainty. Come in and occasionally join us and we can sing together. Truman's Conscience will be here.

Where's Our Federal Infrastructure Monies? In Iraq, Where Else?

I'm really tired of heartbreaking examples of what Bush's excellent Mid-East adventure is costing our country in lives and money. The incompetence of the man notwithstanding there is the residual effect of our federal highway maintenance funds and where they've obviously wound up. Instead of fixing and maintaining our federal infrastructure we've sent the monies overseas so THAT infrastructure can be blown up:

"The Federal Highway Administration is rescinding a total of
more than $871 million in federal aid highway funds from states. Texas is second
only to California in the amount of funds being rescinded. California is losing
about $79.2 million. The money is being diverted to other government
priorities. In its notice, the Federal Highway Administration said the funds
were being rescinded as required by the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care,
Katrina Recovery and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act,
2007."

Bush's illegal war has been rearing it's ugly head at the cost of the home front since the advent of post-Katrina incompetence and neglect. His Mid-East adventure has not only killed innocent Iraqi civilians and our troops it has been costing lives here on the home front as well. The most stunning piece of information about all of this so far lays in the fact NTS & DOT engineers knew how precarious this bridge's status was:

" Bridge 9340 [I35W bridge] was of a design known as a "non-redundant structure" by civil engineers, meaning that if a single part failed, the whole structure could collapse. It was completed
before fundamental reform of bridge safety in America in the late
1960s."

As usual we have to get our news on this little tidbit from news OUTSIDE the US MSM. I can't imagine the fact this particular structure didn't get more immediate attention since it was a "non-redundant structure" as reported that would cause total collapse if it's structural integrity was compromised.

This is a travesty that can only be laid at the lap of Bush and his GOP minions. Congressional voting records simply don't lie.

Couric Still Looking For Bottom (Ratings wise that is....)

Every once in a while you get justification on something intellectually you know is just plain wrong. In this case for me it's the plight of Katie "Perky Soccer Mom Sensibilities" Couric. Putting aside the fact I simply can't stand this plastic fake of a human being I am enjoying watching CBS burn for this choice to reach out for the soccer mom sensibility demographic and change the face of network "we're shilling for the GOP" news.

And what pretell would sully and cloud my judgement about the perking cup of evening news that is now an evaporating 6:30pm demographic CBS is trying to stem? Back in 2000 during the heat of the Presidential election I had just stepped out of the shower getting ready for work when my T.V. suddenly announced to me Ms. perky girl Couric from her Today co-host chair was interviewing Dick Cheney. I don't quite remember the question she asked Cheney that elicited this reaction but I sure as hell remember Cheney's answer and Courics follow-up: "[Cheney] Well, that won't matter because Americans won't back that kind of foreign policy initiative, but the Democrats will surely put up a fight." So, you have Americans and then you have Democrats who are surely, according to Dick Cheney with that statement, NOT American. And Couric's follow up? "[Couric] Then why will the Democrats fight this?" Ah, nothing like validating a smear on half the country and smiling as you do it. Asking "Why won't the Democrats support this?" showed a tacit agreement with Cheney there are in fact "Americans" and "Democrats." I just wanted to kick my T.V. set in. Afterwards I spent the rest of the day seething, not at Dick Cheney, because one should expect this kind of vile framing from this lower case human being, but at Couric for validating it.

Now with CBS trying to bail water on this awful knee-jerk move to put Ms. Perky at the helm of Edward R. Murrow's legacy imagine my delight at reading how the backstage bickering is tearing the CBS news division asunder as they try to cut and run with this monumental disaster on their hands:

"So now Couric finds
herself tethered to what appears to be, if not a sinking ship, one taking on
water faster than anybody at CBS News knows how to bail. No wonder she's
undergone a minor image-reclamation project, suggesting in a magazine interview
that with perfect hindsight she might have balked at the challenge -- a
cry-me-a-river lament if there ever was one, coming from a multimillionaire
anchor as news divisions and newspapers hack their way toward
profitability."

Heh. The advent of 24 hour news channels still has the major network news divisions shaking their heads after nearly two decades of falling ratings. They still don't get that the landscape has changed with online Internet communities bypassing their corporate biases while propping up the GOP.

John Edwards For President

In this latest video of a recent New Hampshire appearance by John Edwards he tells us the political system is rigged agaisnt the average American voter. If you include yourself in this camp you didn't need convincing, you were already there. Call this speech a populist message or whatever label you find appropriate. The average American voter has known the system's been rigged since the Reagan admininstration. Clinton still found it malleable enough to use the system to do good things. With the advent of the current occupants in the White House they took the system over the edge and made the rigging fool proof. It will be a hard and difficult fight but it's still winnable. But hurry, time is runing out.

Fritz Mondale speaks out

In the early winter of 1975 I had just finished reading a book entitled: "The Accountability of Power: Toward A Responsible Presidency" that decided for me who I would support for President. It's author, Minnesota Senator Walter F. Mondale, had decided to declare for the White House in what promised to be a very crowded field and I was looking forward to joining his campaign. Even though I was only 21 years old at the time my political views were already starting to crystallize. But before I could blink an eye he abandoned his campaign before the political season began to heat up. Though I was lukewarm about Jimmy Carter in 1976, when he chose then Senator Mondale as his running mate I became an enthusiastic follower.

There is no doubt President Carter and Vice President Mondale redefined what a Vice President's political and historical role would be from there on out. Mr. Mondale always had the qualities I admired for a public servant and when he became a the Democratic nominee in 1984 I knew my feelings about him were justified when he chose Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate. A lot of political water has gone under the bridge since then as the former Vice President wound up his active political life with an Ambassadorship to Japan under the Clinton administration serving with distinction. Now he speaks out as only a former Vice President can regarding the crisis of leadership we are now faced with and the unaccountability of power he so eloquently wrote and warned us about over a quarter of a century ago. In this past Sunday's Washington Post he made it crystal clear in an editorial what we are faced with in a time where the GOP uses fear & indifference to accountability as an instrument for political rule:

"The corollary to Cheney's zealous
embrace of secrecy is his near total aversion to the notion of accountability.
I've never seen a former member of the House of Representatives
demonstrate such contempt for Congress -- even when it was controlled by his own
party. His insistence on invoking executive privilege to block virtually every
congressional request for information has been stupefying -- it's almost as if
he denies the legitimacy of an equal branch of government. Nor does he exhibit
much respect for public opinion, which amounts to indifference toward being held
accountable by the people who elected him.
Whatever authority a vice
president has is derived from the president under whom he serves. There are no
powers inherent in the office; they must be delegated by the president. Somehow,
not only has Cheney been given vast authority by President Bush -- including,
apparently, the entire intelligence portfolio -- but he also pursues his own
agenda. The real question is why the president allows this to happen.
Three
decades ago we lived through another painful example of a White House exceeding its
authority, lying to the American people, breaking the law and shrouding
everything it did in secrecy. Watergate wrenched the country, and our
constitutional system, like nothing before. We spent years trying to identify
and absorb the lessons of this great excess. But here we are
again."

It isn't a lack of accountability that is so abhorrent in this "administration" that is shocking, it's the embracing of it as a tool for governance with the tacit approval of the mainstream media who fails on every level to call them on it. Former Vice President Mondale is but a lone voice in a choir of Cassandra's that have and continue to go unheeded by the Washington, D.C. punditocracy and the mainstream media. As a voter though, his warnings should not go unheeded. Head over and read the entire piece. It will be worth your time.

Haircuts and boobs, boobs and haircuts....

I am now sticking my head in an oven.

My god, where are these people's heads? First there was and still is John Edwards' $400.00 haircut and now Hillary Clinton's rack. We will now be subjected to unending articles ad nauseum about Senator Clinton's neckline and the "strategy" surrounding it. And before all this, the likes of the MSM talking heads such as Chris Matthews et al talking about Bush's manly jaunt across the flighdeck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln and doing an appropriate swoon on air just makes me want to throw up. That now infamous 'Mission Accomplished' hyper testosterone photo op puts new meaning in the "Walk softly and carry a big stick" diplomacy since we've discovered this about the George W. Bush action figure that seemingly defines what was meant by a 'big stick':

"By far the most compelling confirmation of the phallic meaning of the president's aircraft-carrier cakewalk was found on the hot-selling "George W. Bush Top Gun action figure" manufactured by Talking Presidents. I originally ordered one to use as part of the cover design for this book. The studly twelve-inch flyboy not only comes with a helmet and visor, goggles and oxygen mask, but underneath his flight suit is a full "basket" --- a genuine fake penis, apparently constructed with lifelike silicone."

Somebody please wake me up from this Freudian nightmare. If Abraham Lincoln had been made aware of where political discourse would eventually lead in this country where using genitalia as a metaphor for political manipulation (i.e. the Starr report) and media coverage using personal hygiene as a litmus test for issue viability becomes standard fare he no doubt would have welcomed, if not begged, for Booth's bullet. What's media coverage of a death sentence being handed to you by your health insurance provider as opposed to the actual life threatening medical condition you suffer from compared to media coverage of tits, ass and male units anyway? Apparently, its no contest as the coverage of Hillary's cleavage crystallizes the answer for us.

Carolina Blue!

I KNEW there was a reason UNC and Duke used variations of the color blue. Over at Mydd, Jerome Armstrong picks up a nice piece from the Raleigh News & Observer about the latest voting trends and the new EC vote legislation that says buy, buy to the winner take all rule previously on the books:

Great news for the Dem candidate in '08:

"North Carolina appears
headed to becoming the third state in the nation to abandon the winner-take-all
method for awarding its electoral votes as the House tentatively agreed Thursday
to shelve the method.
In its place, according to the measure approved on a
largely party-line vote, would be a more proportional method that would reward
the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each of the state's
congressional districts.
The Senate already has passed the meaure, which
would take effect in 2008. A final House vote could come Friday, then the bill
would go to Gov. Mike Easley, a Democrat, just like the majority in the
Legislature, which has backed the change. The state Democratic Party also
supports it."

The Democratic candidate would be sure
to receive at least 3 EV's from NC, and probably as high as 7-8, depending on
the nominee. Eye
on '08 points out that Dems have the trifecta in Arkansas and Louisiana as
well, where they could possibly also make this change. At the least, it ensures
that candidates are going to be coming to NC during the 2008 contest. If this
had been in effect during 2000, Gore would have been President.

Having been born and living in North Carolina for most of the 80's I can tell you that there was a rural/urban dichotomy already taking place then. I was wondering how long it would be before urban, liberal sensibilities would soon find its way into the political culture. As it turns out, longer than I had hoped. But the Tar Heel State seems to be banging on the door with this news.

Loving the troops - GOP style

Congresswoman Nancy Boyda (CD#2- D-Kansas) passes along this little vignette that personifies exactly what Digby wrote about earlier today:

“And finally, I would just like to share a
story. When I was speaking back at home with one of a very right wing
conservative talk show hosts and after, thank God, after we were off the air, I
said something that I assumed he would agree with and I just said ‘you know, I’m
really worried about these guys and gals, but mainly guys, that have gone, that
they’ve been redeployed now three and four times’ — he came back to me and said
‘you know what, they should have thought about that before they enlisted, before
they signed up.’ He said ‘it’s their fault.’ And I was so upset, I looked at him
and I said with all due restraint, and I said no respect, it’s not with all due
respect because quite honestly, I have no respect for that opinion, with all due
restraint, and I got myself calmed down and left the room. But I am very
disappointed, I would hope that General Keane would not say that. But I am very
disappointed that, where is he to get up and defend the men and women who have
so honorably served our country? Where is he and where is the rest of this
military to say this is the right thing to do? With all due respect, this
country has to come together and first and foremost deal in the reality of the
situation and find a way to come together and put these crazy partisan politics
behind us, and come up with a way forward. And maybe that’s where I should stop.
And I will yield back my time.”

There is no doubt this is how most of them feel. And how do we know? Look how many Congressional representatives have signed up to fight the most important battle for civilization (to quote Bush) in our history. Ok. As long as someone else fights it.

The GOP wingo's make me sick. (h/t to Atrios).

Snarkilicious!

Over at Firedoglake TRex sets the standard for snarkiness:

"CNN:
Cape Canaveral Florida (CNN) — Someone
intentionally damaged a computer intended for the International
Space Station, NASA said Thursday.

What, did he install Windows Vista on it?"

Heh!

Edwards' Lead Holds In Iowa

Chris Bowers of Open Left has a very insightful post at Mydd regarding the latest poll numbers in Iowa and as usual it seems to be dead on. I'm with him about being a little reticent to wrap my arms completely around the latest numbers because the sampling numbers the poll uses are just not high enough to keep the MOE within reasonable range. In any event it's obvious that Edwards is still the man to beat there. Even more fascinating is a poll he has up at his new site, Open Left, showing how many times democratic voters have heard the names of the candidate over a selected four day period from the last three months. Edwards gets only a 2% response and yet after all the media coverage gotten by Clinton and Obama where they were picking up 42% and 22% respectively Edwards still holds his solid lead. This only portends badly for Clinton as her name recognition seems to have topped out. And this being Obama's back yard with Iowa adjoining his home state, this is not good. Yes, a lot can change over the next 170 days but this shows that Edwards' message is right on. Let's hope he can keep it up.

A G.I. Joe War

Digby, Digby, Digby........you are a goddess. Go here and read this now. As a son and brother of a veteran this article made me want to laugh, cry and rant. She crystallizes the right wing's distortion as no one else can. Our troops are acutal human beings, imagine that........