blog.shrub

On March 23, 2007, I received an email from MoveOn titled “Rep. Pelosi does the right thing on Iraq.” It began like this:

Dear MoveOn member,
We’re one step closer in the fight to end the war. Today the Iraq Accountability Act passed Congress. For the first time, Congress passed a real deadline to end the war—by fall of 2008. Your representative, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi voted right and helped make that happen.

This was a very hard vote for members of Congress. But Rep. Pelosi supported Speaker Pelosi in her strategy to wind down this war. Can you write her a quick note to say ‘thanks’ for bringing us one step closer and to keep up the fight until all our troops are home?

Look at the second paragraph: This was a very hard vote for members of Congress. But Rep. Pelosi supported Speaker Pelosi in her strategy to wind down this war.

No, there’s only one Pelosi in Congress. It’s just MoveOn’s software that’s a little overzealous. People in Pelosi’s congressional district should have received a differently-worded letter, or none at all.

In the Seattle Times, Floyd McKay laments the unfriendly US border:

In a reputable international survey, 39 percent said the U.S. was the world’s worst in terms of being traveler-friendly, including document processing and “having immigration officials who are respectful toward foreign visitors.” The Middle East and South Asia were “next worst,” at 16 percent. Canada was cited by only 2 percent.

This survey, by Discover America Partnership, an advocacy organization for America’s tourism industry, confirms what a lot of borderites already know — we seem to go out of our way to insult, intimidate and discourage visitors. We’ve gone across the border with Scottish friends, middle-aged professionals who were pulled out of line, rudely questioned and kept waiting for no apparent reason. One friend, after witnessing U.S. border agents harass an East Asian family, said it reminded him of his native South Africa.

Keith put together an impressive, impassioned commentary on September 11, five years later.

The Boston Globe has a fascinating article on what Bush’s refusal to veto bills really means:

Bush is the first president in modern history who has never vetoed a bill, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Instead, he has signed every bill that reached his desk, often inviting the legislation’s sponsors to signing ceremonies at which he lavishes praise upon their work.

Then, after the media and the lawmakers have left the White House, Bush quietly files ‘’signing statements” — official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law. The statements are recorded in the federal register.

In his signing statements, Bush has repeatedly asserted that the Constitution gives him the right to ignore numerous sections of the bills — sometimes including provisions that were the subject of negotiations with Congress in order to get lawmakers to pass the bill. He has appended such statements to more than one of every 10 bills he has signed.

”He agrees to a compromise with members of Congress, and all of them are there for a public bill-signing ceremony, but then he takes back those compromises — and more often than not, without the Congress or the press or the public knowing what has happened,” said Christopher Kelley, a Miami University of Ohio political science professor who studies executive power.

So what do all those signing statements do? Well, they give him an excuse to ignore the laws:

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Such a brilliant performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner:

But, listen, let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works: the president makes decisions. He’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put ‘em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!

Because really, what incentive do these people have to answer your questions, after all? I mean, nothing satisfies you. Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the White House has personnel changes. Then you write, “Oh, they’re just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!

We already know MSNBC doesn’t like Bill O’Reilly. Neither does CBS. Instead of the usual softballs, O’Reilly got mocked by David Letterman.

Why Farhad Manjoo still watches The West Wing:

The show is a fiction, certainly. There isn’t a politician in the world like Jed Bartlet, an exceedingly smart, (mostly) honest man with principles, who doesn’t govern by politics, who takes counsel from the cooler, calmer heads on his staff, and even from his opponents. Today in politics, you won’t find anyone half as good. And that’s precisely why I watch: Some people might look at “The West Wing” under the Bush administration as a fantasy. I look at it as a blueprint. We should be so lucky to have a real White House like that. And maybe, one day, we will. Until then, it’s nice to have it on TV.

A dental student at Marquette University got in a bit of trouble over a blog posting.

I’ll let the Marquette Warrior sum it up:

But this is the first case we know of (there probably have been many we don’t know of) when a precipitous and emotional reaction from University administrators led to a punishment that, if it stands, will ruin a student’s career.

Offended at blog statements that were ill-considered, but did not clearly (and probably did not at all) violate any ethical or professional norms, they imposed a tough sentence.

When the student had the temerity to ask for the hearing he had every right to, they ignored the expert testimony of their own ethicist, refused to hear the testimony of a faculty member who could discuss the prevailing norms of student blogging, and came down on the student like a ton of bricks.

The entire process did not look like the adjudication of a case of student misconduct. It looked like a vendetta.

On The Streets Of America 3: Americans on the street decide who/where we should invade next.