As seen from Just Above Sunset

Wednesday, 3 December 2003

Topic: The Media

"If our boss can do it, why can't you network guys do it?"
An interesting post regrading the news media from Rick in Atlanta.

The question "Why don't we ever see Peter Jennings visiting Iraq" may not be burning holes in the brains of the average American viewer, but it seems to be quietly eating its way through the Bush administration. Who knew?

There are those in the White House who have noticed that whenever Jennings visits some city like Atlanta, we then tend to see all sorts of cute stories, many if not most of them positive, that otherwise never would have made network air. So why, the reasoning seems to go, instead of dwelling on all this violence, don't the network anchors visit Iraq and show America the 95% positive and good things going on there?

(Okay, other than the obvious counter argument that the networks have legions of journalists on the ground in Iraq already, might one wonder how positive the Iraqi situation would look if the anchors were required to fly in with lights turned off, as the president did? Just pondering here.)

You can read this with pictures at:
No News Anchors In Iraq Has White House Troubled
Peter Johnson, USA TODAY, updared December 1, 2003

As U.S. casualties - 79 in November - and controversy over the war in Iraq mount, why has no network news anchor set foot in Iraq since September, when CBS' Dan Rather last visited?

It is a sore spot between the Bush administration and network news executives. Now that President Bush and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., have made Thanksgiving trips to Iraq, insiders predict networks may return some of their big guns to Iraq in coming weeks to gauge the situation for themselves.

Executives at NBC, ABC and CBS argue that correspondents in Iraq are putting the story in perspective and that millions of Americans who watch everything from NBC's Today to The CBS Evening News to ABC's Nightline are getting an accurate picture.
But the Bush administration says positive stories from Iraq are drowned out by a daily drumbeat of bombings and attacks on U.S. troops. If news divisions sent their anchors to Iraq and let them spend time there, they might report a different - and more positive - story.

Ambassador Paul Bremer, who heads the U.S. rebuilding effort in Iraq, "never misses an opportunity to invite every anchor to come over. It is a staple of every interaction," coalition spokesman Dan Senor says. "Ninety-five percent of this country is returning to normal. In order to capture that story, you have to travel and invest time."

From March through October, ABC, CBS and NBC combined devoted 47 hours, more than one-quarter of their weekday nightly newscasts, to Iraq, network news analyst Andrew Tyndall says. NBC spent 1,037 minutes; ABC, 930; and CBS, 873.

"It's not automatic that anchors should be in Iraq, but it's not out of left field to ask why they are not there," Tyndall says. Almost 30 million viewers get their news each night from the three broadcasts - the biggest source of news in America.

NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw has not been to Iraq since July, but producer Steve Capus says, "I reject the characterization that we only do negative stories." He cites, among others, stories on cement and water treatment plants working again. "Our report runs the gamut: good, bad and otherwise."

And so on, with many quotes from the talking heads...

Posted by Alan at 13:38 PST | Post Comment | View Comments (1) | Permalink
Updated: Tuesday, 9 December 2003 13:46 PST home

Topic: Iraq

You sometimes have to choose what your values really are.
It comes down to the issue of what is really more important.

In the past two years, the Department of Defense has discharged thirty-seven linguists from the Defense Language Institute for being gay. Many studied Arabic. At a time of heightened need for intelligence specialists, thirty-seven linguists were judged to be of no use because of their homosexuality.

The Washington Post profiles one.

The Post doesn't discuss the Pentagon abandoning plans to use a group of Sephardic Jews in New York to take up the slack, as that branch of Judaism offers scholars who know Arabic extremely well. In that case the Pentagon denies claims that they are anti-Semitic, saying that they felt using Jewish translators would anger the Arab world. Perhaps so.

The background is this: Historically, military leaders have argued that allowing gays to serve would hurt unit cohesion and recruiting efforts, and infringe on the privacy rights of heterosexuals. In 1993, at the urging of President Clinton, Congress agreed to soften the outright ban on gays in the military with a policy that came to be known as "don't ask, don't tell," which allowed them to serve as long as they kept their sexual orientation secret.

The Defense Language Institute, at the Presidio of Monterey, is the primary foreign-language school for the Department of Defense. For decades, Russian was the dominant language taught. But since Sept. 11, 2001, the size of the Arabic class has soared. Of the roughly 3,800 students enrolled at the DLI, 832 are learning Arabic, 743 Korean, 353 Chinese and 301 Russian, with the remaining students scattered in other languages. ... The DLI estimates the value of its 63-week Arabic language program -- not including room, board and the service member's salary -- at $33,500.

Anyway, this is an interesting read.

How 'Don't Tell' Translates
The Military Needs Linguists, But It Doesn't Want This One
By Anne Hull, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wednesday, December 3, 2003; Page A01

From Hull:

Historically, military leaders have argued that allowing gays to serve would hurt unit cohesion and recruiting efforts, and infringe on the privacy rights of heterosexuals. In 1993, at the urging of President Clinton, Congress agreed to soften the outright ban on gays in the military with a policy that came to be known as "don't ask, don't tell," which allowed them to serve as long as they kept their sexual orientation secret.

Hull's Example:

Cathleen Glover was cleaning the pool at the Sri Lankan ambassador's residence recently when she heard the sound of Arabic drifting through the trees. Glover earned $11 an hour working for a pool-maintenance company, skimming leaves and testing chlorine levels in the backyards of Washington. No one knew about her past. But sometimes the past found her.

Glover recognized the sound instantly. It was the afternoon call to prayer coming from a mosque on Massachusetts Avenue. She held still, picking out familiar words and translating them in her head.
She learned Arabic at the Defense Language Institute (DLI), the military's premier language school, in Monterey, Calif. Her timing as a soldier was fortuitous: Around her graduation last year, a Government Accounting Office study reported that the Army faced a critical shortage of linguists needed to translate intercepts and interrogate suspects in the war on terrorism.

"I was what the country needed," Glover said.

She was, and she wasn't. Glover is gay. She mastered Arabic but couldn't handle living a double life under the military policy known as "don't ask, don't tell." After two years in the Army, Glover, 26, voluntarily wrote a statement acknowledging her homosexuality.

Confronted with a shortage of Arabic interpreters and its policy banning openly gay service members, the Pentagon had a choice to make.

Which is how former Spec. Glover came to be cleaning pools instead of sitting in the desert, translating Arabic for the U.S. government.

The government's position:

On average, three or four service members are discharged each day because they are gay. Most are discharged for making statements about their sexuality, and most are younger than twenty-five. The Army says the discharged linguists were casualties of their own failure to meet a known policy. "We have standards," said Harvey Perritt, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va. "We have physical standards, academic standards. There's no difference between administering these standards and administering 'don't ask, don't tell.' The rules are the rules."

Okay, fine.

Posted by Alan at 08:47 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Tuesday, 9 December 2003 13:47 PST home

Tuesday, 2 December 2003

Topic: Election Notes
Hot political stuff! Chutzpah to the MAX!

In Slate Magazine today William Saletan writes about political chutzpah. Howard Dean is his case study. How can Dean possibly say such things about Bush, given who Dean is?

If you read it all there is a reference to Max Cleland and how he lost his job. The Cleland business really offended me. The man who lost three limbs in the war Bush ducked lost his seat when the Republicans ran spot advertisements with his image and Saddam's and Osama's in the same frame - saying Cleland's questions about some homeland security ideas and his questions about the Patriot Act made him, in fact, a supporter of the terrorists and someone who hated America. But then again, Georgia is an odd place.

Anyway, this is for your amusement. I wish I had written this. It's mighty fine.

Takes One To Know One
In the chutzpah war, Dean has Bush's draft number.
By William Saletan, SLATE, Posted Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2003, at 2:16 PM PT
Note: Clicking on the link will give you the article with the web equivalent of footnotes - everything mentioned is actively linked to the source material so you can see where he got his information.

The opening:

According to the Washington Post, here's what Dean said about President Bush in New Hampshire Sunday:

1) Bush has "no understanding of defense." "Mr. President, if you'll pardon me, I'll teach you a little about defense."

2) "He's made us weaker. He doesn't understand what it takes to defend this country, that you have to have high moral purpose. He doesn't understand that you better keep troop morale high rather than just flying over for Thanksgiving."

3) Bush lacks "the backbone to stand up against the Saudis," who are funding radical Muslim schools "to train the next generation of suicide bombers."

4) "The president is about to let North Korea become a nuclear power."

5) Bush "cut 164,000 veterans off" from medical benefits and at one point said "he was going to cut the combat pay" for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here's how the Concord Monitor described Dean's comment at one of Sunday's events: "While Dean likes to listen to knowledgeable advisers, he said, the current administration waged war in Iraq on the basis of decision-makers who either never served in a foreign conflict or served in the National Guard. Meanwhile, Dean said, the one adviser 'who actually ever experienced combat abroad,' U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, was ignored."

Let's recap. A guy who has no foreign policy experience, opposed the war in Iraq, and went skiing after he escaped the Vietnam draft because of a bad back is calling a wartime president soft on defense. And despite cries of outrage from Republican pundits, luminaries, and party organs, he isn't letting up. Monday on Hardball, Dean said, "This president, I don't believe, has any idea how to fight terror. ... This president has wasted 15 months or more doing nothing about the fact that North Korea is almost certainly a nuclear power, [and] we can't tolerate North Korea as a nuclear power." On Crossfire, Dean adviser Steve McMahon reiterated that Bush had tried to cut veterans' benefits. Coming to McMahon's aid, Democratic pugilist James Carville charged that Bush has "stretched our military to the point that we're weaker today. And he's created terror."

Well, that's a pretty amazing attack from the governor of a small state. It all may be true, but the question is clear. How can Dean say possibly such things about Bush given who Dean is?

Here's how:

Where did Dean and his lieutenants get this kind of gall? Maybe from the guy they're attacking. In February 2000, Bush, a governor with no foreign policy experience, faced ex-POW John McCain in the do-or-die South Carolina Republican presidential primary. What was Bush's military record? He had joined the Texas Air National Guard to escape the Vietnam draft. A former speaker of the Texas House had sworn in an affidavit that he had made phone calls, at the behest of a friend of Bush's father, to get Bush into the Guard. As the Boston Globe later discovered from interviews and government documents, Bush "was all but unaccounted for" during the latter part of his Guard service. "For a full year, there is no record that he showed up for the periodic drills required of part-time guardsmen," the Globe reported.

From May to November 1972, Bush was in Alabama working in a US Senate campaign, and was required to attend drills at an Air National Guard unit in Montgomery. But there is no evidence in his record that he did so. And William Turnipseed, the retired general who commanded the Alabama unit back then, said in an interview last week that Bush never appeared for duty there. ... After the election, Bush returned to Houston. But seven months later, in May 1973, his two superior officers at Ellington Air Force Base could not perform his annual evaluation covering the year from May 1, 1972 to April 30, 1973 because, they wrote, "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of this report."

Ultimately, Bush requested and received an early discharge to attend Harvard Business School.

So one might think Bush would be a bit more humble? Well, the subject of the piece is, after all, chutzpah.

Was Bush chastened by his embarrassing history? Not a bit. On Feb. 3, 2000, he staged a rally in Sumter, S.C., to trumpet his support from veterans' groups. According to firsthand reports, Bush stood by smiling as Tom Burch, the head of the National Vietnam and Gulf War Veterans Coalition, accused McCain of opposing health care for Gulf War veterans and efforts to locate POW-MIAs in Vietnam. Bush followed with a speech in which he warned, "We must have a commander-in-chief who understands the role of the military." The Los Angeles Times reported that "Bush, continuing his offensive at a news conference ... then accused McCain of not doing enough for veterans suffering from ailments related to military service, such as Gulf War Syndrome." When he was asked about Burch's comments, Bush replied that the veterans who had spoken at the rally "looked at both of us and they have chosen me to be the nominee. I'm proud of that."

Three days later on Face the Nation, Bush adviser Karl Rove bragged, "Gov. Bush has drawn the support of veterans in South Carolina because he's strong on national defense and because there's a big difference between the two candidates: One believes there ought to be an overall increase in the defense budget, and the other candidate, Sen. McCain, says he does not believe that we need to increase the defense budget." Bush then brought in a new surrogate, Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Tex., who told the crowd at another South Carolina rally, "I happened to be with McCain for the last year and a half in the prison camp over there in Vietnam and I know him pretty well. And I know him pretty well from the Congress too. And I can tell you, he cannot hold a candle to George Bush."

McCain's supporters derided these attacks, joked about Bush's draft avoidance, and predicted that at least 60 percent of South Carolina veterans would cast their ballots for McCain. They were wrong. McCain got 48 percent of the veterans' vote. Bush got 47 percent and won the primary, dooming McCain's candidacy.

As they say on the television games shows - BUT WAIT! There's more!

But Bush was just getting warmed up. In 2002, he captured the Senate by staging a fight over the role of labor unions in the Department of Homeland Security--and accusing Democrats who opposed him on that issue of endangering the nation. In the 2004 campaign, he's at it again. Last week, the GOP aired a TV ad that accused Bush's opponents of "attacking the President for attacking the terrorists." Never mind that two of the ad's implicit targets, John Kerry and Wesley Clark, took bullets in Vietnam while Bush was guarding the Mexican border, or licking campaign envelopes in Alabama, or doing whatever he was doing when he wasn't where he was supposed to be. Never mind that Max Cleland, one of the senators Bush ousted with his "homeland security" ruse in 2002, lost three limbs in the war Bush ducked. Now Republicans go around quoting Cleland on how Dean "weaseled out" of Vietnam. And they accuse Dean of chutzpah.

It's been said before that Dean and Bush share an aristocratic Yankee heritage. To the unwary, this means they're soft. Democrats learned the hard way that when it comes to politics, if not war, Bush has no shame and takes no prisoners. Now Republicans will learn the same about Dean.

Wow.

The Max Cleland business really offended me. He lost his seat when the Republicans ran spot advertisements with his image and Saddam's and Osama's in the same frame - saying his questions about some homeland security ideas and his questions about the Patriot Act made him, in fact, a supporter of the terrorists and someone who hated America. But then again, Georgia is an odd place.

Posted by Alan at 14:51 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Tuesday, 9 December 2003 13:47 PST home

Topic: Oddities
"She came with the exhilarating whoops and pant-hoots of a troop of Rhesus monkeys, which was flattering, if alarming."

Reuters reports this:
Sting to Present Britain's Bad Sex Award
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
LONDON (Reuters) -

No embarrassment will be spared on Wednesday when rock star Sting presents one of Britain's least-desired literary awards - the Bad Sex in Fiction Award. Now in its 11th year, the dubious honor is awarded by the Literary Review magazine for the most inept description of sexual intercourse in a novel. Nominated authors for this year's prize include John Updike, Paul Theroux, Paulo Coelho and Alan Parker.

Among the climactic passages in the contest is one from former BBC radio executive Rod Liddle's Too Beautiful for You. "She came with the exhilarating whoops and pant-hoots of a troop of Rhesus monkeys, which was flattering, if alarming."

Motoring themes are to the fore. In Tama Janowitz's Peyton Amberg a lover's intimate probing of the heroine is "as if he was searching for lost car keys," while in Aniruddha Bahal's Bunker 13 a female partner "picks up a Bugatti's momentum."

Musical metaphors are also well represented. The multi-orgasmic female narrator of Paolo Coelho's Eleven Minutes reaches Heaven - "I was the earth, the mountains, the tigers, the rivers that flowed into the lakes, the lake that became the sea."

Sting, who once boasted that yoga had improved his sexual endurance, will present the prize Wednesday evening after each of the competing passages have been read to a 500-strong audience.

Previous winners include AA Gill, Sebastian Faulks and Melvyn Bragg.

How does one become a member of the panel which judges all this?

Posted by Alan at 10:57 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Tuesday, 9 December 2003 13:48 PST home

Topic: Election Notes
"A good fellow has passed away."

When I was living west of Rochester, New York in the seventies, Conable was my congressman, and he is one of the Republicans I gladly voted for over the years. Yes, I do vote for Republicans now and then. Of course, the bit about refusing to answer Nixon's letters and refusing to go to Nixon's funeral are classics. (See below.) And he really ticked off the first President Bush by being disloyal, or treasonous or whatever, when he decided to do his job at the World Bank, and not to what Bush wanted. Oh well. A good fellow. Would that there were now, still, people like this in the political world.

Barber Conable, 81; GOP Stalwart in Congress, Head of World Bank
Associated Press via the Los Angeles Times, Tuesday, December 02, 2003

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Barber B. Conable Jr., a Republican congressman for 20 years who was his party's standard bearer on taxes, trade and Social Security, has died. He was 81.

Excerpts:

... Representing a largely rural section of western New York from 1965 to 1985, Conable rose to be the senior Republican on the powerful tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee while the GOP was the minority party.

From 1986 to 1991, he was president of the World Bank, the agency that lends billions of dollars to developing nations.

Among the high points of his years in Congress were forcing through the revenue-sharing law in 1972 and the Trade Reform Act of 1974, which cleared the way for U.S. negotiations on lowering tariff barriers.

There were also bitter disappointments, none greater than the betrayal he felt during Watergate after years of loyally backing President Nixon's policies. He later refused to answer Nixon's letters or attend his funeral.

... His friendship with George H.W. Bush, dating to their service together in Congress in the 1960s, turned sour after Bush ascended to the presidency in 1989.

Conable announced in early 1991 that he would not seek a second five-year term on the World Bank.

"He [Bush] thought I should be supporting an American agenda; I thought I was there to help the poor people," Conable said in an interview with Associated Press in 1998. "So I got the reputation of not being a team player, and that was the one thing George wouldn't stand for."

... It was no surprise when both parties judged him the "most respected" member of the House his final two years in office. "There never has been a better congressman," columnist George Will wrote.

Posted by Alan at 08:47 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Tuesday, 9 December 2003 13:39 PST home

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