One of the greatest body blows to the Bush administration from the 9/11 hearings and Dick Clark’s revelations has been the comparison between the Clinton and Bush approaches to handling terrorism before the two towers fell.

George Tenet gave gripping testimony in the hearings today — so gripping that it completely diverted my attention from the dentist who was drilling holes in two of my teeth at the time. He described, in 10 very clear points, how the Clinton administration had dealt blows to al-Qaida in the years leading up to 9/11. I wish I could find the transcript, but alas, I could not. But Dick Clark gives an abbreviated summary on the same topic in this Salon interview (with free access to non-subscribers graciously provided):

The Clinton administration stopped Iraqi terrorism against the United States, through military intervention. It stopped Iranian terrorism against the United States, through covert action. It stopped the al-Qaida attempt to have a dominant influence in Bosnia. It stopped the terrorist attacks at the millennium. It stopped many other terrorist attacks, including on the U.S. embassy in Albania. And it began a lethal covert action program against al-Qaida; it also launched military strikes against al-Qaida.

One of those military strikes was a direct missile attack launched against OBL based on credible intelligence (it missed him by several hours, but killed 20-30 lieutenants). But because this occurred during the Lewinsky scandal and its aftermath, it was widely derided as a “wag-the-dog” incident. Some apologies are due, I think.

On the other hand, Clark describes the Bush administration’s attitude in the first 9 months of office like this:

[The Bush Administration] had a preconceived set of national security priorities: Star Wars, Iraq, Russia. And they were not going to change those preconceived notions based on people from the Clinton administration telling them that was the wrong set of priorities … Prior to 9/11, the Bush administration didn’t have an approach to terrorism. They’d never gotten around to creating an administration policy. It was in the process of doing so, but it hadn’t achieved that. And it was clear that the national security advisor didn’t like this kind of issue; she didn’t have meetings on this issue. The president didn’t have meetings on the issue of terrorism.

This claim hits fundamentally at Bush’s main reason for re-election. And so, of course, the attack dogs are in force. But since they can’t attack the substantive claims, they’re focussing on the details (many of which are rebutted here), and on the credibility of Clark himself. But as a 30-year veteran, and a Republican, this is one credible guy.

This is the issue that could — if sustained until November — cripple Bush. MoveOn.org is even seeking donations to fund a TV commercial on the issue. (I’ve included their solicitation email, which includes some forceful arguments, below.) Let’s hope this isn’t all forgotten in two weeks.
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Coke has pulled its Dasani purified-water product from the shelves in the UK, and delayed its launch in France and Germany. The withdrawal was prompted by a quality issue at the recommendation of the UK’s food watchdog, but there’s a larger issue at stake here, in my opinion.

The launch of Dasani into the UK in the first place didn’t go well. Consumers soon realized that unlike the more-familiar Evian and domestic brands of bottled water, Dasani is purified London tap water. I’m not suprised the Brits didn’t take to it like ducks to water. Bottled water in the UK has always had a “luxury” aspect to it (at least, it did, when I was there), and consumers could only really turn their noses up at the prospect of mere tap water in a bottle. In continental Europe bottled water is much more of a commodity, but again, between the choice of mineral/spring water and purified tap water, I can guess what your typical French consumer would rather be seen drinking.

I’d be surprised if they didn’t postpone the European launch indefinitely.

David has been much concerned of late about the litigious nature of American society, as am I. But I’m a little less willing to embrace wholesale “tort reform” that would severely limit lawsuits. (Why is it that conservatives, who so like privatizing things, resent the privatization of the enforcement of medical and product safety standards? That’s basically what much maligned trial lawyers have done, and yes, some of them have gotten rich doing it, as privatizers always seem to do.)

This op-ed in USA Today marshalls some interesting facts about malpractice cases. At the very least, it’s clear that these suits are not the only (or the major) factor driving healthcare costs up. And, as the sad case of my doctor proves, there are plenty of nice doctors out there doing really awful things.

Several of you have asked me why I haven’t commented on L’affaire Stern. I’ll be honest… as much as I buy the line of argument that “Though I disagree with what you say I’ll fight to my death for your right to say it,” I have so long disliked Howard Stern that I can’t bring myself to weep for him too much. His pandering to the lowest common denominator has set the tone for every other un-funny idiot on every second-rate morning show in the world, while liberating America’s inner fifth-grader. Who knew we had such an insatiable national taste for fart jokes and jiggling lesbians? For years, millions of Americans have listened to Stern when they might have been paying attention to the kind of content that allows adults to think and vote like grownups. (Think of the poor bastards weaned on a decade of Stern and Limbaugh, and the damage they’ve done to the rest of us!)

That said, it is now clear that it was the juvenility of Stern’s obsessions that had protected him. As soon as he veered into touchy political subjects (touchy, that is, to Repubs–Stern had plenty explicit to say about Clinton!), the GOP apparently called in their chits with Clear Channel and handed Assman his ass.

So, now I’ve written about Stern, whose downfall–though lacking true tragic stature–is instructive. To quote the bumper-sticker: “The media are only as liberal as the conservative corporations that own them.” If Stern’s fans had been paying attention for the past decade, this would not be so shocking.

I’m saving my tears for the more serious journalists who are being routinely silenced for hard-hitting investigative journalism. Take the case of Kevin Vandenbroek, a Michigan radio personality who was sacked
after substantiating claims of bribery at the top of the Republican House Leadership. Apparently, threatening civil servants with dismissal for correctly pricing the Medicare drug bill wasn’t enough; someone offered Michigan Republican Nick Smith $100,000 for his son’s political campaign if he’d switch his no vote to yes. After initially sounding off about this, Smith himself was silenced. After switching his story, Smith was nailed by Vandenbroek’s recording of his initial account. That, plus a couple more offenses against the Powers That Be (a terse email to a conservative bigot and a question about W’s veracity in his Tim Russert interview) got Vandenbroek fired. In a country where the media were truly liberal, a scoop like that would get you a raise (and maybe a Peabody nomination).

The truth is, Vandenbroek will probably be OK– and Lord knows Stern has ridden the gravy train (diarrhea train?) long enough the he won’t be eating cat food in his early retirement. In any case, I’m beginning to think that Janet Jackson’s nipple did us all a favor–by encouraging the Right’s censoriousness to overstep its bounds, they have showed even the fart joke set just how bad things have gotten here in the United States of T&A.

A 27-year-old student in New Zealand offers a new understanding of time, and resolves the 2500-year-old Zeno paradox: link. It’s about time Physics got a shaking up.

Wow… tastingmenu.com is an amazing food blog… I’m tired of all the politics of late. Maybe we can write up SDS Chocolate edition?

While it comes as little surprise, former anti-terror czar Richard Clarke’s 60 Minutes interview confirms our worst suspicions about the Bush administration’s grievous errors both before and after 9/11 (detailed in his new book, Against All Enemies), excerpted here. You truly MUST read the out-takes from the interview online–it is as damning as anything that has appeared so far about the administration, highlighting its disregard for facts, its ideological fixation, and its shameful abuse of anyone who tried to get in the way of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld war machine. It is literally one sickening jaw-dropper after another.

Mind you, Clarke was appointed by W’s dad, held over by Clinton because of his excellent qualifications and strong relations with both the CIA and the FBI. During the Clinton administration, his post was accorded Cabinet-level status; soon after he took office, W had Clarke demoted, leaving no terrorism expert within the administration’s inner circle.

Clarke clearly points out the extent to which senior officials were obsessed with Iraq, to the exclusion of all else:

Clarke was the president’s chief adviser on terrorism, yet it wasn’t until Sept. 11 that he ever got to brief Mr. Bush on the subject. Clarke says that prior to Sept. 11, the administration didn’t take the threat seriously.

“We had a terrorist organization that was going after us! Al Qaeda. That should have been the first item on the agenda. And it was pushed back and back and back for months.

“There’s a lot of blame to go around, and I probably deserve some blame, too. But on January 24th, 2001, I wrote a memo to Condoleezza Rice asking for, urgently — underlined urgently — a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with the impending al Qaeda attack. And that urgent memo– wasn’t acted on.

“I blame the entire Bush leadership for continuing to work on Cold War issues when they back in power in 2001. It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier. They came back. They wanted to work on the same issues right away: Iraq, Star Wars. Not new issues, the new threats that had developed over the preceding eight years.”

Clarke finally got his meeting about al Qaeda in April, three months after his urgent request. But it wasn’t with the president or cabinet. It was with the second-in-command in each relevant department.

For the Pentagon, it was Paul Wolfowitz.

Clarke relates, “I began saying, ‘We have to deal with bin Laden; we have to deal with al Qaeda.’ Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, said, ‘No, no, no. We don’t have to deal with al Qaeda. Why are we talking about that little guy? We have to talk about Iraqi terrorism against the United States.’

“And I said, ‘Paul, there hasn’t been any Iraqi terrorism against the United States in eight years!’ And I turned to the deputy director of the CIA and said, ‘Isn’t that right?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, that’s right. There is no Iraqi terrorism against the United States.”

Clarke went on to add, “There’s absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda, ever.”

So what does Clarke think will be the result of W’s monomaniacal focus on Iraq?

Does Clarke think that Iraq, the Middle East and the world is better off with Saddam Hussein out of power?

“I think the world would be better off if a number of leaders around the world were out of power. The question is what price should the United States pay,” says Clarke. “The price we paid was very, very high, and we’re still paying that price for doing it.”

“Osama bin Laden had been saying for years, ‘America wants to invade an Arab country and occupy it, an oil-rich Arab country. He had been saying this. This is part of his propaganda. So what did we do after 9/11? … We stepped right into bin Laden’s propaganda,” adds Clarke. “And the result of that is that al Qaeda and organizations like it, offshoots of it, second-generation al Qaeda have been greatly strengthened.”

So why come out with all this now? Because there is no way the country can afford another 4 years of ignorant, morally bankrupt, and ideologically corrupt leadership:

“Frankly,” he said, “I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he’s done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We’ll never know.”

Clarke went on to say, “I think he’s done a terrible job on the war against terrorism.”

(Admittedly I’m late to the table on this, but I wanted to post anyway in case others (like myself) have been living under a rock, been out of the country, or just have no idea what’s on the big screen.)

Get thee to see The Triplets of Belleville (Belleville Rendezvous, in French). Hurry up. This is a great movie for people that love bicycles, silly French cars, cartoons, or all of those things in combination. The Seattle Weekly review compares it to Finding Nemo, but that’s too simplistic, and anyway, it’s much more like The City of Lost Children, and not just because it’s French. Any movie that features a dog’s dream sequence in stunning hand drawn black and white animation is worth more than the matinee price.

Seattle-ites, it’s at the Harvard Exit right NOW. Why are you still reading this when you should be at the movies?

On this day in Seattle history fourteen years ago, Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone, one of my favorite bands at the time, was found dead of a heroin overdose. Sigh. Though his death produced the great Temple of the Dog, Andy’s life might’ve produced more enjoyable music from Mother Love Bone and prevented the inception of Pearl Jam. And Andy wouldn’t be dead.

I believe that around that time, I was thinking it’d be cool if I got a Mambosok for my fairly long hair. (Actually, the product was Mambosok Headgear, I should note, since Mambosok apparently still exists and produces, now, normalish products that don’t make one look as though one is wearing boxer shorts on one’s head.) I am pleased now that this never happened and especially glad that there are no pictures of it.

Coincidentally, I’m having dinner tonight with some friends (at Lark), including a co-worker from the answering service where I worked for a few months (a step up from my post-Christmas sales job at the big old Sears store on north Aurora) and was working when I heard the news about Andy. John and I hadn’t seen each other since 1990 until a party this last weekend… though the party last weekend was a birthday party for someone I met a few months ago at another party, and that party was at John’s house—I just didn’t see the host then to realize who "John" was. (More funny coincidence: John works at/for/on seattlehistory.org.)

I am fond of sometimes remarking that "Seattle is a small town." However, I actually think that it is, merely, not overly large. If it was truly small, I would’ve continued to see John here and there—even if I didn’t want to—and the interesting (to me) fact that I’m seeing him after all these years on a day that I distinctly remember in relationship to something that I distinctly remember in relationship to John—the answering service—would be lost.

The last person I heard remark "Seattle is a small town"—quite amusingly, minutes after he had chided me for thinking of it as being as small as it turned out to be—was admitting that he had, in fact, had a date with someone on this blog. Someone I thought he should meet only because I thought they’d enjoy each other’s literate and refined tastes (and I was hoping to be there to enjoy the confluence of urbanity and intellect). When I inquired through implication whether they might’ve already met, he said, "Gary, Seattle isn’t that small." Heh. Maybe I’m just fortunate to be in a nexus of good people.

I wonder what other dots I can connect today?

So who posts comment spam? Apparently people in Romania, among others. Let’s meet one. Looking up the one-levitra.com, one-cialis.com, and one-tramadol.com spammer, we find one man behind these sprawling online pharmaceutical empires:

George Popesku
Similkova 23
Bukurest, Bukurest 12311
Romania
Registered through: GoDaddy.com (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: ONE-LEVITRA.COM
Created on: 09-Jan-04
Expires on: 09-Jan-05
Last Updated on: 11-Mar-04
Administrative Contact:
Popesku, George
domains@one-cialis.com
Similkova 23
Bukurest, Bukurest 12311
Romania 323445642
Domain servers in listed order:
TWINS.NETISSAT.BG
TWINS2.NETISSAT.BG

Since we don’t know anything about this guy, I’d like to announce a Nonfamous contest, for the best post about the Life and Times of G Popesku. Have at it, friends– what’s this guy like? Award good, but TBD!