Tumble Weed (Bush) Watch 

archived: 31 Jul  - 6 Aug, 2005         Back                 Next

UPDATED:   August, 5, 2005                 

                        A SIN ON THE CONSTITUTION 

TPJ has featured a number of articles on the radical religious right’s incursion into the public school systems.  The most recent article featured Gov. Jeb Bush’s advocacy of a Christian based program: 

designed to increase fathers' participation in their children's lives.

The program, All Pro Dad, combines a biblical foundation with the draw of popular professional athletes to promote the belief that "the father is the head of the household" and that men should rely on God to help them be better parents and keep their marriages intact. It also encourages Bible reading. – Palm Beach Post  

TPJ alerted readers that the radical religious right’s designs were ambitious.  How ambitious is reflected by this article featuring Christian teachings in Texas schools: 

A religious watchdog group complained Monday that a Bible study course taught in hundreds of public schools in Texas and across the country promotes a fundamentalist Christian view and violates religious freedom.

The Texas Freedom Network, which includes clergy of several faiths, also said the course offered by the Greensboro, N.C.-based National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools is full of errors and dubious research.  . . .

The National Council on Bible Curriculum Web site says its elective course is offered in high schools and junior highs by more than 300 school districts in 37 states.

Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller said her group looked at the course after the Odessa school board voted in April to offer the class. It asked Southern Methodist University biblical scholar Mark A. Chancey to review the curriculum.

Chancey's review found that the course characterizes the Bible as inspired by God, that discussions of science are based on the biblical account of creation, that Jesus is referred to as fulfilling Old Testament prophecy, and that archaeological findings are erroneously used to support claims of the Bible's historical accuracy.

He said the course also suggests the Bible, instead of the Constitution, be considered the nation's founding document.

"No public school student should have to have a particular religious belief forced upon them," the Rev. Ragan Courtney, pastor of The Sanctuary, a Baptist congregation in Austin, said at a news conference held by Texas Freedom Network. – Atlanta Journal Constitution (emphasis added) 

During the past week, Bush publicly endorsed the teaching of “intelligent design” in public schools.   

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UPDATED:  August 2, 2005 

                        A SIN ON THE CONSTITUTION  

The Bush administration continues its perversion of traditional constitutional principles.  As the Republican dominated federal judiciary is adopting Bush’s claim to be able to hold foreign combatants indefinitely, the Bush administration is putting its finger on the scales of justice to ensure that the military tribunals being conducted in secret reach the “right” result.  At Guantanamo, two prosecutors: 

complained in confidential messages last year that the trial system had been secretly arranged to improve the chance of conviction and to deprive defendants of material that could prove their innocence. . . .

Among the striking statements in the prosecutors' messages was an assertion by one that the chief prosecutor had told his subordinates that the members of the military commission that would try the first four defendants would be "handpicked" to ensure that all would be convicted.

The same officer, Capt. John Carr of the Air Force, also said in his message that he had been told that any exculpatory evidence - information that could help the detainees mount a defense in their cases - would probably exist only in the 10 percent of documents being withheld by the Central Intelligence Agency for security reasons.

Captain Carr's e-mail message also said that some evidence that at least one of the four defendants had been brutalized had been lost and that other evidence on the same issue had been withheld. The March 15, 2004, message was addressed to Col. Frederick L. Borch, the chief prosecutor who was the object of much of Captain Carr's criticism.

The second officer, Maj. Robert Preston, also of the Air Force, said in a March 11, 2004, message to another senior officer in the prosecutor's office that he could not in good conscience write a legal motion saying the proceedings would be "full and fair" when he knew they would not. – New York Times 

It appears that even those who have been found not to be “enemy combatants” are being held by Bush: 

The US military has kept two ethnic Uighur Muslims from a troubled Chinese region at its Guantanamo 'war on terror' detention camp even though they have been found not to be "enemy combatants," a rights group said.  . . .

According to the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a New York-based legal activist group, a Guantanamo review panel ruled in March that Qassim and Hakim should not be considered "enemy combatants" who would face military tribunals.

But the CCR said the men's lawyers were never told about the finding. "It was not until Friday, July 30, 2005 that the government disclosed that the men had been cleared on March 26 this year," said a statement by the group which has been working on the case of the Uighurs.

"Since (March 26) the government has failed to notify their attorneys, families or anyone else of the men's innocence, instead allowing them to remain in detention for an additional six months." – Yahoo  

Former President Jimmy Carter was a master of understatement when he recently said:     

"What has happened at Guantanamo Bay ... does not represent the will of the American people," Carter said Saturday. "I'm embarrassed about it, I think it’s wrong. I think it does give terrorists an unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people."

Earlier this month, Carter called for the Guantanamo prison to be shut down, saying reports of abuses there were an embarrassment to the United States. He also said that the United States needs to make sure no detainees are held incommunicado and that all are told the charges against them. – New York Newsday  

More than an embarrassment, Guantanamo and Bush administration policy represents what happens when due process and open courts are abandoned.  Alexander Hamilton, writing Federalist Paper No. 84, observed: 

The establishment of the writ of habeas corpus [and the] the prohibition of ex-post-facto laws . . .  are perhaps greater securities to liberty and republicanism than any it contains. The creation of crimes after the commission of the fact, or, in other words, the subjecting of men to punishment for things which, when they were done, were breaches of no law, and the practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny. The observations of the judicious Blackstone, in reference to the latter, are well worthy of recital: "To bereave a man of life, Õsays he,å or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore A MORE DANGEROUS ENGINE of arbitrary government.'' And as a remedy for this fatal evil he is everywhere peculiarly emphatical in his encomiums on the habeas-corpus act, which in one place he calls "the BULWARK of the British Constitution.''

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                        RESTATING AMERICA’S ACCOUNTS 

As it turns out, the Bush administration has been “puffing” the economic books to paint a rosier picture of the American economy.  The “puffing” extends over the previous three years. 

The Labor Department has “restated” economic expansion from a “3.1% annual rate in the three years from 2002 through 2004, [to an actual growth at rate of] 2.8% pace . . . .”  -- Market Watch This makes Bush’s recovery the weakest since WWII.

And, Bush’s administration has been “puffing” the numbers on inflation:  

[I]nflation was a bit hotter than previously thought, especially in 2004. The closely followed core personal consumption expenditure price index rose at a 1.7% annual pace in the three years, rather than the 1.4% earlier estimated.

In 2004, the core PCE price index was revised from 1.5% to 2%, at the top of the Federal Reserve's 1.5%-2% comfort zone for inflation.  – Market Watch                          

A chart of the core inflation restatement appears as follows:

A skeptic would note that the failure to properly state the actual rise in core inflation started, approximately, in the year before the 2004 General Election and continued until the restatement of core inflation a year before mid-term Congressional elections next year.  A skeptic would also note that while many in the business community have been criticizing Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve for increasing interest rates nine times in the past two years because the government was reporting inflation was in check, the Federal Reserve continued its policy.  Could it be that the Federal Reserve knew the true state of core inflation while Bush administration officials were puffing?  

The restatement of growth and inflation for three years is no small matter.  The International Monetary Fund consults with the US annually to review economic circumstances.  The IMF’s most recent evaluation of the American economy includes these findings: 

The IMF warned that financial flows [tax revenues] that underpin U.S. growth are "unsustainable."

In particular, the IMF said the fiscal deficit [raised to historic levels under Bush] must be reduced. The Bush administration's goal of cutting the deficit in half appears to be both "relatively unambitious" and "subject to considerable risk."

A return to budget surplus early in the next decade "would support national savings, domestic investment and the extern position," according to many directors of the fund.

"It would be prudent to explore options for revenue enhancements," the fund said, including broadening the income tax base or taxing consumption more directly. – Market Watch

 Bush administration “puffing” and the restatement of accounts go to the heart of Bush’s tax cutting policies as spurring economic growth.  Bush’s policies promised to energize the American economy; in reality they delivered a historically weak economic recovery with burgeoning deficits that pose considerable risk. 

                        THAT SUCKING SOUND ….. CAFTA 

Republicans, joined by fifteen Democrats, passed CAFTA in the US House.  A number of commentators are focusing on the fact that CAFTA passed by only two votes.  Frankly, if Republicans had needed more votes, they most probably could have secured them.  The Republicans simply permitted as many of their Representatives to vote against the bill as possible while ensuring enough votes to win. 

The United States lost over 1,000,000 jobs to NAFTA and CAFTA will cost Americans more jobs.  Republican Rep. Walter Jones states the effect of Bush policy most clearly: 

[T]his country is setting itself up to become a second-rate manufacturing country.” – NC Rumors 

Rep. Jones’ analysis really says it all and should be the talking point on every Democrat’s lips. 

                        WAR ON TERRORISM 

Sidney Blumenthal, a former advisor to President Clinton, has written a compelling article on Bush’ “War on Terrorism” in Salon entitled, “Selling The War.”  It is a must read.   

Blumenthal adroitly observes: 

Never before has a president suddenly discarded his self-proclaimed "mission." But after declaring himself the commander in chief in the "global war on terror," President Bush has tossed the catchphrase aside in an elusive search for a new one. The "global war on terror" was his slogan to link the war in Afghanistan to the invasion of Iraq, the battle supposedly being one and the same. The quest for a new slogan is more than a public relations gesture. It reflects not only the failure but also the vacuum of his strategy.  . . .

Throughout July, administration officials have substituted new words for the old. Instead of trumpeting the "global war on terrorism," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have sounded the call to "a global struggle against violent extremism." Medals have been awarded to brave U.S. soldiers stamped "Global War on Terror." Will new medals now be minted? - Salon

 Blumenthal articulates a wonderful case for the proposition that Bush is looking for new clichés because:

“war," like the campaign, is over, and it has been rebranded. A new metaphor has been ordered up for duty. Just as Bush has leapt from reason to reason for the Iraq war, from weapons of mass destruction to the "march of freedom," so he now jumps from slogan to slogan. His changeability, in the short run, according to Trainor, may be a hazard. "Bush has to keep up a brave front. If he shows any signs of changing course perceptually, that could be a problem for him not only domestically but also on the battlefront. Any backing off from the hard position has a strong chance of giving encouragement to those who wish us ill. What happens when you aren't seen as exercising control? What happens when you are seen as less than all powerful? That's the position they are in right now."

The undermining of democracy by sacrificing credibility to justify endless war was early described by the historian Thucydides in his "History of the Peloponnesian War": "The meaning of words had no longer the same relation to things, but was changed by them as they thought proper. Reckless daring was held to be loyal courage; prudent delay was the excuse of a coward; moderation was the disguise of unmanly weakness; to know everything was to do nothing. Frantic energy was the true quality of a man." -- Salon

 Perhaps Bush’s “frames” are changing for another reason.  The term “war,” in its classic formulation and citizen perception, denotes winners and losers; one wins when one conquers a land area or one eradicates an enemy. Of greatest importance is the fact that “war” denotes a finite conclusion in which the “winners” and “losers” can be counted and the score of success and failure evaluated.  

Iraq, from its public perception, is a war that Americans now believe that we are losing.  Gallup’s most recent polling, which is more favorable to Bush’s war than other polls, demonstrates the conclusion: 

 A clear majority of American now believe the US cannot win the war in Iraq; 53% to 43%.  An even greater number of Americans believe that Bush will not be able to achieve his last justification for the war, democracy in Iraq; 58% to 37%.  

Bush, therefore, is casting for a new “frame” in which he can “win.”  Blumenthal notes that most of the recent Bush frames use or denote the term “struggle,” as in “world wide struggle with extremism.”

 The word “struggle” denotes a continuing affair, of longer duration.  In its common parlance, we do not count “winners” and “losers” in “struggles.”  “Struggle” denotes appreciation of the effort, nothing more; as in “we struggle to achieve” freedom.

 The Republicans are facing mid-term elections next year.  Simply stated, if Bush cannot change the “frame,” Democrats can correctly cast the Republican Party as having “lost” the war in Iraq. Rove is simply changing the frame now, before it is too late.

The only question is whether Democrats will allow Bush to reframe.  Now is the time for Democrats to be making the case that Bush has “lost” the war as he defined it.  If Democrats permit Rove and the Republicans to change the frame, Democrats may well lose again.

NEXT - THEM DEMS

Last Update: 03/27/2006