Peace Rant

Cast of thousands, mostly innocent

In an article that managed to make it on to the front page of the today's New York Times, tucked in among the Eliot Spitzer scandal stories which dominate, we learn that the Pentagon has uncovered fifty videotapes of terrorism suspect interrogations.  At least that's what the headline implies is the major news story:  Pentagon Cites Tapes Showing Interrogations.  The lead paragraph notes that one of the tapes "showed what a military spokeman described as the forced gagging of a terrorism suspect."

Forced gagging?

Anyway, I think the real story is in the fourth paragraph, but it's almost a throwaway line:

The officials said it appeared that only a small fraction of the tens of thousands of interrogations worldwide since 2001 had been recorded.

Tens of thousands of interrogations!  Since the US is holding a only a few hundred suspects, the conclusion I come to is that the headline should have been:

Pentagon Admits to Interrogating Tens of Thousands of Innocent People Since 2001

Forced Gagging Among Tactics Used on the Innocent

The same edition of the Times has another cast-of-thousands story, this one on page 20.

F.B.I. Made 'Blanket' Demands for Phone Records

WASHINGTON — Senior officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation repeatedly approved the use of “blanket” records demands to justify the improper collection of thousands of phone records, according to officials briefed on the practice.  [Full story]

The common argument by those who favor the government's massive appetite for collecting information on innocent citizens is something like, "If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about."

Not only is that argument dead wrong, it is exactly backwards.  With the government interrogating tens of thousands of innocent people, and collecting the phone and email records of thousands of innocent people, If you haven't done anything wrong, you are exactly the kind of person who should be very worried.

Telecom immunity: Demo compromise or cave-in? Need you ask?

In a footnote to yesterday's post about the ongoing political battle over immunity for phone company complicity in past (clearly) illegal wiretapping, I noted that talk of a Democratic "compromise" on the issue might foretell a cave-in rather than a compromise.  As details are now emerging about the compromise, cave-in indeed seems to be the operative word.

Bush is going to get his desperately-needed immunity. 

As I've said before, Bush is really seeking immunity for himself.  It is likely that Bush ordered massive eavesdropping on the phone calls and emails of millions of Americans.  He isn't anxious for that to come out in open court.

The compromise currently being worked out is this:  The House Dems will take the Senate bill -- which gives Bush everything he wants -- and split it into two parts.  They will take separate votes on (1) reforming FISA, supposedly to adjust it to new technologies, and (2) retroactive immunity for the giant telecom corporations.

Part (1) -- the technical part -- seems to have a consensus vote in favor.  Maybe that's OK.  I'm not opposed to laws that help catch bad people.  Realistically, though, it won't be OK.  But how will we ever know?

Part (2) of the vote will be on the immunity provision -- the get-out-of-jail-free card for the telecoms and for George Bush his-own-self. 

Forty lawsuits have been filed against the telecoms, all more or less based on serious violations of the Fourth Amendment (unreasonable searches and seizures).   Immunity would wipe out every one of them.  And do serious harm to the Fourth Amendment at the same time.

We've all heard the common response to this very basic privacy issue:  If I haven't done anything wrong, why should I worry?  Simple answer:  the Constitution refers to unreasonable searches.  If you haven't done anything wrong, of course there's no reason to fear the government will search or seize your property.   

But the Constitution wasn't meant as a protection against reasonable government actions, it was meant to protect citizens from unreasonable actions by the government.

Like reading everyone's email.  Or granting immunity for violating the Constitution.

The Democratic leadership in the House knows full well that there are enough votes to pass immunity on a separate vote -- it will be supported by virtually all the Republicans and a handful of so-called Blue Dog Democrats (Republicans in donkey suits).  The Dems who oppose immunity can vote no and feel good about doing so, while knowing all along that they have tacitly agreed to immunity.

So the compromise will result in what everybody knows will be an all-out victory for Bush.

Some compromise.

Tell your Representative you don't want your rights compromised.  No immunity!
https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

Telecom immunity: Getting at the real reasons

The Washington Post today has an article that gets closer to the truth behind the Administration's dogged pursuit of immunity for the telecoms than most reporting on this issue so far.  While most stories have echoed the administration line that it must grant the phone companies retroactive immunity in order to obtain their future cooperation in tracking terrorists, the Post story centers on what it would mean to the White House if any of the forty current lawsuits against the telecoms goes forward [Ed. note: emphasis added, of course]:

Perhaps most important, disclosures in the lawsuits could clarify the scope of the government's surveillance and establish whether, as the plaintiffs allege, it involved the massive interception of purely domestic communications with the help of the nation's largest providers: AT&T, Cingular Wireless, BellSouth, Sprint and MCI/Verizon.

"I think the administration would be very loath for folks to realize that ordinary people were being surveilled," said Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed the lead lawsuit, against AT&T.  [Bush Moves to Shield Telecommunications Firms, Washington Post, 3/2/08]

That, of course, has been the real story all along.  Bush is desperately seeking immunity for himself.  But it sure isn't being reported that way. 

Bush & Co. have been playing the fear card like mad and the mainstream media have, to a great extent, been covering the story solely from that angle.  Oh, they've questioned whether the expiration of the Protect America Act has really endangered the country (apparently not).  But that's not the salient point.  And that's why the WaPo article seems to me to be a breakthrough.

The emptiness and absurdity of the Admin's arguments that immunity is an issue of national security is on display in this article.  The story relates how the suits against the phone companies have been stalled in the courts as a result of the admin's invocation of the "state secrets" dodge:  "All discovery has been blocked so far by the administration's argument, still awaiting court resolution, that the suits are barred because they involve state secrets. "

As an example of just how these lawsuits might reveal critical state secrets, check out this argument:

Justice Department attorneys have argued that merely to confirm or deny any "intelligence" relationship with AT&T or any company "could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security."

Excuse me, but hasn't the President already confirmed an "intelligence relationship" with the phone companies as a result of his determined campaign to get immunity for the phone companies because of their assistance in gathering intelligence?  Isn't that the entire basis of Bush's argument?

There's a curious end note to the article -- the last paragraph, in fact.  It was a jarring reminder to me that the mainstream media are failing to keep the whole context of this surveillance scandal in mind as they report the story.

Last fall, former attorney general John D. Ashcroft signed a letter to top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee urging retroactive immunity for the companies. His consulting firm, the Ashcroft Group, was on retainer to AT&T at the time. An Ashcroft spokeswoman declined comment.

One's initial (cynical) reaction might understandably be, Oh, sure, of course Ashcroft is supporting immunity.  And the Post's inclusion of this news morsel in the last paragraph of today's story might be aimed at just that sort of reaction.  After all, his letter was sent last fall, not recently.

Here's my problem with this final paragraph.  How can the Post stick this in at the end of an otherwise very good report and not remind readers of Ashcroft's previous dramatic involvement in this very issue?

Has the Post -- and the rest of the mainstreamers -- completely forgotten their own frenzy over the infamous Ashcroft - Gonzales showdown in Ashcroft's hospital room?  That's the incident where acting Attorney General James Comey had refused to renew Department of Justice approval for the eavesdropping program -- because of its illegality.  Alberto Gonzales, then Bush's legal counsel, and chief of staff Andrew Card confronted a seriously-ill Ashcroft to try to get him to re-authorize the program.  He refused.

In fact, Ashcroft, Comey, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and other top DOJ officials threatened to resign over the issue.

I have to admit, I had almost overlooked that aspect of this story myself.  But it is a key element.  Congress is demanding to know what the telecoms actually did before it considers immunity.  The Ashcroft hospital room story is a pretty stark reminder that whatever it was they did, it was illegal.

Addendum:  Uh, oh.  Democrats losing spine.  Again.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives may soon resolve a stalemate that has blocked efforts to renew an anti-terrorism spy law and shield phone companies from lawsuits, a key Democrat said on Sunday.

Lawmakers may consider a compromise bill that would renew the law, which expired last month, and possibly grant some sort of protection to phone companies from lawsuits.  [Full story]

Off script

Following is a transcript of King George's weekly Saturday radio address.  He's kicking the Democrats because his beloved Protect America Act -- his Get Out of Jail Free card -- has expired.  This is a taste of what's coming in the week or two ahead.

The transcript has been edited for the sake of clarity.

Members of Congress will soon be returning to Washington and they have urgent business to attend to. They left town on a 10-day recess without passing vital legislation giving our intelligence professionals the tools they need to quickly and effectively monitor foreign terrorist communications phone calls made by Americans.

Congress' failure to pass this legislation was irresponsible astonishing, quite frankly. They've rolled over to my every demand so far, even with my ratings in the toilet.  So, yeah, I was stunned.  It will leave our nation telecom giants increasingly vulnerable to attack lawsuits. And Congress must fix this damage to our national my security immediately.  Man, if one of those lawsuits gets into a court, the stuff that might come out about what else I've been doing could ruin me!

The way ahead is clear. The Senate has already passed a good bill caved in to the corporations by an overwhelming bipartisan majority. I particularly want to thank Dianne Feinstein, so-called Democrat of California, for supporting this gift to the corporate titans. This bill has strong bipartisan support in the House of Representatives, and would pass if given an up-or-down vote. But House leaders are blocking this legislation, and the reason can be summed up in three words: class-action lawsuits rule of law.

The Senate bill would prevent plaintiffs' attorneys from suing companies believed to have helped defend America trampled on the civil liberties of Americans after the 9/11 attacks. More than 40 of these lawsuits have been filed, seeking hundreds of billions of dollars in damages from these companies. It is unfair and unjust to threaten these companies with financial ruin, only because they are believed to have done the right thing and helped their country been pressured into cooperating under the threat of being denied lucrative government contracts.  But the highest cost of all is to our national security my criminal liability. Without protection from lawsuits, private companies will be increasingly unwilling to take the risk of helping us with vital intelligence activities I'm screwed.

After the Congress failed to act last week, one telecommunications company executive was asked by the Wall Street Journal how his company would respond to a request for help. He answered that because of the threat of lawsuits, quote, "I'm not doing it ...I'm not going to do something voluntarily.  They're just going to have to threaten my children and dog. Again."

In other words, the House's refusal to act is undermining our ability to get cooperation from private companies. And that undermines our efforts to protect us me from terrorist attack the threat of exposure.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell recently explained that the vast majority of the communications infrastructure we rely on in the United States is owned and operated by the private sector. And, as a result of the Republican deregulation jihad, the telecoms and other corporations are exempt from serving any social benefit.  Ravenous pursuit of profit is their only responsibility.  Because of the failure to provide liability protection, he says, private companies who have "willingly helped us in the past, are now saying, 'You can't protect me. Why should I help you?'"  (Which is what I'll soon be saying to Musharraf.)

When Congress reconvenes on Monday, members of the House have a choice to make: They can empower the trial bar uphold the Constitution — or they can empower the intelligence community. They can help class action trial lawyers sue for billions of dollars uphold the Constitution — or they can help our intelligence officials protect millions of lives.

They can put our national security in the hands of plaintiffs' lawyers uphold the Constitution — or they can entrust it to the men and women of our government who work day and night to keep us safe. As they make their choice, members of Congress must never forget: Somewhere in the world, at this very moment, terrorists my political advisers are planning the next propaganda attack on America. And to protect America from such attacks, we Congress must protect our telecommunications companies from abusive lawsuits impeach and convict me as soon as possible.

Thank you for listening.

Be careful, you just might get what you wish for

Riding a wave of anti-immigrant fever in Arizona, politicians there recently passed some of the most draconian anti-immigrant laws in the nation.  Most of the new laws targeted employers who might hire the undocumented.

The actions by these demagogic politicians seemed to pay off in the short-run -- in terms of their popularity.  But they've had another pay-off, one that should have been easily foreseen:  they're wrecking Arizona's economy, which depends heavily on immigrant labor.  About 11% of the Arizona workforce is estimated to be comprised of undocumented workers.

This is a story the rest of the country should follow closely as immigration "reform" continues to be a hot topic in the presidential contest.  Just what would happen if the US was actually able to cast out all the undocumented workers?  Economic collapse, that's what.

Arizona Seeing Signs of Flight by Immigrants  (NY Times, 2/12/08)

PHOENIX — The signs of flight among Latino immigrants here are multiple: Families moving out of apartment complexes, schools reporting enrollment drops, business owners complaining about fewer clients.

The Arizona economy, heavily dependent on growth and a Latino work force, has been slowing for months. Meanwhile, the state has enacted one of the country’s toughest laws to punish employers who hire illegal immigrants, and the county sheriff here in Phoenix has been enforcing federal immigration laws by rounding up people living here illegally.

“It is very difficult to separate the economic reality in Arizona from the effects of the laws because the economy is tanking and construction is drying up,” said Frank Pierson, lead organizer of the Arizona Interfaith Network, which advocates for immigrants’ rights and other causes.

An earlier article in the Times cited the growing problem back in December, before the law even took effect on January 1, 2008.  Fear is ruling the day.

. . . economists say the law could damage the economy.  “If you take 12 percent of the work force away, that is going to be a problem,” said Dawn McLaren, an economist at Arizona State University, adding that people not currently working could never make up the difference. “The largest group to join the work force was during World War II, and that was a big motivator. I don’t think patriotism is going to drive this one.”  (NY Times, 12/14/07]

A companion piece of legislation, this one passed by voter initiative, denied undocumented students from getting in-state tuition rates at Arizona's colleges and universities.  Predictably, thousands have dropped out, either unable to afford the out-of-state tuition rate or for fear of being deported.  Or both.

Reading these articles reminded me of a small exchange I had a few years back at the Tucson airport, appropriately enough.  While waiting in line to board my flight, the man standing directly in front of me abruptly turned around and started in on a diatribe against the "illegals."  Why he assumed I might share his racist opinions is beyond me.

He was holding a cup of coffee and a donut.  I asked him, "Who served you the coffee and donut?  Did you check their documents before accepting them?  How much more are you willing to pay Starbucks for a grande, anyway?  Do you ever go to restaurants?  You're in Arizona, for crying out loud.  Your economy would collapse if you actually threw out all the immigrants."

He huffed and turned his back on me again.  I'd like to finish that conversation with him now.

We can only hope. We can hope only if . . .

There's a pretty powerful piece of news out tonight.  Well, I think so, anyway.  But it will no doubt be ignored or buried by the US media.  So pass it on yourself.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, said today that waterboarding is an international crime.  She was quite clear on this:  "I would have no problems with describing this practice as falling under the prohibition of torture."

The timing of her statement is quite impressive.

Arbour's comments follow on the heels of the admission by CIA Director Michael Hayden, in Congressional testimony, that the US has engaged in waterboarding.  Better than that, the comments arrived in nearly the same news cycle as reports of Attorney General Michael Mukasey's flat refusal -- again in testimony before Congress -- to prosecute anybody for torture.

The initial accounts are reporting that Arbour said violators of the International Convention Against Torture should be prosecuted.  However, the reports don't quote Arbour saying it quite that way, and I haven't been able to find a transcript yet.

Still, she is quoted reminding people that crimes such as torture have "universal jurisdiction" -- meaning any country can charge, prosecute, and punish violators of such international laws.  And that's where she came close to saying that Bush, Cheney, et al, should be prosecuted:

"There are several precedents worldwide of states exercising their universal jurisdiction ... to enforce the torture convention and we can only hope that we will see more and more of these avenues of redress," Arbour said.  [Emphasis added.]  [Complete Reuters article.]

Meanwhile, our own Congress, after hearing not just this week's testimony from Hayden and Mukasey, but years of the same arrogant obfuscation and undisguised lying, cannot bring itself to even consider impeachment.  Instead, it is considering banning waterboarding.  That's pretty much the epitome of too little, too late.

Arbour's comments, coming as they do from a high-ranking UN official, will likely be given little weight in our mainstream media.  But Arbour is no lightweight on the international scene.  She was the chief prosecutor of human rights abuses in Rwanda and Yugoslavia.

As I noted, I have my doubts this story will go anywhere, despite its importance.  So we all need to help it sprout wings.  The Reuters article has a link that allows you to email it to friends.  Forward it to your Representative and Senators.  Forward it to newspaper editors.  And friends and family.

We can hope only if we take some action.

Vote early, vote often

Let me be clear about a couple of things before I dive into this voting thing.

First:  No President -- past, present or future -- is going to advance anything remotely resembling a progressive agenda.  Quite the contrary.  And that includes virtually all of the currently approved candidates.

Second:  If your favorite candidate is eventually elected president, you will end up feeling dismayed, disappointed, betrayed, outraged.  Usually in that order.  And often quite rapidly in succession.

And so, of course, you must be sure to vote.

Our election systems are totally screwed up.  From the blatant corruption of the campaign finance system to corrupt computers counting votes, our elections are in a shambles.  No doubt about it.

But voting is a right.  And if we don't exercise our rights, we run a significant chance of losing them -- all of them.  Our rights under the Constitution, our civil liberties, our human rights, are always under attack, because they are an inconvenience to those who prefer to control things.

This whole concept of rights is still a bit fuzzy in modern realpolitik -- there's plenty of lip service, but little initiative to defend human rights.

If we stop speaking out, we'll lose our free speech rights.  If we stop assembling in redress of our grievances, we'll lose the right to vigil and picket and protest and march. 

And if we turn away from the ballot box, we'll find ourselves completely disenfranchised -- we're already headed down that road.

I have no hope that the next President will initiate a wave of progressive legislation nor substantively change the elite-consensus foreign policy of this country.  But I do think a certain new President could at least bring a little fresh air to the stale backrooms of this country's power centers -- shake things up a little bit, change the focus, change the channel.  That would be a step forward.

Barack Obama.

And then it's back into the streets.  There's a war on.

It's the oil, habibi

Juan Cole posted a small aside on his great blog Informed Comment a couple of days ago:

People keep asking in puzzlement what Bush expected to get out of his Iraq misadventure. It is the oil, habibi, the oil.

It's amazing that people keep asking this question.  Maybe they'll finally realize the truth of Juan's statement -- and what many of us have been saying for the past five plus years -- when they read the news about Exxon-Mobil's record profits for the past year.  This wasn't a record year just for Exxon.  It was the most profit ever made by any company in the history of the planet.

The company reported Friday that it beat its own record for the highest profits ever recorded by any company, with net income rising 3 percent, to $40.6 billion, thanks to surging oil prices. The company’s sales, more than $404 billion, exceeded the gross domestic product of 120 countries.

Exxon Mobil earned more than $1,287 of profit for every second of 2007.  [NY Times story:  Exxon Sets Profit Record: $40.6 Billion Last Year, 2/2/08]

This wouldn't have happened without the Bush gang in the White House.  And Bush wouldn't be in the White House if not for the oil barons of Texas.  The Bush clan and the Texas oil barons are old family friends.  Here's a snippet from a 2002 Guardian investigation into Texas politics and the oil giants:

'You are looking at the biggest oil refinery in the world,' indicates LaNell Anderson. She refers to the edifice that is the 3,000-acre Exxon Mobil plant at Baytown, near Houston, producer of 507,800 barrels a day. Here begins a story of both dynasty and destiny, for it was on this spot in 1917 that the Bush family's oil connection was forged - where the Humble Oil company, which struck black gold in the Houston suburb of that name, took root, later to become the Exxon behemoth. Humble's founder, William Stamps Farish, went on to become president of Standard Oil. His daughter became a friend of George Bush Sr and his grandson William Jr was taken in 'almost like family' (said Barbara Bush) while campaigning for George Sr's entrée into Washington Senatorial politics in 1964. Farish Jr claims to have been the first man to whom Bush Sr confided his ambition to be president one day, and was last year named US Ambassador to London. [Read the complete areticle, Dark heart of the American dream, The Guardian, 6/16/02]

It's just a matter of old friends tending to the needs of old friends.  $1,287 per second is a pretty nice payoff for having friends in high places.

(By the way, habibi means "my friend" or "beloved".) 

Meanwhile, in liberated Afghanistan . . .

Here's a story that hasn't cracked the mainstream media wall in this country yet, probably because it goes against the conventional wisdom regarding the "good" war and occupation in liberated Afghanistan.  It's the story of a young man in Afghanistan who was recently sentenced to death for the crime of downloading an essay about women's rights under Islamic law.

According to a report in The Independent of London, which has launched a campaign to try to save this man's life (more on that below):

The fate of Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has led to domestic and international protests, and deepening concern about erosion of civil liberties in Afghanistan. He was accused of blasphemy after he downloaded a report from a Farsi website which stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed.

Mr Kambaksh, 23, distributed the tract to fellow students and teachers at Balkh University with the aim, he said, of provoking a debate on the matter. But a complaint was made against him and he was arrested, tried by religious judges without – say his friends and family – being allowed legal representation and sentenced to death.  [Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights, 1/31/08]

Disturbing as that is, it gets worse.  The Afghan Senate, practicing their US-imposed democratic freedoms, passed a resolution yesterday affirming the sentence and calling on the government to carry it out quickly, before international pressure builds.  (There has been an international outcry over the case, just not in this country.)  The sponsor of the Senate resolution is a key ally of President Hamid Karzai, America's green-robed water-carrier.

Or maybe Karzai is not so willing a water-carrier these days.  He is extremely unpopular at home and has been making moves to try to separate himself from his US and British patrons.  Karzai recently scuttled the appointment of a Brit as "special envoy" of the UN, saying that British troops had made things worse in Helmand province.  Karzai is due up for re-election next year.

I can find hardly any mention of this case in US media, just a couple of reports in local papers.  Certainly, the New York Times has not reported on it.  Nobody wants to report that the "good" war, the 9/11-justified war, is going south in a big way in a big hurry.

Just the other night, during his State of the Union speech, Bush lauded the progress in Afghanistan, to a standing ovation by Democrats and republicans alike:

We've seen Afghans emerge from the tyranny of the Taliban and choose a new president and a new parliament.

In Afghanistan, America, our 25 NATO allies, and 15 partner nations are helping the Afghan people defend their freedom and rebuild their country. Thanks to the courage of these military and civilian personnel, a nation that was once a safe haven for al Qaeda is now a young democracy where boys and girls are going to school, new roads and hospitals are being built, and people are looking to the future with new hope.

The only problem with that rosy picture is the fact that the President and Parliament are leaning toward imposing very Taliban-like rule.  And the boys and girls who are going to school run the risk of a death sentence should they actually choose to engage in intellectual debate.

The Independent newspaper is reporting this story heavily (it's their front page story today) and has started a petition campaign on behalf of Sayed.  Although the petition is directed to the British government, the form does ask what country you are from.  I signed it and I hope you will too.  Then we need to write to our own newspapers and elected representatives and get them to cover the story and bring pressure to stop this tragedy.

Here are a couple more links to Independent articles about the case:

A victim of Karzai's diplomatic game (1/31/08)

My country is using Islamic law to erode the rights of women  (1/30/08)

Update and correction:  I am told the New York Times has reported this story a couple of times.  My search of their archives still comes up empty, however.

Update:  The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held hearings on Afghanistan yesterday.  It apparently wasn't a happy scene.

OK, I'll give this a try...

A blow-by-blow reaction to the State of the Union speech, just like real bloggers!  (Keep hitting your refresh button.)  [Note:  This post was written in installments, appearing bottom-to-top.  So if you want to read chronologically, go to the bottom and scroll up.]

7:03 pm -  And he closes with a dramatic spreading of the arms.  "Let us go forth..."  Total theater, as was the whole thing.  That's enough, this experiment is at an end.

7:00 pm -  How long can this go on?

6:59 pm -  From wars, real and threatened, he turns to international food aid.  "Because we're a compassionate people."  The American people are compassionate.  It's Bush's policies that lack compassion.  Or conscience.

6:55 pm -  Here's the FISA bill.  "If you don't act by Friday . . ."  Calling out Congress.  (More on FISA in a later posting -- interesting developments today.)

6:52 pm -  We got about 30 seconds on Israel-Palestine then it's right off to Iran.  And Iran.  And Iran.  Apparently, we have vital interests in their gulf.

6:43 pm -  We're winning in Iraq!  Predictably.

6:41 pm -  The surge worked.  Predictably.  Interestingly, the surge wasn't an escalation, it was America rushing additional help to the Iraqis.  Big of us.

6:36 pm -  9/11.  Be afraid, be very afraid.  "We will deliver justice to our enemies."

6:31 pm - OK, he's talking about faith-based intiatives, "armies of compassion" -- I'm going out for a smoke.

6:28 pm - Good lord, this is a boring speech.  Here's something, though.  Clinton has gotten two TV close-ups (by my count), Kennedy has one, and Obama has none, only a shared shot with Kennedy that came before the speech started.

6:20 pm -  Actually, Cheney looks bored, as well.  Probably anxious to get out of there and attack Iran.

6:19 pm - Hillary looks like she's bored.  She looks like she's trying hard to look bored.

6:16 pm - He's talking about the importance of a balanced budget.  This guy?  The same guy who's gotten us in debt up to our ears with his criminal war?

6:14 pm - W warns Congress not to "load up" the economic stimulus package.  Translation:  no extension of unemployment benefits or expansion of food stamps.

6:07 pm - Obama and Kennedy are sitting together!  How'd they arrange that?

6:05 pm - Elvis is in the House.

6:02 pm - Hoo boy.  This isn't going to be easy.  We haven't even started yet and Chris Matthews is talking about how much everyone likes Condi Rice and how she would be a great vice-presidential candidate.  I thought political analysts were supposed to be paying attention.