All your Living With War news in one one handy link.

To follow up on Greg’s post — admittedly the line between commentator and anchor is blurrier at Fox News than anywhere else, but even by their diminished standards, I always thought it was extraordinary that an anchor at a cable news station could also be a guest host for Rush Limbaugh, for chrissakes, and no one would see a problem with that. (But that biased Dan Rather, on the other hand…)

Anyway, if he really does end up as the new Scotty McClellan — well, the jokes really do write themselves.

Gas Prices :

Oil Company Stock Prices :




Their Campaign Contributions :



You’re paying at the pump. Get payback at the polls.

Fox News is doing a heckuva job countering the impression that they’re just a mouthpiece for the Republican party (via TPM) :

On another front, Republicans said that Tony Snow, a commentator for Fox News and a former speechwriter for Mr. Bush’s father, was in negotiations for the job of White House press secretary. Mr. Snow would replace Scott McClellan, who announced Wednesday that he was resigning.

In other words, his job will change from lying through the press to lying to the press. I’m not very familiar with Snow, but if he’s anything like the rest of the talking heads on Fox News, then we can expect the White House press office to get a heavy dose of belligerence and condescension. Those gaggles are going to be even more exciting than when Ari was around.

“This talk about a 9/11 mentality. No one, George Bush or anyone else, owns the 9/11 mentality. It belongs to the United States of America. It belongs to everyone who was sitting there with their family, watching those buildings get hit by those jets. It belongs to George Bush and his family, it belongs to John Kerry and his family, it belongs to me and my family, my American family. I have a post 9/11 mentality. It’s just not the same as George Bush’s.”

(If the video doesn’t show up for some reason, click here.)

A few weeks ago, Scott Ritter wrote an article criticizing the anti-war movement. Now there’s a new interview with him in which he says many of the same things:

You’ve offered the anti-war movement a bitter pill to swallow. You’ve said the peaceniks are a poorly organized conglomeration of egos, pet projects and idealism. Can you elaborate?

First of all, what is the peace movement? There is no national peace movement. There’s a conglomeration of organizations, all of which are ego-driven. If you take a look at Peace Action, they have a national Peace Action and they have state Peace Actions around the country. They don’t work well with each other; they don’t get along with each other. They feud. They don’t have a centralized plan…

I am not volunteering myself to be the visionary of the peace movement. All I’m saying is that having attended these meetings and reflecting on what I’ve seen, the peace movement’s getting its butt kicked…There needs to a meeting of the minds, a unified vision statement: What do we agree on? What is our focus of effort? And then once you get this mission statement, let’s put a little bit of fire into this…

But as soon as you mention “structure” to the peace movement, they get all nervous. They think it’s abut imposing military standards on them—an absurdity…It’s about organizing, and making sure you don’t waste resources. That’s what the peace movement needs: organization and to stop wasting resources.

I’m a football fan. At the end of the day, I judge a coach and a team by the score that exists on the scoreboard when the end of the fourth quarter comes. And right now, it’s the pro-war movement 60, the anti-war movement nothing. Someone can’t tell me, “No, no, we’re doing OK.” No, you’re not. You’re getting beat, and you need to recognize you’re getting beat, and you need to figure out why you’re getting beat, and you need to figure out what you need to do to get yourself back on track. And the key thing here is: Bring a sense of focus and organization, which is lacking.

I have a lot of sympathy for Ritter’s perspective. Much of what he says is completely right. However, I also think he doesn’t recognize the problems stem from something much deeper than individual shortcomings in 2006.

The root of it is the U.S. is an extremely depoliticized society. There are barely any progressive institutions in America, so there’s no progressive institutional memory. No one remembers what worked before and what didn’t. Everything starts from zero each time. And there’s little progressive culture encouraging people to sacrifice for the good of what institutions do exist. (This is not something I figured out on my own.)

Fixing this would take decades. But obviously people want to be effective right now.

The normal answer would be for the anti-war movement to become more hierarchical. That’s what primate societies under stress naturally do. (This is why leaders love war.) But hierarchy only works in the short-term, and even then it doesn’t work too well—particularly when your long-term goal is a less hierarchical society.

Do you have an opinion? If so, I’d be very curious to hear it, here. If enough people have cogent thoughts, I’m sure we can get Common Dreams or similar places to run a selection.

UPDATE: People have said some genuinely interesting things so far. Please don’t hesitate to chip in if you feel like it. I definitely will edit things down and send it someplace, and report back.

Update from Tom: Jon’s site appears to be running slow. Please do not send your suggestions to my inbox — just hang on to them until he’s back online.

John “Crusher” Yoo has written a new book called The Powers of War and Peace. And according to a review in the Nation, it has some big news: everything you know about American history is wrong!

You may remember from 10th grade the argument in 1787 between the federalists and anti-federalists over the ratification of the Constitution. The anti-federalists’ main worry was the Constitution as written would centralize too much power in the national government, particularly the executive branch. In fact, they said, we’d end up with a tyranny again, just after we’d fought a revolution to escape a king. Meanwhile, the federalists argued the Constitution had checks and balances that would prevent this.

Of course, the Constitution was ratified, leading to much rejoicing and eventually several segments of Schoolhouse Rock. But in history class they always tell you the anti-federalists were wrong: we didn’t end up with a tyranny. The Constitution prevents the executive branch from doing anything it wants. For instance, only Congress has the power to declare war.

But John Yoo has some surprising news: the anti-federalists were right! The Constitution does give the president, particularly in matters of war and peace, exactly the same powers of the British king circa 1787! The only difference is, Yoo thinks this is a good thing.

Think I’m exaggerating? Well, check out Yoo’s website, which has an article he wrote that’s incorporated into the book:

…[The anti-federalist] Cato correctly concluded that in the realm of practical politics, the President’s authority under the Constitution did not differ in important measure from that of the King.

Ha ha ha! The joke’s on you, American history!

The best part is, Yoo is associated with the Federalist Society, the notorious conservative legal organization. I guess one of the main tenets of the Federalist Society is that the anti-federalists were right all along.

SPECIAL NIXON BONUS: Here’s what James St. Clair, Nixon’s counsel, said in the famous 1974 case U.S. v. Nixon about executive privilege:

The President wants me to argue that he is as powerful a monarch as Louis XIV, only four years at a time, and is not subject to the processes of any court in the land except the court of impeachment.

This is one of the sickest, most repulsive things I’ve ever seen in my life. A flash-based “game” in which you try to murder as many immigrants as possible, including a pregnant woman and her children. I don’t know who made it and haven’t bothered investigating who’s hosting it (though it can be found here as well), but this is a pretty clear reminder of the truly evil mindset that we’re up against. I will never understand how someone could be so filled with blind rage that they’d sink to dehumanizing their fellow human beings to the point that they could make jokes of their violent fanatasies.

Gotta love how the press is spinning Karl Rove’s second change in job title as if it were a big deal.

White House political mastermind Karl Rove surrendered a key policy role Wednesday and press secretary Scott McClellan resigned in an escalation of a Bush administation shake-up driven by Republican anxieties.

Rove gave up his responsibilities as chief policy coordinator, a position he assumed just over a year ago that strengthened his influence over matters ranging from homeland security and domestic policy to the economy and national security. The promotion had left him stretched too thin in the eyes of some officials, as the White House grappled with mounting problems.

With Wednesday’s change, Rove will be able to focus more on politics, fundraising and big-picture thinking with the approach of the November congressional elections, officials said.

He “surrendered” and “gave up” his policy role? Well, that’s one way to spin it. A more accurate way to spin it would be to say that the Bush White House has never really given a shit about policy and that Rove’s function is and has always been to bully people around and win elections. Of course, with Dubya’s poll numbers in the toilet and the pressure for Republican incumbents to distance themselves from the White House’s string of failures, Rove’s part-time job of threatening potential GOP traitors is quickly becoming full-time.

Does anyone really believe that Ann Coulter spends many Sunday mornings in church?

Editor & Publisher picked up my open letter to the Pulitzer Board. Here’s how they quote me:

The self-syndicated Tomorrow noted that “the only Pulitzer ever awarded to a cartoonist from the alternative press was given to Jules Feiffer in 1986. The only other remotely non-traditional cartoonists to have been recognized within my lifetime are Garry Trudeau in 1975 and Berke Breathed in 1987. And the last time, to my knowledge, that an alternative editorial cartoonist of any kind was even considered was when Ted Rall made the short list a full ten years ago.”

Here’s what I actually wrote:

The only Pulitzer ever awarded to a cartoonist from the alternative press was given to Jules Feiffer in 1986. If Jules’ Pulitzer were a person, it would be old enough to vote. It would be a year away from drinking legally in every state in the union.

The only other remotely non-traditional (i.e. non-daily-editorial-page) cartoonists to have been recognized within my lifetime are Garry Trudeau in 1975 and Berke Breathed in 1987. And the last time, to my knowledge, that an alternative editorial cartoonist of any kind was even considered was when Ted Rall made the short list a full ten years ago.

It’s a small thing, but when you condense someone’s words, isn’t a standard journalistic practice to indicate this in some way, with ellipses or something?

…by the way, now that a truncated version of this essay is getting wider circulation, I want to reiterate the postscript:

To those whose immediate response is “ha! he certainly does not deserve a Pulitzer,” let me just reply in advance: you are probably correct. But I would maintain that the entire field of alternative cartoonists do not deserve to be similarly dismissed out of hand.