Author: Greg Saunders

I was just forwarded an email that’s making the rounds at Texas A&M where Robert Gates is currently the President. First is Gates’ letter to staff and students regarding the SecDef announcement :

By the time you read this, the President of the United States will have announced that he will nominate me to be the next Secretary of Defense. I am deeply honored, but also deeply saddened.

As most of you know, almost two years ago I declined an opportunity to become the first Director of National Intelligence. I did so principally because of my love for Texas A&M and because much of the program we had initiated to take A&M to a new level of excellence had only just started.
. . .
I apologize for surprising you with this momentous decision and announcement, and for leaving as president before fulfilling my commitment to serve Texas A&M for at least five years. I hope you will understand the circumstances that made this necessary and that this appointment comes nearly as much a surprise to me as to you.

I will have more to say to you before I leave (if I am confirmed by the Senate). But I must tell you that while I chose Texas A&M over returning to government almost two years ago, much has happened both here and around the world since then. I love Texas A&M deeply, but I love our country more and, like the many Aggies in uniform, I am obligated to do my duty. And so I must go. I hope you have some idea of how painful that is for me and how much I will miss you and this unique American institution.

At this point, I expect to remain as President of Texas A&M until completion of the confirmation process and a Senate vote. I assure you, you will hear more from me before my departure.

More interesting, however, is the note that accompanied the forwarded letter. (Personal information redacted)

Dear Fellow Aggies (and some who aren’t Aggies but will find this interesting),

By now, you’ve probably heard that Donald Rumsfeld has resigned as Secretary of Defense. (Thank God!) Also, you may have heard that Bush has nominated Robert Gates to be Rumsfeld’s replacement. Gates is a former head of the CIA and, for the past two years, has been president of Texas A&M.

Below is an email forwarded to me by _________, ______ professor at A&M. Those of you who went to A&M might remember ________ as a highly intelligent, fiercely liberal prof who loved to stir things up and encourage his students to challenge the status quo and stand up for what is right.

About a year ago, I was in College Station and visited _____ for a few drinks. He told me then of his admiration of Gates, despite some initial apprehension due to Gates’ background, and for what Gates was doing for A&M. He also said that at a recent faculty party, Gates told him that he thought that Bush was the worst president we’d ever had.

If ______ speaks highly of Gates, he must have something going for him. I hope that Gates will use his new position to try to extract us from the quagmire of Iraq and won’t become just another Bush yes man.

Peace,

________

I’ve got an email out to the professor in question to confirm this, so until I do, take this with a grain of salt.

UPDATE : I knew this was too good to be true. I emailed the professor in question about this incident and he responded “In fact, this is NOT TRUE at all. I’ve never been at a party with President Gates, never had a private conversation with him”. The person who relayed this anectdote, when confronted with this information, responded “I think it is possible that I am mistaken. As I said, there were a few drinks involved.” In vino veritas? I guess not…

Here’s a bunch of thoughts that have been swirling through my mind over the last 24 hours or so but am too lazy to flesh out into posts of their own :

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With Senator Lieberman (Egomaniac – CT) promising to caucus with the Dems, it’ll be interesting to see what sort of attitude he adopts towards his former party-mates. My guess is that as long as he gets a committee chairmanship, then he’ll be acceptable. Joe’s problem is that he’s a conventional wisdom parroting phony who thinks repeating talking points he’s picked up on the golf course makes him an independent, but now that the CW is heading towards the Dems, I wonder if he might accidentally be supportive of his own side. I hope so.

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I don’t like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but there’s an important lesson to be learned from the way he sailed towards reelection yesterday. Last year, Arnie got his ass handed to him after the string of ballot initiatives that were his entire agenda were defeated across the board. His reaction to this defeat was one that a lot of Republicans would be well advised to follow. He picked himself up, apologized to the people of California, and said “message received”. From then on, he’s seemed like a different man. He’s reached out to Democratic lawmakers more, cut out the macho bullshit, and stopped quoting his movies every five minutes. I still trust Schwarzenegger about as far as I can throw him, but his success last night was entirely due to the perception in voters minds that he showed humility and was working hard to regain the confidence of the California people.

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On the faux-humility front, John McCain’s reaction to the GOP defeat on CNN last night was brilliant in the way he kept using the word “we” to mean “everyone but me” :

So, of course, I’m sad. And I believe, however, that this is a wake up call to the Republican Party. We’ve got to change our practices. We — some of our people think we came to Washington to change government and government changed us.

And so we’re — but we’re going to bounce back, Larry. We’re going to get together and go over where we made our mistakes, fix them and move forward.

And for subtly throwing his party under the bus for their enormous defeat, how’d the CNN political analysts react? From just a few minutes later, here’s John King :

“But, wow!, was that a picture. I defy you to go back through the CNN library, any library you can find and find a video of John McCain looking like that….That was President John McCain making an appearance to American people.”

Even during the Democratic party’s finest hour, the media sycophants still line up to kiss St. McCain’s ring.

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The President’s decision to fire Rumsfeld this morning was just bizarre. Does he think this will be enough to keep a Democratic Congress off his back? Was this just an attempt to play the media and knock some wind out of the Democrats’ sails? Why the hell would be have spent the last week defying public opinion and supporting Rummy if he was planning to toss him aside so suddenly? The political strategy beside this is inexplicable to me. Gotta love that Junior picked one of his daddy’s Iran/Contra buddies for a replacement. That should be a fun confirmation hearing. Democrats, point your subpoenas in this direction.

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Interesting fact : South Dakota’s ballot measure failed at the same margin by which Oklahoma’s cockfighting ban passed a few years ago, 56-44. I wonder how much ideological overlap there is between the 44% of SD voters who think rape victims should be forced to have babies and the 44% of Okies who enjoy watching birds kill each other. The lack of the rape/incest provision is the real reason the SD ban failed, but it was left out deliberately to bait federal courts into striking it down and giving them a path to challenge Roe vs. Wade in the Supreme Court.

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Speaking of ballot measure wedge issues, I was thinking the other day that Democrats could really use a wedge issue or two to get onto local ballots as a way of motivating base voters to get to the polls, but then it struck me : this trick probably won’t work for Democrats. Republican issues like opposing gay marriage or banning abortion are all about using weight of the government to divide Americans and meddle in their lives, but Democrats don’t seem to have many issues like that which resonate with their base on the same “lizard brain” level. A few years ago it might have been gun control, but with so many gun-friendly Dems, that’s a non-starter these days.

Looking at how it played out last night, there was a same-sex marriage ban on the ballot in eight states which passed in all but one state. There were also ballot measures to restrict affirmative action, ban abortion, declare English the official language, and parental notification. On the plus side, a minimum wage increase was on the ballot in six states and passed in every single one. That along with Missouri’s stem cell bill should tide us over until the Democrats can get these passed on the federal level.

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The strangest thing on any ballot, however, has to be Arizona’s Proposition 200 :

Proposition 200 would establish a $1,000,000 prize to be awarded to a randomly selected person who voted in the primary or general election. Anyone who voted in the primary or general election would be automatically entered in the drawing for the prize money, and if a person voted in both the primary and the general election, that person’s name would be entered twice in the drawing.

That’s right, in an attempt to increase voter turnout, the people of Arizona had to vote on whether or not they should turn their elections into the goddamn lottery. Thankfully this mockery of the electoral process was defeated.

It looks like the Republican dirty tricks machine has been in full force over the weekend sending fraudulent robocalls to voters in multiple states. Here’s the details from Talking Points Memo (who’s actively tracking the story) :

What we’re talking about is something a bit different. What we’re seeing is an apparent coordinated effort from the NRCC — the House GOP committee — to place calls that appear to be from the local Democratic candidate and then automatically call the same number back as many as seven or eight times each time the caller hang-ups. If the caller listens to the whole message it goes on to bash the Democratic candidate. But if the caller hangs up prematurely, the computer calls right back. Hang-ups are the achilles heal of robo-calls. So this seems to be an attempt to cover for that weakness by making those who hang up think the Democratic candidate is basically harassing them with phone calls. The GOP wins either way.

What is there to do about it. As described, the calls appear to be in violation of federal regulations which mandate that these calls clearly identify their origin. The repetitive call back may also be a violation in different states. The New Hampshire AG apparently just intervened to force the NRCC to stop the calls in that state. But frankly, none of that matters. Because the folks placing the calls factor in the price of whatever fines might be meted out after the election when the damage is already done.

This is exactly the sort of thing we should expect from the party of big business. Our nation’s laws mean nothing to these creeps. To them, the fines they’ll probably end up paying for this criminal activity are nothing more than another line item on the campaign’s expense report. Dispensing a few grand to pay the fines for committing electoral fraud won’t phase them any more than paying campaign staff or buying ad time would. Thousands of dollars in legal fees and fines will be money well spent if they get to keep controlling the government.

This sickening disregard for our laws is indicative of everything these scumbags stand for. With the Abramoff scandal, the GOP was embroiled in a patronage and bribery operation that has tentacles into almost every facet of the right wing machine. For the Bush Administration, American birthrights like habeas corpus, due process, and checks and balances have been thrown aside in an attempt to consolidate power. And now these latest Republican dirty tricks which echo their earlier attempts to hijack democracy such as the New Hampshire phone jamming case, Tom Delay laundering corporate campaign money through his political action committee, and voter suppression efforts aimed at minorities in Florida, Ohio, and elsewhere. These robocalls aren’t an isolated incident, they’re the instinctual behavior of a party that will break any law that stands between them and their lust for power and money.

This latest attempt by the GOP to subvert our democratic process makes me ill. That our nation’s predominant political party would lie, cheat, and steal to stay in power should stun and sadden every citizen. This isn’t just unethical, it’s un-American. As a democracy that strives towards an open and honest debate of ideas, the fraud and deception of the Republican party is antithetical to our core values. The Republican party should be ashamed of themselves. We all deserve better.

Wow. Yet another gay conservative has been outed, this time one of the most powerful leaders of the Religious Right :

Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and founder and leader of the Colorado Springs-based New Life Church, stepped down Thursday following allegations that he has had a three-year homosexual affair with a male prostitute.

Haggard resigned as president of the national association and placed himself on administrative leave from his church.

Mike Jones, a self-professed male escort, claimed publicly on Wednesday to have had a three-year affair with Haggard, during which Haggard allegedly ingested methamphetamine. Haggard denied the affair Wednesday night to KUSA Channel 9News.

But today, Haggard stated he could “not continue to minister under the cloud created by the accusations made on Denver talk radio…”

The sad thing about this is that Ted Haggard seems to be, relatively speaking, one of the good guys (at least, as close to “good” as you’re likely to find in the evangelical movement). Here’s a choice bit from a profile on Haggard from Christianity Today :

“Evangelical does not mean any particular political ideology,” Haggard continues. “The African American [evangelical] community has an honorable concern for social justice, and that affects their politics. That concern comes from the Scripture. The Anglo community has a different history, so different Scriptures stand out to them. To the Anglo [evangelical] community, most of their sermons are theological. It’s salvation by grace through faith, and other theological points, so social-justice issues don’t have the same compelling justification.”
. . .
Haggard is a loyal member of the Religious Right who dials in for a White House conference call every Monday. Yet he embraces ecological concerns and says the Supreme Court made a good decision in the Lawrence v. Texas case, ordering the government out of the private lives of homosexuals.

Haggard thinks churches should keep their doctrinal distinctives to themselves, but he broadcasts political stands that some NAE members find objectionable. (When he produced a memo last spring listing “judicial restraint” at the top of the NAE’s priorities and “care for creation” at the bottom, the NAE board made clear they didn’t share his priorities.) Talking with Haggard, it isn’t entirely clear why politics should be argued in public, but doctrine shouldn’t.

It’s nice to see that Haggard takes a more moderate stand one some social issues (like breaking ranks with his fellow fundies over civil unions), but the impression I keep getting from Haggard is that he is, like so many of his peers in the evangelical leadership, a politician first and a man of god second. The CT profile even calls him on it :

Haggard isn’t searching for perfect consistency. He is attracted to what works. For him, everything seems to work these days. He loves to drop names of the politicians and journalists who have called. But he’s not stuck on politics. Should the political scene change and his influence wane, he would move on to the next thing.
. . .
But personality-driven and media-centric organizations don’t necessarily develop strong institutional foundations. Politicians are notoriously fickle. Today’s darlings are tomorrow’s has-beens.

And as the Bible amply warns, success is seductive. Haggard’s optimistic evangelicalism could become self-congratulatory religion-lite, baptizing the American way. It could turn evangelicalism into the church wing of the Republican Party. It could wrap free-market individualism around the Cross, confusing material wealth and personal happiness with spiritual riches. It could neglect the Cross altogether. The new evangelicalism that Haggard represents suffers such temptations, most obviously in the prosperity gospel.

While Haggard’s rhetoric doesn’t perfectly mirror the hate-mongering that defines the politicians of the “religious” right, his political activism is getting him in trouble. Though Haggard is, to a degree, a moderating force within the evangelical community, his accuser has come forward because of Haggards hypocrisy on gay marriage and Colorado’s upcoming homophobic ballot initiative.

Mike Jones, 49, of Denver, made his allegations on the Peter Boyles show on KHOW 630 AM, saying he was compelled to come forward because he believes Haggard, an opponent of same-sex unions, is being hypocritical.

“After sitting back and contemplating this issue, the biggest reason is being a gay man all my life, I have experience with my friends, some great sadness of people that were in a relationship through the years,” and were not able to enjoy the same rights and privileges as a married man and woman, Jones told Boyles on air.

“I felt it was my responsibility to my fellow brothers and sisters, that I had to take a stand, and I cannot sit back anymore and hear (what) to me is an anti-gay message.”

Let this be a warning to the religious hypocrites who exploit their own faith for political gain. Matthew 26:52

“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.”

Then again, whenever these self-appointed arbiters of moral purity turn out to be hypocrites, my reaction is more like that other religious J.C…Jack Chick :

If Ted Haggard wasn’t the leader in a religious and political movement whose modus operandi was the demonizing of homosexuals, he’d probably still have a job. HAW HAW HAW

UPDATE : Check out Haggard’s soon-to-be-legendary appearance in the documentary Jesus Camp (via Americablog) :