Considering Al Gore

[Not Dennis-related]

Al Gore is starting to look more and more like Jimmy Hoffa as the years go by and he gains a little weight. The best speech Al Gore ever gave was when he stopped challenging the 200 election, and not because I was "rooting" for Bush. I was, in fact, a very big Gore supporter in 2000 and viewed Bush _extremely_ negatively. But when the race tightened towards the end, Gore's stump speeches got sort of crazy and that, I think, turned off enough voters to cost him the presidency. If he'd campaigned in the final weeks by giving speeches that were similar in tone to his last one in December 2000, he would have won.

Of course, Gore faced a decision in late 2000 as to what to make of his political career. I think he chose wrong, drastically. Instead of building on the goodwill he had after the election (even adversaries admired his gracious last speech) and working practically on the concensus issue of pollution/global warming, Gore went way, way partisan. His once very sensible views on foreign policy got replaced by fervent anti-war stances popular with Democratic primary voters. And ultimately the crowing achievement of his wilderness years is An Inconveninent Truth, where Gore opts for pathetic scare tactics and dubious and sensational claims of an enviromental day of reckoning instead of sensible policy that would counter the great risk man-made global warming would present.

Gore's Oscar on Sunday night marked a culmination of this effort. There may even be another one coming when Nobel prizes are announced, and this will elevate his status in the world. But his status in America is irrevocably flat, and it's much, much lower than it was in 2000.

I watched Oscar highlights of Gore with sadness. I miss the old Gore, a guy with real promise to advocate progressive principles from the center and to achieve progressive ends without resorting to populist themese. That guy is gone forever. In his place we have a bloated Jimmy Hoffa of the international union of man-made climate change. Maybe it is toward a good end. But it's a lot less than what Gore could have been.

Kucinich Awarded in Los Angeles

An Oscar? No, that went to Al Gore (though it's a matter of time until someone makes a documentary about Kucinich). Instead, Kucinich was given the prestigious Champion For Peace Award on a streetcorner in LA.

No, it's not a joke.

Desert Theatre

Dennis spent yesterday afternoon in Nevada and, as the PD politics blog describes, "got theatrical."

Kucinich proclaims the single biggest reason we went ot Iraq was.... (drumroll)... oil! Um, okay, if you say so Mr. Kucinich! Dennis did not elaborate on what he thinks about "oil" or describe his own position on it's importance. I wonder if he mentioned any _other_ reasons America went into Iraq? I'm guessing not because it wouldn't fit his mantra about the big, bad American Colossus, but if he did I'd sure be interested in hearing what he said.

Also, it'd be interesting if Kucinich cited his record as a Congressman for NE Ohio when making the case for why he should be president...

And, as is becoming a recurring theme for these campaign stops, the speech ended with the bizarre:

Proclaiming that he's the best candidate to transform the government from "being run to accelerate the wealth upwards to a condition where there's more equitable distribution and everybody has a chance to make a living," Kucinich abruptly raised his arms into a crucifixion-type pose and asked the audience to tell him: "Why it is that I'm able to do this?"

An obliging audience member shouted: "No strings."

Kucinich chanted the phrase himself ten times -- while twirling with his arms out -- before vacating the stage.

God help us.

Fairness According to Dennis...

...is and "uninhibited exchange of ideas," which in Dennis-speak, means advocates for positions he supports should be on-the-air side-by-side with more mainstream ideas. In all of Dennis's comments on the Fairness Doctrine he wishes to implement, the term "free market" doesn't come up much. Nor does the high-profile failure of left-wing radio network Air America -- which didn't fail because they were locked out of markets or due to some sort of political persecution, but simply because not enough people wanted to listen to it. Air America had free and open access to the airwaves... but to Dennis the fact that people just didn't want to listen to it means some unfair is happening.

Kucinich's strongest complaint is that massive consolidation in the radio broadcast industry has meant fewer companies producing most of the content. That is true to an extent in talk radio (although anyone who's ever scanned the AM dial on a long drive knows there is still a huge variety of programming out there) and the right-wing talk audience is larger. But this is most definitely NOT true almost everywhere else -- the internet has EXPLODED with news, information and opinion. The internet is threatening newspapers, tv, and radio everywhere you look. Getting a contrary opinion out to the public is now as easy as setting up a Blogger account. It is mankind's greatest example of an "uninhibited exchange of ideas" -- and Kucinich acts like it doesn't exist. Kucinich's subcomittee would only apply to talk radio, perhaps the one medium where right-wing viewpoints are more predominant. So despite a whole new world of free information exchange, the popularity of right-wing talk shows on good old AM radio is the big bad boogeyman that Kucinich most worries about.

Kucinich even has the gall to ask, "How could we have the trade policies which we have, for example, if there was a free and uninhibited exchange of ideas over NAFTA and GATT and the WTO?" You see, this is what it is all about. Kucinich refuses to believe that most people have heard the relavent facts about NAFTA. Does he not remember the great NAFTA debate in the 1990's? It was years in the making and there were plenty of contrary points of view floating about. It didn't passs because not enough people were opposed to it on AM talk radio; it passed because both parties and President Clinton supported it. And the NAFTA debate occurred in an American that largely predates the great consolidation of radio broadcasters and the popularity of right-wing talk radio.

Kucinich Votes For Non-Binding Resolution

Unless you have been living in a cave, you know the House passed a non-binding resolution expressing disagreement with the current troop buildup in Iraq. It's not suprising that Dennis Kucinich would express displeasure with the war, however this measure did more than disagree with the president's policy. Actual text of the leglislation:

(1) Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the members of the United States Armed Forces who are serving or who have served bravely and honorably in Iraq; and

(2) Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.

But does Kucinich really believe in the first part of the bill? Kucinich has repeatedly called for the defunding of the war. I suppose Kucinich would explain that he is supporting and protecting the troops by abandoning the missions bringing them home. I hope most voters take a moment to decide for themselves if Kucinich is truly supporting the troops by calling for defunding of the war effort.

You can be against a "surge" and still support the troops, particularly if you are offering an alternative vision for a successful outcome. But if your alternative vision consists of mererly abandoning the mission as soon as possible.... it's difficult to discern how Kucinich's position is supporting the troops.

It's also pretty obvious that most troops actually serving in Iraq stil support the mission. How one supports those troops while having absolutely no support for the mission is rather incomprehensible.

Current Stuff

Kucinich makes an appearance in Scene Magazine's Hall of Wimps thanks for his wife's reaction to some criticism of Dennis on WCPN. The cricism sounds familiar: "He's a clown," said Maag. "He's lazy. And he doesn't do his job . . . Has he actually done anything for his district? . . . Let's take care of the business of your district first, then maybe you can go talking about creating cabinet-level positions."

Meanwhile, Dennis will be in New Hampshire on Sunday and Monday. I'm hard pressed to imagine what he is doing there that would benefit his Congressional district. Maybe he is trying to create a New Hampshire/Cleveland free trade zone?

Celebs Want Peace, Kucinich Wants Pub

Joaquin Phoenix turned out for a press conference touting Kucinich's long proposed Department of Peace. According to Dennis, Phoenix made a "statement by his presence" at the news conference and he "entered the press conference late and left early." Hmmm, what kind of statement did he make, exactly? And was it in any way meaningful?

Make no mistake about it -- this was a campaign event. The event was officially sponsored by the Peach Alliance, which happens to be headed up by the same person who led Dennis' 20054 campaign.

Kucinich expresses optimism that such a department will be created eventually. What he can't seem to do is describe in any detail what this department would do. All he can say is it would "create structures in place in our own government to avert violence and build peaceful homes, communities and nations." Sure, sounds great --- now tell us what the freaking Department of Peace would _do_.

This little article says Kucinich claims it would "save government money by averting arms purchases," which suggests his Department of Peace would be a counter-weight to the Department of Defense. In which case the Department of Peace would another warring beauracracy. This would be completely stupid.

Dennis -- you are already part of the federal government. Why would you propose a new institution to fight with an existing institution? Why not just try and propose changes to the Department of Defense, if that is what you want? Further, there is already a State Department and huge USAID efforts that work hard for "peace" in the world. Is it not possible to use these in your efforts for "peace?"

This, frankly, is a big pronlem Dennis has. He has no clue how to use existing institutions to get things done. He can only propose totally new, sometimes hair-brained and often half-baked ideas. It's asinine. And wasteful. And disparaging of all the good people who have built the organizations that Dennis doesn't care for.

As an example, would do you do if you don't like the kitchen in your house? Most people would buy some new appliances, maybe update some things, or even remodel it entirely. Not Dennis -- he'd build a second, brand-new kitchen off the back of the house, and the kitchen would also contain a shower, a washing machine, and a spot for the lawnmower. And yet the new kitchen would not contain a stove. Instead it would merely reheat food cooked in the other kitchen. You get the point...

Kucinich Addresses DNC

Dennis Kucinich spent the weekend getting around. He covered Maine, New Hampshire, and the DNC 2007 Winter Meeting in Washington D.C.

I urge everyone to read Kucinich's address to the DNC as it touches on the major themes of his campaign for president -- and is quite stunning. Kucinich reiterates his stance that the Iraq war should be defunded by Congress, and he makes absolutely no mention of what that would mean on the ground in Iraq or the responsibility America has to that country. He advocates a national single-payer healthy care system managed by a single, not-for-profit government bureaucracy, and he makes no mention of what this would do to medical innovation and standard of care. He proposes "universal prekindergarten." Among many other things.

But two points are most interesting. The first is a proposal to create the 9/10 Forum:"As we travel across America, Elizabeth and I will bring together groups to rediscover who we were before 9/11, to envision the community we want." Kucinich doesn't very well define what this Forum really would do or why it would exist. But the name and his short description are absolutely breathtaking in their naivety and sheer ignorance. Dennis, you might as well just say, "Let's act like 9/11 didn't happen." How could this man as president effectively fight terrorism when his stance is to "rediscover who we were before 9/11," when terrorists were making their final preparations to kill thousands of innocent civilians and cause billions of dollars of damage to the economy? Is that really the lesson America should take from 9/11? No doubt most avid-Kucinich supporters agree with him, but does anyone else? I suppose we will find out. I would point out that, in a speech often interupted by audience applause, no one applauded Kucinich after he proposed this forum.

Dennis also described his visit to Southern Lebanon in the wake of the war between Hizbollah and Israel this past summer. I've been greatly disturbed by this trip as I think it was extremely unwise. Here are Dennis' relevant quotes on the subject and some comments.

Now, this past summer, I implored our government to intervene to stop a bloodbath between Israel and Lebanon. As it turned out, our government encouraged the destruction.

I'd remind everyone that Dennis is referring to Israel's retaliation to a Hizbollah raid into Israel that killed a number of Israeli soldiers and kidnapped another. Hizbollah was holding the soldier hostage, prompting a military response from Israel. Now, many months later, Hizbollah is still holding the soldier hostage.

My wife and I traveled to South Lebanon immediately after the war. Nothing could have prepared us for what we saw in South Lebanon: bridges, water systems, sewer systems, schools, social clubs, recreation areas, stadiums, cemeteries, fruit groves, factories, small businesses, mosques and churches all bombed.

Countless cluster bombs were strewn about. And landmines lined roads and adjacent fields, making on-foot travel perilous. The smell of death was everywhere. Over 30,000 homes were destroyed.

A couple things to note. Kucinich toured South Lebanon, which is pretty much the Hizbollah -controlled portion of the country. Hizbollah is infamous for for mixing civilian and military interests. Israel claimed that Hizbolah was using cilvilian areas and structures to store weapons, as command+control centers, and to fire rockets from. It's well-known that Hizbollah does this; however people debate the extent to which this was true and how much bombing of these places was justified by Israel.

We traveled through the village after village with names like Ayeda (ph), Maroon Ras (ph) and Bint Jbeil, stopping to assess the damage, talking with people through interpreters, moving cautiously through the rubble of children's toys, household appliances, televisions, computers, clothing with popular American insignias.

Because the bombs were widely assumed to come from America, big bold signs declared: "This is your democracy, America."

Dennis doesn't claim whether he agrees with this sentiment, although he felt it was important enough to include in the speech. Why? It's not really clear what point he is making here.

Our last stop was in Cana, where the Bible tells us Christ performed his first miracle -- Cana.

We are arrived unannounced late at night. We asked to express our condolences to the families of dozens of villagers who had lost their lives when a thousand-pound bomb dropped on a four-story apartment building, collapsing the structure and crushing everyone inside.

This bombing has been widely debated on the internet and the bombing was held up as an example of Israel responding with an inordinate amount of force. You can do your own Google searches and decide for yourself. Amidst criticism after the bombing of the apartment building, Israel released a satellite video of Katusha rockets being fired from this building. Whatever the case, Cana appears to have been a perfect example of Hizbollah's strategy of fighting in civilian areas, drawing a response the kills civilians, and scoring a propaganda victory against Israel. And they do this by essentially sacrificing their own civilians.

This is where a US Congressman should exercise extreme caution. Kucinich chose to visit Cana. He chose to be photographed amidst the rubble, and he's chosen to retell the story of Cana without regard from the actions of Hizbollah that drew fire from the IAF in the first place. By focusing entirely on the civilian casualties without ever addressing why they occurred, Kucinich is playing right into the hands of Hizbollah. Indeed, by retelling the "tragedy of Cana" without any attempt to put in context how it came about is to validate Hizbollah's strategy of sacrificing it's own civilian population to sway world opinion.

We were led to the town square, now a makeshift cemetery. Lights from our vehicles illuminated the graveyard where rows and rows of family pictures of the deceased sat atop the graves.

Elizabeth and I stopped at one the grave site. The picture of a beautiful little boy of cherubic countenance smiled at us. It was the type of family picture American department stores specialized in years ago.

The first response was to smile at this smiling little boy with his freshly cut hair and his bright red sweater; then the realization that this precious child was dead.

As Elizabeth and I stood weeping, an arm extended around my shoulder and comforted me. That person guided us to the next grave, that of a woman and three children. "This was my family," our comforter said through an interpreter.

Now, this experience transformed us: Someone who had lost his entire family had been comforting us.

We were led by villagers down a narrow street and over a large amount of rubble to the site of where the bomb dropped. Light from headlights of motorbikes lit up the rubble where the fragments of the bomb and pieces of clothing were intermingled.

The word spread that an American congressman was present, and a crowd quickly gathered.

Now, we had no bodyguards. We were surrounded by people who had suffered great loss and had every right to express anger and even rage. Yet instead, they expressed a remarkable depth of forgiveness, compassion, and a desire for peace and reconciliation.

(APPLAUSE)

Kucinich could have used his visit to Cana to do something courageous that might have actually benefited the people of southern Lebanon -- perhaps while acknowledging the tragedy of civilian deaths he could condemn military strategies that deliberatly conduct operations in civilian areas. Or he could have publicly questioned why this destroyed apartment building was used to launch rockets into Israel. But Kucinich did none of this. He merely felt these people's pain. Sorry, but that is not good enough for a sitting Congressman. Especially one who claims to want to represent the forces of Peace in the world.

Speaking calmly from the crowd through interpreters, here is what they said: "Tell the American people we love them. We don't hate America. We love America. We do not like what your government does. America could have saved our families. Please tell the American people we are not terrorists. We are not terrorists. We do not hate Israel. We want to be safe in our village. We want to be left alone. We want peace. We want peace."

Dennis, this would have been a GREAT time to inquire why Katusha rockets were being fired from this apartment building. It would have been courageous and honorable. And it might have actually made a difference.

I promised the people of Cana that I would bring the message from Cana back to America. And today I'm keeping that promise.

And how did your trip to Cana support the promises you have made as a Congressman for the people of NE Ohio? What message did you bring from Ohio to Lebanon? How did your trip help matters and make a repeat of the Hizbollah/Israel clash less likely? Because so far all you have described is parade through the site of the biggest Hizbollah propaganda victory, one that apparently came at the expense of civilians including this little boy. If that is all you did, it is entirely shameful.

And before we left, Elizabeth and I knelt at the grave of that beautiful little boy, and we made a promise to work for a world where all children are safe.

A promise we all agree with. It is HOW you want to make that world that is important.

The people of the village retrieved a fragment of the bomb which destroyed so many lives and they gave it to me. And it's going to be out in the lobby at my table there. And I want you to look at it. I want you to look at it, because it is time that we took the stand to stop the destruction of the lives of innocents.

This is interesting. By showcasing this bomb fragment what purpose is Kucinich serving? What message is he sending? It's perhaps deliberately vague. No one wishes destruction of the lives of innocents. No one, except the people who deliberately shot rockets from this apartment building in Cana.

And it's interesting because Kucinich's own trip did nothing to help prevent another such tragedy. He carried no meaningful message with him to Lebanon. He walked right into the hornet's nest of south Lebanon and apparently validated Hizbollah's strategy of using civilians as human shields.

Whether they live in Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Pakistan, India, Sudan or America, we must make it our priority to work for peace in the Middle East and throughout the world.

No argument on that.

Look, I really do respect that Kucinich went for a first-hand look himself. But he apparently willfully walked into south Lebanon unconcerned with the effect of his visit. He made no attempt to ensure his presence would not be used to embolden Hizbollah. He said nothing publicly to challenge the forces in couth Lebanon that have created such a precarious situation. He made no mention of existing UN resolutions calling for Hizbollah's "state within a state" to disarm. He made no mention of perhaps the biggest culprit for innocent deaths, the using of civilian areas by Hizbollah for military purposes.

If this trip was the first of many it could be excused. If this trip were followed up with some serious talk about Lebanon and the root causes that are destabilizing the country, then the fact-finding nature of the trip would be understandable. If Kucinich admitted his walking into Hizbollah-land perhaps sent the wrong message, then it could be forgiven. Or if Dennis merely acknowledged that an organization with a long history of terrorism (etc.) ought not to be the de facto governing body in south Lebanon, then criticism of the trip could be chalked up to differing strategies and opinions. But none of this applies. Instead Kucinich is using the trip as a centerpiece of his presidential campaign. He's proud of the trip as it was, and appears to feel no need to address any of these problems with it.

It's all very disappointing and a bit tragic. Kucinich is out there trumpeting his message of peace but this foray into south Lebanon did nothing but implicitly validate Hizbollah in southern Lebanon.