Thru Other Eyes

RFK Remembered

Yesterday was the fortieth anniversary of RFK's assassination. I have taken some time this weekend to watch and read some of the historical material about his run for the presidency in 1968, the events of his turbulent times and many of his speeches. 

It was also this week that Barack Obama became the prospective Democratic nominee for the presidency. I can't escape the feeling that in many ways Obama's candidacy could be the fulfillment of the promise that RFK fought, and died, for in 1968. Although the things tearing America apart were in many ways very different in 1968, the country remains divided, often bitterly, along the fault lines of ideology, economics, lifestyle, race, gender and opportunity. RFK's message of hope and unity resounds as loudly today as it did forty years ago.

Of all RFK's speeches,

Woops, Sorry. This Gas Tax Holiday Debate is Giving Me Gas

Am I the only one who thinks this presidential primary season is turning more and more into silly time at the happy farm? The gas tax holiday debate now raging between the candidates is nothing more than the idiocy du jour.

McCain got the ball rolling by proposing a summer recess from the 18-cent a gallon federal tax on gasoline. As he put it:

"I'd like to see families in America have a relief from ever-increasing costs of gasoline so maybe at the end of the summer, after this tax holiday, they could buy school supplies for their children."

Quite a sweet thought but since everyone agrees that the savings for the average American family would be around $30, McCain should have said ‘a bit of the school supplies for one of their children, maybe.’

Stop The Presses! Start The Killing!

The US Supreme Court delivered a 7 - 2 decision this afternoon finding that Kentucky's application of lethal injection does not qualify as 'cruel and unusual' punishment. Several states wasted no time in welcoming the decision and announcing they would be gearing up their murder mills now that the decision is in.

Kentucky along with 34 other states and the federal government use a three-drug procedure. The first drug administered is

Coalition Of The Killing

Amnesty International released its annual report today on the use of the death penalty worldwide. As in previous years, the United States remains one of the world’s most enthusiastic practitioners of the death penalty.

According to Amnesty’s report  

Five Years Iraq

For me today, the only appropriate way to pause on the fifth anniversary, this fifth memorial for the war in Iraq is to have my thoughts with all those who have lost and given their lives in this war. So many lives and so many futures lost; it is a heavy burden we bear.

As I look at all the events around us today: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, other trouble spots where war is waging, the elections in the USA, I think about our individual responsibility as citizens of democracies. Especially the responsibility we create when we send boys and girls, men and women, off to die and to kill.

Death of darkness, death of night,
Let me feel the warmth of your blinding light.
Heroes one, Heroes all.
They felt the haunting of Gabriel’s call.

You couldn't have died for sins unknown.
Perhaps for a sin I must call my own?
Why did we send you, did we do what’s right?
Whose war was this you left to fight?

Forgive me my brother, my mother, my father,
Forgive me my lover, my sister, my daughter and son,
Forgive me my silence, the love that I squandered,
I hold onto your pain, for I’ve let you down.

~ Thru Other Eyes

The Madness of King George

Over the last weeks we have been treated to the spectacle of a President who is increasingly out of touch with reality and for whatever reason is less and less inhibited about showing it.

 

First we had George as the dancing bear outside the Oval Office as he waited to endorse John McCain.

Last Friday, we had the President telling the Economic Club of New York, "I'm coming to you as an optimistic fellow," exactly at the time that Bear Stearns' stock price was nose-diving and behind the scenes efforts were underway for JP Morgan to buy the once venerable bank for 7 cents on the dollar in an effort to stave off further bank collapses. Not since the 1930's had such a government guaranteed deal been necessary; but George was optimistic.

The most insightful and revolting look into Bush's emotional and intellectual state came on Thursday in a videoconference the President held with American military reconstruction teams in Afghanistan. 

The Real Dish On Geraldine Ferraro's Comments

When I saw the web video of Geraldine Ferraro's performance last night on NBC I couldn't believe her indignation at the turn of events stemming from her Obama comments. Was it feigned or was it truly felt? Who knows. What ticked me off the most was her misleading and self-serving explanation of the comments' background and context.

If you have ten minutes to spare and are interested in a complete picture of her comments, their background and context then you should really check out this commentary from Keith Olbermann.

Our Brave Vets Speak Out - We Should Listen

Today marks the start of Iraq Veterans Against the War's 'Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan' event in Washington, D.C. You can follow the proceedings via the Web.

Inspired by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War's original Winter Soldier Investigation of 1971, Iraq Veterans Against the War are holding a similar event this weekend in Washington, D.C.

Regardless of how one feels about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan it is fundamentally important to respect those who have chosen in good conscious to serve their country in this way. Too many have paid the ultimate price with their lives and too many have come home as physically and psychologically shattered men and women.

The very least we can do is to listen to these courageous men and women who are bravely stepping forward to bear witness to the true horrors of the wars we have sent them to fight in.

From IVAW's website:

Hillary, why do you make it so hard to love you?

I had to check out the dictionary just to make sure. I didn’t want to give anyone a bad rap they don’t deserve. Sadly enough disingenuous, calculating and deceitful do define Hillary even at her best.

Should we judge a politician by relative politician standards? “Oh, he or she is not so bad; many are far worse.” “Hey, that’s part and parcel of being in politics.” “What do you expect? He or she is only a politician.”

Or should we judge a politician

Doublethink for Dummies

In 1949, the author George Orwell introduced the word ‘doublethink’ into the English language. As they say, ‘you’ve come a long way baby’ since then. After almost sixty years of refinement and further development, doublethink has become a fascinating phenomenon in social, psychological and political thought and action.

George Orwell introduced the word and concept of doublethink into the English vocabulary in his seminal 1949 classic entitled 1984. Doublethink, as described by one of the characters in the book is: “To know and not to know… to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them.”

Pre-schoolers and young children

A Super Ugly Mess

For weeks the candidates, the pundits and the media have been all a’ chatter about the Democratic superdelegates. Endless speculation about what could happen IF the Democratic nominating contest has to be decided by the superdelegates. Well, we’re way past that point because the superdelegates are going to have the final word in this historic contest.

Fears of a potential super ugly superdelegate mess? Did I say potential? Forget that. The future is here and so is the superdelegate mess.

Given the current delegate count (see visual) there is practically no way that either candidate can reach the magic nominating number of 2,025 without the superdelegates. As you can see, Obama needs to win 78% of the remaining delegates while Hillary needs almost a total sweep of  89% of the regular delegates left to win the nomination.

Given that Democratic delegates are awarded along a more or less proportional fashion it is for all intents and purposes a foregone conclusion. Neither candidate is going to reach 2,025

And Then There Were Three

I earlier wrote that this could be America’s next potential great moment in time. The kind of moment that doesn’t come along very often. A moment of potentially transformational importance. As we look at the last three standing in America’s primaries, we can see what makes this moment so unique and so challenging.

Imagine the times we are in: The country’s confidence in its President is at one of its lowest points ever. And even more significantly, barely 1 in 5 Americans, only 22%, puts much stock in the Congress. And the rest of the world is waiting with bated breath for an America renewed. Against that background, look at the three presidential candidates left standing: a woman, the son of a black Kenyan immigrant and an old white guy who is one of America’s last true warrior heroes in national public service.

We now know, barring some wild unforeseen circumstances,

A Six Point Plan for Political Transformation

The recent California Democratic debate was on the surface not very spectacular. However, if one were to look at it thru other eyes, it is possible to imagine the contours of a 16 to 20 year period of transformational change with a gigantic capital C. Part II – A Six Point Plan for Political Transformation.

Every once in a while, a moment or period comes along in a society’s evolution that embodies the potential for meaningful transformation. Such a moment generally arises out of a conflux of fortuitous circumstances: the broad realization of the moment’s importance, a mix of challenges with historical and lasting significance, people’s willingness and readiness to rise to the occasion and finally leaders who are prepared to ignite the fire, carry the torch and bear the burden of responsibility and risk.

Over the past hundred years,

The Choice No One Should Asked Be To Make

The recent California Democratic debate was on the surface not very spectacular. However, if one were to look at it thru other eyes, it is possible to imagine the contours of a 16 to 20 year period of transformational change with a gigantic capital C. Part I – The Choice No One Should Be Asked To Make

As I nestled into the couch to watch this debate, I had low expectations. Given the tenor of the recent campaign I feared a ‘he-said-she-said-no-I-didn’t’ kind of debate. Sort of what the Republicans had offered the previous night. Instead we were treated to a show that was to a surprising degree ‘I’m okay-you’re-okay-it’s-the republicans-we-are-after.’

On the key issues of this primary season these two are practically within millimeters of each other. When it comes to the complex issues of

Now We Know

Obama’s landslide victory last night in South Carolina has provided crystal clear answers to several fundamental and burning questions about this year’s campaign. And none of those answers bode well for Hillary, Bill or the Clinton legacy. But maybe, just maybe, the answers bode well for America.

Boy oh boy! What an exciting primary season. Last night I stayed up for the first time to watch the results come in live and to follow the discussions on CNN, the BBC, English language Al Jazeera and on the Internet.

With Obama’s overwhelming victory

The Arkansas Rumblers Tag Team Strikes Again

It’s a damn shame. This should have been one the most significant and inspiring presidential election seasons since the first time Americans went to the polls in 1789.

Perhaps I was expecting too much or I am naïve or as some would say even pollyannish. But I couldn’t help myself.

Listen… Listen Close Enough to Hear… His Words Resonate As Loud As Ever

Monday, January 21, is Martin Luther King Day in the United States. I dedicated some time over the weekend to read and watch some of his speeches and to see a wonderful CNN special appropriately entitled MLK: Words That Changed a Nation.

Dr. King did indeed change a nation and it was primarily through his words that he catalyzed and led that change. The purity and incontrovertible truth of what he wanted to share with us, the absolute passion and humility with which he spoke and the magic oratory style he was a master of brought his concepts to life in a way that could not be ignored. And as I read and watched this weekend, I realized that those of us who care deeply about or are in whatever way involved in the conflict between Israel and Palestine need to hear his words as if for the first time. We need to understand as never before what Dr. King lived and died for.

Most people know his “I Have a Dream” and “I’ve Been to the Mountain Top” speeches. Fewer people may be familiar with one of his lesser known sermons from 1957, a Sunday church sermon that enunciated so clearly and so beautifully

Race and Gender? You Bet!

It was appropriate and perhaps even significant that the Democratic candidates for president buried the race hatchet during Tuesday's debate which of course coincidentally fell on Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday.

It was however equally inappropriate and perhaps significantly cowardly that all three leading candidates used the moment to pat each other on the back and with such niceties take race and gender off the table: 

"I know that John and Hillary have always been committed to racial equality," said Obama.

"I'm proud of the fact that we have a woman and an African American who are very, very serious candidates for the presidency," said Edwards.

"Neither race nor gender should be a part of this campaign," said Clinton.

Don’t get me wrong.

Would you buy a used car from..... ?

I know its kind of a cliche when it comes to political candidates. But I still find it a really effective and lightning quick litmus test in gaging how I feel about a candidate. Of course, it's only helpful if you believe that integrity and trustworthiness are important characteristics in a politician. And I am not talking about that minimum threshold of wiggling and spinning that is sadly part and parcel of being a politician today.

When I ask that question of the current crop of Democratic candidates vying for their party's nomination for President I come up one short. Although of course I have my favorites in the field,

Alice in Wonderland – Down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass with President George Bush leading the way

America is in trouble. American democracy is in trouble. The country is being led by two men who have proven themselves to be totally unfit for their positions of responsibility and leadership. To the extent that their policies have had any benefit, either by circumstance or design, only a very small group of mainly privileged Americans have any reason to be happy with 7 years of Bush-Cheney. These two men have disappointed and betrayed the public trust in so many varied and serious ways.

If you were to take a look at

Two, four, six, eight, let’s go obfuscate

Obfuscate: To make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand
Synonyms:  camouflage, disguise, cloud, obscure

(click image to view full size)

I have always been disgusted by the term collateral damage especially when it is applied to the destroyed lives of totally innocent men, women and children. It is how we sterilize and de-humanize the horror of war. It is how we insulate ourselves from the gruesome consequences of the actions we actively support or facilitate by our inaction. It’s a word that soothes our individual and collective conscience and allows us to sleep at night. It’s how we replace the guiltless yet bloodied and mangled face of innocent death with a false mask of acceptability. It’s the sugar that helps the disgusting medicine of war go down.

In both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars

Out of the mouths of babes?

I know I am not the only one. I have heard it from so many friends, family members and people around me. Bush is so nauseating to listen to that we just tune him out. Bush? Tuned out. In addition, Bush and his advisors are so out of touch with reality that what he has to say is irrelevant anyways. So why bother listening, especially if he makes one nauseous.

But sometimes, on rare occassions, he hits the nail on the head and we don't notice. Yep, sometimes despite his and his staff's arrogance and geographical location - in some other dimension - Bush says something that is actually spot on. Sadly, he probably isn't even aware of this seldom occurence.

Today,

Wolf in sheep's clothing - Act III

Here's an interesting tidbit I came across that actually surfaced ten days ago but has received little coverage:

"Behind the scenes of the gladiatorial battle that will take place between Paul Wolfowitz and the World Bank Board today are efforts by his lawyer, Robert Bennett, and the Bank staff to negotiate terms of Wolfowitz's departure. According to some insiders, Wolfowitz wants

The Time 100 - Part 2

In 'The Time 100 - Part 1' I noted five interesting themes that struck me in the Time 100. The first two were "blogging for human rights" and "when east meets west." In part 2 I'd like to look at the remaining three themes:

• The changing face of business leadership
• Feeding a continent
• Why we do what we do

Wolf in sheep's clothing - Act II

I woke up with eager anticipation, made myself a herbal tea and fired up the laptop to check out the morning news. Bit disappointed to see that Wolfie is still president of the World Bank but I still have hope. The walls continue to close in:

• Reports circulate that the Europeans have offered a deal to the USA: Get rid of Wolfie now and you can choose the next president according to tradition, otherwise we will demand an end to your exclusive right to choose the president of the bank.
• The committe of World Bank directors investigating the Wolfman have formerly notified him that he is indeed guilty of conflict of interest. Bank officials say that a majority of the bank board has concluded that he should go.

Stay tuned, it can't be much longer now.

Wolf in sheep's clothing - Act I

Finally. The decor around Wolfowitz is crumbling before our eyes. About four hours ago the news first broke that Kevin Kellems, one of Wolfowitz's two top advisors at the World Bank, was resigning:

"Given the current environment surrounding the leadership of the World Bank Group, it is very difficult to be effective in helping to advance the mission of the institution," Kellems said.

Kellems is also a member in very good standing of Wolfowitz's inner circle. He served as advisor to Wolfie at the Pentagon

The Time 100 - Part 1

You have probably noticed that Time magazine published this week their list of the 100 most influential people on the planet – the Time 100. Since I don’t subscribe to Time, I became aware of the Time 100 Friday while watching FoxNews’ morning show ‘Fox and Friends’. One of the hosts, Brian Kilmeade, was mocking the list as liberal media fare pointing out how incredulous it is that Osama Bin Laden populates the list while President George Bush does not. Of course that sufficiently piqued my curiosity to see exactly who was on the Time 100.

In going thru the 100 my overall impression was that with few exceptions (Bin Laden, Ali Khamenei and Omar Hassan al-Bashir for example) the list is one of hope and optimism. Although many of these 100 are reasonably to very well known, there are plenty that for me were not household names.

I have chosen for myself 5 themes out of this list,

Virginia Tech - An event like no other

Note: This article was originally written for my communication consulting practice.

The tragic massacre last week at Virginia Tech remains first and foremost a deeply personal tragedy for the families and friends of the dead and injured and for the Virginia Tech family of students and faculty. But it was also an event that now clearly delineates between how the world used to be and how the world is evolving in terms of communication and journalism.

The previous watershed moment in communications and journalism occurred on January 16, 1991, the start of the first Gulf War. That evening I and millions of people around the world sat riveted in front of our television sets as we listened and watched CNN’s Peter Arnett, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman broadcast live from suite 906 at the Al Rashid Hotel as the first bombs began to rain down on Baghdad.

Fast forward to the terrible events of April 16, 2007,

TOE's Take on the Week

Here's a few of the things that grabbed my attention this week. What grabbed your's?

Olmert to Palestinians – NYET NYET NYET

The new unity Palestinian government is just a couple days old and Israel’s Prime Minister Olmert has made his government’s policy clear – NYET NYET NYET. It’s an odd policy. It was Moshe Dayan who said, “If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.”  And that is indeed the way many conflicts are resolved.

If I remember correctly, the United States was negotiating with North Vietnam while the war in Vietnam was still raging and both enemies were actively pursuing their right to destroy the other militarily. At the time none of the nations involved recognized their adversary and the outcome of the talks was anything but certain. If I am not mistaken, negotiations in Northern Ireland were for a very long time about the issue of the IRA giving up its armed struggle and not conditional on it. And as much as America wanted all kinds of pre-conditions in talks with North Korea,

What Kind of Country is America?

Every once in a while I get the somewhat inevitable question from a Dutch friend or colleague, “What kind of country is America?” I recently was asked the question when a local Dutch paper carried a story about America’s prison population. The story originally received coverage in the US press last November when the Justice Department released figures showing that America now had a record 7 million people – 1 in 32 American adults – either behind bars, on probation or on parole. And coincidentally, or not, a few days later I came across a photo in the LA Times focusing on the extremely overcrowded conditions in California’s state prison system.

It got me thinking about that question, “What kind of country is America?”

Will the Real Mr. Peanut Please Stand Up? Part II

As we have seen, both Bush and Ahmadinejad are devout religious fundamentalists who seem to be in some measure directed by their beliefs of what their respective Gods desire of them. But there are some interesting differences in how they exercise power.

Ahmadinejad does not have the absolute last word in his country. He is subject to the checks and balances inherent in the Iranian form of theocracy. In the first instance you have the Supreme Leader who does not hesitate to put Ahmadinejad in his place when necessary, for example just recently concerning the President’s shortcomings on economic policy. Ahmadinejad is also subject to the whims of the voters as recently demonstrated by the strong rebuke  his domestic policies received in his first mid-term. And it is no secret that large portions of the Iranian public are dissatisfied with Ahmadinejad’s unfulfilled promises to attack domestic problems. And in fact, several months ago a motion of impeachment was even introduced in the Iranian parliament.

Bush on the other hand

Will the Real Mr. Peanut Please Stand Up? Part I

When I think about Bush and Ahmadinejad I usually get two varying images in my head. Sometimes I see them as two nuts, two peanuts, two Mr. Peanuts if you will and sometimes I see Bush and Ahmadinejad as two peas in a pod. Since both the peanut and the pea are actually in the same family, I guess I could just think of them as two whacky and wild pea nuts.

But seriously, whatever image these two guys conjure up in your head, one reason why they have developed into such arch rivals, with an enmity that has become palpably personal, lies partially in the fact that they are actually quite similar. And maybe that’s why they just can’t seem to get along.

Both men are motivated by their deep religious convictions. As is well known,

Your Cheating Heart

Recorded in late 1952 and released after his death in 1953, this Hank Williams Sr classic - Your Cheating Heart - proves its worth as a classic, finding new meaning in our troubled times.

"Your cheating heart will make you weep; You’ll cry and cry and try to sleep
But sleep won’t come the whole night through; Your cheating heart will tell on you

When tears come down like falling rain; You’ll toss around and call my name
You’re gonna walk that floor the way I do; Your cheating heart will tell on you

Your cheating heart will pine someday; And crave the love you threw away
The time will come when you’ll be blue; Your cheating heart will tell on you"

Your Cheating Heart

The Narrative of Iraq

The most recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) from America’s sixteen intelligence agencies paints a bleak picture of the current situation in Iraq. The picture it sketches for the document’s future time horizon, 12 to 18 months, also provides little comfort. This current NIE contains almost every tragic narrative of today’s Iraq: the inability to establish any meaningful central governmental and security authority; the growing polarization, mistrust and antagonism between Iraq’s sectarian communities with its resulting violence, population shifts and middle and upper class emigration; the deepening and sharpening Shia – Sunni split in the broader Middle East.

Although each of these merits attention in its own right, these are stories that we are already too familiar with. There is one narrative in this NIE, that although not entirely new for many, has never been publicly recognized by the US administration. This narrative is a bleak one and is told in one sentence:

“Nevertheless, even if violence is diminished, given the current winner-take-all attitude and sectarian animosities infecting the political scene, Iraqi leaders will be hard pressed to achieve sustained political reconciliation in the time frame of this Estimate.”

When the President’s National Security Advisor,

America, for all you do, this Bud's for you!

Last Friday was a memorable day for two reasons: the release of the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq and the UN’s report on climate change.

The NIE painted a stark picture of the mess America has created in Iraq and in no uncertain terms made clear how small the chances for success are within the report’s time frame of 12 – 18 months.

The UN report on climate change was also not so heartening, telling us that, “Global warming is so severe that it will "continue for centuries, leading to a far different planet in 100 years…"”

America seems to support the report publicly, saying for example, “We think it's a very valuable report. The conclusions are significant…the US was an important participant in the development of this report.” However,

FOX TV's "24" - The New Fear Factor? Part II

So, why is there such a fuss about “24” and can we put the discussions in a fruitful context for discussion? Think back to the last time when the USA was gripped by fear to the extent the country is today gripped by fear. After WWII, the USA became obsessed by the fear of communists and of nuclear war. And in that period, Hollywood was very active in capitalizing on that fear.

Writing about Hollywood’s fifty or so films of the Cold War, author and film critic Nora Sayre  wrote that cold war films

"…were aimed at an uninformed audience in a decade when almost anything that middle America feared could be related to Communism."

In reviewing one of that era’s most notorious anti-communist films, “Big Jim McLain” starring and produced by big John Wayne, 

FOX TV's "24" - The New Fear Factor? Part I

A few nights ago in a sleepless fit after some clubbing, I was doing some late night channel zapping and came across CNN’s "Larry King Live" (we get it at 3 AM). I saw the cast of Fox’s 24 and heard Larry say, “…Two hours Sunday, two hours Monday, a sensational beginning, by the way. Conservative commentator Laura Ingraham has said "24" is as close to a national referendum on torture as we're going to get. And because people embrace this show, it means they support using torture against terrorists.”

My first thought was, “Huh, he’s talking about just a TV show, right?” Boy, was I wrong. The next morning I fired up the ole laptop, snooped around a bit and discovered that the new season of “24” has caused quite a stir. For those few who may not know, a few details about this season: the villains this year are Islamic terrorists on a suicide bombing spree in American cities, the fourth hour ended with a nuclear explosion in downtown Los Angeles and later in the season American Muslims will apparently be rounded up and placed in internment camps.

It seems that the show has become the subject of

A Madman's Folly

President Bush’s new Iraq policy is one of two things. It could be the latest mistake in a long line of strategic disasters resulting from a rigid and intellectual neo-con vision of Iraq that remains divorced from any reality. Or it could be Bush’s best attempt to get of Iraq as unscathed as possible. Not to get America out of Iraq as unscathed as possible but to get himself out of Iraq and to do it regardless of his four years of lofty rhetoric about bringing democracy to Iraq and the broader Middle East.

If you think about this new strategy the almost inevitable conclusion is that Bush is trying to achieve the second. Although the plan is heralded as a new strategy it is of course not new at all. Last summer, Bush introduced a new strategy, Operation Together Forward, geared towards securing Baghdad.

The first version of that plan was put forth in June and by the end of July, Malaki was on his way to Washington to discuss a new plan as the Administration admitted publicly that the operation had been a failure and that a new strategy was needed in Baghdad.

On August 1, the administration announced Operation Together Forward version 2 which involved increasing the number of American forces in Baghdad. By October, the army admitted, “Operation Together Forward has made a difference in the focus areas but has not met our overall expectations of sustaining a reduction in the levels of violence.”

As the New York Times recently put it:

The Slippery Slope of Eroding Freedoms

I still find it ironic that while the US administration paints the ‘war on terror’ in the broad strokes of defending our ‘way of life’ against ‘Islamofascists’ who want to destroy our freedoms, they also use that war to seriously curtail the privacy and civil rights that are the very hallmarks of our ‘way our life.’

And I still find it amazing that the American public acquiesces with so little questioning. It began with the Patriot Act immediately after 9-11 of course. In the shock of those events it may be understandable that the Patriot Act received so much traction. When it was up for renewal there was a moment of soul-searching and resistance that nonetheless yielded to Patriot Act II. And of course, not so long ago, there was the mother of all civil rights limiting acts in the guise of the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Given the short attention span of the public, these issues have come and gone. The very freedoms we are supposedly fighting to preserve have been slowly eroded and no one seems to care. This week we received two new reminders of how these changes have fundamentally altered our perceptions of our own democracy and the rights that inspire it.

Adultery, coveting and America's "unifying value system"

Over the last week or so I have had some spirited debate here and on other weblogs about Dennis Prager and Virgil Goode’s reactions to Keith Ellison’s intention to be holding a Koran during his unofficial ceremonial re-enactment of his congressional swearing in. In the end I am most intrigued by one of Dennis Prager’s arguments that seems to be very popular among those supporting that position:

“When all elected officials take their oaths of office with their hands on the very same book, they all affirm that some unifying value system underlies American civilization (emphasis added).”

What "unifying value system" could Prager be talking about and is it truly even American? Assumedly, that would be some "unifying value system" stemming from the Judeo-Christian tradition since the "very same book" Prager wants everyone to be sworn in on is the combined New and Old Testament. But since both traditions – Jewish and Christian – are extremely broad in their respective scopes and diverge on many points of faith and practice,

A Goode Opportunity for President Bush

At any other time in America’s modern history, Representative Goode’s comments about Islam could be chalked up as the insulting and distasteful ravings of a delirious racist xenophobe and left at that.

But this is not any other time. This is a time when the USA is leading her so-called ‘war on terror’ against extremist elements of Islam, is waging an immensely unpopular war in one Muslim country, was perceived to show great cold-heartedness towards Lebanese civilians during the recent war with Israel and continued ambivalence towards the Palestinians, has been guilty of disgusting acts at Abu Ghraib, controversial prisoner treatment at Guantanamo, most likely war crimes in places like Haditha and last but not least extreme and unapologetic violations of the civil and human rights of Muslims at home and abroad.

At such a time, Goode’s beliefs could be interpreted as an indication that America is actually at war with Islam. The depth, the breadth and the quality of reaction, especially from Bush and other leading members of his administration, could be viewed by many, especially in the global Muslim community, as an indication of how America’s leaders themselves view who the ‘enemy’ is in this ‘war.’

In other words, this is a time when outstanding leadership is required from President Bush. Sadly,

Shameful ignorance and racism

The now infamous letter sent by Representative Virgil Goode (Republican, Virginia) to some of his constituents regarding America's first Muslim representative can not go unspoken. The letter begins:

"Thank you for your recent communication. When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way."

This may lead one to think that when a Congressperson is sworn-in a Bible is involved. There are no Bibles - no New Testament, no Old Testament, no Quran - nothing. Members of Congress stand, raise their right hand, and solemnly swear, or affirm, to uphold the Constitution, "So help me God." No books involved.

Later, in a private, unofficial and individual re-enactment of the swearing-in ceremony for guests, a Congressperson may choose to, and they often do choose to, swear or affirm on a Bible that for many then becomes a valuable family keepsake I can imagine. It is in that private, unofficial re-enactment that Keith Ellis, America's first Muslim representative has said he will use a Quran.

The Decider decides... to wait

Yes the Decider has decided... to wait. The lack of urgency and the stalling is perhaps geared towar