Like I said, not even a hill of beans:
Covington heard it first on NPR, but there's nary a peep from major news sources, not yet anyway. But I just found it in a SCOT J. PALTROW WSJ article which was printed on page A6. The story's been out there. Where's the coverage?!!!!Officials looking into the removal of classified documents from the National Archives by former Clinton National Security Adviser Samuel Berger say no original materials are missing and nothing Mr. Berger reviewed was withheld from the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
...
The conclusion by archives officials and others would seem to lay to rest the issue of whether any information was permanently destroyed or withheld from the commission.
Archives spokeswoman Susan Cooper said officials there "are confident that there aren't any original documents missing in relation to this case." She said in most cases, Mr. Berger was given photocopies to review, and that in any event officials have accounted for all originals to which he had access.
That included all drafts of a so-called after-action report prepared by the White House and federal agencies in 2000 after the investigation into a foiled bombing plot aimed at the Millennium celebrations. That report and earlier drafts are at the center of allegations that Mr. Berger might have permanently removed some records from the archives. Some of the allegations have related to the possibility that drafts with handwritten notes on them may have disappeared, but Ms. Cooper said archives staff are confident those documents aren't missing either.
Daniel Marcus, general counsel of the 9/11 Commission, said the panel had been assured twice by the Justice Department that no originals were missing and that all of the material Mr. Berger had access to had been turned over to the commission. "We are told that the Justice Department is satisfied that we've seen everything that the archives saw," and "nothing was missing," he said.
Come on, media. Let's hear from the rest of you.
[Eschaton]
From Juan Cole, commenting on a speech by Dick Cheney:
Although it may be true that al-Qaeda is as determined to destroy the US as the Axis Powers were in World War II, this observation is a Himalayan exaggeration if it is meant to suggest a parallel. Al-Qaeda is a few thousand fanatics mainly distributed in a handful of countries. If Zacharias Moussaoui and Richard Reid are any indication, a lot of them are one step away from from collecting old soda cans on the street in their grocery carts while mumbling about the radios the government implanted in their asses.
I'll bet you a dollar to a donut that once this whole Sandy Berger National Archives thing blows over it won't have amounted to a hill of beans. Here's a tiny snippet from CNN:
Law enforcement sources said archive staff members told FBI agents they saw Berger placing items in his jacket and pants, and one archive staffer told agents that Berger also placed something in his socks.
Really. A former National Security Advisor was stuffing documents in his socks. Think about that for a second. In. His. Socks. Do you know anyone over six years old who's likely to have done something like that? In his socks. Remember, that text is from CNN, not "The Daily Show" or "The Onion." In his socks. Dear Lord, please tell me no one is taking this story seriously. If you heard a story about Condoleeza Rice storing PDBs in her brassiere would you believe them? I didn't think so.
Remember those stories about how Clinton staffers had supposedly vandalized the White House before departing? Well, those were crap. So's this story. File it accordingly.
From Juan Cole:
The same techniques used to get up the Iraq war are now being applied by the political Right in the United States, including President Bush, to Iran. These include innuendo, guilt by association, vague fears, and hyped capabilities. If Bush gets a second term, it seems very likely that his administration will make war on Iran.
Call me crazy, but I think I'd rather have a president who gets his rocks off with "Playboy" than "Soldier of Fortune."
Just when you might start to think you're being too cynical, something like this comes along:
As the segment began there was an awkward Wizard of Oz moment as C-SPAN's Robb Harlston � himself black � turned to Project 21's Caucasian director, David Almasi, and said, "Um...Project 21... a program for conservative African Americans...you're not African American."
Wow.
...I'm over here.
Did the office shuffle today, going from a cubicle towards the back of the building to a former broom closet (seriously) near the front. Of course, the view hasn't really changed all that much. I still pretty much look at LCD screens with an off-white backdrop all day long. My kingdom for a window!
From an article discussing "Fahrenheit 9/11" and American attitudes towards the military:
I also didn't appreciate the way U.S. servicemen were depicted in the film. The first time Moore shows servicemen on camera, they are bragging about the heavy metal they listen to in their tanks while they kill Iraqis. War provides "the ultimate rush," one young soldier claims. The second time Moore shows servicemen on camera, however, they are lamenting the way the war is being fought and sound as disillusioned as they do anxious to go home. As Jethro Tull plays on the tank's speaker system, one soldier rhetorically asks the camera, "It's not that easy to conquer a country, is it?"The problem is, these two vignettes don't make sense when paired together. Are American soldiers merciless killing machines pumped up on the "XXX" soundtrack as they mow down Iraqi soldiers and civilians? Or are they scared kids from the heartland who resent U.S. policymakers and want nothing more than to come home alive?
Moore stumbles into a revelation here, albeit clumsily and unwittingly: Soldiers aren't so easily stereotyped.
The author here misses the point. Moore wasn't presenting simultaneous, contradictory images of soldiers. He was presenting two different snapshots in time. The first, with the gung-ho heavy metal, was during the initial heat of the conflict, when many thought the whole thing would be a cakewalk, and most of the troops would be home before the end of the summer. The second snapshot is months later, after deployments had been extended, the insurgency had been going on for months, no WMDs were found, and many began to question what the hell we were doing over there. There's no contradiction here, unless you assume that no one ever changes their mind about anything.
Okay, so the movie looks dippy, but the behind-the-scenes footage on the DVD might be fun to watch.
Kevin Drum seems unperturbed about talk of the administration trying to postpone/cancel the upcoming presidential election. He cites several difficulties in doing this:
The only body that can change the date of federal elections is Congress.Assuming the Supreme Court agreed, Congress could delegate this power to a federal commission if it so desired.
However, in a couple of weeks everyone goes home for the summer. They come back on September 3rd.
The current target for adjournment of the current congressional session is October 1st.
In other words, supposing that the Justice Department actually decided (suicidally, in my opinion) to propose legislation to create an election commission with the power to reschedule elections, Congress would have a grand total of four weeks to debate and pass it.
I find these arguments unconvincing. Given recent history, namely the Supreme Court's intervention in the 2000 election, the Patriot Act, and Congress' abdication of responsibility in the runup to the Iraq War, I don't find much comfort in the thought of Congress needing time to debate or having a backbone in standing up to the administration.
Given a sufficiently high-profile attack, I can easily see nearly any legislation getting shoved through Congress in the blink of an eye, as long it's got a name that sounds All-American. You have to know that someone in the bowels of the administration is already working on language for this, just like they were for the Patriot Act. The Supreme Court might be a wildcard, but they've proven to be partisan/political enough that I don't necessarily trust them, either. If Congress and the administration wanted to do this I don't think anything could stop them.
This made me laugh.
This is a little bit of Friday fun. Sars writes for the inimitable Television Without Pity, MSNBC, and her own site, Tomato Nation. For the last three weeks she's been posting chapters of a wonderfully absurd sort of comic-book-style pseudo-novel, Subheroes. Witness:
Sometimes, you need Frat Boy Pranksters. You try not to need Frat Boy Pranksters, because you will get a call like this every damn time. Every time. "Now we can't catch the pig," "we ran out of bowling balls," "can Diz bring us an extension cord and some Crisco," it never stops. Unfortunately, when you need an entire living room out on a lawn in half an hour, you don't have much choice.
If you're not already a Tomatohead, go get hooked on it. [Eschaton]
Apparently there may have been kids at Abu Ghraib?
Three days ago, a German TV newsmagazine called Report Mainz broadcast an eight-minute segment reporting that the International Red Cross found at least 107 children in coaliton-administered detention centers in Iraq.The report also quotes from a yet-unpublished June 2004 UNICEF report, which (as near as I can tell through my crappy German) confirms that children were routinely arrested and "interned" in a camp in Um-Qasr. UNICEF seems particularly vexed with the "internment" status, since that means indefinite detention.
. . . .
In addition to the Red Cross and UNICEF concerns, Report Mainz broadcast an original interview with U.S. Army Sgt. Samuel Provance, who was stationed for six months at Abu Ghraib and later quite famously blew the whistle about abuses there and the subsequent cover-up. In this interview, Provance confirms the presence of teenagers in Abu Ghraib, describing the torture-by-cold-and-exposure of a teenage boy in order to get his father to talk.
I don't want this to be true. God help us all if it is...
Interesting piece in Wired about blogging and the toll it can take on some of the more successful bloggers. I killed comments here months ago, so I don't have that particular headache to deal with, but even with my limited readership (yes, you're the only one here, and yes I'm talkin' to you) I get queries about why I may not have posted something on a given day.
I just got word that my film was one of those selected to be screened at the Stockstock Film Festival. Yeeha!
Yes, still here. I didn't make a conscious effort to go dark, and I haven't exactly been swamped, but nothing seems to have popped up recently that I felt like writing about. Ok, so there was this, but I've had my fill of irony lately. Then there was the exploding light fixture, but I'm pretty convinced that was less an act of God than plain old shoddy wiring. Of course, there's no telling what the chick next to me was searching for in the library computer, so who knows? I suppose there was the rattlesnake in lucite, but some people are known to keep their quarry mounted to the wall in carbonite, so who am I to judge?
Anyway, the Stockstock gang should be making a decision any day now, so if nothing else folks can look forward to the premiere of "The Speech" one way or another...
Something else to watch at home, I guess. There's no telling what these are going to contain:
Our three judges have chosen their favorites. Now it's your turn. Watch the videos and rate them 1-10 on filmmaking, originality and sexiness. On 2004 July 14, we'll begin counting down the judges' top three choices and also announce the winners of the public vote. [Nerve]• Nerve.com's contest called for "Sexiest One-Minute-or-Shorter Video That Includes a Discussion of Attorney General John Ashcroft" [Cinema Minima]