NJ : Star Ledger-- calls for Howard Dean to be “bound and gagged”. [View All]

[FogerRox]

This is from a recent DFA rapid response alert sent to NJ members.
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ISSUE: John Farmer column in Ledger calls for Howard Dean to be “bound and gagged”.

Yes, that’s right – after providi ng a litany of Bush’s political failings this year, Farmer decides it is Howard Dean who should be punished. Perhaps what we are seeing here is the punditry equivalent of the Bushies’ post 9/11 confusion in which they attacked the country that didn’t attack us. In this case, Farmer lists the failings of one politician (Bush), and then calls for for the tarring and feathering of one of his opponents. Perhaps it is a case where Farmer, who has not written a column this year on torture, is sublimating his conscience’s need to address this issue by using the language of torture on Howard Dean, whose “badmouthing” of Republicans he decries.

See the full column: http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/farmer/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/1135921390198480.xml&coll=1

Folks – everyone should write [e-mail] and ask him to provide a reason why he harbors such violence in his heart for Howard Dean, but none for the man who is getting Americans and Iraqis killed every day in Iraq.

Also, write a letter to the paper at [e-mail]. While we are at it, let’s lobby for a progressive columnist at the paper by writing to [e-mail]

Essentially, Farmer just notes that Bush’s initiatives failed on all counts in ’05, mostly thanks to nervousness of his own party (Social Security, tax cuts for the wealthy, torture, etc), and then concludes that we are stuck with Bush, and gee, maybe next year will be better. But first, gag Howard Dean!

Points to Consider….
Framing and Background:

Farmer provides no examples of statements for which Dean should be bound and gagged. Since Farmer notes Pelosi is also a guilty party, we can only assume that it is their comments about Iraq that annoy Farmer. Remind him that Dean, as usual, was taken out of context: http://www.ktvotv3.com/Global/story.asp?S=4219046&nav=1LFs and Dean – Just Plain Right: http://alternet.org/waroniraq/29179/
Ask Farmer, given his graphically violent suggestion for how Dean should be treated, if he has a policy for torture in the United States, and if it is different from his policy for detainees in Gitmo or elsewhere. Or is it just that he has a pro-torture policy for Democratic politicians with a little gumption.
Ask Farmer if he’ll change his mind about continuing to pour lives (both American and Iraq) into our occupation of that country when the insurgents finally manage to score a large direct hit on the Green Zone, or when our strategy shifts from the constant and futile recurring raids on the same towns over and over again to an air war that will include many civilian casualties (that the press will mostly ignore). Ask if his grandchildren are in this fight. Ask if he is considering how Al Qaeda’s recruitment policy is benefiting from the anger created by the occupation of a Muslim country by our mostly Christian country.
Farmer does note that with a turnaround of about 60,000 votes in Ohio, Bush wouldn’t have even been re-elected. Let’s remind Farmer and his readers that we’ll never know if Bush really won Ohio because the Ohio Republican Party’s State Secretary made sure that poor and minority districts didn’t receive enough voting machines. It was a sort of electoral version of Katrina. Black voters can stand in the rain for hours, or on their rooftops, waiting for voting machines, or rescue – it doesn’t matter. Neither arrive fast enough. Farmer should not be allowed to mention Ohio without us noting these racist realities. (Note: Forrester got a statistically insignificant amount of black votes in NJ <too few to count!> ask Forrester if the Republican Party has a problem with African American citizens, especially post-Ohio and post-Katrinia)
Farmer writes only one sentence about Bush’s trashing of the Fourth Amendment: “Bush’s decision to approve warrantless telephonic surveillance and searches is in trouble”. Ask Farmer if he has a US Consititution handy when he is writing his column. Remind the columnist that Bush’s decision is ‘in trouble” because it is unconstitutional on the face of it. The Constitution includes remedies for such lawlesslness by the executive.
Farmer also notes that Bush suffered a “rout” when Congress supported McCain’s bill to ban torture. Should not this Administration’s pro-torture position be condemned? Should not any president who supports torture , while saying we don’t do it, be removed, or at least subject to the same heartfelt criticism that Farmer can only seem to subject to Howard Dean? Or is this columnist simply an amoral observer of the game of politics?
Ask Farmer why he doesn’t write about torture or the Fourth Amendment. Remind him that Bush’s failings include actual crimes. Provide him with the link to Bush lie number 7983 in which he stated in 2004 that the government always gets court warrants for wiretaps on Americans. http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=4286167&nav=4QcS Bush’s full quote: "Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order," - "Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think 'Patriot Act,' constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution." It sure sounds like Bush lied there, but the Administration maintains “oh, these wiretaps are different”. Doesn’t matter! It’s not an issue for Farmer – ask him why he doesn’t call for an investigation.
Farmer says Bush wouldn’t have had these problems last year. Remind Farmer that a big part of the reason for this is that columnist like him who, despite mountains of evidence, gave (and continue to give) Bush the benef it of the doubt on numerous issues, but especially WMD in Iraq. If we had a Democrat in the White House there were would be a special nightly TV program (or two, or three) with variations of the title “Day 1,567 of the Hunt for Osama bin Laden”. Instead, we have a media that won’t even report on the Downing Street Memos for weeks, and when they finally do, it is only to dismiss it.
Farmer says that the ‘upshot” of the year is that Bush has lost the confidence of the country, but “like him or not, Bush is the face we put forward as a nation to the rest of the world”. Ask Farmer why this has to be. Why, when he have a president who has, to put it charitably, shown a laxity with the truth and our troops’ lives in Iraq, a disconnect to reality when it comes to providing prompt aid to our own populati on in New Orleans, and a stated uninterest or even worry about Osama bin Laden….. why should Farmer sit in his bully pulpit and wring his hands over Bush’s failures, but reserve his heavy rhetorical artillery for Howard Dean, the guy who was right about Iraq, right about how the capture of Saddam wouldn’t make things all that much better, right about Colin Powell’s Feb. 2003 UN speech, right about how our government exists for the benefit of 20% when it should exist for the benefit of the 80%., right even when he said the Republican Party was majority white? (note: I disagree with much of Dean’s stance on the war in iraq – he hasn’t called for withdrawal, but rather redeployment; he is likely caving in somewhat to realities in the Dem Party, but this makes Farmer’s lazy assault on him all the more galling)
Happy New Year - Resolve to write a Letter to the Editor and your Congressional representatives at least twice a month in '06!

ACTION:
Write the Star Ledger at [e-mail]
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