DCDL

It’s only five weeks until the Virginia election, and there are plenty of opportunities to help the Democrats win. One way to get involved is to get on Tanya Tarr’s e-mail list and volunteer at the events she’s organizing. I met Tanya at the Running for Change kickoff in July, and she’s enthusiastic about making Virginia bluer. She quit her job to work full-time for Democratic victories in Virginia this year, and if you’re interested in helping she’s got something for you to do! Below is her latest e-mail about upcoming events. Write Tanya at tanya.tarr@vavictory2005.org to get on the list.

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Rich at Blogging for Change was yet another observer at the September 25 prowar rally (and like the rest of us might have been included in the count of 400 war supporters). He’s discovered, a week later, that we all missed something important because we left too early: the world premiere of the song “Bush Was Right” by the Right Brothers.

Rich goes through some of the lyrics to that song and other Right Brothers hits, and it’s hard to believe they’re not a parody group, but in these days of the BushFish and comic books about superpowered conservative talk-show hosts, it’s pretty much impossible to come up with a parody of right-wing thinking that won’t be eagerly embraced by the wingers themselves. Particularly disturbing is “Trickle Down”, which defends the powerless, oppressed multimillionaires and billionaires of the country and tells the working man that one day he’ll have his turn to take his place among the ultrarich and benefit from the tax breaks too.

There is one Right Brothers song that I agree with, though I’m not sure how a Bush supporter can sing it. Perhaps they wrote it in 1993. The song is “Wake Up, America”:

There are people in this country
With no idea that something’s wrong
And Mother freedom, she’s been crying
So I just had to write this song

Chorus
Wake up America you’ve been asleep too long
This country’s being jerked out from under your feet
Open your eyes now and look what’s going on
It’s time to stand and fight for what you believe
Wake up America oh say can’t you see

Can you imagine the Founding Fathers
Coming back to life and standing here today
If they could look out across our nation
I think this might be what they’d say

Repeat Chorus

Wake up, America oh say can’t you see

No doubt these guys will be taking America by storm. Perhaps the Honky Tonkers for Truth (who unfortunately were unable to sway the red states in 2004) can be revived and the two groups can have a fiddling contest or something.

Testimony last Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee:

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: General Abizaid, there was a report sent over, I think last June, that three of the hundred Iraqi battalions were fully trained and equipped, capable of operating independently. What is that number now?

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID: The number now is, if you’re talking about level-one trained –

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Yeah.

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID: It’s one.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: At one battalion?

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID: Right.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: The previous report was you had three battalions. Now we’re down to one battalion.

Bush in his Saturday radio address:

I’m encouraged by the increasing size and capability of the Iraqi security forces.

The question now is how people are responding. Are we dealing with Orwell’s 1984?

It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grammes a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.

Or with Iraqi information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf?

The infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad.

Take a look at the headlines various news organizations chose to put on their stories about the GAO’s finding that the administration violated the law in paying commentator Armstrong Williams to shill for No Child Left Behind on his broadcasts:

• Bloomberg: Bush administration broke propaganda rules, GAO says
• Boston Globe: Inquiry blasts US hiring of TV host
• CBS News: Propagandists beware: The case of Armstrong Williams
• CNN: GAO: Education’s illegal ‘covert propaganda’
• Dallas Morning News: No Child campaign broke law
• Fox News: GAO: Education Dept. violated propaganda ban in hiring columnist
• New York Times: Buying of news by Bush’s aides is ruled illegal
• Washington Post: GAO issues mixed ruling on payments to columnists
• Washington Times: Education Department rapped for ‘propaganda’

Does one of them stand out as different? Yes, the headline in our “liberal” Washington Post puts the best spin on the story for the Bush administration — better even than those by Fox News or the Washington Times.

But speaking of the story itself, any bets on whether anyone responsible will have to suffer any consequences for breaking the law other than perhaps promising never to do it again?

Contrary to legend, the folks that live in DC are quite fond of visiting the tourist attractions of DC.

Today, for instance, I went on a walking tour of Embassy Row. And here’s some stuff I learned I wanted to pass on:

• The statue in Dupont Circle (one of my favorites) was done by Samuel Chester French. French was probably best known for the Lincoln Memorial, but also created many works of Americana, usually in the classic Florentine style. His home in Stockbridge, MA, Chesterwood, coincidentally looks just like a Florentine villa.
• Like many of the embassies on Embassy Row, the Indonesian Embassy was formerly a private home. The matron of the house, one of the Maclean family, had a thing for diamonds, and bought both the Star of India, and the Hope Diamond. The legend of the Hope Diamond curse started with her demise.
• If you’ve seen the Cosmos Club on Massachusetts Ave, and wondered how to become a member, it’s very simple. Win either a Nobel or Pulitzer prize and you’re in. Otherwise, not so simple.
• About those diplomatic license plates. The plates tell you both the position at the embassy that the driver holds, as well as the country they represent. ClothMonkey has a pretty good summary. He also has an explanation of why FC was the designated country code for the USSR that was pretty close to what someone said on the walking tour. Urban legend? As far as I can tell, no.

Over at my other place, a reader had written in asking some really good questions. Since I had just posted on Pombo, this largely serves as a follow up to that previous post.

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Representative Pombo (R-CA) is apparently gearing up for a little environmental jihadism: (Washington Post)

Imagine Theodore Roosevelt Island filled with strip malls and hundreds of luxury townhouses, all with breathtaking views of the Potomac River and the monuments. A new bridge would connect the newly developed island with George Washington Memorial Parkway.

That vision of the island’s future is contained in a House Resources Committee “brainstorming” document that was inadvertently released to the public. The committee’s chairman, Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) is looking for ways to raise $2.4 billion in new federal revenue.

This is reminiscent of another Pombo story from 2004.
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After marching Saturday, yesterday I went down to the Mall again to check out the prowar rally, which was organized by the same folks who brought you the “You Don’t Speak for Me, Cindy” caravan last month, including Move America Forward and Free Republic.

Not surprisingly the rally was somewhat whiter and maler than Saturday’s antiwar march. Also, it was a lot smaller. The smallest estimate in the media for the number participating in the antiwar march was 100,000. The largest estimate for the prowar rally was 400, and I think that’s about right — as long as you’re counting all the observers, curious tourists, and antiwar protesters who were gathered around too.

The speeches I heard included a mention of a letter of support for the rally from Senator Lieberman, a reference to participants in the antiwar march as “100,000 radicals” whose views don’t represent those of real Americans (that was from Senator Sessions, who was one of the speakers), and a call for the marchers to be shipped to Iran. I didn’t stay very long, and from StealthBadger’s report I apparently missed some excitement, though he’s pretty vague about it.

Photos follow.

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One of the dirty little open secrets of DC is that the editorial board of the allegedly liberal Washington Post supported the invasion of Iraq, and continues to support the war. As far as anti-war folks (or as I like to call them, the majority) go they seem to have little other than contempt.

Take for instance this editorial from Sunday’s paper:

The fundamental source of trouble is not the Islamic extremists President Bush usually speaks about; nor is it the presence of American soldiers. If the protesters visiting Washington this weekend succeeded in forcing a quick U.S. troop withdrawal, the bloodshed in Iraq, and the damage to the United States, would grow far worse.

Don’t you just love being talked down to? I suspect that the neoconish elites who run the Post imagine the anti-war crowd spends their time reading poetry to their bonsai plants. Note to Post editorial board: You were wrong in your support of the invasion. No nukes, no anthrax, no airborne drones, just a bunch of right-wing utopianists who wanted to remake the Middle East in their own image. Now wake up and smell the petroleum.

The Washington Post owns a free newspaper called The Express. As Alt Weeklies marketing director, Roxanne Cooper, put it: The Express is “the bane of my existence.” It really is pretty dreadful. For instance, today’s front cover (pdf) “Praise, Tears at Rally for Troops” shows grieving parents at the Support the Troops rally on Sunday (tiny) and only briefly mentions the anti-war demonstration on Saturday (massive).

Embarassing from a “reality-based” perspective, and unfortunately, typical.

AltHippo and I missed each other at today’s rally and march against the Iraq war, but I did get together with a bunch of people from DC for Democracy and other Democracy for America groups from across the country.

I took a few photos. The first is Cindy Sheehan being interviewed at Freedom Plaza before the rally. Click for larger versions.

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