Dodging Dodd

Before Sojourners sent their e-mailed urging me to oppose the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales...

Before MoveOn e-mailed asking me to call my Senator (at 202-224-2823). Read their Statement of Opposition to the Confirmation of Alberto Gonzales to the Office of Attorney General of the United States...

I sent a letter to Senator Christopher Dodd, a Senator from Connecticut, a blue state. My Senator. I sent a letter to my representative, imploring that he not vote for this man who condones torture, whose loyalty (although admirable) to the Bush administration (not unlike Colin Powell and Dr. Rice) exceeds his loyalty to the citizens of this country. And he said,

Thank you for contacting me regarding White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales's nomination to succeed John Ashcroft as Attorney General. I appreciate the benefit of your views.

I have long held the view that a President of either party is to be accorded a measure of deference in nominating members of the executive branch, who serve temporary rather than lifetime tenures. Consequently, the question I must ask is not whether I would select him, but whether he is competent to perform the duties of the office to which he is nominated. In the past, I have consistently spoken out against policies of the Attorney General and other Bush Administration officials with which I have disagreed, and I will continue to do so in the future when appropriate.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, of which I am not a member, approved Mr. Gonzales' nomination on January 26, 2005 by a vote of 10 to 8. Please be assured that I will keep your views in mind when his nomination comes before the full Senate for consideration.

Thank you again for contacting me. If you would like to stay in touch with me on this and other issues of importance, please visit my web site at
http://dodd.senate.gov
and subscribe to my online newsletter, the Dodd Digest. Please do not hesitate to contact me again if I can help you in any way.

Sincerely,
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD
United States Senator

I'm sorry Mr. Dodd, that's not good enough. This is not a time for timidity. Forget speaking out in the future; vote against the guy NOW. It seems you are trying to protect your seat by gratifying those who didn't vote for you. Try serving those who did.

This man is a moral outrage. This is not a good candidate for Attorney General. There are better people in this country for the job and we deserve better.

Vote for those who voted for you.

What's wrong with a Postcard from Vermont?

Bush's newly appointed Secretary of Education is scared of bunnies, or PBS, or maybe lesbians. As one of her first official acts in office, she has denounced PBS for spending public funding on producing an episode of a loved children's TV show, Postcards from Buster, because one of Buster's upcoming postcard is from Vermont, where, along with enjoying Sugar on Snow, he visited with a family or two where the kids were lucky enough to have two mommies! WGBH, the Boston PBS affiliate, will make the episode available to other PBS affiliates who wish to air it, but Buster's blog of the visit is only preserved in Google's cached copy (thanks, Google!)

Grrrrrr.... Buster travels the world to expose children to all different kinds of families. The Vermont families visited by Buster for this episode are less than happy about PBS's decision to pull the episode. Me too :(

Turning scary e-corners

Sometimes, I just google around. Not frequently - most often, my searches have a purpose, a specific quest for information (hot to best prepare jerusalem artichokes, for example.)

By virtue of working in a government-leased facility, I will have the day off from work tomorrow in recognition of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. So, although I know some, I went to learn more.

Imagine my surprise / shock / horror / disgust upon visiting www.martinlutherking.org
As if that was not enough, I clicked a link on the sidebar, labeled Jews and Civil Rights
My heart / head / soul ache. I feel the need to disinfect my eyes. First Amendment Rights be what they may, I do NOT have to like all of what I encounter. (BTW - today is Religious Freedom Day)

I think for tonight, I'd best stick to my jerusalem artichokes and the Golden Globes They're honoring Robin Williams - my kind of guy!

Social Security Ad

Progress for America [sic] has launched an ad named “Courage” advocating Bush’s Social Security “reform” plans. This outrageous piece of spin opens with footage of FDR signing in Social Security.

According to a post to the Daily Kos, James Roosevelt Jr. (FDR’s grandson) wrote a letter condemning the ad.

Yesterday, someone on the Kos asked where the Democratic Ad was. I offered mine, reprinted here:
Bush: They gotta be somewhere
[a clip of him referring to the WMD to the National Press Corp]
Bush: Next!
[a clip of him taking questions at a press conference]
Bush: Social Security will go flat bust
[a clip of him from recent speeches]
Rocky (the Flying Squirrel): Not that old trick again
[to Bullwinkle, the Moose as he attempts to pull a rabbit from a hat]
AND/OR
Groucho Marx: Who are you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?
Bush: You can fool some of the people...
[a clip of his mangled speech]

2004, Unordered

Well, since everybody’s doing it (making year-in-review lists, that is), being an adult child of a Virgo, I have a few lists of my own. Here are two of my lists for 2004. List 1: the top five people that got more than they deserved, be it power, money, credibility, whatever...these folks deserve less, not more. List 2: the top five people who got less than they deserved, in fact were marginalized by the mainstream press and (if I can say this with a straight face) were [mis]underestimated.

Pompous Asses:
These folks are too full of themselves.

• George W. Bush
• Antonin Scalia
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Mel Gibson
• Donald Rumsfeld

Unsung Heroes:
These people need us to show them a little more love.

• Michael Moore
• Martha Stewart
• Howard Dean
• Barbra Streisand
• Al Franken
  

I leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out why I called them the way I did. (I don’t suppose it takes a rocket scientist to discern at least one obvious pattern.)

On other lists, the word Blog was the number 1 word according to MerriamWebster

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Happy New Year to all.