Month: October 2005

Booman hates framing because he just doesn’t get it.  And he just doesn’t get it because he’s been schooled in the one of the Western Tradition’s Big Lies–the Big Lie of disembodied knowledge.

He says:

Understanding Lakoff’s framing theories involves understanding basic logic. And I don’t feel like giving an academic explanation of all the intricacies of symbolic logic. So, I’ll just use layman’s terms.

To which media girl quite rightly responded:

Thanks for the contempt

Silly me! I just don’t understand logic! Goodness! That means the tarot cards are wrong?!

/sarcasm

Again, I think you’re arguing with a straw man. Framing is not willy nilly manipulation.

Booman himself is operating inside a frame.  The frame of disembodied knowledge.  And as media girl quite aptly notes, it’s a frame drenched in elitism.  It’s also utterly wrong.

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An Australian TV crew has filmed US troops in Afghanistan burning dead Taliban soldiers in violation of their religious customs and the Geneva Conventions and broadcasting taunts about it into a village suspected of housing more Taliban.

Wasn’t Rumsfeld supposed to do something about this? What the fuck is going on with these troops? These guys are going to be coming home eventually and I am worried for their sanity… and for anyone they run into before or after they get back. My god people enough is enough. How much longer can the American public stand for this? Vietnam all over again all over the fucking place.  

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As MSNBC reporter David Shuster gave his latest report on the CIA leak case, I madly jotted down names of those from V.P. Cheney’s office under the most intense scrutiny, including John Hannah, WHIG member Mary Matalin and two names new to me in connection with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation — David Wurmser and Cathie Martin.

Who wants to bet that David Wurmser was one of Judy Miller’s best buds? Raw Story has also just revealed that Wurmser is the second flipper in the case, following John Hannah.

And Mrs. Martin? She’s married to Kevin Martin, the current head of the FCC, appointed by Bush in March of this year. (See “All Shook Up: Martin Remakes FCC.”) Mrs. Martin, who previously served as “vice president Dick Cheney’s chief spokesperson, is now a special assistant to the president on economic matters.” (Advanced Pipeline, via Nag) There’s much more about Cathie Martin below the fold, including an interview of her with Seymour Hersh on Cheney’s awareness of Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger.

David Wurmser:

• Update: See “As the Wurmser Turns (Second Aide Known to Have Flipped),” an excellent diary by jorndorff at Daily Kos.
  

• RightWeb bio:
  
  
  
  • Office of the Vice President: Middle East Adviser
    
    
  • U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon: Board member
    
    
  • Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies: Former director
    
  • American Enterprise Institute: Former fellow

  
  Government Posts/Panels/Commissions
  
  
  

  • Office of the Vice-President: Middle East Adviser (2003-current) (1)
    
    
  • U.S. Department of State: Special Adviser to Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security (2001-2003) (1)
    
  • U.S. Institute of Peace: Project Officer (1988-1994) (2)

  
  Note: RightWeb has much more on Wurmser.
  

  
  

• According to Raw Story, Joseph Wilson suggested Wurmser as a possible source of the leak: “‘John Hannah and David Wurmser, mid-level political appointees in the vice-president’s office, have both been suggested as sources of the leak …Mid-level officials, however, do not leak information without the authority from a higher level,’ Wilson notes.”
  

  
  

• “AMY GOODMAN: And Mike MALUF, the man who was working with Richard Perle?” [From her interview on November 6th, 2003, “As Occupation Worsens, White House Tries to Blame CIA For Rejecting Iraqi Offer on Eve of War.”]
  

  
  MICHAEL ISIKOFF: Mr. Maluf has lost his security clearance. He has been petitioning to try to get it back and this incident in his dealings with Mr. Hajj have been — have been cited as a reason for continuing to deny him his security clearance. Mr. MALUF did play a pretty important role in the run-up to the war in Iraq.-He and a colleague, then colleague of his, David Wurmser who has since gone on to work for vice president Dick Cheney, were the two people who were sort of culling through intelligence files, looking for evidence of Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations and that Intelligence became quite influential.-That analysis, the Maluf-Wurmser analysis became quite influential within the pentagon and was being cited by a lot of pentagon officials as evidence to make the case for war.-So you have sort of — You know, even cross agendas within Mr. Maluf that don’t quite add up here.-
  

  
  

• [From Amy Goodman’s interview of former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman and Mother Jones reporter Robert Dreyfuss — who discuss George Tenet’s speech and examine the role of the Pentagon’s secretive Office of Special Plans in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq — on February 6, 2004, “CIA’s Tenet: Iraq Posed No Imminent Threat; Hunt for WMD Must Go On.”]
  

  
  ROBERT DREYFUSS: … So what happened is right after 9-11, they brought in a guy named David Wurmser who was the director of Middle East policy for the American Enterprise Institute [where] Richard Perle and Newt Gingrich and others hang their hats when they are not out causing mischief.

  And Wurmser and a colleague began trying to find ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda. This is immediately in the aftermath of the attack, so it was an explosive issue and they started producing evidence not only linking Iraq to Al Qaeda, which we now know was false and which the CIA all along believed was false. But they also started linking Iraq and Al Qaeda to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and trying to create a case that Iraq was a threat to the United States.

  This group officially took form in the late summer of 2002 as The Office of Special Plans. They brought in ideologues from their fraternity and then led by Abram Schultzski, [a] defense policy person.

  The important thing about all of these people is that none of them were intelligence experts. In fact, they purged and forced them to retirement, as my article details, people who in the Pentagon were long-time intelligence experts, long-time Middle East specialists and Iraq experts. And they brought in to replace them greater and greater numbers of people who were not capable of looking at the vast mounds of intelligence.

  You know, any intelligence conclusion, as Mel Goodman knows better than anyone, involves thousands or tens of thousands of bits of information and a lot of them are going to be contradictory. Some will be based on lies or, you know, misstatements, mistakes, error, all kinds of forged documents. And a professional intelligence analyst can look at that pile [and] reach, hopefully, something like a conclusion.

  What this group did was the exact opposite. They picked all of the information out of that mound which justified going to war. …

MORE below on Wurmser, and newly added info on Cathie Martin:

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A Warwick, NY high school student — and member of the Bruderhof community — created this stunning graphic for his school’s newspaper. From the Oct. 18 Times Herald-Record:

   Set on a backdrop of neat rows of tombstones, a full-page ad in October’s The Survey, Warwick Valley High School’s monthly student-run newspaper, reads:

    “You can’t be all that you can be if you’re dead. There are other ways to serve your country. There are other ways to get money for college. There are other ways to be all you can be.

   THINK ABOUT IT. Before you sign your life away.”

   The ad was created and paid for by a Warwick student who is a member of the Bruderhof community, a Christian-based communal order in Sugar Loaf that preaches pacifism. …

And, reports the newspaper for the Hudson Valley and Catskills, “[T]he ad has sparked controversy in the school district and the community and provoked lively First Amendment debates among students and teachers in the classroom.”

— Sent to me by Norma who spotted it at Blah3.

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crossposted @  Demspeak,  dKos, and Rockridge

Here is a winning Progressive Platform:

Public Safety Should Not be Funded Through Charity.

Firefighters, First Responders, and Police Officers are integral parts of our communities. They ensure the safety of our families and neighbors. Progressives believe that it is unacceptable for these vital services to be funded through charitable giving and volunteerism. Progressives believe that fully funded, professional public safety is a wise investment for a strong community.

Access to Healthcare Should be Guaranteed to All Citizens.

Progressives believe that no child should go without medical care because their parents cannot afford a trip to the doctor; no citizen should be financially ruined by out of control health care costs; decisions for medical treatment should be made by doctors, not by accountants.

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