"Revenge of the Sith," it turns out, can also be seen as a cautionary tale for our time -- a blistering critique of the war in Iraq, a reminder of how democracies can give up their freedoms too easily, and an admonition about the seduction of good people by absolute power.

Some film critics suggest it could be the biggest anti-Bush blockbuster since "Fahrenheit 9/11."

'I didn't think it was going to get quite this close,' he said of the parallels between the Nixon era and the current Bush presidency, which has been sacrificing freedoms in the interests of national security. 'It is just one of those re-occurring things. I hope this doesn't come true in our country. Maybe the film will awaken people to the situation of how dangerous it is.'

Newsweek hesitated here, on the reasonable assumption that just as the magazine was wrong to proceed to publish the story without sufficient foundation, it would be wrong, without sufficient foundation, to take an Orwellian step into "retracting" it.

But, understandably, the magazine yielded the point, even though the difference between regretting a story and retracting it is more than merely semantic. Newsweek was not being asked to take the position that because blasphemy is wrong, a report that it had taken place was derivatively wrong. The author of the story, Mr. Isikoff, might have been reminded of the skepticism with which he was met when, seven years ago, he said that the president of the United States was having sex with an intern.

The underlying difficulty derives from the fact that infamous people are capable of infamy -- that the U.S. military could include, in Guantanamo, a soldier or two who behaved not as they should, but as other U.S. soldiers did in Abu Ghraib two years ago.

Conservative evangelicals control at least six national television networks, each reaching tens of millions of homes, and virtually all of the nation’s more than 2,000 religious radio stations. Thanks to Christian radio’s rapid growth, religious stations now outnumber every other format except country music and news-talk. If they want to dwell solely in this alternative universe, believers can now choose to have only Christian programs piped into their homes. Sky Angel, one of the nation’s three direct-broadcast satellite networks, carries thirty-six channels of Christian radio and television — and nothing else.

The NRB [National Religious Broadcasters, and note the TLA in the URL] has taken a number of steps to ensure it remains a political player. The most dramatic came in 2002, after Wayne Pederson was tapped to replace the network’s longtime president, Brandt Gustavson. He quickly ignited internal controversy by telling a Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter that he intended to shift the organization’s focus away from politics. “We get associated with the far Christian right and marginalized,” Pederson lamented. “To me the important thing is to keep the focus on what’s important to us spiritually.”That didn’t sit well. Soon members of the executive committee were clamoring for his ouster. Within weeks, he was forced to step down.

Frank Wright was eventually chosen to replace Pederson. He had spent the previous eight years serving as the executive director of the Center for Christian Statesmanship, a Capitol Hill ministry that conducts training for politicians on how to “think biblically about their role in government.” Wright acknowledges that he was chosen for his deep political connections. “I came here to re-engage the political culture on issues relating to broadcasting,” he says. “The rest is up to individual broadcasters.”

[snip]

Many Christian broadcasters attribute the success of their news operations to the biblical perspective that underpins their reporting in a world made wobbly by terrorist threats and moral relativism. “We don’t just tell them what the news is,” explains Wright of the NRB. “We tell them what it means. And that’s appealing to people, especially in moments of cultural instability.”

Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and W.M.D. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

Why did the administration want to invade Iraq, when, as the memo noted, "the case was thin" and Saddam's "W.M.D. capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran"? Iraq was perceived as a soft target; a quick victory there, its domestic political advantages aside, could serve as a demonstration of American military might, one that would shock and awe the world.

But the Iraq war has, instead, demonstrated the limits of American power, and emboldened our potential enemies. Why should Kim Jong Il fear us, when we can't even secure the road from Baghdad to the airport?

At this point, the echoes of Vietnam are unmistakable. Reports from the recent offensive near the Syrian border sound just like those from a 1960's search-and-destroy mission, body count and all. Stories filed by reporters actually with the troops suggest that the insurgents, forewarned, mostly melted away, accepting battle only where and when they chose.

Meanwhile, America's strategic position is steadily deteriorating.

I'm not advocating an immediate pullout, but we have to tell the Iraqi government that our stay is time-limited, and that it has to find a way to take care of itself. The point is that something has to give. We either need a much bigger army - which means a draft - or we need to find a way out of Iraq.

On Saturday, Isikoff spoke to his original source, the senior government official, who said that he clearly recalled reading investigative reports about mishandling the Qur'an, including a toilet incident. But the official, still speaking anonymously, could no longer be sure that these concerns had surfaced in the SouthCom report. Told of what the NEWSWEEK source said, DiRita exploded, "People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said. How could he be credible now?" [circular, eh? -- SN]

In the meantime, as part of his ongoing reporting on the detainee-abuse story, Isikoff had contacted a New York defense lawyer, Marc Falkoff, who is representing 13 Yemeni detainees at Guantánamo. According to Falkoff's declassified notes, a mass-suicide attempt—when 23 detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves in August 2003—was triggered by a guard's dropping a Qur'an and stomping on it. One of Falkoff's clients told him, "Another detainee tried to kill himself after the guard took his Qur'an and threw it in the toilet."

He says he understands that some Vermont Democrats would like to run for the seat being opened by the retirement of Senator James Jeffords.

Dean says if Democrats agree not to run for the Senate, Progressives should agree not to run for other statewide offices like the U-S House and lieutenant governor.
from the above cited article

Q Different issue. There have been protests in Pakistan over reports that investigation over abuses in Guantanamo has found that guards have apparently put Korans in the toilet. And I'm wondering if either of you can comment on whether that's accurate, or whether the investigation has found that, and what's being done about it?



MR. DIRITA: I can't speak to any particular -- I've not seen the reports on that specific point. As we've said many times, we have conducted multiple investigations into the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere in the world, and we are facing an adversary -- in the case of many of these detainees, particularly at Guantanamo -- who are exceedingly well-trained in counter-interrogation tactics. And the procedures that are provided for by field manuals, as well as other authorization, have taken that into account. But I can't speak to a particular assertion about what may have happened.
DOD regular briefing, 5/11/05

Over the last 50 years, we've had to cope with an explosion of media, technologies, and interfaces, from the TV clicker to the World Wide Web. And every new form of visual media - interactive visual media in particular - poses an implicit challenge to our brains: We have to work through the logic of the new interface, follow clues, sense relationships. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these are the very skills that the Ravens tests measure - you survey a field of visual icons and look for unusual patterns.

Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
TS Eliot, The Rock

Mr Galloway, are you proud of having got rid of one of the very few black women in Parliament?

The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

H. L. Menken, Baltimore Evening Sun on 26 July 1920