JOY IN MUDVILLE

WEAPONS IN IRAQ

IN THE CROSSFIRE

I had one eye on the Game, one on the news last night. I must have missed the lunar eclipse, the last one Earth will get for nearly two and a half years as we raced back to the city.

The New Jersey turnpike was practically empty as I rushed home to my TV from showing WMD and talking about blogging at Rutgers University. The dining hall was burning there last night, but I had no time to gape or stare. I was Sox obsessed, and could only think of how long it had been, as sportcasters spoke of their last win in l918, in the year of “the Great War.”

And then at 11:40 PM EST, they did it, after 86 years of trying. Boston triumphant at last. Massachusetts sweeps in a stadium named after another Bus(c)h no less. “We know we are cowboys, ” Johnny Damon said. As a Yankee fan, born and bred. I can’t believe I am writing this.

Here’s the headline in the staid Boston Globe: “AT LAST! Pigs can fly, hell is frozen, the slipper finally fits, and Impossible Dreams really can come true.”

Columnist Jackie MacMullan writes of “tears of joy “, the very emotion that my daughter Sarah, Red Sox Fan #1, shared in an excited call from the coast:

“Let it roll off your tongue, washing away the bitter taste of 1948 and 1978 and 1986 and 2003. Let Bill Buckner and Mike Torrez and Grady Little go gracefully into the night. Let go of all the angst and anger and agony that has been simmering for 86 years.

“Revel in this unorthodox group of athletes, who danced to their own beat, purists be damned. Marvel at their uncanny ability to rise from the ashes, and resurrect themselves in the most improbable of situations. No baseball team had come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series until the Red Sox pinned that indignity on their most hated rivals, the New York Yankees.”

OK, I got that out of my system.

If the “curse” has been lifted, will this victory have any reverb in the campaign of their Sox loving Senator? What else does this big win portend for Massachusetts. The Sox are expected back in Fenway at 7 AM today. Fans are waiting.

MISSING BALLOTS ALREADY

Reuters reports from Miami:

“U.S. Postal Service investigators on Wednesday were trying to find thousands of absentee ballots that should have been delivered to voters in one of Florida’s most populous counties, officials said.

“The issue evoked memories of the polling problems that bedeviled the Florida election in 2000 and which the state has been trying to address before next Tuesday’s presidential election, which is again expected to be a very tight race.

“Broward deputy supervisor of elections Gisela Salas said 60,000 absentee ballots, accounting for just over 5 percent of the electorate in the county north of Miami, were sent out between Oct. 7 and Oct. 8 to voters who would not be in town on election day.

“While some had begun to be delivered, her office had been inundated with calls from anxious voters who still had not received their ballots.

“It’s really inexplicable at this point in time and the matter is under investigation by law enforcement,” Salas told Reuters.”

Veteran election official Salas appears in our Globalvision film Counting on Democracy challenging conservative claims that ballots were tampered with during the Miami recount in 2000. See www.Globalvision.org for information about getting the film and a 2004 update on DVD.

DIGITAL DEMOCRACY?

The big fear among Democrats is that another curse may be in effect — the curse of Florida 2000. There are disturbing reports coming in this year, well before the votes are counted.

BBC’s Greg Palast writes:

“Before one vote was cast in early voting this week in Florida, the new touch-screen computer voting machines of Florida started out with a several-thousand vote lead for George W. Bush. That is, the mechanics of the new digital democracy boxes “spoil” votes at a predictably high rate in African-American precincts, effectively voiding enough votes cast for John Kerry to in a tight race, keep the White House safe from the will of the voters.

“He elaborates in a new piece for Harpers: “To understand the fiasco in progress in Florida, we need to revisit the 2000 model, starting with a lesson from Dick Carlberg, acting elections supervisor in Duval County until this week. “Some voters are strange,” Carlberg told me recently. He was attempting to explain why, in the last presidential election, five thousand Duvalians trudged to the polls and, having arrived there, voted for no one for president. Carlberg did concede that, after he ran these punch cards through the counting machines a second time, some partly punched holes shook loose, gaining Al Gore160 votes or so, Bush roughly 80.

“So, if you ran the ‘blank’ ballots through a few more times, we’d have a different president,” I noted. Carlberg, a Republican, answered with a grin. See gregpalast.com for more.

PASSIONS HIGH IN FRAUDIA

There’s tension, fear and loathing in the Sunshine State. Former Secretary of State and Bush campaign official, now Congresswoman Kathleen Harris claims she was menaced personally.

Sarasota’s Herald Tribune.Com reports:

SARASOTA — Hours after a man was arrested on a charge that he tried to drive his Cadillace into Katherine Harris, the Republican Congresswoman said it wouldn’t deter her from continuing to campaign on area streetcorners.

“Barry M. Seltzer, a 46-year-old Sarasota real estate investor and registered Democrat, was arrested early today on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a felony that carries a sentence of up to five years in prison.

“Campaigning on another streetcorner today, Harris said she was upset that “he did that to my supporters.”

VOTE FOR KERRY AND DIE

And speaking of menacing, the Sun Sentinal brings us this report from the front lines of democracy:

“WEST PALM BEACH: An 18-year-old Marine recruit remained in jail on Wednesday, charged with threatening to stab his girlfriend over her choice for president.

“The enlistee, Steven Scott Soper, of Lake Worth, became enraged Tuesday night when his 18-year-old girlfriend said she was leaving him — and voting for John Kerry for president.

“Soper, who will enter the Marines as soon as he passes the GED test, solidly supports Bush. He allegedly told girlfriend Stacey Silheira, “You’ll never live to see the election.”

In another State, The Washington Post reports:

“A U.S. District Court judge Wednesday effectively ended efforts by Republicans in Ohio to challenge the eligibility of tens of thousands of voters in one of the most closely contested states in this year’s presidential race. ”

KAKA UPDATE

The Washington Post also reports today that those “Missing Weapons have Become Focus of Race” . . . .Democratic nominee John F. Kerry accused President Bush of evading responsibility, and Bush said Kerry was making unsubstantiated charges. ” The New York Times features a story about Iraqis who say:

“Looters stormed Al Qaqaa just days after U.S. troops swept through on their way to Baghdad in early April 2003.”

www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/international/middleeast/28bomb.html?th

AP reports:

“A U.S. military unit that reached a munitions storage installation after the invasion of Iraq had no orders to search or secure the site, where officials say nearly 400 tons of explosives have vanished.

“When troops from the 101st Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade arrived at the Al-Qaqaa (pronounced Kaka) installation south of Baghdad a day or so after other coalition troops seized the capital on April 9, 2003, there were already looters throughout the facility, Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, deputy public affairs officer for the unit, told The Associated Press.”

ENDORSEMENT FROM BAGHDAD

Riverbend, the Iraqi Blogger comments on the US political race:

“Many, many people have asked me about the elections and what we think of them. Before, I would have said that I really don’t think much about it. Up until four years ago, I always thought the American elections were a pretty straightforward process: two white males up for the same position (face it people- it really is only two- Nader doesn’t count), people voting and the person with more votes wins. After the debacle of four years ago, where Bush Jr. was *assigned* president, things are looking more complicated and a little bit more sordid.

I wouldn’t normally involve myself in debates or arguments about who should be American president. All I know is that four years ago, we prayed it wouldn’t be Bush. It was like people could foresee the calamity we’re living now and he embodied it. (Then, there’s that little issue of his being completely ridiculous?)

“Who am I hoping will win? Definitely Kerry. There’s no question about it. I want Bush out of the White House at all costs . . . ”

“Some people associate the decision to go to war as a ’strength’. How strong do you need to be to commit thousands of your countrymen and women to death on foreign soil? Especially while you and your loved ones sit safely watching at home. How strong do you need to be to give orders to bomb cities to rubble and use the most advanced military technology available against a country with a weak army and crumbling infrastructure? You don’t need to be strong — you need to be mad.”

INVASIONS A PRESIDENT MAKES

The Guerilla News Network carries a report independent journalist Russ Baker who quotes former Bush ghost writer Mickey Herskowitz as saying:

“He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999. It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’

www.gnn.tv/articles/article.php?id=761

DETENTION MAKES ANOTHER PRESIDENT WEAK

BBC described Yasser Arafat as ‘very, very sick’ last night at in his comound in Ramallah This morning he is said to be stronger physically. Palestinian leaders say he is not suffering from stomach cancer, just a an attack of flu.

“Israel says Mr Arafat can go anywhere for treatment, but it is unclear if he would be allowed back to the compound.”

“A top official told Reuters that if he leaves the West Bank, the question of whether he could return was “a separate issue after he recuperates”.

DENAINESS SUE FOR TEN MILLION

Al Jazeera reports:

[F]our detainees released from Guantamo Bay are suing for damages in a suit brought by the NY based Center for Constitutional Rights. ”

“Four former British detainees at the US Guantanamo Bay detention camp have filed a law suit seeking damages from Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top officials for torture and abuse, their lawyers announce”

http://tinyurl.com/6lbjh

For more on the Rumsfeld Pentagon you can now see Frontline’s PBS report on line at PBS.org. The New York Times features an editorial denouncing the Pentagon’s response to the torture scandal. News Standard reports:

“According to a document recently obtained by the ACLU, personnel from the FBI witnessed various abuses at Abu Ghraib prison but did not deem them worthy of mentioning to their superiors.”

http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/1170/

MEDIA AND POLITRICKS UPDATE

The Mail and Guardian in South Africa reports:

“Four years ago the Chicago Sun-Times endorsed George Bush for president. On Sunday, it became one of a growing number of American newspapers to admit they had got it wrong. At least 37 newspapers which backed Bush in 2000 have switched sides to John Kerry.”

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?a=13&o=140568

ON JOHN STEWART AND CROSSFIRE

Clarence Paige of the Chicago Tribune comments on Comedy Channel/Daily Show star John Stewart’s visit to CNN’s “Crossfire” were he indicted the show and its format:

” I appreciate what Stewart was complaining about. “Crossfire” and other argument shows, some on which I have appeared, do not really present “debate” in the classic sense. Like the biting comedy bit about the “Argument Clinic” on England’s “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” the argument shows often promise a debate but present merely a dispute and hope audiences don’t mind the difference.

“If it’s done cleverly enough, we don’t mind the difference. Audiences have conditioned the journalistic field to strike — and we in the media have conditioned them to expect — a happy balance between in-depth information and entertaining, audience-grabbing sensationalism.

“In a world ruled by the fear of being boring and anxiety about being amused at all costs, politics is bound to be unappealing, better kept out of prime time as much as possible,” Pierre Bourdieu, a leading dissident intellectual in France, wrote in 1996. “So, insofar as it does have to be addressed, this not very exciting and even depressing spectacle . . . has to be made interesting.” As a result, he continued, television in Europe as well as the United States is experiencing “a tendency to shunt aside serious commentators and investigative reporters in favor of the talk-show host.”

Is that good for democracy? Our ability to rule ourselves is well-served when today’s information explosion in print, broadcast and the Internet produces an informed electorate. But sometimes I wonder how well-informed we are when, for example, a mid-October USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll finds 42 percent of the American public thinks Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, despite the Bush administration now denying any such link.”

http://tinyurl.com/6m8mg

THE NEXT MEDIA BATTLE — AND THE LAST

Media for Democracy is now mobilizing emails challenging Pappas Broadcasting. Check it out. Meanwhile, here’s the FCC response to people who wrote protesting Sinclair Broadcasting’s plan, since revised under pressure to air a partisan documentary as news.

“Broadcasters, like all media, have broad discretion in choosing content. Provisions of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Section 326 of the Communications Act serve to prohibit the Commission from engaging in censorship. As a result, the Commission generally cannot prohibit a station from airing a specific program, and we could not have stood in the way of Sinclair Broadcasting airing “Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal” or a program that aired parts of it.

“At the same time, the FCC has rules and policies that require broadcasters to provide comparable time under certain circumstances. The licensee’s obligation to provide comparable time is determined in light of all the relevant facts of a particular case. Enforcement of these regulations and policies is initiated when a candidate for public office files a complaint with the Commission alleging that a station or cable system has not complied with its obligations. To date, the Commission has not received a complaint from any candidate alleging a violation of the Commission’s political rules or policies. Because of the significant public interest involved, we are prepared to act expeditiously to determine compliance with our rules and policies in this area.

“To the extent some people have suggested that Sinclair’s airing of this program constitutes an inkind contribution to the Bush campaign, that is not a matter for the FCC to consider. Rather, complaints in this regard should be directed to the Federal Election Commission.

Thank you for your interest in this matter.”

MOGULS WE LOVE DEPARTMENT

Media Guardian reports: “Former Walt Disney president Michael Ovitz has told a US court he is at a loss to explain why his relationship with his boss Michael Eisner soured so quickly. ”

ON-LINE ELECTORAL RESOURCES

l. Audible.com has launched www.listenbeforeyouvote.com for the election, allowing the public FOR FREE, to download all the political speeches, all the debates, Convention speeches, Economist Magazine Swing State Reports, information, basically anything audio relating to the elections. Goal of the site is to get people as informed as possible before they vote. It’s all free.

www.listenbeforeyouvote.com

2. People For the American Way Foundation (PFAWF) offers MyPollingPlace.com, an easy-to-use online tool that will let voters find out where to vote, how to get there, what machines are used at that location, and how to vote on those machines. Voters can also choose to have this information sent to them via text message or email on Election Day.

CULTURE WAR

Sam Graham-Felsen reviews Eminem’s “Mosh” a new music video blast at Bush on the Nation.com

Has Eminem — the poster child of American disenchantment — become the new face of activism?

“Those who are accustomed to Eminem’s gay-bashing, gun-toting antics will hardly believe their eyes, as they watch his new video in which the top-selling rapper and his posse file into the voting booths, the words “Vote Tuesday, November 2″ fading into the screen.

“Mosh could well be one of the most overtly political pop music videos ever produced, and is easily the most direct anti-Bush cultural statement since Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. Although the video debuted just a week before the election, it could have an unprecedented cultural and political impact, coming from the top-grossing rap star in America, and one of the seminal pop icons of the last decade. “

See the video:
www.gnn.tv/videos/viewer.php?id=27&spd=hi

YOUR LETTERS

A.J. Rowley “above the 49th:”

Just read today’s post . . . yeouch! (What’s going on! Campaign ads with wolves? Vicious partisan networks like Fox? Kerry killing wildlife? Bush killing off the dwellings of the wildlife? Are we in the forest? Begging the question: If Kerry shoots a Fox in the forest and no one else is around to see it . . . does it still support Bush?)

“Dear DAVE, however will Danny be able to read your uproarious letters if he takes his glasses off? Perhaps you could borrow his to see that your emperor has no clothes, independent indeed!

“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! I happen to have been watching CBC Newsworld last weekend (Saturday-Sunday morning) when they aired a hilarious film on the nature of stupidity, when low and behold I see you on my television! I am not sure if a repeat is airing later this week, but I am sure you remember the interview, just thought I’d let you know you made an appearance (don’t worry you were clearly on the side to trying to explain why people act as they do). Perhaps if your new ‘friends’ at Fox call you again you could invite them to watch it (with WMD), while the movie admittedly failed to decipher exactly what the nature of stupidity is, it was certainly clear in relating that organizations like Fox do more then their part to contribute to the ‘epidemic.’”

Speaking of Fox and stupid, the fallout from my last visit continues with this erudite comment from some unnamed correspondent whose email is JohnKerrySucks@usa.com:

“Brent Bozell made Danny Schechter look like the idiot that he is. Not surprising for a member of a Johnny-Come-Lately media watch org and a piss poor one at that.

“It must REALLY suck being you guys! BWAHAHAHAHAHA. You pedophiles really take the cake. ”

Jack Hoffman: writes:

“Sorry Dan I didn’t get to see the food fight. It was Red Sox time. But in between I surfed over to Fox and they were showing an interview, given by the NBC reporter, who was embedded with the 101. I had seen the same interview in it’s entirety, or read it somewhere, and he said they did stop with the troops at the bunker sight for the night. At that moment Sean shut it down the reporters satetment off. In the rest of the interview he states that the troops never did inspect any of the bunkers.

See if you can pull up the interview and check back to the video of Sean’s cut off point.”

Sharon Diamond writes from New York:

“Danny - I am extremely worried that this latest “missing weapons cache” is the beginning of Karl Rove’s October surprise. Imagine after all this hoopla (including Kerry’s advertisements accusing Bush of incompetence) if Bush can announce Sunday or Monday that of course we knew of this facility, of course we secured it, and of course we transferred the weapons to a safe location. I find it extremely suspicious that Bush has not even responded to questions by his supporters- he’ll then be able to say that in the interest of national security he could not comment earlier, but now can reassure the country that these arms are safely in US hands. He’ll also be able to slam Kerry and come out the hero Commander in Chief. There’s something fishy here and we better be prepared. “

TONIGHT IN THE APPLE

In New York at 6 PM History of Presidential campaign spots

“Muntadas and Marshall Reese will present their latest edition of Political Advertisement VI 1952-2004. This one-hour, 15 minute videotape spans 50 years of Presidential campaign spots. This is the sixth version in an ongoing twenty-year project, which Muntadas and Reese have revised, expanded, and updated with every major election.

It is happening at the Donnell Library Center Auditorium of The New York Public Library

WMD screens tonight at the Puffin Room on Broome Street at 7 PM. Had a great screening for students at Rutgers yesterday afternoon.

We will give the last ironic word to George W. Bush today: “A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander-in-chief.”

And on that note, I invite you to keep your letters coming: dissector@mediachannel.org.

Posted by Danny on Thu, Oct 28, 2004 at 07:29 AM EST