Immaculate Deception

There's one problem with criticisms of George W. Bush. He's perfect.

At least, that's what Republican leaders seem to claim. Forget malfeasance -- any time the Bush administration is accused of being sloppy, or even if a hint of a mistake somehow slips into the mainstream media, their publicity machine moves to crush the very notion that President Bush could be anything other than flawless. After all -- we are at WAR, and he is our PRESIDENT, and anything that could be even REMOTELY CONSTRUED as UNDERMINING him borders on the TREASONOUS!

Buy Tom's Book

Since it's a tradition for me to post twice in a row... ;-)

Tom Tomorrow is one of the best progressive bloggers and cartoonists out there. One of his 'toons inspired the subtitle of this very blog. And his new book is out. He could use the support -- cartooning is his livelihood. His cartoons are always either hilarious or thought-provoking, and frequently both.

Tom's pushing his book very aggressively on his site -- and he's not usually one for "crass commercialism" (in spite of a link with the same name on the border of his site :-) ) himself.

Follow one of the many links on his site to Powell's or Amazon. (That way, Tom gets the referral, too.) We've already done so. Buy. Read. Enjoy.

(/) Roland
Big Tom Tomorrow Fan (duh :-D )

The Memory Hole Is Clogged

Well, well, well. Our Dear Leader is getting desperate, isn't he? President Bush -- the employer of more spin doctors than Fox, Microsoft, and Disney combined -- actually had the nerve to accuse his opponents of being "revisionist historians." Meanwhile, Generalissimo Rove has mobilized the spin doctors and the attack pundits to revise history as quickly and completely as possible.

Translation: The memory hole is clogged, and no amount of spin is clearing out the mess.

Ends and Means

I've been forced to rethink my idea of ethics recently. It's easy enough to see a world of black and white, good and evil, us and them. Too easy, it seems of late. On the other hand, inaction is self-defeating. By forever weighing the merits and flaws of every decision, we accomplish nothing. What we need is balance, but where can it be found? What determines the rightness of a cause? In a world where we our knowledge of most situations is great enough that we can see the good and bad in every situation and "regime," how can we know what choices are ethical?

The answer burst into my mind fully formed. Though it seemed to be born of sheer inspiration, even a cursory examination of the answer reveals that it is an ancient truth. Alas, it seems to have been largely forgotten, buried in a storm of spin and rhetoric.

How many times have we been told that the ends do not justify the means?

Was Nader Right?

During the 2000 election, in between accusations that the two major candidates were identical, Ralph Nader commented that it might take a Bush presidency to shake the left out of its complacency, with the implication that things could then be turned around. This attitude (and the hypocrisy apparent in it) caused me to leave the Greens for the Democratic party in the hopes of actually getting something done.

But was he right?