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Ed Bradley, R.I.P.

Ed Bradley, the longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent whose probing questions and deceptively relaxed interviewing manner graced some of that show’s most notable reports, has died. He was 65.

From an old interview excerpted on the NewsHour:

If I arrived at the pearly gates and St. Peter said “What have you done to deserve entry?” I’d just say, “Did you see my Lena Horne story?”

From The Daily Show on Wednesday:

Jon Stewart: What was the plan? What did it for the Democrats?

Howard Dean: Well, we were helped, of course, by the president.

This will be remembered as George W. Bush’s finest hour.

By doing such a horrible job, Bush made it possible for the Democrats to win majorities in both the House and the Senate. That was a crucial turning point in the nation’s history, because only the Democrats have shown the slightest interest in preventing Bush from screwing up the country and the world even worse than he’s already screwed them up.

Okay, admittedly, as finest hours go, this is pretty dismal stuff. But let’s face it — this is as good as Bush is ever likely to get.

Via Hetty Litjens, a group called West Point Graduates Against the War has some provocative quotes from Dwight D. Eisenhower.

From a 1953 press conference:

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.

From a 1954 speech:

Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels — men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

In a 1949 speech, he seemed to foresee the choices we would be asked to make today:

If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They’ll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government.

Looking for verification of these quotes, I found others that seem appropriate to the present day.

As it is an ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence.

The current administration has never been very good with the ancient truths. Bush and Rumsfeld should have heeded this warning before invading Iraq:

When you appeal to force, there’s one thing you must never do — lose.

No, I don’t think he’s saying you keep pouring lives and money into a hopeless situation. Rather, it is the too-ready appeal to force that creates hopeless situations.

As the neocons try to pin all the blame on Iraq on incompetent execution, even while they spin out new war fantasies, maybe they should listen to this homespun wisdom:

Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.

With Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, DeLay, Foley, Hastert, Haggard and many other GOP heavyweights disgraced and discredited, the Republican Party could use some better role models. I respectfully nominate Mr. Eisenhower.

Via Atrios, who says “This is barely satire,” this post-election report from The Onion:

Republican officials are blaming tonight’s GOP losses on Democrats, who they claim have engaged in a wide variety of “aggressive, premeditated, anti-Republican campaigns” over the past six-to-18 months. “We have evidence of a well-organized, well-funded series of operations designed specifically to undermine our message, depict our past performance in a negative light, and drive Republicans out of office,” said Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman, who accused an organization called the Democratic National Committee of spearheading the nationwide effort. “There are reports of television spots, print ads, even volunteers going door-to-door encouraging citizens to vote against us.” Acknowledging that the “damage has already been done,” Mehlman is seeking a promise from Democrats to never again engage in similar practices.

Yes, it’s a joke.

From CNN:

Paul Mauriat, a French conductor whose arrangement of “Love is Blue” topped U.S. charts in the 1960s and who garnered a large following in Japan, has died. He was 81.

Mauriat’s recording of the song was a big hit in 1968. It was an off-beat hit for the days of guitar bands, starting with the harpsichord and strings intro.

Oh, happy day…

There’s another version of this song here.

Oh, yay…

I would really like to celebrate right now. I really would. I got a two-liter bottle of Dr. Pepper and a big ol’ bag of potato chips (Snyder’s of Berlin, the best) just for the victory celebration, but I’m not celebrating.

Democrats won a majority in the House of Representatives. Yippee.

But somehow, horrible, horrible Jean Schmidt held onto her seat from Ohio’s second Congressional district. The district is alongside the Ohio River — is there something in the water down there?

I can’t take comfort from the fact that I live in Columbus, far from the Ohio River. I’m right next to the 12th district, where rubber-stamp Republican Pat Tiberi just beat the estimable Bob Shamansky, and I live in the 15th district, where Deb Pryce, a member of the Republican leadership in this abominable 109th Congress, has defeated Mary Jo Kilroy. I feel kinda sick.

As I write this, the Democrats might take the majority in the Senate, too. Whee.

It depends on two races that are still too close to call: Democrat James Webb vs. Republican incumbent George Allen in Virginia, and Democrat Jon Tester vs. Republican Conrad Burns in Montana. At the moment Webb leads by a slim margin in Virginia. In Montana, there are still a lot of precincts that haven’t reported, and Tester’s lead is too small to feel safe.

Perhaps I should feel positively giddy — most commentators thought the Senate was out of reach for the Democrats. But after a few months paying attention to Allen and Burns, I have to ask — why are these races close? Both of these Republican candidates are despicable, and should have been laughed off the stage months ago.

What have we gained? The Democrats in Congress next year aren’t going to be able to get any legislation past a Bush veto, that’s for sure. If they join with some rogue Republicans and somehow force something through, Bush will simply tack on a “signing statement” and ignore the law.

Lame duck or not, one of the talking heads on CNN said, Bush will still control the agenda for the next two years.

I’m not so sure.

One thing the Democrats can do now, whether Bush likes it or not, is hold hearings. Exercise oversight. Pull back the curtain and reveal to the American people just what the rubber-stamp Republicans were so desperate to keep hidden.

Imagine two years with a steady drip, drip, drip of truth being exposed every day on the evening news. That might play a role in setting the agenda, don’t you think?

And if the Democrats manage to take the Senate, Bush will have more trouble getting extremist judges onto the federal courts.

Also, with a Democratic majority in the House, maybe we can block any new efforts to dismantle Social Security.

Okay, I feel a little better now.

Via Bob Geiger:

All we have to do now
Is take these lies
And make them true somehow

(Warning: video contains some disturbing images.)

Think Progress has 109 Reasons To Dump the 109th Congress.

A Top Ten list just doesn’t do them justice.

Hey, this guy’s good! Bill Clinton on voter suppression:

They’re saying to these people, “It’s okay with us if you have a job and then you have to pay taxes. It’s okay with us if your kids put on the uniform and go to Iraq or Afghanistan and fight — maybe get wounded, maybe get killed. But if you’re not going to vote the way we tell you, well, we’re going to try to keep you home, no matter what we took from you, no matter what you gave to this country.”

On Congressional oversight:

This Congress spent eight times as many hours holding hearings on my Christmas list as on the no-bid contracts and the missing nine billion dollars in Iraq.

Now we’re laughing. I like to laugh. You know, it enables you to listen. But it ain’t funny.

On inadequately equipped soldiers in Iraq:

There’s a woman that my wife represents on Long Island who lost her son … she lost her son in Iraq, and she spent $7,000 on her credit card sending basic medical supplies to her unit, because the kids didn’t have it.

Video at Crooks and Liars. It’s long, but it’s worth watching.

Today is Election Day.

I don’t know what will happen today. I’ve been disappointed too many times to believe it will end in victory. What I do know is that, win or lose, this is not the end of the fight.

A few days after the 2004 election, I posted this quote from Harriet Tubman, who risked her life and her freedom to help slaves escape on the Underground Railroad:

Children, if you’re tired, keep going. If you’re hungry, keep going. If you’re scared, keep going. If you want to taste freedom, keep going.

There’s work to be done.

Vote.

Does this remind you of anybody?

Is there a point where the Get Out the Vote (GOTV) drive becomes counter-productive? Eight phone calls and two people knocking on my door on Saturday, reminding me to vote tomorrow; lots of messages waiting when I got home from an out-of-town trip yesterday; at least seven calls so far today. Hey, I’m eager to vote this year, but I’m so annoyed by the calls I’m thinking of disconnecting my phone for a couple days.

In Philadelphia, voters are being inundated with annoying calls that appear to be from Democrat Lois Murphy. The calls are actually from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), and they’re calculated to make voters slam down the phone before they hear the required attribution at the end of the long call. The same tactic is being used across the country. From Talking Points Memo:

[S]he got the call again and again and 18 more times, making for a total of about 21 calls since October 24…

But the calls aren’t paid for by [Democratic candidates] or even the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, they are paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The GOP response to Democratic efforts to get voters to the polls is called Voter Suppression. It takes many forms. From the Washington Post:

A recently distributed guide for Republican poll watchers in Maryland spells out how to aggressively challenge the credentials of voters and urges these volunteers to tell election judges they could face jail time if a challenge is ignored.

Intimidation doesn’t work on everyone, but in a close election it doesn’t have to. If even a small fraction of improperly challenged voters are frightened or discouraged from voting, that may be enough to keep power in the hands of the thugs and their cronies.

In Houston, Texas, Republicans demanded the city stop providing flu shots at polling places. They were concerned that the availability of the shots would bring Democratic voters to the polls.

Across the nation, Republicans have imposed new voter ID rules calculated less to ensure the integrity of the vote than to frustrate and discourage voters who might want the GOP out. The rules have been challenged in some states as a form of “poll tax.” From the Boston Globe:

These days, every basic protection seems up for grabs. When the national conversation turns to the merits of torture and the need to track private telephone calls, chipping away at the bedrock of democratic government — one man, one vote — can’t be far behind.

At least nine states are waging battles over voter ID laws. Last month, a Georgia judge ruled that a law passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature was unconstitutional because it put up too many hurdles for citizens otherwise qualified to vote. A judge in Missouri came to a similar conclusion, offering a pointed reminder that, unlike driver’s licenses, voter ballots should never involve bureaucratic hassle. “The photo ID burden on the voter may seem minor … to the mainstream of our society for whom automobiles, driver’s licenses, and even passports are a natural part of everyday life,” the judge wrote. “However, for the elderly, the poor, the undereducated or otherwise disadvantaged, the burden can be great, if not insurmountable.”

That, of course, is the idea.

It can cost anywhere from $5 to $23 to get a birth certificate; a passport costs between $87 and $97. To a lot of people, $97 might be the cost of a night out on the town. But any price tag on voting amounts to a poll tax, which is still illegal in this country.

Illegality doesn’t stop these Republicans. It doesn’t even slow them down.

An angry friend living in a small town says all the poll workers there know him. If they make him show ID to vote, he says he’ll just walk out.

Exactly according to The Plan. They win, you lose.

Do you think Karl Rove worries about your icy fury or your white-hot rage? The thing that worries Karl is your vote. Why do you suppose they’ve gone to such lengths to keep you from casting it?

Tomorrow is Election Day. I’m taking my icy fury; I’m taking my white-hot rage. I’m getting into that voting booth, by God, and I’m doing my part to wipe the smirk off Rove’s and Bush’s faces.

Let’s take this country back.

Ever since my experiments to make contact with parallel universes a few weeks ago, my cable TV has been acting up.

Take last night: I saw a World War II documentary on the History Channel. It started with familiar footage of the carnage at Pearl Harbor, followed by grainy black-and-white film of the President addressing a joint session of Congress. “Yesterday, December 7th, 1941,” he declared, “a date which will live in in-fa-my.” It wasn’t FDR — it was George W. Bush!

In response to the shocking surprise attack by Japanese forces, the President demanded a declaration of war against… Mexico.

This caused quite a stir — a presidential advisor named Richard A. Clarke had privately told Bush it would be “like responding to mad bombers from Saudi Arabia with an invasion of the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq” — but the president was resolute. Japan, he pointed out, was way over on the far side of the Pacific Ocean, “one of our largest oceans,” while Mexico sat menacingly close, right on our southern border. “We cannot afford to wait for Montezuma’s revenge, which may come in the form of a smoking gun,” he said.

Partisan politics was set aside. “We have been attacked by a foreign power,” said two-term former President Franklin D. Roosevelt, “and we must have confidence that our elected leaders will act in good faith, and will act wisely, in the interest of all Americans.” A reluctant Congress granted Bush the authority to use force against Mexico if he deemed it necessary.

He did.

There was film of U.S. forces rolling triumphantly into Mexico City after an invasion that met only limited resistance, and smashing pictures of Mexican President Manuel Ávila Camacho. Then there was footage of Mexican insurgents. They were emboldened when they realized that many U.S. soldiers were poorly equipped, some armed with broom handles instead of rifles. “You go to war with the army you have,” said Secretary of War Donald H. Rumsfeld.

U.S. forces held on in Mexico City, but an animated map showed how province after province fell under the control of Mexican insurgents — from Durango to Sinaloa, Coahuila, and Chihuahua. From Veracruz to Puebla, Hidalgo, and Tamaulipas. From Nuevo León and Coahuila and Tamaulipas into southern Texas.

When New Mexico and Arizona fell to the Mexicans, some Democrats in Congress called for a change in Administration war policies. Vice-President Richard B. Cheney said, “You see these pictures of Mexican troops in Austin and Santa Fe and Tucson, and you have to ask why the Roosevelt Administration never took the Mexican threat seriously.”

When the Japanese invasion overran most of California, Oregon and Washington state, Democrats renewed their call for change. “If we change course now, we’re just giving aid and comfort to those who attacked us,” Bush said. “We’re fighting them here so we don’t have to fight them all the way over there.”

On June 6, 1944, in the largest amphibious assault in history, German forces crossed the English Channel and invaded England in an operation remembered as “Der Tag.” England had struggled ever since their U.S. allies had diverted all their resources to the war on Mexico and a series of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. With England’s collapse, the fate of all of Europe was sealed.

The cable guy’s coming out on Tuesday — hey, that’s Election Day. I sure hope he can fix this, because I don’t think I can stand much more of this version of history.

Republican Congressman Bob Ney, who pleaded guilty to two felony charges on October 13, finally resigned from Congress on Friday. Why the delay? I think TPMmuckraker has it figured out:

[H]e just needed to hang around Congress until November 1st to get his last paycheck of $13,000.

You’ve gotta think these things through, see.