Books reviews, current events, and other musings

There's an online petition to save the Hubble Space Telescope. Go sign it! (from Tristero)

An account of Bush's time in Alabama mentions the following.

Bush also made an impression on the "Blue-Haired Platoon," a group of older Republican Women working for Blount. Behind his back they called him "the Texas soufflé," Archibald said, because he was "all puffed up and full of hot air."

That's a great nickname for W.

posted by Julian at 10:45PM

Howard Dean crossed the line in his recent statements (from Nathan Newman).

"What we now see is John Kerry is part of the corrupt political culture in Washington," Dean told The Associated Press in an interview. "That's exactly what I'm asking Wisconsin voters to stand up against."
...
"I intend to support the Democratic nominee under any circumstances," Dean said. "I'm just deeply disappointed that once again we may have to settle for the lesser of two evils."

Candidates in a primary are free to criticize one another, and Kerry made some harsh statements about Dean back when Dean was the frontrunner. Still, the most important thing about the 2004 race is removing Bush from power, and one of the most appealing things about Dean was his eagerness to highlight the problems with the direction Bush is taking this country and how Dean would turn things around. When he describes Kerry as the "lesser of two evils", he's betraying the central theme of his campaign.

Let's hope that he can be more restrained in the future. Otherwise, I'll be tempted to vote for Kucinich in the California primary.

posted by Julian at 9:30PM

I haven't been taking the whole Bush AWOL thing too seriously. Sure, it makes Bush even more of a chickenhawk, as he casually sends off American soldier to die in Iraq when he blew off his National Guard service. Anything that hurts Bush politically is a good thing, and I'm glad that the media is finally focusing on one of Bush's numerous faults.

Anyway, I've always thought that there's some truth to the AWOL charges, since otherwise the Bush administration would simply release the convincing documentation from would be present in the extensive DoD files. However, another possibility has arisen (from Eschaton).

As Texas Gov. George W. Bush prepared to run for president in the late 1990s, top-ranking Texas National Guard officers and Bush advisers discussed ways to limit the release of potentially embarrassing details from Bush's military records, a former senior officer of the Texas Guard said Wednesday.

A second former Texas Guard official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, was told by a participant that commanders and Bush advisers were particularly worried about mentions in the records of arrests of Bush before he joined the National Guard in 1968, the second official said.

The funny part about all this is that Bush's defenders are struggling, unsuccessfully, to convince everyone that his military record is as solid as Dan Quayle's.

posted by Julian at 11:40PM

Ever since the Iowa caucuses, I've been puzzling over why Dean fell so short of expectations once voting began. Clay Shirky's essay Exiting Deanspace is the best attempt I've seen to tackle that question (from Electrolite).

posted by Julian at 12:55AM

Can you believe that Bush said this in his interview?

The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me as I look back was it was a political war. We had politicians making military decisions, and it is lessons that any president must learn, and that is to the set the goal and the objective and allow the military to come up with the plans to achieve that objective.

Does Bush even realize how badly his political appointees, through their interference, screwed things up in Iraq?

Meanwhile, Eric Alterman proposes some amusing suggestions for members of a Kerry administration.

Secretary of State: Wesley Clark or Anthony Zinni, if Clark is on the ticket.
Adviser for National Security: Anthony Zinni if he’s not Secretary of State
Secretary of Defense: Max Cleland
Chairman of the Federal Reserve: Joseph Stiglitz
Director of the CIA: Joseph Wilson
Secretary of the Treasury: Laura Tyson
Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers: Paul Krugman
Attorney General: Elliot Spitzer
Secretary of the Interior: Gary Hart
UN Representative: John Lewis
Ambassador to Niger: Paul Wolfowitz
Ambassador to Mars, George W. Bush
Ambassador to Venus, Ralph Nader.
Chairman of the Democratic Party: Howard Dean

posted by Julian at 10:15PM