Demonstrating a remarkable lack of irony, the Republican Team Leader site that was caught astroturfing letters to the editor (write a letter and get GOPoints redeemable for attractive GOP logo-wear) is now urging members to astroturf the Boston Globe in response to the Globe’s editorial against the Team Leader site’s astroturfing. (Yes, that sentence does make sense.)

And, quite wonderfully, the pre-composed letter you can click and send is in fact the original letter about President Bush “demonstrating genuine leadership.”

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See them all here.

Thanks to Gary Stock for the link.

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At the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (about which I know nothing) you can read an open letter from some American citizens to the rest of the world. If you agree with enough of it, you can sign it.

Here is the first paragraph:

It is a troubled time. The drums of war, already loud, are daily being amplified by the megaphones of modern media. The U.S. government is adopting a doctrine of “pre-emptive war.” There are large numbers of people in the United States who do not agree. We want to extend our hands to people all over the world to work together for peace, justice, economic equity, and environmental sanity.

(Yeah, we could do without the mixed drums and megaphones metaphor.)

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Kevin Jones writes to a private list:

Talked with a friend last night who is business manager of chanticleer, an acapella men’s singing group, multiple grammy winner, etc. the March 4 event they were scheduled to sing for at the White House; presentation of congressional medals to jessie norman and others, has been cancelled. Their contact at the national endowment of the arts told him that all cultural and social events at the White House “in that window” had been cancelled.

Inference drawn: bush will be in the war room and they don’t want to appear to be sipping champagne while …..

(Quoted with permission.)

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Jonathan Peterson has some strong words about Patriot II.

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Public Conversations is a remarkable group, enabling and facilitating conversations among people across high and emotional fences. Here are eleven questions they suggest as ways to start a real conversation about Iraq:

1) As you reflect on the state of the world and recent and emerging US policies and actions, what are your biggest concerns?

2) What  troubles  you most about  the course of international events and the role the US has been  playing?  What  do you find reassuring?

3) What are your hopes and fears regarding the outcome of US and/or UN military interventions in Iraq?

4) Can you tell us something about your life experience that will help us understand your views and primary concerns?

5) What is the heart of your concerns related to the situation in the world and possible US responses?

6) Are you aware of any dilemmas, mixed feelings, value conflicts, or uncertainties within your current views?

7) What experience or credible information might shift your current views?

8) What specific events or changes have altered your sense of individual, national, and international “security?” In what way do you feel more “secure?” Less “secure?” What are some specific actions our leaders could take that might increase your sense of security at home and abroad?

9) What actions could the US take that would fit your assessment of risks and your hopes and values?

10) What could the US do regarding Iraq that would make you feel proud to be an American citizen (or to live here)?

11) If you had a half-hour with President Bush, what real (non-rhetorical or loaded) question would you want to ask him?  Why would you pick that question?

You can listen to an NPR piece on Public Conversations here.

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300,000,000 cars will be built before hydrogen fuel cells are ready. That’s today’s sound bite from candidate John Kerry.

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Vergil Iliescu points us to two resources for those who want to keep up with what Gore Vidal is saying these days. Here’s a resource site. And here’s the essay on the subject of the radio interview with Vidal that I still haven’t listened to.

I found the essay disappointing. In the course of its explanation of 9/11 and our government’s reaction to it, the essay presents just about every conspiracy theory without discriminating among them: pipelines, US sponsorship, previous knowledge, unscrambled jets. It thus comes across as loopy and possibly loony, even though I actually believe in some of the theories he presents. (For example, the Afghan “pipeline is a go-project thanks to the junta’s installation of a Unocal employee (John J Maresca) as US envoy to the newly born democracy whose president, Hamid Karzai, is also, according to Le Monde, a former employee of a Unocal subsidiary. Conspiracy? Coincidence!”) Not up to his usual snuff. Lots of ideas and uncomfortable facts, though.

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Two nights ago, Bush’s speechwriter was on The Daily Show, the Jon Stewart fake news program that’s funny because it blurts out the truth. The speechwriter explained with glee how he came up with the phrase “Axis of Evil.” He originally wrote “Axis of Hatred,” but his boss (not Bush) took one look at it and said, “No, it’s the ‘Axis of Evil,'” repeating it a few times aloud to see how it sounds.

This constituted the debate over whether these countries actually are evil and the effect classifying them as such would have. A couple of lobes short of The West Wing, eh?

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A mailing list I was on was arguing about Iraq, even though that’s way off its subject. Sombebody posted a message that said, in part

…it is not only within the right of our government to prevent regimes who have demonstrated BOTH the capability AND willingness to harm America or her allies … from doing so, it is her responsibility.

I was about to post a reply but the list’s owner cut off the thread. So, I’m giving myself the last word here:

Does this mean that Al Qaeda had not only the right but the responsibility to attack the World Trade Center since it rightly perceives the US as capable and willing to do it harm? Or, if you don’t like Al Qaeda as an example, how about North Korea, Cuba, or Iran?

The world recognizes the right of a country to defend itself against invasion. Allowing countries to preemptively attack others because another country could attack it — and, frankly, I don’t lie awake at night about Iraq attacking us the way I do about Al Qaeda — lowers the bar to war. We have to be able to live in a world with countries that we despise and fear because that’s the minimal condition for peace.

If war isn’t kept as a nearly unthinkable alternative, it will make peace seem like too much work.

[Did I say “the last word”? Somehow I doubt that. See you in the comments section!]

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