500 Words

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ALBUM REVIEW: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, MAGIC

The career of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band has been marked not only by the band’s ability to write and perform compelling, catchy songs that sound great in the studio and even better when performed live, but also by the seemingly slavish attention to thematic and sonic unity that have elevated previous efforts from collections of songs to great albums.

The first time this writer listened to Magic, the new album from Springsteen and the Band, my initial impression was that the group had released a disc which contained some excellent songs, but which was, as a whole, less than cohesive. Fortunately, repeated listens prove this theory false.

So why the confusion? Part of it can be attributed to the quality of the songs. It might seem odd to make the argument that so many of the songs are so accessible that it is easy to be fooled by their tasty outer shell, but the more times you spin Magic, the more understandable the argument becomes and the more you’ll come to appreciate the depth of the songs on this disc.

Through the years, Springsteen has succeeded because of his innate ability to capture the cultural zeitgeist and put it on record - even if the songs themselves are not as accepting of the era as some might want to believe. His 1973 debut,Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., channeled Bob Dylan (leading to inevitable comparisons.) 1975’s Born to Run and 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town snapped a picture of a country in recession, still struggling to come to terms with the aftereffects of the Vietnam War. Born in the U.S.A. arrived in 1984 at the height of Ronald Reagan’s flag-waving presidency. The Ghost of Tom Joad examined the underbelly of America when too many were interested in reveling in the excesses of prosperity. The Rising was Springsteen’s take on the tragic events which took place September 11, 2001.

One common theme that links Springsteen’s work is the way in which he writes political anthems that work both on a pop level as well as on a social level. Those who wanted to wave their flags to "Born in the U.S.A" were not discouraged from doing so - save for the Republican candidates who attempted to co-opt the track and transform it into something that it wasn’t. Those who realized that the song was, in fact, not the pro-U.S. anthem that so many thought it was, appreciated Springsteen’s ability to write such pointed lyrics that were misunderstood by so many.

A social and political activist throughout his career, Springsteen has, over the past several years, become more vocal in his support of certain political candidates, and more critical of those who have squandered their responsibilities and made the same mistakes that their fathers and mentors did.

Though the above might have seemed like a history lesson, it actually was meant to illustrate that Springsteen’s decision to release an album that is critical and wary of the direction in which this country is moving, while doing a masterful job at couching his displeasure by constructing hook-filled melodies that allow the tracks to work on multiple levels is what makes Magic so compelling and so necessary.

The album is chock-full of allusions to the decline of the United States in the past half-decade. Commercial radio has been decimated by big media companies who spent insane amounts of money lobbying the FCC to loosen ownership rules originally put into place to avoid the faceless homogeneity that now corrupts terrestrial radio and "Radio Nowhere," the first single from Magic, illustrates that point perfectly. "This is radio nowhere," Springsteen sings. "Is there anybody alive out there?"

"Livin’ In the Future," which opens with the sax-driven sound that hearkens to a combination of Springsteen’s classic "Hungry Heart" and Billy Idol’s "Hot In the City," is not as cheery as one might think, when Springsteen sings "Tell me is that rollin’ thunder/or just the sinkin’ sound/of something righteous goin’ under?"

"Girls In Their Summer Clothes" might feel like a typical Springsteen banger on first listen, but there is a serious melancholy evident in the lyrics, when the "girls in their summer clothes pass me by." Roy Bittan’s piano eases the listener into "I’ll Work For Your Love," which soon explodes when Springsteen sings about the way in which "our city of peace has crumbled/our book of faith’s been tossed."

"Last To Die" maybe be the most overtly political song on the disc, on which Springsteen’s anger with the lies that took the United States to war in Iraq and the needless blood shed by U.S. soldiers. "Who’ll be the last to die for a mistake" Springsteen asks. "Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break/who’ll be the last to die, for a mistake."

"Long Walk Home," an instant classic performed by Springsteen on 2006’s Seeger Sessions tour, is the antithesis of Born In the U.S.A.’s "My Hometown." "In town I passed Sal’s grocery/the barbershop on South Street/I looked into their faces/they were all rank strangers to me/the veteran’s hall high up on the hill/stood silent and alone/the diner was shuttered and boarded/with a sign that just said ’gone.’" The country faces a long walk home. When you torture and kill in the name of a war that should never have been, you lose part of your soul and it appears that this is one of the messages that Springsteen is attempting to convey.

The disc’s closer is a hidden track, "Terry’s Song," a tribute to Terry Magovern, a longtime friend and mentor to Springsteen, who passed away July 30. It is a stirring, simple-yet-elegant, piano-and-acoustic-guitar eulogy that gives the disc a sense of closure, and appropriately (and unfortunately) amplifies the feelings of loss and despair that propel this disc.

That Springsteen can make a collection of songs sound both anthemic and mournful at the same time is a tribute to his talents. While other artists of his generation have long ago grown complacent with releasing yet another collection of their greatest hits, Springsteen continues to take chances and continues to elevate his game. Magic is not Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s best album, but it is a magnificent and harrowing snapshot of where we are, as a nation, at the end of 2007.

In much the same way that Born to Run painted a portrait of the artist as a young man, and Nebraska captured the despair of the early 1980s, Magic proves itself necessary and worthy of much praise because, without being too onerous, it is another, necessary, snapshot of the state of the union and a wake-up call for those who don’t realize, as Springsteen himself once said, that "blind faith in your leaders will get you killed."
Technorati Tags: Current Affairs, Music, Politics

THE GOOD OLD-FASHIONED DOWN HOME LYNCHING OF JOHN DONALD IMUS

I have spent the last few days working on a piece about the disgraceful way that Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, CBS Radio, and NBC television came together to end the career of radio legend Don Imus, who was given the death penalty for an admittedly clumsy joke told during 10 seconds of an unscripted four-hour radio show.

Let me be clear. What Don Imus and his producer Bernard McGuirk said was absolutely, unequivocally wrong and there is no justifying his comments.

Over the days, I’ve struggled with the piece because when one looks at all of its many facets, one can write a book about it. In an attempt to boil it down to its most base elements, I will, for now, not comment extensively about the disgraceful behavior shown by Imus’ so-called friends in politics and the media who were shocked, shocked to find that there was gambling in the bar. (Though I will make special mention of Keith Olbermann who I have praised extensively on this site in the past few months. That the same man who has written notes to Imus that began, “Dear Morning Radio Deity,” can turn on him as dramatically as he did, considering that every time he leaves a job, the employees who had to work with him have nothing but bad things to say about the man, puts Olbermann on a special pedestal of hypocrisy.)

Before we begin, it is important to remember several things:

1. The women of Rutgers University’s basketball team carried themselves with grace and dignity and should be commended; however, they are public figures by dint of playing for a national championship. Granted, they did not engender and thus, should not have been subject to the same enmity lobbed by Don Imus at the likes of President Bush or John Kerry. But they are public figures. And, as someone who covered sporting events for many years, and has been in locker rooms of both male and female athletes of all colors, races, and creeds, it is not a stretch to believe that many of the players on that team - black and white - listen to hardcore rap to pump themselves up before games; rap which contains lyrics that make Don Imus’ statement look tame by comparison.

2. Don Imus is an equal opportunity offender. Could he go over the line at times? Certainly. But that line crossed racial and religious groups of all shapes, colors, and sizes. Why do the Irish not riot in the streets and call for Imus’ head when he brings “Cardinal Egan” on to give his sermon of faith and devotion? Simply, because it is a joke. Remember, the Imus in the Morning Program was always advertised as a comedy show.

3. The sports talk hosts who have jumped on the bandwagon to bash Don Imus should be kneeling at his feet and thanking him. Without Imus, they would not have a job. When Imus was brought to WFAN, the station - the first sports station in the country - was struggling mightily. Its advertising base was minimal, there were few listeners, and many believed that the station would fold. Imus’ arrival brought millions of listeners who stuck around after his show and listened to WFAN. The financial success of WFAN encouraged other radio companies to take the chance on an all-sports format.

4. Snoop Dogg needs to shut the hell up. I’ve always liked the guy, but this week, in response to the Imus affair, he said, “It’s a completely different scenario. (Rappers) are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We’re talking about hoes that’s in the ’hood that ain’t doing shit, that’s trying to get a nigga for his money. These are two separate things. First of all, we ain’t no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them muthaf-ckas say we are in the same league as him. Kick him off the air forever.” This comes from a guy who, if he were not a celebrity who gets the benefit of the doubt from starf-cking judges in California should have been in jail a long time ago for his drug use and propensity for driving violations. And Condoleeza Rice also needs to pipe down. She said that she was "glad" that Imus was fired. She is the last person who should talk about firing someone for their actions. At least Don Imus didn’t take this country into an ill-fated war that has cost tens of thousands of lives; a war that was based on faulty information.

Those facts aside - and I will stop with those four because there are about thirty such points that could be made, which would turn this into a book-length piece - the biggest tragedy here is not that Don Imus lost his job - though that will impact negatively the lives of many sick children he and those associated with his show have helped through the years - but rather that when people think about the firing of Don Imus, they will also think about the actions of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who were elevated wrongly to the level of kingmakers in the past week when they should have been ignored for their divisive racial invective.

That Al Sharpton has the power to demand someone’s head for an off-color comment and get his demands met falls just short of criminal because, while Al Sharpton’s official title might be Reverend, he behaves in the exact opposite way in which a man of the cloth would be expected to behave.

The bible teaches forgiveness. Al Sharpton teaches hatred. He doesn’t believe in redemption and, protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, he certainly does not believe in improving the social status of the African-American community. Al Sharpton is, and always has been, worried about one thing: Feeding Al Sharpton’s wallet and ego. He is as much a Reverend as is every Hassidic Jew a rabbi.

Let’s not forget who Al Sharpton is. Al Sharpton is a racist divider and has been for years. He was the man who perpetuated the Tawana Brawley affair. He was the person responsible for inciting the Crown Heights Riots. During his eulogy for Gavin Cato, the child who was killed after being stuck by a car driven by a Hasidic Jew, Sharpton did not preach unity. He did not preach forgiveness. Instead, he said, “Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights. The issue is not anti-Semitism; the issue is apartheid.”

And those with short memories should be reminded that Al Sharpton found himself in front of the cameras in Durham, North Carolina, in April 2006, after an African-American stripper claimed that she was raped by members of the Duke lacrosse team. Ironically, during the same week that Don Imus became a target of Sharpton’s hate squad, the members of the lacrosse team who were charged in the case had all the charges they faced dropped after it was determined that the stripper was lying. Shockingly, Sharpton did not apologize for inciting the African-American community in Durham and turning them against these students. Then again, as Tawana Brawley proved, Sharpton’s track record has proven that he does not apologize when African-American “victims” he supported turn out to be liars.

Joining Rev. Al this week in the fight against Don Imus was another standup man of God, Reverend Jesse Jackson. Jackson has honed his special brand of anti-Semitism and hypocrisy for nearly half a century. During the days of the Nixon administration, Jackson claimed that Richard Nixon was not paying sufficient attention to the problem of poverty in the United States because “four out of five [of Nixon’s top advisors] are German Jews and their priorities are on Europe and Asia” and later said that he was “sick and tired of hearing about the Holocaust.” A decade later, he referred to Jews as “Hymies” and New York City as “Hymietown.”

Age has not made Jackson wiser and it has done nothing to put a dent in his legendary hypocrisy. In 2001, Jackson, who had been married since 1962, admitted to having an affair with a staffer, which resulted in the birth of a baby girl born out of wedlock. Jackson paid the staffer $36,000 for moving expenses and contracting work and $3,000 per month child support out of the coffers of The Rainbow Push Coalition he headed.

While the most troubling aspect of the Imus affair should be the comments Don Imus made (and apologized for) on his radio show. It is that these two racist, anti-Semitic hypocrites are presented as touchstones who have their fingers on the pulse of and who represent the African-American community. Instead of focusing on the behavior of rappers like 50 Cent, who recently was invited to speak at the U.S. Embassy in Angola for an event on H.I.V. and AIDS awareness, and said to a group of young people and their parents, “Have sex, have lots of sex, but have safe sex,” and then had his bodyguards throw hundred-dollar bills into the air as he was leaving, Sharpton and Jackson focused on an easy target - a 66 year-old white male.

It is no surprise that Sharpton and Jackson ignored the rappers in the African-American community who sing about hos and bitches and disrespect women. To point out his inability to impact those who create the misogynistic music would be to advertise his own failures. Amazingly, after hearing of the decision by CBS Radio and NBC to fire Don Imus, Jackson called the firing "a victory for public decency. No one should use the public airwaves to transmit racial or sexual degradation."

Dueling hypocrites Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are very quick to push for the firing of those with whom they disagree. That they do not care about the way the firing will impact not only their target, but also those associated with the target’s business - some of whom are African Americans - is understandable. It’s hard to get fired when you don’t have a real job, and as both Sharpton and Jackson have proven through the years as heads of organizations whose purpose is to line the pockets of its principals, their parasitic existence allows them to avoid the working world.

Through the years on his show, Don Imus promoted African-American candidates like Harold Ford Jr. for the United States Senate, made the Blind Boys of Alabama a household name, introduced millions to the inspiring sermons of the late Bishop G.E. Patterson, played Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech every year on Martin Luther King Day, and raised awareness and money for children - primarily African-American children - suffering from sickle cell anemia. Don Imus has raised tens of millions of dollars for children’s charities over the years. His charitable organizations are widely respected for utilizing a higher percentage of donations for its intended purposes than almost any charity in the country. Neither he nor members of his family make a penny as administrators of the charities.

Yet, Don Imus should be fired, right Rev. Al? By the way, when is the Al Sharpton radiothon for children with sickle cell anemia taking place?

It’s easy to talk the talk. Like him or not, Al Sharpton is charismatic in much the same way P.T. Barnum was. And the Barnum comparison is appropriate because this week, Al Sharpton proved that there’s a sucker born every minute.

I don’t believe for a second that the firing of Don Imus will lead to improved race relations in this country in much the same way that the O.J. Simpson verdict and the Rodney King trial divided people along racial lines; however, Sharpton and Jackson should be pleased because controversy will bring funds into their organizations and Rev. Al will be able to buy another bespoke suit.

It is time for the people of this country to stand up and revolt against this blatant racism and hypocrisy. I realize that when these sentiments come from a 34-year-old white male, some will be quick to point out that it’s easy for me to say. While I am a 34-year-old white male, I am also Jewish, and when I was 13 years old, my left leg was broken in two places as a result of anti-Semitism. I was attacked because I was a Jew and when the rabbi of the congregation I attended at the time came to me and asked permission to speak about what happened to me in his upcoming weekly sermon, I implored him not to do so because I worried that doing so would inflame the vocal members of my congregation.

He did not accede to my wishes and did speak to the congregation about what happened to me. The next week, I got many calls from well-wishers who were, rightfully, upset. And yet, despite being upset, they were no riots in Lakewood, because, I later found out, my rabbi preached forgiveness that week. He told the congregation that I wanted to forgive my attackers, which was true, and he agreed that that was the proper thing, the Jewish thing, to do, saying that violence only begets violence and hatred only begets hatred

The point is simple. There are wonderful spiritual and cultural leaders in the African-American community, in the Caucasian community, in the Asian community, in the gay community, and in the communities of spiritual and cultural groups all across this country, who work every day to better their followers; who work every day to spread the message of peace, of tolerance, of love, of understand, and, most importantly, of forgiveness. It is those people who should be at the forefront when people like Don Imus say things that are offensive and wrong.

It is those people whose voices should be heard preaching forgiveness and unity. Unfortunately, this week, the voices that were heard the loudest, and the voices that had the most impact came from hate mongers who are no better or more socially responsible than Nazis or Ku Klux Klansmen were. When voices of racism, of hate, and of divisiveness are heard above all others and are legitimized by actions like those taken against Don Imus by NBC and CBS radio, our country is in serious trouble and it makes me sad to think that I, like approximately 75% of the hundreds of thousands of people who responded to (admittedly unscientific) polls will not be able to listen to the Imus in the Morning program because a vocal, hypocritical pair of “leaders” overwhelmed the will of the majority by making threats that were nothing more than financial terrorism and blackmail.

Technorati Tags: Current Affairs, Hypocrites, Politics, Religion

PRAVDA'S TAKE ON THE DON IMUS FIRING

Before I post my take on the Don Imus firing, I had to pass along this piece from Pravda, entitled "American radio icon Don Imus disgraced, fired after threat to reveal 9/11 secrets."

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Technorati Tags: Current Affairs, Politics, Religion

KEITH OLBERMANN: A TEXTBOOK DEFINITION OF COWARDICE

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann continues to blister the airwaves with his commentaries. There might not be a better writer working in any newspaper today. The guy's a genius. One can only hope that he does not get fired or taken out by a Bill O'Reilly-loving nutcase. Like I wrote last time, this guy is a patriot.

Here is his latest, A Definition of Cowardice:

The headlines about them are, of course, entirely wrong.

It is not essential that a past president, bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster, finally lashed back. It is not important that the current President’s portable public chorus has described his predecessor’s tone as “crazed.”

Our tone should be crazed. The nation’s freedoms are under assault by an administration whose policies can do us as much damage as al Qaida; the nation’s marketplace of ideas is being poisoned by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would’ve quit.

Nonetheless. The headline is this:

Bill Clinton did what almost none of us have done in five years.

He has spoken the truth about 9/11, and the current presidential administration.

"At least I tried," he said of his own efforts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. "That’s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They had eight months to try; they did not try. I tried."

Thus in his supposed emeritus years has Mr. Clinton taken forceful and triumphant action for honesty, and for us; action as vital and as courageous as any of his presidency; action as startling and as liberating, as any, by any one, in these last five long years.

The Bush Administration did not try to get Osama bin Laden before 9/11.

The Bush Administration ignored all the evidence gathered by its predecessors.

The Bush Administration did not understand the Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S."

The Bush Administration did not try.

Moreover, for the last five years one month and two weeks, the current administration, and in particular the President, has been given the greatest “pass” for incompetence and malfeasance in American history!

President Roosevelt was rightly blamed for ignoring the warning signs—some of them, 17 years old—before Pearl Harbor.

President Hoover was correctly blamed for—if not the Great Depression itself—then the disastrous economic steps he took in the immediate aftermath of the Stock Market Crash.

Even President Lincoln assumed some measure of responsibility for the Civil War—though talk of Southern secession had begun as early as 1832.

But not this president.

To hear him bleat and whine and bully at nearly every opportunity, one would think someone else had been president on September 11^th, 2001 -- or the nearly eight months that preceded it.

That hardly reflects the honesty nor manliness we expect of the executive.

But if his own fitness to serve is of no true concern to him, perhaps we should simply sigh and keep our fingers crossed, until a grown-up takes the job three Januarys from now.

Except for this.

After five years of skirting even the most inarguable of facts—that he was president on 9/11 and he must bear some responsibility for his, and our, unreadiness, Mr. Bush has now moved, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards re-writing history, and attempting to make the responsibility, entirely Mr. Clinton’s.

Of course he is not honest enough to do that directly.

As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him, by proxy.

Thus, the sandbag effort by Fox News Friday afternoon.

Consider the timing: the very weekend the National Intelligence Estimate would be released and show the Iraq war to be the fraudulent failure it is—not a check on terror, but fertilizer for it.

The kind of proof of incompetence, for which the administration and its hyenas at Fox need to find a diversion, in a scapegoat.

It was the kind of cheap trick which would get a journalist fired—but a propagandist, promoted:

Promise to talk of charity and generosity; but instead launch into the lies and distortions with which the Authoritarians among us attack the virtuous and reward the useless.

And don’t even be professional enough to assume the responsibility for the slanders yourself; blame your audience for “e-mailing” you the question.

Mr. Clinton responded as you have seen.

He told the great truth untold about this administration’s negligence, perhaps criminal negligence, about bin Laden.

He was brave.

Then again, Chris Wallace might be braver still. Had I in one moment surrendered all my credibility as a journalist, and been irredeemably humiliated, as was he, I would have gone home and started a new career selling seeds by mail.

The smearing by proxy, of course, did not begin Friday afternoon.

Disney was first to sell-out its corporate reputation, with "The Path to 9/11." Of that company’s crimes against truth one needs to say little. Simply put: someone there enabled an Authoritarian zealot to belch out Mr. Bush’s new and improved history.

The basic plot-line was this: because he was distracted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton failed to prevent 9/11.

The most curious and in some ways the most infuriating aspect of this slapdash theory, is that the Right Wingers who have advocated it—who try to sneak it into our collective consciousness through entertainment, or who sandbag Mr. Clinton with it at news interviews—have simply skipped past its most glaring flaw.

Had it been true that Clinton had been distracted from the hunt for bin Laden in 1998 because of the Monica Lewinsky nonsense, why did these same people not applaud him for having bombed bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan and Sudan on Aug. 20, of that year? For mentioning bin Laden by name as he did so?

That day, Republican Senator Grams of Minnesota invoked the movie "Wag The Dog."

Republican Senator Coats of Indiana questioned Mr. Clinton’s judgment.

Republican Senator Ashcroft of Missouri—the future attorney general—echoed Coats.

Even Republican Senator Arlen Specter questioned the timing.

And of course, were it true Clinton had been “distracted” by the Lewinsky witch-hunt, who on earth conducted the Lewinsky witch-hunt?

Who turned the political discourse of this nation on its head for two years?

Who corrupted the political media?

Who made it impossible for us to even bring back on the air, the counter-terrorism analysts like Dr. Richard Haass, and James Dunegan, who had warned, at this very hour, on this very network, in early 1998, of cells from the Middle East who sought to attack us, here?

Who preempted them in order to strangle us with the trivia that was, “All Monica All The Time”?

Who distracted whom?

This is, of course, where—as is inevitable—Mr. Bush and his henchmen prove not quite as smart as they think they are.

The full responsibility for 9/11 is obviously shared by three administrations, possibly four.

But, Mr. Bush, if you are now trying to convince us by proxy that it’s all about the distractions of 1998 and 1999, then you will have to face a startling fact that your minions may have hidden from you.

The distractions of 1998 and 1999, Mr. Bush, were carefully manufactured, and lovingly executed, not by Bill Clinton, but by the same people who got you elected President.

Thus, instead of some commendable acknowledgment that you were even in office on 9/11 and the lost months before it, we have your sleazy and sloppy rewriting of history, designed by somebody who evidently read the Orwell playbook too quickly.

Thus, instead of some explanation for the inertia of your first eight months in office, we are told that you have kept us "safe" ever since—a statement that might range anywhere from zero, to 100 percent, true.

We have nothing but your word, and your word has long since ceased to mean anything.

And, of course, the one time you have ever given us specifics about what you have kept us safe from, Mr. Bush, you got the name of the supposedly targeted Tower in Los Angeles wrong.

Thus was it left for the previous president to say what so many of us have felt; what so many of us have given you a pass for in the months and even the years after the attack:

You did not try.

You ignored the evidence gathered by your predecessor.

You ignored the evidence gathered by your own people.    

Then, you blamed your predecessor.

That would be a textbook definition, Mr. Bush, of cowardice.

To enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase the truths of the past.

That was one of the great mechanical realities Eric Blair—writing as George Orwell—gave us in the book “1984.”

The great philosophical reality he gave us, Mr. Bush, may sound as familiar to you, as it has lately begun to sound familiar to me.

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power...   

"Power is not a means; it is an end.

"One does not establish a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.

"The object of persecution, is persecution. The object of torture, is torture. The object of power… is power."

Earlier last Friday afternoon, before the Fox ambush, speaking in the far different context of the closing session of his remarkable Global Initiative, Mr. Clinton quoted Abraham Lincoln’s State of the Union address from 1862.

"We must disenthrall ourselves."

Mr. Clinton did not quote the rest of Mr. Lincoln’s sentence.

He might well have.

"We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country."

And so has Mr. Clinton helped us to disenthrall ourselves, and perhaps enabled us, even at this late and bleak date, to save our country.

The "free pass" has been withdrawn, Mr. Bush.

You did not act to prevent 9/11.

We do not know what you have done to prevent another 9/11.

You have failed us—then leveraged that failure, to justify a purposeless war in Iraq which will have, all too soon, claimed more American lives than did 9/11.

You have failed us anew in Afghanistan.

And you have now tried to hide your failures, by blaming your predecessor.

And now you exploit your failure, to rationalize brazen torture which doesn’t work anyway; which only condemns our soldiers to water-boarding; which only humiliates our country further in the world; and which no true American would ever condone, let alone advocate.

And there it is, Mr. Bush:

Are yours the actions of a true American?

KEITH OLBERMANN: AMERICAN PATRIOT

Intelligent commentary and dissent is difficult to find on our national airwaves. There is one show that communicates effectively on a regular basis.

Fewer than 500,000 people watch Keith Olbermann's Countdown on MSNBC on a given night. The reasons are numerous and include:

1. People don't watch news shows like they once did.
2. The people who do watch, tend to watch the lies spewed by the hosts on Fox News.
3. When people think about Olbermann, they think about his irreverent days on ESPN's Sportscenter.
4. People are unfamiliar with the program.

This is unfortunate. The show is consistenly entertaining and the fact that Olbermann has 60 minutes with which to work allows him to tell longer stories. Olbermann clearly writes the show. His voice is clear and biting. His ability as a writer is matched only by his ability to deliver a piece that he writes.

In the past few weeks, Olbermann has used one spot on the countdown to deliver a "special comment." These editorials were lauded in the blogosphere and the contents of the comments were often reposted.

On Monday night (September 11), Olbermann delivered another of these commnentaries and it is his most powerful one yet. For those who did not see it, the following is the transcript and it is worth reading:

And lastly tonight a Special Comment on why we are here. Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space.
      And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.

And all the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and — as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul — two more in the Towers.

       And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.

      I belabor this to emphasize that, for me… this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.
      And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft", or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here — is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante — and at worst, an idiot — whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.
       However. Of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast — of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds… none of us could have predicted… this.

      Five years later this space… is still empty.
       Five years later there is no Memorial to the dead.
      Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.
       Five years later this country’s wound is still open.
       Five years… later this country’s mass grave is still unmarked.

      Five years later… this is still… just a background for a photo-op.
       It is beyond shameful.
       —
      At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial — barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field, Mr. Lincoln said "we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."
       Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.

      Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We can nto dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground." So we won’t.

       Instead they bicker and buck-pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they’re doing — instead of doing any job at all.
       Five years later, Mr. Bush… we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir — on these 16 empty acres, the terrorists… are clearly, still winning.
       And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.
       —
       And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation.
       There is, its symbolism — of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.

      The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it… was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.
       Those who did not belong to his party — tabled that.
       Those who doubted the mechanics of his election — ignored that.
       Those who wondered of his qualifications — forgot that.

       History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government, by its critics.
        It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation’s wounds, but to take political advantage.
       Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.
        The President — and those around him — did that.
       They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused; as appeasers; as those who, in the Vice President’s words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."
        They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken… a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated Al-Qaeda as much as we did.

       The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had ’something to do’ with 9/11, is "lying by implication."

         The impolite phrase, is "impeachable offense."

        Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space… and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.

        Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.
        Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible — for anything — in his own administration.

        Yet what is happening this very night?

        A mini-series, created, influenced — possibly financed by — the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.

         The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.
        How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death… after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections… how dare you or those around you… ever "spin" 9/11.
        —
        Just as the terrorists have succeeded — are still succeeding — as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero…
        So too have they succeeded, and are still succeeding — as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.
        This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from March of 1960. But as Disney’s continuing sell-out of the truth (and this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things.

       And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone" broadcast a riveting episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."
       In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm.

       Suddenly his car — and only his car — starts. Someone suggests he must be the alien. Then another man’s lights go on.

        As charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced.
        An "alien" is shot — but he turns out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help.

       The camera pulls back to a near-by hill, where two extra-terrestrials areseen, manipulating a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there’s no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it’s themselves."

       And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves tonight.
        "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices - to be found only in the minds of men.
        "For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own — for the children, and the children yet unborn."
        —
        When those who dissent are told time and time again — as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus — that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American…
        When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"… look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:
       Who has left this hole in the ground?
       We have not forgotten, Mr. President.
       You have.
       May this country forgive you.
      

Rachel's Take on the President

Raising a kid in today's volatile political environment cannot be easy. (I have a hard enough time keeping my two dachshunds under control.)  Accordingly, I'll be the first to pay tribute to people who prove to have excellent parenting skills.

The most important thing young parents need to do is teach their children that there are bad people and that there is a proper way to react to said bad people.

The movie below is self-explanatory and gets better with repeated viewings. It's safe for work, as long as you're not working in an office full of Republican scum. Just turn up the volume.