Just BecauseThey're Out to Get You Doesn't Mean They're Serious

BDF says:

Hi Ted

Your recent article on TIA left me wondering if you thought the clicks on your phone were the result of wiretapping which could generate information used to harrass you or if you knew that the clicks were the intelligence agencies playing headgames with you. Because bad detective stories say that clicks are the result of wiretapping, and most people seem to believe this, I decided to let you know the facts (which you probably already know anyway).

A click is the result of somebody in your household picking up an extension while you are making a call. A click will also occur if that person puts down the extension before you have finished the call. Both occur because phones (even dect phones and answering machines) derive the power needed to send and receive speech from the phone line itself.

If the other extension is kept open then your conversation will sound "echoey" or "boomy" or "hollow." This is because phones are rather primitive technology. They contain circuitry (a transformer) which prevents your own speech into the transmitter deafening you at the receiver. It works, as long as your phone is the only one in the household on line. As soon as somebody picks up an extension, the noise-cancelling circuitry (the transformers) interact to give the hollow sound.

If somebody is listening at another extension and you finish your call before they replace the handset, when they do replace the handset the bell on your phone, and on any other extensions, will tinkle. In some countries (such as the UK), phones and extension wiring incorporate "anti-tinkle" circuitry to prevent this happening; US phones have no such circuitry.

You will also get clicks if a lineman is checking your line. What they use for simple testing is essentially a ruggedized phone with alligator clips instead of a jack so they can clip it to the line. It has the same effect when attached and detached as somebody in your household picking up an extension.

Even back in the days where wiretaps were conducted using a tape recorder in the exchange or clipped to the line between the exchange and your house you would not hear any clicking. They were powered from the mains or a battery and used an amplifier. The amplifier has a far higher input impedance than a phone so draws no appreciable current from the line and
therefore does not cause any clicks. Even with a very low input impedance, the amplifier would only cause a click when it was initially attached and later when it was eventually removed.

These days, with digital exchanges, and FBI-mandated monitoring facilities, there is absolutely no chance of a click. It's a digital copy taken from the exchange and shunted to wherever. There is no audible indication whatsoever that this is happening.

Another possibility is that you're the victim of somebody trying to get free calls using your line. In the UK this is known as "green boxing" since the favourite place to cross-wire lines is in the green- painted British Telecom street cabinets. But if you're in an apartment building, then the box in the basement would be another possibility. Check your phone bill!

If you're hearing cyclic clicks then there are two possibilities. One is a genuine exchange fault which means that the clocks on the ISDN link between that exchange and the next one are out of synch. This can manifest itself as a regular click, and the interval between clicks allows you to estimate the difference in clock timing. The second possibility is that the intelligence agencies are playing headgames with you. They want you to believe that your phone is being tapped so that you curtail your activities and get paranoid.

So your cyclic clicks are either somebody stealing the use of your phone line, a genuine exchange fault, or the intelligence agencies playing headgames with you. Given the guy in your basement, the first and last are the most likely of those options. Take your pick.

I wouldn't be surprised if those nimrods were trying to gaslight me. I guess they haven't read much about me if that's the case. They certainly aren't having the time of their life listening to my boring phone calls, believe me.

Phone bill checks out normally.

TIA Pets

DZ claims:

Although supposedly killed by Congress more than 18 months ago, the Defense Advance Project Research Agency’s Terrorist Information Awareness (TIA) system, formerly called the “Total Information Awareness” program, is alive and well and collecting data in real time on Americans at a computer center located at 3801 Fairfax Drive in Arlington, Virginia.

The system, set up by retired admiral John Poindexter, once convicted of lying to Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal, compiles financial, travel and other data on the day-to-day activities of Americans and then runs that data through a computer model to look for patterns that the agency deems “terrorist-related behavior.”

Poindexter admits the program was quietly moved into the Pentagon’s “black bag” program where it does escapes Congressional oversight.

Attention: I am not a Democratic strategist

While I obviously have a point of of view, five years of being appalled by the folly and criminal behavior of the Bush regime have apparently obscured the fact that I was disgusted by the Democratic Party before Bush came along. Hell, they've only slid further into wussy oblivion since he did. So it's important to understand, while you read my cartoons, that my job is to point out stupidity and oddity wherever I encounter it, including on what passes for the American left. Glenn writes:

On one level, I found today's cartoon very amusing, as I can almost see the political parties actually rushing to get more injured military vets to run for office. Then, I thought that your deeper point was that it was either wrong or a mistake for the Democratic Party to run former military personnel for office. If I interpret your body of work correctly, you seem to be a 'purist,' in that you would rather lose an election 'on message' than win by either compromising on your ideal positions or by changing messengers to gain votes. I believe that, if the republic has any chance left, at least one House of Congress must change hands in the next election. To that end, I submit that anything that works is good.

In a sense, that brings me to a larger question I have had. How do you propose to win elections in this country when you write off such large numbers of voters? I take it for granted that about 35% of the people nationwide will vote for any Republican, and about an equal number will vote for any Democrat. That leaves about 30% who are swing voters. In your work, though, you have written off the entire southeast USA, and the military as well. I don't see how that is a winning strategy.

I know you can't respond to this email personally, but in a future column, I would be fascinated to see what you would do if you were, say, head of the DNC or in a similar position. How would you have candidates campaign, what would you have for a platform, and so forth.

What you've written is essentially a summary of the thinking of the "centrist" Democratic Leadership Council founded by Clinton, which has led the party to defeat after defeat--even when, as under Clinton, they won. They compromised so much that they ended up with nothing. As for this cartoon, I was merely pointing out how cheesy it was to pick candidates based on their heart-tugging wounded war vet potential. (Of course, there's nothing new here. Ask Bob Dole. But still.)

Anyone who wonders what I would do if I were in charge of the Democratic Party has only to read my book "Wake Up, You're Liberal!" It even includes a sample party platform.

Is There Anything?

Don writes:

Generalissimo El Busho has publicly confessed to violating FISA, and says he will continue to do so. Is there *anything* he could do which would get him impeached? Anything at all? I'm assuming he could walk over to the Senate and beat Robert Byrd to death with a 9-iron and call it part of the War on Terra. PS - Hi Mr Gonzales! I'll be headed up to the lake today, but you already knew that, didn't you?

Yes he did. He had a great time just watching. As for whether there's anything Bush could do to get his disgusting illegitimate ass impeached, well, I suspect we'll find out sometime early in the new year. Even some Republicans are remembering their high school civics these days, thanks to the NSA.

ELF = Public Enemy No. 1

FOR Bill writes:

Another sign of our government targeting liberal groups is the fact that the FBI lists E.L.F [Earth Liberation Front] as the number one domestic terrorist group despite the fact that their biggest crimes have been large destruction
of property(Not that I support their methods.) Wouldn't these groups of abortion clinic bombers or right wing militia groups that brought us the Oklahoma City bombing be more of a threat?

Actually, the Republican Party is the number one domestic terror organization. Besides, ELF isn't a group--it's an idea. Adherents inspired by the notion that defending the planet from rapacious developers and other enemies of the environment like SUV dealers take it upon themselves to take whatever actions they deem appropriate in their areas. Chasing ELF is chasing wind. Ecoterrorism will only disappear when their cause does--and frankly, we should all be wishing for the environment to get better. I don't lose any sleep over charred SUVs.

Spoke Too Soon

So there are still a few right-wingers flopping about. Here's an old school death threat, sent in at 2:29 am by one hgroup@charter.net:

i was surfing, came across u, surprised you're still breathing. one day my friend...swimming with the fishies.

Ted Rall Radio Show Back 1/8/06

Well, that's pretty much it. With a little luck we'll have Podcasting and livestreaming for Macs up and running by then.

Randy writes:

First of all, I should say how much I've enjoyed, not only your articles that appear in "My Yahoo" about every week, but your book on your travail through Afghanistan. I've been wanting to write at least that much for some time.
What caused me to write this time, however, was todays piece on the NSA. Do you really think that someone was tapping your line from the box? Do you really hear those 'clicks'? I have in the past, so now I'm all spooked.
I should say that for the first time in my life I actually think of and am concerned about the state of affairs in this what USED to be called UNITED States. It actually affects my day, and I don't remember any period before (although I'm only 35) that has made me feel that 'pit'... similar to a breakup you know is coming, but you never know when.
Signed,
A fellow Bush basher
PS- How much hate mail do you actually receive? Those neo-cons are angry SOBs

Wanna be really spooked? Google "Echelon" and "National Security Agency." The NSA has been intercepting every single phone call, email, wire transfer and fax transmission in most of the industrialized world for years--and that's according to a former NSA director. They absolutely are reading and listening to you. It isn't even debatable. THe question is why we put up with it. After all, we're paying for it.

The hate mail has slowed to a trickle. Seems a lot of the hardcore right-wing Bushies are hiding in their beds now that everything's falling apart for them. Some may even have changed their minds, but who cares? The bastards will be just as stupid and mean the next time one of their regimes comes into power.

NSA Puts Cookies on Computers

Thanks to several Friends of Rall for pointing me to the news that I undoubtedly now have National Security Agency cookies on my computer. It's not that big a deal in the greater scheme of things--see my column this week for what constitutes a big deal--but still worth noting. What assholes.

Pentagon's Fictional Afghan Pay Phones

An anonymous soldier writes:

When General Hayden said that someone in Afghanistan used a pay phone, he did not lie. He merely did not explain what was used.

You're right about there being no fixed line infrastructure. However, Afghanistan did have Thuraya coverage in 2001. You can buy a Thuraya calling card just like you can for any other phone, and just like a normal pay phone, you can set a static location and charge fees. Yet there are two big differences. One and foremost is the cost. It's an expensive service. The second difference is rather than going through a PSTN, it is sent via sat. link. Or it could have been a HPCP. To a journalist who knows nothing of telecommunications, mentioning Thuraya or HPCP would require an explanation, and why explain when you can merely say "Pay phone" because that is what it was?

And, from my quick search, Afghanistan had no fiber. So every bit of communication would be radio wave based.

Thuraya phones receive spotty coverage in Afghanistan; they're particularly good for travel around the Persian Gulf and Middle East. When they do function in Afghanistan, they are satellite phones. And while it is theoretically possible to purchase calling cards for a Thuraya phone and switch the cards around, it is extremely unlikely that anyone in Afghanistan would do so for one simple reason--there's no place there to purchase them.

More to the point, Americans--the audience to which the General was presumably addressing himself--think of "pay phones" as a fixed phone that takes coins or calling card. That's what the New York Times assumed, but that's not what was in Afghanistan in 2001--or, for that matter, now. Thuraya phones are mobile, portable satellite phones.

Inventing your own vocabulary isn't acceptable. It is a lie. And that's giving the guy the benefit of the doubt.

Afghan Pay Phones?!?

Today's New York Times includes a factual error of stupidity. In a piece about the National Security Agency and its post-9/11 domestic surveillance programs, James Bamford writes, without irony, that Afghanistan had pay phones in 2001:

According to an interview last year with Gen. Michael V. Hayden, then the N.S.A.'s director, intercepting calls during the war on terrorism has become a much more complex endeavor. On Sept. 10, 2001, for example, the N.S.A. intercepted two messages. The first warned, "The match begins tomorrow," and the second said, "Tomorrow is zero hour." But even though they came from suspected Al Qaeda locations in Afghanistan, the messages were never translated until after the attack on Sept. 11, and not distributed until Sept. 12.
What made the intercepts particularly difficult, General Hayden said, was that they were not "targeted" but intercepted randomly from Afghan pay phones.
This makes identification of the caller extremely difficult and slow. "Know how many international calls are made out of Afghanistan on a given day? Thousands," General Hayden said.

With all due respect, Hayden is a goddamned fucking liar. And, with more due respect, since Bamford is too stupid to see through his lies, the New York Times ought to employ at least one editor smart enough to recognize them.

Afghanistan did not have a single pay phone in 2001, at the end of the Taliban regime. It did not have a standard land-based telephone system. Electricity was virtually non-existent, with the exception of scattered impromptu electrical grids set up in some neighborhoods in some cities by regional warlords. In fact, according to the Afghan government's ministry of communication, which is still trying to get them installed, there are still no pay phones in the entire country. Anyone who wanted to place a call from Afghanistan did it, as I did in the fall of 2001, via satellite phone. And satellite phones have, for the most part, unique users. They are easy to trace and, because they use radio waves, are not even illegal to intercept.

Of course, this is the same paper that once ran a half-page feature on the strategic importance of Kyrgyzstan because of its "border with Afghanistan." Trouble is, there is no such border. The two countries are separated by the nation of Tajikistan. When I wrote the paper to point out that they might invest in a globe, a one-inch correction appeared amid a myriad of others.

2006 Ted Rall Subscription Service

It's that time of the year again! Once again I'm offering you the chance to join the exclusive group of Americans who get my cartoons, columns and exclusive non-syndicated content delivered directly to their email boxes--a day, and often several days, before they appear anywhere on the Internet. Subscribers receive my work with the ink still wet, and without the inconvenience of meandering through websites that may or may not be working properly at the time. It's also a chance to show your support for a commentator who never shies away from controversy or uncomfortable truths during difficult times.

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Thanks and Happy Holidays!

No Show

George W. Bush's minions may take joy in but one bit of news: The Ted Rall Show will not air Sunday, December 25 or Sunday, January 1 because 106.9 FM San Francisco will be shut down for the holidays. The bad news for them: I'll be back on Sunday, January 8, at a new time: 9 am to 12 noon local (West Coast) time.

Broadcast Delay

A thunderstorm in San Francisco has knocked out power to KIFR-FM, thus marking the first time God has knocked The Ted Rall Show off the air. I'm standing by waiting for the good men and women of Pacific Gas & Electric to bring the station's transmitter back on the air. As soon as power is restored (if before 2 pm West Coast time), the Ted Rall Show will begin at 106.9 FM, or online at 1069freefm.com.

Also: Mac users report problems livestreaming the station, whereas PC users are currently having no problem. Technicians are working on it.

Thanks for your patience!

The Ted Rall Show

Tomorrow on the Ted Rall radio show:

A California high school student is accused of murdering his father because he was afraid to tell him about low grades. How parents can avoid getting jacked up by their own kid.

Another week, another right-wing pundit discovered to be on the take. Are there any conservatives who actually believe that shit?

1 out of 20 Americans is functionally illiterate. That few?

Republicans in crisis: No torture, no Patriot Act and now: Bush admits spying on innocent ordinary Americans. It's impeachment watch!

On Cartoonists Roundtable: Joel Pett and soon-to-be dismissed Baltimore Sun cartoonist KAL

Plus Stan Watch - breaking news from Central Asia.

More on Veterans Who Were Spat Upon

Carl, a Vietnam veteran from the bad days of '67, writes:

Even though an entire book has been written about the alleged spitting on returning Veterans of the Vietnam War to debunk most of the stories, I still read stories from alleged Veterans who insist they experienced the 'classic' spitting event at an airport together with beating the living crap out of the alleged long-haired hippies.
John Kass of the Chicago Tribune quoted a Chicago restaurant owner, another Vietnam Veteran, with the same, tired story. I told Kass in an e-mail the same thing I'm repeating to you: one thing happens to one soldier in the military. He tells the story to another soldier. Years later, thousands of Veterans are telling the same story as though every one had the exact same experience. I hate to say this about my fellow Vietnam Veterans (but not the posers out there), but it didn't happen as often as the stories say. Most of this spitting crap began after one of the biggest draft dodgers, Sylvester Stallone, pretended to be a grunt in a movie.
Long-haired hippies are the easiest and favorite target of Veterans, but we should be targeting the real bad guys, the lying presidents and congressmen who allowed wars to be started based on a lie. The hippies and freaks don't have any power to start wars, and little to stop them. Just look at George W. Bush's recent performance when he said he had "some extra time to answer questions" from an audience that wasn't 'prepared.' Bush "didn't hear" one question, claimed he truly didn't hear the question, then guessed "more or less" 30,000 Iraqis died since we invaded their country. Bush's performance that day puts the finishing touch on the truth that he is without a doubt, the dumbest muther fukker since time began, and the luckiest. What sinister force allows someone so incompetent to remain in the White House as he kills over and over and over without as much as a baby's fart of concern? America HAS to be doomed when it allows a war criminal of Bush's magnitude to stay in power.

Nicely said.

I'm a Gester

tshavel@kldlabs.com writes:

Why is liberal America in disarray ? Nobody has to buy your silly book to answer this question, it answers itself - the American liberals are in disarray, because they are liberals. The overwhelming majority of this country, including the left - finds your cartoons despicable. You wonder why being a liberal is a bad thing nowadays - just look at your cartoons. People like yourself, are responsible for giving liberals a bad name. You, and your ilk are the reason for the failure of your delusional agenda. Nobody agrees with you and your ilk - you are totally out of touch with mainstream America, both the right and the left. Even my hardcore liberal colleagues, reject your pathetic cartoons. Youre delusional if you think the majority of the left, accepts those sketches. You are rejected, by both the left and the right. Youre a fool, akin to something like a Court Gester.

I may be a "gester"--gesticulator?--but at least I read the news. Bush's polls are in the toilet, the Senate threw out the Patriot Act, Republicans are revolting against Cheney's go-go torture policies and now they're being forced to admit that they're spying on ordinary Americans. Liberal America in disarray? Maybe. But, at this point, does it matter?

Manufactured Soldiers' Letters?

Henway wants to know:

Ted, I didn't send you a link because you'd delete it for fear of virus, but here's the story in a nutshell: A local SF Bay Area boy named Ryan was quoted in Bush's speech the other day. The Fuehrer stated the boy wrote home to his family "I've seen evidence of the cowardice and ruthlessness of the enemy," then goes on to say "the insurgents must be systematically killed or captured." Shortly after Ryan was killed in Iraq, his parents allegedly received this letter, which somehow made a bee-line to Bush's teleprompter.

Gosh, whatever happened to "Hi Mom & Pop, I am taking my vitamins,
don't forget to bathe Fluffy, how is Aunt Frieda?" I don't buy this letter for a second, and I asked the article's writer, who works for The SF Chronicle,
if he could verify it, which seems like something cut and pasted from the Lincoln Group, and of course I got no answer. Aside from the usual lying, is this not the ultimate pissing on an innocent's grave? What, besides seething, can be done about this?

Short answer: I don't know. Medium answer: Since Bush and his minions lie as the day is long, it's hardly conspiratorial to imagine that this is fakery. Longer one: There's lots of evidence that the Bush Administration has falsified correspondence from soldiers fighting at the front in Iraq. This could be another example. Or not. Still, the fact that people have to ask this question is pretty sad.

Pretty Much Says It All

Jason writes stuff I just haven't seen anywhere else:

Dear Ted,
I'm a big fan, read your articles and comics, blah blah blah, hehe. I just wanted to drop you a quick note in response partially to your last article about "support the troops not the war" slogan, or whatever it is. Personally have served in the military and even in Iraq I would prefer supporting the troops and not the war to not supporting either one. Life is hard over there, it is very difficult to be isolated from family and friends, and the support of my family and friends helped me endure some very difficult times. I realise that the slogan is somewhat of a fallacy. It is true that without troops the war wouldnt be fought, so by just supporting the troops does in fact support the war.
I thought long and hard before I went to Iraq, not because of cowardace, but I like you thought the war was illegitimate, with no declaration of war, false, because I knew all the rhetoric from Bush was crap, and most importantly I thought the civil war after the regime change would be consuming long and arduous. It is true that I voluntarily joined, but after you say yes as a free person your not free till the contract has ended, I think endutured slavedom is a good mental picture of the US military. Most importantly tho was that I like many others dont just have myself to think about, its hard to take your wife and baby of 12 months on a journey to Canada. Not to mention as messed up as this country is, I love it and desertion to Canada didnt seem the best option, not to mention its pretty fuckin cold up there.
The issue of a lawfull order stuff is a bunch of crap too. Existing in the military is existing in mediocrity. To survive in the military you have to not make waves, do as your told, and basically not be creative for your entire stint. Saying to your Captain or Gunny in combat "I dont think thats a lawfull order" will definitely get you court martialled, might get you beat up, or worse might get you killed. That law looks great on paper and is great for civilians and generals to wave around, but the legitimacy of not having to obey an unlawfull order is pure fiction.
I hated the idea of going to Iraq, but the casualness you portray leaving the military is just false. Walking away from the US service is hard in peace time, worse in war time, and never ever easy, getting progessively harder from a single private fresh from boot camp to Master Guns with 20 years in and 5 kids to feed.
Couple more thoughts before I go. I think a more liberal stance that would help the antiwar movement than "support the troops not the war" would be to portray the deaths of kids for what they really are. There is an american conception that the people who die are soldiers, and who were trained to fight and die. Thats just not true. You know who the soldiers that die over seas are? Kids, they are that kid that sat next to you in Spanish class, the quarterback of the football team, the nerdy
girl in the corner of the library, they're real people. Changing their clothes doesnt change that they will never return to their family or ever start a family of their own. I think the best thing that we can do to stop the war is stop flashing numbers across the screen but pictures of Johny and Jane who they left behind, the high school sweet heart they'll never see again, their high school teachers who thought they would be something great, or their grandparents who have now lost an husband, son, grandson and greatgrandson in every war.

I never meant to suggest that going to Canada would be an easy decision. Just the right one. Still, otherwise, this letter still blows me away upon the third rereading.

So There Were Assholes

Mike points out that there were jerks in the antiwar movement of the Sixties:

Good morning Ted,
I enjoy your editorials and cartoons regularly, and I support your point of view, which very closely represents my own. I'm a 57 year old Marine veteran of Viet Nam, Jan '67 - May '68. War caused my disillusionment of war: murder, torture, and atrocity was not my thing. I joined the Marines to "save America from communism", as the propaganda of the time persuaded us.
Afterward, I marched with Viet Nam Veterans Against the War, carrying the front line banner, reading names of the dead on the state capital steps (in the rain), and I barged into Ronald Reagan's office and laid my Purple Heart Medal on the marbled floor. After all, it was mine to do as I pleased, since I earned it the hard way: shot by a .51 caliber machine gun during operation Pike on my 19th birthday.
It has been my unpopular opinion during this particular illegal American corporo-fascist war, that the military and it's individually content to commit crimes against humanity volunteer soldiers should not be supported. Therefore, I agree
whole-heartedly with your subject editorial. However, Jerry Lembcke and yourself are wrong that it was pure fiction regarding Viet Nam vets being spit on and called baby killers.
During rotation home, I was sitting on a bench in LAX, waiting for my father to pick me up. On either side of me was an Army helicopter pilot and an Air Force airman. Four "long haired, hippie, dope smoking, commie scumbags" walked up and confronted us boisterously, the mouthpiece wearing a dress blue Marine jacket with ribbons affixed. He began by spitting at our feet, calling us baby killers, and hurling epithets. I was anti-war then and embarrassed by their misguided attack.
The Army Warrant Officer and I exchanged a knowing look and stood to confront the punks, whom immediately withdrew in fear, I'm sure. We followed them to the baggage area. which was empty at that time of night, and began to issue them
some good 'ol article 69 justice. A security officer broke up the melee, sent us on our way with a supportive smile, and ushered the young miscreants off.
I'm not proud of a few things I've done in this tough 'ol life, but that's one memory I savor, even when I let my freak flag fly. Keep the faith, I appreciate your effort.

For the record, Mike was right to kick those jerks' asses. For this may surprise you, dear reader, but I would even be polite to Dear Leader. Even if he is a genocidal maniac, there's no reason to be rude.

Support the Soldiers, Not the War?

Some amazingly interesting and enlightening mail came in this week as the result of my column last week, in which I questioned the current assumption among progressives that soldiers should not be considered responsible for enlisting and serving under an unelected dictator while fighting a war of aggression. Here's one from Andy:

to: chet@rall.com

I've calmed down now, but I want you to read this anyway, as I wrote it.

Dear Ted,

Your piece on encouraging military desertion upset me greatly because it reveals a lack of understanding. Every last one of those soldiers is already dead. They died the moment they naively signed on that line believing they were doing the right thing. You don't need peace protesters spitting at you for your soul to begin dying. First come the dreams. Then come the startle reactions, and you realise that the big brave man you once were has gone the day you find yourself curled up in a ball crying like a baby because a firework went off, or you caught the smell of diesel in the air. You get time to think it through in peace as you sit in jail after you nearly killed some poor fool who bumped you in the street, and you come to love the solitude and protection of jail because it is an institution whos simple rules of power you understand. When you return your family are overjoyed to see you alive, they don't know you are walking dead. Over time your wife will learn to cover the bruises and live with broken bones because she doesn't want to turn you in, but in the end she will leave you to protect her children whos lives have already started to descend into neurosis, depression and underachievement. But you thank God if your wife was pregnant before you left, because now your sperm, like your lungs, kidneys and liver is speckled with blood and burns like fire with the DU dust slowly eating your body away. If she left because you couldn't have sex anymore she doesn't realise how lucky she was to escape the slow burning death herself, or to push your legless deformed living abortions about in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Then you start to realise how they were the lucky ones who died quickly in action. So now you wander the streets and sleep in an alley, unemployed, unable to get medical treatment. Nobody told you before you went that you can never erase or forget those images and thoughts. If the alcohol doesn't finish you off then the dope or the heroin or the lobotomising tranquilisers, or maybe a bullet to the head from your own pistol will.

Ted, I'm sure you are a very warm and human person, that your intentions are good. I can see that in your cartoons and other writings, and don't think your own bravery in standing up and speaking out is lost on me. But you clearly do not speak with the sensitivity that experience would have given you. You quote Hollywood films apparently oblivious that their sick, violent culture of lies and hypocrisy is part of the propaganda problem. I think you don't understand war, the pressures that make the "right thing to do" to stay beside your brothers and endure duty and sacrifice for what you were told is right by those you trust and respect, even though there is a gun at your back as well as in front of you. Since you have a platform to speak and much to say may I humbly suggest you direct your words against the lying, treasonous bastards who send the innocent to kill the innocent for nothing more noble than dirty profits.
Perhaps I'm wrong about you, but you should realise this phoney war has made cowards of us all. These chaps don't have the same choices, the same degree of free will that we have sitting here pontificating and rubbing our beards. Most come from the poorest backgrounds, for them service is an escape not an adventure, a chance to feel good about something for once. They fall into the hands of the smartest manipulators, psychologists who know how to unleash the evil in a man, but not smart enough to put the genie back into the bottle. All very sad.
On quite another subject, have you ever heard of the artist Banksy who comes from my home town in England? He is a genius. Something tells me you would very much like him.

I do understand that most enlistees don't possess the experience or sophistication to see past their recruiter's slick sales pitch (see the world! bomb it!). That's why I think the armed forces shouldn't be permitted to enroll anyone under age 30. Wanna bet what that would do to our leaders' plans to fight more optional wars, just for fun and profit?
I'll check out Banksy.

ATTITUDE 3 Lineup Announced

ATTITUDE 3: THE NEW SUBVERSIVE ONLINE CARTOONISTS, due out in June 2006, will feature the work of 21 cartoonists who are moving from the world of print into the Internet to produce some of the funniest, outrageous and innovative comics around.

In keeping with the format of the first two volumes in the ATTITUDE series of comics anthologies, ATTITUDE 3 includes cartoons by, interviews with and personal ephemera (like childhood photos) of each creator. Featured are innovative artists who focus on politics, others on social commentary and still more who are out to make you laugh. Find out why webcomics are the hottest new comics around through this primer to some of the medium's brightest talents!

The featured cartoonists are:

1. Rob Balder: Partially Clips
2. Dale Beran and David Hellman: A Lesson is Learned But the Damage is Irreversible
3. Matt Bors: Idiot Box
4. Steven L. Cloud: Boy on a Stick and Slither
5. M.e. Cohen: HumorInk
6. Chris Dlugosz: Pixel
7. Thomas K. Dye: Newshounds
8. Mark Fiore: Fiore Animated Cartoons
9. Dorothy Gambrell : Cat and Girl
10. Nicholas Gurewitch: The Perry Bible Fellowship
11. Brian McFadden: Big Fat Whale
12. Eric Millikin: Fetus-X
13. Ryan North: Daily Dinosaur Comics
14. August J. Pollak: XQUZYPHYR & Overboard
15. Mark Poutenis: Thinking Ape Blues
16. Jason Pultz: Comic Strip
17. Adam Rust: Adam's Rust
18. D.C. Simpson: I Drew This & Ozy and Millie
19. Ben Smith: Fighting Words
20. Richard Stevens: Diesel Sweetie
21. Michael Zole: Death to the Extremist

Coming in a few weeks: pre-order information as well as a special offer for those who order multiple copies in advance.

Tomorrow on the Ted Rall Show

First and foremost: livestreaming! That's right--now you can listen to the Ted Rall Show online, live, from 11 am to 2 pm Pacific Standard Time every Sunday!

And, if you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, tune in live at 106.9 Free FM.

Up first at 11 am: the case of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the man sent by "rendition" to Egypt for torture and then, under torture, told the CIA that ties between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Al Qaeda included WMD training. Then--surprise!--once the torture stopped, al-Libi recanted his story, saying he had just told them whatever they wanted to hear to make them stop. This story ties everything together: renditions, torture and lies about prewar intelligence.

At 12 noon: can we forgive people who voted for Bush?

[NEW: Richard Pryor is dead. Assuming we can beep out all the cursing, I'm going to try to do a Richard Pryor homage hour tomorrow.]

1 pm features the Cartoonists Roundtable dishing on the industry and the week's news. This week: Matt Bors ("Idiot Box") and Jen Sorensen (Slowpoke).

See you tomorrow!

"Baby Killers!" Did the "Rambo" Taunt Really Happen?

In my column this week I mentioned a 1998 book by Jerry Lembcke, "The Spitting Image," which asserts that there was no published evidence that returning Vietnam vets were ever called "baby killers" or spat upon by antiwar protesters. Joe Hotchkiss of the Augusta (GA) Chronicle wrote in response:

Your most recent column included this sentence (emphasis added):
By the way, as Jerry Lembcke found in his book "The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam" (1998), there's no reason for antiwar types to feel guilty over the treatment of Vietnam vets--there's no evidence of any kind that anyone ever spat on a Vietnam veteran or called one a "baby killer."
Not according to nationally syndicated columnist John Chamberlain, who wrote in 1970 about Marine Corps Maj. Richard H. Esau, and the scorn heaped upon him by college-age protesters: “The major gets tired of being taunted with such questions as ‘How many babies have you killed?’ … His answer to the baby killer taunt is, ‘If I don’t kill you, I haven’t killed any.’” (May 26, 1970, The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle). What are the odds that Chamberlain managed to find the only member of the entire U.S. military who had been taunted as a baby killer? There obviously had to have been more.
Soldiers nationwide clearly were branded baby killers by Vietnam-era protesters and others, likely in the wake of the revelations that sprung from the My Lai massacre court-martial. Rock musician Frank Zappa wrote in his autobiography that, during one of his shows at New York’s old Garrick Theater around 1970, he called a young soldier onto the stage, and threw him a prop they used in the show, some sort of doll. Zappa then told the soldier to pretend it was a “gook baby,” upon which the soldier made a sick comical show of stomping on it. (The Real Frank Zappa Book, 1989) Not only were the baby-killer taunts happening back then, they were clearly part of the popular culture (or counterculture, if you want to look at it that way).
Also, in September 1983, Dr. Jack R. Ewalt said plainly, in a newspaper interview, that traumatized Vietnam War veterans were attacked stateside as “baby killers, women killers, the kids that lost the war.” (Chronicle, Sept. 7, 1983) Ewalt was the director of mental health and behavioral sciences in the Department of Medicine and Surgery at the U.S. Veterans Administration, and presumably not someone who just got through watching a screening of First Blood.
And Jerry Lembcke says there’s no evidence of soldiers being called baby killers?

Neither the Zappa anecdote nor Dr. Ewalt's 1983 newspaper interview did much to change my conclusion that Lembcke was right. After all, Zappa's memoirs were written in 1989, seven years after the release of the myth-making 1982 film "Rambo: First Blood." He might have "misremembered." And even if Zappa's memory was flawless, the story he tells hardly is the same thing as a returning vet being screamed at or spat upon. And the 1983 Ewalt piece came a year after "First Blood"—while he may not have seen the movie (well, why not?) he certainly could have been affected by the Reagan-era historical revisionism then in full swing that sought to recast the Vietnam War as a noble endeavor that might have succeeded if the troops had been properly supported back at home.

The Chamberlain story, however, was a different matter, potentially disproving Lembcke's thesis. So I asked him to dig it out of the Chronicle archives. Here it is, and thanks to Mr. Hotchkiss for sending it:



Unfortunately this clipping hardly dispatches Lembcke's work to the trash heap of history. As I wrote to Mr. Hotchkiss upon reading it:

Dear Joe,
Thanks for sending the page with the Chamberlain column, which 'll reference on my blog. I don't think being asked "How many babies did you kill?" is quite on par with being spat upon and having "baby killer!" yelled at you, though. Yes, there's a linguistic similarity and the subject is the same--which is why it's worth noting--but it's really not the same thing as the post-Rambo myth. It's like the right-wing hate mail I receive: If someone asks, "Why are you a traitor?" and awaits my response, that's hardly the same thing as screaming "Traitor!" and spitting on me.

So that remains, well, unsettled. The rest of the editorial page on which Chamberlain's piece ran back in the dark days of May 1970 includes more evidence that nothing really changes. First there's the fact that "Dlibert" type humor is nothing news:



Then there's David Lawrence's call for expansion of presidential power, so that then-President Nixon would be free to launch new wars, such as the then "secret" invasion of Cambodia, without being required to obtain a declaration of war from Congress. Even back then there were neocons:



And the real humdinger: an editorial cartoon that insults "peace marchers" (at least there were some!) and argues for—yep—the "fly paper" strategy! Gotta beat 'em in 'Nam before they come here to the United States!



Nothing really changes. By the way, the cartoon I did that will go online tomorrow, which mocks the flypaper argument, was drawn more than a week before I saw this.

Postscript: How offensive it must be to the Iraqis and the rest of the world to hear American politicians say that it's OK to fight wars overseas but not here—as if the rest of the world was a sort of Fresh Kills to be crapped all over. I just wonder why they wouldn't hate us.

Information About the Ted Rall Show

My radio station has its website up and running. Check out the Ted Rall show on Sundays, 11 am to 2 pm West Coast time, in San Francisco, at 1069freefm.com. There's also a livestreaming button that should go live any second.

Refusing Isn't Easy

"Bob" (real name kept secret by request because he's in the military) writes:

"Granted, it's a hard decision. But they could have refused to fight in W's illegal wars."
Ted,
That's easy for you to say. To a soldier, the wars were not illegal. He was ordered to go, and he went. It isn't his place to question. If he does, he will slow the mission down and could cause damage to the unit effectiveness. If he were to refuse, he would face some serious punishment. To straight out refuse a deployment would destroy not only his career, but his future civilian life as well. A dishonorable or bad conduct discharge can follow someone around like a felony.

Soldiers are not automatons. They are American citizens and, moreover, subject to U.S. military law, a law that requires soldiers to carefully consider the legality of every order before agreeing to carry it out. The wars are clearly undeclared and clearly illegal. It is true that one's military career would be trashed as the result of refusing. What does this say, one wonders, about our armed forces? After all, as demonstrated in "Hitler's Willing Executioners," even members of the Einsatzgruppen roving death squads in eastern Europe were given permission not to participate in raids and mass arrests of Jews and other enemies of the state. And, as the book's author showed, those who refused--and they were few--were never punished by so much as having been passed over for a promotion. If our system is worse than that, wow. And why would anyone want to remain part of it?

I can't speak for others, but a dishonorable discharge would in no way, shape, or form reduce the chances of my considering someone as a potential employee. I'm sure many other civilians feel the same way.

That is to not even mention the stupid amounts of bravado and misinformation that goes on. And this is in Military Intelligence, who is notorious for being lack. I can only imagine what it's like being in the real Army.
Some of the careerists really do care about the country and the Army. They will do whatever it takes to have a HOOAH military career, be it at expense of life, family, or idea's. It's a damn shame. Soldier's should not have to question their leaders. They should automatically assume that their fight is the good one. However, as can be seen in American history, that is rarely the case.
Which is the true shame.
I say this as a current active duty Soldier. I didn't join to do noble things, kill Iraqis, or preserve freedom. I did join for other reasons, and one of those are my family. It's easy to say I should have gotten a job, or went to college, but the fact is at my age I wasn't able to get a good job, and I couldn't afford college. Keep in mind that when you write things about soldiers in a negative light, the large majority of them could not afford lofty ideas. When I put on my uniform, I'm still a subversive asshole. But when I decide to keep my uniform on, I become someone who was willing to sacrifice a bit of his ideals for
opportunity, college, and his family.

I feel this pain. I remember being 18 years old, coming from a working poor family and growing up in a town with few and unattractive employment prospects, wondering whether I'd ever amount to anything professionally. Fortunately I was a good student and had gotten myself admitted to a good college--but that didn't even help. I majored in engineering, a field I was neither good at and didn't enjoy, and ended up expelled after three years. Not only was I unemployed, I was a college dropout with student loans up the ass.

I did consider a military career--twice. I applied to the US Naval Academy and took the US Army's aptitude test. Man, did the army love me! I take good test. They kept calling and calling and calling...but I didn't go even though they offered me everything from fast-track to officer to a sweet assignment anywhere I wanted. It was 1981, and while America was not at war and Ronald Reagan was not a batshit usurping fuckhead moron like that twat Bush, he was clearly a dangerous, mentally unstable and intellectually inferior leader. Many Americans worried that his posturing would get us into some stupid war. So, because of Reagan, I didn't enlist. Better to be homeless than kill people without cause.

Surely it's an easier decision now.

The Reality of War Bumps Up Against Bumperticker Sloganeering

Andy writes:

Dear Ted,

In September of 2002, as I started my junior year of college I was unfortunate enough to find myself stuck with a U.S. Marine for a roommate.
I'd never felt comfortable around military types. In high school the ROT-Cees were the lowest of the low, degenerates well on their way to jail if not for the saving grace of wanting to shoot something the defence of the country.
Subsequently in college, when I left my home city of Chicago to the boonies of Illinois, I found the Jarheads, Jarhead-Wannabes, grunts, reservists, and even military fan-boys with too many toy warplanes of an even more savage ilk, all too eager to swat down upstart darker-skinned peoples of the world. As I once quipped to a good friend, "If they didn't have the U.S. military, they'd probably be skinning cats in their parents basements." You can gather then, that being quartered with a Marine was unenjoyable at best and, especially when the Commandent-in-Chief began his Anti-Saddam sabre rattling, it was completely infuriating.
My roommate specialized in disarming chemical weapons. Not content to do welding at a technical college, he had gone into the Marine Corps with the sole career goal of having being able to retire at age fourty-five. What was he doing in college with this already grand scheme cooked up? A higher pay bracket in the officer corps. Clearly I was living with a genius. This became more obvious to me as the weeks rolled on and the man would sit in our room during the evenings watching CNN and giving his expert commentary. He would surmise how many weapons Saddam had, where they were stashed, and precisely what vicious nuclear and biological terrors Saddam had stockpiled against us. And he would, at length, orate on the legal and ethical reasons that Saddam needed to be removed from power.
Suffice it to say, what this man was selling, I was not buying.
Our arguments bacame progressively more fierce. A cold war had erupted in my dorm room and there was no way in hell I was backing down. Sure, I couldn't prove Saddam didn't have Weapons of Mass Destruction, but let's not forget that the U.S. Government has had it's own agenda whether the voters liked it or not before, and I could not believe that human slime like Bush and Rumsfeld didn't have an ulterior motive. (I think we on the Left shouldn't gloat, but so far we've been right about global warming, absence of weapons of mass destruction, and right about now I'd bet money on Peak Oil hitting next year.)
So the semester flew by and there was continued discord in Room 158, and winter break passed, and being away from Private Nimrod was good. Upon my return to campus after break though, he dropped a bombshell. His unit would likely be sent to Iraq.
I know it's cruel to laugh at someone else's misfortune, but this? It warmed my heart to see this doofus terrified out of his wits every night as he watched the news knowing that at some point he might actually have to deal with shooting and being shot at.
Suddenly his tune changed; his dissertations on the alleged weapons weren't about where, what and why we needed to destroy them, all of a sudden, it was about how there was no conclusive evidence of any weapons anywhere, suddenly, Bush had transformed in my roommate's eyes from brave leader swinging a sword of righteousness to a chimp flailing his wiener.
When we actually started the Invasion in March, my roommate became weird and withdrawn. He even became introspective at points, questioning whether or not his was a wise career choice. Clearly he had never actually expected to do any fighting, kinda funny, with being in the military and all.
By April, the man had hit rock bottom. Already an intensely mediocre student he stopped going to class altogether, broke up with his girlfriend, and often wondered aloud if he would even be alive by this time next year. And always I was there to provide little or no comfort, because this turn of events was comical to me, and I felt, wholly deserved. After the school year ended I lost all contact with him, and good riddance. He was a filthy, loud-mouthed, inconsiderate brute and a borderline sociopath.
Wherever he ended up, whether barracked in north central Illinois, with the perilous threat of sudden deployment hanging over his head, or actually being sent to the middle east, this was what he chose, and he faced the consequences of his choice with fear that he should recognize, this is after all what he seemed to want to do to poor people all over the globe, scare them into submission.
Periodically, I check news from his hometown to see what became of him. If he came back either a hero or a corpse, this would be front page news in Will County, Illinois, so far, nothing. I truly hope he comes back and decides to drop his vocation of destruction and get a real job, but I don't think it likely, his type never learns easily, if ever. After all, if all the standard bearers and flag-wavers had a lick of sense they might have recalled the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, or that FDR had some advanced warning of Japan's coming attack on Pearl Harbor and realized that a lot of times politicians will lie to advance their own agenda.
The voters, the Senators, the Representatives, the soldiers who were "duped" can claim hindsight is 20/20 all they like, but I think these last terrible five years under Bush should just go to show that a little well-placed skepticism can go a long way.

Thanks, Andy, for a point of view widely articulated throughout the country's living rooms, but rarely in public.

Republicans Make Their Best Argument

Terence writes:

Ted,
Can you give me you address, I want to come over and kick the living shit out of you.
Regards
Terence Gallagher
XXXX Minerva Ave
LA CA 90066

He's at sailwest3333@yahoo.com.

Republicans Terribly Concerned About Possibility That They're Missing Out on Anal Sex

Mike writes:

Ted, why didn't your friends keep their aids infected cocks in their pants. They would've of saved millions of lives. Stop worrying about Iraq and stop handing out the ass gel.

He's at mjmbushwin04@sbcglobal.net.

Complete Control

FOR Kent writes:

Read your articles all the time and love the web site, I've written before but I just had to chime in about your latest column. I was in the military and while I didn't go to Iraq I have to sympathize with a lot of the folks that are there, yes it is an all volunteer force and GW is an illegitimate president but the American people who are much less restricted (you should see the Uniform Code of Military Justice) didn't stand up and force GW out, what were we supposed to do?

Granted, it's a hard decision. But they could have refused to fightin W's illegal wars.

Also if you try to fight the military system not only are you out of a job, possible jail time and a dishonorable discharge that does not go away. I'm not using it as an excuse I'm just saying that they majority of soldiers (junior enlisted E-1 thru E-4) don't have the life experience to stand up and stop it, most move straight out of Mom and Dad's house and into the Army. It's tough to take a stand against people that have that much control of your life. Anyway keep up the good work and sorry about the rambling.

What you wrote is undeniable. It is damned hard to do the right thing when the penalties are so harsh. But that doesn't change what the right thing is.

President Gore

Ernie writes:

I recently read an article that you wrote. Incredibly, I discovered that you are one of those people that still believe that President Bush stole the election from Al Gore. Do you have proof? Did President Bush co-opt the Supreme Court in this crime?

Others have documented Bush's theft of the 2000 election and, by extension 2004 (because he ran as an "incumbent" when in fact, he was not). I've written numerous columns and a chapter in my book "Wake Up, You're Liberal!" describes in detail the redundant ways in which the election was stolen. Most notably, the United States Supreme Court did not have the constitutional right to hear Bush v. Gore because, as an election dispute, state supreme courts (in this case, Florida's) are the highest arbiters. Never in the history of the republic has the U.S. Supreme Court arbitrated an election dispute because, under our system, states run elections. It should be noted that, had the U.S. Supreme Court appointed Gore instead, he would have just as illegitimate as Bush is today. Their agreeing to hear the case queered the election. But there are many, many other ways in which the election was stolen--including the hiring of goons to beat up officials conducting the recount at Miami-Dade County--a county where, it ultimately turns out, the uncounted ballots would have handed Gore the state of Florida.

The majority of Americans realize that President Bush was elected and re-elected by the voters of this great country. I challenge you or anyone like you to provide proof that President Bush stole the election in 2000. If you cannot provide proof, then you should retract that statement.

It is not my obligation to reprove what has already been proven. It is American citizens' duty to remain informed and to learn how to Google.

I am confident that you will not, because it takes a real man of courage and integrity to admit his mistakes. Also, your statements will now lye in obscurity. I will send this to all of my friends. I am sure that they will also be amazed that there are still a handful of people that that insist that President Bush did not legitimately won the election.

Actually, more than half the American people tell pollsters that Bush did not win "fair and square."

East Coast v. Gold Coast

J.L. writes:

Re: You and Chris Ware
You know this is the type of beef that got Biggie killed...
Regards,
A Fan Of Both

Yo, bald bitch! Just kidding.

The U.S.: Imperialist Aggressors

Gabe writes from Canada:

An excellent piece. In fact the anti-war movement was inundated with the same imperial patriotism that afflicts the movement today, with slogans like Bring Our Boys Home, there was a similar, support the troops, oppose their actions orientation both of those who sought a full withdrawal and conservative elements that wanted to limit demands to a moratorium on bombing N. Vietnam. The Rambo origins of the myth is interesting...

I do have a disagreement with your article. I do not believe that the US military has ever been an honourable occupation, any more than the British or the French. With only two exceptions (world wars), every war America has waged has been as imperial aggressors. (Even with WWI, I would have difficulty regarding the Entente as morally superior to the Central Powers, especially considering that Britain and France had much more extensive empires than Germany.) Also, I do not regard the atrocities of the West as equivalent to the murderous response of the colonised (9-11), a distinction that is politically difficult to argue in North America, but is less so when considered from the realm of global human experience.

Certainly the United States was not obliged to involve itself in World War I. That was America's attempt, with a military flush with cash from the first modern income tax, to compete with the European powers for global domination. We also provoked the Japanese into the Pearl Harbor attack with our military blockade, although it was for the betterment of mankind that Imperial Japan was defeated (and obviously Nazi Germany as well).

Obviously 9/11 pales compared to the scale of murder abetted by American foreign policy. Heck, America has already murdered nearly 200,000 people in retaliation for the deaths of 3,000. But yes, it is difficult to get insular and insulated Americans to see that.

Bad People Do Bad Things

Rachel writes:

Just a quick comment about this week's column. You asked the rhetorical question, 'How is a person who voluntarily commits "horrible crimes against humanity" not a "bad person"? ' I think it's _especially_ important to think of people who commit horrible crimes against humanity as ordinary people. Hell, even the Nazis were, in fact, ordinary people. (It's been a few years since I've read it, but I'm sure you have a copy of Hannah Arendt's _Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil_.)

Sure do. Also worth checking out is "The Origins of Totalitarianism." But onward:

Once we start thinking of them as "bad people", we're not too far from labelling them as "evil-doers". What I'm trying to say is that if we think of them as "other" people, we won't consider _ourselves_ to be capable of this. From the military's point of view, if the Nazis were just "evil-doers", the US military couldn't possibly commit human rights violations because we're "good", and when we torture people, it's out of necessity, not out of "evil." (Of course, for this logic to work, the military would need to believe that torture produces good intelligence, which is bullshit.)

It's truly terrifying to think that anyone is capable of genocide or any human rights violations, but trying to describe people who commit these horrific acts as other than human can distance us from the reality of human rights violations, and allows a greater possibility of history repeating itself.

I'm a little dumbfounded that my column could have given anyone the impression that I view troops who commit atrocities, and even those who make the wrong moral choice by fighting an illegal war for an unelected dictator, as less than human. We're all human. Adolf Hitler was human. My thinking relies greatly on Sartre's view that we are defined by our actions, specifically our worst actions. So troops who commit gross violations of human rights are, by definition, bad people. Of course they are many other things as well: sons, brothers, lovers, accountants, auto mechanics, firefighters, soccer fans. But if morality is to have any meaning, we have to be able to point at someone who does something bad and say: that person is a bad person.

Bush's "evildoers" is reductionist to the extreme and, more to the point, distracts from the pertinent issue of what motivates, say, 19 young men to kill themselves so they can take a bunch of Americans with them. It is also the height of impertinence to trivialize one's enemies while it is nothing more than hypertrivialization to minimize the sins of your own side.

Chris Ware Parody Cartoon

I'm getting a lot of "WTF?" emails, more than I anticipated, as the result of today's cartoon. For those who are unfamiliar with his work, Chris Ware is a graphic illustrator who, among other things, also draws a comic strip in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. This is an (attempted) send-up of that. I thought he was better known than he is. My apologies to those who didn't get the joke.

Global Warming Blog?

Steve asks a boon:

I love your blog, your comics, and your weekly columns. You do an excellent job of presenting a view on disputed topics which would otherwise be neglected. You have become quite the power-proponent of underdog views. While I know this makes you unpopular in conservative media, I have nothing but respect for you.
As such, I ask a boon.
Please consider writing a blog on global warming because the mis-information is reaching critical levels. I keep talking to people about this issue who are getting crap science from neo-con media. These clowns are convinced that global warming is either NOT real or NOT human sourced. I'm asking that you consider writing something to help attack such myths. Some good links are at http://ironlabyrinth.blogspot.com/

I almost feel the same way about the global warming deniers as most scientists feel about the idiotic design simpletons: to argue with them is validate their position as a serious one. It isn't. Must we give flat-earthers, supply-siders and Bush-won-in-2000ers equal time when the truth has been proven repeatedly. One of the most wearisome aspects of Internet debate is the time-wasting aspect of the willfully ignorant.

Typical Internet argument:
"So what do we do about global warming?"
"There is no global warming. If there is, prove it!"
"OK, check out and "

At best the challenger simply melts away into cyberspace, possibly convinced but unwilling to admit it in public. At worst he continues:

"Those links don't mean anything! Statistics can be twisted! Scientists are all liberal!" (OK, the last one is true. Hm. Wonder why?)

Iit's a total fucking waste of time to discuss things with the uninformed, half of whom I suspect are 12-year-old kids (and not the well-read type) anyway.

Global warming is an irrefurtable fact. As the Inuits told the New York Times a few weeks ago in their remarkable series about its effects in the Arctic (including the fact that the polar ice cap is now officially doomed), there's no debate. All you have to do is go up there and take a look.

Attitude 3: The Subversive New Media Cartoonists

I've just finished editing the latest installation in the ATTITUDE series: ATTITUDE 3: THE SUBVERSIVE NEW MEDIA CARTOONISTS! Like its predecessors ATTITUDE and ATTITUDE 2, ATTITUDE 3 collects cartoons by, interviews with and never published before rare artwork by 21 groundbreaking humor, social commentary and political cartoonists. This time, however, ATTITUDE takes on the exciting and vibrant world of webcomics: Internet-based cartoons that, with few exceptions, only appear online. ATTITUDE 3 is a primer to webcomics but, more than that, it's a damned cool and funny book. Amazon will soon be accepting pre-orders and those who place their orders early will be rewarded not in the next world but in this one--watch this space. Official publication date is June 2006.

Stupid Bush Quote of the Week

And there are so many to choose from!

This one comes from last night's lighting of the White House Christmas tree:

"America's military men and women stand for freedom and they serve the cause of peace."

Right. The military is all about serving the cause of peace. And you thought Orwell was dead.

106.9 Free FM San Francisco

This Sunday San Franciscans should join the Ted Rall Showfrom 11 am to pm. All others must wait until (sigh) live-streaming finally comes online! All I know is what they tell me, folks, and they tell me it'll be any day now. Which means maybe later this month. I don't know. When I know you'll know.

This Sunday I'll interview Princeton University immigration expert Douglas Massey on his ideas on how to resolve the current immigration crisis (hint:make immigration easy and legal, thus eradicating illegal immigration). Also join fellow cartoonists Mikhaela B. Reid ("The Boiling Point") and Ruben Bolling ("Tom the Dancing Bug") for a cartoonists' roundtable discussion of the week's news.

The Nanny Media

John points out a problem with the media that has long bothered me but that I've never articulated in public before:

Hello Ted,
I just read your column about how the media can restore its credibility. All your points were spot on, but I'd like to add one more that is counter-intuitive.
Right now I'm reading George Packer's book Assassin's Gate. In it, Packer describes a scene during which an American guard demeans and humiliates a detainee by using obscenity. Summarizing the conversation does not do it justice. Only reading it verbatim conveys what every American knows: When we use the F word among friends, it's a sign of affinity. When we use it among strangers, especially when the stranger is in a difficult situation, it's a sign of dominance and often an indication that we are willing to resort to violence. How does a reporter respond when every other word is an expletive? Usually, he skips the whole statement or he reduces it to a meaningless exchange.
From there, where do the newspapers go? Well, they can't show pictures of dead bodies. From there? They can't show coffins. From there, if they travel with troops, they can't publish the obscenity laden dialog of soldiers. From there, they have to rely on press conferences, which, as you mentioned in your article, are a source of lies, not news. The ultimate result is the daily news media go from a fear of publishing the obscene to a fear of publishing the offensive.
What does the public get? A litany of mundane, feel-good stories; a streak of political "gotcha" stories; a limitless supply of superstar screw-ups; and, when foreign events are covered, they are watered down to the point that they bore most adults. Acceptable for kids, palatable for the easily offended, boring to the average adult who requires something a little more visceral to pique his interest.
Mark Twain originally published his book Innocents Abroad in a newspaper, the Daily Alta California. By today's standards it is a highly offensive book (it points out the sanctimony, cruelty, and hypocrisy of pilgrimaging Christians), and it is not journalism because it relies simply on the keen observations of the journalist. Now imagine Packard trying to get his book published in any daily newspaper in America. Forget the neocon history, or the relevance, or the fact that it paints a detailed picture of Iraqis that Americans rarely see, it would be banned because it is written as a first-person narrative and because it is spiced with the occasional expletive.
Journalists have a long litany of words and things they can’t publish, but far war worse is the fact that journalists cannot publish their own observations because personal observations, particularly in a war zone, are often rife with obscenities, offensive topics, and dead bodies.
If I could say one thing to the readers of the trade journal Editor and Publisher, it would be this:
War is not rated G. It is an adult topic, it is an obscene topic, and, unless journalists want to continue destroying their credibility by relying on anonymous sources and pathological liars, they've got to get out there and report first hand what they see and hear. Thank you, Ted. I enjoy your writing very much.

I can also vouch that Packer's "Assassin's Gate" is superb.

Taking Responsibility

Jim sends this awesome rant:

When someone says: “It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002. I take responsibility for that mistake.” I wonder what is meant by “taking responsibility”. Where is the downside? Talk, especially from our politicians, is cheap. For a politician, “taking responsibility” is a duck tossing water on its back. It should be more like falling on one’s sword. I was buying John Edwards tale until I got to the ‘taking responsibility” point, followed by “We have to give our troops a way to end their mission honorably. Why is the word “honorably” used? This is not an honorable war; “taking responsibility” would mean saying to the American people that we should not expect an honorable outcome. “Taking responsibility” would be telling those grieving parents that their children have died for nothing. “Taking responsibility” would be to apologize to the world and to Iraqi people for starting this damn war. Apologize for the loss of life; apologize for the destruction of Iraq and its infrastructure. “Taking responsibility” would be the President and Vice President submitting their resignation and those of their cabinets and call for a special election. Apologize for this failure in leadership, this failure to do Their Job. Apologize to the World for the cowboy foreign policy that bypassed all conventional norms. “Taking responsibility” would be admitting to that the American system failed to protect the well-being of the World’s people and surrender control of the U.S. Armed forces to the United Nations.
But, I expect nothing from this bastard President.

Torture Primer

I missed this the first time around. Maybe you did too:

slate.msn.com/id/ 2119122/sidebar/2119631/

Ted Rall w/Ruben Bolling on Air America

Fellow cartoonist Ruben Bolling, creator of "Tom the Dancing Bug," will join me tomorrow as we discuss the week in media coverage on the Laura Flanders Show on Air America Sunday/tomorrow night. Air time is 7:30 PM East Coast time; check local listings for airtimes near you. Among the subjects we'll be talking about will be the Tribune Company's apparent policy of eliminating its staff editorial cartoonists. Mike Ramirez has been laid off by the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune has decided not to replace Jeff MacNelly (who died a few years ago), and now both KAL of the Baltimore Sun and Bob Englehardt of the Hartford Courant have been given buyout offers with no indication as to whether they'll ultimately be allowed to remain on staff. Staff editorial cartoonist positions have been vanishing for years, but Tribune's policy would represent the mass elimination of some of the nation's most prominent cartoonists as well as a stark display of the power and impact of corporate consolidation of the media industry.

Tomorrow on the Ted Rall Show

My radio show's second edition airs tomorrow on San Francisco's 106.9 Free FM from 11 am to 2 pm. Livestreaming and podcasting are in the works and may even be available within a week or two, but for now only residents of th Bay Area will be able to listen to tomorrow's highlights:

Should San Francisco and other big cities try to become more child-friendly?

Why the bursting of the housing bubble doesn't mean who can buy your first home

Who was Bob Woodward's source? and Why Scooter is still in deep doo-doo

Double jeopardy in the Robert Blake case

The Vatican opposes "intelligent design"

1 pm Guest: Harmon Leon, prankster/comedian/genius author of "Republican Like Me"

Livestream Broadcasts of the new Ted Rall Show

Non-San Franciscans are asking if and when they'll be able to listen to my new radio show, which debuts this Sunday from 11 am to 2 pm West Coast time on KIFR 106.9 Free FM in the Bay Area, on the Internet. The answer to if is yes, the answer to when is probably within two or three weeks. Watch this space for information, updates and links. It's a new station and they're still figuring out the tech stuff.

In other news, there'll be even more of me on the airwaves after January 1st! As usual, all the info goes on the Rallblog.

Radio, Radio

The inaugural airing of the new Ted Rall Show is scheduled for Sunday, November 13.

The show, which will air Sundays from 11 am to 2 pm, will be aired on San Francisco's brand-new 106.9 Free FM. Topics will include politics, relationships, pop culture and anything interesting. If you live in the SF Bay Area, please listen in and call when the spirit moves you. Plans are afoot for live-streaming and/or downloadable Podcasts as well for people who live elsewhere.

I can't wait for the 13th!

November 13

The Ted Rall Show returns to the airwaves! Watch this space for details.

The Libby Indictment

It's all good, obviously. My full reaction will come in next week's column, but suffice it to say that--from the standpoint of those of us who want to see the Bushies fall and fall hard--a drip drip of indictment and scandal is better news than a bunch of indictments--Rove and Cheney, not to mention Bush--all at once. It took the American people many, many months to fall in love with George W. Bush. It will take at least as long to convince them that their affection was misplaced.

Shoutout to Joseph V.

Thanks for your check for the TR Subscription Service. You forgot to attach your email address, so please contact me with your full name and address so I know it's you. I'm at chet@rall.com

Thanks,
Ted

Impeachment Column Mail Call

Zephyr asks:

You wrote, "More than a year after the Supreme Court decided in Rasul v. Bush that the nearly 600 Muslim men and young boys being held incommunicado at Guantánamo Bay were entitled to have their cases heard by U.S. courts, they remain in cold storage--no lawyers, no court dates. The Bush Administration simply ignored the ruling."

Is there an agency of the government whose function it is to enforce Supreme Court decisions?

Strictly speaking, the US Department of Justice is charged with that function. On a practical level, however, it is directly overseen by and the Attorney General receives orders from the White House. When there's a clash between the executive and legislative branches of this sort, therefore, the Supreme Court's decisions can--as in Rasul--simply be ignored.

Steve writes:

I couldn't agree less on the utility of the Constitution to deal with Bush and his acolytes. For one thing, the Constitution gives the president no immunity to the criminal laws. One courageous prosecutor has the means under the Constitution to bring down an entire government. That none is doing so is simply a tribute to the boldness and criminal expertise of our governors.
The Nixon case is unfortunate because Nixon stayed out of jail while his aides did time. It set a pretty bad precedent, but at least we removed Nixon from office. The Clinton case is even worse because it set a precedent that lying is not a serious enough offense to warrant removal from office. Bush is taking liberal advantage of the Clinton doctrine.
Despite all this, Bush could be called to answer in criminal court, especially if his aides begin to sense that they're in jeopardy. Ultimately, a criminal complaint would force him out of office. The Constitution has what it takes to remove him, if the personnel responsible for enforcement haven't yet manifested the fortitude to act.

And we may have that prosecutor in the form of Mr. Fitzgerald. I hope that he requests an extension of his mandate so he can pursue criminal charges, up to and including treason, against both former Texas Governor Bush and Mr. Cheney. Still, this hardly seems like a system that has worked very well so far. Furthermore, there are no criminal statutes against lying to the people--a crime that ought to be punished by removal from office.

Richard writes:

Ted,Thanks for your article.

Perhaps I misinterpreted the substance of your piece but haven't you overlooked those having face the voters and run for reelection in 2006? Standing behind an increasing unpopular president will prove a political liability for many. I think the Harriet Miers "revolt" in Republican ranks may provide further evidence of this possibility even though those on that side feel she is too "liberal." In order for Clinton to be impeached several Democrats were forced to go against party and back the inquiry, such as Dianne Feinstein. For this I hold out hope. And realistically, a reawakened Republican party and congress will have to occur even with a democrat president in order to set right the nation. The sooner the better.

One can hope. This would be an excellent example of the system working as it should or, in the words of one unaware pundit a few months ago, pandering to the voters--which is, of course, what elected officials are supposed to do every day, not just during election years. Still, many--too many--officials might be able to distance themselves from Bush without going so far as to vote for his removal from the office his lies and thievery have repeatedly dishonored.
Getting Clinton's jizz out of the Oval Office was one thing, but how long will it take to mop up the blood of 160,000 dead?

Lee writes from Canada:

Thanks for “Why Bush is Unimpeachable”, which I saw on Common Dreams.
The US Constitution is pretty much a dead letter these days, and it’s not just because of Bush.
The power of Congress to declare war became a dead letter when LBJ used the Tonkin Gulf Resolution to ramp up a huge war involving millions of Americans. Since then, every president has felt free to send US troops hither and yon without worrying about Congress, especially if he can get some US troops killed. Once that happens, Congress and most other Americans want to “stay the course” and avoid “talking about the past” – until several years of failure cause “malaise” to show up in the polls.
Impeachment? It’s either an impossibility (Johnson, 1867) or a sick game (Clinton, 1998). The president has become a king, with all the sacredness of royalty and all the political power of a prime minister. I’m Canadian. I don’t even remember the name of Prime Minister Paul Martin’s wife. But Laura Bush is America’s queen, with a major role in selling her husband’s policies. Republic? – fuhgeddaboutit. You’ve got an elective, but not a constitutional monarchy.
Too many people look for similarities between today’s America and Nazi Germany. The real similarity is with Fascist Italy: the constitutional forms were hollow but continued a ghostly existence; the dictatorship developed over several years, and the nature of the regime was vicious and contemptible, not overpoweringly evil.
Eventually it took a disastrous defeat in WWII to rouse the king to fire Mussolini and arrest him. What will it take to rouse Congress to revive the Republic and get rid of the contemptible regime that has spat on the constitution and perverted the Republic while saluting the flag that “stands for” it?

Very articulate. That's what learning to write outside of the American educational system will do.

The Night Before Christmas

That's what it feels like across the land, as special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald readies what with luck will be a set of indictments against Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and other members of the illegitimate Bush junta that has occupied the White House since stealing it via judicial corruption in 2000. Already the right wing is preparing its stupid-ass arguments, but they won't stick any more. The American public is slow-witted but finally clued in to what has been done under their name, and they know that outing a CIA agent is treason plain and simple.

The next question, assuming that Rove and Libby get the frog-marching each richly deserves, is what happens to Bush and Cheney. Cheney, as the New York Times reported, was Libby's original source for the information about Valerie Plame. And Bush knew that Rove was covering up the leak investigation from the start. That both men are traitors is plain to see for anyone who cares to take notice. The question is, will the GOP Congress fulfill their Constitutional obligation to impeach them or will the political pressure build via the media to the point where both mass murderers are forced to resign? I suspect rather the latter, with the scandal and its inevitable denouement--President Hastert, anyone?--unfolding sometime next year. Although, with this gang, anything is possible.

There are those who will point out that it's a little strange to see a special prosecutor with the power to bring down a president, and those commentators will be correct. As I wrote in my column this week, however, the system is broken. All we have, the last hope of the republic, is this special prosecutor. If and when we rid ourselves of the Bush plague, one hopes that we won't just "move on" but will take stock of what went wrong with our system of checks and balances and take action, including amending the Constitution to allow minority political parties to bring up impeachment procedings or setting up an independenty judicial means of removing a law-breaking president, to prevent such a disaster from again befalling the world.

Geek Love

Now that Wish Lists have become a way for people to support cartoonists, at long last I've come up with one of my own. You may have noticed that some of these items are pretty expensive. Well, duh! If they were cheap I could afford to buy them myself. Like a certain orange credit card, therefore, I've developed a kickback scheme to sweeten the pot for those interested in improving my quality of life: Depending on how much you spend, you get everything from signed books to originals to, well, me.
Here's the deal:
Under $50: I love you. Love is cheap!
$50 to $100: You get a signed Ted Rall book of your choice (assuming it's in print).
$100 to $200: A small sketch of my choice.
$200 to $400: An original cartoon of your choice, from the last three months (assuming I still have it).
$400 to $600: An original cartoon of your choice, from any time (assuming I still have it).
$600 to $800: Two original cartoons
$800 to $1000: I will draw a custom cartoon to your personal specifications (provided that your idea isn't totally embarrassing)
$1000 to $2000: One custom cartoon plus a complete set of every Ted Rall book ever published, including foreign editions, and out-of-print titles, signed
$2000 and up: We'll hang out for coffee and/or drinks. You can take my photo, bring your friends, be fun and/or boring. Even Republicans will be accomodated. Caveat: Said event must occur in New York City or a city where I happen to be visiting, or a place that I agree to and that you're willing to fly me to. The night's on you. Added bonus: an original cartoon to remember me by.

Email me at chet@rall.com if you want to play.

Count Down

I'm returning to the airwaves...sooner than you think!

Watch this space.

Watch this Space

FOR Tom advises one to watch this website for glad tidings in the coming week:

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/index.html

Tom DeLay to be Arrested

And so it begins. The thug who hired DC goons to shut down the Florida recount by acts of violence at a planned riot is being arrested today in Texas: fingerprints, mug shot, maybe (pleeeeeeease) even a perp walk. Let Tom DeLay be the first of many such arrests in coming days and weeks as the illegitimate Bush regime rightly falls upon the scrap heap of history.

Better late than never.

New York Daily News: Could Bush Go Down in Treasongate?

When Treasongate broke last summer, right-wing psychos online and on TV lambasted my assertion that this was serious business that could lead all the way to the Oval Office. Now the New York Daily News has an exclusive story indicating that Piehole himself knew all along. If true, Bush should be arrested immediately since he is a traitor to the United States and thus possibly in the employ of foreign agents:

Courtesy of FOR Dave:

As you stated in your Blog, you called it. Found this on Drudge. If it's true, then it shows that Bush knew
of Rove's involvement in the Plame Affair TWO YEARS AGO. Which proves that he's been lying all along.
Keep up the great work,
Dave
http://nydailynews.com/front/story/357107p-304312c.html

Did I Call It Or What?

DC gossipmongers are focusing on Dick Cheney as a possible indictee (please...please...pleeeeeeease?) in Treasongate. The biggest bastard in the nest of vipers currently running America in the ground, CNN is reporting, could be indicted as early as tomorrow.

As usual, right-wingers mocked me for writing this in my July 5 column:

How far up the White House food chain does the rot of treason go? "Bush has always known how to keep Rove in his place," wrote Time in 2002 about a "symbiotic relationship" that dates to 1973. This isn't some rogue "plumbers" operation. Rove would never go it alone on a high-stakes action like Valerie Plame. It's a safe bet that other, higher-ranking figures in the Bush cabal--almost certainly Dick Cheney and possibly Bush himself--signed off before Rove called Novak. For the sake of national security, those involved should be removed from office at once.

And as usual, I was right and they were wrong.

ATTITUDE Presents: Stephanie McMillan's MINIMUM SECURITY

It's right here in front of me, and it's a beautiful thing: outrageous and outraged cartoonist Stephanie McMillan's book! Fresh off the press from NBM, this third volume in the "Attitude Presents:" series (following Andy Singer's "No Exit" and Neil Swaab's "Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles," both of which are still available) is exactly what fans of the series and alternative comics lust for: a batch of high-quality work by an artist that most people haven't yet discovered.

You can check out Stephanie's cartoons at www.minimumsecurity.net, and you should. But the book is 160 pages, barely more than ten bucks on Amazon, and absolutely delicious. From politics to relationships, from Bush-bashing to global warming, Stephanie delivers the goods in piece after piece. If you're a Ted Rall fan, you'll love Stephanie McMillan. Please take my word for this and drop ten bucks on this.

Then send me an email to tell me what you thought. I'll post the interesting ones here.

America 2008

Several people ask:

hi im a big fan and i know you're busy, but i was wondering if you could briefly explain to me your latest comic 'america 2008'. maybe im not keeping up with the latest news but why would america look like that in 3 years? what is this a commentary on?

The militarizing of government functions domestically, recently exemplified by Bush's proposal to suspend Posse Comitatus to allow the military to respond to a possible avian flu epidemic (by setting up internment camps for victims).

Meatcake

Dawn asks:

Dear Mr. Rall,

I love your cartoons! But I have a question about the last frame of your cartoon of 9-22-05. What is "meatcake?"

It's a reference to an old George Carlin record. Meatcake is whatever you want it to be, really. Like winning the war in Iraq.

Biographical Info

Jim from Costa Rica asks:

I thought this paragraph from your Slate biography was both funny and intriguing:

In 1984, Rall was expelled from Columbia Engineering for disciplinary and academic reasons. He gave up drawing cartoons during the mid-'80s, instead devoting himself to his work as a trader/trainee at Bear Stearns brokerage firm and a loan officer at the Industrial Bank of Japan. He moonlighted as a telemarketer and taxi driver.

My question is why is this most wonderfully ironic passage not included on your website?

I haven't worked for Slate in years (but I would if they were interested in having me back!), so they're using an outdated form of my bio. I remain unashamed of my past as a college dropout/expellee. It should also be noted that I eventually graduated from Columbia, with honors in history.

Today's Email from a Real Republican Voter

Courtesy of Rader:

i would first like to say that i fully support the first amendment, and i support your expressing your opinion. however, i must know, where on EARTH do you come up with the things you express? the negatives towards our presidential administration are unprecedented, wild, and i fail to find anything anywhere to corroborate what you say. do you use sources along with actual news and events or do you just randomly imagine the president screws things up and attempt to make lame jokes about it? please regard my first amendment to also say what i like. on that note i would like to say that you disgust me. thank you for your time.

I love my country and its president,

Well, I like Al Gore even if I don't love him exactly. Still, it's always good to hear from guys like Rader. Right-wingers have become pretty quiet lately; even the death threats have dried up as of late now that every single utterance of the post-9/11 era has turned out to be dead wrong.

Martial Law? It's Already here

Russ writes:

You’re about 4 years late – we’ve been living under martial law since passage of Patriot Act.
In fact some Constitutional scholars hold that suspension of habeas corpus equates with martial law.
The Patriot Act effectively provides for this, allowing President to declare ANYONE an ‘enemy combatant’ who can be held incommuicado indefinitely.
“The martial law concept in the U.S. is closely tied with the Writ of habeas corpus, which is in essence the right to a hearing on lawful imprisonment, or more broadly, the supervision of law enforcement by the judiciary. The ability to suspend habeas corpus is often equated with martial law. Article 1, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution states, "The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law#United_States_of_America... Okay, Wikipedia isn’t scholarly source, but it’s probably accurate.)

Russ makes an excellent point. Moreover, Bush signed a secret executive order granting him the write to execute anyone, including American citizens, he declares to be an "enemy combattant."

Bloggers Can't Make up Their Minds


A blog called bloggledygook references me as someone who puts down people who voted for Bush:

Those lefty bloggers can now sit back and sneer I-told-you-sos and in true Ted Rall fashion, portray Bush voters as stupid and sinister all at the same time.

Well, far be it from me to shy away from the characterization someone who doesn't read much of my work has for me. So yes, I'll fess up: Anyone who voted for Bush is a Goddamned fucking idiot. Fuck them. Why progressives should suck up to such morons instead of ridiculing them as they well deserve--which, incidentally, might remind them to think more carefully the next time they exercise their franchise--is beyond me.

On the other hand, Bernard Weiner lists me as a "journalistic hero" for standing up to the Bush regime's attempt to loot the treasury while destroying American democracy and personal freedom.

Oh, well. Back to the Bush voter-bashing cartoons for this week.

UK Independent: Bush Claims God Told Him to Murder 100,000 People

Courtesy of Ken:

I am a devoted fan of your work and when I read this article I thought "Wow , this is great! Almost as good as something Ted Rall would come up with". Only its for real. I've read some snippets of Bush getting messages from God, but nothing this well documented.
If you haven't read it already please do check it out.
From: The Independent on line.
Bush: God told me to invade Iraq
President 'revealed reasons for war in private meeting'
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 07 October 2005
..... Palestinian foreign minister Nabil Shaath says Mr Bush told him and Mahmoud Abbas, former prime minister and now Palestinian President: "I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,' and I did."...
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article317805.ece