Next question

Last updated on: March 22, 2004 at 2:32 pm By Fred Clark

… Despite intense attention paid to Sept. 11, public understanding of that day — how government officials responded, what went smoothly and what didn't — remains shrouded in confusion and misunderstanding. The independent commission appointed to study the terror strikes has said it considers piecing together a minute-by-minute picture of that day's events crucial to its task of deciding whether the country needs to take further steps to prepare for potential future crises. Scores of interviews with those who played... Read more

SBC (1845-2005)

Last updated on: March 22, 2004 at 1:38 pm By Fred Clark

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The Southern Baptist Convention is considering changing its name. The convention began in 1845, in a rift among American Baptists over the matter of slavery — hence the "Southern." But the SBC points out that their fellowship today is a global association, present and growing in the dozens of different countries to which it has spread from its base in the American South. The convention's name, they say, should therefore reflect this new, larger-than-regional reality: "We are no longer a... Read more

Health care for farmers

Last updated on: March 22, 2004 at 9:17 am By Fred Clark

This story, from Laladey Tadesse and Jennifer Goldblatt of The (Del.) News Journal, touches on a situation I simply hadn't considered before: the problem of health insurance for American farmers. The report introduces us to John and Cindi Filasky, who have been living for the past decade without health insurance: The Filaskys are among the 21 percent of the roughly 1,600 full-time farm operators in Delaware who don't have health insurance … Nationally, 32 percent of farmers don't have health... Read more

Questions and Answers

Last updated on: March 21, 2004 at 6:21 am By Fred Clark

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One of the questions the Family Steering Committee of the 9/11 Independent Commission has been trying to get Pres. Bush to answer is: Beginning with the transition period between the Clinton administration and your own, and ending on 9/11/01, specifically what information (either verbal or written) about terrorists, possible attacks and targets, did you receive from any source? This would include briefings or communications from: Out-going Clinton officials; CIA, FBI, NSA, DoD and other intelligence agencies; Foreign intelligence, governments, dignitaries... Read more

Follow the money

Last updated on: March 20, 2004 at 6:45 pm By Fred Clark

Atrios linked to this very handy site yesterday and I keep going back to it to play. The "Neighbor Search" function lets you type in a name and find out how much, if any, they've contributed to presidential candidates. Searching for the name "Bush," for example, reveals that the George W. Bush campaign has received the $2,000 maximum gift from George H.W. Bush, Barbara Bush and Marvin P. Bush — but nada from Neil. First the president blows off his... Read more

Black and white

Last updated on: March 19, 2004 at 2:00 pm By Fred Clark

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Josh Marshall cuts through to the underlying meaning of the frequent talk about: … Democrats and their "dependence" on the African-American vote. It's only the African-American vote, the argument goes, that keeps the Democratic Party from becoming a permanent minority party. After citing an example of this punditry from CNN's Bill Schneider, Marshall writes: Nestled down deep in this argument is some sort of perhaps unconscious notion that the Dems are just hopelessly sucking wind among real voters and thus... Read more

Fearful Asymmetry

Last updated on: March 19, 2004 at 1:12 pm By Fred Clark

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In Christopher Torchia's AP roundup of the day's violence in Iraq, U.S. Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey offers the following observation: It is far easier to fight an enemy who fights you conventionally and who fights you in some similar fashion to the way you fight him, than it is to fight an enemy who uses the tools of terror. Military leaders talking to reporters often remind me of that advice from Bull Durham: "Learn your cliches. … They're your friends."... Read more

Behind the curtain

Last updated on: March 18, 2004 at 4:24 pm By Fred Clark

2 Comments

I've cited both Timothy Noah and Charles Peters today. Both have recently drawn attention to Ron Suskind's "Bushfiles," an online library of Bush administration documents provided by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. (Peters discusses it here, Noah here.) Brad DeLong has been working his way through O'Neill's papers in a series of posts that usually begin with the phrase "Why oh why? …" And many others in the liberal quadrants of the blogosphere have been paying attention to the Bushfiles... Read more

Ministry of Information

Last updated on: March 18, 2004 at 3:55 pm By Fred Clark

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Slate's Timothy Noah writes of the Bush administration's "war against empiricism": Rather than simply ignore information, Bush and his minions have resolved to suppress it or, better yet, to prevent it from being created in the first place. Noah cites three progressively worse examples. 1. Ignore information provided by experts in your own government. Noah cites the example of the pre-invasion war games conducted by the CIA which accurately predicted, among other things, massive civil unrest and looting after the... Read more

“Liberal evangelicals”

Last updated on: March 18, 2004 at 6:01 am By Fred Clark

5 Comments

In the March Washington Monthly, Charles Peters asks: … isn't it possible that those of us who believe in a social gospel could reach the evangelicals by challenging them to express their gratitude by helping their fellow man — not only with personal acts of kindness and generosity but also by political actions through which their love can reach beyond their personal circle? That's a very good question. I spent the 1990s working for and with Evangelicals for Social Action... Read more

Which Old Testament book does not mention God?