Pointing Fingers

The Second Coming, A Second Time

I’m not one who is apt to repeat myself, but on the first day of 2008, the year America will finally elect a new president and – despite the lack of ideal choices – one that may just show a little more respect for not only the Constitution he or she is worn to uphold, but for American citizens, aliens (fabulous term, no?) both legal and illegal, and to global citizens who have a right to live each day without fear of being bombed, shot or tortured by the United States.

I wrote originally wrote The Second Coming: The Age of Bin Laden on September 15, 2001, four days after September 11th. The World Trade Center was still in flames, and America had yet to start a war against Afghanistan, let alone Iraq. Every awful prediction I made came to pass, far worse in some cases, than I had imagined. Foolishly optimistic, in 2004, I thought America would get rid of George W. Bush come election time. I was horribly mistaken. Perhaps reiterating these words from September 2001 in the forums available to me through San Francisco Chronicle's SFGate, as well as Annoy.com, Pointing Fingers and Daily Kos might wake some people up this election. Somehow I'm less optimistic this time round. To paraphrase, correctively, the misphrasing of our current President: "fool me once, shame on you..."

The morning of Tuesday September 11, 2001, began typically enough. Yawningly irreverent New York radio host Don Imus, (whose show is simulcast on MSNBC), was angrily denouncing MSNBC for allowing nauseatingly saccharine hosts Chris Jansing and Gregg Jarrett to knock him off the air anytime there was breaking news, rather than let him break it. Seemingly unaware of the high premium MSNBC places on youth. Clearly oblivious to the fact that a vast majority of Americans don't want some bitter, wrinkled, dried-up, ex-cokehead, surrounded by spineless yes men, wheezing breaking news between hits on his oxygen mask.

And then terror struck. Big time. In the worst terrorist attack in history, suicidal fanatics attacked the United States by smashing hijacked commercial planes into the World Trade Center towers, Pentagon (and potentially other targets, were they not foiled by passengers). America and indeed most of the world were numbed to the core by the horror and magnitude of such destruction.

Throughout the day -- and ever since -- repeated images of the horror looped and looped on every TV channel in every language interspersed with hundreds of heartstring tugging stories that reduce the most hardened of men to tears.

As the dust settles, literally and figuratively, we may well emerge from this a changed nation. Although not with the overnight hyperbole reflected by trite headlines stating as much before we had even had a chance to absorb what we were hit with.

Some things remain horribly the same.

While most American's were reeling, stunned into a shocked and disbelieving silence, the impenetrable roaches of humanity's refuse at its worst and ugliest came crawling out fast and furious, vomiting their hate and their anger like festering pus on gaping wounds.

Reverends Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson shattered their own decaying credibility by fanatically blaming the attack on abortionists, liberals, online pornographers and civil liberties groups, declaring that Americans got what they deserved. This, of course, while their fellow Americans - and a host of other nationalities -- lay dead, suffering and smoldering under heaps of shattered concrete and melting mangled metal.

Intellectually barren columnist, Ann Coulter, in a tribute to talk show partisan Barbara Olson that was about as sensitively timed and welcome as an untreated yeast infection on Prom night, suggested that America bomb the fuck out of whatever country was responsible. Children and innocent civilians be damned! And convert them all to Christianity. No doubt her perverted brand of Christianity that deems bombing babies nobler than oral sex.

'War is Stupid and People are Stupid,' Boy George once sang frivolously.

The governments waging them may be damn stupid too, but they are not that stupid, and not as stupid as we are, it seems. War allows governments to get away with things that are not possible in peacetime, where cooler heads and reason prevail. Using the word 'war' to describe something that is not a war, diminishes the notion of what a real war is and trivializes and mocks genuine patriotism. It threatens the very tenets of freedom. It allows for States of Emergency with unparalleled government powers from eavesdropping, surveillance and ex-parte motions to detention without trial.

'This is War!" screamed the headlines, TV networks and cable channels, and while we -- vulnerable in our pain, grief, fear and shattered sense of security -- wept over round-the-clock heart-wrenching vignettes of the fallen and their families played to the tune of the national anthem everywhere we turned.

While we mourned and watched and read and listened and cried, an anti-terrorism bill was drafted that rivals South Africa's most draconian at the height of Apartheid. Within just one week of the attacks. Not to mention an almost unanimous vote by both chambers of Congress (save one brave voice of Congresswoman Barbara Lee) to give Bush full authority to use "all necessary and appropriate force" against terrorists linked to the attacks and against those that sponsor them as well as a unanimous $40 billion anti-terrorism package.

America's worst enemies -- hypocrisy and its unrelenting media machinery that cripples our intelligence and goads us into thinking and acting like dazed sheep before a slaughter -- has done and will continue to do more harm to this country than Osama bin Laden or any other terrorists anywhere could ever wish to.

We cannot, as a response, simply bomb other countries with vengeance or blame people with different beliefs or ideologies. Nor should we grit out teeth through our tears and sense of helplessness and resolutely commit to revenge. A dogged pursuit for vengeance, whether framed as self-defense by ancient Defense Secretaries or resulting from a deep-rooted, visceral and all too understandable desire to punish by continuing along the very same path is explosively dangerous. All we can hope to achieve with such an approach is to add new recruits to the cause of terrorism and alienate public opinion domestically and especially internationally.

Before we embark on a war of retribution, like a frantic chicken with its head cut off running around in search of a definable enemy, we need to reflect. Big time.

What message we are sending when we impose sanctions on a country for nuclear testing one day, and then lift them so that the same country can help us attack or bomb an enemy we once befriended, trained and created ourselves the next? And to what extent might this just engender a distrust and hatred of America?

Some, more detached, have pointed out; the targets were symbols of American military might and economic prowess. The Pentagon and World Trade Center respectively represent the very essence of capitalism. Borrowing an American justification for the bombing of innocent civilians, and just as callously, some have referred to the victims as simply collateral damage. Indeed a shockingly insensitive euphemism. Why we should ask ourselves, was it so easy for us to stomach it in Baghdad or in Yugoslavia? Why then not in Oklahoma? Why not in New York?

We must question whether strategic national interests -- that have us bombing other humans to deflect scrutiny and accountability at home -- are either strategic or in our interests.

We must ask ourselves whether the multinational corporatization of culture that makes for stronger First World economies is worth the sweat and blood of children in sweatshops in the Third World.

We must reexamine the appropriateness of remaining silent while females are butchered at birth in China as Rupert Murdoch, Steve Case and their merry band of savages lay down the satellites and pipes for broadband to poison new minds with freshly sanitized, brain-anesthetizing content, and sell the population-controlled, surviving males new laptops.

We need to stop for a second before bedtime channel surfing between NASCAR and Howard Stern while dripping genetically engineered McDonalds burger grease onto our GAP sweaters, only to wake up just early enough and strive just hard enough to earn just enough to replace it with one from Banana Republic instead.

We need to pause before we tap our Budweisers in tune to a lecherous Bob Dole sitting in a darkened room transparently pawning Viagra in Pepsi commercials while watching Britney Spears flaunt her underage crotch in his face. And then mindlessly tune in to a two-hour JonBenet Ramesy special and wonder who killed her. And why.

We need to find balance, where criticism of Rudy Giuliani for his horrific record on arts funding is not ignored or suddenly no longer relevant because of the incredible sense of comfort and security he has been able to inspire in the wake of the attack on New York.

We need to still be able to vigorously condemn the horrific ordeals faced by the likes of Abner Louima or Amadou Diallo at the hands of corrupt New York policemen without negating or trivializing the admirable and incredible heroism displayed by brave men and women from the same Department that continues to give credence to the phrase New York's Finest in the wake of the attack on New York.

We need to parse information being fed to us by an amateur, stammering Press Secretary Ari Fleisher, (who remember, was fainting in anxiety and threatening the media during the tense furor surrounding Jenna Bush's underage drinking escapades), with the appropriate grains of salt and respect for freedom of information.

We need to learn to not confuse extremist conduct with necessary and strong criticism of policy or appreciation of an alternative ideology. Nor refrain from critical self-analysis. We must stop oversimplifying wide ranging complexities by lumping everything into an Us v.Them paradigm that leaves too many people cornered, scapegoated or unfairly branded.

We need to realize that the declarations of war, the political rhetoric on all sides and the sweeping tide of emotion and patriotism right now are potentially the most dangerous and damaging to our civil liberties if left unchecked and unbalanced. And the threat posed by our willingness to blindly trade our freedom for a heightened perception of security cannot be underestimated.

We need to question with apprehension Attorney General John Ashcroft s draconian requests for unprecedented law enforcement powers for investigating 'suspected terrorists' (however vaguely defined) that are being fast tracked through Congress without nearly appropriate enough consideration. And how the curtailment of civil liberties during wartime translates into Rumsfeld's ominous characterization of the 'war' that reads more like his biography. "It is a much more subtle, nuanced, difficult, shadowy set of problems." With neither a beginning nor end.

Now, more than ever, we need to tune in to people around us and tune out the sappy, obsequious corporate-controlled media instilling over-produced, high-tech fear into us by simply regurgitating the government's outdated war strategies as advocated by dying blowhards who peaked in the exact same posts in President Ford's cabinet four administrations ago.

Let's smell the Starbucks and realize that the stock prices of companies like Viacom, Microsoft, AOL Time Warner, News Corporation, General Electric, Disney, Vivendi, Alcoa and Halliburton are really the only thing anyone from the White House to the Treasury to the media touting this war cares about, not humanitarian values or the value of the information or programming that is designed to keep us ignorant and petrified while we cling to our flags in tears.

Such a violent and horrific attack not only showcases our vulnerability militarily, economically, politically and ideologically, but also robs of us of our families, friends and loved ones and very joy of living.

In spite of blunderbuss rhetoric and toxic media fallout, this tragedy has resulted in people coming together and reaching out to one another in ways no one ever could have imagined. A new, more informed dialogue has begun.

The greatest honor we can bestow on the people who died so tragically on September 11, 2001, is to simply wake up and pay attention.

Unbearable in Sudamn

"She got a very light punishment...Actually, it’s not much of a punishment at all. It should be considered a warning that such acts should not be repeated."

Thus spake Rabie A. Atti, a Sudanese government spokesman referring to the conviction and sentence of British teacher, Gillian Gibbons, who was sentenced to 15 days in prison and a deportation. She could have spent months in jail and been lashed 40 times, after she allowed her 7-year-old pupils name a class teddy bear Muhammad.

Call me multiculturally insensitive, but isn't lashing a woman forty times just slightly more offensive than naming a stupid teddy-bear Muhammed?

On a similar note, an Associated Press report on the resignation of Richard Roberts from the scandal-plagued Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma, casually noted that God had told him to resign, just days after God told him to deny the allegations revealed in a lawsuit accusing him of lavish spending, including taking shopping sprees, buying a stable of horses and paying for a daughter to travel aboard the university jet on a trip to the Bahamas.

Usually people who hear voices are institutionalized. Roberts sounds genuinely disturbed and should be sent to a psychiatrist, not to an evangelistic healing ministry. How long will it be before we hear that God told him to molest the children he's off to heal?

People are entitled to whatever religious beliefs they want, but it's time to stop demanding respect and accommodation when lashing teachers and blaming imaginary voices are done in the name of religion.

Rupert and Rudy

He is as corrupt as the day is long. As he censored art he deemed offensive, innocent men were brutally tortured with plungers shoved up their asses. As he preached sanctimonious drivel, he carried out a sleazy affair with another woman in the Mayoral residence, while his wife and children slept under the same roof. His conduct toward his wife, his second, at the time was so appalling his son doesn’t even support nor speak to him. He represents the absolute worst of everything that stinks about politics.

After September 11th, where he was thrust into a leadership role for a couple of days as the President cowered in panic, he stole the goodwill borne of people who died in that terrorist attack and used and manipulated it for his own personal and political gain. It has all been said before.

The only word his name evokes is disgust. Yet he could just be America’s next President if American media has anything to do with it. And, tragically, it does.

In a scathing lawsuit filed against Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., the hypocritical, family-values touting, sleaze media baron, who has tainted journalism the globe over, recently fired publisher, Judith Regan, points some damning fingers, and the Giuliani stench permeates its essence.

Regan was fired from HarperCollins on December 15, 2006 over anti-Semitic comments she’s alleged to have made, in addition to the controversial O.J. Simpson faux confessional, “If I Did It,” which was distasteful enough to cause a collective public apoplexy. At the time, Regan was so maligned by virtually everyone (including by me) that even the liars at Fox News, another News Corp. subsidiary tarred and feathered her, with none other than Bill O’Reilly leading the charge.

I didn’t pay him, so did nothing wrong
But a third party to whom rights belong
Goldmans, Browns, not a dime
But they’ll thank me in time
I bring closure to make everyone strong

As altruistic as Timothy McVeigh
Blowing mothers and babies away
Regan’s self-centered whining
And her impeccable timing
If she did it, it was for JonBenet

The lawsuit, however, suggests that Regan’s downfall was quite possibly a craftily engineered preemptive strike to discredit her, so that by the time she opened her mouth to reveal the things she has, no one would pay heed. They badly underestimated her.

Wikipedia sums it up perfectly:

“In November 2007, Regan filed a $100 million lawsuit against News Corporation protesting her dismissal. Her lawyer, Brian C. Kerr said, ‘We are fully confident that the evidence will show that Judith Regan was the victim of a vicious smear campaign engineered by News Corporation and HarperCollins.’

Her allegations include that she was ordered to lie to federal investigators regarding the controversy over Bernard Kerik, with whom she was having an affair, to protect Rudy Giuliani's bid for president. According to the New York Times, ‘The assertion that the News Corporation has sought to protect Mr. Giuliani appears in the opening page of the filing. The document later revisits aspects of the assertion without providing a full account of what is alleged to have occurred or how it might be substantiated in court.’

There’s no doubt about what kind of lady Judith Regan is. I’m certainly not a fan. To be working for Rupert Murdoch and fucking Bernard Kerik, she definitely ranks among the Linda Tripps and Lucianne Goldbergs of America’s tawdry history.

The issue at hand, however, is the dimension she adds to Rudy Giuliani’s repulsive history. Fox News has clearly placed its bets on a Rudy Giuliani presidency, and will do everything it can to ensure it, just as they called the Florida result for Bush in the 2000 election.

Maureen Dowd at the New York Times slyly contemplated a Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani showdown as if their candidacies were a foregone conclusion. The more you see of this kind of story, be it print, television or the Internet, the more self-fulfilling the prophecy becomes. Polls start to reflect what people have been seeing in the media, and before you know it, a Clinton Giuliani contest is at hand.

Meanwhile, Giuliani’s response to the Judith Regan suit was to dismiss it as sounding like a “gossip column story,” and one not worthy of his response. That strategy might have worked for George Bush Senior when asked about his adulterous affair, but Giuliani might not be so lucky. For one, even his Republican opponents are already all over it, and more importantly, it’s not only a gossip column story, it’s a lawsuit alleging criminal conduct on behalf of News Corp. executives in the name of protecting the presidential ambitions of Rudy Giuliani.

It makes sense really. The smutty programming produced and aired by Fox coupled with the smutty lifestyle exemplified by Giuliani is a match made in heaven…or hell.

The only thing worse than a world run by George Bush and Dick Cheney, would be one run by Rupert Murdoch and Rudy Giuliani.

Di Hard Democrat

Judge Mukasey is not Alberto R. Gonzales. In our confirmation hearings (and subsequently, in writing), Judge Mukasey's answers to hundreds of questions were crisp and to the point, and reflected an independent mind. That's why I intend to vote to confirm him to be our next attorney general. I truly believe he will be a strong advocate for the American people.[...]

[...] The bottom line is this: I hope that Judge Mukasey will fairly and evenhandedly represent the American people and direct the Justice Department wherever the facts and the law lead, not where the White House dictates.

--Senator Dianne Feinstein, The Los Angeles Times, November 3, 2007

She hopes. And I hope that one day all politicians won't prove to be sycophantic, self-serving morons that ignore the will of their constituents. I hope that my next Senator won't vote to greenlight a war on obviosuly faulty intelligence, or vote in favor of a blatantly unconsitutional bill such as the Patriot Act without having the common decency to bother reading it first (or the temerity to vote against it, had she actually read it.)

Unfortunately, Senator Feinstein will continue to masquerade as a "liberal," and frankly, any Democrat in California that still votes for her, or supports candidates that fawn for her endorsements, deserves every last crumb she so consistently delivers.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce...Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

Drowning in Hypocrisy

California's Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein's decision to join Senate Judiciary committee Republicans in approving the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey for Attorney General is nothing short of disgraceful.

Much like her decision to sponsor legislation that would desecrate the constitution by criminalizing flag burning, Feinstein has shown her true colors yet again.

Waterboarding, a torture technique that Mukasey refused to state unequivocally was just that, despite calling it "personally repugnant," has been considered a war crime for over a century under the United States and international law.

Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, refused to vote in favor of Mukasey, stating that: "The president says we do not torture, but had his lawyers redefine torture down in secret memos in fundamental conflict with American values and law."

By contrast, Feinstein claimed to be "troubled" that Mukasey wouldn't call a spade a spade -- or a torture technique a torture technique. Troubled? How did she feel about the torture at Abu Ghraib prison? Uncomfortable, perhaps?

According to NPR's Eric Weiner, the Nazis apparently did not use waterboarding because they didn't give a damn about public opinion and simply used harsher interrogation techniques that left scars or killed their victims. Since waterboarding causes extreme physical suffering it conveniently leaves no marks. I wonder if Ms. Feinstein would consider lightly sprayed shower gassing a torture technique if they turned the gas off before the victims die. And guess what? No scarring!

But Senator Feinstein is better than that, isn't she? She'd probably find it a tad "disconcerting."

No scarring indeed. Fortunately the same can't be said about Feinstein's legacy.

Idaho, No You-da-ho!

I don’t usually write about my sex life. But to all those who asked, or plan on asking me questions about secret codes in the wake of Senator Larry E. Craig of Idaho’s sex sting arrest in a Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport bathroom, from people who just assumed I would know, I thought I would lay it all out.

Let’s just say I’ve been around the block once or twice.

I couldn’t possibly count the number of people I have had sex with. Math was never my strong suit. I’m not bragging or strutting my prowess. It’s simply a fact.

I’ve done it everywhere. On a plane, in a car, on a beach, in a forest, in a park, in a parking lot, in the ocean, in a pool, in a hot tube, in a sauna, in a steam room, in a school toilet (I was a student at the school at the time).

I’ve had sex with a Fedex carrier, a plumber, an electrician, a painter, a mechanic, a yoga instructor, a personal trainer, a film star, a porn star, a politician and almost every other profession under the sun in almost every city in the many countries I’ve visited over the years. There have been twosomes, threesomes, foursomes, and fivesomes (and higher numbers too, but who’s counting?) There’s hardly a porno fantasy that I’ve seen that I haven’t actually experienced myself.

Yet even the times that I did it in a public place, the likelihood of being caught by anyone was slim to none. The thrill, you see, wasn’t about getting away with a risky situation, but rather unwillingness to deprive oneself of an opportunity that was presenting itself right there and then.

Maybe it’s just an innate sixth sense, but I’m pretty good at picking up what the score is. Even without the help of the Internet, (or travel guides before that), I can usually sniff my way around until I find the most conducive spot, where the attainment of my desire has the highest probability.

Perhaps this is why my friends assumed I would automatically know what happened to Senator Craig in the airport bathroom.

But in all my years, and uncountable encounters, never have I known about a foot-tapping code in a public restroom, nor the bizarre signal of sliding one’s hand under the stall of the intended, neighboring target. While I am astounded that Senator Craig seemed to be so familiar with the conduct he denies ever happened, it makes sense that a closeted person seeking an anonymous encounter would need to be familiar with such codes.

Who would have thought that there was something new to learn in the cruising for sex realm from an anti-gay, conservative, closeted, Republican senator? Why hadn’t I ever heard of nor encountered these tawdry mating rituals?

Had I been in the stall next to Senator Craig, I would likely have mistaken his foot tapping for impatience at his bowels for ignoring the pressing time restraints of his tight flight schedule.

Maybe it’s because I don’t need to do an elaborate, toilet-inspired tap-dance to get laid. It’s not that I consider myself unusually good looking by any means, but I do know what it’s like to be objectified, and to be desired for my looks alone, my brilliant mind, alas, having no bearing on the situation whatsoever.

Could it be that I don’t feel a need to conduct my sex life in the shadows, embarrassed over who I am? Maybe it’s because I haven’t half-heartedly taken sacred vows and fraudulently committed myself to someone who expects my shrill rhetoric about “protecting” families and hatefully embracing of “values” that “strengthen” marriages to match my conduct.

Yet gleeful as I am about the uncomfortable plight of an anti-gay politician, who doesn’t believe gays are fit to serve in the military (but fit to service him in the john), and as unconvinced I am about his denials, and his supposed “wide stance” that would have him “mistakenly” touch the foot of the man in the next stall (would love to see him demonstrate this seemingly acrobatic stance that would qualify him for a role in Cirque de Soleil) his arrest is disturbing because the whole purpose of a code is to determine a level of interest from someone who, by virtue of merely understanding the code, is likely looking for the same thing.

So when Senator Craig determined that Sgt. Dave Karsnia, the arresting officer, was not responding to the foot-tapping, either by foot-tapping back, or making some other gesture that demonstrated his interest, he should have had the common sense to quit. That's why there are codes, idiot! It’s that clouded judgment, along with immediately pleading guilty to make it “all go away” that suggests he is ill equipped to serve as a representative of the people of Idaho, let alone in any leadership role.

Since I would never find myself in the same position as Senator Craig, I tried to imagine what I would do from Sgt. Dave Karsnia -- the entrapper’s -- point of view, or if I was minding my own business in a bathroom stall and some strange, liver-spotted, gnarled hand swept across the underside of the stall. My guess is I would probably yank off the wedding ring, and walk out, making sure to flush first. Etiquette always.

But then again, if I was Sgt. Dave Karsnia, I would be too busy thinking about what to tell my family when they ask me how my day was, or what to tell my kids if they wanted to inform their peers what their father actually does as a “first responder.”

“Well actually I spend my life pretending to be taking a crap, hoping some desperate closet queen will tap his foot in the stall next door. And then, respond I do.” The self-actualization he must feel is heart warming.

I understand addictions and compulsions, and recognize that for some, seeking to satisfy these urges includes the risk of a dangerous encounter – like a public toilet at a busy airport. For me, there is no excitement in that sort of risk, just like there is no joy in trying to convert someone who is sexually predisposed to a different gender; no matter how attractive they may seem on the surface, or committed to pleasing me.

As I write, criticizing the players in this sordid drama, I’m sure my many critics will jump at an opportunity to condemn my immoral behavior, and the extent to which I indulge my hedonistic urges for what I term first-encounter sex (not to be confused with anonymous sex, which in turn is not to be confused with sex in a public place). While some will chalk up my promiscuity to my fear of intimacy, (many close friends already do) I prefer to see it as rather disenchantment with repeats or dissatisfaction with third encounters of the close kind. Metaphorically, to the extent that there are new, ravishing delicacies yet to be tasted, why would one keep on eating the same meal, no matter how good, over and over again?

Senator Craig saw fit to announce on the floor of the senate, that Valentine’s Day happened to be the anniversary of the first date he had with his wife Suzanne. “Am I a romantic? Well, maybe just a little bit,” he said coyly. One can imagine the romantic gift. Glade toilet spray?

"I am not gay. I never have been gay," Senator Craig doth protested defiantly following a news conference after the story first broke. A week later, as his adult children make the rounds on national television, defending daddy’s honor (and exacerbating mommy’s humiliation), proclaiming that his specious explanations had addressed all their “tough” questions to their satisfaction, Republican hypocrites like Trent Lott, Mitch McConnell, John McCain and Mitt Romney (to name a few) are now sweating like whores in a church at the prospect of Senator Craig retracting his “intended” resignation, and fighting to not only have his plea changed to “not guilty” but to retain his seat in the senate.

Senator Craig, who is up for re-election next year, will never be able to erase the screaming subtext from whatever façade he chooses adopt as a campaign theme or slogan, and politically and strategically will have no choice but to, once again, acknowledge who he isn’t and apparently never has been.

“Larry Craig for Senate 2008. I’m not gay; It's just my stance.”

Torn on the Fourth of July

Twenty one years ago I left South Africa.

Apartheid, in full flourish, was the policy of a regime that was designed by those in power to ensure that they remained there. Ronald Reagan’s policy of "Constructive Engagement" helped to keep it going, providing a global legitimacy.

From 1978 to 1984, South Africa’s Prime Minister, P.W. Botha ruled like a dictator, responsible for the torture and murder of thousands, for which he refused to apologize, even after The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established in post-Apartheid South Africa, found him responsible.

Today, as an American, I am embarrassed and ashamed. To be an American.

The President's commuting of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby’s sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice is reminiscent of the abuse of power that typified Apartheid South Africa.

Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives for the same reasons Scooter Libby was convicted. Although Clinton’s obstruction related to a sexual indiscretion being investigated by an overzealous prosecutor and hypocrite, Kenneth Starr, the lesson itself was clear. Perjury and obstruction of justice are not acceptable, no matter who you are, and no matter how frivolous, politicized and distracting the underlying investigation.

Scooter Libby's perjury and obstruction of justice was neither frivolous not partisan. It related to an act of treason, which not only threatened, but actually compromised America’s national security. Under a little reported Executive Order which gave Vice President Dick Cheney carte blanche to declassify information classified – supposedly in the interests of national security – the Office of the Vice President leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA operative specializing in nuclear proliferation, to retaliate against her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a critic of the Administration’s policy justification for going to war with Iraq.

In September 2003, the President commented: "There are too many leaks of classified information, and if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is."

He also said he was furious about the fact that someone in his Administration leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame to discredit Joe Wilson who had warned that the Administration's WMD rationale for going to war -- buttressed by Saddam Hussein’s pursuit of yellowcake from Niger in order to enrich uranium -- was dubious at best.

Until papers filed by Patrick Fitzgerald , the Special prosecutor in the Scooter Libby investigation, revealed that the President himself had authorized selective leaks to the press to refute Wilson’s claims. Only, the leak was re-termed declassification. And a formal declassification only took place ten days after the authorization. According to Fitzgerald's April 5, 2006 filing, Libby has also testified that in July 2003, that then-Counsel to the Vice President, David Addington "opined that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amount to a declassification of the document."

This President has sent men and women to die under false pretenses, leaked classified information for political purposes, and authorized illegal eavesdropping on Americans in flagrant violation of the constitution.

This Fourth of July, any American who believes in the values that America is supposed to represent, who appreciates the fundamental premise of equal justice under the law, should be as ashamed and embarrassed as I am.

American Liberal Liberties Union

In an editorial in The Wall Street Journal, The American Liberal Liberties Union, Wendy Kaminer takes the ACLU to task for trending towards what she sees as a selective approach to free speech.

This is not the same organization that once took pride in its costly, principled decision to defend the rights of neo-Nazis to march in a community of Holocaust survivors in Skokie, Ill. Of course the ACLU hasn't definitively abandoned its defense of speech: Large, national organizations change incrementally. But people should no longer depend on the ACLU to defend what they preach (especially at a cost), if it disapproves of what they practice.

In June 1998, my attorneys filed a request to allow my former company, ApolloMedia, to submit an amicus curiae brief in the Supreme Court of California in a First Amendment case, Oscar Aguilar et al. vs. Avis Rent A Car System, Inc., et al., that was being observed nationwide as a harbinger of speech in the American workplace. ApolloMedia's amicus marked the first time that Supreme Court determinations pertaining to the Internet were being applied to speech in the workplace, following the Court of Appeal's instruction to the government to create a list of "proposed epithets" or what we termed "Government-Forbidden Words."

ApolloMedia opposed the position taken by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in this case. The ACLU had filed a brief in support of the plaintiffs alleging that inappropriate workplace speech created a hostile work environment. An appellate court required the trial court to propose a list of "proposed epithets" or "Government-Forbidden Words" to be enjoined from the workplace.

As I stated in a media release back in 1998:

We respectfully disagree with the ACLU on this particular issue. We are not implying that inappropriate or racist speech be an acceptable workplace protocol, or encouraging its use, but the courts should not confuse pure speech with conduct, nor allow government to determine which words may or may not be uttered, especially without any regard for context or occasion.

One of my attorneys, William Bennett Turner clarified the distinction between recourse available to victims of verbal abuse versus a prior restraint enacted by the court itself:

Making certain kinds of workplace speech illegal is a difficult issue. The main problem with the lower court's ruling in this case is not whether the victim of verbal abuse can sue for damages, but whether the government -- the court -- can issue orders prohibiting certain disfavored words from being said at all, regardless of the context in which they're said.

While we had taken a position that opposed the ACLU, it's worth noting that a year earlier, in 1997, in addition to filing a lawsuit against Attorney General Janet Reno (ApolloMedia v. Reno) challenging a provision of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) which was ultimately heard by the United States Supreme Court, we had also filed an amicus curiae brief in support of the ACLU in another CDA challenge before the Supreme Court, Reno v. ACLU.

So although I generally believe the ACLU to be well intended, and have demonstrated my support by filing court documents supporting their position, their tendency to allow political correctness to muddy their free speech purity, as Kaminer refers to in her editorial, is not all that new a phenomenon.

Declan McCullagh, the CNet journalist who also happened to be one of the plaintiffs in the 1996 CDA case, ACLU v. Reno, made the same point on his Politech website:

It's true that ACLU litigators have done terrific work on free speech cases before, and will continue to do so. It has represented me as a plaintiff in the 1996 CDA case, for which I will always be grateful, and has devoted countless resources to COPA as well. The organization boasts the most principled and ardent First Amendment lobbyists in Washington, who are willing to take controversial stands on things like outlawing morphed child porn (a stand later vindicated by the Supreme Court).

But those attorneys and lobbyists ultimately report to a national board that seems to be growing more politically correct by the day. (Wendy was a dissident board member; I'm not sure if she's still on the board.)

This is not exactly a new phenomenon. Liberals and progressives have long been split between their totalitarian-minded leftist wing that loves to enforce political correctness through "hate speech" laws and campus speech codes -- and those who recognize the social and political dangers inherent in banning speech that someone dislikes, and believe the answer to objectionable speech is more speech.

Up Yours!

A bizarre, if not idiotic, ruling today by South Africa’s Constitutional Court, found that non-consensual anal penetration of a male did not constitute rape, but that non-consensual penile penetration of a female, anal or vaginal, did.

The case resulted from a challenge brought by Fanuel Sitakeni Masiya, 44, who was charged with raping a nine-year-old girl on March 16, 2004.

Despite pleading not guilty to the charges, the original ruling found him guilty, despite the fact that evidence revealed that the child had been anally, but not vaginally, penetrated.

Prior to today’s ruling, South Africa’s common law definition of rape only constituted non-consensual vaginal sexual intercourse.

Had the little nine-year old been a boy, Masiya’s act would not have constituted a rape, but merely an “indecent assault.” Justice Bess Nkabinde, who can’t possibly have any young sons among her four children, held that “extending the definition to include penetration of a man encroached on legislative terrain.” What? Only, perhaps if she was operating within a gender-biased paradigm to begin with.

In addition, Nkabinde found that the definition could not be applied retroactively, and remanded Masyia’s case back to Pretoria’s regional court for sentencing, under the charge of indecent assault rather than rape. Rape of a minor carries a minimum sentence of life imprisonment, whereas indecent assault has no prescribed sentence.

Try as I might, I cannot find any logic in basing a violent non-consensual act on gender. Not only in the context of children, but even male-on-male rape committed against adults.

South African males, children and adults alike, should really thank Ms. Nkabinde. So should their mothers and sisters. They’ve just officially been declared South African Ass Candy, free for the taking.

Total Recall

Resignation Seems to Be the Hardest WordBy Alberto Gonzales(Sung to the tune of 'Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word')

What have I got to do to make you fire me?
What do I have to do if I don’t care?
What do I have to do if no one trusts me
And I can't remember when or why or where?

What do I have to do if no one believes me?
What if the truth just simply won't be heard?
What if faith in me is non existent
And resignation seems to be the hardest word?

It’s bad, so bad
It’s a bad, bad situation
And although my memory’s blurred
It’s sad, so sad
My tenure’s never over
Oh it’s clear to me
That resignation seems to be the hardest word

What can prosecutors do to keep on working?
What self-integrity cost will be incurred?
What is it I do? What did I say to who
When resignation seems to be the hardest word?