At the end of Missoula, MT, article on presidential poll numbers in Montana, I found this line:

Just 68 percent [of poll respondents] were able to identify the correct year of the 9/11 terrorist attacks (2001).

Which reminded me of these videos:

If you've watched those videos, you'll know why I'm struggling to think up any insightful commentary. Is it worth pointing out that every society has its share of blissfully uninformed citizens, or that through the dark arts of video editing anyone can be made to look stupid? Or should I point out that we now realize the "Never Forget" slogan was at once overly optimistic and incredibly naive, considering the character and attention spans of the American people?

Actually, no. You know what? These videos are a great indication that the terrorists didn't win. If the terrorists wanted to intimidate the American public or create a paradigm shift in the public's thinking, they completely and utterly failed. Terrorism is the most important issue in the upcoming election for one percent of Democrats and five percent of Republicans. And, apparently, some of us think the September 11th attacks happened on August 16th. Take that, Osama.

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With gun violence making near daily headlines, police are either exploiting locals' fear of their children's involvement in violence or trying to prevent more. Take your pick:

Boston police are launching a program that will call upon parents in high-crime neighborhoods to allow detectives into their homes, without a warrant, to search for guns in their children's bedrooms.

The program, which is already raising questions about civil liberties, is based on the premise that parents are so fearful of gun violence and the possibility that their own teenagers will be caught up in it that they will turn to police for help, even in their own households.

In the next two weeks, Boston police officers who are assigned to schools will begin going to homes where they believe teenagers might have guns. The officers will travel in groups of three, dress in plainclothes to avoid attracting negative attention, and ask the teenager's parent or legal guardian for permission to search. If the parents say no, police said, the officers will leave.

If officers find a gun, police said, they will not charge the teenager with unlawful gun possession, unless the firearm is linked to a shooting or homicide.

I'd feel better about the plan if parents could call a hotline and ask for a 'no harm no foul' search rather than opening their door to a surprise visit from the boys in blue, but check this: "Critics said they worry that some residents will be too intimidated by a police presence on their doorstep to say no to a search." Yuh huh, especially inner city parents. Imagine yourself just hitting home after a day emptying bedpans or trash cans in some big impersonal hospital or airport to find the po-po 'innocently' asking to 'allow' a search that might or might not end your Ray-Ray up on lockdown.

What I find most depressing of all is the failure of black, local civic officials to either straight up support the initiative or not:

The program will target young people whose parents are either afraid to confront them or unaware that they might be stashing weapons, said [an official], who has been trying to gain support from community leaders for the past several weeks. ...
St. Louis police [where the plan originated] reassured skeptics by letting them observe searches, said Robert Heimberger, a retired St. Louis police sergeant who was part of the program. Heimberger said the program also suffered after clergy leaders who were supposed to offer help to parents never appeared.

"I became frustrated when I'd get the second, or third, or fourth phone call from someone who said, 'No one has come to talk to me,' " he said. Residents "lost faith in the program and that hurt us."

In St. Louis, 98% of parents allowed the searches, fifty per cent of which resulted in confiscated weapons but the initiative fizzled out due to lost funding and lost civic support.

And what happened to the children of those parents who so bravely, or gullibly, trusted 'the man'? Something tells me--not what their parents had in mind. I wish Boston well and hope they apply the lessons learned from my home town, St. Louis. But nothing like this can work without the sustained support of the ministers and activists based in the community.

Say it loud, black people: you in or you out of initiatives like this?

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Maureen Dowd makes me lose faith in journalism. Apparently, I work in a field in which writing pseudo-intellectual gender- and machismo-based nonsense that isn't particularly funny, witty, or amusing, and which includes no actual reporting, doesn't get you fired. It gets you eight more years in the most hallowed space the industry offers.

Maureen Dowd helped sink Al Gore's presidential chances in 1999 by writing crap like this:

Al Gore is so feminized and diversified and ecologically correct that he's practically lactating.

And how she's writing crap like this:

The debate dominatrix knows how to rattle Obambi.

Mistress Hillary started disciplining her fellow senator last winter, after he began exploring a presidential bid. When he winked at her, took her elbow and tried to say hello on the Senate floor, she did not melt, as many women do. She brushed him off... She has continued to flick the whip in debates. She usually ignores Obama and John Edwards backstage, preferring to chat with the so-called second-tier candidates. And she often looks so unapproachable while they're setting up on stage that Obama seems hesitant to be the first to say hi.

I'm still going. I can't help myself. There's so much here that makes me cringe. Now Dowd introduces the "real man" character. As Al Gore was busy lactating in the 2000 race, George W. Bush was the hot shot with two mini-kegs swinging between his legs. And guess who wins the Down body language tests that Obama fails?

Other guys, like Rudy, wouldn't even be looking for a chance to greet Hillary, as Obama always does. Other guys, like Rudy, wouldn't care if she iced them.

After selectively citing a bunch potshots that Rudy has taken at Hillary, which, in truth, mirror the ones that supposedly weak-kneed Obama and Edwards have taken, Dowd ends with this:

Hillary has her work cut out for her. Rudy will not be so easy to spank.

And... vom.

PS — I know this isn't the worst Maureen Dowd article of the last eight years. Or even the last year. Or month. But it is part of one of the worst op-ed days in NYT history. Tom Friedman is suggesting an Obama-Cheney ticket for chrissakes.

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I don't fancy taking Hillary Clinton's side against John Edwards, especially when it concerns the Iraq war. But the former North Carolina senator is trying too darn hard to pick a fight with the junior senator from New York on Iraq. Yesterday, at a town hall meeting in Reno, Nevada, Edwards said that Clinton's unwillingness to announce a timetable for removing troops from Iraq is tantamount to "continuing the war."

That's not so. It's true that Edwards has been more specific than Clinton in calling for a troop withdrawal. He has vowed that he would, if elected president, immediately pull out 40,000 to 50,000 U.S. troops and fully withdraw US. forces from Iraq within ten months. (Barack Obama has said he would remove one to two brigades a month; there are about 20 combat brigades in Iraq.) Clinton's position regarding withdrawal, according to her website, is this:

Starting Phased Redeployment within Hillary's First Days in Office: The most important part of Hillary's plan [to end the Iraq war] is the first: to end our military engagement in Iraq's civil war and immediately start bringing our troops home. As president, one of Hillary's first official actions would be to convene the Joint Chiefs of Staff, her Secretary of Defense, and her National Security Council. She would direct them to draw up a clear, viable plan to bring our troops home starting with the first 60 days of her Administration. She would also direct the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs to prepare a comprehensive plan to provide the highest quality health care and benefits to every service member -- including every member of the National Guard and Reserves -- and their families.

Clinton promises she will bring the war to a conclusion. Edwards and others may have good reason to doubt she is sincere or committed to this position, given her earlier support for the war, which continued after the invasion. After all, she did come late (later than Edwards) to the withdrawal position. Yet Edwards is attempting to transform their present differences--offering a timetable now for removing troops versus vowing to create quickly a viable withdrawal plan for removing troops--into a foundational battle. Edwards said in Reno,

She says that she will end the war, but she also says she will continue combat missions in Iraq and keep combat troops stationed in Iraq. From my perspective, that's not ending the war. That's continuing the war. In fact, it's continuing the occupation. So we have really different views about that.

Maintaining troops in Iraq for training purposes or for combating the remnants of the local al Qaeda franchise--wise or not--would not be continuing the occupation. In fact, Edwards has not said that he would pull out every single soldier.

[Read more]

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