Escaping the Heat: AT Goes North

The AT folks will be on a light schedule this week while we head north, a welcome escape from T-Town's sweltering temperatures.

If circumstances permit, we'll do a few posts. If not, please check back next week. Until then, stay cool and pray for rain. Our yard in midtown Tulsa is quickly turning to dust.

The Bush Terror Legacy: Exploitation and Fear

AT's nomination for "Quote of the Year," from Jane Mayer's The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals:

Fear and anxiety were exploited by zealots and fools.

--Phillip Zelikow, director of the 9/11 Commission

McCain's Negative Ads Could Backfire

Republican presidential candidate John McCain promised to run a positive campaign. This week, however, McCain ran a stupid and widely ridiculed attack ad against Barack Obama.

So much for that McCain promise. Apparently, Karl Rove is alive and well and working for McCain.

But at the Chicago Sun-Times, Rovian tactics look like a bad bet for McCain. Here's a portion of the Sun-Times analysis:

WASHINGTON -- John McCain's stepped-up aggression raises the question: Will Americans vote for a scold?

A new ad launched Wednesday suggests Democratic rival Barack Obama is nothing more than a lightweight celebrity akin to a Britney Spears or a Paris Hilton. McCain has suggested Obama would rather lose a war than an election and ridicules him for the ''audacity of hopelessness'' in his Iraq policies.

''He's the biggest celebrity in the world,'' his latest ad says. ''But, is he ready to lead?''

Some Republicans welcomed McCain's confrontational strategy. New Hampshire GOP Chairman Fergus Cullen said Republicans in his state ''like to see the McCain campaign on offense.''

But in striking an aggressive pose, McCain is in danger of of letting the caricature of an angry, petulant candidate take seed, and angry candidates don't win elections.

Tulsa Writer Featured on NPR

Tulsa author Teresa Miller, known locally for her television show Writing Out Loud, was the featured guest yesterday on NPR's Diane Rehm Show. 

The occasion was Miller's new book, a memoir called Means of Transit, to be published this fall by the University of Oklahoma Press. 

Miller told guest host Susan Page about growing up and becoming a writer in Oklahoma, including her sometimes painful childhood in Tahlequah. She also offered advice for aspiring writers, something she does routinely at OSU Tulsa, where she heads the Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers. 

Miller, who has a distinct "Southern" accent, was quite charming on the radio, a fact that should serve her and her publisher well. 

There's much more about Miller and her book, book signings, and literary links at her website, teresamiller.net.

Some Stations Pull Plug on Blabber Savage

Right-wing radio talker Michael Savage, heard locally on Tulsa's KRMG, routinely puts his foot in his mouth.

But last week's Savage rant about autism as a phony medical condition was over the top, even for someone as whacked out as Savage.

Savage's outburst has put him at odds with some important radio people, such as advertisers and stations—some of whom have dropped the Savage show. Most recently, Savage lost his radio outlet in Los Angeles, one of the nation's largest media markets.

KRMG should get a clue and drop the show as well. Savage has nothing of value to say to Tulsans.

Judge Rules Against Bush Privilege Claim

The Bush Administration has earned a long list of critics, AT included.

But sometimes the good guys win, as happened today when a federal judge ruled against the executive privilege claims of the White House.

Here's a summary of the story, courtesy of the New York Times:

President Bush’s top advisers cannot ignore subpoenas issued by Congress, a federal judge ruled on Thursday in a case that involves the firings of several United States attorneys but has much wider constitutional implications for all three branches of government.

For the record, the judge is a Bush appointee. Looks like we'll see former White House lawyer Harriet Miers testifying before Congress.

And then there's this bit of good news: The ruling could have implications for our favorite GOP operator, Karl Rove.

Republican Mismanagement Leaves Public Pessimistic About Nation's Future

This can't be good news for Republicans: A new poll shows that a whopping 76 percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track.

The poll, conducted by CNN/Opinion Research Corp. found that just 24 percent have a positive outlook for the country. Obviously, seven-plus years of Bush incompetence and mismanagement has taken its toll.

CNN.com added this summary of the poll numbers:

It is the lowest [wrong direction] number on record since 1980 and the third time in four decades that the number has dropped so low.

Recommended Reading: Robinson's Op-ed on the Bush Team's Torture Policies

It's no longer news that the Bush Administration has promoted torture in the name of fighting terrorism and national security.

In today's Tulsa World, columnist Eugene Robinson identifies some of the moral and ethical problems of the administration's torture policies.

It's hard to believe, Robinson writes, that Bush, "to his eternal shame and our nation's great discredit, [has] made torture a matter of hair-splitting, legalistic debate at the highest levels of the United States government."

Precisely.

Using legalistic language, the Bush boys redefined torture and then wrote a series of self-exculpatory memos to justify their "enhanced techniques." Example: One memo cited by Robinson said that a "torturer needed only the 'honest belief' that he was not actually committing torture in order to avoid legal jeopardy."

Call this the "get out of jail free card"—It can't be torture because I never believed I was committing torture.

Both Barack Obama and John McCain have denounced U.S. torture policies, although McCain, a former POW, recently voted against legislation that would have restrained the CIA's interrogation techniques. But even McCain has said consistently said that waterboarding is torture, no matter what the administration claims.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma politicians have been noticeably silent on this issue. As far as we can tell, Senators Infohe and Coburn have nothing to say on the issue. Ditto Rep. John Sullivan, Tulsa's answer to a potted plant.

Robinson, however, gets it right: George Bush will likely be remembered "as the president who embraced torture."

More Trouble for 'Bush's Brain'

Headline of the Day, courtesy of CNN.com: 

House panel votes to cite Karl Rove for contempt

Whatta ya know, Congressional Democrats finally grow a spine!

GOP Justice: The Bushies Break the Law

Remember Alberto Gonzales, close friend of George W. Bush and former attorney general of the U.S and one of the most forgetful persons to testify before Congress?

Remember when charges were flying that Gonzales and his cronies were packing the Justice Department with political conservatives and disqualifying anyone with a hint of liberalism, even when the liberals were more qualified?

If not, here's the mid-summer update: Top aides to Gonzales broke the law. One of these aides was Gonzales' White House liaison Monica Goodling, a graduate of Pat Robertson's "Christian" law school in Virginia.

Who says? None other than the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General, hardly a partisan outfit.

Although Gonzales himself was not implicated in the report, the whole business stinks. One of those named in the report was Gonzales' chief of staff, Kyle Sampson.

Despite the facts, Oklahoma's junior senator, Tom Coburn, argued today that the problems at Justice were limited to low-level staffers.

Sorry, Doc, that's not true. The chief of staff was no newbie, even if Goodling was. And then there's Gonzales, whose remarkable ability to forget meetings he attended and key conservations he heard has thus far shielded him from legal liability.

Like the Nation, Okies Get Fatter

In case you missed it (as we did), Oklahoma has achieved another dubious distinction. The Sooner state ranks eighth in the percentage of citizens who are obese.

The findings, released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, revealed that 28.8 percent of the state's population are obese. Our western neighbor, Colorado, has the nation's lowest obesity rate at 19.3 percent.

Oklahoma isn't alone. The CDC figures show that the entire nation has become fatter over the past two decades. Most of them are in the South, where we (yes, AT too) eat lots of fried food and sweet stuff. More fried chicken and sweet tea, anyone?

The Tulsa World noted last week that Oklahoma's obesity rate was less that 10 percent in 1988.

This is not a simple matter of the food police at work, either, since obesity has public health consequences. As the World reported, public health officials link obesity with the increased risk of Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, kidney disease, and other serious conditions.

Gay-Basher Reinhart Loses in Oklahoma County

The AltTulsa team doesn't live in Oklahoma County, but we were happy to see that the incredibly homophobic Brent Reinhart lost his reelection bid as District 2 commissioner there. 

In the Republican primary yesterday, District 2 voters gave Reinhart only 21 percent of the vote, well behind Brian Maughan at 47 percent and J.D. Johnston at 31 percent. That means Reinhart, the incumbent, is out of the race, thank goodness. 

Reinhart, you may remember, recently published a comic book focusing on gays and their evil ways in Oklahoma, a move widely seen as ploy to divert attention from his own legal problems. 

Interviewed about the comic book by CNN, Reinhart claimed that the "gay agenda" was an important issue in Oklahoma County. 

Apparently, the District 2 voters didn't agree. Bye, Brent. 

Top Senate Republican Indicted for Lying

A leading Republican senator was indicted in Washington today, new evidence of the "culture of corruption" in GOP circles.

Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska has been charged "with lying about receiving gifts worth more than $250,000 from Veco, an Alaska-based energy company on whose behalf he intervened in Washington," according to CNN.

Here's the CNN summary of the charges against Stevens, one of the longest-serving men in the Senate:

The indictment, returned Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Washington, says the veteran lawmaker "schemed to conceal" the fact that Veco paid for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of work on his home.

Sen. Coburn: A Problem for Both Parties

Sen. Tom Coburn thinks he's a principled conservative. Too bad that's the same attitude that causes him to be, in the words of today's New York Times, "a thorn in the side of both parties."

The issue is Coburn's abuse of the Senate's "hold" policy, a procedure by which Oklahoma's junior senator stops action on bills he doesn't like. The problem is that Coburn finds "principled" reasons to object to dozens and dozens of bills, even ones that almost all the other 99 senators agree upon.

That makes Coburn the odd man out, which, as the Tulsa World recently noted, makes the senator "the least effective man in the Senate."

Good work, Doc. While you're preening and grandstanding, Oklahomans are getting inferior representation.

Oklahoma's Bridge Problem: We're No. 2 (Great!) in Deficient Bridges

Oklahoma's bridge problem isn't new, but the problem is now making national news. USA Today reported Friday that the Sooner state is number 2 (out of 50) in deficient bridges.

The state has 5,435 such bridges, 24 percent of its total. Only Pennsylvania has a higher percentage with 26 percent of its bridges rated deficient.

According to the the paper, a deficient bridge is one that needs closer inspection or repair.

The good news: The state legislature has appropriated more money for bridge repair, so the state is trying to fix the problem before its gets worse.

The Week in Politics: Obama Wins Going Away

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Barack Obama's Middle Eastern trip has been a huge success. The man is smart and savvy, unlike the current occupant of the White House.

Meanwhile, John McCain has been making misstatements and foreign policy gaffes, continuing a string of campaign flubs that undermine his supposed strength as a candidate. The guy gets easily confused, not a quality anyone wants in a president.

Some wags have started calling the McCain campaign "The Double Talk Express."

The election is still months away, but if this trend continues McCain's chances of beating Obama will go from slim to none.