Month: October 2004

I-I-I-I’ve got no strings to…huh…wha-…What’s This??

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The Washington Post is reporting that the speech Allawi gave before Congress was in part prepared by the Bush campaign: The unusual public-relations effort by the Pentagon and the U.S. Agency for International Development comes as details have emerged showing the U.S. government and a representative of President Bush’s reelection campaign had been heavily involved … Read more

Despite Dire Warnings, Civilization Seems Stable

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Even with its shiny new facade, the FMA (now the Marriage Protection Amendment) was soundly defeated in the House yesterday. The 227-186 vote in the House Thursday was well short of the two-thirds majority needed to advance a constitutional amendment, but fulfilled a promise by backers to get lawmakers on the record on the highly … Read more

Debate roundup

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“Let me look you in the eye and tell you, very directly and forthrightly and firmly, and with a not-insubstantial-amount of vigor and vim, exactly what it is that I am about to say.” Which is: despite occasional crap like the above, Kerry won the debate. Judge it not by the substance (we’ve all made … Read more

mcmasterchef Memorial Recipe Thread

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…because we listen to the requests and needs of our valued cus… ah, readers here at Obsidian Wings. Because we care. And because it’s fall, which has always been the time of year in my family when pies are baked. As a loyal member of the Pax Gibletsia I say, let us have recipes for … Read more

Quick Factchecking: Homeland Security

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There were a few points in the debate where I thought Bush said something that was just wrong. For instance, he said that “There are 100,000 troops trained, police, guard, special units, border patrol.” Last Friday Reuters reported that “The Pentagon also said on Monday that only about 53,000 of the 100,000 Iraqis on duty now have undergone training.” However, rather than going over lots of statements, I want to focus on one that I worry will be passed over, namely Bush’s claim, on a question about homeland security, that “Of course we’re doing everything we can to protect America.” This statement is clearly, flatly false.

I wrote about this several weeks ago here. The quickest way to find a list of things that we have not done to make our country safer is to download a GAO report on the status of key recommendations made by the GAO to the Department of Homeland Security, and flip to p. 30, where you will find a list of recommendations that have not yet been implemented. And the quickest way to show that Bush did not tell the truth is to note that in eight of the cases where DHS provided an explanation of delays in implementing recommendations, it cited funding problems. Those recommendations include, among other things, deploying isotope identifiers to detect radiation in ports, finding people whose visas have been revoked because the government suspects them of involvement in terrorism, and controls over foreign military sales. These are all things that would have made our country safer, and that we did not do simply because we were unwilling to commit the necessary funds.

Below the fold I go over some areas in which this administration has failed to secure our country. Many of them are shortened versions of points I made my earlier post; sorry for the repetition. But I think it’s important to ask, about each of the items listed (and the list is far from exhaustive): is this something that Bush thinks his administration cannot do? If so, what does that say about the capabilities of his administration? If not, how does he square this with his claim that “we’re doing everything we can to protect America”?

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