The Kerik Circus

I've been enjoying the shambles the administration has made of Bernard Kerik's nomination and subsequent withdrawal as head of Homeland Security. This man had more red flags hanging off him than a logging truck but the Bush administration forged steadfastly ahead, evidently without vetting Kerik before the nomination was announced. Worse, it doesn't look like they did much vetting even after the nomination. It took Newsweek magazine two days to find information on a warrant that had been issued for Kerik's arrest in 1998. The White House, two weeks into the process, hadn't a clue about that warrant and it's beginning to look like they might never have found it. Of course, they only have the FBI at their disposal for investigations like this. That's obviously nowhere near as good as a dogged reporter.

The second Bush administration, which hasn't officially begun yet, seems to be getting off to a bad start. Bush's propensity for surrounding himself with yes-men is starting to give him problems. Bernie Kerik's peccadillos and shortcomings were evidently fairly well known and it's hard to believe the White House didn't have a clue that his nomination might run into trouble. They were shocked...shocked, I tell you!...to find that their man had a closet full of skeletons. That's what happens, though, when you surround yourself with people who haven't the guts to tell you the truth. You wind up twisting in the wind, strung up by your own hubris.

Even more fascinating is the spin being applied to this disaster. Republicans keep insisting that but for the "nanny problem" Kerik would have made a great Director of Homeland Security. They're saying this even in the face of further information on Kerik's messy private life (two affairs, simultaneously) and his 6.2 million dollar profit from a company that sells Tasers to government agencies, without so much as a penny invested on his own part. If this is the caliber of man Bush is going to keep nominating for high federal posts we're in for a lot of entertainment over the next four years.

Let's hope the news media can keep up. It looks like they're the only vetting process we've got.

Gloating

Well, maybe it's not gloating. I'm not sure what to label it when family members laugh and joke about the election and "liberals" like me. Nevermind that I'm more fiscally conservative than any of them ever thought of being.

I see we're rattling sabres at Iran now. As the mother of a twenty-year-old son, this scares the shit out of me. I can't help but wonder if four years from now when a woman's right to an abortion has been trashed by the new Bush Supreme Court, Social Security has gone down the tubes, the national debt has bankrupted our economy and my son is dead on some desert in the Middle East, they'll still be laughing.

Alan Sloan

Alan Sloan is a financial writer for Newsweek. He has an uncanny ability to wade through reams of number-filled pages and find the real story. The most alarming part of his recent column is his calculation on the percentage of our debt held by foreigners. "Foreigners now own 43 percent of our privately held national debt, up from 30 percent in 2001," according to Sloan.

Let me see if I have this right. We won't listen to them when they object to our untamed aggression but we will cheerfullly sell our country to them, right?

Why "creeper"?

We've had an internet computer for almost seven years now. We were awash in computers before that but the love-of-my-life refused to connect to the internet with any of them that did actual work. We run a business and do a lot of volunteer work that requires record-keeping on computers and we weren't anxious to subject them to the risk of a virus.

The siren song of the web kept calling, though, so when our daughter's old 486 came back from college without her we decided it was time to get online. My computer guru (hubby) put a modem in it and off we went.

While the modem was a top-of-the-line IBM 56k jobbie, the computer itself was as slow as molasses and the server wasn't connecting at anything faster than 28k. Ten seconds was probably as fast as any webpage would load and some of them took up to five minutes. If I wanted to go to a big website I quickly learned to get the loading process started and then go throw in a load of laundry or feed the livestock. No matter. Web surfing was still wonderful.

The primary reason I'd wanted to go online was to find support and information in my efforts to cope with my dad's Alzheimer's disease. I soon found an online support group and set out to register. "User name" was the first box I came to.

The girl engineer whose computer it had been was pretty savvy about online stuff and she'd told me it wasn't a good idea to use your real name on sites until you knew what you were getting into. Not being terribly creative at names (see the title of this blog) I was stumped. As I sat in front of the machine muttering there came a voice from the couch where, ostensibly, a nap was in progress. "Second Street creeper," the voice said. "We've got the slowest computer in Camanche."

The "Second Street" part was way too cumbersome but I kinda liked "creeper." It was short and snappy and when I tried it I found that there was no other "creeper" listed for that site. Over the next several months I found that it wasn't common, which meant that I didn't often have to append numbers to it to differentiate me from, say, "creeper54."

It is, however, offputting to a lot of people. I sensed some reticence toward accepting me in that first Alzheimer's group until I told them why I was using that name. I've found myself explaining the origin of "creeper" to almost everyone I've met online. I suppose it would've been easier to go with something a little cuter, like "Slow Poke," but the unorthodoxy of it has grown on me over the years.

So there's nothing sinister here. No hacking, no spamming, not even much lurking. We don't even use that 486 any more. But "creeper" has stuck. Thanks, Russ.

ABC News: Democrats Vie for Party Chair

Marc J. Ambinder's take on who will be the new Democrat Party Chairman is worth a read.

ABC News: Democrats Vie for Party Chair

There are references in here to moving the party to the center and nominating someone who isn't a "liberal." For some reason that seems to exclude Howard Dean. Poor Howard. His opposition to the war in Iraq got him branded as a "liberal" while his record as governor of Vermont is actually pretty conservative in many areas, particularly economic issues.

I worry about moving the party any more to the center. I think Bill Clinton took it as far to the right as it can go without losing its place as the loyal opposition.

Our governor, Tom Vilsack, is one of those mentioned most frequently when the question of DNC chair comes up. I'm leery of that idea. We need Vilsack here and I'm not sure if he'd have to resign his office in order to take over at headquarters. Vilsack seems to be one of the good possibilities for presidential nominee in 2008. Since governors seem to have an inside track at this, I'd like to see him stay right where he is.

Welcome Back, Charlie!

The big news of the day is that Charlie Pierce couldn't stay away from Altercation. Nobody is any happier to see him back than I was. After all, it was the lack of his words to voice my own feelings that drove me to blog myself. I'm a poor substitute for this kind of wisdom, though.

I'm still digging down, Charlie. But the tunnel is starting to angle toward the side.

MSNBC - Noam is an Island

Recount Bandwagon

The recount bandwagon is rolling. Yesterday I got two e-mail requests within half an hour to sign a petition/write my congressman/file a complaint about election regularities. See this:

http://www.moveon.org/investigatethevote/

and this:

http://www.pfaw.org/go/Election2004/supportGAOinvestigation

Aside from the fact that everything in our precinct in Tallahassee went swimmingly, I'm still not inclined to clamber aboard this train.

Paranoia is partly responsible for my reluctance. It's not that I don't think Republicans, and maybe even Democrats, are capable of stealing an election. God knows the lesson of 2000 was an easy one: elections can be won in more ways than just garnering a majority of the vote. (We won't go into the Electoral College here.) But I've considered the outcome of a change in the result, giving the win to John Kerry. Frankly, I don't think this administration would leave the White House even if the election were overturned. George Bush believes God wants him there. I think in his mind that trumps anything the electorate might want.

If you carry this to its logical conclusion, you realize that a change in the result of the election would be viewed as illegitimate by the administration and they would simply hunker down and stay put. Then who would remove them? The Supreme Court? Been there, done that.
The Capitol police? That would be the force under the control of the Justice Department, right? We're inching closer and closer to either anarchy or civil war.

I've just about concluded that we actually need four more years of Bush. I think it's going to take that in order for the people who voted for him to "get it." A little history here: I once dated and fell in love with an alcoholic. He was still functioning but just barely. I couldn't figure out what to do until a lady I respected very much told me that alcoholics rarely start the trip back up until they've hit rock bottom. My only choice was whether or not I wanted to make the trip down with him. I didn't.

In this case I don't have much of a choice...I'm stuck on the train. But I think the Bush voters are much like that alcoholic; they're not going to understand just how wrong they are until things go completely to hell on them.

As much as it hurts me to say this, I don't think four more years of these clowns could do as much harm as trying to force them out.

CBS News | Online Liberals: We Wuz Robbed | November 11, 2004�09:48:50

There are a lot of stories floating around the web contending the election was stolen. I don't think I want to believe that, though it might be a comfort I suppose.
The story has made it into the MSM. See...

CBS News | Online Liberals: We Wuz Robbed | November 11, 2004�09:48:50

Where Was I?

So, having delivered myself of the initial rant, posted on my own newly minted blog because I couldn't figure out howthehell to add it to another, I suppose it's time to start properly.

It's November 10, 2004. I woke up this morning to find that the nightmare is still true. I don't know why I keep being shocked to find that we have four more years of our current administration to look forward to, but I do. Obviously, there's some part of me in denial. For insight into other parts of me you may see my profile, though there's not a lot noteworthy there.

I spent Election Day a thousand miles from home, working as a poll monitor for Election Protection 2004. This was a non-partisan group whose only purpose was to be sure that anyone who was entitled to vote was able to excercise that right. Tallahassee was a nice town, nothing like the Florida I've seen to date. It's not touristy, there's a remarkable lack of strip malls compared to most places I've been, and the people were delightful. It's a good thing I enjoyed Election Day and those few before it while I could. I was still naively thinking that we'd be replacing the madman in the White House soon and all would be tickety-boo. We all know where that went.

I'm hoping this doesn't turn out to be nothing but a political rant, though I'd be the first to admit that's how I wound up here. I welcome posts from all readers. Republicans will be treated with respect but I'm not above arguing.

One more thing...thank you, Google!

Recount

I keep seeing posts on other blogs urging a recount in Ohio. Don't these people get it? It wouldn't matter whether the vote count in Ohio WERE reversed. This administration is not going to leave the White House. Period.

Welcome to my blog!