[Disavowal] Negative Capability Posted on Thursday, July 15, 2004. The following assertions were collected from public statements made by George W. Bush and his official spokesmen since 1997. Originally from Harper's Magazine, May 2004.

The Mother Jones Poll The Unhappy Majority | On the Road to Nowhere | Beyond Anger | The Full Results | Take the Poll | About the Poll

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MotherJones.com / News / dailymojo Notes from the Imperium And from a lost war (or the tunnel at the end of the dark). July 14, 2004By Tom Engelhardt

MotherJones.com / News / Feature The Diddly Awards Honoring the jaw-dropping achievements of the 108th Congress Jack Hitt July/August 2004 Issue & MotherJones.com / News / dailymojo Devil in the Details Five questions for the Senate Intelligence Committee. -Bradford Plumer, July 13, 2004

Exactly what is terrorism? +

MotherJones.com / News / special_reports

The Unhappy Majority Beneath the partisan divide, America is discontented and desperate for change.

Michael Scherer
June 16 , 2004

A Pseudostate Is Born The new Iraq doesn't measure up as a real country. Adam Hochschild, www.motherjones.com, June 29, 2004

George Rex The multiple-choice madness of King George: A not-so-simple Independence Day quiz. By Stephen R. Shalom, July 5, 2004

“The War President”
Bush photomosaic of Americans who have died in Iraq since the war president entered office.

Features > June 22, 2004 The New and Improved Iraq By Juan Cole

¡oy vey!


Word that the Rev. Sun Myung Moon donned a crown in a Senate office building and declared himself the Messiah while members of Congress watched during an awards ceremony in March is now causing a stir in Washington.

news
• Wooing the Vatican: George Bush had a bad day in Rome. But wait for the pictures at your neighborhood cathedral to turn things around this fall. BY LOU DUBOSE
• Winning Grandma Millie’s Vote: Taking Enron to court sounds like a good idea any day. But there may be more to Attorney General Bill Lockyer’s lawsuit against the bankrupt energy giant. BY JEFFREY ANDERSON
• Bush’s Condom Wars: New federal rules once and for all gut any hope of HIV-prevention education. BY DOUG IRELAND
• Plus, CHRISTINE PELISEK’s list of key Supreme Court decisions affecting states’ rights.
• Powerlines: Earth to Cheney: Saddam had as much to do with 9/11 as I did. BY HAROLD MEYERSON

JUNE 18 - 24, 2004 The Cheney Connection: Last week the Securities and Exchange Commission opened an investigation into whether Halliburton paid some $180 million in bribes to Nigerian officials. It’s an allegation that the French government has been examining for a year, with the VP among the targets. BY DOUG IRELAND + Open City: Blame John Kerry for the abysmal showing at anti-war protests. BY STEVEN MIKULAN

Sign on to support a powerful new ad apologizing to the Arab world for the torture at Abu Ghraib. Also, call your Senators to reaffirm our opposition to torture.

Dear MoveOn member,

By refusing to hold
senior administration officials accountable, President Bush has failed
to fully repudiate the torture that occurred at Abu Ghraib. Every
passing day brings new photos and new news of how these despicable
techniques were sanctioned at the very top, but Bush won't even condemn
Rush Limbaugh for saying that the tactics were "brilliant" and the
troops were "just blowing off a little steam."

So it's up to us to
try to make things right. Our campaign to hold Donald Rumsfeld
accountable will continue. But today, there are two other ways we can
help -- joining an apology from Americans of faith to the world, and
helping pass a legal re-commitment to the Geneva Conventions and what
they stand for.

First, an important new group called FaithfulAmerica¹
is putting a very moving TV ad on the air in Arab countries. The ad is
a montage of American religious leaders -- Christian, Jewish, and
Muslim -- humbly expressing the regrets so many of us feel for what
happened.

You can watch the ad, sign onto it, and help get it on the air, at:

   http://www.faithfulamerica.org/adclip.htm

At the end of the ad,
FaithfulAmerica will state the number of people who've signed on, so
the more people who endorse the message, the more effective it will be.

Please sign on today.

Second, the Senate has
an opportunity now to reaffirm our opposition to torture and our
commitment to the Geneva Conventions, which ban it. The Senate is
debating a bill authorizing Defense Department actions for this year,
and Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) has offered an amendment repudiating
torture and re-confirming our commitment to uphold international human
rights as specified in the Geneva Conventions.²

A vote on the Durbin amendment is expected early this week. Please call your Senators now, at:

  Senator Dianne Feinstein

  Phone: 202-224-3841

  Senator Barbara Boxer

  Phone: 202-224-3553

Urge them to support
the Durbin amendment to the Defense bill. Then say something about why
it's important to you that we repudiate torture and support the Geneva
Conventions.

Please let us know you're calling, at:

  http://www.moveon.org/callrumsfeld.html?id=2944-3261555-WI_z2iDty5Vgg6rtIQqU5A

Thank you, for all you do.

Sincerely,

--Carrie, Joan, Lee, Noah, Peter, and Wes

  The MoveOn.org Team

  Tuesday, June 15th, 2004

Footnotes:

1. FaithfulAmerica is a new project of the National Council of Churches,
"an online community of people of faith who want to build a more just and compassionate nation."

2. For the full text of the Durbin Amendment, click here.

MotherJones.com | News: "Orwell meets Kafka The U.S. runs a global system of injustice, purposely mounted in the legal and moral dark. May/June 2004 IssueBy Tom Engelhardt"

... and justice for all. Photo «courtesy» of t r u t h o u t.

My apologies to Juan José Millás, but I just gotta let my non-spanish-speaking brethren in on this (courtesy of Altavista's Babel Fish Translation):

An ingenuous one
Juan José Millás
I did not saw to anybody shake the newspaper in the air horrified before the idea that everything was allowed. And nevertheless, the news said that the legal advisers of the White House had elaborated a report that adjusts like a glove to the spiritual measures of Bush, and according to which the torture is just when the president by antonomasia orders. This man, that or had the life of its subjects (and its subjects we are all the inhabitants of the planet) when it came to him in desire, could not nevertheless take the nails to them, empalar them or apply to them current without the danger to face the rigors of the law, which was, obviously, a contradiction. For a year, thanks to that report of high moral seam, have not been having limits in which it talks about the use, to the manipulation or the partition of the bodies of his same types. What disproportion between the amount of being able and the shortage of scruples.
Everything is allowed. I did not saw to anybody running by the streets shaking with horror the leaf of the newspaper. I did not do it either, by fear to perhaps seem ingenuous or to give the impression that she was not of return. But he was not it, that one is the truth, I am not it. How it was going to imagine, after the centuries, that I belong to a culture without moral limitations, I have been months fighting not to accustom to me to Guantánamo, Powell, Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice; making exercises so that the alarms go off to me when I hear call political errors to pure crimes; forcing to me to that the end hairs are put whenever I open the family album and I see England soldier playing the dogs with an Arab... And now it is that all that was written in the Tables of the Law.
Everything is allowed. In fact, days ago, the Pope, that shares with Bush the representation of Dios, SA, in the Earth, received its partner, by that let itself decorate at the end of "cordial" interview. The same Pope that excomulga to violet children whom they dare to abort, accepts medals of the author of a manual which it attributes on the creatures competitions that would put the meat of hen to the very same Creator. I am an ingenuous one, yes, and am terrified, but I do not want that innocence nor the fright take off to me neither.
Published in the Friday 11 June 2004 issue of El País.

If I find some moments I'll make it a bit more reader-friendly. But I hope you get the gist of it. Peace.

JUNE 11 - 17, 2004 Reagan's Curtain Call

MARC COOPER sheds no tears as he tells the truth about Ronald Reagan. JOHN POWERS dissects the master of image. HAROLD MEYERSON remembers the day Reagan crowned Pali High’s homecoming queen and then, 15 years later, fired the nation’s air traffic controllers. STEVEN MIKULAN lines up in Simi Valley for a 90-second glimpse of the casket. And NIKKI FINKE recalls her days as Reagan’s jinx and reminds us that Bonzo was double-dealing and selectively forgetting long before Iran-Contra. + David Corn: No Fall Guy: Ex-CIA Chief George Tenet left plenty of incriminating clues pointing to George Bush’s blunders on Iraq. BY DAVID CORN

While soldiers are dying in Iraq, Dick Cheney's old company Halliburton has defrauded the government of millions and charged for meals for the troops which were never delivered. Today, we're trying to raise $1.1 million to air a new ad in swing states that calls the Bush White House on its cronyism with Halliburton. Can you contribute to get it on the air?

Dear MoveOn member,

There are lots of reasons that things are going south in Iraq. President Bush alienated
the international community, lied to the world about the threat of
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, failed to plan for reconstruction .
. . and the list goes on. But there's another less talked-about reason
that things are turning out so badly: President Bush and Vice President
Cheney simply can't resist a chance to help their corporate friends
make a buck, even when it undermines the troops.

Today, we're launching
a new ad to call the Bush Administration on its ties to the
scandal-plagued company Halliburton. In just a year in Iraq,
Halliburton employees have accepted $6 million in illegal kickbacks
(1), the company overcharged taxpayers millions for gas (2), and
charged hundreds of millions of dollars for meals for our troops that
were never delivered (3). It's a perfect example of how Bush and
Cheney's taste for corporate cronyism has weakened our country and cost
taxpayers billions.

We know from polling
that for many people the Halliburton debacle illustrates a core
weakness in the Bush program, and helps convince independent voters to
vote against Bush. That's why it's so important that we get this ad,
which hammers that point home, in front of as many people as possible.
If we can raise $1.1 million, we can run the ad deep for a week in a
number of the key "battleground" states. Please contribute what you can
to help us get it on the air today at:

http://www.moveonpac.org/donate/halliburton.html?id=2927-3261555-nI9v7TRaAbVzQcB6wlOTxw

On that page, you can also read a full script of the ad and take a look at the story boards.

Revelations regarding
Halliburton's unethical and at times illegal behavior continue to pop
up at a regular pace. But perhaps more worrisome are indications that
the Bush administration isn't just turning a blind eye to Halliburton's
corrupt business practices -- it's actively helping the company along.
For example, Time Magazine exposed last week that newly disclosed
internal Pentagon emails suggest that the office of Vice President Dick
Cheney was instrumental in sealing an $18 BILLION no-bid contract for
the Vice President's former company (4).

Nor does Halliburton's
track record end at fraud. In a Pentagon audit, Halliburton was warned
that its food service facilities which serve our troops in Iraq were
dangerously unsanitary, with "blood all over the floor" of its
kitchens, "dirty pans," and "rotting meats ... and vegetables." (5) As
Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) put it, Halliburton is ultimately "a
company that arrogantly is overcharging when they can get away with it
and not providing the quality of service that they agreed to do." (6)

Vice President Dick
Cheney still holds hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of stock
options in the company.(7) So it's hardly surprising that the
Administration's response has been anemic, even when faced with clear
evidence that the company is bilking taxpayers.

That's why we need to get this ad on the air. Can you contribute to make that happen? Go to:

http://www.moveonpac.org/donate/halliburton.html?id=2927-3261555-nI9v7TRaAbVzQcB6wlOTxw

Sincerely,


--Eli Pariser

  MoveOn PAC

  June 10th, 2004

Footnotes:

1. Halliburton admits $6m kickbacks

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3425043.stm

2. Halliburton: $61M Overcharge?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/12/politics/main588216.shtml

3. Halliburton Grilled Over Meals

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/02/eveningnews/main597566.shtml

4. Time reports Cheney hand in contract

http://www.iht.com/articles/522594.html

5. Contractor served troops dirty food in dirty kitchens

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2003/12/14/2003079545

6. See 5, above.

7. Cheney may still have Halliburton ties

http://money.cnn.com/2003/09/25/news/companies/cheney/?cnn=yes

PAID FOR BY MoveOn PAC

P.O. Box 9218, Berkeley, CA 94709

t r u t h o u t - Bernard Weiner | Bush's 2004 Scandals for Dummies: "Bush's 2004 Scandals for Dummies By Bernard Weiner The Crisis PapersTuesday 08 June 2004"

JUNE 4 - 10, 2004 David Corn Kerry’s Baggage What’s gone right — and wrong — in the campaign so far Dissonance Who’s on First? The Baghdad Hand (Over) Job by Marc Cooper On Head Over Heels Bush and Kerry’s Soft Spots by John Powers