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Replacing the Irreplaceable Paul Wellstone

The memorial at Kent State University was the perfect place to walk and talk with Paul Wellstone. He was hurting from an old college wrestling injury, and perhaps, though we didn't know it then, from the onset of MS. So he could barely move around. But what walking he could do, he did with grace. An athlete in pain.

Paul was also, as always, sharp and committed. We were awaiting our turns to speak to an energetic band of young citizen activists, fresh out of college. They were bright, progressive environmentalists, full of vim and promise, a welcome island in the 1990s sea of Clintonian materialism.

As we circled the memorial we found ourselves close to tears. When this official butchery happened, we were both active in the movement against the war in Vietnam. The 1970 shooting, engineered by Richard Nixon and Ohio Gov. James A. Rhodes, sent a message: you could be killed.

Branding New and Improved Wars

Marketing a war is serious business. And no product requires better brand names than one that squanders vast quantities of resources while intentionally killing large numbers of people.

The American trend of euphemistic fog for such enterprises began several decades ago. It's very old news that the federal government no longer has a department or a budget named "war." Now, it's all called "defense," a word with a strong aura of inherent justification. The sly effectiveness of the labeling switch can be gauged by the fact that many opponents of reckless military spending nevertheless constantly refer to it as "defense" spending.

During the past dozen years, the intersection between two avenues, Pennsylvania and Madison, has given rise to media cross-promotion that increasingly sanitizes the organized mass destruction known as warfare.

The first Bush administration enhanced the public-relations techniques for U.S. military actions by "choosing operation names that were calculated to shape political perceptions," linguist Geoff Nunberg recalls. The invasion of Panama in December 1989 went forward under the

Wellstone Memorial

SAN FRANCISCO -- He was the rarest of all rare breeds -- a mensch from Minnesota. But this is not a column about Paul Wellstone. No one has to wonder for a minute what he would have wanted, "What would Wellstone do?" The answer all but roars back, "Don't mourn, organize!"

The contrast between Paul's passionate populism and this dreary mid-term election is as sad as his death. There's many a contest between political pygmies this year -- we're down to seeds and stems again --- but even in proud Texas we have to admit that this year's palm for nose-holding voting must go to California. Not to overstate, two of the most titanically unattractive candidates in the history of time -- Gray Davis and Bill Simon -- are vying for the governorship. A new nadir in modern politics. How we got from the Lincoln-Douglas debates to this -- or what we ever did to deserve it -- is unclear. The debate between Davis and Simon raised the always-timely question: Is God punishing us?

Texas two-step

AUSTIN, Texas -- The famous Texas two-step is getting a heavy workout in Washington. You glance away for just a moment to watch the World Series and -- oops -- we're no longer for regime change in Iraq.

We've spent the last two months having it pounded into our brains daily that we must have regime change in Iraq, nothing else will do. But now -- not so. Well, you say, people are allowed to change their minds, even presidents. But that's where we come to the awkward part, because the administration is insisting it hasn't changed its mind at all, it never demanded regime change and it's all our fault for being so stupid as to have misunderstood them. This is the White Queen stage, she who could believe six impossible things before breakfast.

Saddam's amnesty: Could it happen here? Are you kidding?

If George Bush pulls 100 percent of the vote the next go-round in Florida, would he, too, proclaim a general amnesty for all federal prisoners, the way Saddam Hussein has just done after pulling his 100 percent under polling conditions that would surely have excited the envy of any Florida election official? Of course he wouldn't. Amnesties and pardons are at an all-time low here.

Saddam declared amnesty for not only political prisoners but also criminals. Murderers, both convicted and accused, have to get an OK from the mother of the victim, and debtors need a green light from their creditors.

Clearly the Iraqi Corrections Officers' Union hasn't much clout in Baghdad. Nor has the prison construction industry. Imagine what would happen in this country if word leaked out that the president was thinking of amnestying ANY violent criminal, let alone almost all of the inmates of the federal Gulag. A blanket amnesty for all non-violent drug offenders? Within 24 hours the prison industry, the prison guards' unions and law enforcement lobbying groups would swamp Congress with e-mails and personal delegations.

The Imminent Death of American Democracy... Starting in Missouri

Two hundred years of American democracy could definitively end November 5, starting in Missouri.

No matter what happens in the overall election, the race for the US Senate seat from Missouri will determine who controls the Congress on November 6. Should incumbent Democrat Jean Carnahan lose, the Republicans will immediately take control of the US Senate. They could then use a lame duck session to destroy the last vestiges of the American system of checks and balances. They are confident this will happen, and are spending millions to make sure it does.

The upper chamber is now divided between 50 Democrats, 49 Republicans and one brave independent. Elected as a Republican, Vermont's Jim Jeffords chose independence in the face of the Bush blitzkreig. His profile in courage is stamped on the last check and balance in American government.

With a ruthless hard-right cabal in charge of the Executive Branch, the Republicans have moved to complete their definitive conquest of the judiciary and the media.

Anti-women decisions

AUSTIN, Texas -- As all the Miss Witherspoons of our lives used to call in those clear, fluty tones, "Attention, girls!" Heads up, women, we've got problems.

The latest in a long line of anti-woman decisions by the Bush administration is, for once, getting some attention, in part because of the sheer cheapness of the move.

President Bush has decided not to send the $34 million approved by both houses of Congress for the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA). The fund provides contraception, family planning and safe births, and works against the spread of HIV and against female genital mutilation in the poorest countries of the world. Thirty-four million dollars goes a long way in the parts of the world where over 600,000 women die every year from pregnancy and childbirth, many of them children themselves.

Of course, our poor government is so broke it can't afford to waste $34 million on women in poor countries. It has more important things to do, like spending $100 million on "promoting marriage." (I'm in favor of recycling old Nike ads for this one: "Marriage. Just do it.")

Polls: when measuring is manipulating

Before decisions get made in Washington -- and even before most politicians open their mouths about key issues -- there are polls. Lots of them. Whether splashed across front pages or commissioned by candidates for private analysis, the statistical sampling of public opinion is a constant in political life.

We may believe that polls tell us what Americans are thinking. But polls also gauge the effectiveness of media spin -- and contribute to it. Opinion polls don't just measure; they also manipulate, helping to shape thoughts and tilting our perceptions of how most people think.

Polls routinely invite the respondents to choose from choices that have already been prepared for them. Results hinge on the exact phrasing of questions and the array of multiple-choice answers, as candid players in the polling biz readily acknowledge.

"Slight differences in question wording, or in the placement of the questions in the interview, can have profound consequences," Gallup executive David Moore wrote a few years ago in his book "The Superpollsters." He observed that poll outcomes "are very much influenced

Stomach ailments

AUSTIN, Texas -- Have you had a terrible stomach illness lately? It's quite likely you should blame the Bush administration. I know, that sounds like some demented spoof of left-wing paranoia, but it's actually an especially visceral example of one of life's iron rules -- you can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to.

Unless you have reason to suspect that your nearest and dearest are putting arsenic in your food, your bad stomach was likely caused by tainted meat. It is not hard to connect the dots on this one -- the massive meat recalls of recent months have now culminated in the largest in the nation's history, 27.4 million pounds worth, due to suspected contamination by the killer bacteria Listeria.

According to Reuters News Service, the Listeria outbreak in the Northeast has so far caused 23 deaths, and that is not particularly unusual. According to government data, contaminated food causes more than 76 million illnesses and 5,000 deaths annually. How's that for Homeland Security?



Vindication through violence. Jimmy Carter and the D.C. sniper

An entire nation is trying to figure out a profile of the sniper who, at time of writing, has killed nine people in the suburban Washington, D.C. area. My portrait: A guy, of course. Ex-military, possibly in Special Forces or like Timothy McVeigh, a Special Forces wannabe. White, in his 40s or 50s. Lives alone.

In the D.C./Virginia/Maryland area, surrounded with retired military, this narrows down the suspect list to many, many thousands. On the freeway you're surrounded by them. Cut one off, and you risk getting your head blown open. Watch out when you go to the Mall. Beat the guy in the white van to a parking space, and the next might be YOU.

There are a lot of retired, highly trained psychopathic killers out there. And some of them aren't even retired. Ask the relatives of the wives of Fort Bragg, murdered by husbands back from Afghanistan, so highly trained they kill if the vacuum cleaner gets on their nerves.

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