COLUMN: 02-28-2007

There were two major examples of political hypocrisy this week:

Former Vice President Al Gore's demonstration of environmental hypocrisy by living large in a very energy inefficient home consuming over thirty thousand dollars worth of energy in utility bills each year. What happened to examining your carbon footprint and attempting to become "carbon-neutral"?

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is now claiming to be bipartisan and advising President Bush to do the same, but his form is bipartisanship is simply a method of co-opting the position of his political rivals after being significantly repudiated by the public and losing all of the major ballot initiatives he had proposed to try to go around the Democrat-led legislature. It's not bipartisan to lose all your values and sell out to the winning side - it's hypocritical pandering in an attempt to win elections when you discover that your views are unpopular.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 02-23-2007

Vice President Cheney on the British decision to pull out of Iraq:

"Well, I look at it and see it is actually an affirmation that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well."

THE TRUTH: The British people are even more against this war than the American people and with Prime Minister Tony Blair leaving the scene in a few short months, this policy shift is designed to allow his successor Gordon Brown (who opposes the war) to complete a pullout quickly without making it seem to be a drastic departure from a failed policy.

Vice President Cheney is grasping for any attempt to making this completely failed war seem successful because he knows that this will be his legacy as much as it is the President's legacy. Unlike previous vice presidents who had much more limited roles, he was clearly the architect of this policy along with his circle of friends who he brought into the administration with him and he will be remembered for nothing but this significant failure of judgment.

COLUMN: 02-21-2007

The US Supreme Court's ruling that there should be no federal judicial review of the status of Guantanamo Bay detainees is absolutely the wrong message to send, both to America and to the rest of the world. If America is truly to be held as a beacon of freedom and democracy, then the rule of law must be held above all else and allowing the federal government to declare whoever they want as an enemy combatant who can be put outside the reach of the judiciary by moving them to an island 90 miles off the Florida coast is the first major step in turning our country into a police state where laws are meaningless.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 02-16-2007

President Bush commenting on supporting the troops and on confirming the new commander for the Iraq war:

"Our men and women in uniform are counting on their elected leaders to provide them with the support they need to accomplish their mission. Republicans and Democrats have a responsibility to give our troops the resources they need."

"This may become the first time in the history of the United States Congress that it has voted to send a new commander into battle and then voted to oppose his plan that is necessary to succeed in that battle."

THE TRUTH: Just because the president has chosen a new commander who is qualified and thus should be confirmed does not mean that everyone should automatically support yet another attempt to salvage a badly failing policy. Opposing the president's plans for Iraq is not the same thing as being unsupportive to the troops and President Bush should understand that these political statements have failed to gain him any additional support after many years of trying.

COLUMN: 02-14-2007

Governor Mitt Romney has been making all kinds of claims about why he changed his positions on abortion, gay rights, and gun control, but it's very clear that the main reason has always been political expediency. Though he comes from a very religious and conservative family (we'll save a discussion of Mormonism for another time), he walked away from those views to pursue the governship of one of the most liberal states in the country. If he thinks that he can come right back to those views now, just in time to run for president, and immediately have credibility, he must think that the Republican primary voters are very naive.

On another issue of credibility, it was recently announced that Vice President Cheney won't testify in the "Scooter" Libby perjury trial. If he truly believes that his former chief of staff is innocent of all wrong doing, he should jump right into the case and say so under oath. However, unlike congressional testimony, which he can get away from by claiming executive privilege, if he is under oath during the trial, he would be exposing himself to perjury charges when he would be asked about the reasons Libby was attacking former ambassador Wilson, which was the false basis for the Iraq War. Making all kinds of public statements on the innocence of his friend but not doing anything substantive to defend him is yet another example of lack of accountability and credibility of anything coming out of the Bush administration.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 02-09-2007

Former Senator John Edwards on his campaign workers insulting people of faith:

"I've talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone's faith, and I take them at their word."

THE TRUTH: While the Democratic Party preaches tolerance for all, they have a bad habit of insulting the intelligence of anyone who is a believer and belongs to any major religious organization (just as they have a bad habit of insulting America's business class or anyone who is not a minority). In trying to please the large number of secular atheists and agnostics who belong to the party, Democrats are always willing to go the extra mile in promoting their views, but it's time for them to realize that they will never be trusted by the vast majority of Americans (who are believers) until they truly respect everyone's views.

COLUMN: 02-07-2007

Paul Bremer, the former head of the Provisional Authority installed after the invasion of Iraq, appeared before Congress this week and defended the insane policies of disbursing $12 billion in cash for reconstruction in the first few months after the invasion of Iraq. His justification that Iraq was in a "desperate situation" and that they could not wait to install a modern financial system belies the fact that this desperate situation was caused by a rush to war and poor post-war planning due to unrealistic expectations of being greeted as liberators rather than conquerors. A large portion of this $12 billion in American taxpayer money was stolen or given to corrupt officials and Bremer and his colleagues should be held accountable for their mismanagement, which not only allowed American money to be stolen, but created a situation which fostered the insurgency that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 02-02-2007

President Bush on the state of the economy:

"Since we enacted major tax relief into law in 2003, our economy has created nearly 7.2 million new jobs. "

THE TRUTH: Let's be clear here - tax relief is a good thing, but not when it is combined with the exorbitant amount of spending being done by the current administration and Congress. The jobs being created by this economy are not new jobs - they are low-paying service sector jobs replacing the previous factory workers, call centers, engineering, IT, medicine and other middle-class jobs that have been lost to the abusive free trade system that we currently have.

Free trade is a good idea, but only when dealing with countries that have equivalent worker rights protection and opportunities for growth matched with improvements in living conditions, freedoms, and worker rights. India is a good example where the middle class is booming and democracy and personal freedoms within the country have been strengthened by free trade. China is an example of the opposite - worker rights are non-existent, the despotic control of the booming economy has weakened any chance of democratic reform and they are headed in completely the wrong direction politically with greater censorship and state control of every media outlet.

President Bush should stop making claims about how great the economy is when the majority of Americans have felt squeezed by the economic climate of the past seven years and all three branches of the federal have failed to provide any protection from this abuse.