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John Brown aggregates all the most recent public diplomacy related news, including current issues in U.S. foreign policy, international broadcasting and media, propaganda, cultural diplomacy, educational exchanges, anti-Americanism, and the reception of American popular culture abroad.

PDPBR FOR JULY 4-6, 2007
by John H. Brown

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY PRESS AND BLOG REVIEW, JULY 4-6

“coalition of the billing”

--Peter Singer, a Brookings Institution scholar who has written on military contracting, regarding the number of private contractors in Iraq; cited in T. Christian Miller, “Private contractors outnumber U.S. troops in Iraq” (Los Angeles Times, July 4)
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“libbyration”

--How one PDPBR subscriber characterizes President George W. Bush’s freedom agenda overseas; term cited at
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“Eye Generation”

--Linton Weeks, “The Eye Generation Prefers Not to Read All About It: Students in Film Class a Microcosm of a Visually Oriented Culture” (Washington Post, July 6, 2007)
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“MMORPGs”

---“massively multiplayer online role-playing games”; cited in Michael Gerson, “Where the Avatars Roam” (Washington Post, July 6)
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“Overvaluing American Values”

-- Ezra Klein, “Overvaluing American Values: The trouble with making ‘values’ the lodestar of our foreign policy” (American Prospect, June 28)
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VIDEO

America’s Public Diplomacy Failure and the War on Terror (Dan Verton’s Homeland Defense Week, June 5; Google)
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A) PUBLIC DIPLOMACY (1-24)

1. THE REAL PROBLEM WITH ‘EVERYBODY’S AL-QAEDA’ – MOLLY (MEANWHILE IN PALESTINE AND IRAQ [THE OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE’S GUIDE TO THE MIDDLE EAST]—WHILE THE MIDDLE EAST TAKES A LICKING, WE KEEP ON TICKING: AL BINTEIN MUDAWENETEIN, JULY 5): The administration in effect claims more power and military success for al-Qaeda in Iraq than al-Qaeda claims for itself—for which the al-Qaeda leadership can only be bemusedly grateful. Forget USG supported TV channel to the Middle East al-Hurra—if you’re looking for a real public diplomacy fiasco, you’ll be hard pressed to do worse than the U.S. acting as al-Qaeda’s agent in promoting its Iraqi success.
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2. MIDEAST HAS AN OLD COLD WAR LOOK: THE U.S. AND IRAN STRUGGLE MAKES USE OF PROXIES, PROPAGANDA AND ECONOMIC PRESSURE - BORZOU DARAGAHI (LOS ANGELES TIMES, JULY 5): The U.S. and Iran now openly joust on multiple fronts. While Karen Hughes, U.S. undersecretary of State for public diplomacy and public affairs, has promoted American values across the Muslim world, Iran’s once-reclusive diplomatic corps has wooed allies and whipped up anti-American sentiment.
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3. IRAN’S ENGLISH SATELLITE CHANNEL DEBUTS, FURTHER CROWDING COMPETITION FOR COVETED AMERICAN VIEWERS - ALVIN SNYDER (PUBLIC DIPLOMACY BLOG, USC CENTER ON PUBLIC DIPLOMACY, JULY 3)
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4. GOING FROM HAWK TO DOVE - GRETCHEN M. GRIENER (FOREIGN POLICY IN FOCUS, JULY 3): The House just passed the State Foreign Operations Appropriations bill and sent it to the Senate. The bill provides for greater spending on public diplomacy, $6.5 billion in spending on global health, and modest cuts in foreign military financing. These are incremental steps, to be sure, but they point in the direction of greater diplomacy, dialogue, and development. According go the Global Peace Index (GPI) ranking of 121 countries, the United States, finishing up far back in the pack at No. 96, was deemed less peaceful than Yemen, Cambodia, and Serbia.
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5. MID-CAREER OFFICIALS LEARN TO LISTEN, ADVOCATE POLICIES THROUGH PUBLIC DIPLOMACY - MIKE O’SULLIVAN (VOA, JUNE 6): In this information age, governments are reaching out to people in other parts of the world in an emerging field called public diplomacy. Mid-career officials from government and international institutions recently came to Los Angeles to sharpen their skills in the field by taking part in a two-week program at the University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy.
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6. IRREGULARS IN THE INFORMATION WAR - DKSHIDELER (VIGILANT FREEDOM/910 GROUP BLOG, JULY 5): Discusses commentary on the article “Fighting The War of Ideas like a Real War” by J. Michael Waller, noting that “the inept State Department struggles to maintain [its] preminence on public diplomacy.”
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7. SWEET LAND OF SOVEREIGNTY - MATTHEW ROJANSKY (ACROSS THE AISLE, DC, JULY): Solving the immigration impasse is not important just for economic, moral or historical considerations. Our inability to fix immigration is emblematic of our failures in other, closely related policy arenas including national security and public diplomacy.
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8. YOUTUBE, EUTUBE, AND PUBLIC DIPLOMACY – DAN (CUBEMATE OPEN PLAN LIFE, JULY 5): It’s interesting to see how well the European Union has done on YouTube in a month or so. EUTube is well-made and makes a case for the future of the European Union and for the cause of multilateralism. It’s even more interesting to see how the U.S. government, despite its efforts at “public diplomacy” has failed to use a communications platform built in the U.S. to disseminate its point of view. There is no USTube.
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9. SEX VIDEO CLOUDS EUROPE’S YOUTUBE LAUNCH: THE EU HAS LONG HAD A PUBLIC RELATIONS PROBLEM. TO HELP IMPROVE ITS IMAGE, THE BLOC LAUNCHED ITS VERY OWN YOUTUBE PLATFORM IN LATE JUNE—COMPLETE WITH SOME OF EUROPEAN FILM’S BEST SEX SCENES - CGH (SPIEGEL INTERNATIONAL, JULY 3)
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EU FILM SEX VIDEO (FILM LOVERS WILL LOVE THIS, CLOSING WITH THE LINE “LET’S COME TOGETHER") AT
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10. THE EU’S SEX APPEAL – REVIEW & OUTLOOK (WALL STREET JOURNAL, JULY 6): EUtube has gone live as a channel on YouTube. The European Commission, which runs and manages this online venture, wants to sell a New Europe—“1957-2007: Together,” goes the online jingle. But propaganda is propaganda, despite the medium of delivery, and policy briefings aren’t likely to go down any easier just because they are delivered online.
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PAID SUBSCRIPTION

11. KAREN HUGHES: OUR CHIEF PUBLIC DIPLOMAT – (MOUNTAIN RUNNER BLOG, JULY 5): “President Bush spoke at the Islamic Center of Washington last week and took along a few buddies ... [including] of course, our lovable Karen Hughes, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Karen Hughes was clearly unprepared for the visit. Her quickly donned head cover appears to be more Jewish than Muslim, but it’s something (I think). Isn’t she supposed to be on top of this type of stuff with her outreach and all? What happened to protocol?” INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPH OF MS. HUGHES IN HER HEADGEAR.
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SEE ALSO
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12. BECAUSE FREEDOM MATTERS - CONNIE MACK (WASHINGTON TIMES, JULY 4): Signaling Congress’ mounting concern with Venezuelan Hugo Chavez’s continued efforts to control every aspect of Venezuelas print and broadcast media and his determination to dominate the thoughts and actions of the Venezuelan people, the House of Representatives on June 21, 2007, passed an amendment to the fiscal 2008 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill that will redirect $10 million of the Broadcasting Board of Governors budget to Voice of America for programming in Venezuela. (Connie Mack, Florida Republican, is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee).
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13. COMBATING ANTI-AMERICANISM - TIM MONTGOMERIE (BRITAIN AND AMERICA, JULY 4): America needs to invest in much better public diplomacy and improve the quality of its Ambassadors. It also needs to engage more seriously with the BBC and other global media giants that sometimes, wittingly or unwittingly, feed anti-Americanism.
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14. (KIM ANDREW ELLIOTT DISCUSSING INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING AND PUBLIC DIPLOMACY), latest edition.
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15. (LAYALINA REVIEW ON PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND ARAB MEDIA, VOL. III NO.14: 6/22-7/05, 2007)
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16. JARVIK DROPS A CLANGER, LR RIPS HIM A NEW ONE – (LA RUSSOPHOBE: RECORDING THE RISE (AND HOPEFULLY FALL) OF THE NEO-SOVIET UNION, JULY 5): Calling it “one of the stupidest, most asinine things La Russophobe has ever seen in print,” this blog reacts negatively to the following comment by Laurence Jarvik: “In the end, Vladimir Putin may have done a big favor to the Bush administration by shutting down Internews in Russia. Instead of wasting money on NGOs like Internews, that have harmed America’s interests and contributed to the loss of Russia and the post-Soviet space, the US government will be forced to return to more traditional forms of government-to- government public diplomacy that have a better chance of genuinely improving America’s standing among today’s Russian general public and opinion leaders.”
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JARVIK ARTICLE AT
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17. PUTIN STRIKES AGAIN - JAMEY GAMBRELL (NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, JULY 19): One of the most recent victims of the Putin bureaucracy has been an NGO called the Educated Media Foundation (EMF), formerly known as Internews Russia.
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18. U.S. HANDS OVER STOLEN DOCUMENTS - JIM HEINTZ, ASSOCIATED PRESS (MOSCOW TIMES, JULY 6): The United States on Thursday formally turned over 80 tsarist- and Soviet-era documents that had been stolen from Russian archives and found at U.S. antiquities dealers.
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19. NAFSA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR CALLS FOR WHITE HOUSE COUNCIL TO LEAD NATIONAL EFFORT ON INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS, SCHOLARS – (EARTHTIMES.ORG, JULY 3): In testimony June 29 on Capitol Hill, NAFSA: Association of International Educators Executive Director and CEO Marlene M. Johnson urged Congress to ensure the establishment of an International Education Council charged with spearheading a national effort to restore the United States’ attractiveness as a destination for international students and scholars. Emphasizing the important contributions of international educational exchange to U.S. foreign policy and public diplomacy efforts, Johnson’s testimony put the current international enrollment numbers into perspective.
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20. JULY 4TH UPDATE - DOUG BAUM (BIGBENDCHAT.COM, JULY 4): “On a personal note- our family’s growing! No, Trish is not pregnant, nor are Cinco or Virgie (our two female camels, though I do plan to have Cinco bred this summer). We’ve decided to take an exchange student into our home. Wasen, a 16-year old girl from Kuwait, will be joining our family for ten months as part of a really forward-thinking and much needed exchange program first implemented by the US State Department just after September 11, 2001. The YES program, funded by the State Department’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, provides high school students from countries with significant Muslim populations the opportunity to live in the United States for an academic year. The students are selected for their commitment to community service, public diplomacy and academic achievement.”
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21. PEOPLE ARE REALIZING WE’RE POORER FOR OUR FOREIGN POLICY - POSTED BY MICKEY FROM THE GEORGIA COUNCIL OF INTERNATIONAL VISITORS NEWSLETTER (TRIBE, JULY 4): Recognizing that many people around the world have strong negative views of the United States, substantial majorities of Americans express concern about our nation’s declining global reputation and believe it is more important than ever for Americans to repair relationships and build new bridges with the rest of the world. Those are among the key findings of a just-released survey commissioned by Business for Diplomatic Action (BDA), an organization of multinational American companies working to improve the standing of America in the world by engaging the private sector in public diplomacy efforts.
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22. WORKSHOP EXAMINES NEW TRENDS IN PUBLIC DIPLOMACY: SHOULD NATO OPEN AN OFFICE IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD OF SECOND LIFE? WHAT ARE THE KEY CHALLENGES IN PUBLIC DIPLOMACY TODAY? THIS AND OTHER ISSUES WERE THE FOCUS OF A NATO PUBLIC DIPLOMACY WORKSHOP IN BRUSSELS, 2-3 JULY – NEWS (NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION, JULY 4)
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23. LIBERALS WOULD RESTORE FUNDING TO PROMOTE CANADIAN CULTURE ABROAD: DION (680 NEWS, CANADA, JULY 6): Opposition Leader Stephane Dion pledged to restore $11.8 million in funding to the international promotion of Canadian arts and culture through the Public Diplomacy Program, cut by the Conservatives in 2006.
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24. FAILED STATE, FREEDOM HOUSE AND THE FREEDOM OF EELAM TAMILS - C P THIAGARAJAH (TAMILCANADIAN.COM, JULY 4): “[A]ny amount of Sri-Lanka’s propaganda or public diplomacy will fail to attract foreign financial help to carry on the present war to suppress the aspirations of its minorities- the Tamils and the Muslims (followers of the Mohamedhan religion) majority of whom are Tamil speaking.”
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B) RELATED ITEMS (US international standing, 25-26; Hamas TV, 27; Iraq, 28-34; Turkey, 35-36; Iran, 37-40; Russia, 41-42; Poland, 43; France, 44; U.K., 45; Venezuela, 46; war on terror, jihad, 47-51; U.S. in world, 52-56)

25. ON ITS BIRTHDAY, AMERICA’S POPULARITY IS SLIPPING – EDWARD M. GOMEZ (WORLD VIEWS, SF GATE, JULY 4): Happy July 4th, Yankees—now go home! That’s the general message that’s coming from the rest of the world these days as more and more of America’s erstwhile friends and allies say they’ve had it with the policies, pronouncements, actions and attitudes of the Bush administration.
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26. THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT - HELLE DALE (WASHINGTON TIMES, JULY 4): A Pew Research Center poll released last week on global views of America illustrates the problem of advancing the American model of governance regarded by some both here and in Europe as naive and imperialist. Public rejection of American democracy is prevalent in most countries. This may reflect opinions about the way in which the United States has implemented its pro-democracy agenda, and also about America’s democratic values themselves. In 43 of 47 countries surveyed, a majority say that the United States promotes democracy mostly where it serves its interests, rather than as a matter of principle. Even more unfortunately, this cynicism also includes 63 percent in the United States itself. Only 45 percent of Americans have faith in American leadership in the world.
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27. MARTYRED’ MOUSE GETS THE AX - JACOB VICTOR (FORWARD, JULY 3): Farfur, the creepy Mickey Mouse look-alike that is the star of the Palestinian children’s program “Tomorrow’s Pioneers,” was killed off during the show’s final episode, broadcast last Friday.
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28. CONSTRUCTION WOES ADD TO FEARS AT EMBASSY IN IRAQ - GLENN KESSLER (WASHINGTON POST, JULY 5)
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SEE ALSO
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29. NEW BAGHDAD EMBASSY GETS CONGRESSIONAL SCRUTINY - YOCHI J. DREAZEN (WALL STREET JOURNAL, JULY 5)
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30. LIVE FROM BAGHDAD: THE PRESS’S WAR - MATT SANCHEZ (NATIONAL REVIEW, JULY 5): “As I read much of the Western press I wonder, who side are these guys on?” (Matt Sanchez is a U.S. serviceman in Iraq.)
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31. KILLING 10,000 IRAQIS EVERY MONTH: MEDIA SILENCE ABOUT THE CARNAGE IN IRAQ - MICHAEL SCHWARTZ (COUNTERPUNCH, JULY 5): Certainly 300 Iraqis killed by Americans each day would be headline news, over and over again. And yet, the electronic and print media simply do not tell us that the U.S. is killing all these people.
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32. SACRIFICE IS FOR SUCKERS - PAUL KRUGMAN (NEW YORK TIMES, JULY 6): As the insurgency Mr. Bush initially taunted with the cry of “Bring them on” has claimed the lives of thousands of Americans and left thousands more grievously wounded, the children of the elite—especially the Republican elite—have been conspicuously absent from the battlefield.
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33. PRIVATE CONTRACTORS OUTNUMBER U.S. TROOPS IN IRAQ: NEW U.S. DATA SHOW HOW HEAVILY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAS RELIED ON CORPORATIONS TO CARRY OUT THE OCCUPATION OF THE WAR-TORN NATION - T. CHRISTIAN MILLER (LOS ANGELES TIMES, JULY 4): More than 180,000 civilians—including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis—are working in Iraq under U.S. contracts, according to State and Defense department figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
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34. KURDISTAN ON THE BRINK: IRAQ’S BLOODY CIVIL WAR IS CREEPING NORTH, INTO THE LAST REFUGE OF A CIVILIZED SOCIETY - DANIEL SMITH (NEW HAVEN ADVOCATE, JUNE 28)
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35. A TEST FOR THE WEST IN TURKEY - ANWAR IBRAHIM (WASHINGTON POST, JULY 6): Ultimately, we could witness the collapse of the civilizational bridge being forged in Istanbul between East and West.
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36. WILL TURKEY SHOOT? - MARK R. PARRIS (WASHINGTON TIMES, JULY 6): Any Turkish move across the border would—at best—be a major distraction from the hard work that needs to be done in Iraq in the months ahead. There are no doubt good reasons why the Bush administration, despite its consistent position that “there is no place for the PKK [Kurdish Workers Party] in post-Saddam Iraq” has failed to respond to Turkish concerns. That failure today leaves Washington vulnerable to the vagaries of PKK boldness and, increasingly, Turkey’s boisterous internal politics.
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37. TIME TO CALL IN THE IRAN CHIPS - ROGER COHEN (NEW YORK TIMES, JULY 5): The United States should propose broad, high-level talks with Iran across the range of issues confronting the two countries—Iraq, Afghanistan, nuclear weapons, Lebanon, Israel-Palestine—while dropping its meaningless insistence that Iran suspend nuclear enrichment activities before talks begin.
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38. NUCLEAR JUGGERNAUT – EDITORIAL (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, JULY 5): With each passing day, with each triumphant pronouncement from Tehran (even if exaggerated for maximum effect), the chances dim that diplomacy will—or can—stop Tehran’s juggernaut rush to develop nukes.
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39. IRAN’S PROXY WAR : TEHRAN IS ON THE OFFENSIVE AGAINST US THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST. WILL CONGRESS RESPOND? - JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (OPINION JOURNAL FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL PAGE, JULY 6): The threat posed by Iran to our soldiers’ lives, our security as a nation and our allies in the Middle East is a truth that cannot be wished or waved away. It must be confronted head-on. (Mr. Lieberman is an Independent Democratic senator from Connecticut.)
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40. DENNIS ROSS: 18 MONTHS TO AVOID WAR WITH IRAN - NATHAN GARDELS| (HUFFINGTON POST, JULY 6): Dennis Ross, chief negotiator on the Middle East for Bush Sr. and Clinton, thinks a countdown is also underway to war with Iran.
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41. THE LOBSTER SUMMIT - GRAHAM ALLISON (BOSTON GLOBE, JULY 5): The proof of what was achieved at this “lobster summit” will be in Russian and American actions in the months ahead. But if by this invitation, Bush solidified Putin’s cooperation as a real partner in stopping Iran, Kennebunkport will be noted by historians as an accomplishment of which two soon-to-be former presidents can be proud.
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42. HOW PUTIN PLAYED BUSH IN KENNEBUNKPORT AND HOW BUSH COULD STILL COME OUT ON TOP - FRED KAPLAN (SLATE): Bush should accept Putin’s proposal to base the missile-defense system in Azerbaijan.
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43. REJECTION TO U.S. MISSILE PLANS GROWS IN POLAND – (ANGUS REID GLOBAL MONITOR: POLLS & RESEARCH, JULY 5
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COURTESY LEN BALDYGA

44. SARKOZY’S LESSON FOR AMERICA - NEWT GINGRICH (WASHINGTON POST, JULY 5): Sarkozy had the courage to campaign on the theme that “the French will have to work harder.” Imagine trying to get that past an American campaign consultant.
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45. BLIMEY, BRITS ARE TAKING OVER AMERICAN TELLY - PHIL ROSENTHAL (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, JULY 4): NBC—the National Broadcasting Co., for goodness sake—is introducing four new dramas this fall. Three of them have leads imported from the United Kingdom posing as Americans. CBS has three new fall dramas. One is headlined by a Brit and another by an Australian. Then there’s the midseason CBS show about mid-1970s swingers on Chicago’s North Shore starring a lad from Sussex, England.
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46. VENEZUELA BIDS U.S. ENVOY ANGRY FAREWELL - SANDRA SIERRA, ASSOCIATED PRESS (WASHINGTON POST, JULY 5): Venezuela’s foreign minister accused the outgoing U.S. ambassador Thursday of spending his term trying to undermine President Hugo Chavez and said the government hopes his replacement will show more respect.
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47. TERRORISM AND AN OPEN SOCIETY - TONY BLANKLEY (WASHINGTON TIMES, JULY 4): In the midst of a war with a relentless enemy, we must assess coldly and objectively which of our many “open” features benefit us, and which benefit the enemy.
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48. WHEN THE ‘BLEED-OUT’ BEGINS: A STATE OF UNREADINESS NEARLY 6 YEARS AFTER 9/11 - DAVID IGNATIUS (WASHINGTON POST, JULY 5): What’s ahead is a phenomenon that an intelligence official described several years ago as “bleed-out,” in which the suicide bombers of Baghdad look outward for targets—to Europe and America.
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49. AL-QAEDA’S ORGANISATION IS WEAKER, BUT THE MESSAGE STILL SPREADS – EDITORIAL COMMENT (FINANCIAL TIMES, JULY 5): Jihadism will not be defeated by a “war on terror” that actually glorifies the confrontation. Rather, the grievances must be understood and the emptiness of the ideology exposed. Hearts and minds must be won, not just bloody confrontations.
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50. A CRISIS OF IDENTITY AND THE APPEAL OF JIHAD - PETER R. NEUMANN (INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, JULY 5): Social scientists are overwhelmed by the diversity of backgrounds and attributes that can be found among known Islamist terrorists.
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51. FAITH BASED: FOR MUSLIM EXTREMISTS, RELIGION MATTERS - IRSHAD MANJI (NEW REPUBLIC ONLINE, JULY 6): In short, it’s not what the material world fails to deliver that drives suicide bombers. It’s something else. And, time and again, the very people committing these acts have articulated what that something else is: their religion.
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52. OVERVALUING AMERICAN VALUES: THE TROUBLE WITH MAKING “VALUES” THE LODESTAR OF OUR FOREIGN POLICY - EZRA KLEIN (AMERICAN PROSPECT, JUNE 28): “What I want is not a foreign policy vision that builds from a foundation of values, but from one of consequences. Whether a policy is concordant with America’s view of itself is less important than its likely outcomes.”
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53. A COLD WARRIOR AND HIS CONTRADICTIONS [REVIEW OF GEORGE KENNAN: A STUDY OF CHARACTER BY JOHN LUKACS] - JOSEF JOFFE (WALL STREET JOURNAL, JULY 6): Kennan detested FDR’s freedom rhetoric during World War II, and he disparaged the Truman Doctrine that sought to protect “free peoples” everywhere. But the problem ran deeper still. Kennan did not just discount democracy; he disliked it. But he entered history nonetheless: as the author of the “Long Telegram” in 1946 (published as “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” in Foreign Affairs one year later) and as the architect of containment.
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PAID SUBSCRIPTION

54. HOW A REVOLUTION SAVED AN EMPIRE - MICHAEL ROSE (NEW YORK TIMES, JULY 5): Distracted and diminished by an irrelevant, costly and probably unwinnable war in Iraq, America could ultimately find itself challenged by countries like China and India.
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55. MAN UP, YOU DOVES: SURE, NOW EVERYONE’S AGAINST THE WAR IN IRAQ. NEXT TIME WE’LL LET THE OLD FOLKS DO THE DECIDING - JOEL STEIN (LOS ANGELES TIMES, JULY 6): America has always been a war-happy nation, and until we take responsibility for that—instead of blaming these bad leaders we somehow randomly keep electing—we’re going to keep killing and being killed unnecessarily.
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56. THERE’S A WORD FOR PEOPLE LIKE YOU - MARTINE ROUSSEAU AND OLIVIER HOUDART (NEW YORK TIMES, JULY 6): Helpfully in Quebec about six decades ago the word États-Unien, derived from the French for United States, États-Unis, was born. Its spread was modest at first, but today it’s frequent in the news media, and there’s even a radio program here that uses it exclusively. In ordinary conversation, though, the French still say “Américains.”
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C) ONLY IN AMERICA?

57. FLAG BANNING – REVIEW & OUTLOOK (WALL STREET JOURNAL, JULY 6): In St. Paul, Minnesota, this week, the legislature passed a law making it a misdemeanor to sell a non-made-in-the-USA flag anywhere in the state.
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PAID SUBSCRIPTION

D) ONE MORE QUOTATION FOR THE DAY

“I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war.

I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people, a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.

I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient.

I accuse you of causing in Iraq the needless deaths of 3,586 of our brothers and sons, and sisters and daughters, and friends and neighbors.

I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely-motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but to stifle dissent.

I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating the very terror you claim to have fought.

I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents.

I accuse you of handing part of this Republic over to a Vice President who is without conscience, and letting him run roughshod over it.

And I accuse you now, Mr. Bush, of giving, through that Vice President, carte blanche to Mr. Libby, to help defame Ambassador Joseph Wilson by any means necessary, to lie to Grand Juries and Special Counsel and before a court, in order to protect the mechanisms and particulars of that defamation, with your guarantee that Libby would never see prison, and, in so doing, as Ambassador Wilson himself phrased it here last night, of becoming an accessory to the obstruction of justice.”

--Keith Olbermann, “Bush and Cheney Should Resign” (alternet.org, July 4)
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SEE ALSO
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