We all know the story of today’s fiasco and how dumb the Santorum faction of the Republican Party looks right now. Oh, and President Bush, too. The collapse of the Federal Marriage Amendment is a huge victory for the Democrats, and for all of us.

I have to quote the best-read gay blogger on this:

All I can say is that, from one perspective, that of the gay community, president Bush has done what no Democratic candidate has been able to do for a couple of decades: he has united the entire community around the Democrats. The effort by many of us to persuade gay voters to consider the Republicans, to give Bush a chance, has been rendered almost comically moot this fall. Bush won a quarter of gay votes in 2000. I wonder if he’ll even get a tenth of them this year. He deserves fewer.

It was Sullivan who used the small “p” in “president Bush,” and I’m betting it was intentional. How can we hold any respect for a leader who, in a time of war and crisis, divides and distracts the entire nation over the most cynical legislation introduced in our lifetime?

For anyone who wants to praise bush for his judgement, his leadership, his compassion or his sincerity, I urge you to remember this moment. Remember how he tried to scribble discriminatory grafitti into the Constitution of the United States in a shameless effort to woo right-wing Christian voters. Remeber the cynicism, the cruelty and the deviousness of the whole thing. Remember how it was timed to embarrass Kerry and Edwards. And remember how even bush’s own party rejected it.

Remember how the real leader, John McCain told Congress, “The constitutional amendment we are debating today strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans. It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed, and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them.”

And remember how scumbag Santorum, in the face of defeat, vowed to continue fighting: “Isn’t that the ultimate homeland security? To defend the sanctity of marriage?” In other words, gay marriage is to be compared to terrorism. May this whole fiasco come crashing down on Santorum’s head.

Remember that bush is singling out “values” as the key differentiator between him and Kerry. And remember that today we saw bush’s “values” in all their glory. In other words, he has no values and will do anything at all, even endorse the nation’s first and only discriminatory amendment to the Constitution, to get ahead in the election and retain his grasp on power. This is bush, a valueless shell of a man and a menace to us and to the world. Remember.

The past few week’s have seen, for whatever reasons, a huge number of stories on AIDS in India, Africa and China. This article in today’s Financial Times is the only one I saw that offers a new/different perspective on the situation.

For the experts mapping the course of the disease in Asia, the region will not face an explosion in infections but has a series of slow- burning epidemics that could eventually impose huge social and economic burdens.

“We have done a little too much scaremongering, rather than giving Asian leaders a realistic assessment of what is happening,” said Tim Brown, an epidemiologist at the East-West Center in Hawaii.

Asian societies’ traditionally tight control over women’s sexual behaviour is likely to help the region to avoid the extent of the epidemics that have ravaged southern Africa, where in some countries nearly one in three adults are infected.

[….]

Despite public rhetoric about traditional morality, few restrictions are imposed on Asian men’s sexual behaviour. Many visit prostitutes both before and after marriage, and are one of the main drivers and at-risk groups of the region’s Aids epidemic.

Interesting idea, that China’s strict family values could stem the tide of the disease, and there is a lot to say for it. However, since injection drug use, blood donation and prostitution are such major contributors to the epidemic, I have to remain skeptical. When people are poor and hungry and desperate, family values have a way of falling to the back burner.

If the topic interests you, you should have a look at the article, which is the first I’ve seen to say the problem of AIDS in China may have been exaggerated and may not be so urgent after all. It’s certainly not entirely optimistic, especially in light of new challenges posed by China’s ongoing sexual liberation. But its tone is certainly more upbeat (or at least less hysterical) than most articles on the subject.

During my last visit to China I was lucky enough to have dinner with my friend Joseph Bosco, who told me there was one book I needed to read to understand what George Bush and his unfortunate presidency were all about, and that is American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush by Kevin Phillips.

I’ll try not to bore everyone with a detailed book review, as there are already some excellent ones out there (this one being my favorite). But I want to urge everyone who thinks they understand who our president is to get a copy. Everyone.

It’s important to know that Phillips is in no way a leftie or conspiracy nut. He’s a famous and well respected political analyst, more associated with the GOP than the Dems, and a former strategist to Richard Nixon. His brilliance was proven 30-some years ago when he presciently wrote that dramatic new political lines were about to be drawn across the American landscape based on the South’s imminent abandonment of the Democrats, and that religion would play a key role in determining those lines. Give the man a gold star for that one. According to friends familiar with his other books, Phillips has since been right on just about everything he writes about.

The premise of American Dynasty is simple and scary: That George W. Bush’s rise to power was the first true example of a full-blown dynastic restoration in American politics, comparable to the restoration of Louis XVI after the fall of Napoleon — and that dynasties were precisely what the Founding Fathers wanted to avoid in America. As with every restoration, you saw not only the staff of the earlier regime brought back to center stage (Colin Powell, Cheney, Rumsfeld et. al), but also all of the family’s gripes: the lust for vengeance against “family enemies” like Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro, for example.

We all know the story of Bush’s “victory,” but Phillips makes it clear how in every way this was no ordinary ascent to power. According to American political tradition, a candidate who “wins” with such a small margin (a negative margin, actually) shows some humility and recognizes the public didn’t elect him with a strong mandate. Bush thoroughly ignored this tradition and began to run the nation as though he won by a landslide, pushing for immense tax cuts at once, as well as “moral reform” (stem cell research, abortion, prostitution, etc.).

This was an early warning that this presidency was, in every way, an anomaly.

Other revelations. It isn’t possible to understand Bush –Jr. or Sr. — without understanding Texas, and its cut-throat, laissez-faire, pro-corporate mentality. Phillips opened my eyes about Texas, where the little guy counts for nothing, and the state loathes spending money on its citizens. Altruism is actually a symptom of weakness, and “compassionate conservatism” is in reality a smokescreen, a way of saying, Pay for it yourself.

There’s so much in this book. Just a few more revelations: The huge role that Enron played in the Bush governorship and presidency and the myth that Bush handled the company fairly and without prejudice upon its collapse. Why the family’s hatred of Fidel Castro is deeply personal and goes back generations. What the Carlyle Group is really about, the role Bush Sr. plays in it, and the implications of a former president lobbying his son, the current president, on behalf of a company heavily invested in weapons companies and to a large extent in the pocket of the Saudis. Many of Bush’s colleagues, like Richard Perle, got very rich counselling him on a war in which they were heavily invested, via Carlyle and other munitions investments. The sheer disregard for ethical considerations or even the pretence of fairness is without precedent.

Hubris and lack of accountability are also key themes.

Increasingly aware of the disconnect between compassionate rhetoric and real-world action or funding, portions of the press corp took particular issue with Bush’s 2003 State of the Union and budget messages, employing descriptions that ranged from “gulf of credibility” and “artful misdirection” to “surreal” and “bold-faced lie.” David Broder, columnist for the Washington Post, marveled at the administration’s commitment to $726 billion worth of upper-bracket-tilted tax cuts over ten years in the face of the education, mental health, scholarship and law-enforcement cuts taking shape as states prepared to deal with an estimated $80 billion revenue shortfall for the 2004 fiscal year. He concluded that “this nonchalance — the brush-off to nitpicking questions about the massive debt being handed down to our children and grandchildren — is what makes the atmosphere in Washington so mind-boggling these says.”

Mind boggling, yes. But utterly in keeping with the Texan mentality and the Bush tradition of placing loyalty to corporate wealth above all else. Here’s how Phillips ends his masterpiece:

Since the events and upheavals of 2000-2001, the United States has had an abundance of unfolding transformations to discuss — in economics, national security and even religion. Of these, many can be considered and managed separately. But one is pervasive enough to make its impact felt almost everywhere: the extent to which a national governance has, at least temporarily, moved away from the proven tradition of a leader chosen democratically, by a majority or plurality of the electorate, to the succession of a dynastic heir whose unfortunate inheritance is priviliged, covert, and globally engineering.”

I think it’s pretty clear where Phillips stands on the GWB presidency.

The book isn’t perfect, and it has one big problem: It’s hard to read. Not that Phillips isn’t a great writer, but he’s giving so much information, it’s hard to keep track of it all. No matter; it’s a book you can never forget, and it sure puts the whole House of Bush into perspective. If you have to choose between Fahrenheit 9/11 and American Dynasty, definitely go for the latter (though both are recommended). They are world’s apart and, to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, Michael Moore is no Kevin Phillips.

If you managed to make it this far, allow me to end with a few lines from the aforementioned review by Jonathan Yardley.

It is a gloomy, even frightening picture: “global oil ventures, national security, sophisticated investments, arms deals, the Skull and Bones chic of covert operations, and committed support of established business interests,” now compounded by the “religious impulses and motivations” that the born-again George W. brings to the mix. It operates not in the free market its rhetoric prattles about, but in “crony capitalism” that gives every advantage to the cronies with enough capital to buy their way into the game. Crony capitalism has turned the funding of American elections into both a joke and a menace, and has made the public’s business a matter of private interest.

That this powerful argument has been made by Kevin Phillips should be a measure of how seriously it should be taken. He is not an ideologue of the left — to the contrary, he has been identified with the Republican Party for some three decades, though he now calls himself an independent — and he is not a conspiracy theorist; indeed he makes plain at the outset that “we must be cautious here not to transmute commercial relationships into . . . conspiracy theory.” It is true that in some instances his argument rests on circumstantial evidence and in others (mostly involving the family’s engagement with espionage and secret arrangements) on conjecture. It is also true that at times reading his dense prose can be an uphill battle. But American Dynasty is an important, troubling book that should be read everywhere with care, nowhere more so than in this city.

No matter what your politics, this book has a lot to offer, and the breadth and depth of Philips’ knowledge and wisdom are awe-inspiring.

Last comment (I promise): Ugga Bugga has done a masterful job diagramming American Dynasty in a graphic that’s almost as ingenious as the book.

No, I suspect he isn’t, but this abolutely fabulous site explores the issue and certainly offers some compelling evidence. After all, he’s constantly invoking the other “F” word (“Fabulous!”) Fabulous this, fabulous that. You really gotta wonder. And those hand gestures!

I had my first big laugh of the day when I scrolled down and saw their bumper sticker showing Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Powell with the headline, “Don’t change horsemen in the middle of an apocalypse!” I’m still laughing. Hard.

I don’t often put jokes on my site, but this one’s a bit above average.

A man died and went to heaven. As he stood in front of Peter at the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks behind him. He asked, “What are all those clocks?” St. Peter answered, “Those are Lie-Clocks. Everyone on earth has a Lie-Clock. Every time you lie the hands on your clock will move.” Oh,” said the man, “Whose clock is that?” That’s Nelson Mandela’s. The hands have never moved, indicating that he never told a lie.” Incredible,” said the man. “And whose clock is that one?” St. Peter responded, “That’s Abraham Lincoln’s clock. The hands have moved twice, telling us that Abe told only two lies in his entire life.” “Where’s Bush’s clock?” asked the man. “Bush’s clock is in Jesus’ office. He’s using it as a ceiling fan.”

The great Woody Guthrie song sung as a duet by George Bush and John Kerry — don’t wait, go right now. You will laugh. Big file, but wait it out. It’s well worth it.

Via Sully.

UPDATE: This link seems to be way faster.

Hilarious. This opinion piece in China Daily is a result of the infamous post by Blackie Lau that I and many others here cited for its unashamed hatred of all things Western and its adoration of all things Mao.

Please, if you dont know the story you have to see my original post that started it all. A few days ago I tried to talk to this fellow Lau Guan Kim about the issues on a message board, but all he would do was rant that my choice of “Peking Duck” for my blog name was a sign of gross Western prejudice and backwardness. (Sorry, but in the US we refer to Kaoya as “Peking Duck” – it’s nothing against China or anything else. Just a play on words. I never heard any complaints about it until today.) It was an illuminating exercise.

Well, I can sit back tonight knowing that many more Chinese readers will know about my blog by the morning. Lau Guan Kim, I am still willing to discuss my post in a reasonable way and go through it line by line to explain why I took my position. I offered to do so yesterday, and you went beserk over my blog name, Peking Duck and ignored my offer. This sort of reaction of mockery and hysteria — well, don’t you think it just proves my point?

It’s definitely about time. The new documentary Outfoxed sounds like revenge at its sweetest.

”Outfoxed” has been made in secret. The film is an obsessively researched expose of the ways in which Fox News, as Greenwald sees it, distorts its coverage to serve the conservative political agenda of its owner, the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. It features interviews with former Fox employees, leaked policy memos written by Fox executives and extensive footage from Fox News, which Greenwald is using without the network’s permission. The result is an unwavering argument against Fox News that combines the leftist partisan vigor of a Michael Moore film with the sober tone and delivery of a PBS special. A large portion of the film’s $300,000 budget came in the form of contributions in the range of $80,000 from both MoveOn and the Center for American Progress, the liberal policy organization founded by John Podesta, the former chief of staff for Bill Clinton; Greenwald, who is not looking to earn any money from the project, provided the rest.

A week after its New School premiere, the film will be shown throughout the country in hundreds of small local screenings, arranged by MoveOn, where people will be able to watch and discuss it. Though the existence of ”Outfoxed” has been quietly publicized, its particular nature and content have been closely guarded for fear, Greenwald says, that Fox would try to stop the film’s release by filing a copyright-infringement lawsuit. Nobody has ever made a critical documentary about a media company that uses as much footage without permission as Greenwald has, and the legal precedents governing the ”fair use” of such material, while theoretically strong, are not well established in case law. He has retained the services of several intellectual-property lawyers and experts to help him navigate the ambiguous legal terrain. (A Fox News representative, in response to several phone calls, said that no one in the legal department was available to comment on copyright issues.)

If Greenwald is lucky, Fox will be gun-shy, having earned nothing but public chiding when it brought a trademark lawsuit last year against Al Franken, whose book ”Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right” ironically appropriated Fox News’s signature phrase ”fair and balanced.”

This is something I’ve been waiting for, though I’m afraid it’ll only be seen by those already aware of what a fraud Fox News is. I just heard an interview with Greenwald on the radio, and he read off memos sent out to the Fox news announcers each morning telling them what positions to take on issues — they should stress the Dems’ postion on abortion, for example, or talk about how happy the Iraqi people are.

Unprecented is an over-used word but it applies here. The TV news stations may lean one way or another, but they don’t order their reporters to take specific partisan positions on the stories they write, all designed to keep the ruling party in power.

This entire blog could be dedicated to the sins of “the nation’s most-watched news station,” but enough blogs and sites are already doing just that.

I never watched Fox until I came home from Asia, and I watch it nghtly out of a morbid curiosity, a kind of disbelief that such undisguised BS could be watched by so many people. But I do understand the phenomenon; it’s kind of fun, the sheer outrageousness of it, and O’Reilly and Hannity are so despicable you have to wonder if they aren’t parodying themselves, playing a huge joke on all of us. On some days I’ve even kept a tally of how many times the newscasters (especially Brit Hume) and guests repeat certain phrases, like:

John Kerry is the No. 1 most liberal Senator

John Edwards is the No. 4 most liberal Senator

John Kerry has flip-flopped on this issue in the past

Some say the democrats are out of touch with American values

Massachusetts liberal

More liberal than Ted Kennedy or Hillary Clinton

Some fear that terrorists might attack before election day to ensure a Kerry win

Kerry has no problem with partial-birth abortions

A new victory in the war on terrorism

Things the liberal media don’t want you to know

Proof that Al Qaeda did have a close working relationship with Saddam Hussein

Those are just some of the things they drum into your head, and it’s no small wonder so many listeners believe Saddam was one of the architects of 9/11.

The NYT link comes from Dan Gillmor, who has some interesting comments on the legal challenges Greenwald could be facing with this documentary. He notes that Fox has threatened to come out with its own exposee of “liberal media” if the documentary comes out, which would be completely fair. I just don’t think there’s enough there that could be anywhere near as shocking as what’s going on at Fox.

Update: Here’s thte link for the Outfoxed Web site.

Anyone interested in this topic will want to see the review of a new book, Advertising to Children in China by Kara Chan and James U Mcneal, both academics on things Chinese. A sample:

One of the main points it has to make is that the child occupies a rather special position in the family in China. The reason for this, of course, is the one-child policy, first set in place in 1979. This one child, the authors argue, quickly grows to have far more power over family decisions, including decisions on what to buy, than its equivalent elsewhere. Does it answer to the classic definition of “spoiled brat,” they ask. In many cases the answer in China has to be “Yes.”

But the authors aren’t apparently unduly worried about this. If you’re only allowed to have the one child, then it’s hardly surprising that four adoring grandparents and two adoring parents are going to constitute a powerful pressure-group in the domestic domain. Besides, consumer protection, is a relatively recent development in the West, and a highly sophisticated form of human right in China, considering all the other human rights, acknowledged or denied, it has to compete with.

Nevertheless, there are quite elaborate controls in place governing advertising aimed at children in China. It shouldn’t show affluent kids displaying pride in possessing a product while an impoverished counterpart dressed in rags looks on in envy. It shouldn’t show children indulging in insulting behavior to the family (or, needless to say, the state). And it shouldn’t encourage children to ask their parents to buy the advertised product for them. This last prohibition is surely ambiguous at best. Isn’t what it seems to ban the whole point of such advertising?

The good news, however, is that the older generations in China still distrust advertising in general, and that many of the young are coming to take a similar view.

That doesn’t sound like it bodes too well for advertisers, but I doubt they’re worrying. Advertising in China is booming, probably more than anyplace else, and whether people are skeptical or not, advertising still works there.

I couldn’t believe it as I read this. What on earth are we coming to? Seriously, this is the sort of thing I expect to read about in China — and even they wouldn’t be this preposterous.

Link via Kevin Drum.