Future Speaking Gigs

Dan asks:

I read with joy, a whole year after the fact, the transcript of your appearance on Hannity & Colmes from June 2004. Do you have any other appearances scheduled? I’m a big fan and have never seen you speak.

I post media appearances here on the if and when there’s sufficient advance notice. I also speak in person, usually at universities and before various groups, when invited. Anyone interested in inviting me to talk about my cartoons and contemporary politics should drop me a line at chet@rall.com. (Please note: I request an honorarium.)

Brian writes:

Goldberg was the guest on The Daily Show tonight. Jon Stewart gave him a moderately hard time. I thought he did a decent job challenging the premise of the book, and Golberg was clearly frustrated by Stewart’s silliness. Still, I was hoping he would rip into Goldberg like he did Tucker Carlson on Crossfire. He’s generally too deferential to his guests – the interview with Colin Powell a few weeks ago was nauseating. Maybe they should let Lewis Black sit in on interviews. Goldberg spent most of his time discussing the “coarsening” of the culture as though he was doing a public service by identifying the culprits. I thought that was elegantly rebutted by the footage of Jimmy Carter building a house
overlaid with a graphic showing him as #6 on Goldberg’s list which they ran before going to commercial.

As if Goldberg’s blacklist wasn’t coarsening the culture! Honestly, I don’t really understand why so many Bush-bashers like “The Daily Show” so much. I find much of it dull. And it’s hardly balanced: the guests run from centrist Dems to right-wing Republicans, as if the third of the country to the left of that spectrum doesn’t count. In that respect it’s indistinguishable from most other media outlets. Jon Stewart is a smart, funny and talented guy, but his show could be more interesting.

Good luck moving up in the ranking. Maybe you can do something to get him to juggle the order prior to the paperback release. It’s a really obvious idea now, but some person or group should write a book listing the people
who really are screwing up America. Of course you and several other people on Goldberg’s list have already written about some genuine scoundrels, just not in the same format.

Various progressive blogs have done that already. As for moving up in the ranking, the trouble is that I barely have time to screw up America as it is. Between cutting the lawn, drawing cartoons and figuring out why my car is making that funny whirring sound, by the time I get around to screwing up America I can’t even do a half-decent job.

Was Bush Crossing His Fingers?

Garrett writes:

Just read your Treasongate: It’s Not Just Karl Rove on commondreams.com
Check out video of Bush’s 2001 inauguration. When he’s asked if he’ll uphold the Constitution, note his body language.
It’s eerie.

There is, indeed, a strange shift in Bush’s body movements at that point.

I’ll be on Michael Medved’s radio show today (check local listings) at 4 pm East Coast time today.

Editor & Publisher Piece About Goldberg Book

Editor and Publisher notes my inclusion in Goldberg’s Bushian enemies list.

Complete Text of This Week’s Column

A computer glitch caused the accidental deletion of a substantial portion of this week’s column. Here, therefore, is the whole thing:

TREASONGATE: IT’S NOT JUST KARL ROVE
National Security Compromised by White House
NEW YORK–Since Karl Rove surfaced last week as the White House official who probably unmasked a covert CIA agent, new developments appear to confirm that the deputy chief of staff and chief Bush political strategist has committed treason:
–Newsweek has published, and Time has authenticated, a Time reporter’s notes about his crucial conversation with Rove. “Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two [minutes] before he went on vacation,” Matt Coopers’ notes read. Rove told Cooper that “[former ambassador and Iraq war critic] Joe Wilson’s wife…apparently works at the [Central Intelligence] Agency on WMD issues.”
–In the past Bush Administration officials have repeatedly denied that Rove was involved and promised to fire whomever outted Plame. Now, rather than proclaim his innocence, Bush and his PR flacks are stonewalling. “This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation,” his press secretary repeats to an increasing torrent of journalists’ pointed questions.
–Denizens of official Washington invariably issue a powerful, categorical denial–sometimes accompanied by the threat of libel litigation–whenever an allegation is untrue. Rove’s silence on Treasongate can’t convict him in a court of law. That comes later. Still, it speaks volumes.
Imagine, for a few paragraphs, that you were the U.S. Director of Central Intelligence. Rove’s seditious behavior requires you to wonder about the possible extent of his inside job against U.S. national security. Did Rove act alone? Probably not. His Plame operation, no doubt conceived in league with Dick Cheney and other high-ranking scoundrels, may merely represent the tip of a huge iceberg of duplicity. How else did “Bush’s brain” subvert our intelligence community? Are Rove’s intimates, who include Bush himself, running interference for him out of personal loyalty, or are they trying to cover up their own treasonous acts? Someone at Langley provided highly classified personnel information to Rove, a dirty tricks specialist and pollster. Who?
In 1985 CIA traitor Aldrich Ames sold the KGB the names of every U.S. spy in the Soviet Union in return for $2 million. Arrests and executions soon wiped out America’s human assets in the Soviet Union. As they were caught unprepared by one shocker after another–glasnost, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the implosion of the USSR–intelligence professionals suspected a well-placed mole as the culprit. But Ames wasn’t caught for another nine years.
Karl Rove, on the other hand, has already been found out as a likely traitor to the United States. Now we must work backwards. Does his exposure help to explain some of the Administration’s most baffling foreign policy blunders?
No matter how remote, we must now consider the possibility that Karl Rove may in the employ of, and/or receiving money from, a terrorist organization such as Al Qaeda. Alternatively, could he be in the employ of a hostile foreign government? If he betrayed a CIA agent, Rove is a traitor and therefore capable of anything. Only an exhaustive investigation of his and his associates’ anti-American activities, up to and including those committed by George W. Bush, can resolve these questions.
Internal sabotage offers a tempting explanation for the fact that so much has gone wrong for the United States since 2001. After 9/11 Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan–which had financed the Taliban and trained the hijackers at its camps–but Bush shocked analysts by attacking Afghanistan and Iraq instead. Was Bush’s refusal to search for bin Laden in his nation of residence the result of spectacular incompetence–or a continuing alliance with the same Islamists his father’s presidency had armed and funded? Are we losing the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq because of Rumsfeld’s stubborn insistence on understaffing the military? Or are our leaders intentionally dragging out combat to accomplish their masters’ aims: increasing the popularity of radical Islam and the recruitment of terrorists? Even Bush’s domestic policies, from tax cuts paid to the rich people least likely to stimulate the economy to his attack on Social Security, seem designed to undermine U.S. stability and prosperity. Was Bush crossing his fingers when he swore to preserve and defend the constitution?
Maybe. Maybe not. The point is: we don’t know. But we must find out.
National security is bipartisan. Democrats and Republicans may be divided over various ideological conflicts, but all patriotic Americans should be able to agree on a zero-tolerance policy for treason. Rove, those who worked with him and anyone who protected him must go.
(Ted Rall is the author of “Wake Up, You’re Liberal!: How We Can Take America Back From the Right” and “Generalissimo El Busho: Essays and Cartoons on the Bush Years.”)
COPYRIGHT 2005 TED RALL

Not at Comic Con

Tina asks:

Will you be at [San Diego] Comic Con this year?  If so, what day?  It’s a big place and I’d like to avoid last year’s fruitless search.  And I promise to buy a book.

Smart move to write. No, I won’t be at Comic Con this year. It’s an expensive show to attend, my stuff doesn’t sell all that well there, and I don’t have any new books to flog this year. It would be different, of course, were they to invite me to speak or be on a panel or something, but since they never have I’m not holding my breath. I can always sell you my books directly, of course.

I’m #15!

It’s a bit of a comedown from being named “America’s Most Annoying Liberal” by Right Wing News and #2 “Most Loathesome New Yorker” by the right-wing NY Press, but #15 will have to do for today.

Neocon writer Bernard Goldberg (“Bias”) has named me #15 in his new book “100 People Who Are Screwing Up America: (and Al Franken Is #37)” [yeah, that’s the real title].

Word has it (via MyDD) that the top 20 runs as follows, in order:

Michael Moore
Arthur Sulzberger
Ted Kennedy
Jesse Jackson
Anthony Romero
Jimmy Carter
Margaret Marshall
Paul Krugman
Jonathan Kozol
Ralph Neas
Noam Chomsky
Dan Rather
Andrew Heyward
Mary Mapes
Ted Rall
John Edwards
Al Sharpton
Al Gore
George Soros
Howard Dean

Right-wingers love their Nixon-style enemies lists! When I was a kid back then, I used to be jealous of the brave, patriotic Americans who made Nixon’s list. Now here I am, listed alongside people I admire, like Al Gore, Noam Chomsky and Howard Dean, on a list compiled by a neofascist.

Mom would be so proud.

London Bombings Carried Out by Bush?

I don’t think so. Or, more accurately, I don’t have reason to think so. Nevertheless, I’ve been receiving numerous emails from people like FOR P.K., who wrote:

How fortunate for the Republicans that in the middle of Rovegate, the
Downing Street Memos and Bush’s lowest approval rating yet some “terrorists”
decide to put a bomb or six into the London tubes. If I didn’t know better,
I’d say this was the handywork of the CIA. Naw.

I may not agree with it, but it’s hardly a nutty theory. The Bush Administration employs Karl Rove, a probable traitor who, since he betrayed a CIA agent, may even be working for Al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations. These people are capable of literally anything, from lying about WMDs to con us into war to setting up concentration camps to legalizing torture to disappearing thousands of people.

That said, until there’s evidence to the contrary, I’ll continue to believe the official story. After all, the neocons’ logic for attacking Saddam came down to Saddam=evil, 9/11 by evildoers, thus Saddam must go. Thinking Americans shouldn’t follow the same logic by substituting “Bush” for “Saddam.”

More on Karl Rove

Joseph writes:

I read your story about Karl Rove, and even though I’m a conservative, if Rove did indeed give over Wilson’s info to Time for political reasons, I absolutely agree with you. I think Rove is a dangerous fellow. He cares about winning, not people or principles, he cares about winning. If there were two drawbacks to enjoying the presidency of George W. Bush (which I do), it’s that Dick Cheney and Karl Rove are reprehensible.

Apparently losing two out of two wars isn’t a drawback. I’m afraid, though, that plausible deniability isn’t going to work here. Acting President Cheney is too much of a control freak to allow Rove to act on his own, and Bush isn’t smart enough to know that there are some things he’s better off not knowing about.

In my opinion, and this is purely opinion and guessing, Karl Rove is to George Bush what Ollie North is to Ronald Reagan. I’m pretty sure Reagan had no clue what North was doing, other than some slight sense of making deals. I have the same opinion of Bush and Rove. It’s not so much that I don’t think Bush can make mistakes, it’s just that Bush’s leadership style seems to give way to a guy like Rove doing something like this. Reagan trusted people to do their job and if he didn’t like the job, he’d just fire them, not try and run the program himself. Bush seems to be the same way, which means someone can hide a number of facts from him for quite a while before he ever finds out. Some people have tried to categorize this as stupidity, to me it’s just one style of leadership.

If Karl Rove did indeed jeopardize the life of an American agent, I agree with your column that execution might be justified. Not out of malice, but principally, it would be my head if I had done it, so why not his?

Well, just so. Though, as I’ve written before, I oppose capital punishment in general.

JF writes:

As to your comments on Rove, I spent the 4th protesting the president at West Virginia University. My mind was on Rove and of course Bush’s impeachment. There were a number of signs calling for Rove to be investigated both legally and through the press. I can’t go with you on the death penalty but the prick deserves to spend a ton of time behind bars if guilty…which I believe he is.

What is it going to take for thinking republicans…of which I’m sure there are many…to finally admit Bush and most of his cabinet are simply bad people and even worse leaders?

A good question. There are, of course, many thinking Republicans although it’s hard to imagine exactly how they can continue to justify supporting an institution run by racists, homophobes and other assorted bigots and thieves after they’ve exposed themselves as such time after time. It’s difficult to accept that one has been snookered, but you’ve got to do it eventually.

Finally, I love how republicans site newsweek as a bad source, as though the Koran story was ALL bullshit. Save for a few errors in practice, THE STORY TURNED OUT TO BE TRUE!!!

Yes.

If the press has anything of value left…the investigation of Rove in both contexts should begin today.

Yes again.

Keith writes:

In your article you mentioned you couldn’t think of
anyone on the left who had been convicted of aiding a
terrorist, what about Lynne Stewart?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15444-2005Feb10.html

Convicted of passing messages for the Sheik who
masterminded the first World Trade Center bombing.

The article even describes her as “the leftist
lawyer”.

Got me there, sorta—she’s a lawyer with liberal views, not a Michael Moore type leftie personality. I guess the reason I didn’t think of Ms. Stewart is because she so very clearly got railroaded. I don’t believe for an instant that she’s guilty, but of course I wasn’t on the jury so I don’t have all the facts.

Eric says:

I recall that Richard M. Nixon went kicking and screaming, kneeling in prayer and drinking heavily, before he submitted his resignation. Nixon never admitted any wrongdoing, and his cabal of treasonous supporters came out of the woodwork recently when Deep Throat revealed himself.
I correctly referred to the Bush regime as carpetbaggers years ago. In fact, all the words I used to describe Bush’s gang of thieves and cutthroats have ultimately found their way into mainstream journalism. I wonder why a simple dumbass Veteran of Vietnam, with only my experience, gut and average intelligence, knew at the start what the ‘experts’ are discovering now? Maybe it’s that great American tradition called ‘process.’ ‘They’ screw us at their whim, then the investigative and legal systems wait until the criminals find a wheelchair and an oxygen bottle as an excuse not to go to trial and the slammer.
George W. Bush will flee the country, Karl Rove not far behind. In an age of unprecedented in-your-face arrogance from the Bush misadministration, America will stand aghast at Bush’s self-imposed exile. Fifty percent of American voters, the Bush apologists, will lament, “Whoda thunk?” Jeb Bush will wage a Crusade to become president in 2008 in order to give George W. a presidential pardon.
George W. Bush will be able to receive e-mail at an undisclosed location in Saudi Arabia.

Eric’s email makes me warm and tingly.

And finally, from Steve:

“Karl Rove is pond scum on the gene pool.”

Let’s be fair to pond scum here, Ted and Pat. At least pond scum (much of it anyway) photosynthesizes, thereby removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and replacing it with oxygen. What has rove done for us lately?

Well, his propaganda has certainly been good for the environment. Thanks to him and Bush, 1,700-plus US soldiers and 180,000-plus Muslims are decomposing into fertilizer.