Jack Balkin over over at Balkinization says it best: As for Mr. Gonzales, he was a disgrace to the office. There are many roles he could have competently filled-- and did fill-- in his career. The Nation's chief law enforcement officer was not one of them. He abused his office for political gain, repeatedly misled… Continue reading Gonzales Resigns
Tag: Bush
Tony Soprano Did Not Get Whacked
It seems that public opinion is shifting toward the idea that Tony Soprano was whacked in The Sopranos series finale after the screen went black. That possibility can never entirely be ruled out, which is part of the brilliance of the abrupt, unsatisfying final seconds of the series. I want to suggest, however, that the… Continue reading Tony Soprano Did Not Get Whacked
More Political Tag Clouds
It doesn’t attempt the kind of analysis I try with the State of the Union addresses, but chir.ag has a great visual tool that builds tag clouds for hundreds of important presidential speeches and texts, all the way back to the Declaration of Independence and George Washington's State of the Union speeches. The site has… Continue reading More Political Tag Clouds
Word Clouds for the State of the Union
Pattern Recognition has a word cloud for Bush's State of the Union address, in which words are weighted according to frequency. So, "terrorism" and "security" appear very, very bold, because Bush mentioned them time and time again in his address. And the word "plan" is much smaller, indicating that it was rarely used in Bush's… Continue reading Word Clouds for the State of the Union
Immigration and National Security
Two implications of Bush's proposal to beef up border security with National Guard troops: The first is practical: it's another instance of the militarization of civil society, which I had criticized in an earlier post. The second is symbolic: by policing the border with troops trained for combat, Bush masterfully conflates two entirely distinct issues:… Continue reading Immigration and National Security
Total Information Awareness, Reprise
A few more thoughts on the massive NSA database of every domestic phone call, ever, in the United States... The database actualizes what was once only theory: DARPA's defunct Total Information Awareness project, which sought to "counter asymmetric threats [i.e. terrorism] by achieving total information awareness." Awareness of everything, godlike omniscience. Is this the only… Continue reading Total Information Awareness, Reprise
I’m sorry. 9/11? I’m responsible. It was me, I did it.
In his press conference this morning, President Bush was asked about the New York Times' recent revelation that the NSA was operating a covert surveillance program that monitored hundreds of Americans' phone calls and emails without any court supervision or warrants. Bush responded: My personal opinion is it was a shameful act for someone to… Continue reading I’m sorry. 9/11? I’m responsible. It was me, I did it.
The Evil Democracy
Here is a lesson in ironic juxtaposition: A freeze-frame of President Bush delivering his State of the Union address, with the closed captioning scrolling the words "THE EVIL DEMOCRACY." The Evil Democracy (Larger Image) / Posted to Flickr by kunja. Ironies abound in this photograph (which I found on the Flickr Bush cluster). First, obviously,… Continue reading The Evil Democracy