] In common parlance, left is clearly code for "feckless,
] pseudo-intellectual wiener," while right is code for
] "winner" and "the people who are actually running
] things while you assholes are reading James Joyce."
] Left also emphatically stands for "wrong side of
] history," while right is explicitly understood to mean
] the only remaining legitimate vision for future social
] organization.

In other words, the US has gone so far to the right it has no idea where the center is.

Right Wing, Left Wing, Chicken Wing

This web page creates a graphical representation of word usage in Bush's speeches before congress. You can have it map any two words at once.

style.org | State of the Union Parsing Tool

This is the whitehouse.gov page for the SOTU. Texts, webcasts, "photo essays", summary, etc..

State of the Union 2005

Try not to scream...

] Alan Greenspan is expected to retire next year. The Bush
] administration, because of its nature, will have a hard
] time finding a successor.

NYT | Krugman - The Greenspan Succession

] The entire event was high drama, but not in that
] made-for-TV style. It was far more painful than that. For
] starters, everyone mumbled, stumbled, etc. It wasn't
] scripted. People didn't know how to project their voices
] and the inane repetitive questions were clearly for a
] forgetting mind, not to drive the witnesses bonkers.
] While the federal lawyer signaled to the witness using
] baseball codes (1-2-3 on his chest), few other body
] motions were scripted and the sides played out their
] cultural training. As an ethnographer, it was brutally
] painful to watch the body performance of each side show
] their values more deeply than anything that came out of
] their mouths.

] The attorneys were caricatures of themselves. The federal
] attorneys had a hard-edged, no-smile Yale/Harvard
] rigidity that was stunningly performed. Kafka would have
] been proud. Milgram at its best. Barlow's attorney was
] most distinctly an ACLU type with long hair, funky
] glasses, curved shoulders and a revolutionary demeanor
] that signaled that he believed in the cause. The Cause.
] It was about The Cause. And The Cause was to be fought
] out in jargon in front of the press by two sides with
] opposing views. Was God on both their sides? But
] believing in The Cause was not enough... it was clearly a
] battle of performances.

Another side of the courtroom events..

apophenia: judicial theatre

] The defense claimed that the search at the airport in
] 2003 was not "reasonable" and therefore that evidence
] obtained from it should not be admitted. The Superior
] Court of California, County of San Mateo, is accustomed
] to dealing with cases that arose at the San Francisco
] Airport, but it's not particularly used to constitutional
] challenges to aviation screening procedures, nor to
] having multiple camera crews turn out for a single
] pre-trial evidentiary hearing in a misdemeanor drug
] possession case.

The outcome was as expected, it will be ongoing.

People vs. Barlow, recount

Anonymous explains why he quit.

The Central Intelligence Agency is the best place to work in the United States. I left it with deep regret and a great sense of personal loss.

Senior White House officials repeatedly refused to act on sound intelligence.

It may be worth pausing the intelligence reform process long enough to determine what role personal failure, bureaucratic warfare, and a lack of moral courage played in getting the United States to 9/11.

(I spy with my little eye a possible way to cross-site script using the LA Times)

Why I Resigned From the CIA

Eight out of the fifteen members of Bush's cabinet have resigned since the election. So much for staying the course. Bush may have survived the election, but his administration doesn't appear to have survived the first term..

] In scuttling major intelligence legislation that he, the
] president and most lawmakers supported, Speaker J. Dennis
] Hastert last week enunciated a policy in which Congress
] will pass bills only if most House Republicans back them,
] regardless of how many Democrats favor them.

Hastert supports "the majority of the majority", only.

Hastert Launches A Partisan Policy (washingtonpost.com)

The new issue of TWQ is now available. Start with the editor's note. Pakistan is the main topic. No shortage of reading here.

The Washington Quarterly - Winter 2004-05