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Elijah Wood on acid. And fish. | Jan 23, 2004 11:55
Well, this ought to get entertaining. Winston Peters, whose claims had a great deal to do with the establishment of a select committee inquiry into alleged corruption in allocating scampi quota, allowed himself to be shouted a fish supper by the alleged beneficiary of that corruption while the inquiry was in progress.
Last night's Holmes show confronted Peters with its tip from inside Kermadec, which is co-owned by Peter Simunovich of Simunovich Fisheries, to the effect that Peters - who publicly raised the corruption claims but later distanced Simunovich from them - had taken hospitality in compromising circumstances.
Peters predictably went ballistic, but in the circumstances (he was part of an already fractious select committee inquiry) one would think he really ought to have been wary of even the appearance of a conflict. It didn't help that he and Simunovich gave different accounts of the basis for the freebie.
Now, Winston says he's planning to sue TVNZ, which seems to be signalling that it won't back down. Less than an hour after the Holmes programme ended last night, a press release went out with Bill Ralston's name on it. It said:
Further to the story on ONE News at 6.00pm and HOLMES tonight concerning Winston Peters, TVNZ stands by its reporter and its story. The facts as reported are correct. However, claims by Mr Peters that TVNZ is currently being sued for defamation in connection with an earlier story on the Scampi industry are completely untrue.
Well, Ralston's talked about having a bit of editorial mongrel often enough. It would seem that he now wishes to display it. Game on.
There was follow-up of sorts to the work-for-the-dole story I mentioned earlier this week. Muriel Newman claimed that the Activity in the Community programme, which replaced the National Party's work-for-the-dole scheme, had "largely failed" while the government had ignored the successful work-for-the-dole scheme in Australia:
"Of the 4946 people who began Activity in the Community in the 2001/02 year, 3045 are still unemployed," she said.
"How can a welfare programme be considered successful when more than half - in this case a whopping 61 per cent - of participants are not helped?"
Hang on. Even if you're inclined to accept the independent study, rather than the vastly less flattering one that the Australian government commissioned itself and then tried to bury, the comparison warrants scrutiny.
So the Australian scheme - expensive ($147 million over and above welfare costs) and intrusive, subject to claims of fraud and abuse, distorts the labour market - sees 46% of participants with a real job a year later and is thus a "success". But the New Zealand scheme - voluntary and much cheaper - places 39% and is thus a failure? I wouldn't take that to the bank. Really, the science of statistics needs to take out a protection order against the Act Party.
The two schemes are unequal in other ways. From what I can tell, the New Zealand government counts participants in Activity in the Community as still unemployed, and its guidelines clearly indicate that job-seeking should have precedence over activities in the scheme.
The Australian government, on the other hand, rather dubiously regards the 30,000 people receiving money from Community Development Employment Projects, its indigenous work-for-the-dole scheme, as employed. Nonetheless, the official Australian unemployment rate is 5.6% and ours is 4.4%.
National's work-for-the-dole scheme was ditched after a ministry study found that, far from pushing people into real jobs, it had a "locking in" effect. The evidence presented this week for bringing it back seems quite unconvincing.
Anyway, happier things: In The Mix, after the 6pm news on National Radio tomorrow, Saturday, Richard Wain interviews the Flaming Lips Wayne Coyne. They touch on the other celebrities who have donned furry animal costumes to become part of the Lips' stage show. Including, apparently, Elijah Wood while he was on acid. Freaky, dude.
Just pick the pretty one | Jan 22, 2004 11:45
After Bush's State of the Union speech last year, a couple of correspondents ticked me off for being churlish about the billions promised to fight Aids in Africa. Well, a year later, not a penny of those billions has been allocated - and 2005 Aids funding has been cut.
The budget appropriation for the Global Aids Fund - which is actually doing something - has been reduced by 71% since 2003. And the administration's faith-based ban on funding to foreign family planning organisations that refuse to sign a declaration that they will not offer abortions - or even discuss them - is causing genuine problems in Africa.
This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone but the most mad-headed Bush acolyte. The Bush White House has elevated saying one thing and doing another to a kind of creed. Its thinking is so flimsy, cynical and short-term that last week's big thing - the Mission to Mars - was dropped altogether from this week's speech after it researched poorly. This embarrassed Senator Trent Lott, who had already issued a press release hailing the bold vision for space expressed in Bush's speech.
Most of the other policies announced in the speech were a matter of politics - and as Jonathan Cohn pointed out, the supposed plans for better health coverage are simply a joke: "The ideas are so unserious they're barely worth considering, except insofar as they demonstrate just how far out of touch this White House really is." Paul Krugman noted this week that an earlier Bush initiative on Medicare has no visible source of funding.
The Washington Post analysed the absence of those WMDs - and any mention of the Israeli Palestinian conflict - from the speech.
As Bush approaches his re-election campaign, Contra Costa Times has checked off his campaign promises from last time - and found that fewer than half of them have been met.
Some of the promises sound like satire now: Especially "Support a bipartisan Commission to Eliminate Pork-Barrel Spending" and "Pay down the national debt to the lowest level since the Great Depression as a percent of the gross domestic product" (US national debt has risen from 57.6% of GDP when Bush took office to 65% now and will get worse). The Independent ran some other unflattering numbers earlier this week.
Of course, none of this much worries Bush's home fans: they prefer to focus on his "leadership", and they'll lap up the hint that Bush might amend the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
And sometimes, they just seem intent on playing themselves. Most notably delusional - Senator John Warner, who said this of Bush "Any fair-minded American knows that he, in his heart, wants to lead, make the tough decisions and protect America and let the future generations have what we had." What? Like trillion-dollar deficits?
Next to the developing fiscal nightmare, Bush's most glaring failure to deliver has been on his promise to "unite Americans". Americans now appear more sharply divided than ever, but it is entirely likely that Bush could achieve a bare majority of the vote this November (although, to be fair, he got elected without achieving that apparently basic requirement last time).
The Democrats, currently bickering amongst themselves, have a duty to the rest of us to pick the candidate who can beat Bush. And such is the stupidity and denial now playing so handsomely in parts of the US electorate, that I seriously think they should consider something as banal as simple good looks (physical height helps presidents get elected too) - which would lean them towards Edwards. Can't decide, guys? Do us a favour and just pick the pretty one.
Doleful | Jan 20, 2004 11:10
When Fairfax acquired INL's New Zealand print assets last year, a key promise was that the local papers would have easier access to work from Fairfax's Australian publications. Presumably they do. So why don't they make better use of it?
A story in this morning's Dom Post nails the government for failing to research Australia's "successful Work for the Dole Scheme". Cue predictable nagging from Katherine Rich and Muriel Newman. Well, no, the New Zealand government hasn't studied the Australian scheme. But the Australian government has, and the results have been a bit embarrassing, as stories last month in Fairfax papers said.
This from the Australian Financial Review, December 1, 2003:
The recent kerfuffle over research findings that suggest the Howard government's work-for-the-dole scheme is hindering rather than helping the jobless get off the dole is a reminder that such schemes are often an admission of failure. Jeff Borland and Yi-Peng Tseng of the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research found that work-for-the-dole participants are less likely than unemployed non-participants to get jobs. The possible reasons include that they have less time to look for jobs if [they are obliged to work in the scheme].
And this from the Sydney Morning Herald a couple of weeks before:
Long-term unemployed people should be given six months' subsidised experience and training in a job in the not-for-profit or public sectors, rather than made to work for the dole, the nation's peak welfare body said yesterday. The Australian Council of Social Service called for the Federal Government's work for the dole program to be scrapped after the release of research showing participants are 12 per cent less likely to find a job than unemployed people not involved in the scheme.
The unhappy conclusions of the Melbourne research have prompted the Howard government to swiftly shift the goalposts, claim that the aim wasn't to get people into jobs, but to create a sense of "mutual obligation", and to talk down its own figures in favour of an independent study that reached slightly more favourable conclusions.
Now, there is a weakness to the Melbourne study, which is that its data are relatively old. But it echoes one by the Australian Council of Social Services, which found that the old scheme that the Howard government scrapped was twice as successful at putting people into work as the new one, at about the same cost of operation.
The Melbourne study was actually withheld by the Howard government last year, and had to be obtained under freedom of information laws by The Australian newspaper. The ABC carried some of the debate - in which the Melbourne Institute's Jeff Borland criticised the methodology of the independent study being touted by the government. There's another ABC interview here.
There have been other problems with the indigenous component of the scheme, where whistleblowers are claiming to have flagged financial mismanagement and possible fraud - and been ignored by officials.
Essentially, work-for-the-dole schemes are never really undertaken in search of practical results, but rather as a matter of what you might call faith-based policy. They cost a lot to run, they distort the labour market and they don't create real jobs. The last National government scheme here was opposed by Treasury in the first place and was unlamented when it was phased out.
Anyway, Shona reviewed the Big Day Out too, and unabashedly loved Muse: "So there." Good on her. And Hansel from Interpret This got along to Peaches' warm-up show at the King's Arms last Thursday.
Sam Finnemore emailed with a few more warm fuzzies for the event:
It sounds like you had an absolute riot, as I did. I saw fewer acts than last year, but nearly everything deserved an extended stay: from Shapeshifter and Concord Dawn (whose set was definitely punishing, but worth the stay towards the end) through to the Strokes and Basement Jaxx.
I agree totally about the hip-hop stage; poor sound and placement meant it got drowned in noise and punters leaving the Boiler Room. I remember last year the headline rapper Kurupt got shifted to the main stage due to a huge crowd - they need to do people like Scribe justice and set aside one of the main stages for hip-hop next time.
Metallica was an interesting experience. I've never been a huge fan, but enthusiasm is infectious after all: they worked hard, kept my attention for 120 minutes and looked like they were having the time of their lives.
I was also surrounded by people who hung on every riff, from Californian teen punks to 40-year old punters from West Auckland; all of whom were bloody good to each other. I've never, ever, been asked at the Big Day Out if I could see the band properly, and had people shift to get me a better view. A friend of mine did get stuck in the boiling mosh up front, and was nearly trampled before one alert guy raised the alarm and hauled her up; she crowdsurfed right to the front and dropped down into the front row by the barrier. Nice.
Long live the mellower Big Day Out. I don't think anything's lost when people aren't off their heads on Export Gold. I think the wider age spread made it a milder experience too; but if you wanted to get punished there was plenty of opportunities in the Boiler Room. :) The Jaxx and Concord Dawn stumped every other act for sheer fun this year, Metallica included.
Shayne P. Carter also had a good time:
That was a cracker BDO, considering I'd sworn off them a few years back, the teeming masses being too much for me and me old man constitution. but I'm glad I took advantage of that free ticket and went at the last minute. That Flaming Lips gig was the sweetest and, yep, I was waving my arms in the air 'long with everyone else. Wayne Coyne seems a genuinely cool man.
I'll tell you who else was good - the Mars Volta, that's who. I mean I'm a huge Aphex fan, but I only lasted a couple of minutes in the Boiler Room - two dudes hunched over laptops was no match for the ass kickin' i was getting off the Green Stage, so I rushed back for more of that . Bloody good. The Strokes straight after seemed kinda tame in comparison. The Peaches show was a nice surprise too. I mean I've never really been interested, but that was an excellent set.
So yes. It's nice to be surprised and/or delighted, when so often you end up disappointed. Like you say - an excellent vibe as well - patient people and considerate too . Choice .
Sorry you missed it now? No worries. There's a killer lineup at the 95bFM Summer Series on Sunday. Here's to not growing up …
I still love rock 'n' roll | Jan 19, 2004 11:34
I have been to every Big Day Out since it launched in New Zealand in 1994, but I don't think I've ever enjoyed one more than the one that took place on Friday. It was loud, happy, tiring and surprising, and the music was mostly great.
The buzz began early this year, as several of the headliners arrived in the country a few days ahead of the event, to play showcase gigs or just hang out. You might have seen Damian out drinking with the Darkness, or the Strokes digging the Datsuns at the King's Arms, or Muse out at Piha, or the Dandy Warhols at a café. It felt a bit special.
Anyway, came the day: and we'd timed our run in the front gate to make the D4's 2pm set on the big stage, which we did nicely. Unfortunately, that didn't include time to grab a bottle of water on the way, and by the time they finished with a blistering version of the Dead Boys' 'Sonic Reducer' we were deranged with heat and thirst.
We climbed the hill, bought water and flopped down under a tree to hydrate. Happily, it began to cloud over. There was time for 10 minutes of Concord Dawn in the Boiler Room - which was actually enough - before Fat Freddy's Drop at the hip-hop stage. They played a typically supple, groovy set, perhaps pumping it up a little to fight the constant spill of noise from the Boiler Room.
If one thing has to change about the whole event, it's the hip-hop stage. By the time Scribe closed out the evening, it was just a shame. With what he's done this year - a four times platinum album, simultaneous number one album and single - Scribe had every right to play the big stages. Instead, he was stuck off in a corner, where many of his fans couldn't really even see or hear him properly.
We checked out the alternative stage, but Lostprophets were playing. One development in musical fashion that has vastly improved the Big Day Out in the past couple of years is the commercial death of nu metal. Unfortunately, as Lostprophets demonstrated, it's not quite as dead as it ought to be.
Next up were Kings of Leon, this year's obligatory Dad-rock band (although unlike Wilco, they're not old enough to be anyone's Dad, and they even had teenage girls screaming down at the front of the stage). I tried to like them, but they just didn't quite do it for me like they appeared to be doing for everyone else.
We agreed it was time for a trip up in the lift to the Immortals Lounge, where every ligger in town was arriving, leaving or sitting around looking dazed and goofy. One or two grievous offenders seemed to spend almost the entire festival in the bar, texting their friends.
It was a bit - well, a lot - harder to get a drink out in the public bars - and that, I am sure, was no accident. In its earlier years, there was a surly edge to the Big Day Out crowds, and more emphasis on alcohol: either sneaking it in or swilling it onsite. And the crowds were smaller back then - had Friday's sellout crowd of more than 45,000 been even half-liquored it would have been chaos.
But they weren't and it wasn't. The crowd, indeed, was the star of the show: people were considerate and good humoured and said sorry when they stood on each other. The advent of ecstasy as the festival drug of choice, alongside dear old marijuana, no doubt had a bit to do with that. The legal BZP-based party pills were widely available this year and also, it appeared, popular.
(BTW: Apparently Jim Anderton is keen to outlaw the party pills, even though they seem to be causing no problems. It's stupid to have them for sale at corner diaries, but R18 environments like liquor stores seem the appropriate place for them. Could someone please explain to Jim that he can't and won't actually change the entire shape of modern social life, and if Euphoria et al are banned from sale, you'll just have that many more kids on P? Is that really what he wants?)
So we holed up in the bar for a short while, then I went down to the bFM studio and found myself being interviewed on air by Damian. I hope it sounded alright. It seemed pretty funny at the time. From there you could see the Datsuns nicely on the big screen, which was this year's most welcome innovation. I don't know why there hasn't been one before.
Muse were on the big stage next, and were unspeakable, pompous shite. We found ourselves an unoccupied broadcast box and hurled abuse at them from the top of the stand until we figured it was time to check out the Boiler Room, which had cleared of the astonishing crowd that jammed in earlier to hear Salmonella Dub.
We popped down for a little Aphex Twin - too little as it turned out. I really liked his boffin techno, but the Strokes were pending in the stadium, so we had to go. The Strokes rocked - really. Their laconic chug sounded great at stadium size, and the singer, Julian Casablancas, was a riot. (He took the rock star behaviour a little too far in the bar after they'd played and was subsequently given a firm talking-to by Dion from the D4.) They really are a very cool band.
Directly afterwards, Afrika Bambaata was playing the hip-hop stage; a huge figure behind turntables, dropping old-school breaks. His MCs were hopeless, but he was for real. And it was great to hear Rob Base and DJ Ezy Rock's 'It Takes Two' played out for the first time in years. No complaints there.
Basement Jaxx had the last two hours in the Boiler Room, and made it a happy scene indeed. They play a real bangin' South London sound: no trace of ninny trance at all, and very much my kind of house music. But yet again, we had to be away: the Flaming Lips were playing the alternative stage, and they were magnificent.
I've struggled a bit to get the point of the Flaming Lips on record, but I immediately picked up on the warmth of their live show. Indeed, they could show anyone a few things about the meaning of performance. Singer and raconteur Wayne Coyne engaged the crowd constantly, and there were large, furry animals dancing on the stage (Dolf Datsun was inside the Goodnight Kiwi).
One moment, the band was swoony and florid, the next they'd hit almost a trip-hop groove. It was funny and beautiful and I'd pay money to see them play again any day. Coyne kept saying they'd love to come back if someone were to invite them, so perhaps they'll play here later in the year.
There are quite a few happy messages on the bulletin board on the Flaming Lips' website, and a review and pics at Cheese on Toast. (Feel free to post me links to any other online reviews of the event and I'll put them in the blog tomorrow.)
Real Groovy Records sold out of their album, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots the next day. Now that's winning people over. (I went in on Sunday morning and bought Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell, a seven-track CD of unreleased tracks and remixes. I think I played it nine times over the course of the day, and the Sunday evening debrief on the deck, where we raved at each other and ate fish and possibly drank a little too much nice wine. Yeah, I think you can call me a fan now.)
So it came time to trail out the gates, our minds barely troubled by thoughts of Metallica, who had ground on for two whole hours on the main stage. A great many people appeared to have come specifically to see them, and they seemed to feel they'd had their money's worth. Good for them.
After a pitstop at home, we decided to make a night of it and go to a party on K Road, where the Checks were going to play. Unfortunately, it was pushing 3am by the time they started playing, and we discovered that it was too late and too loud and we were too old. It had been a hell of a day.
So we only caught about 20 minutes of the Checks set. Kings of Leon, who were supposedly lined up to attend, still hadn't shown, but I like to think that maybe they came up the stairs just after we left, and saw the Checks - a bunch of inspired 17 year-olds from the Shore - playing their taut, angular R&B, almost encircled by a crowd of bright young things. They'd have seen something good.
So, yeah. I still love rock 'n' roll.
Bro vs. Big Bro | Jan 15, 2004 11:24
Anybody else caught the Maori Television Service showreel on channel 33 on Sky Digital? Anybody else think that, on that showing, MTS will be well worth a look? I'm glad they've made the decision to produce popular television: Marae DIY and all.
It's this popular programming that offers the best case for a separate channel rather than provision for Maori on TVNZ: a great many of these programmes simply wouldn't have been made on TVNZ because they'd conflict with the broadcaster's existing lineup. Indeed, in some cases - the forthcoming live-to-air music show versus Big Night In - MTS's programmes will almost certainly be better than what big bro has to offer.
Most of MTS's many problems so far have, unsurprisingly, centred on management and administration rather than programme production. There are some HR horror stories out there. More recently, the likes of Prime TV chair Brent Harman have been in at MTS offering advice, which might help. There will doubtless be grumbles about old white guys telling people what to do, but it worked in the early days of Mai FM, when Ross Goodwin came in with his format-heavy commercial radio philosophy.
Anyway, word is that MTS launches early April. Although not, apparently, on April 1.
While Telecom's share price rallies, the rest of the industry is wondering what the hell happened to unbundling. Paul Brislen reports on the Telecommunications Commissioner's shock decision to reverse the conclusions of his own inquiry, and looks at the strange, confusing and inadequate proposal now in place. Whether you liked it or not, the unbundling inquiry was transparent and orderly. Now? God knows. The Herald's Peter Griffin notes general speculation that the about-face was a political response to protect Telecom from a potential takeover bid by Telstra.
Salam has noted several elements of Iraq's progress away from secularity - including the Iraqi Governing Council's proposal to scrap the secular family affairs code and place it under Muslim religious jurisdiction (this is not being seen as a good result for women), and the steady disappearance of liquor outlets. Wow. Does Denis Dutton know?
Salam also notes Juan Cole's conclusion that Saddam's POW status will make it not just difficult but illegal for the US government to hand over Saddam for trial by the governing council.
Riverbend is absolutely on fire at the moment. Great posts on what's wrong with the currently fashionable idea of a federal Iraq, and an unsettling New Year's Eve.
The New York Times has a story on a document found with Saddam at his capture. In it, he warns off his supporters from joining forces with foreign jihadists. This is the same Saddam who was, we have been assured, in cahoots with foreign jihadists. Surely some mistake here?
I thought the print media did quite well with holiday fare this year: The Listener offered new fiction and good travel writing in consecutive issues, the SST had its summer holiday supplement and the Herald, among other things, had its Summer Poll Series, which, among other things, profiled supporters of the various political parties according to their propensity to eat meat, wear sunblock and shag around. The most adulterous political constituency was clearly the Greens (Keith Locke was pretty funny about that talking to Simon Pound on bFM this week) and the least was Act voters, although they were probably lying.
The series concluded this week with a more conventional poll, which was bad news for Don Brash and National, and a summer treat for Labour, which, after some springtime presentational twiddling, is bobbing around just under 50 per cent of the vote. The online story doesn't show it, but an interesting feature of the last poll was the preferred Prime Minister table. Green voters seem keen not to trouble Jeanette or Nandor with the perils of leadership. They're happiest to see Helen in charge, followed by "none" on 22.4% and Winston Peters on 9%. Fewer than a quarter of Act voters would have Richard Prebble leading the country.
It also appears - although you run into problems with sample size here -that Act's pitch for the Asian vote has been a spectacular failure. The Herald poll registered zero support amongst Asian voters for Act. Presumably, they're voting for the establishment: which (to the tune of 75%) they perceive to be Labour. Interesting.
Righto. That's me. Time to do some paying work then go and buy a nice new shirt for the Big Day Out tomorrow. Yippee. I see the local rap stars are most excited about seeing Metallica. Strange. I mean, I'm not averse to heavy metal: I've had my ears scoured out at Motorhead concerts a couple of times. But I've always thought 'Enter Sandman' was one of the most embarrassing songs ever recorded (why didn't they do a follow-up about, say, bedwetting?) and that Metallica's industry-compliant MOR metal was just plain dull.
This year, there's nothing I'm dying to see, but quite a lot that I'm most interested to witness: from the Strokes to Aphex Twin, the Kings of Leon to Afrika Bambaata. Mostly, of course, I'm just out to be entertained by everything, including the other punters. Now, can anybody tell me if my Immortals Lounge pass has arrived yet? Please?
Not writing | Jan 12, 2004 11:23
My Mum says that back when we went on our family summer holidays, she and Dad would usually get so frazzled over packing and preparation that they wouldn't be speaking for the first couple of hours of the trip. Funny thing is, I can't remember that at all.
It's the way of memory that the most vivid, happy experiences tend to stick. So presumably our kids will forget the first, frenzied day of this year's hols, which was blighted by two unaccountable cock-ups on Dad's part which very nearly left us without (a) a car to drive, and (b) a place to stay. I won't go into the details, but let us say that it could have been a lot worse than it was.
So anyway, we rolled up eventually at the house we had hired from friends' family in Pauanui. Pauanui is a little more like, say, Waikanae than you might think, but without the beneficiaries. Our initial encounter - Saturday herding time at the shopping centre - was a little traumatic (think Newmarket with far fewer clothes) but things settled down thereafter.
The house was basic but nicely kept up, both in terms of its physical condition and its store of nutrition for the soul: including several decades' back issues of National Geographic and a remarkable collection of board games. It also had an old Shacklock oven that had been possessed by the devil and routinely achieved internal temperatures roughly equivalent to those in the centre of the Sun. You had to admire its attitude. I couldn't get my stainless steel Smeg at home that hot if I tried.
I have never been to a place as spectacularly blessed with aquatic resources as Pauanui. The broad, gentle Tairua Harbour, the magnificent surf beach - there's even fine river swimming further up the valley. The regular punters positively hurl themselves at the water, in and on boats, launches, kayaks, doughnuts, boards, skiffs, anything. In the mornings, they go out and power-walk by the horde. Culture appears to be confined to suntan development, but the place is what it is, and the glory of the setting triumphs over all.
I enjoyed Chad's Star Times story about staying in the city and writing over the summer hols (I tried to find it on Stuff, but no luck - and the only Chad Taylors in Google News were people who got hit by trucks or messed up in bar brawls), although my experience was quite different. I brought my notebook, but did not write a word on holiday, which actually felt really good.
Instead, I read most of Michael King's Penguin History of New Zealand, and found it open-minded, rewarding and enjoyable, especially in its opening chapters and its last quarter, where King is able to put aside some of the plot and develop themes, which roll in elegant and powerful like sets at the surf beach. Nice. I'll have to read it again as single chapters, though.
So anyway, back home, to 1200 spams (in eight days!) and more news on Iraq and stuff. Paul O'Neill's startling criticism of the Bush administration shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention: it simply corroborates a great deal of speculation about how Dubya's White House works. He depicts Bush as bizarrely disengaged from policy discussions, fingers Cheney as the real source of power and advances the view that the invasion of Iraq was, from the first days of the administration, a policy looking for a pretext. Policy in general, he says, was devised on the basis of ideology and electoral politics.
O'Neill is, in turn, already being depicted as a man with an axe to grind, which he probably is. His dismissal as Treasury secretary in 2002 must have been a humiliation. But O'Neill is an old-fashioned conservative, the orthodox kind, not the spooky never-mind-the-facts kind. He worked for Ford and Nixon, was a success in the corporate sector and was invited to join the new administration. His departure was linked to his criticism, on orthodox economic grounds, of the administration's risible steel tariffs and its embrace of tax cuts and consequent vast fiscal deficits.
Yet even if you accept the view of O'Neill as self-serving and disgruntled, it's unthinkable to suppose that he simply made up the substance of what he has to say. But unless it forms part of a wider old-conservative revolt - and you wouldn't want to entirely discount that - O'Neill's attack probably won't damage Bush all that much.
After all, the Carnegie Endowment's lacerating report (summary here) on the case for war, which alleges that US government officials systematically exaggerated Iraq's WMD threat, "over and above intelligence findings" hasn't exactly set the American media on fire (although it's been extensively reported in the Arabic and Asian press). Rush Limbaugh's hilarious response (he ignores the substance of the report, but somehow contrives to introduce Monica Lewinsky to the argument) sets the tone of the backlash.
Baron Gellman's Washington Post investigation sheds a good deal more light on the weapons that weren't, and charitably suggests that US intelligence in some cases fell prey to the same lies that Saddam's officials and scientists peddled to their leader.
Former presidential counsel John Dean wrote an essay on FindLaw last June. He listed a few of the wilder claims about Iraq's weapons from Bush and others, and said:
To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose."
It's important to recall that when Richard Nixon resigned, he was about to be impeached by the House of Representatives for misusing the CIA and FBI.
Don't hold your breath.
Hey, anyway, some unconventional weapons have been found, probably. Three dozen old shells which might once have contained blister gas, disposed of 10-15 years ago by burial in the middle of nowhere. Given that they are probably leftovers from the Iran-Iraq war, during which Saddam had a free pass from the West, is safe to conclude that these weren't the weapons they were looking for.
Salam Pax has been extending maximum props to Hassan Fattah's essay Hearts and minds: A ten-point plan for solving the difficulties of the occupation in Iraq, and it's easy to see why. It's enlightened, positive and lucid. It also calls for a rethink of the occupation strategy so sweeping as to be a somewhat unlikely prospect.
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