Googling Past the Graveyard
Saturday, January 21st, 2006 by billFrom NY Times
By Maureen Dowd
I don’t like the thought of Dick Cheney ogling my Googling.
Because what I’m Googling, of course, is Dick Cheney. I have to constantly monitor how Vice Voyeur is pushing the federal government to constantly monitor millions of ordinary Americans’ phone calls, e-mail notes and Internet searches.
If you want to know why the Grim Peeper is willing to turn this country into a police state to take his version of democracy to other countries, just do a Google search under “antiterrorism,” “government snooping,” “overreaching” and “fruitcake.”
It was hard to know which story yesterday was scarier: Osama bin Laden, still alive and taunting the U.S., or the Justice Department’s trying to force Google to turn over a suspiciously broad array of information on millions of users’ searches and Web addresses, supposedly to investigate online crime involving pornography.
The Internet is full of vile diversions, but prying without justification is just as vile.
Innocent Americans – not just lonely guys in their boxers – could be swept up in the fishnet dragnet. Who decides what is porn? Will those who Google to find out-of-print copies of Lynne Cheney’s juicy, cheesy lesbian Old West novel, “Sisters,” be suspect? (The cheapest copy at Alibris.com is $195.)
When Fox News asked him about the fresh Osama audiotape, Mr. Cheney sounded like Mr. Moviefone. “Probably low production values,” he said.
Osama may not have graduated to DVD’s, but he has stayed alive, despite W.’s threat way back in the era of dial-up connections to smoke him out and hunt him down.
Officials first indicated that the U.S. had killed Ayman al-Zawahiri in a bombing in Pakistan last week – or at least his son-in-law or a friend of his son-in-law, or maybe the guy who delivered a kabob to him. Yesterday, Al Qaeda released a tape of Zawahiri’s greatest verse hits – poetry for jihadists – like “Tears in the Eyes of Time.” What rhymes with mujahedeen? Antihistamine?
None of the Bushies’ actions in defiance of law and convention, none of the money or blood spilled in Iraq, have helped these so-called tough guys get the one guy they really need to get. That is truly galling.
W. and Vice don’t even act upset about Osama’s still being on the loose. Having played down his significance after they missed their chance to get him in Tora Bora, they continue to act as if it’s no big deal when he hurls more threats.
Torquemada Cheney was torturing logic again in a speech to a conservative think tank in New York. “Some have suggested that by liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein, we simply stirred up a hornets’ nest,” he said. “They overlook a fundamental fact: we were not in Iraq on Sept. 11, 2001, and the terrorists hit us anyway.”
Yeah, Dick, because they weren’t in Iraq, either.
The fact that federal snoopers are all over reporters, monitoring their phone calls, shows the sorry state of our intelligence. Even F.B.I. agents feel as if they have been wasting their time rummaging through library cards and tracing numbers that turn out to be Pizza Huts.
Maybe they could make an argument that it’s worth bending the Constitution into a balloon elephant if we were getting Osama’s area code and smashing his connections. We don’t even bother to raise the terror alarm anymore when the Qaeda mass murderer releases a tape. The scare-level color code was a more useful tool before the 2004 election.
I just don’t get why it’s so hard to find Osama. So what if he’s in what is often described as “the impossibly rugged mountain terrain” of Pakistan? We send people to the Moon, and W. wants to send someone to Mars. What’s more impossibly rugged terrain than that?
If we can brave Big Brother, we could probably find Osama’s lair on Google Earth (but not Dick Cheney’s – it’s censored).
The White House has always seemed less compelled to capture Osama than to use him as a pretext for invading Iraq and as a political selling point. Karl Rove, coming out of his “please don’t indict me” crouch, tried to chase away the taint of the Abramoff scandal with a new round of terror-mongering for 2006: “We need a commander in chief and a Congress who understand the nature of the threat and the gravity of this moment. President Bush and the Republican Party do. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for many Democrats.”
So why did the White House set aside the gravest threat of all?
[...] Complete article: http://trueblueliberal.dreamhosters.com/?p=3061 http://guerillawomentn.blogspot.com/2006/01/dowd-googling-past-graveyard.html [...]
[...] Of course, the Bushies are goin’ way beyond phone wiretaps. Mo Dowd writes today (courtesy of True Blue Liberal) that she doesn’t appreciate “Dick Cheney ogling my Googling.” Because what I’m Googling, of course, is Dick Cheney. I have to constantly monitor how Vice Voyeur is pushing the federal government to constantly monitor millions of ordinary Americans’ phone calls, e-mail notes and Internet searches. [...]
How come I have to pay extra to view Ms. Dowd’s columns on the NYTimes web site, but you publish them for free?
Am I missing something or is this a violation of the copyright?
Thank you for reprinting the newly-hard to get columns by Miss Dowd.
With the Bush administration now wiretapping American citizens and snooping around on their emails, the Republican Party is now the Stalinist party. Conservative republicans/ religious fundamentalists share the same philosophy with communists. They have big govt in your private life at the expense of individual liberty just like communists. They believe in economic centralization of wealth (corporatism is simply private sector communism)as well as an elitist society in which only a few get the good schools, quality health care, and clean environment.
Conservatives are communists.
Thank you for those incisive comments. I chat with people all over the world who are looking at us in askance, wondering what the hell has happened here. The hubris of this anti-intellectual crowd is mind boggling in its raw brutaluty. It’s like Americans are somehow waiting for it to leave, this large, ugly elephant we host in our living rooms. It has become a caricature of a bad joke, yet, it is so real. Frankly, I am getting scared. These people need to be taken down, hard on election day.
I love the Cobra as Bushie calls her. This is another great article. Now take a moment and click on the The New Fascism article on the right side. It should be required reading by all Americans. We are losing this war. And not the one in Iraq-the one with Bush.
MS.DOWD has a good mind for writing, glad she jabs those Bushies where it hurts. And she ani’t a bad looking dame either. Ole Vet
Great article by Ms. Dowd and she’s right-the 9/11 mantra of Cheney, Rove, and the gang is getting to be redundant and stale-at least when Texans yelled “Remember the Alamo,” they went after the right country.
I doubt that tape was from Bin Laden, it is just too damned convenient. Also I doubt that 911 took place without the help of some in our government. This is all BS of the most disgusting order.
bush is into facism. he is a liar and thief and uses the religious right as his front. he shames america and needs to be impeached but nobody says or does anything. the man is evil, untrustworthy, the worst president in history. but one day he’ll answer for the innocent blood that is on his hands.
Even your brother may be able to understand this danger to our civil liberties.
I’m glad I’m not alone in my fears. Our great country is changing and we are sitting on our hands while things go to hell. Elections are being tainted, patriotism is thrown around like candy, and we are giving up our civil liberties for nothing. The lies must stop and the people must wake up to see how we are being led backwards in time.
Dear Maureen Dowd,
I respect and appreciate your columns very much, but in this case, I do believe you’re missing a very important point. Osama bin Laden cannot possibly be alive at all any more. It is not just loose rumors, it is medical opinion that with his extremely serious kidney problem he cannot possibly have survived in caves or in hiding wherever. Please go to countercurrents
Phantom Osama Groomed For A Return
By Kurt Nimmo http://www.countercurrents.org/us-nimmo200106.htm
and then click on ‘he died’ to see what is the most likely truth on the story of bin Laden. You’ll get to http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/osama_dead.html
Good reading!
All the best,
Siv O’Neall, France
If Alberto Gonzales had been doing his job, he could have shut down these pornographic sites. Now they want to take away more of our liberties. Where is our democracy? It doesn’t make sense to me.
M. Dowd is right on track. I hope she has enough truth in her to keep writing. Journalists like her are our only salvation.
BushCo’s repeated use of the Osama totem has become so obvious that connections to new “terrist” announcements and GOP poll problems are clear, even to ivory tower MSM columnists like Dowd, who have so much to lose by continuing to point it out to the blind. She, Frank Rich, et al are courageous to keep on.
I remember when America fought against crooked voting machines, public spying and sanctioned torture. What’s wrong with this picture… and does anyone believe BushCo will go peacefully? These guys will do anything to stay in power… check out and the pieces will fall into place.
BushCo’s repeated use of the Osama totem has become so obvious that connections to new “terrist” announcements and GOP poll problems are clear, even to ivory tower MSM columnists like Dowd, who have so much to lose by continuing to point it out to the blind. She, Frank Rich, et al are courageous to keep on.
I remember when America fought against crooked voting machines, public spying and sanctioned torture. What’s wrong with this picture… and does anyone believe BushCo will go peacefully? These guys will do anything to stay in power… check out Reopen911(dot)org and the pieces will fall into place.
I believe this Duke professor’s expert evaluation:
http://www.rense.com/general69/fake.htm
Please, please publish more of her pieces.
I do miss her since NYT took her away from us. As a matter of fact, I unsubscribed to
their whole thing shortly after that. That was NOT the only reason. I’m sick of mainstream media, I think.
Frist thing I throught of here we go again just when they may get them they get atape out. Why do the media do what they are doing it is a disgrace .They should be fair to the american people WE are buying thier papers and it is tiresome hearing the news media voicing their party assosiation.
Ms. Dowd’s articles, as good as they are, aren’t going to change things. Sitting in front of your computer and ranting won’t either. Voting in rigged elections can’t. Writing letters to bought-off editor’s and politicians are a waste of time.
We’ve been through this before. I personally experienced what needs to be done the last time we changed things back in the 60’s and 70’s. We hit the streets, consistently and in mass numbers. Occupied buildings. Blocked entrances to facilities that promoted the unjust war. Engaged in peaceful civil disobedience. In other words, we have to get off our fat duffs and put ourselves in harms way in such numbers that even the placated MSM can’t ignore us. Many of us will get arrested, and physically hurt. Some will die. (Remember Kent State) Nothing else will work.
What will spark this movement? Who and how many will sacrifice? I don’t know. I just know it’s what needs to be done.
Great stuff from Ms. Dowd, but where was she in 2000 as clever and insightful as she seems to be.
Back then she was all about sniping at the Clintons and snark shots at Al Gore’s earth tones. If a dullwitted drywaller like myself saw Bushco for what it was a mile away, why didn’t she?
Moreover, why didn’t she even bother to look?
I google Cheney a lot too. The MSM will never tell you what the forces of darkness are really up to . . .
Ms. Dowd writes great stuff. She is gutsie and shoots down W. and Vice between the eyes and does not take prisoners. I am glad you are re-printing her columns, and allowing readers to submit comments. NYT has kill filtered her fans that will not subscribe. This is just to show my appreciation of what you are doing. Now that I know where to find her, If I have something more substantial to say, she will hear from me again.
There are a few journalists (bless them) who can see through the cant and obfuscation of the Bushites — and who have the courage and self-discipline to see the truth and call it as they observe it. Maureen Dowd is one of them.
If only we had a Democratic party with even half the fearlessness and courage of conviction that Maureen Dowd has — maybe the Democrats in the Senate would agree to fight the Judge Alito appointment with a FILIBUSTER — the only thing that may slow the march to Bush/Cheney/Gonzales fascism. I believe the whole world can see that — why can’t the Democrats?
Osama’s longevity will keep up perpetual warfare. Like Vietnam the U.S. will be in Iraq for a decade until our country tax dollars are sucked dry to the bone. Mideast freedom and democracy? Nonsense the U.S. supports another Sadaam in Uzbekestan. 9/11 is a windfall for the security and defense industry since the cold war ended in 1990. It is just business and it is the American taxpayer that has been sold out. The big brother fiasco is designed to plug leaks between adminsitration officials and the press!
Thanks for printing her article. Now, can you print Frank Rich and Paul Krugman, too. I understand why the NYTimes is charging (at least I think I do); print media is dying and they have to fund themselves however they can, but they have been so despicable in so many other important ways (The NYTimes) that I’m afraid my emotional evaluation of their previous tactics (e.g., withholding the illegal spying story for over a year) just doesn’t allow me to have any sympathy for them.
Just a quick comment.
For those who hear Bush use religion
to convince people to follow him.
BUSH is a FALSE GOD!! Do not follow him.
Also..
Bush is not Holier than thou..
With 19 miners dead and no mining inspections to speak of, why in the heck are we going outside of the US looking for terrorists?
With a 10% infection rate in the hospitals, why do we need to go outside the US to look for terrorists?
With spending 400 billion dollars a year on defense and less than 1 billion on BODY ARMOR for my son and other soldiers, why are we looking for eco terrorists in the US?
With Kenny Lay (the supreme fraud after W) and Jeff Gannon (a gay prostitute who was in the White House 200 times), why are we looking for sexual predators online?
There are reports that obl is dead, and they are using his ghost to scare folks. A dead obl can not have give speeches. I think the administration is desperate to hold power.
Very sad.
Thank you for making Maureen Dowd’s columns available. I unsubscribed the New York Times newsletter, when her, Krug’s, and Herbert’s columns were only available by special subscription.
About Osama Bin Laden’s sudden reappearance:
When gangsters want to steal something, they create a diversion ( “clouding the mind” ),
exactly what Bushco is doing.
The Bushco gangsters are in trouble, and they know it.
I predict bin laden is dead.I predict bush made this up because he was losing his base.I predict that bush knows we are getting close to exposing him and is wagging the dog..War is big business and bush with carlyle group and cheny with halliburton plus his pioneers (big oil, drug manu) will make millions if we invade iran..I predict that in feb. something will happen to cause loss of american lives and will be blamed on iran…Iran ..bad guy Bush …good guy..If you dont think even bush would do this…Think..Iraq,,katrina, our soldiers, old and sick on medicaid etc…Yes.. he would ..I predict you better stop being so damn gullible and trusting before its too late..
Ms. Dowd: You once again have hit it on the head. Nothing like a boggeyman to frighten the folks with when pole numbers have tanked and the FBI is knocking on your backers’ doors.
You know, I though Tora Bora was just the usual Pentagoon ineptitude–like obliterating a village in order to save it. But then, wagging the dog is a viable scenario in the day when our military spies on US and gets away with it. We got all these highly trained, gung-ho GI Joes over there and they still can’t raid the right mud hut.
Makes my bowels loose to think about it.
I am delighted to know I can find Mo Dowd here. (Curse the NYT!!!) Now does anyone know where I can find Frank Rich???
Ms. Dowd you are brilliant! Thank you for your insightful articles.
Everyone is naturally worried about what email the NSA–or the Pentagon or the IRS–is spying on and which information is provided to which of their trading partners. Given the stupidity of the political appointees now speaking as the voice of the US government, we all naturally fear that all those unsolicited viagra ads–available internationally (dirt cheap, no prescription)–are going to get us branded as terrorist sympathizers (what could be more symbolically threatening than a viagra ad?).
Don’t forget though that the privacy of young children–kindergarten kids, first graders–is also being ravished, even more systematically and thoroughly than through the NSA’s imperial wire tapping. Young children are clueless and no rational person can think them a threat to national security: no one, however, speaks up for them (all the New Orleans “refugee” children are now registered in a “migrant” student category–the only single nationwide database allowed by Bush’s NCLB is of migrant students). The data collected about these children—both what’s correct and what’s not—will follow them for the entirety of their lives. IMHO, even worse than violating the Constitution’s Bill of Rights for adults, this is wrong.
This hurts to write, but the Dem leadership is proving the Repugnicants point, they are too weak to fight. How could you trust them to defend the country against an outside threat when they won’t even stand up to an inside threat? If they cower before the threat of being Swift-Boated, how could they stand up before a real threat?
We are right, we are moral, bt we are weak as piss.
Is there any way we (as a Nation) could tweak the Constitution just enough to establish an office of Liaison of Common Sense (of humor)–an elected, Presidential cabinet level position, do you think?
Being as soft-spoken as you are, I’m sure you’d refuse to campaign for the office, but we (as a Nation) might mount a write-in campaign.
I love Mo.
If I call her, I will use a pay phone.
Is your phone tapped? Check it out.
Ms. Dowd’s column today which can be read at
http://topplebush.com/ is a must read. She writes: “The Democrats will never win the White House as long as they’re stuck in Bleak House. They’re slipping and sliding in the same crust-upon-crust of mud and caboose-creeping fog and soft black drizzle and flakes of soot that blacken the chamber of law in the opening of the terrific Dickens novel (now an irresistible PBS series).” I add: The Democrats do not realize that by not Filibustering Alito, even if they fail, is their ticket to winning back the Senate. I have not given up hope that someone will stand up and make a last ditch effort to FILIBUSTERS. Who knows? It could snowball. Thank you, Maureen, for your bravura and fearless condemnation of W’s and Vice’s cohorts and the “no action” stance of the Democrats. Hope our comments are forwarded to you.
Just FYI… you can download “Sisters” for free at http://www.whitehouse.org/administration/sisters.asp … Pass it on!!
Take the offensive. Dick Cheney, before he dicks you.
JR Ford
UP (Unsubstantiated Press)
St Petersburg, Fl
sixtimeseven@aol.com
“One can only wonder how long moderate Republicans will tolerate Larry Fine and the Howard brothers riding their elephant at the head of the circus parade. Nyuck nyuck!” — JR Ford, Jul 2005
Don’t Blame Porn!
Requesting Google’s search records to establish a justification for censoring adult websites operated or hosted in the United States will not prevent minors from accessing porn. The Bush administration is merely satisfying the religious-right while preparing a foundation to censor all websites operated in the United States.
The D.O.J. determined that porn sites are a soft target to begin their ‘moral’ crusade against because few will openly defend their freedoms. Thousands of legitimate, tax-paying adult webmasters reside in the United States and need our support…whether you view porn or not!
Before she was Maureen Dowd, was that same woman known as Anna Quindlen?
Proud of Dowd. Faces such as these, make it crystal clear just how mentally damaged the liberally left press and their followers are. But not to fret children, the adults will do the job. Feel free to whine on, your paranoia entering the room 10 minutes before you do. God bless those who have shed the blood, and those that continue to take the risks so you silly small peeps can self-perpetuate your miserable lifestyles. Now go off and blog amongst yourselves – maybe use pig latin as not to be discovered by the hidden mics and boogiemen… nits.
We really should change back the state colors as they originally were – blue=right, red=wrong. You should all try a hiatus in China, or Cuba, Vietnam… and not as a fun time tourist, but as a citizen/prisoner. You just MIGHT get quite the wake up (but I know you won’t understand, ignorance really is bliss). *leaves crying room as the dust swirls*
Gonnut, mass numbers aren’t going to do a thing this time around. In case you somehow missed it, we’ve been on the streets since November 2000. During Bush’s First Installation there were so many of us on the street, and next to no supporters, that the shocked media couldn’t avoid putting us on the air. Once. They could and did avoid repeating the images.
Since then, thousands around the world have dogged every step of Bush’s. Even before 9/11. With nary a peep from the MSM. Since then, not only have they ignored all the giant war protests, and worldwide protests wherever Bush goes, but did you know over a million women hit the streets last year for NOW’s march for women’s rights in D.C.? Thought not. It dwarfed all the war marches, and yet no one even knows of it.
Face it, if they can ignore over a million women, they can and will ignore everything else. Code Pinkers have been getting arrested in civil disobedience for years now…maybe you missed it because they’re lucky to get 15 seconds air time, let alone the 15 minutes of fame Cindy Sheehan managed to snag. They haven’t stopped — they’re still getting arrested and those arresting them are lying about it. With the willing help of….the MSM.
The good news is that the kool-aid drinkers, such as lumpy here, are such a minority that despite the MSM lies 3/4’s of Americans know that chicken hawks Bush and Cheney sent soldiers into the wrong country on false pretenses, and Bush’s and Cheney’s numbers are in the dump.
As for Maureen Dowd’s role, may she rot in Hell for not writing, in 2000, when it WOULD’VE MATTERED, about Bush’s incompetence and how he’s failed at every last endeavor his daddy and his rich pals got for him. Back then she was all a nervous fret that BORING Al Gore would win and there would be NOTHING to write about. Think how hard it would be on the poor writer if a competent policy wonk was in charge, who cared about the environment and had served time in Viet Nam so would never have gotten us bogged down in the current quagmire?
Her USELESS hot air now is nothing but self aggrandizement. And judging from her whining book about men it’s all small consolation from having lost her best man to Catherine Zeta Jones.
UDL, I thank you for your memory. Those of us who remember her petty columns in 2000 have NOTHING but contempt for her forever.