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Bush, at an American air base in South Korea, tells the troops,
For half a century American servicemen and women have stood faithful and vigilant watch here in Korea. You’ve kept the peace and you secured the freedom won at great cost in the Korean War. You’ve ensured that no American life was lost in vain.
I take it this is a not-so-subtle hint about staying the course, not cutting and/or running, etc, and the need to occupy Iraq for at least the next 50 years. Possibly forever, since not only is he rejecting the whole notion of setting a target date for accomplishing the mission in Iraq, he won’t actually say what that mission is: “We will stay in the fight until we have achieved the brave -- the victory that our brave troops have fought for.” How is that victory defined? What has to happen before the troops can come home? He hasn’t said, he won’t say, he doesn’t know, I don’t know if he’s even thought about it. A simple response, “define your terms,” can deflate every piece of stay-the-course-until-victory rhetoric.
NYT headline: “Cocaine Prices Rise and Quality Declines, White House Says.” That’s sure a bitch, George, maybe you need to find a new dealer.
Bush has recently taken to delivering partisan attacks in front of the one group of Americans we’d really rather remain non-partisan, serving members of the military. But it also seems to me that there’s been a concurrent increase of people like Gen. William Webster and Col. James Brown, both of them commanders of forces in Iraq, taking up Bush’s tacit invitation and scolding Democratic congresscritters. And that’s to say nothing of the Marine colonel who Rep. Jean Schmidt claims told her to tell Rep. Murtha, “cowards cut and run, Marines never do.” Actually, the Marines will do whatever the civilian leadership tells them to do, and don’t forget it, colonel. (Incidentally, why are we using nautical imagery about a desert war?) It’s a nice bit of character-assassination precisely because of its ambiguity: is Murtha being accused of being a coward himself, or of calling Marines cowards? (Update: As Mikhail Capone points out in comments, Schmidt had to retract the comments, and pretend she wasn't implying what she was implying.)
AP headline: “Source: Cheney Isn’t Woodward’s Source.” That’s right, a secret source is denying that Dick Cheney is Bob Woodward’s secret source.
Follow-up to the previous post: Iraqi Interior Minister Jabr also said of the secret prison that while there had been torture there, “all the suspects’ files were in order -- which shows that our practices and procedures are correct.” Actually, 1/3 of the prisoners had no files, but his thinking, sputter, I have no, sputter sputter, words...
That article quotes the army general in charge of training Iraqi security forces, Martin Dempsey, saying that there needs to be internal oversight. Ya think? Although considering the sorts of things Jabr has been saying, somehow I don’t see oversight by him improving anything. Dempsey: “These kinds of things are a huge detriment to the morale of the force.” Oh, and the guys who were starved and tortured, their morale probably isn’t all that great either. By the way, whatever happened to those prisoners? Who has them now?
Bush in South Korea is asked whether he agrees with Cheney’s attack on war critics or Chuck Hagel’s statement that it’s patriotic to ask questions. “The Vice President.” Bush repeated that “ours is a country where people ought to be able to disagree” but that it’s “irresponsible” to criticize him. Clearly, by when he says people can “disagree,” he actually means “scream silently within their own heads in impotent rage.” Bush continued this contradictory, possibly schizophrenic, line of argument (well, I say line, but it clearly goes in anything other than a straight line):
It’s irresponsible to use politics. ... I think people ought to be allowed to ask questions. It is irresponsible to say that I deliberately misled the American people when it came to the very same intelligence they looked at, and came to the -- many of them came to the same conclusion I did. Listen, I -- patriotic as heck to disagree with the President. It doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is when people are irresponsibly using their positions and playing politics. That’s exactly what is taking place in America.
He used the word irresponsible five times, and it’s such a long word, we’re all very proud of him, although it’s not clear that he knows what it means. And you can’t use politics, or play politics. Evidently politics is like grandma’s good china, you never actually get to eat off of it, it just sits there all decorative and shit.
The Miami Herald makes Venezuela’s offer of cheap oil to its poor neighbors seem like some sort of dastardly, insidious plot:
While Cuban leader Fidel Castro tried to export his revolution throughout Latin America in the 1960s with AK-47s, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is fighting to expand his “21st century socialism” with oil barrels.
Um yeah, it’s just like that.
Equally helpful is the LA Times, which explains that the “Big Nose Bandit,” who has just held up his 18th bank, “got his nickname because he has a larger-than-average nose”.
Newsweek, the website rather than the magazine, has an article on the Guantanamo hunger-strikers (remember them?), specifically a Kuwaiti, Fawzi Al Odah, who is being forcibly fed, which is merely prolonging his death, since they can only get 1,000 calories a day into him. Al Odah is hunger-striking in support of his demand for a trial (or, as Gitmo spokesmodel Jeremy Martin puts it, implementing “an Al Qaeda tactic to try to get media attention,” just like those famous Al Qaeda members Mohandas Gandhi, Sylvia Pankhurst, Bobby Sands, Al Sharpton, and those landscapers in Beverly Hills protesting the banning of noisy leaf blowers) and in rebuttal of the claim that Gitmo prisoners are well-treated. “If I eat,” he told his lawyer, “I condone the lie.” This information comes to us only because of a court case, which ended with the judge claiming that Al Odah’s medical treatment was perfectly adequate. Such court reviews are, of course, about to be eliminated by Congress.
Speaking of prisoners who aren’t eating, although in this case because they weren’t being fed, the Iraqi interior minister claims that only a few of the prisoners in that secret prison (one of 8 or 10 “unofficial jails” run by special interior minister units which seem to be indistinguishable from sectarian militias) it says deep in this NYT article) (“unofficial jails”!) were beaten and/or tortured, although the BBC notes that he couldn’t keep his story straight, claiming the number was 5 at one point, 7 at another. His deputy said 160 a couple of days ago. On the bright side, “No one was beheaded”. So that’s ok, then. Also, they’re really really bad: “These are the most criminal terrorists”. Not just terrorists, but criminal terrorists, and not just criminal terrorists, but the most criminal terrorists. His deputy says that these were just isolated incidents of prisoner abuse. Can’t think where I’ve heard that before. Even deeper in the NYT story it says that some of the prisoners were released when their families paid ransoms. Also read the LAT article, which has remarkably little overlap with the NYT one. The secret prison was found by Americans, who haven’t figured out who was actually in charge of it, and despite the starving and tortured prisoners, failed to hold any of the guards, who “were dispersed.”
FEMA will stop paying for the housing of Katrina victims on December 1, because December 25 would have been too unsubtle even for them.
You may have seen that Dick Cheney snarled today that “the suggestion that’s been made by some U. S. senators that the President of the United States or any member of this Administration purposely misled the American people on pre-war intelligence is one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city”. He said this at the right-wing Frontiers of Freedom Institute, adding that Kerry, Reid and Jay Rockefeller “were unable to attend due to a prior lack of commitment.” What a kidder; his attempt at humor is only matched by his attempt at moral outrage.
He accused critics, who he called “opportunists,” of “making a play for political advantage in the middle of a war.” Middle? We’re only in the fucking middle of the war? Whatever happened to the “last throes”?
He went on, “The saddest part is that our people in uniform have been subjected to these cynical and pernicious falsehoods day in and day out.” Oh, and IEDs. Those are pretty bad too.
In a stunning move, the United States Senate resolved that 2006 “should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty”. Wow, a period of significant transition, that’s so meaningful. Not just transition, but significant transition, a period of it, in fact a full entire year of significant transitiony goodness.
19 Senators voted against that, by the way. Evidently it wasn’t vague enough for them. Although it was vague enough that everybody could, and did, claim that their position had prevailed.
That was after rejecting an attempt to request (three or four years late, some might say) that Bush come up with a plan for getting the US military out of Iraq at some point in the future. What, “as Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down” isn’t enough of a plan for you people? Chuck Hagel says “This is a significant step toward the Congress exercising its constitutional responsibilities over matters of war.” A little overly self-congratulatory about taking a “step” in the direction of actually doing your job, aren’t you Chuck? Did you applaud yourself for getting out of bed this morning, Chuck? Did you say to yourself, I have changed out of my pajamas and that is a significant step towards exercising my constitutional responsibilities, I have brushed my teeth and that is yet another significant step towards exercising my constitutional responsibilities, I have eaten my significant Wheaties, and that....
A contest. The BBC has a story headlined "Gandhi Vows to Punish Oil Guilty," which is about... well really, who cares, it’s nowhere near as intriguing as the headline. So what story should that headline refer to? In comments, please.
Wonkette translates Bush’s "Reasonable people can disagree about the conduct of the war – but it is irresponsible for Democrats to now claim that we misled them and the American people" as "You can disagree except when you do." Just so.
Over a year ago, Israeli soldiers shot and wounded a 13-year old Palestinian girl in Gaza. An officer went over to "confirm the kill," meaning he shot her ten more times, just to make sure she was dead. The IDF told many lies about the incident: that they didn’t know she was a child (actually, the soldiers thought she was even younger), that they mistook her book bag for a bomb (they didn’t; there are tapes), that she was coming towards them (she wasn’t; there are tapes). The officer, who has never been named (the girl’s name is Iman al-Hams), was just acquitted of the piddling charges (improper use of his weapon) he was charged with. The judges blamed the girl, who they claimed had been sent to draw soldiers into an ambush.
Let me repeat: they blamed the girl for her own death.
France’s employment minister, Gerard Larcher, blames the rioting (only a couple of hundred cars burned yesterday!) on... wait for it... polygamy.
Evidently the use of white phosphorus to burn the flesh of human beings is ok, as far as the Geneva Convention is concerned, if those burns are thermic rather than chemical. So perhaps the US melted those Iraqis the good way, not the bad way. Color me reassured, and I’m sure their surviving relatives feel the same way.
That Indy article quotes something in the State Department wonderfully named the “Counter Misinformation Office.” Sadly, I have been unable to find any other evidence that such an office exists. Possibly the Counter Misinformation Office should issue a statement clearing up this misinformation that it exists.
Speaking of counter misinformation, or possibly over-the-counter misinformation, Bush has taken to quoting the 2002 and 2003 words of then-bamboozled Democratic senators like Carl Levin, Harry Reid and Jay Rockefeller about the dangers posed by Saddam Hussein to castigate them for having changed their opinions once they finally got their facts straight, something he would never do. “They spoke the truth then, and they’re speaking politics now,” he said. He claims to “respect” the “consistent stand” of those who have always opposed the war, but, and see if you can follow the logic here because I sure can’t, anyone who voted for the war is stuck with that position forever and ever even unto the end of time. “[O]ur troops... deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them into war continue to stand behind them.”
In fact, Bush went on, the only person who manipulated evidence and misled the world was... wait for it... Saddam Hussein!
Lindsey Graham, who some people were recently momentarily fooled into thinking was one of the good guys, will oppose the Bingaman amendment allowing Guantanamo and other detainees to file habeas corpus petitions, because it would lead to “lawsuit abuse.”
Caption contest (in case it’s not obvious, the chick in the Secret Service shades is Condi Rice, the dead guy next to her is Ariel Sharon):
AP headline: “U.S. Will Maintain Higher Mad Cow Standard.” Absolutely, those mad cows have been slacking off lately. No mad cow left behind, I say!
One of the new members of what the Times calls Afghanistan’s new House of Warlords (which I am hereby stealing and making my own) is the head of the Afghan basketball association. Also, a Taliban militant nicknamed Rocketi for his skill with a rocket launcher. I don’t know about democracy, but they’re just about ready to host the Olympics.
AP story:
Des Moines: A judge in Iowa has ruled that a security guard who was dismissed for seeing ghosts near his post at a gated community cannot be denied unemployment benefits.
Tidbit from Robert Fisk’s book: the reason the Ayatollah Khomeini was exiled from Iran in 1964 was that he gave a speech protesting a new law giving American forces operating in the country immunity for any crimes they committed, just like the one Paul Bremer imposed on Iraq.
The Creighton University School of Law in Omaha, Neb. has been given a $750,000 grant by USAID to develop a model for the tribunal we intend to install in Cuba after Castro dies that will return nationalized American property. Texaco, United Fruit Sugar and the Mafia want their stuff back.
USAID is also planning to train the not-so-newly elected Afghan MPs, many of whom are illiterate warlords, in How a Law is Made and other niceties of representative democracy. Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall at those sessions? The LAT says, “Experts emphasize that Afghanistan is still a society in transition”. It doesn’t name these experts, although it sounds to me like the work of Prof. Johann Finkelharben, chair of the Department of Completely Obvious Shit at UCLA.
Speaking of completely obvious shit (and, indeed, speaking of illiterate warlords), Arnold Schwarzenegger, following his defeat at the polls, is off on a junket to the exotic Far East, where he will shill the goods made by his campaign contributors (who are also paying for the trip), goods which the LA Times describes as “various California products, including fruit, nuts and mechanical pumping equipment.” And that’s just Arnold.
Condi Rice says that demonstrations in Jordan against the bombings show “that ordinary people are really tired of these killers who are just determined to attack innocent people in the service of this extremist ideology.” Tired of them? Because killers who are just determined to attack innocent people in the service of extremist ideology are just soooo 2003?
Speaking of things that are so 2003, Robert Fisk points out that the Bushies keep using up synonyms for winning. They can no longer say that we’re going to “win” in Iraq, because we already did that in 2003, and the “mission” has already been “accomplished.” And just how many times can you “liberate” a place? So now the thing we’re going to do in Iraq, that we haven’t already done, is “prevail.” And good luck with that.
But I didn’t watch it on tv. Some things are too much to ask. As reported in advance, the speech began a “campaign-style” attack on those accusing him of lying about intelligence when arguing for the invasion of Iraq. And he chose to launch this partisan attack on Veteran’s Day, which is not a little despicable. Characteristic, but despicable.
Most of the speech you’ve heard or read before, word for word, since he first gave it at the National Endowment for Democracy a month ago. (Update: Sadly, No! does a side-by-side comparison.) So let’s concentrate on the new material:
Various threats against Syria. “The government of Syria must stop exporting violence and start importing democracy.” Remember when democracy and freedom rested in the souls of every human, bestowed by god and blah blah blah? Well, evidently not so much in Syria, where they have to be imported, like DVD players and Britney Spears videos.
Veiled threats against Al-Jazeera: “The militants are aided as well by elements of the Arab news media that incite hatred and anti-Semitism, that feed conspiracy theories, and speak of a so-called American ‘war on Islam’”.
Scolding the D’s and anti-war types. “I also recognize that some of our fellow citizens and elected officials didn’t support the liberation of Iraq. And that is their right, and I respect it.” Isn’t that sweet of him? Or would be, except for the fact that his respect lasted for precisely two sentences, at which point he accused those people (hey, that’s me!) of rewriting history, of false charges, and says, “These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America’s will.” Not in front of the c-h-i-l-d-r-e-n.
His argument that Democrats saw exactly the same intelligence he had and came to the same conclusions has been adequately demolished by Atrios, Daily Kos and others. (Update: the WaPo also does a good fact-checking job). By the way, in this speech in which he denies having manipulated intelligence, he again quotes the Zinoviev Zawahiri letter, which isn’t so much manipulated as faked.
The biggest lie of all
Cheney celebrated the day in Arlington, evidently believing it was Memorial Day.
“What’s with the flowers? This better not be some gay thing.”
Scooter Libby has a legal defense fund. You can donate money to it. Although god knows why you would. No disclosure requirements, either. And his freaking novel, the one with the girls being fucked by bears, is being reissued. Scooty-Doo could wind up making money off the whole treason thing, like Ollie North, G. Gordon Liddy, and so on. Republicans can turn a profit from anything.
News factoid of the day: elks often get drunk, from fermented apples.
France’s interior minister, Nicolas “Scum” Sarkozy, announces that any foreign national, including legal immigrants with residence permits, arrested during the rioting will be deported. Why does this racist pillock still have a job? Expulsions, like other legal procedures, are supposed to be decided on an individual basis, since there’s kind of an unpleasant history involving mass deportations in Europe.
The Gropinator takes all the blame for the defeat of the initiatives he sponsored. Or it could just be that they were all crap. Just sayin’. Ahnuuld went on, “If I was to make another Terminator movie, I would tell Terminator to travel back in time to tell Arnold not to have another special election.” And that still sounds better than Terminator III.
Bill Frist says that he is less interested in the secret gulags than in who leaked the news of the secret gulags. Only so many hours in the day, I guess. In fact, as to what takes place in the gulags, “I am not concerned about what goes on and I’m not going to comment about the nature of that.” “My concern is with leaks of information that jeopardize your safety and security - period. That is a legitimate concern.” First he came for the kitty cats, and I did not speak out because I was not a kitty cat....
I was a little sick last night and went to bed early, so by now you’ve all seen mention of the article (pdf) in Field Artillery magazine, which escaped everyone’s attention until now (my copy must have been lost in the mail), about the “shake and bake” missions in which white phosphorus was used not for illumination, but as a chemical weapon and as “a potent psychological weapon,” in Fallujah (page 5 of the PDF). Let the war crimes trials begin.
Speaking of illumination, where some Indian tribes believed that cameras steal their souls, the Bushie tribe knows that cameras often reveal their lack of souls. Thus, Rumsfeld’s only expression of outrage about Abu Ghraib was directed at the pictures of torture, not the torture itself. So Rice met Chalabi, but refused to allow pictures. Fooling no one, Condi.
Speaking of camera-shy, I could find no pictures of the Avahi cleesei (Update: picture added below, courtesy of alert reader Deb), a newly discovered species of lemur native to Madagascar which has been named after John Cleese, but I believe it was named not for any physical resemblance (although it does have long legs), but to honor his work on endangered species (more on the beast here). And the best the London Times could do for a headline was “Lemur’s Fun Name.” Pathetic. Surely you people can do better? In comments, please.
Governor Terminator’s propositions failed, but indeed all 8 California props failed, suggesting a certain discontent with the initiative process, perhaps because of the way it’s become just another adjunct of partisan electioneering rather than the people’s democracy it was supposedly supposed to be (the main reason Ahnuuld decided, back when he was still inexplicably popular, to hold an expensive special election rather than waiting until next June was that election ads in 2005 could feature him, him, him, without counting towards the spending limits for next year’s gubernatorial race). Even though I supported 2 out of the 8, I’m not sorry to see the blanket No if it puts a brake to the red-meat initiatives designed to get the faithful to the polls, like the parental notification of abortions initiative (no vote = 52.6%), and the evil-twin strategy of putting up a rival initiative to confuse the voters, like the designed-to-fail Prop 78 sponsored by Big Pharma. So that’s it until next June, when we get to vote on gay marriage and cigarette taxes. There’s probably a joke in there somewhere.
Blair loses by 322-291 a vote to allow 90-day internment without trial of suspected terrorists, although Parliament did vote for 28 days. For months, Blair has been endlessly repeating that the police say they need these powers, so MPs should subordinate their judgment to that of the cops just like he has (and then had the nerve to look all offended when some MP shouted “police state” during Prime Minister’s Questions). Possibly MPs feared for the safety of their cars, observing that the riots in Paris were largely spurred by police maltreatment of Muslim youths.
My polling place had a new voting machine. When I put my ballot in, it made a metallic whirring noise just like a shredder...
At today’s Gaggle, someone asked whether Cheney would have to attend the ethics refresher courses. No. He also said something significant: asked about Bush first saying that anyone who leaked classified info would be fired and then changing that to anyone convicted in a court of law, Scotty actually moved the goal posts yet again, saying none of that matters because “everyone at the White House serves at the pleasure of the president.” Of course the president is easily pleased, so Rove’s job is secure as long as he has a bit of string or something shiny.
Chinese president Hu is visiting Britain. The last time this happened, in 1999, the police beat up protesters and tore down Tibetan flags (to make him feel at home, I wrote at the time). This was widely and strongly criticized, so it wasn’t likely to be repeated today, but there would be (and were) protesters. So the Chinese decided to orchestrate a staged counter-demonstration. In Britain. Chinese students studying in the UK, and other Chinese nationals all made their way to Buckingham Palace, entirely spontaneously of course, where Chinese officials handed them flags and banners to wave. I have been absolutely unable to find any pictures of them, so here’s Hu and the Queen in a rickshaw, with a large Tibetan flag easily visible, although not to Hu, who never looked in that direction.
In 1999, Prince Charles boycotted the state banquet. Today, he’s conveniently out of the country, visiting friends.
The Kansas state board of education has rewritten the state’s science curriculum to make it less sciencey.
Follow-up: two members of Breasts Not Bombs were arrested Monday after exposing their breasts not bombs in Sacramento. Male members of the group who did the same were not arrested. The LAT has a photo gallery...
Hey, where did everybody go?
While constantly talking about bringing democracy to Iraq, the US is trying to get the UN Security Council to renew the mandate of the occupation for another year before the December 15 elections. This will make sure that it doesn’t become an issue in the elections, says John Bolton, because elections shouldn’t be about ephemera like whether your country is occupied by a foreign army, but about, I dunno, potholes and partial birth abortion and who has a gay daughter. Also, this way the new Iraqi government won’t be embarrassed by having to take a position on whether the country should be occupied, it will have been made before they take office. So let’s hear no more about Bush’s faith in democracy.
While I referred to white phosphorus as a WMD, Lenin’s Tomb has found a Pentagon site that calls it a “conventional weapon.” Presumably if they use the word weapon, though, they’re acknowledging that it has uses beyond illumination. Which means they consider it “conventional” when used to set people on fire. One would not wish to go to their conventions.
On PBS tonight, a Frontline on the declining number of abortion providers in the US.
Italian tv, okay not necessarily the most accurate source of news but they do have pictures and interviews, says that the US used white phosphorus as a chemical weapon in the siege of Fallujah. The US admits using the substance, which burns skin right off, but only for illumination – as they say in the Pentagon, it is better to set an Iraqi on fire than curse the dark. The illumination excuse for this use of what would have been called a WMD if Saddam had used it (we call it “willy pete,” isn’t that fucking cute?) is transparent.
(Update: the US never signed the part of the Geneva Convention prohibiting the use of incendiaries like willy pete & napalm on human beings, so that’s all right then.)
I want to return to the French rioting to praise the restraint of the rioters up to now. 11 days of rioting, many more Peugotcides than the figure I gave yesterday, but precisely 1 death. There are signs that the restraint is over, with rioters firing back at the riot police, although only with bird shot. A simple way to end the disturbances would be for Sarkozy to resign. Which won’t happen, of course.
Burma’s military rulers are moving the capital into a distant jungle location. No one knows why. Probably not good.
I got another of those recorded phone call mini-dramas about tomorrow’s parental-notification referendum, this one the voice (taken from a news broadcast – did they have his permission to make this use of it?) of a father of a woman (18, I googled it, so it’s not even relevant) who died after taking RU-486. “I never knew” he said, that was “suffering in silence.”
Jane Mayer, writing in the New Yorker, asks, Can the C.I.A. legally kill a prisoner? Or more specifically, is it capable of investigating its agents who torture secret prisoners to death. The answer, of course, is no. The article is worth reading. It has some details on the Justice Dept torture memos that are, I think, new. And it describes the court-martial of a SEAL commander whose subordinates helped CIA agents torture a prisoner to death (by crucifixion) in Abu Ghraib. Two CIA officials showed up in the court and kept claiming that bits of evidence and questions shouldn’t be introduced: “When one of the defense lawyers, Matthew Freedus, asked a witness, ‘What position was Jamadi in when he died?,’ the C.I.A. representatives protested, saying that the answer was classified. The same objection was made when a question was asked about the role that water had played in Jamadi’s interrogation.”
Bush visited Panama today, where evidently no one at all mentioned the fact that his father once invaded the country. They let him play with the canal lock controls.
Long story short, remember how Panama used to have a canal....?
While in Noriega’s old stomping grounds, he responded, sort of, to a question about torture: “We do not torture. And, therefore, we’re working with Congress to make sure that as we go forward, we make it possible -- more possible to do our job.” He described Cheney’s efforts to browbeat Senators to defeat McCain’s torture provision as “members of my administration go[ing] and brief[ing] the Congress.” There are times when Bush wants to portray himself as a strong, decisive leader, and other times when he talks about “doing his job” to distance himself from responsibility for his own (or Acting President Cheney’s) decisions.
The Washington Post has the most obscene headline I’ve ever seen, “Turnout Key in Tight Virginia Contest.” Oh, wait... Virginia. Like the state, huh? Never mind.
Since civil libertarians’ concerns about privacy are considered “eccentric” by this administration, I think the next time Cheney comes to Capitol Hill to make an “impassioned plea” against a ban on torture, some senator should wear a wire. But really, it shouldn’t be necessary: if torture is such a vital tool, Cheney shouldn’t mind making his case for it in public in his own words in his own voice. Make a speech, go on Nightline, debate John McCain.
