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Home > Opinion > Mike Luckovich > Archives > 2005 > December
December 2005
THE WAR ON NEW YEAR
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
we’re all familiar with the insidious war on christmas. now america faces a new, more dire threat,” the war on new year”. beware fellow americans, after january 1st, there are those among us that will wage this immoral conflict by continuing to write 2005 in their checkbooks!
mike luckovich
New Year’s partying
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Response to “Why?”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
on 10-26, i did an illustration depicting the word “why” using the names of the 2,000 troops who had, at that time, died in iraq. here on this blog, the feedback from readers, both pro and con was enormous. in response, a young woman, an 11th grader, has created the response above. what do you all think? remember, this is an issue that has divided the country and this young person is in high school, so please keep the discourse respectful.
mike
Her letter to the editor (below) and drawing will appear in Saturday’s print edition.
The first time I saw Mike Luckovich’s drawing of the word “WHY?”, made up of the names of 2,000 troops killed in Iraq, was when my mother was putting it up on our refrigerator. It bothered me that no one did a response showing how others feel. On Nov. 8, I got an updated list of the names of the war dead and started writing them, spelling out “FREEDOM.” Six days later, it was done. I only worked on it in my free time at school. It took me about 12 hours to get it done, so needless to say I devoted many of my classes to this, and stayed late after school to work on it. I didn’t take it home and show it to my mother until I had prints made. She and I have different views of things. She said that, as a mother, she didn’t like it that so many people have been killed. She was not happy when I placed my work next to Luckovich’s “WHY?” on the fridge, but it hasn’t been taken down. I may seem as if I am too young to have an opinion on matters like these. I am not saying that my opinion is right, for an opinion is just that — someone’s views on something. But, like a child’s voice, an opinion is often not heard. DANIELLE ANSLEY Danielle, 17, of Fairburn, is an 11th-grader at Arlington Christian School.
Government spying
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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cartoonist on fox 5
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
i’m going to be on good day atlanta tomorrow beginning at 7:15 am and throughout the show. i’ll probably at some point, discuss this blog.
mike
Falcons coach
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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i wish i could say all this in a cartoon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fear destroys what bin Laden could not ROBERT STEINBACK rsteinback@MiamiHerald.com
One wonders if Osama bin Laden didn’t win after all. He ruined the America that existed on 9/11. But he had help.
If, back in 2001, anyone had told me that four years after bin Laden’s attack our president would admit that he broke U.S. law against domestic spying and ignored the Constitution — and then expect the American people to congratulate him for it — I would have presumed the girders of our very Republic had crumbled.
Had anyone said our president would invade a country and kill 30,000 of its people claiming a threat that never, in fact, existed, then admit he would have invaded even if he had known there was no threat — and expect America to be pleased by this — I would have thought our nation’s sensibilities and honor had been eviscerated.
If I had been informed that our nation’s leaders would embrace torture as a legitimate tool of warfare, hold prisoners for years without charges and operate secret prisons overseas — and call such procedures necessary for the nation’s security — I would have laughed at the folly of protecting human rights by destroying them.
If someone had predicted the president’s staff would out a CIA agent as revenge against a critic, defy a law against domestic propaganda by bankrolling supposedly independent journalists and commentators, and ridicule a 37-year Marie Corps veteran for questioning U.S. military policy — and that the populace would be more interested in whether Angelina is about to make Brad a daddy — I would have called the prediction an absurd fantasy.
That’s no America I know, I would have argued. We’re too strong, and we’ve been through too much, to be led down such a twisted path.
What is there to say now?
All of these things have happened. And yet a large portion of this country appears more concerned that saying ”Happy Holidays” could be a disguised attack on Christianity.
I evidently have a lot poorer insight regarding America’s character than I once believed, because I would have expected such actions to provoke — speaking metaphorically now — mobs with pitchforks and torches at the White House gate. I would have expected proud defiance of anyone who would suggest that a mere terrorist threat could send this country into spasms of despair and fright so profound that we’d follow a leader who considers the law a nuisance and perfidy a privilege.
Never would I have expected this nation — which emerged stronger from a civil war and a civil rights movement, won two world wars, endured the Depression, recovered from a disastrous campaign in Southeast Asia and still managed to lead the world in the principles of liberty — would cower behind anyone just for promising to “protect us.”
President Bush recently confirmed that he has authorized wiretaps against U.S. citizens on at least 30 occasions and said he’ll continue doing it. His justification? He, as president — or is that king? — has a right to disregard any law, constitutional tenet or congressional mandate to protect the American people.
Is that America’s highest goal — preventing another terrorist attack? Are there no principles of law and liberty more important than this? Who would have remembered Patrick Henry had he written, “What’s wrong with giving up a little liberty if it protects me from death?”
Bush would have us excuse his administration’s excesses in deference to the ”war on terror” — a war, it should be pointed out, that can never end. Terrorism is a tactic, an eventuality, not an opposition army or rogue nation. If we caught every person guilty of a terrorist act, we still wouldn’t know where tomorrow’s first-time terrorist will strike. Fighting terrorism is a bit like fighting infection — even when it’s beaten, you must continue the fight or it will strike again.
Are we agreeing, then, to give the king unfettered privilege to defy the law forever? It’s time for every member of Congress to weigh in: Do they believe the president is above the law, or bound by it?
Bush stokes our fears, implying that the only alternative to doing things his extralegal way is to sit by fitfully waiting for terrorists to harm us. We are neither weak nor helpless. A proud, confident republic can hunt down its enemies without trampling legitimate human and constitutional rights.
Ultimately, our best defense against attack — any attack, of any sort — is holding fast and fearlessly to the ideals upon which this nation was built. Bush clearly doesn’t understand or respect that. Do we? email thisprint this
npr interview
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
attention boys and girls
tomorrow morning, npr is running an interview of me and cartoonist mike peters looking back on 2005.
it’s supposed to run at 6:40 and 8:40 am, if real news doesn’t break out.
mike l.
conservative columnist steve chapman
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Steve Chapman Beyond the imperial presidency
Published December 25, 2005
President Bush is a bundle of paradoxes. He thinks the scope of the federal government should be limited but the powers of the president should not. He wants judges to interpret the Constitution as the framers did, but doesn’t think he should be constrained by their intentions.
He attacked Al Gore for trusting government instead of the people, but he insists anyone who wants to defeat terrorism must put absolute faith in the man at the helm of government.
His conservative allies say Bush is acting to uphold the essential prerogatives of his office. Vice President Cheney says the administration’s secret eavesdropping program is justified because “I believe in a strong, robust executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it.”
But the theory boils down to a consistent and self-serving formula: What’s good for George W. Bush is good for America, and anything that weakens his power weakens the nation. To call this an imperial presidency is unfair to emperors.
Even people who should be on Bush’s side are getting queasy. David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, says in his efforts to enlarge executive authority, Bush “has gone too far.”
He’s not the only one who feels that way. Consider the case of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen arrested in 2002 on suspicion of plotting to set off a “dirty bomb.” For three years, the administration said he posed such a grave threat that it had the right to detain him without trial as an enemy combatant. In September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit agreed.
But then, rather than risk a review of its policy by the Supreme Court, the administration abandoned its hard-won victory and indicted Padilla on comparatively minor criminal charges. When it asked the 4th Circuit Court for permission to transfer him from military custody to jail, though, the once-cooperative court flatly refused.
In a decision last week, the judges expressed amazement that the administration suddenly would decide Padilla could be treated like a common purse snatcher—a reversal that, they said, comes “at substantial cost to the government’s credibility.” The court’s meaning was plain: Either you were lying to us then, or you are lying to us now.
If that’s not enough to embarrass the president, the opinion was written by conservative darling J. Michael Luttig—who just a couple of months ago was on Bush’s short list for the Supreme Court. For Luttig to question Bush’s use of executive power is like Bill O’Reilly announcing that there’s too much Christ in Christmas.
This is hardly the only example of the president demanding powers he doesn’t need. When American-born Saudi Yasser Hamdi was captured in Afghanistan, the administration also detained him as an enemy combatant rather than entrust him to the criminal justice system.
But when the Supreme Court said he was entitled to a hearing where he could present evidence on his behalf, the administration decided that was way too much trouble. It freed him and put him on a plane back to Saudi Arabia, where he may plot jihad to his heart’s content. Try to follow this logic: Hamdi was too dangerous to put on trial but not too dangerous to release.
The disclosure that the president authorized secret and probably illegal monitoring of communications between people in the United States and people overseas again raises the question: Why?
The government easily could have gotten search warrants to conduct electronic surveillance of anyone with the slightest possible connection to terrorists. The court that handles such requests hardly ever refuses. But Bush bridles at the notion that the president should ever have to ask permission of anyone.
He claims he can ignore the law because Congress granted permission when it authorized him to use force against Al Qaeda. But we know that can’t be true. Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales says the administration didn’t ask for a revision of the law to give the president explicit power to order such wiretaps because Congress—a Republican Congress, mind you—wouldn’t have agreed. So the administration decided: Who needs Congress?
What we have now is not a robust executive but a reckless one. At times like this, it’s apparent that Cheney and Bush want more power not because they need it to protect the nation, but because they want more power. Another paradox: In their conduct of the war on terror, they expect our trust, but they can’t be bothered to earn it.
E-mail: schapman@tribune.com.
You can search for more columns in our archives.
Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune
Yes, there is a Santa …
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Listening in
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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The Ten Suggestions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Evolving understanding
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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5 predictions for 2006
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
1 braves will be sold to the inventor of the heimlich manuver. even he won’t be able to prevent them from choking.
2 vernon jones will be caught in bed with three women, two turtledoves and a partridge in a pear tree.
3 it’ll be revealed bush has been secretly torturing cheney. president’s approval rating jumps 20 points.
4 novelty bath tissue introduced at white house. each piece is a copy of the constitution.
5 ralph reed will sell soul to satan and claim to be shocked when it’s dicovered satan paid with gambling money.
Reach out and touch someone
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Luckovich’s favorites of 2005
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mike Luckovich chose 16 of his favorite cartoons from 2005 to review. See them here, then return to this page to vote on your favorite:
I heard that!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Bubble president
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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The war on Christmas
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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King Kong and the religious right
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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True meaning of Christmas
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Special interest Christmas
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Saddam’s trial
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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i like mike wallace
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
What “60M’s” Wallace would ask Bush if he had the chance Boston Globe From Suzanne C. Ryan’s Q-and-A with Mike Wallace:
Q. President George W. Bush has declined to be interviewed by you. What would you ask him if you had the chance? A. What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn’t want to travel. You knew very little about the military … The governor of Texas doesn’t have the kind of power that some governors have … Why do you think they nominated you? … Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?
Condi in Europe
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Tickled to death
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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New Orleans
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Medicare drug benefit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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In to stay
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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aw, what’s a guy like him know anyways ?!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. ex-general calls for Iraq pull out
WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 (UPI) — The U.S. general who used to head the National Security Agency says the only way to stabilize the Middle East is to leave Iraq.
Retired three star Lt. Gen. William Odom, writing for NiemanWatchdog.org, wrote that while President George W. Bush wants to bring democracy and stability to the Middle East, the only way to achieve that goal is for the U.S. armed forces to get out of Iraq NOW.
Odom, one of the most respected U.S. military analysts and a prominent figure at the CONSERVATIVE Hudson Institute in Washington, wrote, “We have seen most of our allies stand aside and engage in Schadenfreude over our painful bog-down in Iraq. Winston Churchill’s glib observation, ‘the only thing worse that having allies is having none,’ was once again vindicated.
“There is no chance that our allies will join us in Iraq,” he wrote. “… Iraq is the worst place to fight a battle for regional stability. Whose interests were best served by the U.S. invasion of Iraq in the first place? It turns out that IRAN AND AL-QAIDA benefited the most, and that continues to be true every day U.S. forces remain there.”
© Copyright 2005 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved Want to email or reprint this story? Click here for options.
Anyway, merry something
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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