Why have we let this go on and grow for so long??? Did we need slave labor that badly?....nm
Posted By: Cyndiee on 2009-02-14
In Reply to: I agree! Here are some figures. - sm
nm
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Oklahoma was never a slave state. sm
And I don't even think Texas was. Obese people. Ever watch Dog the Bounty Hunter? I never saw a skinny person on his show and he is in Hawaii. This was probably meant to be witty. It isn't. I have a great sense of humor and it isn't funny either, but it is exactly something I would think you would find delightful. Sad.
Dyncorp & Halliburton Sex Slave Scandal
Dyncorp and Halliburton Sex Slave Scandal Won't Go Away
Halliburton, Dyncorp lobbyists stall law banning human trafficking and sex slavery
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones | January 1 2006
Almost a year after Representative Cynthia McKinney was told by Donald Rumsfeld that it was not the policy of the Bush administration to reward companies that engage in human trafficking with government contracts, the scandal continues to sweep up innocent children who are sold into a life of slavery at the behest of Halliburton subsidiaries , Dyncorp and other transnational corporations with close ties to the establishment elite.
On March 11th 2005, McKinney grilled Secretary Rumsfeld and General Myers on the Dyncorp scandal.
Mr. Secretary, I watched President Bush deliver a moving speech at the United Nations in September 2003, in which he mentioned the crisis of the sex trade. The President called for the punishment of those involved in this horrible business. But at the very moment of that speech, DynCorp was exposed for having been involved in the buying and selling of young women and children. While all of this was going on, DynCorp kept the Pentagon contract to administer the smallpox and anthrax vaccines, and is now working on a plague vaccine through the Joint Vaccine Acquisition Program. Mr. Secretary, is it [the] policy of the U.S. Government to reward companies that traffic in women and little girls?
The response and McKinney's comeback was as follows.
Rumsfeld: Thank you, Representative. First, the answer to your first question is, is, no, absolutely not, the policy of the United States Government is clear, unambiguous, and opposed to the activities that you described. The second question.
McKinney: Well how do you explain the fact that DynCorp and its successor companies have received and continue to receive government contracts?
Rumsfeld: I would have to go and find the facts, but there are laws and rules and regulations with respect to government contracts, and there are times that corporations do things they should not do, in which case they tend to be suspended for some period; there are times then that the - under the laws and the rules and regulations for the - passed by the Congress and implemented by the Executive branch - that corporations can get off of - out of the penalty box if you will, and be permitted to engage in contracts with the government. They're generally not barred in perpetuity.
McKinney: This contract - this company - was never in the penalty box.
Rumsfeld: I'm advised by DR. Chu that it was not the corporation that was engaged in the activities you characterized but I'm told it was an employee of the corporation, and it was some years ago in the Balkans that that took place.
Watch the video here.
Rumsfeld's effort to shift the blame away from the hierarchy at Dyncorp and onto the Dyncorp employees was a blatant attempt to hide the fact that human trafficking and sex slavery is a practice condoned by companies like Dyncorp and Halliburton subsidiaries like KBR.
What else are we to assume in light of recent revelations cited in the Chicago Tribune that Halliburton subsidiary KBR and Dyncorp lobbyists are working in tandem with the Pentagon to stall legislation that would specifically ban trafficking in humans for forced labor and prostitution by U.S. contractors?
Three years has now elapsed since President Bush's promise to bring an end to this disgrace and the Pentagon is still yet to actually bar the practice.
And the employees themselves that are burned for blowing the whistle, like Kathryn Bolkovac who was sacked for reporting on Dyncorp officials who were involved in the Bosnian sex trade.
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is one of very few representatives in high office aside from Cynthia McKinney to demand answers on this issue.
We applaud Blagojevich's eforts. The iron curtain of official denial and soft-peddling is falling down.
What has happened to the children who were sold into slavery and forced to satisfy the demands of sick pedophiles working on behalf of the US government?
Where were the investigations and convictions in other cases of establishment orchestrated child slavery and prostitution? Like the NATO officials responsible for the mushrooming of child prostitution in Kosovo?
What happened to UN officials identified as using a ship charted for 'peacekeepers' to bring young girls from Thailand to East Timor as prostitutes?
In addition, we received an E mail from a person claiming to be a Dyncorp employee stating that a high level Dyncorp official is breaking the law by accepting payment from the US government and in turn the American taxpayer by falsifying timesheets and claiming pay for hours not worked.
The contact states that this was repeatedly brought to the attention of DynCorp program managers by Dyncorp employees but they were told it was none of their business.
It is important to stress that at the moment these are allegations and we have no proof of this other than the validity of the e mail.
The e mail is a reminder that we should always consider the fact that the vast majority of Dyncorp employees are just doing their jobs and have nothing to do with this scandal. It is a small faction at the head of the hydra that have authorized and engaged in these horrors.
We have a government that says it doesn't advocate torture and yet tries to block a law that would end torture. We have a government that repeatedly burns lower level minions to wash its hands of every major scandal that encompasses policies directly administered by the government itself, as in the case of Abu Ghraib and the Dyncorp sex scandal.
A government that covers-up for those who force children into prostitution and slavery is a clear danger to our very way of life.
We must demand answers and finally put an end to a process that exploits and wreaks terror on the lives of the most innocent and vulnerable members of society, whether they be in the Balkans, East Timor or here at home.
Our own children.
Good we need it badly...nm
x
But even "less badly" is better...right??? nm
nm
Not only does the media treat her badly,
nm
Devaluing Labor
Devaluing Labor
By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, August 30, 2006; A19
Labor Day is almost upon us, and like some of my fellow graybeards, I can, if I concentrate, actually remember what it was that this holiday once celebrated. Something about America being the land of broadly shared prosperity. Something about America being the first nation in human history that had a middle-class majority, where parents had every reason to think their children would fare even better than they had.
The young may be understandably incredulous, but the Great Compression, as economists call it, was the single most important social fact in our country in the decades after World War II. From 1947 through 1973, American productivity rose by a whopping 104 percent, and median family income rose by the very same 104 percent. More Americans bought homes and new cars and sent their kids to college than ever before. In ways more difficult to quantify, the mass prosperity fostered a generosity of spirit: The civil rights revolution and the Marshall Plan both emanated from an America in which most people were imbued with a sense of economic security.
That America is as dead as the dodo. Ours is the age of the Great Upward Redistribution. The median hourly wage for Americans has declined by 2 percent since 2003, though productivity has been rising handsomely. Last year, according to figures released just yesterday by the Census Bureau, wages for men declined by 1.8 percent and for women by 1.3 percent.
As a remarkable story by Steven Greenhouse and David Leonhardt in Monday's New York Times makes abundantly clear, wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of gross domestic product since 1947, when the government began measuring such things. Corporate profits, by contrast, have risen to their highest share of the GDP since the mid-'60s -- a gain that has come chiefly at the expense of American workers.
Don't take my word for it. According to a report by Goldman Sachs economists, the most important contributor to higher profit margins over the past five years has been a decline in labor's share of national income.
As the Times story notes, the share of GDP going to profits is also at near-record highs in Western Europe and Japan.
Clearly, globalization has weakened the power of workers and begun to erode the egalitarian policies of the New Deal and social democracy that characterized the advanced industrial world in the second half of the 20th century.
For those who profit from this redistribution, there's something comforting in being able to attribute this shift to the vast, impersonal forces of globalization. The stagnant incomes of most Americans can be depicted as the inevitable outcome of events over which we have no control, like the shifting of tectonic plates.
Problem is, the declining power of the American workforce antedates the integration of China and India into the global labor pool by several decades. Since 1973 productivity gains have outpaced median family income by 3 to 1. Clearly, the war of American employers on unions, which began around that time, is also substantially responsible for the decoupling of increased corporate revenue from employees' paychecks.
But finger a corporation for exploiting its workers and you're trafficking in class warfare. Of late a number of my fellow pundits have charged that Democratic politicians concerned about the further expansion of Wal-Mart are simply pandering to unions. Wal-Mart offers low prices and jobs to economically depressed communities, they argue. What's wrong with that?
Were that all that Wal-Mart did, of course, the answer would be nothing. But as business writer Barry Lynn demonstrated in a brilliant essay in the July issue of Harper's, Wal-Mart also exploits its position as the biggest retailer in human history -- 20 percent of all retail transactions in the United States take place at Wal-Marts, Lynn wrote -- to drive down wages and benefits all across the economy. The living standards of supermarket workers have been diminished in the process, but Wal-Mart's reach extends into manufacturing and shipping as well. Thousands of workers have been let go at Kraft, Lynn shows, due to the economies that Wal-Mart forced on the company. Of Wal-Mart's 10 top suppliers in 1994, four have filed bankruptcies.
For the bottom 90 percent of the American workforce, work just doesn't pay, or provide security, as it used to.
Devaluing labor is the very essence of our economy. I know that airlines are a particularly embattled industry, but my eye was recently caught by a story on Mesaba Airlines, an affiliate of Northwest, where the starting annual salary for pilots is $21,000 a year, and where the company is seeking a pay cut of 19 percent. Maybe Mesaba's plan is to have its pilots hit up passengers for tips.
Labor Day is almost upon us. What a joke.
meyersonh@washpost.com
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
Happy Labor Day!
Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. Taken from http://www.dol.gov/opa/aboutdol/laborday.htm.
Tip your hat if you have worked hard in 2006!!!
Labor not held to same standard as
other parties in the negotiations, i.e., double standard. During the debates on TARP funds, aside from the parachutes, when were white collar salaries ever examined?
Have a question for the labor unions....
especially the UAW....how do you like him now that he has thrown you under the "let the automakers go bankrupt" bus. Be careful what you vote for.....
Tomatoes and Cheap Labor
CHEAP TOMATOES?
This should make everyone think, be you Democrat, Republican or Independent
From a California school teacher - - -
"As you listen to the news about the student protests over illegal immigration, there are some things that you should be aware of:
I am in charge of the English-as-a-second-language department at a large southern California high school which is designated a Title 1 school, meaning that its students average lower socioeconomic and income levels.
Most of the schools you are hearing about, South Gate High, Bell Gardens , Huntington Park , etc., where these students are protesting, are also Title 1 schools.
Title 1 schools are on the free breakfast and free lunch program. When I say free breakfast, I'm not talking a glass of milk and roll -- but a full breakfast and cereal bar with fruits and juices that would make a Marriott proud. The waste of this food is monumental, with trays and trays of it being dumped in the trash uneaten. (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK )
I estimate that well over 50% of these students are obese or at least moderately overweight. About 75% or more DO have cell phones. The school also provides day care centers for the unwed teenage pregnant girls (some as young as 13) so they can attend class without the inconvenience of having to arrange for babysitters or having family watch their kids. (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK)
I was ordered to spend $700,000 on my department or risk losing funding for the upcoming year even though there was little need for anything; my budget was already substantial. I ended up buying new computers for the computer learning center, half of which, one month later, have been carved with graffiti by the appreciative students who obviously feel humbled and grateful to have a free education in America . (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK)
I have had to intervene several times for young and substitute teachers whose classes consist of many illegal immigrant students here in the country less then 3 months who raised so much he*l with the female teachers, calling them "Putas" whores and throwing things that the teachers were in tears.
Free medical, free education, free food, day care etc., etc., etc. Is it any wonder they feel entitled to not only be in this country but to demand rights, privileges and entitlements ?
To those who want to point out how much these illegal immigrants contribute to our society because they LIKE their gardener and housekeeper and they like to pay less for tomatoes: spend some time in the real world of illegal immigration and see the TRUE costs.
Higher insurance, medical facilities closing, higher medical costs, more crime, lower standards of education in our schools, overcrowding, new diseases etc., etc, etc. For me, I'll pay more for tomatoes.
We need to wake up. The guest worker program will be a disaster because we won't have the guts to enforce it . Does anyone in their right mind really think they will voluntarily leave and return?
It does, however, have everything to do with culture: A third-world culture that does not value education, that accepts children getting pregnant and dropping out of school by 15 an d that refuses to assimilate , and an American culture that has become so weak and worried about " political Correctness " that we don't have the will to do anything about it.
If this makes your blood boil, as it did mine, forward this to everyone you know.
CHEAP LABOR? Isn't that what the whole immigration issue is about?
Business doesn't want to pay a decent wage.
Consumers don't want expensive produce.
Government will tell you Americans don't want the jobs.
But the bottom line is cheap labor. The phrase "cheap labor" is a myth , a farce, and a lie. There is no such thing as "cheap labor."
Take, for example, an illegal alien with a wife and five children. He takes a job for $5.00 or 6.00/hour. At that wage, with six dependents, he pays no income tax, yet at the end of the year, if he files an Income Tax Return, he gets an "earned income credit" of up to $3,200 free.
He qualifies for Section 8 housing and subsidized rent.
He qualifies for food stamps.
He qualifies for free (no deductible, no co-pay) health care.
His children get free breakfasts and lunches at school.
He requires bilingual teachers and books.
He qualifies for relief from high energy bills.
If they are, or become, aged, blind or disabled, they qualify for SSI. Once qualified for SSI they can qualify for Medicare . All of this is at (our) taxpayer's expense .
He doesn't worry about car insurance, life insurance, or homeowners insurance.
Taxpayers provide Spanish language signs, bulletins and printed material.
He and his family receive the equivalent of $20.00 to $30.00/hour in benefits.
Working Americans are lucky to have $5.00 or $6.00/hour left after paying their bills and his.
The American taxpayers also pay for increased crime, graffiti and trash clean-up.
Cheap labor? YEAH RIGHT! Wake up people!
THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS WE SHOULD BE ADDRESSING TO EITHER PARTY. 'AND WHEN THEY LIE TO US AND DON'T DO AS THEY SAY, WE SHOULD REPLACE THEM AT ONCE!'
THIS HAS GOT TO BE PASSED ALONG TO AS MANY AS POSSIBLE OR WE WILL ALL GO DOWN THE DRAIN BECAUSE A FEW DON'T CARE.
Overseas equals cheap labor
It is because labor is cheaper in third world countries, so corporations and their stock holders make more money with dirt cheap labor. Bush and his group do not care about the middle class, he has proved that over the last..how many years..feels like 40 to me..Right now we are seeing this happen in medical transcription. The company I work for sends out 30% of the work to India and they have a partnership with the Indian company. The other day I had to call American Express and could hardly understand the guy his Indian accent was so thick. They just care about making the rich richer. Greenspan when interviewed on 60 Minutes said America is becoming the rich and the working poor with no middle class and he said something needs to be done about it..But this is the way many corporations, who just so happen to mostly vote Republican, want it.
So businesses can use foreign labor for their products and services? nm
x
You can have our federal money along with a new state motto: "Michigan - The Slave State". n
NM
Labor Department's report of 533,000 job losses in November — the biggest job loss in 34 years
Getting worse every day.
You'll be waiting a long, long time, then, cuz she's going to do
not as badly as Obama...don't trust him at all...Mccain maybe a couple of degrees more trust...sm
Not much, but just a little. I will not condone someone (Obama), who makes my "crap detector" go off every time I see and hear him.
Don't trust a word he says.....he is bad, bad news bears.
Grow up. nm
GROW UP
We are talking about a real solution to a real problem and you insist on being an immature child and posting ridiculous comments. You are really not as important as you seem to think you are. I think typing isn't the only thing you are backwards at. Like life for one.
Why don't YOU grow up.............sm
A little levity on this board is not a bad thing! I think it's important to be able to laugh once in a while. Sheesh!
U.S. needs allies badly. No money, many enemies and no allies = Disaster
China could bring down the entire country with a stroke of a pen. Russia, Venuzuela and Cuba are buddies. North Korea is provocative and well, then there is an entire continent of terrorists who hate the Americans.
I'd say you need to wake up and face the fact that America is on its back and one more castrophe to cause the fall of a nation. Rome fell in 400 years.
Iraq, Afghanistan, subprime mess, derivatives, tax cuts to rich and deficit spending to trillion all happened over two months ago by the man named George Bush.
Is there a problem with her perception of reality?
He died a long, long time ago! (If he was ever
Don't force your beliefs on others. It further devalues your faith in the eyes of others.
Please grow a brain. Look up what the
I was not alluding to real trains hitting each other, okay?
Taking everything you read literally is the best way I know of to be brainwashed, cheated, fooled, hoodwinked, taken advantage of, screwed, you name it.
What I alluded to is that I don't want MY tax dollars, or anyone ELSE's, bailing out a bunch of crooks who STOLE money from a bunch of people, sold 'em bad loans, etc., and got RICH BEYOND ANYONE'S WILDEST DREAMS by doing so.
Wall Street & Corporate America have turned into one giant con-man's shell-game, and it's about time there was a major shakeout and restructuring. Would it be difficult in the short-run? You bet. (Like it isn't already?) But in the long-run, if the system were reinvented and rebuilt, it might come out a lot better in the end.
Get a clue and grow up
//
Thank god Im still young enough for someone to tell me to Grow up
LOL
PS I did not hear that on TV
Heck Gov - just grow some more pot!
Now that's thinkin, Lincoln!
How does your garden grow? sm
She was a plant, and so was Chene Thompson, the State Rep's wife who offered her the use of a house rent free. How else does a homeless woman living in her pickup truck manage to get tickets to a town meeting (you don't just walk in) and make her way to the front of a crowd of people and just happen to stand beside the person who has the answer to her prayers?
Maybe those who dug through the records on Joe the Plumber can come up with something.
JTBB grow up!
nm
Where Boys Grow up to be Jihadis.
I am attaching a link to a New York Times article written by Andrea Elliot this past Sunday. Be prepared, it is somewhat long, so dig in!
It is about her findings of the peope and the reasoning behind the attacks in Morrocco. It is a very interesting read.
I am also attaching a link to NPR's Fresh Air for a followup interview that she gave today in regards to her article which really sums up the whole experience for her.
This story epitomizes why I believe our interventionalist policies in dealing with the middle east and Islamic terrorism in general is failing and why we have to change our polices as soon as possible. It is sobering and I hope you find it interesting and enlightening.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/magazine/25tetouan-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16733559
No one is saying that they don't grow up to be good or responsible?!
All I am saying is they would have wanted you home, instead of a babysitter or someone else! No one said anything about the quality of person they turn out to be!? Little children need their moms and that is the truth! I know, I used to work at a daycare and how they would leave those poor little babies is beyond me! I couldn't do it! And it was anywhere from 8 to 12 hours a day! And then they would get jealous if they got attached to us!? Hello!? Who is raising them?! Not you lady! And I'm not talking about single moms either. These were "business" women who had husbands and felt the need to support their "lifestyle" and to give their kids "everything," when all they REALLY wanted was their love and time! I may not have the nicest, newest, biggest house, but my kids want for nothing, including me, and I am there for them!
Fox has nothing to do with it, they just happened to report it first....grow up, and allow others th
I'm starting to dislike you dems more and more every day. Keep sinking, along with that sex article you forgot to publish the link to. You are all smut and no substance, most of the time.
I restate the last sentance - grow up!
Here, read real slow now so you can understand. My post had no political substance because it was in reply to your message -
If you can't figure out the simplist of things I feel quite sad for you.
You are so right! Grow up America! Go find your
nm
Grow a funny bone
You're going to give yourself a heart attack with that kind of bitterness, dearie.
If you fail to see why that post is hilarious, you must also be one of those people who failed to see that electing an ill-equipped pop idol to the highest post in the nation was a huge mistake.
You SHOULD be ashamed.
GROW UP SORE LOSER!
Please, put on those big-girl panties, stop crying, get that stiff upper lip and GROW THE BLEEEEEP UP!! YOU LOST. AMERICA WON!
Closed minds don't get nourished and thus can't grow. nm
Grow your own. It's stuck in your little poor me world...nm
I've gotta put mine where it will grow without
xx
Obama wants to grow small businesses
I can stick my head in the sand and pretend I don't know what this garbage is all about but anyone with half a brain would know you can't grow a business when you continue to pay pay pay through the nose AND give it to someone who has no motivation to do crap with their life.
Can your computer monitor grow fingers?
time to grow up - both sides have said things they don't mean or regret or get twisted
There's a whole slew of things everyone has said that they wish they didn't and on important issues. One party is not free from that.
EVERYONE has faults. Whether your democrat OR republican, man OR woman, black OR white. They all have said things they don't mean or didn't come out right, or was totally twisted by the other side. Fact of life in politics.
If your going to go there be prepared to listen to all the things "your" candidate has said in the past. Then you'll whine when someone brings it out.
What........your twisted or hateful idea of truth, grow a heart, okay?...nm
nm
So disrespectful and immature. Ya think GW crashed his Tonka toys into the towers? Grow up
the majority of the Americans. I'm sure you would do a much better job. Meow
how long
back and forth through my working day about 20 minutes or less.
Very long and quite sad
At least she got to go home to Ireland.
The Sunday Times October 09, 2005
Ireland: I wanted to slap him
George W Bush was so upset by Carole Coleman’s White House interview that an official complaint was lodged with the Irish embassy. The RTE journalist explains why the president made her blood boil
With just minutes to go to my interview with George W Bush, I was escorted to the White House library, where a staff member gave instructions on how to greet the president: “He’ll be coming in the door behind you, just stand up, turn around and extend your hand.”
I placed my notes on the coffee table, someone attached a microphone to my lapel, and I waited. The two chairs by the fireplace where the president and I would sit were at least six feet apart; clearly I would not be getting too close to him.
*
The room was well-lit, providing the kind of warm background conducive to a fireside chat. Several people had crowded in behind me. I counted five members of the White House film crew, there was a stenographer sitting in the corner and three or four security staff. I was still counting them when someone spoke. “He’s coming.”
I stood up, turned around to face the door and seconds later the president strode towards me. Bush appeared shorter than on camera and he looked stern and rather grey that day.
“Thanks for comin’, Mr President” I said, sticking out my hand. I had borrowed this greeting directly from him. When Bush made a speech at a rally or town hall, he always began by saying “Thanks for comin’” in his man-of-the-people manner. If he detected the humour in my greeting, he didn’t let on. He took my hand with a firm grip and, bringing his face right up close to mine, stared me straight in the eyes for several seconds, as though drinking in every detail of my face. He sat down and an aide attached a microphone to his jacket.
Nobody said a word. “We don’t address the president unless he speaks first,” a member of the film crew had told me earlier. The resulting silence seemed odd and discomforting, so I broke it. “How has your day been, Mr President?” Without looking up at me, he continued to straighten his tie and replied in a strong Texan drawl, “Very busy.”
This was followed by an even more disconcerting silence that, compounded by the six feet separating us, made it difficult to establish any rapport.
“Will Mrs Bush be seeing any of our beautiful country?” I tried again, attempting to warm things up by adding that I had heard that the taoiseach would be keeping him too busy for sightseeing on his forthcoming trip to Ireland.
“He’s putting me to work, is he? Have you not interviewed Laura?” “No, I haven’t met your wife.” I suggested that he put in a good word for me. He chuckled. By now he seemed settled and the crew looked ready, but still nobody spoke. I was beginning to worry that the clock may have already started on my 10 minutes.
“Are we all ready to go then?” I asked, looking around the room. The next voice I heard was the president’s. “I think we have a spunky one here,” he said, to nobody in particular.
MC, a White House press officer whom I’ve decided not to identify, had phoned me three days earlier to say that President Bush would do an interview with RTE. “Good news,” she had said. “It goes this Thursday at 4.20pm. You will have 10 minutes with the president and Turkish television will talk to him just before you.”
My initial excitement was dampened only by the timing, much later than I had hoped. The interview would take place just three hours before I was to fly back to Ireland to cover his arrival at the EU summit at Dromoland Castle in Clare and just 15 minutes before the start of RTE’s Prime Time programme on which the interview would be broadcast. It would be practically impossible to have the president on air in time for this.
“That’s fabulous,” I gushed, “but is there any way I could go before the Turks?” I had previously explained about the Prime Time programme, so MC knew the situation. “I’ll look into it,” she offered.
The interview sounded like quite a production. We wouldn’t be able to just saunter in there with a camera. It would be filmed by a White House crew, which would then hand over the tapes to me to be copied and returned the same day.
MC asked me for a list of questions and topics, which she said was required for policy purposes in case I should want to ask something that the president needed to be briefed on. The request did not seem odd to me then. The drill had been exactly the same for an interview I had conducted six months earlier with the then secretary of state, Colin Powell.
“What would you ask the president of the United States?” I enquired of everyone I met in the following days. Ideas had already been scribbled on scattered notepads in my bedroom, on scraps of paper in my handbag and on my desk, but once the date was confirmed, I mined suggestions from my peers in RTE and from foreign policy analysts. I grilled my friends in Washington and even pestered cab drivers. After turning everything over in my head, I settled on a list of 10 questions.
Securing a time swap with Turkish television ensured that I saw the president 10 minutes earlier, but there was still less than half an hour to bring the taped interview to the production place four blocks away in time for Prime Time.
Still, with the arrangements starting to fall into place, the sense of chaos receded and I returned to the questions, which by now were perpetually dancing around my head, even in my sleep. Reporters often begin a big interview by asking a soft question — to let the subject warm up before getting into the substance of the topic at hand. This was how I had initially intended to begin with Bush, but as I mentally rehearsed the likely scenario, I felt that too much time could be consumed by his first probable answer, praising Ireland and looking forward to his visit. We could, I had calculated, be into the third minute before even getting to the controversial topics. I decided to ditch the cordial introduction.The majority of the Irish public, as far as I could tell, was angry with Bush and did not want to hear a cosy fireside chat in the middle of the most disputed war since Vietnam. Instead of the kid-glove start, I would get down to business.
*
On Thursday June 24, Washington DC was bathed in a moist 90-degree heat, the type that makes you perspire all over after you have walked only two blocks. Stephanie and I arrived at the northwest gate of the White House that afternoon, and were directed to the Old Executive Office building, Vice President Dick Cheney’s headquarters, and were introduced to MC, whom I had spoken to only by phone. An elegant and confident woman, she was the cut of CJ, the feisty White House press secretary on The West Wing television drama.
A younger male sidekick named Colby stood close by nodding at everything she said and interjecting with a few comments of his own every now and then. Colby suggested that I ask the president about the yellow suit the taoiseach had worn the previous week at the G8 Summit on Sea Island in Georgia. I laughed loudly and then stopped to study his face for signs that he was joking — but he didn’t appear to be. “The president has a good comment on that,” he said.
The taoiseach’s suit had been a shade of cream, according to the Irish embassy. But alongside the other more conservatively dressed leaders, it had appeared as a bright yellow, leaving our Bertie looking more like the lead singer in a band than the official representative of the European Union. It was amusing at the time, but I was not about to raise a yellow suit with the president. “Really?” I asked politely. But a little red flag went up inside my head.
Then MC announced that she had some news for me. “There may be another interview in the pipeline for you,” she said.
“Me?”
“We’re not supposed to tell you this yet, but we are trying to set up an interview with the first lady.”
She indicated that the White House had already been in contact with RTE to make arrangements for the interview at Dromoland Castle, where the president and Mrs Bush would be staying. As an admirer of Laura Bush’s cool grace and sharp intellect, I had requested interviews with her several times previously without any reply. Now the first lady of the United States was being handed to me on a plate. I could not believe my luck.
“Of course, it’s not certain yet,” MC added. And then her sidekick dropped his second bombshell. “We’ll see how you get on with the president first.”
I’m sure I continued smiling, but I was stunned. What I understood from this was that if I pleased the White House with my questioning of the president, I would get to interview the first lady. Were they trying to ensure a soft ride for the president, or was I the new flavour of the month with the first family?
“I’m going to give the president his final briefing. Are there any further questions you want to pass on to him?” MC asked.
“No,” I said, “just tell him I want to chat.”
Stephanie and I locked eyes and headed for the ladies’ powder room, where we prayed.
Mr President,” I began. “You will arrive in Ireland in less than 24 hours’ time. While our political leaders will welcome you, unfortunately the majority of our people will not. They are annoyed about the war in Iraq and about Abu Ghraib. Are you bothered by what Irish people think?”
The president was reclining in his seat and had a half-smile on his face, a smile I had often seen when he had to deal with something he would rather not.
“Listen. I hope the Irish people understand the great values of our country. And if they think that a few soldiers represent the entirety of America, they don’t really understand America then . . . We are a compassionate country. We’re a strong country, and we’ll defend ourselves. But we help people. And we’ve helped the Irish and we’ll continue to do so. We’ve got a good relationship with Ireland.”
“And they are angry over Iraq as well and particularly the continuing death toll there,” I added, moving him on to the war that had claimed 100 Iraqi lives that very day. He continued to smile, but just barely.
“Well, I can understand that. People don’t like war. But what they should be angry about is the fact that there was a brutal dictator there that had destroyed lives and put them in mass graves and torture rooms . . . Look, Saddam Hussein had used weapons of mass destruction against his own people, against the neighbourhood. He was a brutal dictator who posed a threat that the United Nations voted unanimously to say, Mr Saddam Hussein . . .”
Having noted the tone of my questions, the president had now sat forward in his chair and had become animated, gesturing with his hands for emphasis. But as I listened to the history of Saddam Hussein and the weapons inspectors and the UN resolutions, my heart was sinking. He was resorting to the type of meandering stock answer I had heard scores of times and had hoped to avoid. Going back over this old ground could take two or three minutes and allow him to keep talking without dealing with the current state of the war. It was a filibuster of sorts. If I didn’t challenge him, the interview would be a wasted opportunity.
“But, Mr President, you didn’t find any weapons,” I interjected.
“Let me finish, let me finish. May I finish?”
With his hand raised, he requested that I stop speaking. He paused and looked me straight in the eye to make sure I had got the message. He wanted to continue, so I backed off and he went on. “The United Nations said, ‘Disarm or face serious consequences’. That’s what the United Nations said. And guess what? He didn’t disarm. He didn’t disclose his arms. And therefore he faced serious consequences. But we have found a capacity for him to make a weapon. See, he had the capacity to make weapons . . .”
I was now beginning to feel shut out of this event. He had the floor and he wasn’t letting me dance. My blood was boiling to such a point that I felt like slapping him. But I was dealing with the president of the United States; and he was too far away anyway. I suppose I had been naive to think that he was making himself available to me so I could spar with him or plumb the depths of his thought processes. Sitting there, I knew that I was nobody special and that this was just another opportunity for the president to repeat his mantra. He seemed irked to be faced with someone who wasn’t nodding gravely at him as he was speaking.
“But Mr President,” I interrupted again, “the world is a more dangerous place today. I don’t know whether you can see that or not.”
“Why do you say that?”
“There are terrorist bombings every single day. It’s now a daily event. It wasn’t like that two years ago.”
“What was it like on September 11 2001? It was a . . . there was relative calm, we . . .”
“But it’s your response to Iraq that’s considered . . .”
“Let me finish. Let me finish. Please. You ask the questions and I’ll answer them, if you don’t mind.”
His hand was raised again as if to indicate that he was not going to tolerate this. Again, I felt I had no choice but to keep quiet.
“On September 11 2001, we were attacked in an unprovoked fashion. Everybody thought the world was calm. There have been bombings since then — not because of my response to Iraq. There were bombings in Madrid, there were bombings in Istanbul. There were bombings in Bali. There were killings in Pakistan.”
He seemed to be finished, so I took a deep breath and tried once again. So far, facial expressions were defining this interview as much as anything that was said, so I focused on looking as if I was genuinely trying to fathom him.
“Indeed, Mr President, and I think Irish people understand that. But I think there is a feeling that the world has become a more dangerous place because you have taken the focus off Al-Qaeda and diverted into Iraq. Do you not see that the world is a more dangerous place? I saw four of your soldiers lying dead on the television the other day, a picture of four soldiers just lying there without their flak jackets.”
“Listen, nobody cares more about death than I do . . .”
“Is there a point or place . . .”
“Let me finish. Please. Let me finish, and then you can follow up, if you don’t mind.”
By now he was getting used to the rhythm of this interview and didn’t seem quite so taken aback by my attempt to take control of it. “Nobody cares more about death than I do. I care a lot about it. But I do believe the world is a safer place and becoming a safer place. I know that a free Iraq is going to be a necessary part of changing the world.”
The president seemed to be talking more openly now and from the heart rather than from a script. The history lesson on Saddam was over. “Listen, people join terrorist organisations because there’s no hope and there’s no chance to raise their families in a peaceful world where there is not freedom. And so the idea is to promote freedom and at the same time protect our security. And I do believe the world is becoming a better place, absolutely.”
I could not tell how much time had elapsed, maybe five or six minutes, so I moved quickly on to the question I most wanted to ask George Bush in person.
“Mr President, you are a man who has a great faith in God. I’ve heard you say many times that you strive to serve somebody greater than yourself.”
“Right.”
“Do you believe that the hand of God is guiding you in this war on terror?”
This question had been on my mind ever since September 11, when Bush began to invoke God in his speeches. He spoke as if he believed that his job of stewarding America through the attacks and beyond was somehow preordained, that he had been chosen for this role. He closed his eyes as he began to answer.
“Listen, I think that God . . . that my relationship with God is a very personal relationship. And I turn to the Good Lord for strength. I turn to the Good Lord for guidance. I turn to the Good Lord for forgiveness. But the God I know is not one that . . . the God I know is one that promotes peace and freedom. But I get great sustenance from my personal relationship.”
He sat forward again. “That doesn’t make me think I’m a better person than you are, by the way. Because one of the great admonitions in the Good Book is, ‘Don’t try to take a speck out of your eye if I’ve got a log in my own’.”
I suspected that he was also telling me that I should not judge him.
I switched to Ireland again and to the controversy then raging over the Irish government’s decision to allow the use of Shannon Airport for the transport of soldiers and weapons to the Gulf.
“You are going to meet Bertie Ahern when you arrive at Shannon Airport tomorrow. I guess he went out on a limb for you, presumably because of the great friendship between our two countries. Can you look him in the eye when you get there and say, ‘It will be worth it, it will work out’?”
“Absolutely. I wouldn’t be doing this, I wouldn’t have made the decision I did if I didn’t think the world would be better.”
I felt that the President had now become personally involved in this interview, even quoting a Bible passage, so I made one more stab at trying to get inside his head.
“Why is it that others don’t understand what you are about?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. History will judge what I’m about.”
I could not remember my next question. My mind had gone completely blank. The president had not removed me from his gaze since we had begun and I wanted to keep up the eye contact.
If I diverted to my notes on the table beside me, he would know he had flustered me. For what seemed like an eternity, but probably no more than two seconds, I stared at him, searching his eyes for inspiration. It finally came.
“Can I just turn to the Middle East?”
“Sure.”
He talked about his personal commitment to solving that conflict. As he did so, I could see one of the White House crew signalling for me to wrap up the interview, but the president was in full flight.
“Like Iraq, the Palestinian and the Israeli issue is going to require good security measures,” he said.
Now out of time, I was fully aware that another question was pushing it, but I would never be here again and I had spent four years covering an administration that appeared to favour Israel at every turn.
“And perhaps a bit more even-handedness from America?” I asked, though it came out more as a comment.
The president did not see the look of horror on the faces of his staff as he began to defend his stance. “I’m the first president to have called for a Palestinian state. That to me sounds like a reasonable and balanced approach. I will not allow terrorists determine the fate, as best I can, of people who want to be free.”
Hands were signalling furiously now for me to end the interview.
“Mr President, thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied, still half-smiling and half-frowning.
It was over. I felt like a delinquent child who had been reprimanded by a stern, unwavering father. My face must have been the same colour as my suit. Yet I also knew that we had discussed some important issues — probably more candidly than I had heard from President Bush in some time.
I was removing my microphone when he addressed me.
“Is that how you do it in Ireland — interrupting people all the time?”
I froze. He was not happy with me and was letting me know it.
“Yes,” I stuttered, determined to maintain my own half-smile.
I was aching to get out of there for a breath of air when I remembered that I had earlier discussed with staff the possibility of having my picture taken with the president. I had been told that, when the interview was over, I could stand up with him and the White House photographer would snap a picture. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, I stood up and asked him to join me.
“Oh, she wants the photograph now,” he said from his still-seated position. He rose, stood beside me and put an arm around my shoulder. Taking his cue, I put an arm up around his shoulder and we both grinned for the cameras.
In my haste to leave I almost forgot the tapes and had to be reminded by the film crew to take them. I and my assistants bolted out to the street. We ran, high heels and all, across Lafayette Park. Running through rush-hour traffic, I thought that this had to be about as crazy as a journalist’s job gets.
I had just been admonished by the president of the United States and now I was turning cartwheels in order to get the interview on air. As I dashed past a waste bin, I had a fleeting urge to throw in the tapes and run home instead.
At the studio I handed over the tapes. My phone rang. It was MC, and her voice was cold.
“We just want to say how disappointed we are in the way you conducted the interview,” she said.
“How is that?” I asked.
“You talked over the president, not letting him finish his answers.”
“Oh, I was just moving him on,” I said, explaining that I wanted some new insight from him, not two-year-old answers.
“He did give you plenty of new stuff.”
She estimated that I had interrupted the president eight times and added that I had upset him. I was upset too, I told her. The line started to break up; I was in a basement with a bad phone signal. I took her number and agreed to call her back. I dialled the White House number and she was on the line again.
“I’m here with Colby,” she indicated.
“Right.”
“You were given an opportunity to interview the leader of the free world and you blew it,” she began.
I was beginning to feel as if I might be dreaming. I had naively believed the American president was referred to as the “leader of the free world” only in an unofficial tongue-in-cheek sort of way by outsiders, and not among his closest staff.
“You were more vicious than any of the White House press corps or even some of them up on Capitol Hill . . .The president leads the interview,” she said.
“I don’t agree,” I replied, my initial worry now turning to frustration. “It’s the journalist’s job to lead the interview.”
It was suggested that perhaps I could edit the tapes to take out the interruptions, but I made it clear that this would not be possible.
As the conversation progressed, I learnt that I might find it difficult to secure further co-operation from the White House. A man’s voice then came on the line. Colby, I assumed. “And, it goes without saying, you can forget about the interview with Laura Bush.”
Clearly the White House had thought they would be dealing with an Irish “colleen” bowled over by the opportunity to interview the Bushes. If anyone there had done their research on RTE’s interviewing techniques, they might have known better.
MC also indicated that she would be contacting the Irish Embassy in Washington — in other words, an official complaint from Washington to Dublin.
“I don’t know how we are going to repair this relationship, but have a safe trip back to Ireland,” MC concluded. I told her I had not meant to upset her since she had been more than helpful to me. The conversation ended.
By the time I got to the control room, the Prime Time broadcast had just started. It was at the point of the first confrontation with the “leader of the free world” and those gathered around the monitors were glued to it. “Well done,” someone said. “This is great.”
I thought about the interview again as I climbed up the steps to RTE’s live camera position at Dromoland Castle to account for myself on the 6pm news next day. By now the White House had vented its anger to the Irish embassy in Washington. To make matters worse for the administration, the interview had made its way onto American television and CNN was replaying it around the world and by the end of the day it had been aired in Baghdad.
Had I been fair? Should I just have been more deferential to George Bush? I felt that I had simply done my job and shuddered at the thought of the backlash I would surely have faced in Ireland had I not challenged the president on matters that had changed the way America was viewed around the world.
Afterwards I bumped straight into the taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, who was waiting to go on air.
“Howya,” he said, winking.
“I hope this hasn’t caused you too much hassle, taoiseach,” I blurted.
“Arrah, don’t worry at all; you haven’t caused me one bit of hassle,” he smiled wryly.
I don’t know what he said to the president, who reportedly referred to the interview immediately upon arrival, but if the taoiseach was annoyed with me or with RTE, he didn’t show it.
When I returned to my little world on the street called M in Washington, I felt a tad more conspicuous than when I’d left for Ireland. Google was returning more than 100,000 results on the subject of the 12-minute interview. The vast majority of bloggers felt it was time a reporter had challenged Bush.
At the White House, the fact that I had been asked to submit questions prior to the interview generated enquiries from the American press corps. “Any time a reporter sits down with the president they are welcome to ask him whatever questions they want to ask,” Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, told the CBS correspondent Bill Plante.
“Yes, but that’s beside the point,” replied Plante.
Under repeated questioning, McClellan conceded that other staff members might have asked for questions. “Certainly there will be staff-level discussion, talking about what issues reporters may want to bring up in some of these interviews. I mean that happens all the time.”
I had not been prevented from asking any of my questions. The only topics I had been warned away from were the Bush daughters Jenna and Barbara, regular fodder for the tabloids, and Michael Moore — neither of which was on my list.
Moore did notice RTE’s interview with the president and in the weeks that followed urged American journalists to follow the example of “that Irish woman”.
“In the end, doesn’t it always take the Irish to speak up?” he said. “She’s my hero. Where are the Carole Colemans in the US press?”
© Carole Coleman 2005
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This article is extracted from the opening chapter of Alleluia America! by Carole Coleman, to be published by The Liffey Press on October 14 at €14.95.
Okay, as long as....SM
you don't mind you, your loved ones, or someone else's loved ones to be killed BEFORE we take action, we can sit around and see who attacks us next. But then of course, if Saddam had ordered an attack, or slipped the goods to someone to carry that attack out, you would have blamed Bush for not acting on all that intelligence we had before the war. You simply cannot have it both ways. In light of the fact that 3000 people perished in a couple of hours, I'm not afraid to stand behind a president brave enough to stand up to any threat.
What took them so long????
I heard the 34% was down to 29% for Bush and 18% for Cheney. It has taken this complete break down of our government for people to finally see what most of us have known all along. BUSH IS NOT QUALIFIED TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE ROTARY CLUB, LET ALONE THE U.S. The words incompetence and tin ear and arrogance are now coming out of the mouths of the staunchest of Republicans, senators, congressmen, strategists, advisors, etc. And the outright lies are finally coming to light, thanks to videotape. Of course we only have the pre Katrina tape but it shows those who absolutely refused to entertain the thought that his president was anything than honorable is, in fact, just a greedy arrogant politician like so many others. As I said before, time to storm the Bastille and throw them out, the whole sorry lot of them or we can always sell the country to the UAE. They would probably do a better job of running it than this poor excuse for an administration. As Isabel from Florida said on Lou Dobbs the other day, I could run this country better from my kitchen table. I believe her.
that is a long
string of words that is so illogical I just slap my rump and shout hallelujah. Not much more can be done other than that.
so as long as you don;t have to
pay for other people's children . . . you're okay with teenagers raising babies.
I come from a long
line of Twaddles, and we are a prominent family in our community.
Wow - how long did it take you to think of that one?
You should be one of Obama's political advisors. You know, you bein' so SMART an' all.
And your message was posted by: "?"
Does that stand for clueless or just 'can't spell my own name?'
I love Obama supporters. They're like children. Or really, really slow-learning monkeys. :)
Oh yes....and how long
did people scream and shout about how we were losing the surge in Iraq while we were successful? Obama didn't even want to admit we were successful when there was no way to dispute the fact. Just once, I would like to see you post something that isn't totally one-sided liberal, kool-aid drinking BS.
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