The Ming Report

MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES

July 11, 2004 - This has been an interesting week – one that recalls the ancient Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.” First, Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) released the report of the Senate Intelligence Committee finding that the data upon which the President of the United States justified his invasion of Iraq was just plain wrong – all of it. Then Tom Ridge, Secretary of Homeland Security, took to the airwaves to warn the country that Al Qaeda was planning a massive strike on the United States to disrupt America’s Presidential Elections in November. Pressed, he told us that he had no information as to when they might strike, where they might strike; or how they might strike – indeed he told us that he had no new information at all. His warming was based on what he called “chatter” detected by the same agencies that had provided the intelligence that Pat Robert’s committee found wanting and upon which the President decided to go into Iraq and abandon the fight against Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. That was interesting enough for one week to fulfill the Chinese Curse but then things got just a bit more interesting.

The administration has let it leak that the Presidential election now scheduled for the first Tuesday in November might just have to be “postponed”. Just recently DeForest B. Soaries, Jr. wrote to Secretary Ridge proposing that the threat to the integrity of the Presidential election posed by terrorists be countered by the simple expedient of “postponing” the vote. We might write that off as the musing of a crackpot except that DeForest B. Soaries, Jr. is the Chairman of the newly created U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

Then, of course, we might expect that even s crackpot idea originated even the Chairman of a newly created Presidential commission would be filed appropriately by a serious Cabinet officer of the caliber of a Tom Ridge. Except that is not what happened. Secretary Ridge has sent the proposal on to Attorney General Ashcroft’s Department of Justice where it is being studied by the Office of Legal Counsel. These are the same folks who gave the opinion that the President of The United States as the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces is not bound by the Constitution, the Laws or the Treaties of the United States. That is the Republican idea of protecting democracy and the Constitution. Prevent the terrorists from interfering with our election of a President by the simple expedient of canceling the vote.

Of course, there is nothing sinister about this collection of interesting facts of our times. There is no connection between the three events and the relative standings of President Bush and Senator Kerry in the polls. The three events this last week are just happenstance coincidental occurrences; interesting aspects of the interesting times in which we live.