Some people are best remembered by an idiom—like, “Your name is mud,� which means, “You are not popular.� The term “mud� (slang) was defined as “a stupid twaddling fellow,�—e.g. “And his name is mud!�—according to a dictionary published by John Badcock c. 1823.

The idiom became popular in 1865 soon after the assignation of President Abraham Lincoln. His assassin, John Wilkes Booth, broke his leg while jumping to the stage from the balcony after shooting Lincoln at the Ford Theater. Booth escaped. In the early morning hours, 30 miles south of Washington, D.C., Booth arrived at a farmhouse owned by Dr. Samuel Mudd, who knew nothing about the assassination. Dr. Mudd treated his injury and provided him with a pair of hand-made crutches. Booth paid Mudd for his services and departed.

Days later, Mudd was arrested by the United States Government on charges of conspiracy and aiding Booth in Lincoln’s assassination. Court testimony against Mudd revealed he was a sympathizer and member of the Confederate underground during the Civil War and abusive toward his slaves. Mudd was found guilty and convicted to life imprisonment at Ft. Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas 70 miles from Key West. The phrase, “Your name is mud(d),� is attributed to Dr. Mudd.

Allan Pinkerton, Abe’s personal body guard before becoming President, claimed Booth would have been foiled had he been in charge of Lincoln’s security that night. Pinkerton founded the National Pinkerton Detective Agency, from which the idiom “Pirvate Eye� derived. Everybody knows “Pinkerton� and remembers his business logo and slogan: “We never sleep� printed underneath a human eyeball.

And everybody knows that “D-Day� is the idiom for the Battle of Normandy in June 1944. And most folks understand the term “McCarthyism� as the Second Red Scare when U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy trampled civil rights to flush out communism in the late 1940s through mid-50s.

The phrase “Black Tuesday� refers to October 29, 1929, the day panicky stock holders tried to pull out of the market all at once, which led up to the Great Depression. This idiom, “Black Tuesday,� like, “Your name is mud,� has a dual meaning. “Black Tuesday� also refers September 11, 2001—most people world-wide just refer to it as nine-eleven.

The idiom “bushwhacker� was used to describe a method of guerrilla warfare during the Civil War. The people doing the attacks were called “bushwhackers.�

As I reflect on idioms of yore, undoubtedly our culture will invent an iconic moniker that will depict the last five years—and events yet to come—in the United States of America. We’ve always been a culture of slogans: Prosperity for America’s families; Compassionate conservatism; Leave no child behind; Real plans for real people; Reformer with results. But idioms don’t describe an ideology as cleverly as they depict reality or define a legacy.

It’s premature to label this administration, just yet. Because even with a Democratic stronghold things will get worse before they get better. There’s more shock-and-awe to come as we stay the course before we can cut-and-run from Iraq, before the mission is accomplished, victory achieved, as we continue to move forward.

Slogans are like points of light, eventually they loose all luster and burn-out. But idioms like Black Tuesday, D-Day, or the Red Scare period of fear and suspicion, will survive for generations, because they best describe the ineffable, the unbelievable.

But I wonder, what idiom will be invented to describe the legacy of George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States? Will his name be mud!?

After many appeals, and for his exemplary work as a physician-inmate, Dr. Mudd was granted a pardon by President Andrew Johnson, and released from prison after serving four years. Mudd returned to his farm in Maryland and continued his medical practice. Subsequent to his release, several appeals by his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, were made on his behalf to clear his name, fait accompli. His name will always be Mudd.

Michael Thessen
1571 Green Acres Road
Eugene, OR 97408
541.344.3223

AQ, I apologize. My first post was supposed to say, “Now THEY would like bipartisanship in the House and Senate.” I didn’t mean it personally.

The US didn’t just go along with the damnation of unprovoked acts of aggression, we drove it. Hard. Remember, this was a reaction to Germany’s invasion of Poland and other countries, and of Japan’s aggression. We fully intended that all nations refrain from unprovoked war-making. If other nations follow our current lead of “preemptive war”, S. Korea could attack N. Korea, Israel could attack Iran or vice versa, Pakistan India, Taiwan China, etc. We really need to stick to our beliefs here. Today’s weapons are too available and devastating for countries to attack when they feel threatened.

We’re not subordinated to NGOs, but we are bound to and intend to be bound to treaties we sign. The NGOs represent a lot of talent and put together a thoughtful and precise analysis of US violations of international law. It’s worth a careful read. This isn’t a radical group of partisans. It’s the Methodists and Mennonites, the former Iraq Humanitarian Coordinators, Institute for Policy Studies and others. Besides, where are they wrong?

GW, look at the other side of what you’re saying. How will it play in Peoria if we just ditch the idea that unprovoked wars of aggression are wrong (reversing our position on Nazi Germany) and acknowledge that it’s OK for Iran to blast Israel because Israel 1) has WMD 2) has met with American intelligence and 3) is said to be plotting an attack? Are you and Peoria ready to give them the green light?

Finally, SFB, the UN doesn’t have troops. It relies on member nations to provide them, and has fielded peacekeeping forces in 155 nations. If the US is ready to commit troops to Darfur, Somalia and the other trouble spots, help finance the operations and get our allies to join in, maybe the UN could help resolve those conflicts. But we and most other nations are not willing. It makes no sense to criticize the UN for not committing our troops to Darfur. And BTW, the N. Korean nuclear facilities were under UN seal and inspection until Bush started his “axis of evil” saber rattling.

To follow up on Truman and the bomb, I think it is easy for us to look at events from hindsight, and wonder why Truman didn’t do a demonstration shot first. I doubt that many US citizens were too worried about anything except a speedy end to the war. Destroying cities with transportation centers and killing workers in factories supporting the war effort were accepted on all sides. This was just going to be more of the same, but with fewer planes. Ugly? You bet. General Sherman was right – ‘war is hell, it is unrefined cruelty.’

Again, I think Barney Frank’s remarks are a good example of why good sound bites are often not good government. Sure, it sounded good, especially if you are not a Republican. But it wasn’t a stateman like remark, and it certainly did nothing to help solve the all too real problems in New Orleans. All it did was give the Republicans another reason to put dollars elsewhere, where they might get some appreciation for their efforts.

New Orleans was a SNAFU. All levels of government can justly take a share of the blame. Now the challenge is for all levels of government to try to work together to help repair the place. Yes, I think that does call for changes – at all levels.

Thanks all for the comments.

Anyway, it was enlightening to find out that the US Congress can’t declare war without the permission of the UN Security Council. I wonder how that will play in Peoria.

SFB, I don’t deny your portrayal of Truman, I in no way consider him to be a war criminal–and did not raise the issue. I only question why he didn’t unload a bomb OUTSIDE of a city, as a warning shot, before the coup de grace.

“Nuremberg declared that aggressive war is the supreme international crime.” The United Nations charter, which was written after the carnage of World War II, contains a provision that no nation can use armed force without the permission of the UN Security Council. Chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes, Benjamin Ferenccz

From January 2004 to January 2005, I served in various places in Iraq (including Abu Ghraib) as an Army interrogator. Following orders that I believed were legal, I used military working dogs during interrogations. I terrified my interrogation subjects, but I never got intelligence (mostly because 90 percent of them were probably innocent, but that’s another story). Perhaps, I have thought for a long time, I also deserve to be prosecuted. But if that is the case, culpability goes much farther up the chain of command than the Army and the Bush administration have so far been willing to admit.
Anthony Lagouranis served in the Army from May 2001 to July 2005.

Following a recent string of alleged atrocities by U.S. troops against Iraqi civilians, leaders from across Iraq’s political spectrum called Wednesday for a review of the U.S.-drafted law that prevents prosecution of coalition forces in Iraqi courts. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told reporters during a visit to Kuwait that “the immunity given to members of coalition forces encouraged them to commit such crimes in cold blood,” adding, “That makes it necessary to review it.” NY Times

Force may be used in self-defence if there is an actual or imminent threat of an armed attack; the use of force must be necessary, ie the only means of averting an attack; and the force used must be a proportionate response. In my opinion there must be some degree of imminence. I am aware that the USA has been arguing for recognition of a broad doctrine of a right to use force to pre-empt danger in the future. If this means more than a right to respond proportionately to an imminent attack, this is not a doctrine which, in my opinion, exists or is recognised in international law. Regime change cannot be the objective of military action. British Attorney General

Here are the specific items of violation of International law detailed by 27 NGOs
1. Detentions and Prisons
2. Prisoner Abuse and Torture
3. Use of Illegal, Indiscriminate and Especially Injurious Weapons
4. Attacks on Population Centers and Siege Tactics
5. Irregularities in Spending and Lack of Oversight of the Development Fund for Iraq
6. Gross Failure to Protect Cultural Heritage
7. Impunity
Each charge is detailed in the original
Finally, as members of the UN and signatories to treaties banning wars of aggression, we are in violation of our own laws. Article VI of the U.S. Constitution provides that treaties of the United States, along with federal law and the Constitution itself, are the supreme law of the land (U.S. Constitution). The UN Charter is a treaty ratified by the United States and is therefore the law of the land in the United States on equal footing with acts of legislation. The Supreme Court stated in Whitney v. Robertson, “By the constitution, a treaty is placed on the same footing . . . with an act of legislation.”

Andrew Quinn, meet Bill O’Reilly.

I didn’t say the situation was perfect, or even good. But do you really want to argue that a brutal tyranny has not been replaced by a democracy?

Andrew Quinn said: “Plenty of generals agree with you, but plenty disagree.”

Andrew forgot to mention that all that agree were fired and the ‘plenty [that] disagree’ did so at their interviews for promotion.

Andrew Quinn said: “Nope. I’ve never been a partisan. …”

Andrew, If you are replying to my Comment 39, I wasn’t talking to you. If not, my mistake and I appologize but I hope you can understand how some think you a radical right wing republican being as all your comments appear to be in complete lockstep with the current administration.

regards,

Regardless of what the GOP did to the Democrats, the *Democrats* campaigned on “being the bigger man” so to speak and restoring unity. Thus, they’re breaking promises; “they did it first” is not an acceptable position for the party who was elected because they swore to break that cycle.

“…I am not a Republican“…

“We’re talking about these Democrats, now, and what they promised us. When your party is elected…”

Not republican, eh? Well you sure sound like one. One of those NEWLY disenfrancised republicans, never to vote democrat, but not quite sure of their current affiliation maybe?

The disaster in NO is a natural disaster, compounded by bad decisions at every level of government. The local governments did not address evacuation responsibly. They didn’t have a plan, and they didn’t take any initiative when confronted by an unusual situation. They waited for someone else to solve their problems. The same charges might be leveled at the parish and county governments along the gulf coast. State governments did not have the money or the manpower to respond to a problem this big. The feds tried to fix the problem by throwing money at it, but they also tried to avoid the legal entanglements by not stepping on the toes of governors who were demanding that the gubenatorial right to call out the National Guard not be usurped by the feds, and the communities who wanted to maintain their own jusristictions, etc. For an example of total foul-up, the much repeated photo of the NO school busses, sitting in water up to their windows. Where was the initiative? Some school superintendet of transportation should have called the cops, gotten the cops and the radio to get poor folks to gather an armload of clothes and load them on the busses. Get the busses out of town. Save the busses, and evacuate some people. Didn’t happen, did it? For Barney Frank to allege ethnic cleansing or genocide is as repulsive as the epithet Dick Armey used in reference to Mr. Frank a few years ago, if not worse. Because Mr. Frank is implying that the government tried to kill off its own citizens. Has anyone got real evidence of an actual policy or plan of the government intending to engage in ethnic cleansing by forcing the poor to move? If not, then it is not ethnic cleansing. Likewise, is there any evidence of a policy, an actual government supported official plan to kill people, which is the correct definition of genocide? If not, then the term really should not be used.

What happened in NO is a tragedy, not a crime. Poor people live where the land values are lowest, not because there is some government plan to ethnically cleanse the city of NO, or a secret plan to commit genocide. Unfortunately, land values are frequently lowest in places that are flood prone, next to factories, and freeways, etc. Barney Frank was, IMHO, being a demagogue. He was playing to the folks in his party’s base. It was, irresponsible, it was immature, and it was WRONG.

For GreenDreams: The war in Iraq is certainly a very poor choice from a foreign policy perspective. But is it s *crime*? Can you show me specific citations from the US Code that we are in violation of? No matter how much one dislikes war as a form of foreign policy, outlawing it has not worked. Go research the Kellog-Briand Pact and the League of Nations if you are interested. We have tried to legislate an end to war, and it has not worked. The decision to take out Saddam Hussein was a poor one, and it is now evident that the was playing a shell game and no longer had WMD. But we had no proof then, and reasonable folks could argue that SH was hiding stuff away. He was too good a con man – he conned President Bush and PM Blair.

For Gary Byrd and G. Weightman: The charges of mass murder and genocide (implicit) leveled at President Bush and certainly President Truman are irresponsible, just as Representative Frank’s are. Truman’s decision to use the bomb was denounced by new-left historian Gar Alperovits and many of his colleagues, but the Alperovits thesis has been very effectively debunked by subsequent research, which shows that Truman made a difficult decision which probably saved lives in the long run. Again, this is a good example of mis-use of terminology to claim the moral high ground. War is terrible. But we killed more Europeans with saturation bombing than Japanese with two atomic bombs. So much for the racism argument of the Alperovitz team. Truman wanted to end the war fast, with the lowest number of allied casualties, and not put the fear of the US into Stalin as Alperovitz argues. The Alperovitz group always overlooks the fact that Truman had been a line commander in WWI, and knew what war was – he wanted to end it fast, at the lowest cost to his troops. And then there is the arithmetic. A naval blockade would have starved more civilians than died in the two bombings. Not to mention people looking at the Japanese primary documents have concluded that plans were do resist to the last man, including mass civilian suicides, rather than surrender had the allies made amphibious invasions of the Japanese home islands.

Godwin’s Law really should apply not only to the first person to invoke the Nazis in an argument, but all these over the top uses of politically charged specific terms in a hyperbolic sense as a debating tactic. Representative Frank gets an “F”. He and Richard Armey should go have lunch together and see if they can figure out where they both went wrong.

Answer to #1 I think has to be “no.” I can understand if people are bent out of shape at the use of “ethnic cleansing” in this connection, but clearly it’s different from “genocide.” A lot different. The difference between being displaced and being killed.

Answer to #2? I’d like to hear it from Andrew Quinn. Seems to me one of those “I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’” kind of things to make more out of something than is really there.

I found some things. None of it speaks to there being employment for Mexicans as locals were futiley looking for work. Consider how many locals were moved elsewhere, AND how many of THOSE decided rather quickly that they’d not return. Amidst the tragedy, for some, came a realization that “this is my ticket out” of depressed wages, of high crime and corrupt law enforcement, of crummy housing, of absolutely TERRIBLE schools — in short, out of a city that was in large part a hellhole before Katrina, mismanaged and broken in very many ways.

The local residents who went elsewhere mostly did so with their families, and were housed, whereas the Mexican workers largely came in without families and were willing to put up with the horrible living conditions, tents, etc.

I found this in a discussion thread, from back then:

“I live around New Orleans, and one thing in The New York Times piece that’s flat-out not true is that there are Louisiana workers willing to do the job that the ‘illegals’ are doing. Complete bullsh*t.

“This unwillingness is not confined to clean-up jobs. Most retail and fast food joints around here are running on limited hours simply because they can’t get people to work. And it’s a problem in spite of, for example, a $3,000 signing bonus offered to take a part-time job at Burger King.”

As I said, I’m interested in the dynamics of the labor markets in the US and elsewhere; who knows why??? I’ll probably search some more because frankly I haven’t seen much about this since the time when the Mayor lamented that his city might be overrun by Hispanics.