The SF Weekly is Good For Something

I don't like SF Weekly. I think their music coverage (for the most part, not speaking of you, of course, Nancy) is weak, as evidenced by another pedestrian Music Awards issue in the little red boxes now. Sometimes I wonder if any writers on their staff actually go to local music shows, or whether they just write about their friends.

But there are a couple of good things about SF Weekly. First of all, there's Dan Savage, but that's just a syndicated column. And they do also have decent film coverage. But one of the best things they have going for them is Matt Smith. Sure, sometimes I disagree with him, but he always seems to find interesting and provocative stories, something hardly anyone else at the Weekly seems capable of doing.

This week, his column is one of the best I've read. It basically focuses on two things: the contrast between the actions of Bush and Kerry relating to Iran-Contra and Central America, and the Bay Area volunteer efforts to canvas and oversee elections in battleground states.

Early in the column, he provides some encouraging numbers from progressive phone company Working Assets' effort to register voters and oversee polling places.

Apparently, Working Assets and the NAACP registered a million voters in swing states, in mostly Democrat-leaning areas. They are also spearheading an effort to oversee the polls in nine swig states -- so far signing on 11,000 volunteers as well as attorneys for them to call if there are any problems. By the way, they offer both long-distance and wireless services for anyone who wants to switch to a socially responsible provider.

Later in his column, Smith points out a gigantic gaping hole in Bush's contention that John Kerry has been on the wrong side of nearly every foreign policy issue since joining the Senate. To wit:

"In his first year in Congress, Kerry got wind that a mysterious Marine officer detailed to the National Security Council was illegally arranging money transfers for former members of the National Guard of ex-dictator Anastasio Somoza who were trying to overthrow the left-wing Nicaraguan government. Kerry used his personal staff to conduct an ad hoc investigation into what eventually became the Iran-Contra scandal."

And guess who was on the wrong side of that one? No, not George W. Bush (at that point), but quite probably his father and his dad's boss, Ronald Reagan.

Next Kerry led an investigation into the CIA and its connections with drug cartels, money laundering and terrorism that lead to the detainment of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and the discovery of laundering of drug money by the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.

So much for Kerry getting nothing done during his time in the Senate. Now on to W.'s connection with Iran-Contra. Smith describes the Iran-Contra Affair as such:

"U.S. officials had trained and funded allies who tortured and killed thousands of civilians, including priests and nuns, who razed villages, who terrorized the citizenry and who then lied to the public about the details of the wars, during the mid-1980s."

So why would George Bush go and hire several of the figures involved in this scandal to top posts in his administration?

His hires (from Matt Smith's piece):

John Negroponte, ambassador to Honduras while the ex-Somoza guard members were illegally being given aid through that country, was made ambassador to the United Nations.

In 1986, Kerry questioned Elliot Abrams, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, about illegal funding for the Contras; Abrams' answers denying such funding led to felony convictions on charges of misleading Congress. The first President Bush later pardoned Abrams.

George W. Bush made Abrams special assistant to the president and senior director for Near East and North African affairs on the National Security Council. Abrams prepares policy papers and advice for NSC Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

John Poindexter, also convicted of lying to Congress about the Contras, was made head of a Pentagon project -- Total Information Awareness -- designed to collect data on Americans to better identify terrorists.

During the 1980s, Otto J. Reich ran an illegal propaganda campaign on behalf of the Contras from his post as Ronald Reagan's director of public diplomacy at the State Department, misleading U.S. newspaper editors into believing U.S. government-produced editorials were written by Contras themselves.

George W. Bush made Reich an assistant secretary of state.

Bush even hired an actual Contra -- Rogelio Pardo-Maurer, who worked with the Contra political leadership in Washington, was appointed a deputy assistant secretary of defense for inter-American affairs.


I encourage everyone to check out Matt Smith's column. It is an eye-opener. I wonder why Kerry or his supporters never tout his role as an investigator in the Senate?