A man who tells lies, like me, merely hides the truth. But a man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it.

The talk yesterday around my house was why in the hell the Oregonian had agreed to distribute copies of the anti-islamic video Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West to it's subscribers.

(This DVD video now serves as a coaster on our coffee table by the way. )

Apparently we're a little late to the party on this video as it appears this controversy's been brewing for a while nationally and locally. In Portland the mayor actually asked the publisher of the Oregonian Fred Stickel not to put the inserts in the paper.

The mayor's office said he wrote to the publisher of the paper: "The Mayor reviewed the video and personally asked Fred Stickel, Oregonian publisher, not to distribute it in next Sunday's issue. The Mayor felt that the tenor of the video contributes towards a climate of distrust towards Muslims that holds the entire Muslim community accountable for the actions of a dangerously misguided few. Distributing with the Oregonian lends the video an impression of objectivity and legitimacy it does not deserve."

Of course Stickel refused and published the paper with the video advertisment anyway--

The report by Bill Graves revealed that Fred Stickel, publisher of The Oregonian, said the newspaper is treating the DVD as it does other paid advertising or product inserts.

"I've always felt we have an obligation to keep our advertising columns as open as possible," said Stickel, after viewing the DVD. "Our acceptance of anything -- our acceptance or rejection -- does not depend on whether or not we agree with the content. . . . There is a principle of freedom of speech involved here. I could find no reason to reject this."

With this in mind I'm sending the following letter to the advertising editor at the Oregonian--

To Whom It May Concern:

I am a filmmaker that has recently completed my first feature length film entitled "Hitler Was Misunderstood, But Even If He Wasn't He Was Right Anyway." The video is entirely educational. I would like to include free DVD copies in the Sunday edition of the paper. What would be the cost of that? Also; I see from your website that you have no restrictions on content. Nevertheless I will keep the swastikas on the video cover small.

Yours under the First Amendment,

Feldwebel Wormer

If you want a serious response to this garbage check out this website.

UPDATE: PJ points out there was also attack against a mosque this last weekend. I suppose that's another example of Stickel's Free Speech.

Do you think I'm just anyone? Do you?

George Bush made a much reported comment after his fly-by trip to Baghdad a couple of weeks ago:

"...look, it's a security concern because I'm a high-value target for some. And Iraq is a dangerous place. The American people have got to know that I will take precautions when I travel somewhere. I'm not going to put our government at risk to achieve a very important trip."

Most of the focus on Bush's comment was on the "high-value" comment but the second part of his formulation; that he "wasn't going to put our government at risk" seemed to say a lot more about his frame of mind.

"Our government" didn't make a risky surprise visit to Iraq. The head of the Executive Branch made that trip. As far as I know the supreme court justices, the whole of the congress and the senate as well as the Vice President and most of the cabinet stayed safely at home.

As it's become clear over the last few years George W. Bush and his core supporters continue to view him in a capacity more monarchial than presidential. Glenn Greenwald hits on this today in a post slamming the recent wailing about journalistic treason by conservatives.

None of this has to do with anger over "helping the terrorists." The articles in question so plainly do nothing of the sort. The anger that is unleashed by the media doing its job is the by-product of a belief that the Bush administration should be able to act in complete secrecy, with no checks or oversight of any kind. And it is equally grounded in the twisted view that American interests are synonymous with the political interests of the Bush administration, such that harming the latter is, by definition, to harm the former. In this view -- which has predominated over the last five years -- to oppose the Bush administration's "national security" policies is, by definition, to act against the United States and aid and abet The Terrorists.

The media is guilty of publishing stories which might harm the political interests of the President, not which could harm the national security of the United States. But Bush supporters recognize no such distinction. Harming the "Commander-in-Chief in a time of war" is, to them, synonymous with treason. Hence, we have calls for the imprisonment of our national media for reporting stories which tell terrorists nothing of significance which they did not already know, but which instead, merely provoke long-overdue democratic debates about whether we want to be a country in which we place blind trust in the administration to act in total secrecy.

Of course this sentiment leaves those of us who actually passed our high school civics class scratching our heads and asking "Why does George Bush hate America?"

Or for that matter why do his supporters hate America?

Inquiring minds want to know.