Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

If anyone should want to send a get well card to Fidel Castro, now might be a good time. The ailing dictator has turned over power in Cuba to his younger brother Raul, no spring chicken at 75. Castro will be 80 on August 13. The obit writers are fleshing out their texts, though it is always possible that news of Castro’s imminent demise is greatly exaggerated. In the past, the Cuban dictator has survived exploding cigars and other novel attempts by freedom loving CIA agents to help him over the bar. But age and stress, pulling us all sooner or later into the grave, has taken its toll. According to an AP report , stress “from recent public appearances in Argentina and Cuba” has led to gastrointestinal bleeding, never a good sign. Extreme stress, Castro said "had provoked in me a sharp intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding that obligated me to undergo a complicated surgical procedure." The good news is that Castro is being tended by Cuban medical personnel, said by other di...

“Judge Chatigny stated that he had forgotten his brief, inconsequential involvement with Ross' direct appeal and would have recused himself had he remembered it. A failure to recuse resulting from an innocent and reasonable memory lapse is not misconduct." Those lines, from a special committee report clearing Judge Robert Chatigny from charges of misconduct, ought to be dubbed “the Lisa Moody defense.” Essentially, the panel of judges that gave a pass to Chatigny are saying 1) Chatigny did indeed fail to recuse himself for having participated earlier in the Michael Ross case, 2) the failure to recuse does indeed indicate misconduct, but 3) a failure to recuse oneself need not lead to a determination of misconduct if the judge “innocently and reasonably” has a memory lapse. One recalls Moody’s doubtful memory lapse in connection with Chatigny because Moody, Governor Rell’s chief aide, had made handwritten notes on a memo she claimed not to have remembered; Chatigny hand wrote 1...

The indomitable Christopher Hitchens – who is neither a neo-con nor a Christian fundamentalist nor an ardent Bush supporter – ties up a few loose ends concerning Joe Wilson, his CIA wife Valerie Plame, Nigerian yellowcake and the now notorious few sentences, much commented upon by the left, in president George Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address. "This means that both pillars of the biggest scandal-mongering effort yet mounted by the "anti-war" movement—the twin allegations of a false story exposed by Wilson and then of a state-run vendetta undertaken against him and the lady wife who dispatched him on the mission—are in irretrievable ruins. The truth is the exact polar opposite. The original Niger connection was both authentic and important, and Wilson's utter failure to grasp it or even examine it was not enough to make Karl Rove even turn over in bed. All the work of the supposed "outing" was inadvertently performed by Wilson's admirer Robert Nova...

To say that war is a continuation of diplomacy by other means is to say that diplomacy may be, when circumstances are ripe, a continuation of war by other means. The object of both war and diplomacy is – to get what you want in the long run; the short run is often tactically confusing. What does Israel want? Immediately, it wants an end to the death and destruction showered upon it from military emplacements in the southern part of Lebanon, land from which Israel withdrew as a part of a peace process several years ago because a) a long Jihad with Hezbollah, a terrorist organization supported by Syria and Iran, had exhausted it, and b) Israel had bought into “peace for land” arguments advanced by diplomatists who are now suggesting that further diplomacy is the solution to recent attacks by Hezbollah launched from territory surrendered to them. The highlands in South Lebanon were swapped for an illusive peace, and before you could say “diplomacy is war by other means,” missiles were rai...

About 2,000 Democrats showed up at the Palace Theatre in Waterbury to cheer on ex-President Bill Clinton and re-welcome in the Age of Aquarius. Fleetwood Mac’s hypnotic verse “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow,” Clinton’s signature song, filled the air, and the revelers certainly were focusing on tomorrow. Recent poll figures show Ned Lamont edging Senator Joe Lieberman among likely Democrat voters, which betokens a tomorrow unwelcome by former Democrat Leadership Council presidents Clinton and Lieberman. The DLC’ers are moderate Democrats; the insurgents now laying claim to Lieberman’s senate seat are, shall we say, immoderate. A Hartford reporter covering the event wrote, “The former president said no Democrat should be held responsible for the war in Iraq, the issue that polls say is driving Democrats away from Lieberman and to his anti-war challenger, Ned Lamont.” Not exactly: In Clinton case, one has learned to pay attention to fine print qualifiers. Any assertion boldly made by ...

“Thinking about today's show,” Colin McEnroe – blogger, author, Courant columnist and beau viviant – writes on his blog, “ I re-read Genghis Conn's excellent meditation on Weicker's 1970 three-way. (It is fun to wonder how many of the people posting comments, back then, about Lieberman crushing Lamont like a bug have revised their entomology. Hey, we ALL get stuff wrong.)” Gengis Conn is the proprietor of Connecticut Local Politics, a much read progressive blog. The blog is read mostly for its sometimes colorful and disputative commentary section. Among the comments on the particular site to which McEnroe refers is this one: Don Pesci (that would be me) said... GC I believe in God and Senator Dodd and keepin' old Castro down --Phil Ochs, Draft Dodger Rag In the context of the times, Ochs' song is instructive. It's generally forgotten -- and never mentioned in discussions of the Dodd pere/Duffy/Weicker race that Duffey was the anti-Vietnam war dove. Dodd, unlike...

Address of Grand Ayatullah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadhlullah On the Birth Anniversary of Imam al-Mahdi (aj) Allah says in His Glorious Book: {Allah only wishes to remove uncleanness from you, members of the Family, and to purify you} [3:33]. The first member is Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib ('a), while the last is Imam al-Mahdi (May Allah hasten his relief) whom Allah, the most exalted, has prepared to fill the earth with justice having been filled with wrongdoing. The struggle between Israel and Hezbollah – the Islamists would call it a jihad – probably will affect state campaigns only slightly. In Connecticut, where anti-war candidate Ned Lamont is challenging incumbent Senator Joe Lieberman, some subtle shifts in emphasis may be expected. Lieberman’s opponents have been unusually quiet of late. The conflict has been going on for more than a week and promises to continue much longer than that. Just as a picture is worth a thousand words, so is this portentous silence. The left in Connec...