Republicans have not responded well to criticism of Dear Leader, labeling any and all non-sycophantic observations as depicting a deranged state of Bush Hatred Syndrome.
But since Democrats captured Congress Republicans are demonstrating their own form of Opponent Hatred Syndrome. Speaker Pelosi's trip to Syria seems to have brought out the worst of it.
Just a few minutes ago I endured the pathetic, wimpering, whining of some prick from Human Events on Paula Zahn's show, bitching about how Pelosi, by virtue of visiting the Middle Eastern country, was "hijacking America's foreign policy". Fortunately, Zahn was giving this hack-refugee from the Republican Noise Machine the business. If Republicans wanted to highlight the degree to which a female politician of the other party gives them the willies they could not have picked a more winning strategery than to highlight Pelosi's trip and screaming like a banshee about it.
The loss of power within one branch of the federal government has not boded well for this administration and its intellegencia-welfare dependents, as its abundant lack of competence and vision is increasingly coming under focus in committee hearing rooms and across teevee screens around the country.
You don't want a female, Democratic Speaker of the House showing up your non-existent foreign policy over seas, than shut up and win an election. Oh yeah, that takes votes, doesn't it. Republican crying about Pelosi and the Democrats "interfering" in foreign policy and military budget decisions is like sucky teams getting pounded on the football field or basketball court howling about their opponents "running up the score."
What a pathetic bunch of losers.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Sick of the BS
I remember the days when Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo was pretty measured, less cynical, less bombastic, more boring, then Daily Kos or Atrios, to name a few. And it still is. More measured that is. But it's rarely boring or apt to give the Administration and the Very Serious People in Washington a pass anymore.
In addition to its yeoman investigative work on the various scandals in the Administration and Congress from Duke Cunningham to Prosecutor-gate, Josh is just plain ole fed up nowadays. Tired of the BS just like the rest of us. The prez's recent railings at Speaker Pelosi is just the latest fuel on the fire:
I knew as a general matter that the White House was just bamboozling the press with this Pelosi-in-Syria malarkey since plenty of Republicans from Congress have recently gone there too. But I didn't know the precise details. In addition to recent trips by other Congressional Republicans there's actually a GOP House delegation in Syria right now, according to ThinkProgress. And in March a senior State Department official held talks in Damascus about flow of Iraqi refugees.
So which member of the White House press corps or which cable network host has directly asked an administration official why they're only concerned when prominent Democrats visit Damascus and not Republicans. Wolf Blitzer, whatever hack they've got on the air at the moment on Fox, MSNBC? Whichever. Someone let me know when someone puts a question like this directly to an administration official.
And war-funding:
I'm not sure why no one brings this up. The president keeps saying that the Democrats are substituting their judgment for that of the generals on the ground. But this is an easily rebutted statement. The entire story here is that the president substituted his judgement for that of the generals on the ground. Remember, they didn't think the surge was a good idea. So what happened? He fired them. That's why Gen. Petraeus is there. The president looked around until he could find a general willing to agree with him. And when he did he put him in charge. This isn't about the 'generals on the ground'. It's about President Bush, whose judgment has been catastrophically abysmal from the start. Who can deny that?
And while we're at it, can someone explain to me why CNN's Suzanne Malveaux played suck up to former unconfirmed and unconfirmable, Ambassador-stand-in, John Bolton, about Pelosi's trip to Syria?
MALVEAUX: Tough questions today about Middle East flash points and risky diplomacy. We are joined by the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton -- thank you so much for being with us today. Of course, the first question: you've worked for the president, you've put in a lot in foreign policy here, what we're seeing is Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she is going to Syria to deliver a message from Israel, to open up negotiations. Has the president lost control of his foreign policy?
BOLTON: I don't think he's lost control, but this is a very confusing thing to do, and I think it's naive at best and possibly quite counterproductive. I'm at a loss to understand why Speaker Pelosi wants to do something like this.
MALVEAUX: Well, the White House has said, and it has asked her, essentially, that, look, this is not helpful, in terms of our stand. I know the Iraq Study Group says talk to Syria, talk to Iran. They say don't do this. How would you approach her if you were still in the administration and in your ambassadorial -- kind of in your position?
BOLTON: Well, I don't think it's productive for her to go to Syria at all, but to pretend to be an envoy for -- not just for the United States, but for Israel, has to be sending, at best, very confusing signals to the dictator in Damascus, so I would simply hope that people would understand that, under the Constitution, the president conducts foreign policy, not the speaker of the House.
MALVEAUX: But what's strange here is that the prime minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, I mean, he knows where to go if he wants to have talks, negotiations, go to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Instead, he goes to Nancy Pelosi here. I mean, what does that say?
BOLTON: Well, I hope that isn't exactly what he's done, and if he has, then I think we need to talk to him, too. This is not the time for people to misunderstand who speaks for the United States, particularly in the Middle East. So, I think there are a lot of mistakes being made here and, hopefully, we'll have this visit get passed without more mistakes being committed.
MALVEAUX: It's hard to believe, because the prime minister really is -- he is very close to the Bush administration. They like the president here. Do you think that we are seeing maybe some back-channel talks that are going on, that perhaps there's a tacit approval from the White House, "OK, let this happen"? I can't imagine that he would allow this to go forward, perhaps without a wink and a nod from the administration.
BOLTON: If this is a back channel, it's a pretty public back channel, so my guess is there's confusion and, hopefully, once the trip is over, we can get it straightened out, because, if it's not straightened out, it can only be counterproductive.
MALVEAUX: Do you think that this also perhaps portends to something that might happen in the future? I'm being somewhat flip, but you know, Syria today, Iran tomorrow. I mean, where does it end?
BOLTON: I think that's part of the problem. I think, when you have members of the House and Senate, who are out essentially freelancing, it gets competitive. You know, the governor of New Mexico is now about to go to North Korea to conduct some diplomacy, so I think this is a mistake. I think people ought to let the debate in this country take place and let the president conduct our diplomacy overseas.
First, Bolton's just a punk and a hack. Why have this nucklehead on your show, particularly when you're just going to feed him lines? And how about noting that an armored humvee full of GOP congresspeople were over there, too. How difficult is that?
In addition to its yeoman investigative work on the various scandals in the Administration and Congress from Duke Cunningham to Prosecutor-gate, Josh is just plain ole fed up nowadays. Tired of the BS just like the rest of us. The prez's recent railings at Speaker Pelosi is just the latest fuel on the fire:
I knew as a general matter that the White House was just bamboozling the press with this Pelosi-in-Syria malarkey since plenty of Republicans from Congress have recently gone there too. But I didn't know the precise details. In addition to recent trips by other Congressional Republicans there's actually a GOP House delegation in Syria right now, according to ThinkProgress. And in March a senior State Department official held talks in Damascus about flow of Iraqi refugees.
So which member of the White House press corps or which cable network host has directly asked an administration official why they're only concerned when prominent Democrats visit Damascus and not Republicans. Wolf Blitzer, whatever hack they've got on the air at the moment on Fox, MSNBC? Whichever. Someone let me know when someone puts a question like this directly to an administration official.
And war-funding:
I'm not sure why no one brings this up. The president keeps saying that the Democrats are substituting their judgment for that of the generals on the ground. But this is an easily rebutted statement. The entire story here is that the president substituted his judgement for that of the generals on the ground. Remember, they didn't think the surge was a good idea. So what happened? He fired them. That's why Gen. Petraeus is there. The president looked around until he could find a general willing to agree with him. And when he did he put him in charge. This isn't about the 'generals on the ground'. It's about President Bush, whose judgment has been catastrophically abysmal from the start. Who can deny that?
And while we're at it, can someone explain to me why CNN's Suzanne Malveaux played suck up to former unconfirmed and unconfirmable, Ambassador-stand-in, John Bolton, about Pelosi's trip to Syria?
MALVEAUX: Tough questions today about Middle East flash points and risky diplomacy. We are joined by the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton -- thank you so much for being with us today. Of course, the first question: you've worked for the president, you've put in a lot in foreign policy here, what we're seeing is Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she is going to Syria to deliver a message from Israel, to open up negotiations. Has the president lost control of his foreign policy?
BOLTON: I don't think he's lost control, but this is a very confusing thing to do, and I think it's naive at best and possibly quite counterproductive. I'm at a loss to understand why Speaker Pelosi wants to do something like this.
MALVEAUX: Well, the White House has said, and it has asked her, essentially, that, look, this is not helpful, in terms of our stand. I know the Iraq Study Group says talk to Syria, talk to Iran. They say don't do this. How would you approach her if you were still in the administration and in your ambassadorial -- kind of in your position?
BOLTON: Well, I don't think it's productive for her to go to Syria at all, but to pretend to be an envoy for -- not just for the United States, but for Israel, has to be sending, at best, very confusing signals to the dictator in Damascus, so I would simply hope that people would understand that, under the Constitution, the president conducts foreign policy, not the speaker of the House.
MALVEAUX: But what's strange here is that the prime minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, I mean, he knows where to go if he wants to have talks, negotiations, go to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Instead, he goes to Nancy Pelosi here. I mean, what does that say?
BOLTON: Well, I hope that isn't exactly what he's done, and if he has, then I think we need to talk to him, too. This is not the time for people to misunderstand who speaks for the United States, particularly in the Middle East. So, I think there are a lot of mistakes being made here and, hopefully, we'll have this visit get passed without more mistakes being committed.
MALVEAUX: It's hard to believe, because the prime minister really is -- he is very close to the Bush administration. They like the president here. Do you think that we are seeing maybe some back-channel talks that are going on, that perhaps there's a tacit approval from the White House, "OK, let this happen"? I can't imagine that he would allow this to go forward, perhaps without a wink and a nod from the administration.
BOLTON: If this is a back channel, it's a pretty public back channel, so my guess is there's confusion and, hopefully, once the trip is over, we can get it straightened out, because, if it's not straightened out, it can only be counterproductive.
MALVEAUX: Do you think that this also perhaps portends to something that might happen in the future? I'm being somewhat flip, but you know, Syria today, Iran tomorrow. I mean, where does it end?
BOLTON: I think that's part of the problem. I think, when you have members of the House and Senate, who are out essentially freelancing, it gets competitive. You know, the governor of New Mexico is now about to go to North Korea to conduct some diplomacy, so I think this is a mistake. I think people ought to let the debate in this country take place and let the president conduct our diplomacy overseas.
First, Bolton's just a punk and a hack. Why have this nucklehead on your show, particularly when you're just going to feed him lines? And how about noting that an armored humvee full of GOP congresspeople were over there, too. How difficult is that?
No Bill Would Be Just Fine
So today the President is warning Congress that the failure to send him a "clean" war supplement bill would delay funding to the troops. Even though Congress has passed, in two different forms from each chamber, legislation to add another $100 billion or so to the U.S. military's occupation of Iraq, the fact that each bill includes language setting non-binding and unenforceable dates of military withdrawal has got the Unitary Executive up in arms and threatening a veto.
But as anti-war Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich has argued, and as even supporters of the Omnipotent Presidency, such as John Yoo, have affirmed, Congress has two tools at its disposal for dealing with the war-turned-occupation. One of those tools is its "power of the purse". So, Congress need not send the president a war supplement bill at all. The President, and his war-mongering supporters are dependent on a Democratic Congress to continue and expand funding for their empire-overreaching dreams.
If it's true, as Atrios or TPM, remarked the other day, that the public's support for Democrats last fall had to do with the party's conversion to taking up the serious issue of the day, that being Iraq, than the clearest signal Democrats could send the public about the party's position on the occupation of Iraq, and towards American empire more broadly, would be to unequivocally pull the plug on the siphon of cash.
The potential downside I see to this isn't over the matter of "supporting the troops". The problem will be if shutting off the war-cash spicket has negative economic repercussions across the country--that is, the U.S. country--as money drains away from the nation's most prolific employer of last resort; the U.S. military and the multitude of contractors attached to it. That is to say, the ongoing occupation isn't just a political issue, confined to matters of "terrorism" or "stability" in the Middle East, as much as it is about funding military pork around the country and continuing to prop up the Military Industrial Complex, whose existence and grotesque size belies the lack of comparable military threats opposing it.
But as anti-war Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich has argued, and as even supporters of the Omnipotent Presidency, such as John Yoo, have affirmed, Congress has two tools at its disposal for dealing with the war-turned-occupation. One of those tools is its "power of the purse". So, Congress need not send the president a war supplement bill at all. The President, and his war-mongering supporters are dependent on a Democratic Congress to continue and expand funding for their empire-overreaching dreams.
If it's true, as Atrios or TPM, remarked the other day, that the public's support for Democrats last fall had to do with the party's conversion to taking up the serious issue of the day, that being Iraq, than the clearest signal Democrats could send the public about the party's position on the occupation of Iraq, and towards American empire more broadly, would be to unequivocally pull the plug on the siphon of cash.
The potential downside I see to this isn't over the matter of "supporting the troops". The problem will be if shutting off the war-cash spicket has negative economic repercussions across the country--that is, the U.S. country--as money drains away from the nation's most prolific employer of last resort; the U.S. military and the multitude of contractors attached to it. That is to say, the ongoing occupation isn't just a political issue, confined to matters of "terrorism" or "stability" in the Middle East, as much as it is about funding military pork around the country and continuing to prop up the Military Industrial Complex, whose existence and grotesque size belies the lack of comparable military threats opposing it.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Changing the Tone in Washington
George W. Bush, June 2000:
....The jab came a day after Bush complained about a lack of civility in Washington with comments that were especially critical of the administration.
Speaking to Republican activists at a fund-raiser Thursday, the GOP presidential contender said: ''There's no bigger issue than to restore confidence in Washington, D.C. There's no bigger issue than rejecting this type of politics where people are willing to tear down as opposed to build up. The politics of war rooms and focus groups and enemy lists - we've got to get rid of that kind of politics if we're to have a hopeful 21st century.''
Hours earlier in Tennessee, Bush singled out Gore, his Democratic opponent.
Pointing to language that has led Gore to adopt a less aggressive campaign style, the Texas governor told an audience in Gore's home state: ''Proposals he disapproves of are never just arguable; they're 'risky schemes.' This kind of unnecessary rhetoric is characteristic of the tone in Washington, D.C. It's the war room mentality.''
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TPM:
There has been an assumption that Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's liaison to the White House, is pleading the Fifth simply because of her role in preparing false testimony to Congress. That is, at least, the impression given by her lawyer's letter to the investigating committees.
But this profile in Legal Times shows that Goodling is far from just a mid-level aide who played a peripheral role in the purge. On the contrary, she's very well-connected and apparently one of the main drivers behind the process of selecting U.S. attorneys.
Just look at how Legal Times describes Goodling's role in the interviews to select U.S.A. replacements:
Interviews for U.S. Attorney replacements took place with only a handful of people: David Margolis, the department's top-ranking career official and a 40-plus year veteran; a member of the White House Counsel's Office; the head of the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys; and Goodling.
Charles Miller, whom Gonzales appointed as interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia, interviewed with the panel in the fall of 2005. "They asked me what I'd done to support the president," Miller says. It wasn't a question Miller expected. He told them he'd voted for Bush.
But a former prosecutor who did not get a U.S. Attorney post was left with a sour feeling after his interview in 2006. "Monica was in charge, in essence, of the interview," recalls the former supervisory assistant U.S. Attorney. "I walked out of that room and thought, 'Wow, I've just run into a buzz saw.'"
It can't be surprising, then, that Goodling got her start in national politics in 1999 by working in the Republican National Committee's war room for political opposition research. There, she was working directly underneath Tim Griffin, then the deputy research director of the RNC who bragged that his shop made the bullets in the war against Democrats -- and later the administration's pick to be the U.S. attorney for eastern Arkansas. Goodling, of course, played a key role in helping install her old boss in the spot last year.
--------------------
Andrew Sullivan:
So Cheney goes to Australia and meets with John Howard who tells him that the Hicks case is killing him in Australia, and he may lose the next election because of it. Hicks's case is then railroaded to the front of the Gitmo kangaro court line, and put through a "legal" process almost ludicrously inept, with two of Hicks' three lawyers thrown out on one day, then an abrupt plea-bargain, with a transparently insincere confession. Hicks is then given a mere nine months in jail in Australia, before being set free. Who negotiated the plea-bargain? Hicks' lawyer. Who did he negotiate with? Not the prosecutors, as would be normal, but Susan J. Crawford, the top military commission official. Who is Susan J. Crawford? She served as Dick Cheney's Inspector General while he was Defense Secretary.
Money quote:
As the deal developed in recent weeks, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, the lead prosecutor for military commissions, and his team on the Hicks case were not in the loop. Davis said he learned about the plea agreement Monday morning when the plea papers were presented to him, and he said the prosecution team was unaware that discussions had been taking place.
"We got it before lunchtime, before the first session," Davis said at a news conference Friday night. In an interview later, he said the approved sentence of nine months shocked him. "I wasn't considering anything that didn't have two digits," he said, referring to a sentence of at least 10 years.
If you think this was in any way a legitimate court process, you're smoking something even George Michael would pay a lot of money for. It was a political deal, revealing the circus that the alleged Gitmo court system really is. For good measure, Hicks has a gag-order imposed so that he will not be able to speak of his alleged torture and abuse until after Howard faces re-election. Yes, we live in a banana republic. It certainly isn't a country ruled by law. It is ruled by one man and his accomplice.
------------------------------------
Matthew Dowd (from the NYT):
AUSTIN, Tex., March 29 — In 1999, Matthew Dowd became a symbol of George W. Bush’s early success at positioning himself as a Republican with Democratic appeal.
A top strategist for the Texas Democrats who was disappointed by the Bill Clinton years, Mr. Dowd was impressed by the pledge of Mr. Bush, then governor of Texas, to bring a spirit of cooperation to Washington. He switched parties, joined Mr. Bush’s political brain trust and dedicated the next six years to getting him to the Oval Office and keeping him there. In 2004, he was appointed the president’s chief campaign strategist.
Looking back, Mr. Dowd now says his faith in Mr. Bush was misplaced.
In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s leadership.
He criticized the president as failing to call the nation to a shared sense of sacrifice at a time of war, failing to reach across the political divide to build consensus and ignoring the will of the people on Iraq. He said he believed the president had not moved aggressively enough to hold anyone accountable for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and that Mr. Bush still approached governing with a “my way or the highway” mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides.
“I really like him, which is probably why I’m so disappointed in things,” he said. He added, “I think he’s become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in.”
In speaking out, Mr. Dowd became the first member of Mr. Bush’s inner circle to break so publicly with him.
He said his decision to step forward had not come easily. But, he said, his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s presidency is so great that he feels a sense of duty to go public given his role in helping Mr. Bush gain and keep power.
Mr. Dowd, a crucial part of a team that cast Senator John Kerry as a flip-flopper who could not be trusted with national security during wartime, said he had even written but never submitted an op-ed article titled “Kerry Was Right,” arguing that Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and 2004 presidential candidate, was correct in calling last year for a withdrawal from Iraq.
“I’m a big believer that in part what we’re called to do — to me, by God; other people call it karma — is to restore balance when things didn’t turn out the way they should have,” Mr. Dowd said. “Just being quiet is not an option when I was so publicly advocating an election.”
Mr. Dowd’s journey from true believer to critic in some ways tracks the public arc of Mr. Bush’s political fortunes. But it is also an intensely personal story of a political operative who at times, by his account, suppressed his doubts about his professional role but then confronted them as he dealt with loss and sorrow in his own life.
In the last several years, as he has gradually broken his ties with the Bush camp, one of Mr. Dowd’s premature twin daughters died, he was divorced, and he watched his oldest son prepare for deployment to Iraq as an Army intelligence specialist fluent in Arabic. Mr. Dowd said he had become so disillusioned with the war that he had considered joining street demonstrations against it, but that his continued personal affection for the president had kept him from joining protests whose anti-Bush fervor is so central.
Mr. Dowd, 45, said he hoped in part that by coming forward he would be able to get a message through to a presidential inner sanctum that he views as increasingly isolated. But, he said, he holds out no great hope. He acknowledges that he has not had a conversation with the president.
---------------------
Glenn Greenwald:
Two of the three leading Republican candidates for President either embrace or are open to embracing the idea that the President can imprison Americans without any review, based solely on the unchecked decree of the President. And, of course, that is nothing new, since the current Republican President not only believes he has that power but has exercised it against U.S. citizens and legal residents in the U.S. -- including those arrested not on the "battlefield," but on American soil.
What kind of American isn't just instinctively repulsed by the notion that the President has the power to imprison Americans with no charges? And what does it say about the current state of our political culture that one of the two political parties has all but adopted as a plank in its platform a view of presidential powers and the federal government that is -- literally -- the exact opposite of what this country is?
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Paul Krugman
The Republican Party’s adherence to an outdated ideology leaves it with big problems. It can’t offer domestic policies that respond to the public’s real needs. So how can it win elections?
The answer, for a while, was a combination of distraction and disenfranchisement.
The terrorist attacks on 9/11 were themselves a massive, providential distraction; until then the public, realizing that Mr. Bush wasn’t the moderate he played in the 2000 election, was growing increasingly unhappy with his administration. And they offered many opportunities for further distractions. Rather than debating Democrats on the issues, the G.O.P. could denounce them as soft on terror. And do you remember the terror alert, based on old and questionable information, that was declared right after the 2004 Democratic National Convention?
But distraction can only go so far. So the other tool was disenfranchisement: finding ways to keep poor people, who tend to vote for the party that might actually do something about inequality, out of the voting booth.
Remember that disenfranchisement in the form of the 2000 Florida “felon purge,” which struck many legitimate voters from the rolls, put Mr. Bush in the White House in the first place. And disenfranchisement seems to be what much of the politicization of the Justice Department was about.
Several of the fired U.S. attorneys were under pressure to pursue allegations of voter fraud — a phrase that has become almost synonymous with “voting while black.” Former staff members of the Justice Department’s civil rights division say that they were repeatedly overruled when they objected to Republican actions, ranging from Georgia’s voter ID law to Tom DeLay’s Texas redistricting, that they believed would effectively disenfranchise African-American voters.
The good news is that all the G.O.P.’s abuses of power weren’t enough to win the 2006 elections. And 2008 may be even harder for the Republicans, because the Democrats — who spent most of the Clinton years trying to reassure rich people and corporations that they weren’t really populists — seem to be realizing that times have changed.
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Atrios:
Via Jonathan Schwartz. John Hockenberry recalls in a talk at MIT what it was like at NBC in the dark days of the selling of the Iraq War. As Aaron Swartz has it:
You may or may not be aware that there was a real strong full-court press to sell the media -- and I'm not pro- or against it at this particular point, but there was a process in place where individuals in the media got access to the individuals involved in the planning of the war. There were generals who came in, there were former secretaries of defense, Schwarzkopf spent a whole lot of time giving sort of off-the-record, quiet briefings. And the generals would sort of bring in a certain group of editors and reporters and I went to all of these briefings.
Swartz then paraphrases:
At one of [these briefings] , Hockenberry explains, a well-known pollster told about a briefing he gave to all the senior officials at the White House about how the polling data from the Arab world showed that America's negatives were simply off-the-charts. Everyone was quiet. Condi asked a few technical questions and then finally Karl Rove spoke up. "Well, that's just until we start throwing our weight around over there," he said.
Hockenberry was stunned and thought they should do a piece on what this revealed into the mentality of the war's planners. But NBC News didn't think this was a very good idea. America wanted the war to happen; their job was just to wait and see how it turned out. "We're not particularly interested in the story," Hockenberry explains. "We're a process that's trying to maintain people in front of the set, so in a certain sense media at that point was doing its own kind of shock-and-awe that went right along with the war's shock-and-awe [because] the business is just to grab eyeballs."
-----------------------
The Washington Post:
After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon.
To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.
O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade .
Many of those chosen by O'Beirne's office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting.
The decision to send the loyal and the willing instead of the best and the brightest is now regarded by many people involved in the 3 1/2 -year effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq as one of the Bush administration's gravest errors. Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation, which sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people, according to many people who participated in the reconstruction effort.
The CPA had the power to enact laws, print currency, collect taxes, deploy police and spend Iraq's oil revenue. It had more than 1,500 employees in Baghdad at its height, working under America's viceroy in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, but never released a public roster of its entire staff.
Interviews with scores of former CPA personnel over the past two years depict an organization that was dominated -- and ultimately hobbled -- by administration ideologues.
----------------
Just in case, you know, you forget or something.
....The jab came a day after Bush complained about a lack of civility in Washington with comments that were especially critical of the administration.
Speaking to Republican activists at a fund-raiser Thursday, the GOP presidential contender said: ''There's no bigger issue than to restore confidence in Washington, D.C. There's no bigger issue than rejecting this type of politics where people are willing to tear down as opposed to build up. The politics of war rooms and focus groups and enemy lists - we've got to get rid of that kind of politics if we're to have a hopeful 21st century.''
Hours earlier in Tennessee, Bush singled out Gore, his Democratic opponent.
Pointing to language that has led Gore to adopt a less aggressive campaign style, the Texas governor told an audience in Gore's home state: ''Proposals he disapproves of are never just arguable; they're 'risky schemes.' This kind of unnecessary rhetoric is characteristic of the tone in Washington, D.C. It's the war room mentality.''
------
TPM:
There has been an assumption that Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's liaison to the White House, is pleading the Fifth simply because of her role in preparing false testimony to Congress. That is, at least, the impression given by her lawyer's letter to the investigating committees.
But this profile in Legal Times shows that Goodling is far from just a mid-level aide who played a peripheral role in the purge. On the contrary, she's very well-connected and apparently one of the main drivers behind the process of selecting U.S. attorneys.
Just look at how Legal Times describes Goodling's role in the interviews to select U.S.A. replacements:
Interviews for U.S. Attorney replacements took place with only a handful of people: David Margolis, the department's top-ranking career official and a 40-plus year veteran; a member of the White House Counsel's Office; the head of the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys; and Goodling.
Charles Miller, whom Gonzales appointed as interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia, interviewed with the panel in the fall of 2005. "They asked me what I'd done to support the president," Miller says. It wasn't a question Miller expected. He told them he'd voted for Bush.
But a former prosecutor who did not get a U.S. Attorney post was left with a sour feeling after his interview in 2006. "Monica was in charge, in essence, of the interview," recalls the former supervisory assistant U.S. Attorney. "I walked out of that room and thought, 'Wow, I've just run into a buzz saw.'"
It can't be surprising, then, that Goodling got her start in national politics in 1999 by working in the Republican National Committee's war room for political opposition research. There, she was working directly underneath Tim Griffin, then the deputy research director of the RNC who bragged that his shop made the bullets in the war against Democrats -- and later the administration's pick to be the U.S. attorney for eastern Arkansas. Goodling, of course, played a key role in helping install her old boss in the spot last year.
--------------------
Andrew Sullivan:
So Cheney goes to Australia and meets with John Howard who tells him that the Hicks case is killing him in Australia, and he may lose the next election because of it. Hicks's case is then railroaded to the front of the Gitmo kangaro court line, and put through a "legal" process almost ludicrously inept, with two of Hicks' three lawyers thrown out on one day, then an abrupt plea-bargain, with a transparently insincere confession. Hicks is then given a mere nine months in jail in Australia, before being set free. Who negotiated the plea-bargain? Hicks' lawyer. Who did he negotiate with? Not the prosecutors, as would be normal, but Susan J. Crawford, the top military commission official. Who is Susan J. Crawford? She served as Dick Cheney's Inspector General while he was Defense Secretary.
Money quote:
As the deal developed in recent weeks, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, the lead prosecutor for military commissions, and his team on the Hicks case were not in the loop. Davis said he learned about the plea agreement Monday morning when the plea papers were presented to him, and he said the prosecution team was unaware that discussions had been taking place.
"We got it before lunchtime, before the first session," Davis said at a news conference Friday night. In an interview later, he said the approved sentence of nine months shocked him. "I wasn't considering anything that didn't have two digits," he said, referring to a sentence of at least 10 years.
If you think this was in any way a legitimate court process, you're smoking something even George Michael would pay a lot of money for. It was a political deal, revealing the circus that the alleged Gitmo court system really is. For good measure, Hicks has a gag-order imposed so that he will not be able to speak of his alleged torture and abuse until after Howard faces re-election. Yes, we live in a banana republic. It certainly isn't a country ruled by law. It is ruled by one man and his accomplice.
------------------------------------
Matthew Dowd (from the NYT):
AUSTIN, Tex., March 29 — In 1999, Matthew Dowd became a symbol of George W. Bush’s early success at positioning himself as a Republican with Democratic appeal.
A top strategist for the Texas Democrats who was disappointed by the Bill Clinton years, Mr. Dowd was impressed by the pledge of Mr. Bush, then governor of Texas, to bring a spirit of cooperation to Washington. He switched parties, joined Mr. Bush’s political brain trust and dedicated the next six years to getting him to the Oval Office and keeping him there. In 2004, he was appointed the president’s chief campaign strategist.
Looking back, Mr. Dowd now says his faith in Mr. Bush was misplaced.
In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s leadership.
He criticized the president as failing to call the nation to a shared sense of sacrifice at a time of war, failing to reach across the political divide to build consensus and ignoring the will of the people on Iraq. He said he believed the president had not moved aggressively enough to hold anyone accountable for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and that Mr. Bush still approached governing with a “my way or the highway” mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides.
“I really like him, which is probably why I’m so disappointed in things,” he said. He added, “I think he’s become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in.”
In speaking out, Mr. Dowd became the first member of Mr. Bush’s inner circle to break so publicly with him.
He said his decision to step forward had not come easily. But, he said, his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s presidency is so great that he feels a sense of duty to go public given his role in helping Mr. Bush gain and keep power.
Mr. Dowd, a crucial part of a team that cast Senator John Kerry as a flip-flopper who could not be trusted with national security during wartime, said he had even written but never submitted an op-ed article titled “Kerry Was Right,” arguing that Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and 2004 presidential candidate, was correct in calling last year for a withdrawal from Iraq.
“I’m a big believer that in part what we’re called to do — to me, by God; other people call it karma — is to restore balance when things didn’t turn out the way they should have,” Mr. Dowd said. “Just being quiet is not an option when I was so publicly advocating an election.”
Mr. Dowd’s journey from true believer to critic in some ways tracks the public arc of Mr. Bush’s political fortunes. But it is also an intensely personal story of a political operative who at times, by his account, suppressed his doubts about his professional role but then confronted them as he dealt with loss and sorrow in his own life.
In the last several years, as he has gradually broken his ties with the Bush camp, one of Mr. Dowd’s premature twin daughters died, he was divorced, and he watched his oldest son prepare for deployment to Iraq as an Army intelligence specialist fluent in Arabic. Mr. Dowd said he had become so disillusioned with the war that he had considered joining street demonstrations against it, but that his continued personal affection for the president had kept him from joining protests whose anti-Bush fervor is so central.
Mr. Dowd, 45, said he hoped in part that by coming forward he would be able to get a message through to a presidential inner sanctum that he views as increasingly isolated. But, he said, he holds out no great hope. He acknowledges that he has not had a conversation with the president.
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Glenn Greenwald:
Two of the three leading Republican candidates for President either embrace or are open to embracing the idea that the President can imprison Americans without any review, based solely on the unchecked decree of the President. And, of course, that is nothing new, since the current Republican President not only believes he has that power but has exercised it against U.S. citizens and legal residents in the U.S. -- including those arrested not on the "battlefield," but on American soil.
What kind of American isn't just instinctively repulsed by the notion that the President has the power to imprison Americans with no charges? And what does it say about the current state of our political culture that one of the two political parties has all but adopted as a plank in its platform a view of presidential powers and the federal government that is -- literally -- the exact opposite of what this country is?
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Paul Krugman
The Republican Party’s adherence to an outdated ideology leaves it with big problems. It can’t offer domestic policies that respond to the public’s real needs. So how can it win elections?
The answer, for a while, was a combination of distraction and disenfranchisement.
The terrorist attacks on 9/11 were themselves a massive, providential distraction; until then the public, realizing that Mr. Bush wasn’t the moderate he played in the 2000 election, was growing increasingly unhappy with his administration. And they offered many opportunities for further distractions. Rather than debating Democrats on the issues, the G.O.P. could denounce them as soft on terror. And do you remember the terror alert, based on old and questionable information, that was declared right after the 2004 Democratic National Convention?
But distraction can only go so far. So the other tool was disenfranchisement: finding ways to keep poor people, who tend to vote for the party that might actually do something about inequality, out of the voting booth.
Remember that disenfranchisement in the form of the 2000 Florida “felon purge,” which struck many legitimate voters from the rolls, put Mr. Bush in the White House in the first place. And disenfranchisement seems to be what much of the politicization of the Justice Department was about.
Several of the fired U.S. attorneys were under pressure to pursue allegations of voter fraud — a phrase that has become almost synonymous with “voting while black.” Former staff members of the Justice Department’s civil rights division say that they were repeatedly overruled when they objected to Republican actions, ranging from Georgia’s voter ID law to Tom DeLay’s Texas redistricting, that they believed would effectively disenfranchise African-American voters.
The good news is that all the G.O.P.’s abuses of power weren’t enough to win the 2006 elections. And 2008 may be even harder for the Republicans, because the Democrats — who spent most of the Clinton years trying to reassure rich people and corporations that they weren’t really populists — seem to be realizing that times have changed.
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Atrios:
Via Jonathan Schwartz. John Hockenberry recalls in a talk at MIT what it was like at NBC in the dark days of the selling of the Iraq War. As Aaron Swartz has it:
You may or may not be aware that there was a real strong full-court press to sell the media -- and I'm not pro- or against it at this particular point, but there was a process in place where individuals in the media got access to the individuals involved in the planning of the war. There were generals who came in, there were former secretaries of defense, Schwarzkopf spent a whole lot of time giving sort of off-the-record, quiet briefings. And the generals would sort of bring in a certain group of editors and reporters and I went to all of these briefings.
Swartz then paraphrases:
At one of [these briefings] , Hockenberry explains, a well-known pollster told about a briefing he gave to all the senior officials at the White House about how the polling data from the Arab world showed that America's negatives were simply off-the-charts. Everyone was quiet. Condi asked a few technical questions and then finally Karl Rove spoke up. "Well, that's just until we start throwing our weight around over there," he said.
Hockenberry was stunned and thought they should do a piece on what this revealed into the mentality of the war's planners. But NBC News didn't think this was a very good idea. America wanted the war to happen; their job was just to wait and see how it turned out. "We're not particularly interested in the story," Hockenberry explains. "We're a process that's trying to maintain people in front of the set, so in a certain sense media at that point was doing its own kind of shock-and-awe that went right along with the war's shock-and-awe [because] the business is just to grab eyeballs."
-----------------------
The Washington Post:
After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon.
To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.
O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade .
Many of those chosen by O'Beirne's office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting.
The decision to send the loyal and the willing instead of the best and the brightest is now regarded by many people involved in the 3 1/2 -year effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq as one of the Bush administration's gravest errors. Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation, which sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people, according to many people who participated in the reconstruction effort.
The CPA had the power to enact laws, print currency, collect taxes, deploy police and spend Iraq's oil revenue. It had more than 1,500 employees in Baghdad at its height, working under America's viceroy in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, but never released a public roster of its entire staff.
Interviews with scores of former CPA personnel over the past two years depict an organization that was dominated -- and ultimately hobbled -- by administration ideologues.
----------------
Just in case, you know, you forget or something.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Round and Round
Glenn Greenwald and others have documented the mass media's aversion to Democratic investigations of administrative misconduct and the resulting tendency for media personalities to ascribe to the masses of American people their own views; that is, inside the beltway media stars believe and openly assert, without any empirical evidence of any kind, that the American people share their own views. Perhaps the media elite believe this because they assume their ruminations are witnessed and uncritically consumed by their audience.
Another feature of today's media is the practice of government stenography, whereby reporters and other news personalities faithfully transcribe information from their trusted government sources and then just as faithfully and uncritically, pass that government information, virtually verbatim, down to us, via newspaper article, editorial pages, or cable teevee screens. The most recent example of this was the capture/kidnapping by Iran of British agents/navy sailors in Iranian waters.
One particular manifestation of media stenography has been the practice of recycling administrative claims from Iraq every few months or so without the media seemingly aware of its own amnesia. Steve at No More Mister Nice Blog has noted two examples of this in just the last few weeks.
The first example concerns reports that Iraqi citizens and perhaps captured insurgents are providing our occupying force with valuable "tips" on insurgent activities and that these tips are increasing. Consider, if you would, this timeline. In the case of "tips" the timeline starts with an October 2003 byline and is most recently regurgitated just over two weeks ago.
A second example concerns reports that Iraqi opposition, whether of the Al Qaeda in Iraq, Sunni Baathist insurgents, or insider Shiite militias in some cases, is fragmenting. Again, consider this timeline.
And of course we've seen this kind of thing with various killings/capturings of Al Qaeda in Iraq's mythical "number two" and other like-minded "turning the corner" events.
So, while the media continues to carry the administration's water in the case of allegations of wrongdoing and investigations by Congress, it likewise has enabled the administration's campaign of misinformation by uncritically recycling old claims that promise a corner or corners are NOW being turned in Iraq because one or many of the obstacles to "victory" have been or are being overcome.
Another feature of today's media is the practice of government stenography, whereby reporters and other news personalities faithfully transcribe information from their trusted government sources and then just as faithfully and uncritically, pass that government information, virtually verbatim, down to us, via newspaper article, editorial pages, or cable teevee screens. The most recent example of this was the capture/kidnapping by Iran of British agents/navy sailors in Iranian waters.
One particular manifestation of media stenography has been the practice of recycling administrative claims from Iraq every few months or so without the media seemingly aware of its own amnesia. Steve at No More Mister Nice Blog has noted two examples of this in just the last few weeks.
The first example concerns reports that Iraqi citizens and perhaps captured insurgents are providing our occupying force with valuable "tips" on insurgent activities and that these tips are increasing. Consider, if you would, this timeline. In the case of "tips" the timeline starts with an October 2003 byline and is most recently regurgitated just over two weeks ago.
A second example concerns reports that Iraqi opposition, whether of the Al Qaeda in Iraq, Sunni Baathist insurgents, or insider Shiite militias in some cases, is fragmenting. Again, consider this timeline.
And of course we've seen this kind of thing with various killings/capturings of Al Qaeda in Iraq's mythical "number two" and other like-minded "turning the corner" events.
So, while the media continues to carry the administration's water in the case of allegations of wrongdoing and investigations by Congress, it likewise has enabled the administration's campaign of misinformation by uncritically recycling old claims that promise a corner or corners are NOW being turned in Iraq because one or many of the obstacles to "victory" have been or are being overcome.
What Not To Watch
The Sunday Bobblehead shows, Imus on MSNBC, and the other claims to "news" on cable teevee and in the Wash Post. But then again, you already knew that.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Why Obama? The Audacious Endorsement (Part II)
Because the combination of his race, background, age and charisma make him the candidate best able to both do the job and shatter the existing order.
I believe his age and charisma are the qualities he brings to doing the job of president. Age, because the job of president is no longer for the old and weary. The president, particularly in a combative environment of hostile media, establishment and cultural warriors requires a large degree of stamina and fortitude. Obama strikes me as the best suited among the contenders to perform this role.
With regards to charisma, for much of the same issues relating to age, the ability of a president to project and explain himself in the media world is a much under-appreciated gift, again especially given the small "c" and large "C" conservative dimensions of the establishment and various centers of power throughout the business and religious world that will seek to undermine any change of direction by a Democratic president.
His race and background help to shatter traditional notions of what a president should look like and where he should come from, professionally and experientially. As the Rogue Progressive notes:
Obama is a member of an older generation who can reach out to younger generations in an authentic way that no one else can. He can break his own generation's tenure-based approach to politics, work and life by not being a presidential apprentice for eight more years. This will move us toward a 21st century way of politics, where politicians will rise and sink quicker because the world moves faster and they will be scrutinized for their performance rather than their resume-building skills.
I'd also add that this is an age where large-scale policy reforms and major legislative battles and achievements will be few and far between. Although there are outstanding concerns, domestically, in regard to inner-city poverty, the criminal justice system, and unequal health care and educational resources, the big ticket items in the liberal planning book have mostly been put in place. The job of the new presidency will be more rhetorical and nuanced, raising awareness of new challenges, inequities and injustices, both here and abroad. But Americans of all stripes will continue to be stymied in their dreams of a new American order as international problems continue to impose themselves on the American government's agenda. In particular, the challenges for the 21st century presidency will be those most hinged to the global economy and struggle for natural resources. The next president will not only have to navigate the already conflict-fused, class and culturally divided world of richer North and poorer South in matters of trade and other economic concerns, they will also have to somehow help bring to a conclusion and begin to reverse the collossal messes created in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world by the corrosively beligerent and militaristic neo-con cabal.
In short, the new presidency of the 21st century will have to be even more visionary than in previous eras, even while its ability to orchestrate wholesale changes diminishes. We've seen six years of one vision. Obama is the candidate best equipped to create another one.
I believe his age and charisma are the qualities he brings to doing the job of president. Age, because the job of president is no longer for the old and weary. The president, particularly in a combative environment of hostile media, establishment and cultural warriors requires a large degree of stamina and fortitude. Obama strikes me as the best suited among the contenders to perform this role.
With regards to charisma, for much of the same issues relating to age, the ability of a president to project and explain himself in the media world is a much under-appreciated gift, again especially given the small "c" and large "C" conservative dimensions of the establishment and various centers of power throughout the business and religious world that will seek to undermine any change of direction by a Democratic president.
His race and background help to shatter traditional notions of what a president should look like and where he should come from, professionally and experientially. As the Rogue Progressive notes:
Obama is a member of an older generation who can reach out to younger generations in an authentic way that no one else can. He can break his own generation's tenure-based approach to politics, work and life by not being a presidential apprentice for eight more years. This will move us toward a 21st century way of politics, where politicians will rise and sink quicker because the world moves faster and they will be scrutinized for their performance rather than their resume-building skills.
I'd also add that this is an age where large-scale policy reforms and major legislative battles and achievements will be few and far between. Although there are outstanding concerns, domestically, in regard to inner-city poverty, the criminal justice system, and unequal health care and educational resources, the big ticket items in the liberal planning book have mostly been put in place. The job of the new presidency will be more rhetorical and nuanced, raising awareness of new challenges, inequities and injustices, both here and abroad. But Americans of all stripes will continue to be stymied in their dreams of a new American order as international problems continue to impose themselves on the American government's agenda. In particular, the challenges for the 21st century presidency will be those most hinged to the global economy and struggle for natural resources. The next president will not only have to navigate the already conflict-fused, class and culturally divided world of richer North and poorer South in matters of trade and other economic concerns, they will also have to somehow help bring to a conclusion and begin to reverse the collossal messes created in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world by the corrosively beligerent and militaristic neo-con cabal.
In short, the new presidency of the 21st century will have to be even more visionary than in previous eras, even while its ability to orchestrate wholesale changes diminishes. We've seen six years of one vision. Obama is the candidate best equipped to create another one.
In Contempt
In typical Washington-elite fashion, David Ignatius dismisses prosecutor-gate since everyone knows "U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president, and he can fire whomever he wants". But his GOP-talking points on this issue weren't enough to prevent Ignatius from noticing something else about the matter:
The Bush political operatives have become the people the Republicans once warned the country against -- a club of insiders who seem to think that they're better than other folks. They are so contemptuous of government and the public servants who populate it that they have been unable to govern effectively. They are a smug, inward-looking elite that thinks it knows who the good guys are by the political labels they wear.
(snip)
After Katrina, it became clear that the public wanted a change. Americans want to be confident that those in charge of the country's business are members of what I call "the party of competence," whatever their political affiliation. The anguish of Iraq deepened that message, and the 2006 congressional elections codified it. But the Bush administration didn't get it. The purge at Justice came after the November election blowout. They acted as if they were still on a roll.
True to hypocritical form, believing the rules and rhetoric they spout to manipulate others shouldn't be or won't be measured against their own performance, Republican Washington is the mirror image of that which it campaigned against, and which existed only within the fever swamps of its own mind.
The Bush political operatives have become the people the Republicans once warned the country against -- a club of insiders who seem to think that they're better than other folks. They are so contemptuous of government and the public servants who populate it that they have been unable to govern effectively. They are a smug, inward-looking elite that thinks it knows who the good guys are by the political labels they wear.
(snip)
After Katrina, it became clear that the public wanted a change. Americans want to be confident that those in charge of the country's business are members of what I call "the party of competence," whatever their political affiliation. The anguish of Iraq deepened that message, and the 2006 congressional elections codified it. But the Bush administration didn't get it. The purge at Justice came after the November election blowout. They acted as if they were still on a roll.
True to hypocritical form, believing the rules and rhetoric they spout to manipulate others shouldn't be or won't be measured against their own performance, Republican Washington is the mirror image of that which it campaigned against, and which existed only within the fever swamps of its own mind.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Follow the Oil
The Bush Administration may not have a rubber stamp U.S. Congress anymore but that doesn't mean it and its corporate sponsors are lacking for things to do or political bodies to command. Consider Iraq, for instance. Yes, the country and its U.S. military occupiers are mired in a civil war, but amidst all the chaos, there is a government of sorts in Baghdad. And what sort of matters might that body be concerned with?
Iraq’s oil reserves — thought to be the second largest in the world — have always been high on the corporate wish list. In 1998, Kenneth Derr, then chief executive of Chevron, told a San Francisco audience, “Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas — reserves I’d love Chevron to have access to.”
A new oil law set to go before the Iraqi Parliament this month would, if passed, go a long way toward helping the oil companies achieve their goal. The Iraq hydrocarbon law would take the majority of Iraq’s oil out of the exclusive hands of the Iraqi government and open it to international oil companies for a generation or more.
In March 2001, the National Energy Policy Development Group (better known as Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force), which included executives of America’s largest energy companies, recommended that the United States government support initiatives by Middle Eastern countries “to open up areas of their energy sectors to foreign investment.” One invasion and a great deal of political engineering by the Bush administration later, this is exactly what the proposed Iraq oil law would achieve. It does so to the benefit of the companies, but to the great detriment of Iraq’s economy, democracy and sovereignty.
Since the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration has been aggressive in shepherding the oil law toward passage. It is one of the president’s benchmarks for the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a fact that Mr. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Gen. William Casey, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and other administration officials are publicly emphasizing with increasing urgency.
The administration has highlighted the law’s revenue sharing plan, under which the central government would distribute oil revenues throughout the nation on a per capita basis. But the benefits of this excellent proposal are radically undercut by the law’s many other provisions — these allow much (if not most) of Iraq’s oil revenues to flow out of the country and into the pockets of international oil companies.
The law would transform Iraq’s oil industry from a nationalized model closed to American oil companies except for limited (although highly lucrative) marketing contracts, into a commercial industry, all-but-privatized, that is fully open to all international oil companies.
The Iraq National Oil Company would have exclusive control of just 17 of Iraq’s 80 known oil fields, leaving two-thirds of known — and all of its as yet undiscovered — fields open to foreign control.
The foreign companies would not have to invest their earnings in the Iraqi economy, partner with Iraqi companies, hire Iraqi workers or share new technologies. They could even ride out Iraq’s current “instability” by signing contracts now, while the Iraqi government is at its weakest, and then wait at least two years before even setting foot in the country. The vast majority of Iraq’s oil would then be left underground for at least two years rather than being used for the country’s economic development.
The international oil companies could also be offered some of the most corporate-friendly contracts in the world, including what are called production sharing agreements. These agreements are the oil industry’s preferred model, but are roundly rejected by all the top oil producing countries in the Middle East because they grant long-term contracts (20 to 35 years in the case of Iraq’s draft law) and greater control, ownership and profits to the companies than other models. In fact, they are used for only approximately 12 percent of the world’s oil.
Iraq’s neighbors Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia maintain nationalized oil systems and have outlawed foreign control over oil development. They all hire international oil companies as contractors to provide specific services as needed, for a limited duration, and without giving the foreign company any direct interest in the oil produced.
Iraq’s oil reserves — thought to be the second largest in the world — have always been high on the corporate wish list. In 1998, Kenneth Derr, then chief executive of Chevron, told a San Francisco audience, “Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas — reserves I’d love Chevron to have access to.”
A new oil law set to go before the Iraqi Parliament this month would, if passed, go a long way toward helping the oil companies achieve their goal. The Iraq hydrocarbon law would take the majority of Iraq’s oil out of the exclusive hands of the Iraqi government and open it to international oil companies for a generation or more.
In March 2001, the National Energy Policy Development Group (better known as Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force), which included executives of America’s largest energy companies, recommended that the United States government support initiatives by Middle Eastern countries “to open up areas of their energy sectors to foreign investment.” One invasion and a great deal of political engineering by the Bush administration later, this is exactly what the proposed Iraq oil law would achieve. It does so to the benefit of the companies, but to the great detriment of Iraq’s economy, democracy and sovereignty.
Since the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration has been aggressive in shepherding the oil law toward passage. It is one of the president’s benchmarks for the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a fact that Mr. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Gen. William Casey, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and other administration officials are publicly emphasizing with increasing urgency.
The administration has highlighted the law’s revenue sharing plan, under which the central government would distribute oil revenues throughout the nation on a per capita basis. But the benefits of this excellent proposal are radically undercut by the law’s many other provisions — these allow much (if not most) of Iraq’s oil revenues to flow out of the country and into the pockets of international oil companies.
The law would transform Iraq’s oil industry from a nationalized model closed to American oil companies except for limited (although highly lucrative) marketing contracts, into a commercial industry, all-but-privatized, that is fully open to all international oil companies.
The Iraq National Oil Company would have exclusive control of just 17 of Iraq’s 80 known oil fields, leaving two-thirds of known — and all of its as yet undiscovered — fields open to foreign control.
The foreign companies would not have to invest their earnings in the Iraqi economy, partner with Iraqi companies, hire Iraqi workers or share new technologies. They could even ride out Iraq’s current “instability” by signing contracts now, while the Iraqi government is at its weakest, and then wait at least two years before even setting foot in the country. The vast majority of Iraq’s oil would then be left underground for at least two years rather than being used for the country’s economic development.
The international oil companies could also be offered some of the most corporate-friendly contracts in the world, including what are called production sharing agreements. These agreements are the oil industry’s preferred model, but are roundly rejected by all the top oil producing countries in the Middle East because they grant long-term contracts (20 to 35 years in the case of Iraq’s draft law) and greater control, ownership and profits to the companies than other models. In fact, they are used for only approximately 12 percent of the world’s oil.
Iraq’s neighbors Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia maintain nationalized oil systems and have outlawed foreign control over oil development. They all hire international oil companies as contractors to provide specific services as needed, for a limited duration, and without giving the foreign company any direct interest in the oil produced.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
An Audacious Endorsement (Part One)
A cynicism resulting from the disappointments of elections--and governments--past has made me hesitent about jumping on the bandwagon of any 2008 Democratic candidate too soon. Nevertheless, it hasn't taken long in this only recently initiated pre-primary season to assess the field and arrive at a point of clarity regarding the party's best candidate.
But before coming out of the not so hidden closet to reveal this candidate's identity, it's worth retreating a few steps to consider what exactly it is that Democratic voters should be looking for when choosing their next nominee and the country's next president.
1. Administrative Skill. At the top of the list, undoubtedly, is having someone who's unmistakeably up for the job; someone who can respond well to a crisis, can make good decisions, and can with some degree of expertise, survey the minutia of political drama and be able to ascertain and consistently maintain a vision of things and the country.
2. Political Values. Next to this, at least for us hyper-partisans, is someone who brings the right values to the position. For progressive/liberal Democrats, the ideals that come to mind are those relating to the preservation of fundamental civil liberties (freedom of speech, freedom of and from religion, freedom of association, and the freedom of and need for an independent press); protecting the individual from the coercision and abuses of centralized power (church, business, and the state itself) through the enforcement of civil rights, consumer and worker safety, and labor (right to unionize) laws; and helping to ensure that the opportunities, benefits and prosperity of a free society are made available to all those who share with us the gift of humanity, and who by their support and contribution to that society, are entitled to its benefits--in other words, recognizing not just the visible movers and shakers, the privileged of our society, but all those who through their business consumption and civic association, participate in the affairs of the nation (which is all of us).
3. Communication Skills. Another attribute democrats and Democrats should look for in choosing their executive leadership is someone who can navigate the minefields of political opposition, particularly those with deep pockets or those having media and information control (and the likelihood that these political sources of power are frequently one and the same and bound up within single institutions). Can the candidate and presidential hopeful speak above the noise machine, and appeal directly to the mass public?
4. Paradigm Changing Aptitude. Finally, of especial importance for progressives, can the candidate fundamentally alter the country's political dynamics? Is, or can, he or she be a paradigm-buster?
5. Character. Is the candidate trustworthy, capable of exercising reason, and possessing of reasonably impeccable moral credentials?
With these qualifications and considerations in mind, it is clear to me that the best choice Democrats have is Barack Obama. The first term Illinois Senator of mixed racial heritage is not only the best choice this year, he may be the best choice Democrats have had in a generation, and maybe the most audacious candidate the party will have put forward ever.
In Part Two of this Audacious Endorsement, I will attempt to outline the reasons I believe this to be so.
But before coming out of the not so hidden closet to reveal this candidate's identity, it's worth retreating a few steps to consider what exactly it is that Democratic voters should be looking for when choosing their next nominee and the country's next president.
1. Administrative Skill. At the top of the list, undoubtedly, is having someone who's unmistakeably up for the job; someone who can respond well to a crisis, can make good decisions, and can with some degree of expertise, survey the minutia of political drama and be able to ascertain and consistently maintain a vision of things and the country.
2. Political Values. Next to this, at least for us hyper-partisans, is someone who brings the right values to the position. For progressive/liberal Democrats, the ideals that come to mind are those relating to the preservation of fundamental civil liberties (freedom of speech, freedom of and from religion, freedom of association, and the freedom of and need for an independent press); protecting the individual from the coercision and abuses of centralized power (church, business, and the state itself) through the enforcement of civil rights, consumer and worker safety, and labor (right to unionize) laws; and helping to ensure that the opportunities, benefits and prosperity of a free society are made available to all those who share with us the gift of humanity, and who by their support and contribution to that society, are entitled to its benefits--in other words, recognizing not just the visible movers and shakers, the privileged of our society, but all those who through their business consumption and civic association, participate in the affairs of the nation (which is all of us).
3. Communication Skills. Another attribute democrats and Democrats should look for in choosing their executive leadership is someone who can navigate the minefields of political opposition, particularly those with deep pockets or those having media and information control (and the likelihood that these political sources of power are frequently one and the same and bound up within single institutions). Can the candidate and presidential hopeful speak above the noise machine, and appeal directly to the mass public?
4. Paradigm Changing Aptitude. Finally, of especial importance for progressives, can the candidate fundamentally alter the country's political dynamics? Is, or can, he or she be a paradigm-buster?
5. Character. Is the candidate trustworthy, capable of exercising reason, and possessing of reasonably impeccable moral credentials?
With these qualifications and considerations in mind, it is clear to me that the best choice Democrats have is Barack Obama. The first term Illinois Senator of mixed racial heritage is not only the best choice this year, he may be the best choice Democrats have had in a generation, and maybe the most audacious candidate the party will have put forward ever.
In Part Two of this Audacious Endorsement, I will attempt to outline the reasons I believe this to be so.
Friday, March 09, 2007
What We've Been Missing
The Shrill One:
For those of us living in the Garden State, the growing scandal over the firing of federal prosecutors immediately brought to mind the subpoenas that Chris Christie, the former Bush “Pioneer” who is now the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, issued two months before the 2006 election — and the way news of the subpoenas was quickly leaked to local news media.
The subpoenas were issued in connection with allegations of corruption on the part of Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat who seemed to be facing a close race at the time. Those allegations appeared, on their face, to be convoluted and unconvincing, and Mr. Menendez claimed that both the investigation and the leaks were politically motivated.
Mr. Christie’s actions might have been all aboveboard. But given what we’ve learned about the pressure placed on federal prosecutors to pursue dubious investigations of Democrats, Mr. Menendez’s claims of persecution now seem quite plausible.
In fact, it’s becoming clear that the politicization of the Justice Department was a key component of the Bush administration’s attempt to create a permanent Republican lock on power. Bear in mind that if Mr. Menendez had lost, the G.O.P. would still control the Senate.
For now, the nation’s focus is on the eight federal prosecutors fired by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. In January, Mr. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee, under oath, that he “would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney for political reasons.” But it’s already clear that he did indeed dismiss all eight prosecutors for political reasons — some because they wouldn’t use their offices to provide electoral help to the G.O.P., and the others probably because they refused to soft-pedal investigations of corrupt Republicans.
In the last few days we’ve also learned that Republican members of Congress called prosecutors to pressure them on politically charged cases, even though doing so seems unethical and possibly illegal.
The bigger scandal, however, almost surely involves prosecutors still in office. The Gonzales Eight were fired because they wouldn’t go along with the Bush administration’s politicization of justice. But statistical evidence suggests that many other prosecutors decided to protect their jobs or further their careers by doing what the administration wanted them to do: harass Democrats while turning a blind eye to Republican malfeasance.
Donald Shields and John Cragan, two professors of communication, have compiled a database of investigations and/or indictments of candidates and elected officials by U.S. attorneys since the Bush administration came to power. Of the 375 cases they identified, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans, and 298 involved Democrats. The main source of this partisan tilt was a huge disparity in investigations of local politicians, in which Democrats were seven times as likely as Republicans to face Justice Department scrutiny.
How can this have been happening without a national uproar? The authors explain: “We believe that this tremendous disparity is politically motivated and it occurs because the local (non-statewide and non-Congressional) investigations occur under the radar of a diligent national press. Each instance is treated by a local beat reporter as an isolated case that is only of local interest.”
And let’s not forget that Karl Rove’s candidates have a history of benefiting from conveniently timed federal investigations. Last year Molly Ivins reminded her readers of a curious pattern during Mr. Rove’s time in Texas: “In election years, there always seemed to be an F.B.I. investigation of some sitting Democrat either announced or leaked to the press. After the election was over, the allegations often vanished.”
Fortunately, Mr. Rove’s smear-and-fear tactics fell short last November. I say fortunately, because without Democrats in control of Congress, able to hold hearings and issue subpoenas, the prosecutor purge would probably have become yet another suppressed Bush-era scandal — a huge abuse of power that somehow never became front-page news.
Before the midterm election, I wrote that what the election was really about could be summed up in two words: subpoena power. Well, the Democrats now have that power, and the hearings on the prosecutor purge look like the shape of things to come.
In the months ahead, we’ll hear a lot about what’s really been going on these past six years. And I predict that we’ll learn about abuses of power that would have made Richard Nixon green with envy.
Of course, all of this investigatin' is terribly, hyperpartisan:
Meantime, the House, after a fast start rushing through noncontroversial items, has slowed to a crawl, filling time with investigations.
So, Wiseman David Broder says "investigations" are about "filling time". In other words, investigations are very UnSerious.
TPM:
What USAgate tells us? Without congressional oversight, bad acts never see the light of day.
For those of us living in the Garden State, the growing scandal over the firing of federal prosecutors immediately brought to mind the subpoenas that Chris Christie, the former Bush “Pioneer” who is now the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, issued two months before the 2006 election — and the way news of the subpoenas was quickly leaked to local news media.
The subpoenas were issued in connection with allegations of corruption on the part of Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat who seemed to be facing a close race at the time. Those allegations appeared, on their face, to be convoluted and unconvincing, and Mr. Menendez claimed that both the investigation and the leaks were politically motivated.
Mr. Christie’s actions might have been all aboveboard. But given what we’ve learned about the pressure placed on federal prosecutors to pursue dubious investigations of Democrats, Mr. Menendez’s claims of persecution now seem quite plausible.
In fact, it’s becoming clear that the politicization of the Justice Department was a key component of the Bush administration’s attempt to create a permanent Republican lock on power. Bear in mind that if Mr. Menendez had lost, the G.O.P. would still control the Senate.
For now, the nation’s focus is on the eight federal prosecutors fired by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. In January, Mr. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee, under oath, that he “would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney for political reasons.” But it’s already clear that he did indeed dismiss all eight prosecutors for political reasons — some because they wouldn’t use their offices to provide electoral help to the G.O.P., and the others probably because they refused to soft-pedal investigations of corrupt Republicans.
In the last few days we’ve also learned that Republican members of Congress called prosecutors to pressure them on politically charged cases, even though doing so seems unethical and possibly illegal.
The bigger scandal, however, almost surely involves prosecutors still in office. The Gonzales Eight were fired because they wouldn’t go along with the Bush administration’s politicization of justice. But statistical evidence suggests that many other prosecutors decided to protect their jobs or further their careers by doing what the administration wanted them to do: harass Democrats while turning a blind eye to Republican malfeasance.
Donald Shields and John Cragan, two professors of communication, have compiled a database of investigations and/or indictments of candidates and elected officials by U.S. attorneys since the Bush administration came to power. Of the 375 cases they identified, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans, and 298 involved Democrats. The main source of this partisan tilt was a huge disparity in investigations of local politicians, in which Democrats were seven times as likely as Republicans to face Justice Department scrutiny.
How can this have been happening without a national uproar? The authors explain: “We believe that this tremendous disparity is politically motivated and it occurs because the local (non-statewide and non-Congressional) investigations occur under the radar of a diligent national press. Each instance is treated by a local beat reporter as an isolated case that is only of local interest.”
And let’s not forget that Karl Rove’s candidates have a history of benefiting from conveniently timed federal investigations. Last year Molly Ivins reminded her readers of a curious pattern during Mr. Rove’s time in Texas: “In election years, there always seemed to be an F.B.I. investigation of some sitting Democrat either announced or leaked to the press. After the election was over, the allegations often vanished.”
Fortunately, Mr. Rove’s smear-and-fear tactics fell short last November. I say fortunately, because without Democrats in control of Congress, able to hold hearings and issue subpoenas, the prosecutor purge would probably have become yet another suppressed Bush-era scandal — a huge abuse of power that somehow never became front-page news.
Before the midterm election, I wrote that what the election was really about could be summed up in two words: subpoena power. Well, the Democrats now have that power, and the hearings on the prosecutor purge look like the shape of things to come.
In the months ahead, we’ll hear a lot about what’s really been going on these past six years. And I predict that we’ll learn about abuses of power that would have made Richard Nixon green with envy.
Of course, all of this investigatin' is terribly, hyperpartisan:
Meantime, the House, after a fast start rushing through noncontroversial items, has slowed to a crawl, filling time with investigations.
So, Wiseman David Broder says "investigations" are about "filling time". In other words, investigations are very UnSerious.
TPM:
What USAgate tells us? Without congressional oversight, bad acts never see the light of day.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Making Lemonade out of Lemons
George Will has a new op-ed out today, basically offering an apologia for the relatively non-conservative front-runners for the presidential nomination of the nation's more conservative party.
Most of the column is what you might expect: go easy on Rudy, McCain and Romney because Reagan wasn't a conservative purist while governor of Caleefornya in the '60's; all that really matters for conservatives is the court system, which Rudy, the liberal former mayor of New York City pledges to bolster with "strict constructivists"; Although wishy washy on tax cuts in the past, the new McCain is now committed to making Bush's estate tax and other tax cuts permanent and besides, his conservative scorecard is pretty good; and blah, blah, blah.
But Will's apologia for Romney is the most striking in its blatant disinterest in political principle:
Romney, however, is criticized by many conservatives for what they consider multiple conversions of convenience -- on abortion, stem cell research, gay rights, gun control. But if Romney is now locked into positions that these conservatives like, why do they care so much about whether political calculation or moral epiphany moved him there?
Yes, indeed. Although my head's still spinning from the endless right-wing spin about the need for and essentiality of "character" in our presidents during the Clinton '90's, and from the endless right-wing spin about Kerry flip-flopping not even three short years ago in the most recent presidential election cycle, Will now says that whether Romney's conservative conversion is "political calculation" or "moral epiphany" should not bother conservative primary voters, and presumably, neither should it trouble general election voters later on.
OK. Whatever.
Fortunately, for the first in many years, Democrats have two very good candidates in the race, and several other just "good" ones, from which to choose. Who will receive the much-coveted Senator Jay Billington Bulworth endorsement? You'll have to stay tuned. But for now, rest assured the choice will be an audacious one.
Most of the column is what you might expect: go easy on Rudy, McCain and Romney because Reagan wasn't a conservative purist while governor of Caleefornya in the '60's; all that really matters for conservatives is the court system, which Rudy, the liberal former mayor of New York City pledges to bolster with "strict constructivists"; Although wishy washy on tax cuts in the past, the new McCain is now committed to making Bush's estate tax and other tax cuts permanent and besides, his conservative scorecard is pretty good; and blah, blah, blah.
But Will's apologia for Romney is the most striking in its blatant disinterest in political principle:
Romney, however, is criticized by many conservatives for what they consider multiple conversions of convenience -- on abortion, stem cell research, gay rights, gun control. But if Romney is now locked into positions that these conservatives like, why do they care so much about whether political calculation or moral epiphany moved him there?
Yes, indeed. Although my head's still spinning from the endless right-wing spin about the need for and essentiality of "character" in our presidents during the Clinton '90's, and from the endless right-wing spin about Kerry flip-flopping not even three short years ago in the most recent presidential election cycle, Will now says that whether Romney's conservative conversion is "political calculation" or "moral epiphany" should not bother conservative primary voters, and presumably, neither should it trouble general election voters later on.
OK. Whatever.
Fortunately, for the first in many years, Democrats have two very good candidates in the race, and several other just "good" ones, from which to choose. Who will receive the much-coveted Senator Jay Billington Bulworth endorsement? You'll have to stay tuned. But for now, rest assured the choice will be an audacious one.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Focus on your own family
Harold Meyerson:
Yet the very conservatives who marvel at the efficiency of our new, more mobile economy and extol the "flexibility" of our workforce decry the flexibility of the personal lives of American workers. The right-wing ideologues who have championed outsourcing, offshoring and union-busting, who have celebrated the same changes that have condemned American workers to lives of financial instability, piously lament the decline of family stability that has followed these economic changes as the night the day.
American conservatism is a house divided against itself. It applauds the radicalism of the economic changes of the past four decades -- the dismantling, say, of the American steel industry (and the job and income security that it once provided) in the cause of greater efficiency. It decries the decline of social and familial stability over that time -- the traditional, married working-class families, say, that once filled all those churches in the hills and hollows in what is now the smaller, post-working-class Pittsburgh.
Problem is, disperse a vibrant working-class community in America and you disperse the vibrant working-class family.
Which is how American conservatism became the primary author of the very social disorder that it routinely rails against, and that Republicans have the gall to run against.
Yet the very conservatives who marvel at the efficiency of our new, more mobile economy and extol the "flexibility" of our workforce decry the flexibility of the personal lives of American workers. The right-wing ideologues who have championed outsourcing, offshoring and union-busting, who have celebrated the same changes that have condemned American workers to lives of financial instability, piously lament the decline of family stability that has followed these economic changes as the night the day.
American conservatism is a house divided against itself. It applauds the radicalism of the economic changes of the past four decades -- the dismantling, say, of the American steel industry (and the job and income security that it once provided) in the cause of greater efficiency. It decries the decline of social and familial stability over that time -- the traditional, married working-class families, say, that once filled all those churches in the hills and hollows in what is now the smaller, post-working-class Pittsburgh.
Problem is, disperse a vibrant working-class community in America and you disperse the vibrant working-class family.
Which is how American conservatism became the primary author of the very social disorder that it routinely rails against, and that Republicans have the gall to run against.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
You ought to be happy, you liberal SOBs, that I am only a talk-show host. You ought to thank God that I have no avariciousness in my soul. You ought to thank God that I'm not power mad like you liberals, because if I ever ran for office, I can guarantee you, you wouldn't be in business too long. I can guarantee you you'd be arrested for sedition within six months of my taking power. I'd have you people licking lead paint, what you did to this country.
----------
Conservative Talk Show Host, Michael Savage
He may be a bit, um, unhinged, but if you'll pony up two million more signatures, he'll run for president. (h/t Atrios)
Did You Get That Memo?
Talking Points Memo has been covering the "fired prosecutors" hearing on Capitol Hill.
An enterprising commenter notes that one of the fired prosecutors apparently failed to put cover letters on his TPS reports.
Should've known. That'll get ya every time.
An enterprising commenter notes that one of the fired prosecutors apparently failed to put cover letters on his TPS reports.
Should've known. That'll get ya every time.
"Where are these other guys?"
The jurors who convicted I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby believed Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff was set up as a fall guy, a juror said Tuesday, but they had no alternative to finding him guilty in the leak of the identity of a classified CIA operative.
“I will say there was a tremendous amount of sympathy for Mr. Libby on the jury,” said the juror, Dennis Collins, a former newspaper reporter.
“It was said a number of times: ‘What are we doing with this guy here? Where’s Rove? Where are these other guys?’ ” Collins said, referring to Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, who was identified during the investigation as one of the senior officials who revealed the identity of the operative, Valerie Plame, to journalists.
-------
Where are these other guys? In the White House I think.
“I will say there was a tremendous amount of sympathy for Mr. Libby on the jury,” said the juror, Dennis Collins, a former newspaper reporter.
“It was said a number of times: ‘What are we doing with this guy here? Where’s Rove? Where are these other guys?’ ” Collins said, referring to Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, who was identified during the investigation as one of the senior officials who revealed the identity of the operative, Valerie Plame, to journalists.
-------
Where are these other guys? In the White House I think.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Lame Duck
Although Ann Coulter was warmly received, there apparently wasn't much mention of the CiC at this weekend's Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) festivities.
From the Sydney Morning Herald (h/p TPM);
There was a lot of fervour and a lot of talk of recapturing the spirit of Ronald Reagan, by consensus the greatest of US presidents. Young men and women who would have been babies during the Reagan presidency talked in small groups about America becoming great again if only conservatives would go back to basics, back to Reagan's emphasis on American strength and American greatness.
But what was most striking about this conservative jamboree was that President George Bush was hardly mentioned. The Vice-President, Dick Cheney, gave the speech at the official dinner on Friday night and, at the conference at least, Cheney remains a hero.
Not so, it seems, the President. Not only was there hardly any mention of his name, but there were no photographs of Bush on display - and everyone from Cheney to the disgraced former House majority leader Tom Delay received their photographic due.
As for the Iraq war, it was virtually ignored. Giuliani and Romney both half-heartedly said they supported the Bush troop increase and then they both quickly went on to say mistakes had been made in Iraq. That was more or less it.
Conservatives know who the villains are - Clinton and Obama and Gore and the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi - but who their heroes are is far from clear. Except that George Bush is no longer one of them.
And Tom Schaller:
I attended CPAC today to hear two of the "big three" Republican contenders (Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney) and one of the second-tier candidates who hopes to break through (Sam Brownback). I'll say more about them, especially Giuliani, later. But some quick observations about CPAC that simply need to be noted.
First, you almost never George W. Bush's name. Not among attendees, not in the speeches by candidates or others. It's as if there is no Republican president in the White House about three miles from the hotel where the conservatives who elected him are meeting. Fascinating, and revealing.
Second, it's also as if there's no war in Iraq. By my unofficial count, Giuliani mentioned Iraq just once by name -- and that in an offhand reference to a criticism of Democrats' non-binding resolutions. (A fair enough criticism, at that.) Brownback? Two references. Romney mentioned Iraq the most, taking it head-on by advocating for Bush's escalation plan. At CPAC, such Bush-and-Iraq double-mentions are as common as safeties in football.)
It's painfully obvious that conservatives are in near-total denial. There is a Republican president, and he is -- as everyone from The New Republic's Peter Beinart a few weeks ago to then-Washington Monthly's Josh Green a few years ago -- more, not less, conservative than Ronald Reagan. And there is an Iraq war going on, which has killed 4,000 Americans (counting contractors) already and will almost assuredly have a total, long-term price tag of at least $1 trillion.
Pretending these are not realities doesn't make them go away. But, boy, are the conservatives doing their level best to avoid the two big elephants in the room.
Who'd a thunk it? W and Operation Iraqi Freedom were once endless sources of pride for the conservative faithful. I wonder why that's changed. At least they still have Ann Coulter.
From the Sydney Morning Herald (h/p TPM);
There was a lot of fervour and a lot of talk of recapturing the spirit of Ronald Reagan, by consensus the greatest of US presidents. Young men and women who would have been babies during the Reagan presidency talked in small groups about America becoming great again if only conservatives would go back to basics, back to Reagan's emphasis on American strength and American greatness.
But what was most striking about this conservative jamboree was that President George Bush was hardly mentioned. The Vice-President, Dick Cheney, gave the speech at the official dinner on Friday night and, at the conference at least, Cheney remains a hero.
Not so, it seems, the President. Not only was there hardly any mention of his name, but there were no photographs of Bush on display - and everyone from Cheney to the disgraced former House majority leader Tom Delay received their photographic due.
As for the Iraq war, it was virtually ignored. Giuliani and Romney both half-heartedly said they supported the Bush troop increase and then they both quickly went on to say mistakes had been made in Iraq. That was more or less it.
Conservatives know who the villains are - Clinton and Obama and Gore and the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi - but who their heroes are is far from clear. Except that George Bush is no longer one of them.
And Tom Schaller:
I attended CPAC today to hear two of the "big three" Republican contenders (Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney) and one of the second-tier candidates who hopes to break through (Sam Brownback). I'll say more about them, especially Giuliani, later. But some quick observations about CPAC that simply need to be noted.
First, you almost never George W. Bush's name. Not among attendees, not in the speeches by candidates or others. It's as if there is no Republican president in the White House about three miles from the hotel where the conservatives who elected him are meeting. Fascinating, and revealing.
Second, it's also as if there's no war in Iraq. By my unofficial count, Giuliani mentioned Iraq just once by name -- and that in an offhand reference to a criticism of Democrats' non-binding resolutions. (A fair enough criticism, at that.) Brownback? Two references. Romney mentioned Iraq the most, taking it head-on by advocating for Bush's escalation plan. At CPAC, such Bush-and-Iraq double-mentions are as common as safeties in football.)
It's painfully obvious that conservatives are in near-total denial. There is a Republican president, and he is -- as everyone from The New Republic's Peter Beinart a few weeks ago to then-Washington Monthly's Josh Green a few years ago -- more, not less, conservative than Ronald Reagan. And there is an Iraq war going on, which has killed 4,000 Americans (counting contractors) already and will almost assuredly have a total, long-term price tag of at least $1 trillion.
Pretending these are not realities doesn't make them go away. But, boy, are the conservatives doing their level best to avoid the two big elephants in the room.
Who'd a thunk it? W and Operation Iraqi Freedom were once endless sources of pride for the conservative faithful. I wonder why that's changed. At least they still have Ann Coulter.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Lose Your Senate Seat, Get an Op-Ed Column
Michael Tomasky and David Sirota are flabbergasted that Rick Santorum, the Pittsburgh-bred, former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania who lost his fight for re-election last fall by Reagan-landslide proportions and who now lives in VA, is being handed a platform for his views by the Philadelphia Inquirer, the newspaper for a city that voted 84-16 against Santorum just four short months ago. It's about as god-awful goofy as inviting some liberal Senator from a big city to write an op-ed for a small-town, regular American newspaper.
But I don't find this surprising at all. For one thing, teh Republic Party is popular. It's the president's party after all. B, the media is liberal; hence the need for outspoken conservative voices, which we are in dire need of today when our country faces existential challenges from radical Islamicists. III, Santorum was recently selected to head up an important new program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a non-partisan, Opus Dei Catholic, neoconservative "think tank" in Washington, D.C., our nation's capital. The important new program will be known as America's Enemies. According to the Center's webpage, America's Enemies will
work to identify, study, and heighten awareness of the threats to America and the West from a growing array of anti-Western forces and states that increasingly cast a shadow over our future and that violate religious liberty around the world.
And it isn't just the Islamacistics we have to worry about either.
“It’s a stark name,” says Santorum. “But we wanted to be candid about the fact that America really does have enemies and to point out that the nature of these enemies is much more complex than what people realize. It’s not just Islamic fascism, but also Venezuela, North Korea, and, increasingly in my opinion, Russia.”
So, it's clear that without any radio stations to speak of, and no cable teevee stations from which to carry their vital message, and unfairly under-represented in the nation's capital, today's conservatives are vastly marginalized in the media and government. In this environment, it's only fitting that a defeated standard bearer be granted a podium on behalf of teh Republic Party. This is especially true when the subject is America's Enemies. The only problem I see so far is a reluctance on the part of the former Senator to direct his and his Center's energies at the full range of America's Enemies--namely American Liberals, Old Europe and other traitors among the renegade injured soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital who have been opening their yaps to the liberal media.
Maybe the former Pennsylvania Senator who only won 16% of the vote in the city of the newspaper for which he'll now be writing will be quick to link up with the Victory Caucus, another new ideological juggernaut of patriotism and chicken-hawkism that is aiming its rhetorical weapons at America's internal enemiesm, rather than its foreign enemies who after all, live really far away and speak other languages. And since he gets to stay in the city he used to work in, Washington, D.C., the nation's capital, he'll benefit from the presence of one of his former Senate colleagues, Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman, who could give him some tips about getting guest gigs at the Wall Street Journal and who might also encourage Santorum to link up with one of Joe's favorite outfits, the Committee on the Present Danger.
Anyway, with a little more thoughtful, civil consideration, I'm sure Michael Tomasky, David Sirota, and other mean liberals will welcome the former Senator to the liberal media kingdom. Even if he is from western Pennsylvania, now lives in VA, works in Washington, D.C. and will publish in a Philadelphia newspaper.
But I don't find this surprising at all. For one thing, teh Republic Party is popular. It's the president's party after all. B, the media is liberal; hence the need for outspoken conservative voices, which we are in dire need of today when our country faces existential challenges from radical Islamicists. III, Santorum was recently selected to head up an important new program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a non-partisan, Opus Dei Catholic, neoconservative "think tank" in Washington, D.C., our nation's capital. The important new program will be known as America's Enemies. According to the Center's webpage, America's Enemies will
work to identify, study, and heighten awareness of the threats to America and the West from a growing array of anti-Western forces and states that increasingly cast a shadow over our future and that violate religious liberty around the world.
And it isn't just the Islamacistics we have to worry about either.
“It’s a stark name,” says Santorum. “But we wanted to be candid about the fact that America really does have enemies and to point out that the nature of these enemies is much more complex than what people realize. It’s not just Islamic fascism, but also Venezuela, North Korea, and, increasingly in my opinion, Russia.”
So, it's clear that without any radio stations to speak of, and no cable teevee stations from which to carry their vital message, and unfairly under-represented in the nation's capital, today's conservatives are vastly marginalized in the media and government. In this environment, it's only fitting that a defeated standard bearer be granted a podium on behalf of teh Republic Party. This is especially true when the subject is America's Enemies. The only problem I see so far is a reluctance on the part of the former Senator to direct his and his Center's energies at the full range of America's Enemies--namely American Liberals, Old Europe and other traitors among the renegade injured soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital who have been opening their yaps to the liberal media.
Maybe the former Pennsylvania Senator who only won 16% of the vote in the city of the newspaper for which he'll now be writing will be quick to link up with the Victory Caucus, another new ideological juggernaut of patriotism and chicken-hawkism that is aiming its rhetorical weapons at America's internal enemiesm, rather than its foreign enemies who after all, live really far away and speak other languages. And since he gets to stay in the city he used to work in, Washington, D.C., the nation's capital, he'll benefit from the presence of one of his former Senate colleagues, Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman, who could give him some tips about getting guest gigs at the Wall Street Journal and who might also encourage Santorum to link up with one of Joe's favorite outfits, the Committee on the Present Danger.
Anyway, with a little more thoughtful, civil consideration, I'm sure Michael Tomasky, David Sirota, and other mean liberals will welcome the former Senator to the liberal media kingdom. Even if he is from western Pennsylvania, now lives in VA, works in Washington, D.C. and will publish in a Philadelphia newspaper.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
No Access For You
TPM points to this report in the Army Times that the soldiers at Walter Reed have been told by the brass to stop talking to the press regarding conditions at the hospital, the status of their medical evaluation paper work, and one presumes, anything else of substance.
But it also appears that recovering soldiers at Walter Reed won't be encountering any media anyway. The AT report says that--
The Pentagon also clamped down on media coverage of any and all Defense Department medical facilities, to include suspending planned projects by CNN and the Discovery Channel, saying in an e-mail to spokespeople: “It will be in most cases not appropriate to engage the media while this review takes place,” referring to an investigation of the problems at Walter Reed.
So, a media that hasn't been able or willing in most cases to do its job holding the government accountable, is now being super-double secret probation stifled from investigating how the military and this administration treats its injured vets.
Perfect.
But it also appears that recovering soldiers at Walter Reed won't be encountering any media anyway. The AT report says that--
The Pentagon also clamped down on media coverage of any and all Defense Department medical facilities, to include suspending planned projects by CNN and the Discovery Channel, saying in an e-mail to spokespeople: “It will be in most cases not appropriate to engage the media while this review takes place,” referring to an investigation of the problems at Walter Reed.
So, a media that hasn't been able or willing in most cases to do its job holding the government accountable, is now being super-double secret probation stifled from investigating how the military and this administration treats its injured vets.
Perfect.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Why Our News Media Sucks
Ezra Klein
Why Punditry Sucks in 96
This is nothing personal to Jonah, but why is he going on NPR today to talk about global warming? Does he actually, uh, know anything about global warming? Forget whether his opinion on it is accurate, given the universe of possible participants in a debate about climatological science, a generalist political journalist from The National Review doesn't sound like the most enlightening choice. Indeed, I shouldn't be on talking about global warming either. Not only haven't I read, but I can't even understand, most of the scientific literature on the issue. NPR's listeners deserve better.
This is, in fact, a pretty generalized problem. I was on CNBC recently talking about the President's health care proposals, and not only did the host have no clue what she was talking about, but the generic political consultant I was matched against was similarly out of his element. The difference between a standard deduction and a tax credit seemed totally misunderstood, and no one had any clue what reform plans were floating around Congress. It was embarrassing. There's no way the audience was elevated by that discussion. And yet, these shows can attract experts. And they can choose journalists, non-profiteers, and others who focus in the relevant issue area. But all too often, they just choose...anybody. Balance overwhelms expertise, media skills -- a function of being repeatedly broadcast on the media -- trump analytical ones. It's a shame.
Why Punditry Sucks in 96
This is nothing personal to Jonah, but why is he going on NPR today to talk about global warming? Does he actually, uh, know anything about global warming? Forget whether his opinion on it is accurate, given the universe of possible participants in a debate about climatological science, a generalist political journalist from The National Review doesn't sound like the most enlightening choice. Indeed, I shouldn't be on talking about global warming either. Not only haven't I read, but I can't even understand, most of the scientific literature on the issue. NPR's listeners deserve better.
This is, in fact, a pretty generalized problem. I was on CNBC recently talking about the President's health care proposals, and not only did the host have no clue what she was talking about, but the generic political consultant I was matched against was similarly out of his element. The difference between a standard deduction and a tax credit seemed totally misunderstood, and no one had any clue what reform plans were floating around Congress. It was embarrassing. There's no way the audience was elevated by that discussion. And yet, these shows can attract experts. And they can choose journalists, non-profiteers, and others who focus in the relevant issue area. But all too often, they just choose...anybody. Balance overwhelms expertise, media skills -- a function of being repeatedly broadcast on the media -- trump analytical ones. It's a shame.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Uh, we got a little problem here. Yeah (Updated)
Seems you totally fabricated that Lincoln quote. Yeah.
Glenn Greenwald: (subscription required)
Frank Gaffney, one of the country's most influential and well-connected neoconservatives, has a column in today's Washington Times in which he argues that the debate taking place in Congress over the war in Iraq constitutes treason. Gaffney specifically argues that the condemnations of Douglas Feith from Levin "really should be a hanging offense."
Gaffney begins his column by purporting to quote Abraham Lincoln. Gaffney claims that Lincoln said:
Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged.
This quote has become a favorite weapon for those who want to criminalize criticism of the Leader and the War. Jack Murtha's opponent in the last election, Diana Irey, cited this quote while discussing Murtha's opposition to the war.
But this quote is completely invented. Lincoln never said it. This "quote" was first attributed to Lincoln by J. Michael Waller in Insight Magazine, in a 2003 article revealingly entitled: Democrats Usher in an Age of Treason. But as Waller himself now admits, the quote attributed to Lincoln is completely fraudulent. Waller wrote in an e-mail to FactCheck.org (h/t William Wolfrum):
The supposed quote in question is not a quote at all, and I never intended it to be construed as one. It was my lead sentence in the article that a copy editor mistakenly turned into a quote by incorrectly inserting quotation marks.
It was Waller, in The Washington Times' Insight Magazine, urging that anti-war Congressmen be hanged -- not Abraham Lincoln. But to justify their plainly un-American assault on our most basic constitutional liberties, neoconservatives like Gaffney simply invent quotes, attribute them to Abraham Lincoln, and continue to use them long after they have been debunked.
(snip)
UPDATE III: It is notable that the Gaffney Op-Ed still remains unchanged, with no retraction or acknowledgment of error. It seems highly likely (though admittedly not definite) that The Washington Times is now aware of the fictitious nature of the Lincoln quote. Multiple readers here have indicated that they sent e-mails to the Times. I also called the Times and left a voice mail message (a couple of hours ago) for Commentary Page Editor Mary Lou Forbes, detailing the error and directing her to this post as well other sources for finding the proof that the quote is fake. And yet, the quote remains.
UPDATE IV: I spoke with Mary Lou Forbes, the Commentary Page Editor of the Times, who said that she contacted Gaffney about the e-mails she received and that he has now confirmed that the quote is fictitious. Forbes said Gaffney intends to "run a correction at the bottom of his next column."
When I pointed out that this did not really seem to be a sufficient correction, and suggested that they ought at least to append a correction to the top of the online version, she said that she had not thought of that -- pointing out that she was "an old print journalist" -- but said that perhaps it was a good idea and that they might do that.
-------
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Yeah. We'll get right on that. Yeah, our columnist lied through his keyboard and we haven't corrected it. But there's really no problem. Yeah.
--------
Update: the link to the inflammatory Gaffney "column" is now directing web surfers to an equally proposterous but older Gaffney column from February 6, but his most recent column leading with the bogus Abe Lincoln quote isn't showing up. Don't know if it has just been moved or if rather than correcting the record the paper's website has just decided to delete the stupid thing altogether.
"Weak is as weak does"
At TAPPED Tom Schaller says
One more, non-Post observation: Peter Beinart makes an interesting case that weakness (thought of in the sense of the most basic stereotypical gender norms) is, ironically, more of an asset today than it was back in 2002. Still, weakness is as weakness does. And the 2002 war vote, instead of making her look tough on defense, makes Hillary look like somebody too weak to stand up to a president and, thus, perhaps, too weak to be one. [emphasis mine-SJB)
I don't think the issue of "weakness" and the 2002 Iraq war vote was a matter of not being able to stand up to the president.
The issue was the member's voting calculation in light of media pressure and their own presidential ambitions amidst a time of fear and war-mongering. To the extent a Senate member's "yes" vote on the war was driven more by these calculations than their own independent judgment, then that member in my view demonstrated a profound "weakness" in their vote.
One more, non-Post observation: Peter Beinart makes an interesting case that weakness (thought of in the sense of the most basic stereotypical gender norms) is, ironically, more of an asset today than it was back in 2002. Still, weakness is as weakness does. And the 2002 war vote, instead of making her look tough on defense, makes Hillary look like somebody too weak to stand up to a president and, thus, perhaps, too weak to be one. [emphasis mine-SJB)
I don't think the issue of "weakness" and the 2002 Iraq war vote was a matter of not being able to stand up to the president.
The issue was the member's voting calculation in light of media pressure and their own presidential ambitions amidst a time of fear and war-mongering. To the extent a Senate member's "yes" vote on the war was driven more by these calculations than their own independent judgment, then that member in my view demonstrated a profound "weakness" in their vote.
Tim "I Hate Gay People" Hardaway: Just Shut Up
Well, maybe he doesn't really 'hate' gay people. Maybe he meant to say he 'hates' the sin but not the sinner.
Listening to his remarks on ESPN's Mike and Mike this morning I first thought the person speaking was mimicking what a person who hates gays would say; It sounded like a caricature of someone speaking, not the real comments of a sane, humane person.
Listening to his remarks on ESPN's Mike and Mike this morning I first thought the person speaking was mimicking what a person who hates gays would say; It sounded like a caricature of someone speaking, not the real comments of a sane, humane person.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Our Media Stenographers
I was milling around on the Internets last night when a headline scrolled across the top of my screen that said something like "Ant-American Cleric Flees to Iran". When I clicked on the link, the story told me that the "anti-American cleric" in question was Al-Sadr, one of the most influential Shiite leaders in Iraq.
Wow, I thought, this has to be considered good news, right? Highly interested in this development, I surfed the liberal swamp of dirty, commie hippy web-blogs for further info but no one had anything to say yet, given how recent the story appeared to be. Even Juan Cole hadn't reported or analyzed this report yet.
Then this morning I see a headline that provides a twist to last night's original account. Now the headline was saying that the U.S. military was asserting that Al-Sadr had indeed fled to Iran even though there were now some counter-reports disputing this claim.
Oh.
And then I turn to Juan Cole who had by this time gotten on the story.
And it seems that, with a little depth of investigating, things may be a little more complicated than they at first appeared:
This USG report about Muqtada broke after midnight Baghdad time, so there has not been time for the Arabic or Persian press to react. I'll know more Thursday morning.
Sadr aides denied to the LA Times that Muqtada is in Iran, saying he is in hiding in Iraq.
Some are taking exception to the word "fled."
The press record I assembled, below, does not support Muqtada's disappearance to Iran. It is possible but not likely that Muqtada would go to Iran. He and his family have endlessly made fun of the al-Hakim clerical leaders for fleeing to Iran to escape persecution by Saddam Hussein, when the al-Sadrs insisted on staying in Iraq. Muqtada's father was killed in 1999 by Saddam's agents because he stayed and gave defiant sermons. So it would be a lot of crow to eat for Muqtada to go to Iran to escape the Americans. Plus, there is nothing in the Iranian press about him showing up in Qom, and an Iranian diplomat denied the story. Without more and better evidence, this account strikes me as suspect, and I would guess that if Muqtada disappeared, it is inside Iraq.
It might be useful to construct a timeline for Muqtada's recent activities.
Read the whole thing.
Aren't you glad there are people besides the Very Serious People in our Media Elite to evaluate this kind of stuff?
Wow, I thought, this has to be considered good news, right? Highly interested in this development, I surfed the liberal swamp of dirty, commie hippy web-blogs for further info but no one had anything to say yet, given how recent the story appeared to be. Even Juan Cole hadn't reported or analyzed this report yet.
Then this morning I see a headline that provides a twist to last night's original account. Now the headline was saying that the U.S. military was asserting that Al-Sadr had indeed fled to Iran even though there were now some counter-reports disputing this claim.
Oh.
And then I turn to Juan Cole who had by this time gotten on the story.
And it seems that, with a little depth of investigating, things may be a little more complicated than they at first appeared:
This USG report about Muqtada broke after midnight Baghdad time, so there has not been time for the Arabic or Persian press to react. I'll know more Thursday morning.
Sadr aides denied to the LA Times that Muqtada is in Iran, saying he is in hiding in Iraq.
Some are taking exception to the word "fled."
The press record I assembled, below, does not support Muqtada's disappearance to Iran. It is possible but not likely that Muqtada would go to Iran. He and his family have endlessly made fun of the al-Hakim clerical leaders for fleeing to Iran to escape persecution by Saddam Hussein, when the al-Sadrs insisted on staying in Iraq. Muqtada's father was killed in 1999 by Saddam's agents because he stayed and gave defiant sermons. So it would be a lot of crow to eat for Muqtada to go to Iran to escape the Americans. Plus, there is nothing in the Iranian press about him showing up in Qom, and an Iranian diplomat denied the story. Without more and better evidence, this account strikes me as suspect, and I would guess that if Muqtada disappeared, it is inside Iraq.
It might be useful to construct a timeline for Muqtada's recent activities.
Read the whole thing.
Aren't you glad there are people besides the Very Serious People in our Media Elite to evaluate this kind of stuff?
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Off to a Good Start
So Obama went live this weekend, with thousands of Illini and other fans and interested observers packing the Illinois state-house lawn in Springfield in single-digit weather to hear the first-term Senator launch his bid for the WH.
And to cap it all off, it appears Obama has signed on Australian PM John Howard to support his campaign. How else to explain this perfect set-up? (h/t Atrios)
Senator Obama, who is aiming to become the first black US president, has introduced a bill to remove US combat forces from Iraq by March 31 next year.
But the legislation has virtually no chance of becoming law while George W. Bush is president, and the presidential election is not until November 2008.
Australia's Prime Minister John Howard blasted Senator Obama's policy on the Iraq war and said al-Qaeda would "be praying as many times as possible for a victory for not only Obama but also for the Democrats".
And just so you don't think Obama's all bland platitudes and bipartisanship, he took the opportunity provided by Howard's challenge to layeth the smacketh down, the Chicago Way:
"If Prime Minister Howard truly believes what he says, perhaps his country should find its way to contribute more than just 1,400 troops so some American troops can come home," [Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs] said. "It's easy to talk tough when it's not your country or your troops making the sacrifices."
Damn. Wonder how much the Obama campaign paid Howard to serve up that softball.
Next?
Bring it on.
And to cap it all off, it appears Obama has signed on Australian PM John Howard to support his campaign. How else to explain this perfect set-up? (h/t Atrios)
Senator Obama, who is aiming to become the first black US president, has introduced a bill to remove US combat forces from Iraq by March 31 next year.
But the legislation has virtually no chance of becoming law while George W. Bush is president, and the presidential election is not until November 2008.
Australia's Prime Minister John Howard blasted Senator Obama's policy on the Iraq war and said al-Qaeda would "be praying as many times as possible for a victory for not only Obama but also for the Democrats".
And just so you don't think Obama's all bland platitudes and bipartisanship, he took the opportunity provided by Howard's challenge to layeth the smacketh down, the Chicago Way:
"If Prime Minister Howard truly believes what he says, perhaps his country should find its way to contribute more than just 1,400 troops so some American troops can come home," [Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs] said. "It's easy to talk tough when it's not your country or your troops making the sacrifices."
Damn. Wonder how much the Obama campaign paid Howard to serve up that softball.
Next?
Bring it on.
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