Hullabaloo

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

 
Perfidious Putz

Via Suburban Guerrilla I see that Lil' Rodney Turncoat just doesn't understand why so many Democrats are upset by what he did. Imagine that:

BATON ROUGE, La. - A party-switching Louisiana congressman said Tuesday he's surprised and "hurt" by Democrats' reactions to his defection to the Republicans — and vowed to return nearly $90,000 given to him by members of his old party.

"I'm somewhat puzzled as to how much hoopla this has created," Rep. Rodney Alexander said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday.


[...]

Party leaders and officials have called him a "traitor," "confused" and a "coward," with the last charge stinging, Alexander said Tuesday.

"It hurt like the dickens," the first-term congressman said. "I wasn't a coward. That took a lot of courage to do that."

His explanation of the switch has shifted somewhat.

On Friday, he declared: "I'm ashamed of some of the things the Democratic Party stands for."

On Tuesday, he suggested a political calculation was at the root of his decision. He said he had become worried about "erosion" in his base of support, after another Democrat, a politically unknown black woman, qualified to run against him.

Alexander insisted no deals had been made with GOP leaders for making the change.

"I did not have contact with any of the leadership prior to making that decision on Friday," he said. "I didn't even tell my own children."

I'm sure he hurts like the dickens allright. It takes a lot of courage to be Tom DeLay's bitch.

One of his old colleagues didn't seem terribly impressed with Lil Rod's behavior:

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (MD) released the following statement today regarding Rodney Alexander's last- minute party switch: "Rodney Alexander's action of filing for re-election on Wednesday, August 4th as a Democrat and some 48 hours later, just before the deadline for filing was to close, filing for re-election as a Republican, was an act of perfidy.

"Perfidy is defined as 'a deliberate breach of faith; a calculated violation of trust; treachery.'

"It was an act of a person without honor or integrity. In my 24 years in Congress, I cannot recall a more deceitful, more calculated, more treacherous violation of trust, which Congressman Alexander sought and which he received, than what he has done over the past few days and months.

[...]

"A man of honor, as many before him have done, would have changed his party affiliation well before the filing deadline. He would have had the courage to face a challenger and defend the failed policies promoted by his new party. He would have had the courage to explain why he has joined a party whose policies have left behind so many of the children and families he now represents and seeks to continue to represent.

"Congressman Alexander chose instead, through stealth and misrepresentation, to avoid the honorable course of action. He has let his constituents down. He has let his party down. He has let his colleagues down. But in the final analysis he has let his reputation and his conscience down even more.

Alexander probably would have won the seat anyway no matter what party he belonged to. He didn't really need to cheat but I have little doubt that DeLay demanded it of him as a show of loyalty. In order to be one of the boys you have to prove how deep in the mud you're willing to grovel. It's more of that bullyboy hazing that Republicans love so much. It's what they do instead of going to war.






digby 8/10/2004 07:22:00 PM |

 
Preachers and Patriots

When the curtain goes up on the Republican National Convention on Aug. 30, the supporting cast will include gospel- and country-music performers, elaborate videos, and celebrities doing what they can to help market President Bush's ideas and vision for America, one of the convention's organizers said yesterday.

But the convention will present not only politicians and celebrities on each of its four days. People from around the country have been invited to offer an invocation or benediction or to make some other short statement, said Frank Breeden, the convention's director of entertainment, who called this aspect of the program "Preachers and Patriots."

The Republicans are hoping that their convention, in New York, can help give their candidate the significant bounce in the polls that eluded the Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry, after the convention in Boston. And so the party hired Mr. Breeden, a former president of the Gospel Music Association renowned in the Christian music industry, to help produce a show that carefully weaves the party's political message with a mix of music, star power and patriotic symbolism.

Republicans have generally been tight-lipped about convention details, but in an interview, Mr. Breeden gave some clues about what to expect. He said he has worked since November to help recruit celebrities to perform, give press interviews, attend parties or be otherwise visible at Madison Square Garden.

The goal, Mr. Breeden said, is to help market the party's political ideas.

"Entertainment plays more of a prominent role in marketing messages today than ever before," Mr. Breeden said in a telephone interview. And he said that the convention organizers wanted to employ those tools in selling their political philosophy: "Just like Cadillac uses Led Zeppelin to market its ideas."

Just like the GOP uses Jesus to market its ideas.

He said yesterday that he expected the convention to be heavy with gospel, country and Broadway music, and with patriotic music. He said there would be several renditions of the national anthem as well. And he said there would be a stage band made up entirely of some of the most sought-after studio musicians in New York City. Everyone is being paid union wages, he said.

Mr. Breeden said that during his months of work on the convention, he had run up against some obstacles that were surprising and others that he had expected.

After a career in the entertainment industry, Mr. Breeden said he knew well that many of the most outspoken performers do not support the Bush administration. "For whatever reason, on the Democratic side of things, the celebrities who have an affinity with that party tend to be more activist-oriented and tend to get headlines," he said.

Maybe that's because the "Republican side of things" is always trying to censor them. It's a right wing specialty.

If people like tent revival type entertainment, it looks like they're going to get plenty of it. Praise the Lord and pass the moonshine for Bush. The culture war must go on.




digby 8/10/2004 03:25:00 PM |

 
I Yam What I Yam

Everybody chuckled at the Bush's third grade answer to "what does sovereignty mean in the 21st century" but he had another howler at that UNITY meeting:

ROLAND MARTIN: Mr. President, you remarked in your remarks you said that 8 million people in Afghanistan registered to vote, and as you said, exercised their God-given right to vote.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Right.

ROLAND MARTIN: That may be a right from God, but it's not guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. In 2000, an estimated 2 million people, half African American had their votes discounted from Florida and Cook County, Illinois, to other cities. Some on it-- That cuts into other questions. Are you going to order Attorney General John Ashcroft to send federal election monitors to Florida and other southern states and in this age of new constitutional amendments, will you endorse a constitutional amendment guaranteeing every American the right to vote in federal elections?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes. First of all, look, I can understand why African Americans in particular -- you know, are worried about being able to vote since the vote had been denied for so long in the south in particular. I understand that. This administration wants everybody to vote. Now, I -- best thing we did was to pass the Helping America Vote Act with over -- I think it's $3 billion of help to states and local governments to make sure that the voting process is fair. I -- you know, it's not just the south. By the way, the voting process needs help all over the country to make sure that everybody's vote counts and everybody's vote matters. I understand that. That's why I was happy to work with the congress to achieve this important piece of legislation. Just don't focus on Florida. I have to talk to the governor down there to make sure it works.

But it's the whole country that needs voter registration files need to be updated. The machines need to work. And that's why there's $3 billion in the budget to help, Roland. Obviously, everybody ought to have a vote. What was your other question?

ROLAND MARTIN: Should we put it -- guarantee it in the constitution.

PRESIDENT BUSH: I'll consider it. I'll consider it. What's your second question? R You said it should be guaranteed in Iraq, why not America?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, it's not guaranteed in Iraq. People have to show up to vote in the first place. The thing about democracy is people need to step up and decide to participate in the first place. There's no guarantees people are going to vote. They should be allowed to vote, but the problem we have in our society is too many people choose not to vote. We have a duty in the political process, and you have a duty as journalists to encourage people to register to vote, to do their duty. I'm not saying that -- I’m saying that people are choosing. It's not guaranteed they're going to. That's part of the problem that we have in America. Not enough people do vote. You have a duty on your radio stations on your TV stations, to encourage people to register to vote. I have a duty to call them out to vote. Of course, I’m going to try to call them out to vote for me.

The right to vote is not guaranteed unless everybody votes. Jesus H. Christ.

And, I don't know about you, but I feel much better about Florida knowing that the president is going to talk to his brother to make sure it "works."

Has there ever been a more stupid president? I don't see how it's possible. You can easily see how much more difficult he would have had it if he'd been forced to face a skeptical press more often. How lucky he was to have to only answer to the celebrity press corp instead of real journalists. Too bad about the country, though.




digby 8/10/2004 02:13:00 PM |

 
The Manchurian McCain

Via Julia, I see that the scumbags have levelled their repulsive guns at McCain again, presumably because he has been so effective a blunting the swiftboat ad's charges. He had to know he'd come under fire from these crazies, but they aren't even trying to hide it, now. This article literally accuses McCain of cowardice and treason:

Why would John McCain characterize the SWIFT Boat vets commercial about John Kerry as "dishonest and dishonorable"?

Why would he ask President Bush to denounce it?

Why would he say something similar was "pulled" on him when he seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2000?

Americans are supposed to respect Sen. John McCain because he is a war hero. But is he? And why is he so determined to defend John Kerry's dishonorable activities during and after the Vietnam War?

Now let me begin by saying McCain suffered greatly during his five years of captivity in the "Hanoi Hilton." But his horrific experiences do not entitle him to stretch the truth about his captivity at the hands of North Vietnamese Communists, nor to deceive Americans about his bravery and heroism.

When the Navy pilot was shot down over a lake near Hanoi, his captors did not know who he was – John McCain, son of the admiral in charge of the Pacific fleet. McCain was seriously injured in his ejection and in need of medical attention. In exchange for what passes as first-class care in Vietnam, McCain talked. He told the North Vietnamese about his father. He told them about the chain of command. He described himself as one of the "very best pilots" in the Navy.

Such behavior by a POW is strictly frowned upon in the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the military code of conduct.

"OK," you say, "McCain should be given a pass for this because he was badly hurt. Wasn't his behavior at the Hanoi Hilton honorable after he recovered from his wounds?"

No, not exactly. While serving as a POW, McCain was one of the captives who agreed to be used for propaganda purposes by the enemy. In fact, some argue that an interview he gave to a communist publication – detailing an accident aboard his ship, problems with low morale among U.S. servicemen, the chain of command in the U.S. Navy and other pertinent information – went far beyond mere propaganda and crossed the line into disclosing military intelligence secrets.

On June 5, 1969, the Washington Post carried a story titled, "Reds Say PW Songbird is Pilot Son of Admiral." The article states that, "Hanoi has aired a broadcast in which the pilot son of United States Commander in the Pacific, Adm. John McCain, purportedly admits to having bombed civilian targets in North Vietnam and praises medical treatment he has received since being taken prisoner."

Worse yet, many years later, when both John McCain and John Kerry were serving in the U.S. Senate, they teamed up to betray the families of the POWs and MIAs in favor of sucking up to the murderous Communist Vietnamese regime.

More than any other two men in America, McCain and Kerry orchestrated the cover-up of what became of our Vietnam POWs and MIAs.

[...]

One wonders what McCain's reward might be? What was in the cover-up for him? Why has he become an apologist for John Kerry's despicable and dishonorable record in Vietnam and, worse, his actions afterward?

Maybe it's just something about the character of John McCain. Maybe birds of a feather just flock together. Maybe this is why you should take anything McCain says about Kerry with a grain of salt.

I think somebody needs to ask the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush is they agree with this assessment. After all, this is another scathing indictment of the US Navy. Apparently McCain was a traitor and instead of being tried he was awarded medals and became a US Senator. There is something terribly wrong with the US Military to let this happen.

I'm beginning to understand why so many gawd fearing Republicans refused to join up. Who can blame them? They just didn't want to be associated with the likes of the traitorous Kerry and McCain and all the officers and comrades who covered up for them all these years.

How many losers like McCain and Kerry are serving now, do you think?





digby 8/10/2004 12:41:00 PM |

 
Postmodern Heroics

Josh Marshall points out an egregiously incorrect column by Deborah Orin in which she not only claims that John O'Neill served with Kerry, but that Kerry was actually known by his comrades as an outright coward who had "very little nerve for facing serious combat." This takes the charge to a new level. It's not just that he got medals he didn't deserve but that he actively avoided dangerous situations in order to save his own skin. I wonder how long it will before someone accuses him of fragging.

It has struck me lately what a terrible indictment of the military these charges are and how once again the Republicans have absolutely no limits in terms of how fully they are willing to trash the American institutions they allegedly love in order to win. What these people are saying is that the US Navy awarded some of its highest medals for bravery to a coward. The many officers who signed those glowing fitness reports and awarded those citations are either liars or they are incompetent. The word of his shipmates, even the man whose life he saved, are worth nothing. You can't believe military documentary evidence. It was all bullshit, every last piece of it.

And because of this it can now be said that all medals awarded for bravery are suspect. A superior military record is no longer a recommendation. Who can ever believe the government on this issue, now? If they were willing to reward the undeserving Kerry, for reasons about which we can only speculate, then obviously the entire system for awarding valor in combat is corrupt.

There used to be some things that Americans could count on. Having a certain reverence for combat medals was one of them, regardless of political party. It was something you just didn't fuck with, certainly not openly. We've always known that the good old boy network existed, that "connected" guys got better assignments and that in the Vietnam era, strings could get pulled to get into the guard or get stationed in Germany or something. But, even in the worst dark days of the conflict, I don't remember anybody saying that medals were being handed out to cowards. And people said a lot of terrible things about the military in those days.

Once again, we are seeing that the baby boomer Vietnam generation (of which I am on the later side) continues to play out its little psychodrama. During the sixties, the young liberals had disdain for the military. Now, in flaccid middle age, it's the conservatives who are taking it apart. Our excuse was that we were young and passionate and stemmed from an honest belief that the government was lying to us. And it was. We grew out of the idea that the military itself was a corrupt institution, but we have paid a political price for more than thirty years for taking that attitude. And that price was exacted by the very same people who are now essentially accusing the military of extreme dishonesty. Irony doesn't begin to cover this.

The conservative attack on the military is, on the other hand, so small minded, so parochial. For puny, partisan reasons they are accusing the military of widespread corruption --- merely to excuse the behavior of their less than stellar candidate. In order to save that worthless little child-man, they are basically telling the American people that the US Navy rewards cowards and covers it up. They do not care that they are setting the stage for people to think that heroic deeds in combat have no concrete meaning. GOP Post modern politics rescues the cipher and further degrades our democracy.

Too bad for the men and women who are risking their necks as we speak for Junior's Big Adventure. Any act of bravery on which the military might bestow a medal is now subject to interpretation. Nothing is sacred to these people.



Update:

If anyone cares to see how totally corrupt the Navy must have been, Eriposte has the full scoop. Dozens of officers would have had to lie or have been completely incompetent for all these charges to be true. Not the least of whom are some of the Swift boat vets themselves who said very different things at the time.





digby 8/10/2004 11:42:00 AM |

 
Watch Your Backs, Spooks

Porter Goss, Junior's choice for CIA director, is a loyal guy, but it isn't you he's loyal to.

Goss says CIA leak not worthy of committee action

Rep. Porter Goss said Thursday that the uproar over allegations that White House officials purposely identified a covert CIA agent appears largely political and doesn't yet merit an investigation by the House Select Committee on Intelligence, which he chairs.

Goss, who was a CIA agent himself from the early 1960s to 1971, said he takes such leaks seriously, but he distinguished between a willful violation of federal law and an inadvertent disclosure.

Goss also said no one from the intelligence agencies has raised the issue with him since syndicated columnist Robert Novak identified the agent in a column July 14.

"I would say there's a much larger dose of partisan politics going on right now than there is worry about national security," said Goss, R-Sanibel. "But I would never take lightly a serious allegation backed up by evidence that there was a willful -- and I emphasize willful, inadvertent is something else -- willful disclosure, and I haven't seen any evidence."

Goss said he would act if he did have evidence of that sort.

"Somebody sends me a blue dress and some DNA, I'll have an investigation," Goss said.

Let's just say that when push comes to shove, old Porter is a partisan Republican first and a guardian of the CIA second. Be warned.

I'm assuming that he will be confirmed with no problem. Miller and Lieberman and probably a few other Democrats will vote for him.

But, President Kerry is going to have to turn around and fire him. He has to because this guy will stab him in the back the first chance he gets:

Critics say Goss's political antics reveal a partisan streak that compromises his ability to be a fair and diplomatic CIA chief. Most recently, he interrupted debate on the House intelligence authorization bill by displaying a sign with a 1977 quote from John Kerry that called for cuts to the intelligence budget.

Kerry cannot have someone like this working for him in such a sensitive job. I would assume that the Republicans are very well aware of this fact. This may be only the first of numerous landmines that are being laid in case of a Kerry victory.





digby 8/10/2004 10:03:00 AM |

Monday, August 09, 2004

 
Scottie's Little Helpers

Via the Stakeholder, we get this exchange from the Gaggle:

Q Let me follow up with a second question. How damaging was the revelation of the deepest mole that we've ever had in al Qaeda? The publication of that man's name by The New York Times -- how damaging is that to our war on terror?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry -- which specific instance are you referring to?

Q The New York Times published the name of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, who was described by intelligence officials as the only deep mole we've ever had within al Qaeda.

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm not sure where it was published, first. Obviously, it was published recently -- the capture of this individual. It is important that we recognize that sometimes there are ongoing operations underway. And as we move forward on capturing or bringing to justice al Qaeda members, we need to keep that in mind. And sometimes we aren't able to go into as much detail we would like to because of those ongoing operations. And I think everybody has a responsibility to keep that in mind.

Q Scott --

MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Terry.

Q Do you think The New York Times shouldn't have published the name?

MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Terry.

Q Senator Kerry has been making light, or making fun of the President saying 'we've turned the corner, and we're not going back,' given the fact that the job growth has been weak, and the energy prices are rising. Is that something that the President is not going to say anymore? Is he reconsidering that, given that the jobs are --

Can someone please explain to me why "Terry" just went on with his prepared question instead of following up what should be something of interest to the entire press corp? It sure sounded to me as if Flounder was trying to spin it to look as if the press was at fault for pressuring the admnistration to provide evidence that it's terror warnings were on the level.

"Terry" (Moran?), instead of forcing Flounder to explain what he meant by that just barrelled on with his canned question.

This happens all the time at press conferences and happens just as often in one on one interviews. The journalists do not seem to be following the give and take. In the one on one's you see Judy and Wolf and Little Russ just sitting there with glazed eyes obviously waiting for the interview subject to end his rambling so they can get to the next question.

I've sometimes wondered if the TV journalists are distracted by the producer in their earpieces, but that doesn't explain why "Terry" and his ilk just let opportunities to follow up go by as in that gaggle today. Are these people so egotistical that they can't allow themselves to be seen aiding and abetting a competitor?

The press corp are a bunch of braying sheep when the GOP blastfax comes in, but they can't operate in tandem to put the pressure on Flounder a little bit --- even when the subject concerns their very own selves. What a sad comment.




digby 8/09/2004 06:23:00 PM |

 
Neocon Resurrections

From the "they have always been wrong about everything" files, Lawrence Korb writes that "Team B" should be benched. No kidding.

His piece in the week-end's LA Times very succinctly tells you everything you need to know about the failed track record of the neocons. Truly, they have always been wrong about everything and most often they are spectacularly wrong.

He brings up one specific little bit of history that I've written about before, as have others, but it bears repeating because of what is now happening in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In 1981, after the publication of Clare Sterling's book, "The Terror Network," which argued that global terrorists were actually pawns of the Soviets, leading hard-liners asked the CIA to look into the relationship between Soviets and terrorist organizations. The agency concluded that although there was evidence that the Soviets had assisted groups such as the Palestine Liberation Organization with weapons and training, there was no evidence that the Soviets encouraged or approved these groups' terrorist acts. However, hard-liners like Secretary of State Alexander Haig, CIA Chief William Casey and Policy Planning Director Wolfowitz rejected the draft as a naive, exculpatory brief and had the draft retooled to assert that the Soviets were heavily involved in supporting "revolutionary violence worldwide."

This book was the beginning, middle and end of the neocons understanding of terrorism. It fit in perfectly with their black and white worldview of good and evil nation states. From that point on they could not see "terrorism" as anything but a weapon in the hands of totalitarian dictators.

This explains their absurd and stubborn belief that 9/11 simply had to have been perpetrated by Saddam and their ongoing certainty that "rogue" states remain a greater threat than islamic radicalism joining forces with a weakened failed state. As always, they simply refuse to give up their bedrock belief system in light of the evidence right before their eyes.

It's true that they have been discredited recently, but I would not start writing the epitaph just yet. Their worldview is bipartisanly seductive, placing the US at the center of righteous democratic progress against the tyrant. And, for all its starry-eyed idealism it requires no interference in unpleasant and unheroic matters like Sudan. Likewise, Iraq and Afghanistan can be seen in their minds as successes --- the terrible rogue state was vanquished and the totalitarian dictator was punished. Failed states aren't a threat.

Except, of course, they are. And they are a very messy and dangerous problem. We really should not be in the business of creating even more of them, but it's looking more and more as if that's exactly what we've done. And in the age of islamic radicalism that was a stupid, stupid thing to do.

Neoconservatism is like a vampire cult. It is very difficult to kill. Being discredited means nothing to them. It's happened time and time again and yet they keep coming back. They must have a stake drawn through the heart of their failed world view and I don't know what it will take to make that happen. Indeed, they are re-forming as we speak into the Committee For The Present Danger Redux.

James Woolsey, a former CIA director, is chairman of the group, which he says in its third incarnation aims to combat what he calls "a totalitarian movement masquerading as a religion."

[...]

The past struggle against communism differed in some ways from the current war against Islamist terrorism. But America's freedom and security, which each has aimed to undermine, are exactly the same.

Don't throw away your garlic just yet. They are still out there.




digby 8/09/2004 05:52:00 PM |

 
Coming Forward

Man, they're coming out of the woodwork.

Last Wednesday we had the Scumbags For Truth, followed quickly by the Alabama Mail Room Veterans for Bush on Friday. Today we find the sickening truth behind that alleged hamster "rescue" from the Swift Boat Veterinarians For Truth.

Bush-Cheney 2004 is playing for keeps.




digby 8/09/2004 04:53:00 PM |

 
Rice Puddinghead

Josh Marshall pointed out Condi's rather strained definition of "backround" in the Khan matter. But, she made another whopper that I, at least, haven't heard anyone mention:

BLITZER:Let's talk about some of the people who have been picked up, mostly in Pakistan, over the last few weeks. In mid-July, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan. There is some suggestion that by releasing his identity here in the United States, you compromised a Pakistani intelligence sting operation, because he was effectively being used by the Pakistanis to try to find other al Qaeda operatives. Is that true?

RICE: Well, I don't know what might have been going on in Pakistan. I will say this, that we did not, of course, publicly disclose his name. One of them...

Was she claiming that the mole operation that Kahn was working on, and with which the British were actively involved, was some sort of independent Pakistani op? Her statement suggests that even though we had received Khan's laptop and all the surveillance information and were screaming "run for your lives" at the top of our lungs, the Pakistanis had secretly turned Khan and had an ongoing operation of which she was unaware.

Sure. That makes sense. On the other hand, considering her job performance thus far, it's quite possible that she wouldn't have known "what might have been going on in Pakistan." Seems her plate is full just drilling Crusader Codpiece on the meaning of the word "sovereignty." She doesn't have a lot of time on her hands for details.




digby 8/09/2004 04:25:00 PM |

 
I Won't Say It

Jobs with Little Mental Challenge May Up Alzheimer's

People who spent most of their lives in jobs that involve little brain work appear more likely to eventually develop Alzheimer's disease, according to new study findings released Monday.

digby 8/09/2004 04:00:00 PM |

 
J'Accuse:

I just wanted to share with you another example of the media unquestioningly adopting bitchy, Republican snark to the detriment of...well, everyone.

Here's Karen Tumulty in Time:

Bush strategists dismiss those gains by Kerry as a postconvention blip and predict they will soon be erased by what voters see of the Democratic Senator now that he is back in the fray. The real Kerry, they snickered, is the one who asserted last week that he could fight "a more sensitive war on terror" -- a statement that couldn't have sounded more dainty if he had uttered it in French."

Sentient people know that Kerry wasn't calling for an encounter session with Mullah Omar. But, nonetheless, I'm sure that there are many stupid people who believe that the word sensitive translates into sissy. Waddaya gonna do? I don't condemn Tumulty for relaying the GOP operative's quote. It's real and it is one of their talking points. However, most people do not know that the quote is taken out of context and readers would have benefitted from knowing that. Perhaps an editor trimmed it for space. Fine. Shitty journalism, but no surprise.

Here's where she really goes in the tank. She follows with her own words "a statement that couln't have been more dainty if he had uttered it in French." Those exact words could have been written by Tom DeLay. She has just issued a copyrighted GOP bumper sticker in her own voice.

Although it would come as a hell of a surprise to Napoleon, Voltaire and Balzac, the french language is now synonymous with "dainty" and to be "French" now means coward in Republican circles. The press finds this simply hilarious. But, lets not kid ourselves. The "french" appellation is merely a new word for "faggot" and everybody knows it. And that's exactly what Karl Rove wants people to think about John Kerry. In fact, they are planning their convention around this theme.

There is no amount of political correctness in the world that can stop bigots from creating insider code words to descibe the untermenschen they collectively loathe. And the modern Republicans have an especially sophomoric approach to this that seems to appeal mightily to the media. Maybe it's the "band trip" quality of the campaign trail, but the press seems unable to resist adopting the snarky high school level barbs that the republicans are so good at dishing out. It's all part of the right's "derisive humor" technique, something that is completely obvious to anyone who is paying attention and which they readily admit to using. (See every Bob Sommerby post on the 2000 election.)

So, Karen Tumulty thinks the "french" thing is just adorable. She probably got a little case of the giggles when she wrote it and that's just great for her. But, she is peddling GOP propaganda and everytime she and her snotty little cohorts do this they inject the body politic with toxic Republican bigotry.




digby 8/09/2004 03:05:00 PM |

Sunday, August 08, 2004

 
Glory Days

Atrios has linked to a freeper thread (since pulled) in which the Borg collectively loses its mind and decides to take to the streets over the idea that somebody's going to call in the UN to monitor elections.

I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago. This is no accident. They are merely doing what they are programmed to do. It comes directly from none other than their favorite leprechaun of the un-dead, Newtie himself:

One GOP lawmaker told The Hill that Gingrich encouraged Republicans to pick issues such as school prayer, strengthening work requirements for welfare recipients and barring the United Nations from monitoring U.S. elections, which all polled at higher than an 80 percent rating.

“There’s a consensus developing among activists that new issues are emerging where [the polling] is decidedly with us,” the lawmaker said. “We can show a contrast.”

Gingrich spelled out his views at a meeting last week organized by House GOP Conference Chairwoman Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio), the fourth-ranking member of the GOP House leadership.

Lawmakers who attended Wednesday’s session expressed excitement about Gingrich’s policy proposals and political tactics.

Rep. Phil English, a Republican who represents Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge’s old district in northwestern Pennsylvania, said: “It is extremely useful in depicting Kerry’s position on the political spectrum to raise issues like welfare reform where he’s been on the far-left extreme.”

He added, “We have a very good wedge issue. … It’s worth asking why he is part of a rear-guard action blocking the permanency of welfare reform. Is he not out of touch with cultural issues of the rest of the country?”

I hear they are also thinking of creating a fresh, exciting ten point plan on these cultural wedge issues to put through in the first hundred days. They might call it "The Contract With America." I think it's a winner.




digby 8/08/2004 10:21:00 PM |

 
Pundit Deficiency

I'm sure we've all read this fascinating little piece on the "side-by-side" military records of prominent Republicans, Democrats and journalists, thanks to Atrios. One part is particularly telling, in a way the writer never intended:

Here is the list of journalists and pundits called "nonpartisan and right of center":

David Brooks, NY Times columnist
William F. Buckley, National Review
Pat Buchanan, MSNBC commentator
Ann Coulter, writer & commentator
Lou Dobbs, CNN News anchor
Paul Gigot, Wall Street Journal editor
Sean Hannity, Hannity & Colmes host
Brit Hume, Fox News anchor
Rush Limbaugh, Radio talk show host
Bill O'Reilly, O'Reilly Factor host
Michael Savage, Radio talk show host
William Safire, NY Times columnist
George Will, Washington Post columnist

Who of these are non-partisan, I wonder? Being generous, I'll say that Hume and Dobbs work to maintain at least the appearance of objectivity. The rest are all openly partisan and eight of them (out of thirteen) are rabid, red meat Republicans.

If you were to ask informed Republicans if they trusted the straight journalists listed above and if they generally agreed with the others' views, they would probably say yes. If there would be a problem it would be because a few moderate Republicans might not feel comfortable identifying themselves with the extreme rhetoric of the Limbaughs, Coulters and Savages. In other words, the worst any Republican would say about this list is that many of the people on it are too extreme, not that they are too partisan. And most would say these people fairly represent their views.

Now look at the list of journalists and pundits called nonpartisan and left of center:

Wolf Bilzter, CNN News anchor
Tom Brokaw, NBC News anchor
Alan Colmes, Hannity & Colmes host
Al Franken, Political satirist
Thomas Friedman, NY Times columnist
Jim Lehrer, PBS News Hour anchor
Bill Maher, HBO, political satirist
Chris Matthews, Hardball host
Michael Moore, Political satirist, filmmaker
Dan Rather, CBS News Anchor
Tim Russert, Meet the Press host
Jon Stewart, Daily Show host
George Stephanopoulos, ABC This Week host

Out of these only Colmes, Franken, Maher, Moore and Stewart, five out of thirteen, can be called rabid left wing Democrats and that is a serious stretch with all but the ineffectual Colmes and Franken. Of these, only Colmes has made his career as a liberal talking head. These others are free agents who've signed on for the season.

Matthews, Russert and Stephanopoulos have past ties to Democrats, but work hard to prove their "objective" credibility, mostly by being harder on Democrats than Republicans. This is the exact opposite of the Republican pundits (like Scarborough and Buchanan) who maintain their partisan ties quite openly. However, being much, much too generous I'll put them in the category with Brooks, Safire and Will above because we can never convince a Republican that they are non-partisans no matter how many Democrats they run out of town on a rail to prove otherwise.

Friedman is a bi-partisan wonk type who is only on the list because he writes about foreign policy. He could have gone on either list.

But, Blitzer, Brokaw, Lehrer, and Rather are non-partisan journalists of the type completely missing from the "right of center" list above. They do not, by job description, offer their opinions, as both Hume and Dobbs often do on their programs and certainly not in the way Matthews, Russert, Buchanan, Gigot, Will and Buckley do.

Informed Democrats look at this list and see five entertainers who speak the truth, three pundits trying very hard to get Republicans to see them as objective and five buckets of lukewarm spit who are easily played by the right wing. Unlike the Republicans whose only complaint (among a minority of voters) would be that the list is too right wing, the problem for us is that most of the left of center list isn't left at all.

This list clearly shows the huge deficit we face in the punditocrisy. They have a full employment act for full time partisan screamers, talking heads and screeching pens. We have to depend on Alan Colmes, Jim Lehrer and Wolf Blitzer.





digby 8/08/2004 07:15:00 PM |

 
Little Known Fact

For assholes like the Fox Allstars who claim that Kerry only spent four months in Vietnam and that makes him a pussy, it should be known that while it is true he only spent four months getting shot at and saving lives and winning medals for bravery in swift boats -- he had previously done a full tour onboard the USS Gridley stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin. Swift boat duty was his second tour.


Never post and run. Typos corrected.
digby 8/08/2004 01:17:00 PM |

Saturday, August 07, 2004

 
Dear Jodi,

Nice work. You are such a dear. You make my job easy.

Love,

Karl



P.S. I'm especially grateful that you didn't mention that we're using the "lost years in the Senate" as a major talking point in the campaign. Your article made our coordinated campaign rap on Kerry's accomplishments sound downright reasonable. And the long part at the end where you framed "Vietnam" and "son of a millworker" as running away from their records instead of positive character shorthand was just perfect.

Thanks again.




digby 8/07/2004 10:42:00 PM |

 
Welcome To Iraq Mr Negroponte

Bet you feel right at home.




digby 8/07/2004 10:16:00 PM |

 
Tautology For Dummies

Via Brad DeLong: "

Q Good morning. My name is Mark Trahant. I'm the editorial page editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and a member of the Native American Journalist Association. (Applause.) Most school kids learn about the government in the context of city, county, state and federal. And, of course, tribal governments are not part of that at all. Mr. President, you've been a governor and a President, so you have a unique experience, looking at it from two directions. What do you think tribal sovereignty means in the 21st century, and how do we resolve conflicts between tribes and the federal and the state governments?

THE PRESIDENT: Tribal sovereignty means that, it's sovereign. You're a -- you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And, therefore, the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities.

help us.




digby 8/07/2004 07:54:00 PM |

 
So Much For Humint

Unmasking of Qaeda Mole a U.S. Security Blunder-Experts

The revelation that a mole within al Qaeda was exposed after Washington launched its "orange alert" this month has shocked security experts, who say the outing of the source may have set back the war on terror.

[...]


"The whole thing smacks of either incompetence or worse," said Tim Ripley, a security expert who writes for Jane's Defense publications. "You have to ask: what are they doing compromising a deep mole within al Qaeda, when it's so difficult to get these guys in there in the first place?

"It goes against all the rules of counter-espionage, counter-terrorism, running agents and so forth. It's not exactly cloak and dagger undercover work if it's on the front pages every time there's a development, is it?"

A source such as Khan -- cooperating with the authorities while staying in active contact with trusting al Qaeda agents -- would be among the most prized assets imaginable, he said.

"Running agents within a terrorist organization is the Holy Grail of intelligence agencies. And to have it blown is a major setback which negates months and years of work, which may be difficult to recover."

Rolf Tophoven, head of the Institute for Terrorism Research and Security Policy in Essen, Germany, said allowing Khan's name to become public was "very unclever."

"If it is correct, then I would say its another debacle of the American intelligence community. Maybe other serious sources could have been detected or guys could have been captured in the future" if Khan's identity had been protected, he said.

Britain, which has dealt with Irish bombing campaigns for decades, has a policy of announcing security alerts only under narrow circumstances, when authorities have specific advice they can give the public to take action that will make them safer.

Home Secretary David Blunkett, responsible for Britain's anti-terrorism policy, said in a statement on Friday there was "a difference between alerting the public to a specific threat and alarming people unnecessarily by passing on information indiscriminately."

Kevin Rosser, security expert at the London-based consultancy Control Risks Group, said an inherent risk in public alerts is that secret sources will be compromised.

"When these public announcements are made they have to be supported with some evidence, and in addition to creating public anxiety and fatigue you can risk revealing sources and methods of sensitive operations," he said.

This alert was such obvious bullshit. Laura Bush going to sit amongst the targets on Monday is really all you need to know. Scaring the hell out of everybody is bad enough. But, now it turns out they blew a chance to infiltrate an actual al Qaeda cell and figure out what current plots might be going on.

I do have to take issue with one comment that Kevin Drum made in this post. I don't think there's any excuse for this, least of all that the critics of the administration "panicked" them into making a mistake. This is national security during a hotly contested presidential race. It's part of the job description. If Bill Clinton could deal with the "wag the dog" nonsense while he was being impeached, I think these guys should be able to keep their fucking mouths shut when Howard Dean gives them a hard time on CNN. They are supposed to be able to handle the pressure. If they can't, that's a big problem that has nothing to do with the critics and everything to do with them.

Update: If this is true, then this was a major blunder:

A Pakistani man whose arrest led the authorities to uncover the terrorist reconnaissance of financial institutions in the United States was also communicating with people believed to be behind a potential plot to disrupt the fall elections, a senior intelligence official said on Saturday.

The arrest last month of the man, Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, has prompted an investigation in the United States, Britain and other countries to locate those behind the surveillance operations. Now the authorities say they believe his arrest is helping unravel the earlier threat to carry out an attack this year inside the United States.

[...]

Still frustrating investigators is the uncertainty about whether the surveillance in 2000 and 2001 was part of ongoing plot. So far, the officials said, no clear evidence has been obtained that indicates whether the plot was ever abandoned.

Increasingly however, the authorities suspect that the Qaeda figures known to be involved in the surveillance were active members of the terrorist network and operated in a clandestine manner suggesting that they wanted to carry out attacks inside the United States.

Investigators are counting on people already in custody, or others whom they hope to apprehend, to help solve the mystery of whether the plot is still active.

It might have been nice to keep Khan working as a mole for a while so they could catch the guys who were planning more terrorist attacks, don't you think?

Why, you'd almost think they didn't want to stop terorist attacks from disrupting the election.



digby 8/07/2004 07:16:00 PM |

 
Gitmo Horror Part II

Last week I wrote about the first person accounts of torture and other inhumane treatment in Guantanamo contained in a report(pdf) by the Center for Constitutional Rights. More information is coming to light and it squares with what the three freed British citizens said.

First, it's quite clear that prisoners are routinely beaten and abused when captured in Afghanistan. Often these prisoners have been sold by various tribes and factions (reportedly for $5,000) to US forces. From that point on, these prisoners are considered terrorists with no human rights. The prisoners who are then sent to Guantanamo are subjected to harsh mental torture, much of it specifically tailored to each prisoner by way of psychiatric medical evaluations. There is evidence that this mental torture results in more false confessions than any useable intelligence. In fact, some people allege that there has been next to no useable intelligence drawn from the prisoners in Gitmo. Instead, according to the three Britons, it seems to have become something of a training camp for new interrogators who use the prisoners there to practice their craft. An article called "Guantanamo Bay on Trial" in the January edition of Vanity Fair (no link) bears these claims out.

"...from a military standpoint, intelligence officials with extensive experience in counterterrorism claim that Gitmo's intelligence value is relatively low, and much of the information obtained there unreliable. Vanity Fair has established that none of the al-Qaeda leaders captured since September 11, 2001, has ever been held at GuantAnamo Bay. Sixty-four detainees innocent of any terrorist connection have already been released, and officials admit there may be many more to come. The method of interrogation now in use at Gitmo-a formal system of escalating bribes in return for confessions-is almost certain to produce bogus testimony, experts say, and the camp's interrogators are mostly young and inexperienced.

[...]

General Miller makes it clear that he does not have access to staff of this caliber. Seven out of 10 of the interrogators working in his "joint interrogation group" are reservists, and they come to Camp Delta straight from a 25-day course at Fort Huachuca. "They're all young people, but they're really committed to winning the mission," Miller says. "Intelligence is a young person's game-you've got to be flexible."

Some seasoned intelligence officials disagree. "Generally, the new hires apprentice in the booths with more experienced guys," says one. "I certainly know of no one at Gitmo having the opportunity or the luxury to be able to prepare an interview for three months." Another had met some of Miller's interrogators. "They were rookies, and none were too keen on the process down there," he says. They knew that any seemingly insignificant tidbit might later turn out to be important, but in general "they just didn't feel that the process was going anywhere fast.

This article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer reveals the details of yet another prisoner's experience in Guantanamo from papers recently unsealed by a Seattle Federal Court:

Recently declassified documents in a Seattle federal court describe the extreme isolation of an alleged al-Qaida member at a U.S. military prison that experts say constitutes torture and war crimes.

The documents, unsealed yesterday at the request of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and others, include U.S. Navy lawyer Charles Swift's firsthand observation at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison of the conditions of solitary confinement of his client, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a 34-year-old Yemeni who acknowledges chauffeuring Osama bin Laden at his Afghan farm.

The court documents describing the alleged mistreatment of Hamdan are part of a lawsuit challenging his detention, the conditions of detention and his prolonged isolation in solitary confinement.

[...]

In 2001, as U.S. forces were fighting in Afghanistan, Hamdan says Afghan fighters captured him, hogtied him with electrical wire and sold him to American forces for $5,000. Once in U.S. custody, Hamdan maintains that American officials in Afghanistan:

Beat him with fists and feet.

Forced him to sit motionless on benches for days.

Dressed him only in overalls in subfreezing temperatures.

Showed him a gun and threaten him with death, torture and imprisonment.

After six months, he was flown to Guantanamo. There, his life got worse.

Hamdan told Lt. Cmdr. Swift that the eight months of solitary confinement at Guantanamo "was worse than anything he had experienced in Afghanistan ... and that he was going crazy."

"I have not been permitted to see the sun or hear other people outside .... or talk with other people. I am alone except for a guard," Hamdan said last February in a court affidavit that was first sealed, then made classified in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

"One month is like a year here, and I have considered pleading guilty in order to get out of here," Hamdan said after two months in solitary.

Now -- six months later -- even the guard is gone. A video camera mounted on a wall now monitors Hamdan, according to Swift's statement.

Experts on torture and international law said yesterday that -- if true -- the death threats and solitary confinement described in court documents constitute war crimes, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. They say the allegations also represent violations of the U.N. Convention Against Torture as well as U.S. law.

And several international legal scholars said that criminal responsibility is not limited to those who committed the torture and can implicate the entire chain of command up to the president of the United States if they knew or should have known about the violations.

The stories coming out of Gitmo are remarkably consistent. This is not an unusual case. Indeed, the attempted suicide rate down there is astronomical, but after this was publicized, in a typical Bushian move, they have decided to simply give attempted suicidee another, less disturbing, name. From the Vanity Fair article:

In the camp's acute ward, a young man lies chained to his bed, being fed protein-and-vitamin mush through a stomach tube inserted via a nostril. "He's refused to eat 148 consecutive meals," says Dr. Louis Louk, a naval surgeon from Florida. "In my opinion, he's a spoiled brat, like a small child who stomps his feet when he doesn't get his way." Why is he shackled? "I don't want any of my guys to be assaulted or hurt," he says.

By the end of September 2003, the official number of suicide attempts by inmates was 32, but the rate has declined recently-not because the detainees have stopped trying to hang themselves but because their attempts have been reclassified. Gitmo has apparently spawned numerous cases of a rare condition: "manipulative self-injurious behavior," or S.I.B. That, says chief surgeon Captain Stephen Edmondson, means "the individual's state of mind is such that they did not sincerely want to end their own life." Instead, they supposedly thought they could get better treatment, perhaps even obtain release. In the last six months, there have been 40 such incidents.

Daryl Matthews, professor of forensic psychiatry at the University of Hawaii, was asked by the Pentagon to spend a week at GuantAnamo investigating detainees' mental health and the treatments available. Unlike reporters-who must agree in writing not to speak to prisoners-Professor Matthews spoke with the inmates for many hours.

Manipulative self-injurious behavior "is not a psychiatric classification," he says, and the Pentagon should not be using it. "It is dangerous to try to divide 'serious' attempts at suicide from mere gestures, and a psychiatrist needs to make a proper diagnosis in each and every case." At Gitmo, Dr. Matthews says, the "huge cultural gulf" between camp staff and prisoners makes this difficult, if not impossible.

There is a lot of evidence in the three Briton's testimony that this is a huge problem. Being English, they were much more able to deal with guards and interrogators and yet they were driven to a false confessions. But,in addition to the torture, there is a huge shortage of adequate translators and many different languages being spoken (Apparently, there has even been a contingent of Chinese from the northern border who were handed over to the Chinese government, their fate unknown. One can only imagine.) Many of these guys are living an isolated, Kafkaesque nightmare.

Here's the nut. Prisoners in Guantanamo were taken into custody under extremely questionable circumstances and assumed to be terrorists with no further recourse. This was done (again via VF) because:

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says Gitmo plays not one but three vital roles in what the Pentagon calls the gwot, or global war on terror. First, it keeps terrorists "off the streets," until death if necessary. Second, it turns them into sources of intelligence. Finally, with the first special "military commission" tribunals set to begin at Gitmo early in 2004, it lets America bring the perpetrators of terrible crimes to justice-in accordance, says Rumsfeld, "with the traditions of fairness and justice under law, on which this nation was founded, the very principles that the terrorists seek to attack and destroy."

We know that in the first case, many of these people were not terrorists yet they are being subjected to horrifyingly inhumane treatment indefinitely. The three Britons being the ones most able to tell their stories to westerners, confirm this. There have been more than 60 others released back to their home countries after having been through this. We don't know how many more are still inside.

In the second case, there has been little intelligence value in their interogations, not just because they aren't actually terrorists, but because even if they were, they've been out of the loop now for years. In fact, we know that there have been no high value terrorists ever held in Guantanamo. They are being water-boarded at discreet facilities elsewhere in the gulag.

In the third case, these sham military tribunals, the nature of which military lawyers themselves are appalled at, really mean that hundreds of innocent men are going to spend the rest of their lives in prison and for the forseeable future undergo mental torture that can only be described as criminal. At the least, the administration is intent upon dragging its feet for years, if necessary, to keep them from ever seeing the light of a real courtroom.

I don't know what the Kerry admnistration will do about this, but I think it's fair to say that they are going to be under tremendous pressure to appear "tough" on terrorism by the enraged firebreathers on the right who are already gearing up to engage in their own special form of political torture should they lose. Counter pressure is going to be needed.




digby 8/07/2004 04:54:00 PM |

 
Hypocrite, Thy Name Is Shelby

With all the noise surrounding the Marc Rich pardon at the end of Clinton's term, there was another pardon that the Republicans were extremely exercised about. It was surrounding Clinton's pardon, at the behest of civil libertarians, of a man named Samuel L. Morison, who had been convicted of leaking a classified picture of a soviet ship to Janes Weekly in 1984. Certain Republicans in congress were appalled by this pardon, one of the most vocal of which was Richard Shelby.

Pardoning the only government official ever convicted of leaking classified information, the intelligence chairmen [Porter Goss and Richard Shelby] said, would do nothing to stop a torrent of media leaks in Washington. Indeed, Shelby said the pardon only underscores the need for new legislation explicitly criminalizing leaks.

In fact, he used it as an excuse to reintroduce the "Shelby Amendment" which Clinton had vetoed the year before. Richard Shelby, you see, has had an ongoing obsession about leaks and has been trying to pass laws for years that would make leaking all classified information, whether knowingly or unknowingly, a criminal offense with serious jail time.

According to the St Petersburg Times:

Shelby's bill would make it a felony punishable by a fine or up to three years in prison for a current or retired government employee to disclose "properly classified information" to unauthorized people. Under current law, a government employee could not be convicted unless the information related directly to national defense and the leaker knew that disclosure would hurt the interests of the United States.

When he vetoed the bill, Clinton said it would impede the normal activities of government. His advisers argued that current law is sufficient but is not always enforced. The news organizations fear the tougher law would result in subpoenas being issued to journalists who published leaked information.

It should be noted that this bill was not universally supported by Republicans. There were quite a few in the libertarian camp who opposed it.

"This legislation contains a provision that will create--make no mistake about it, with not one day of hearings, without one moment of public debate, without one witness--an official secrets act," Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr. (R-Ga).

[...]

"It has profound First Amendment implications, and goes to the very heart of the ability of the public to remain informed about matters of critical public interest, which often relate to governmental misdeeds," they [Henry Hyde and John Conyers] wrote. "Moreover, since the Executive Branch asserts unilateral authority to define what information should be classified, this extension would grant the administration a blank check to criminalize any leaking they do not like."

Shelby, however, was adamant that the amendment was not designed to prosecute the press, but rather government officials who leak information:

"I can assure this body that in passing [the anti-leak provision], no member of the Select Committee on Intelligence intended that it be used as an excuse for investigating the press," Shelby said in Senate debate.

Clinton vetoed the bill and then pardoned Morison leaving Shelby frothing at the mouth and ready to reintroduce it upon Bush's inauguration. Strangely, however, just days before 9/11 when he was to convene hearings on the matter, Ashcroft evidently asked him to shelve them until the Justice Department could evaluate the legislation. Like a good soldier, he did. Then came 9/11. Nothing more was heard until the summer of 2002, when Newsmax published this article on July 27, 2002, which they then deleted on August 1st. The Memory Hole retrieved it from the ether:

Whether the classified information is National Security Agency encrypted message intercepts of pre-Sept. 11 chatter, war plans for the invasion of Iraq, or the fact that U.S. intelligence was tracking Osama bin Laden's wireless phone calls, leaks have more than Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney in an uproar.

[...]

"I hope we get a test case, soon, that will pit the government's need to prosecute those who leak its classified documents against the guarantees of free speech. I'm betting the government will win," Bruce said to an audience this week at Washington's Institute of World Politics

[...]

"I helped pushed legislation for years to make it easier to prosecute people who willfully and knowingly leak classified information," Shelby recently told CBS News.

"President Clinton vetoed that bill several years ago. It might be the time to try to bring it back. I've talked to the White House before about this. The attorney general, John Ashcroft, is working --- now he's got a task force working with some of us in the Senate to try to come up with some acceptable legislation. Maybe this fall ..."

The Newsmax article above was published on July 27, 2002 and removed on August 1st. There was never any formal explanation. It may be a coincidence, but it's noteworthy that on June 19th, 2002 someone leaked some extremely sensitive classified information about NSA encrypted intercepts to the media. This information was so sensitive that it caused Dick Cheney and George W. Bush to get very angry and call for members of the intelligence committee to cooperate with a Justice Department investigation into the matter. At the time, Democrats controlled the Senate and Bob Graham was the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Richard Shelby was the leaker. But, he didn't exactly step forward and take responsibility. By September, he began to find himself at odds with both Porter Goss and Bob Graham over how they were conducting the investigation into the 9/11 attacks. In light of what we now know he did, his behavior at that time looks quite suspicious. One might even think he was obstructing the investigation:

Shelby accused Graham and Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, of overstepping their authority in keeping information provided by the FBI from other lawmakers and the two committees' permanent staff. The information has been given to key staffers hired to conduct the joint committees' inquiry.

"I must insist that we end this policy of withholding crucial information from members and our staff," Shelby said. "We must not conduct investigations out of the full view of our members."

[...]

While Shelby supported Graham's and Goss' call for an FBI probe into leaks which may have come from the joint committee, he has differed with them over the FBI's methods. Shelby has protested the possibility that lawmakers might be subjected to lie detector tests to determine if they were the source of the reports.

Although the FBI has not asked for such tests, Graham has said he thinks lawmakers should voluntarily comply.

From what Graham said, the information being offered by the FBI was not necessarily connected to Shelby, but Shelby certainly did seem nervous that he wasn't privy to what it was. And it was a big turnaround for him to suddenly decry the use of polygraphs:

"I don't know who among us would take a lie detector test," says Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). "They're not even admissible in court." Shelby's reticence was an about-face from his stance two years ago, when he spearheaded the expansion of the Department of Energy's polygraph program as the only effective way of tracking down moles.

CBS reported:

Shelby said leaders of the inquiry realize they made a mistake in asking the FBI to investigate the leaks.

"Here we are investigating the FBI for huge failures and now we're asking them to investigate us," he said.

He said it also violates the government's separation of powers.

"You know the Senate and, I assume the House, has always investigated their own," he said.

The FBI eventually decided not to prosecute but rather turn it over to the Republican controlled ethics committee. Shelby defends himself by saying:

"My position on this issue is clear and well-known: At no time during my career as a United States Senator and, more particularly, at no time during my service as Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence have I ever knowingly compromised classified information.

If that's his reasoning, then he owes his current freedom to none other than the hated Bill Clinton. If the Shelby Amendment had been signed into law, it wouldn't matter if he "knowingly" leaked the information or not, he'd be looking at a possible three year stint in a federal prison. (And, if he were a Democrat, he'd already have been forced to resign.)

He is no longer on the Intelligence Committee (they are rotated after eight years) and now serves as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee where his commitment to principle and accountability are once again being tested as he finds himself implicated in the Tom Delay Westar Scandal.

Richard Shelby is neither ashamed or embarrassed by his blatant hypocrisy and lack of candor. Indeed, when the leak story broke, he got right back on his favorite hobby horse and began railing against unauthorized leaks as if this never happened. Just today, a Boston Globe headline says Senator blasts investigators for naming him as leak:

Shelby's office said, in a statement released yesterday by his spokeswoman, Virginia Davis, "It bears noting that this story represents a grotesque abuse of a public trust on the part of law enforcement.

"For someone in law enforcement to express one-sided, personal views anonymously to the media while the investigation itself is still underway and while the matter is pending before the Senate Ethics Committee is unprofessional and grossly unfair," Shelby's statement said.

Sometimes, you just have to step back and admire the sheer audacity of these guys.




digby 8/07/2004 10:24:00 AM |

Friday, August 06, 2004

 
It Must Be Habit Forming

Some people might consider this to be a serious breach of national security, but since nobody will get to say the words, "in his pants" or "in his socks" 7,432 times an hour it's not likely to be much of a story. Besides, he's an al Qaeda double agent which means that Republicans got all confused thinking he was a Democrat. You can't blame them for that.

U.S. officials providing justification for anti-terrorism alerts revealed details about a Pakistani secret agent, and confirmed his name while he was working under cover in a sting operation, Pakistani sources said on Friday.

A Pakistani intelligence source told Reuters Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, who was arrested in Lahore secretly last month, had been actively cooperating with intelligence agents to help catch al Qaeda operatives when his name appeared in U.S. newspapers.

``After his capture he admitted being an al Qaeda member and agreed to send e-mails to his contacts,'' a Pakistani intelligence source told Reuters. ``He sent encoded e-mails and received encoded replies. He's a great hacker and even the U.S. agents said he was a computer whiz.''

``He was cooperating with interrogators on Sunday and Monday and sent e-mails on both days,'' the source said.

The New York Times published a story on Monday saying U.S. officials had disclosed that a man arrested secretly in Pakistan was the source of the bulk of information leading to the security alerts.

The newspaper named him as Khan, although it did not say how it had learned his name. U.S. officials subsequently confirmed the name to other news organizations on Monday morning. None of the reports mentioned that Khan was working under cover at the time, helping to catch al Qaeda suspects.

Hey, the polls are tanking, it was obvious by Monday morning that Ridge was pumping up the volume for politcal reasons, so you can't blame the administration for blowing the cover of an active al Qaeda double agent. If that's what it takes, that's what it takes. They have an election to win, people.




digby 8/06/2004 09:34:00 PM |

Thursday, August 05, 2004

 
Bizarro World Dick

Has anyone ever been as consistently wrong as Dick Morris? From uggabugga:

In the New York Post, Dick Morris writes about why Kerry didn't get a bounce (or much of one) out of the convention. Here, is the last paragraph in his essay: (emphasis added)

Voters want a president with brains, not just guts, and all they saw was a warrior telling his old tales on Thursday night. And it wasn't enough.

What can you say to this? I honestly believe that Clinton got the best of him by simply doing the opposite of whatever he recomended. It's pretty much foolproof.




digby 8/05/2004 11:43:00 PM |

 
FlipFlopping Away

Sommerby must be happy. The Kerry campaign has adopted his fine riff on the $87 billion bullshit.

For Immediate Release

August 5, 2004
BUSH THREATENED TO VETO THE $87 BILLION BEFORE HE USED IT AS A POLITICAL CUDGEL

Kerry spokesman Phil Singer said: George Bush can't be straight about his own record, let alone anyone else's. The fact is that George Bush twice threatened to veto this bill over the fact that it provided funding to veterans and reservists. As a combat veteran, John Kerry knows that you don't give a President a blank check to continue a failed policy, especially when our security and the lives of our men and women in uniform are at stake.

BUSH THREATENED TO VETO $87 BILLION SUPPLEMENTAL OVER ADDITIONAL FUNDING FOR RESERVISTS AND VETERANS. As part of the $87 billion emergency supplemental appropriations for security and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003, the Senate passed an amendment that provided an additional $1.3 billion for improved medical benefits for reservists and veterans. OMB Director Josh Bolten wrote to the Congressional Appropriations' Committees, stating, "The Administration strongly opposes these provisions, including Senate provisions that would allocate an additional $1.3 billion for VA medical care and the provision that would expand benefits under the TRICARE Program. ...If this provision is not removed, the President's senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill." [Foxnews.com, 10/21/03, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,100777,00.html; BVA legislative bulletin, http://www.bva.org/aut03bulletin/l_update.html; CQ, 10/20/03]


BUSH THREATENED TO VETO $87 BILLION PACKAGE ON ISSUE OF ALLOCATING GRANTS OR LOANS TO IRAQIS. "Key senators reversed course yesterday and voted to make an $18.4 billion reconstruction package for Iraq entirely in the form of grants rather than loans, as House-Senate negotiators worked their way through President Bush's $87 billion request for military and rebuilding operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 16 to 13 vote represented a significant victory for Bush, who had threatened to veto the bill if Congress insisted on making Iraq repay some of the money." [Wash Post, 10/30/03]

I'd love to see this in an ad. No mention of the lies and spin the Bush campaign has been telling about Kerry on this $87 bil, just this. In fact, I wonder if it might not be an effective campaign tactic overall to simply start calling Bush a flip-flopper as Atrios has been doing. We stole "help is on the way", why not this? Freak 'em out.






digby 8/05/2004 11:20:00 PM |

 
Be Careful What You Ask For

So, according to Media Matters, Limbaugh is back to his line (helped along by one of the witnesses in the Lynndie England court martial) that the torture of prisoners was "sort of like hazing, a fraternity prank. Sort of like that kind of fun." He even goes on to describe how he was pulled over by police recently and "was halfway hoping that one of the cops would be Lynndie England, but no such luck."

It's funny, that's the first time I've ever agreed with Limbaugh on anything. I too have been hoping that Rush would get taken into custody by a Lynndie England (or maybe one of her little friends like Sgt. Graner or Cpl Joyner.) Oh, how I'd love to see them "haze" him just a little bit --- have some "fun" with him.

He's gonna love prison.




digby 8/05/2004 04:56:00 PM |

 
Counterpunch

For all you Dems who might be thinking that Kerry needs to challenge John O'Neill to a duel or something to counter that ad, it really would be the wrong thing for him to do. Especially when he has John McCain out there duelling for him.

Here, you have the Republican Party's most beloved Vietnam veteran saying publicly, with no holds barred and within the same news cycle that this is a dirty trick and that they president should disavaow any knowledge of it. He even said, "it's the same deal they did to me." This is a very effective counter to the ad and the publicity surrounding it, one that carries far more weight with the media than anything Kerry or anyone else could have said.

As Dave Johnson notes over at See The Forest, this toxic smear was entirely predictable. And, as a result, I think that some of those meetings in which Kerry was supposedly trying to convince McCain to be his VP, McCain agreed to cover Kerry's back on smears against his war record. This was very well coordinated and McCain knew exactly what he needed to say. (The Kerry campaign had his comment blastfaxed instantly.) The media have had to include McCain's comments all day, diluting the impact of the ad and putting it into perspective.(It is only a $500,000 buy --- the point was the free media coverage of it.) Even the neanderthal Limbaugh crowd have some respect for McCain and although they will undoubtedly tout the party line, it won't have quite the same resonance. The independents and moderate Republicans love the guy. They'll listen to him. And that is the group of voters Kerry is going after.

McCain is a good Republican, but he isn't a Stepford Wife. This genuinely pisses him off. Getting him to serve as a spokeman for Kerry against these pricks looks like good politics to me.


Media Matters has the full debunking.

Update:

Here's Judy Botox's framing of the issue. I think it's exactly the Kerry campaign wanted it framed. You can't silence these people, but you can spin them for all but the most partisan mouth breathers. Short of taking Limbaugh off the air (and into jail, which I'm totally in favor of) there's nothing we can do about them. But, manipulating the mainstream press is something we must do if we are going to win.

JUDY WOODRUFF, HOST: Thank you for joining us.

Well, anyone who follows the presidential race knows that John Kerry's Vietnam military service is a key pillar of his campaign. Kerry often refers to his combat experiences, and veterans who have served with him had staring roles at the Democratic convention.

Now, a group of veterans who oppose Kerry's White House bid is taking aim at Kerry's war record. They've launched a harsh new TV ad in three battleground states, and it is already drawing fire from members of both parties.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED