Hullabaloo

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

 
Phenomenon Of Anger

Via Jack O'Toole I see that Governor Schwarzenegger's toppling poll numbers have led him to take a new tack, finally proving that he is a real Republican. (Nice work Maria. Uncle Jack would be so proud.)

The governor unveiled the strategy Tuesday before the earnest faces of elderly homeowners seated in folding chairs in the backyard of a well-worn ranch home outside San Diego. He derided what he called an insidious Democratic effort to overhaul the landmark Proposition 13 property tax limit.

"They want to back us into a corner so eventually they can force us to raise taxes,'' he added. "From now to election day, I want to talk about all the specific taxes (they) want to change."

[...]

Clearly, Schwarzenegger is appealing to the Republican base with this talk on taxes,'' said Tony Quinn, a GOP political analyst. "No one really knows much about the upcoming election, so he has to find something to get his supporters motivated.''

That strategy was outlined by the governor's media expert, Don Sipple, in campaign calls this month to wealthy contributors. Sipple said that "based on a lot of polling,'' the governor's special election campaign will aim to create a "phenomenon of anger'' among voters, particularly toward public employee unions, which the governor has charged are behind much of the Democrats' push for more spending and higher taxes, according to a recent Los Angeles Times report.

A separate initiative, one largely financed by the Republican Party and people close to Schwarzenegger, to limit the ability of public employee unions to contribute to political campaigns also has qualified for the ballot.

Going after the public employee unions has worked awfully well for him so far. I suppose he can pull off making it impossible for them to contribute to campaigns. But he can't force them off TV. And they are killing him. People like nurses and firefighters and teachers. They depend on them in times of crisis. They trust their children to their care. They don't see them as members of the Soprano family. In fact, when you put them up against Schwarzenegger, you are reminded that he made his name playing an evil cyborg.



.
digby 6/21/2005 01:07:00 PM |

 
Nope

Atrios writes:

Believed in WMDs they hyped? Perhaps. Believed in the threat they hyped? Nope.

They didn't believe in the WMD's they hyped either and we know this for a fact. Gene Lyons pointed out the obvious at the time:

The administration's strategy of loudly proclaiming that Iraq poses a dire threat to U.S. security while making a public spectacle of massing troops along its border as if it were scarcely capable of self-defense makes no sense.

Clearly, they didn't really believe that Saddam had any WMD capability. The governments of the US and Britain would have leveled Iraq before they put over a hundred thousand soldiers out in the open on the Kuwait border if they had. They knew.



.
digby 6/21/2005 12:35:00 PM |

 
Old Times There Are Not Forgotten

I haven't been following the latest Mississippi racist retrial all that closely, but app arently they just returned a verdict of guilty of manslaughter rather than murder, an alternate charge that was added at the last minute. I'll be interested to hear the reasoning. (It may have just been because the defendant is so old.)

Apparently, his lawyers used the "old news" and "looking forward, not backward," defense. Not that I blame the lawyer. He's just doing his job. But it is ironic because one of the things I really love about right wingers is how they castigate others for being irresponsible and unaccountable while refusing to ever admit they were wrong. They're still defending McCarthy fergawdsake. Nixon's a hero and Deepthroat a traitor. They will never, ever, accept responsibility for anything. When someone catches up with them it's always a call to "move on" and "stop living in the past."

I googled Killan, the ex-clansman, and found this interview by Richard Barrett, one of the state's most famous white supremicists from 2004:

Barrett: What about your background?

Killen: I have pastored churches all through Neshoba County for over fifty years. I am well thought of by most everyone. I have taken part in many political campaigns, especially for Ross Barnett and "Big Jim" Eastland. I have a big picture of Barnett hanging on my wall. I would get up and give speeches for candidates and organize speakings. One told me that he didn't even need to show up, so long as I was speaking for him. I have been encouraged to run for office, myself.

Barrett: Is there someone you most admire?

Killen: "Big Jim" Eastland. I used to go to see him a lot. The security guards would always let me in. I got stopped for speeding on the way to his house, one time, and the patrolman just waved me through. We would talk a lot and he would say that he would do anything he could for me. He was a powerful man and could bottle up laws that were wrong. He even told me that Bobby Kennedy once asked him to pick someone to succeed J. Edgar Hoover, because his brother was fixing to fire Hoover. When "Big Jim" said that he was supporting Hoover, no matter what, Bobby came back and said that he gave in. Hoover stayed on.

Barrett: You were put on trial, once, over trying to keep Communists out of Mississippi.

Killen: Old John Doar kept staring at me, like he was trying to look right through me. I stared right back at him and sent him a signal that made him mad. He was really mad when he could not convict me. During the trial, I wrote a note for my lawyer, Laurel Weir, to bring up about the plan by Negroes to rape white women that Summer. He did and the judge rebuked him for it, but the point got made.

John Sugg, the reporter who is covering the trial for Truthout, wrote about Barrett, the other day:

Later Wednesday, I ran into Richard Barrett, the paragon of Mississippi white supremacists. He was handing out his booklet, From Southern to American around the courthouse. The screed argues that blacks should be airlifted back to Africa, among other innovative solutions to social ills. Oh, despite his Southern nationalism, he's a New Yorker by birth, but what the hell.

Barrett, when not championing the virtues of being white - he's a ubiquitous figure in the state's fringe politics - is a lawyer. From a distance, he looks the part. Closer, his suit is a little threadbare and needs dry cleaning. His tie is stained. But bright and shiny is a lapel pin - a cross with four sharp points, symbol of his "Nationalist Movement."

"Killen asked me to represent him," Barrett says, "but I didn't think he was competent."

I can't resist, and ask: Is that why he wanted you?"

Barrett: "Hah!"

Barrett also says that he would have put on a "political trial," and he didn't know if Killen would have allowed that.

I ask Barrett to explain "political trial."

"Take a choice," he replies. "It's either Watts and Detroit" - referring to race riots - "or Highway 515, peaceful farms and churches."

State Road 515 is where the three civil rights workers - Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney - were murdered by the Klan. Barrett elaborated, contending the brief violence resulted in community tranquility. I rolled my eyes and said, "C'mon," and he retorted, "It's true."

"Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney came here saying they wanted to register Negroes to vote," Barrett says. "What they really wanted was to run white people out of the county. They did that in Jackson, where I live. Last election, there wasn't anyone I could vote for."

I ask: No one on the ballot?"

Barrett: "No, I mean there were no white people on the ballot."

As he walks away, he throws out a quicky: "They were not civil and they weren't right. They were communists and they were wrong."

Nice. I'm sure these are pretty much fringe people in today's Mississippi. But I would bet you money that the pro-lynching faction in the Senate is actually giving cover to Trent Lott, the former majority leader who still has some favors to call in. He's the reigning political leader of the neo-confederates. These are his people.

Update: Here's a nice op-ed by Mississippi writer Mitch Cohen on this very subject. Jesus, decent southerners must be getting tired of this crap.



.
digby 6/21/2005 09:07:00 AM |

 
Special Election

I saw a "Recall Arnold" bumper sticker yesterday.

This post from Atrios tells me we're going to be seeing a lot of them:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suddenly ranks among the most unpopular governors in modern California history, as residents grow increasingly unhappy about the action hero-turned-politician's budget plans and his call for a special election, according to a new Field Poll.

Less than a third -- 31 percent -- of the state's adults approve of the job the governor is doing in Sacramento, down from 54 percent in February. The numbers are only slightly better among registered voters, 37 percent of whom are happy with Schwarzenegger's performance and 53 percent dissatisfied.

"There's very little for the governor to cheer about in this poll,'' said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll. "There's a very broad-based view that the governor is off on the wrong track.''

[...]

We've seen these type of reversals and downturns before, but almost always because of an external event, like the declining economy for Wilson or the energy crisis for Davis,'' DiCamillo said. "But here, almost nothing has changed. It's almost a self-inflicted thing.''

Well, when you run as a superhero who is going to magically solve all problems by the sheer force of your supernatural powers, people tend to be quickly disappointed when they realize that you are actually a pampered movie star who doesn't have a clue.

Ronald Reagan gave speeches several times a week for many, many years before he ever ran for Governor. He was a fixture of the Republican establishment of California. Schwarzenneger didn't do any of the (ahem) heavy lifting that a person needs to do before they are ready to run the 7th largest economy in the world. It shows.

It is pathetic that Californians bought the ype, but then that's what we do. But like the good little faddists we are, when the fad dies we reject it with a vehemence . Nobody wants to be seen in last year's fashions. Live by the trend, die by the trend.

We do have a special election coming up --- one that will cost more than 70 million dollars and that Schwarzenneger insists we hold even though a regularly scheduled election is next June. Maybe we should make it worth our while. It only takes around 900,000 signatures to get a recall on the ballot. If we were smart, we'd get a right winger to finance it. They hate him too.



.
digby 6/21/2005 08:34:00 AM |

Monday, June 20, 2005

 
Breaking the Code

Andrew Sullivan notices the vile language used against gays by many on the right quite strikingly resembles the sick anti-semitism that prevailed for eons. I remember writing something similar about this a couple of years ago when I pondered why all the southern heritage groups were so freaked out about gay rights, which seemed slightly incongruous to me.

Back when Atrios was all over Trent Lott I did a bunch of research on the neo-confederates. Here we have a movement that claims it is all about their "southern heritage” and denies any accusation of racism. Their web-sites don’t use the “n” word and they try (and fail) to contain their hatred of African-Americans by bleating unconvincingly about history and ancestors and birthright, blah,blah,blah.

They hammer about affirmative action and highlight crime statistics and discuss the horror of a breakdown of American values and all the other unsubtle appeals to racism that we see throughout the Southern wing of the mainstream GOP. But, what you don’t see (and I’m not talking about full-on white supremacy neo-Nazi garbage) in the neo-confederate movement is no holds barred racist language. They have learned to use code words because even stone racists realize that it is no longer ok to spew their unadorned hatred in public. So, they go on and on about the illustrious history of the antebellum south and how special it all is.

But, strangely, I found that they also spend a vast amount of time spewing the most vile commentary about gays and lesbians. Who knew this was such a huge part of America’s Southern heritage? These confederate historical associations are so obsessed with the “homosexual rights” agenda that you can only conclude that the “threat” of homosexuality was the most hotly debated issue in the pre-1860 south. Why else would these benign heritage societies spend such an inordinate amount of time and energy detailing the dangers of the “gay lifestyle?”

Unless, of course, discussing gays and lesbians as if they are less than human is a convenient way of signaling your bigot credentials in all things. Then, it makes sense for these historical organizations to take a bizarre stand against gays, while proclaiming their mission is a simple desire to celebrate their heritage.

Here's how they explain it in polite company:

When I served on the State Textbook Committee, I asked each publisher, "what is your definition of family?" Almost without exception, the publishers, out of deference to the homosexual, lesbian, and feminist movements, define family as two or more people living together who care for one another. By their definition, any two people living together – men, women, married, unmarried – are now defined as a family.

The antebellum South was a society founded on the traditional family of husband, wife, and children. Even today, more than the rest of the US, the South is still more family oriented. Southerners still do not move as often as other people do. More than 75% of the people living in Alabama today were born in Alabama.

Because the South was, and is more family oriented, and because our definition of family is increasingly unacceptable to many Americans, all things Southern, including our concept of family, are attacked.

I think that both Sullivan and I are right. Gays have become the all purpose repository for American bigotry --- and we have a whole lot of it that needs a place to go. Without being able to use race or religion to assuage their soulless sense of insecurity, racists have found the only group that they feel they are still allowed to openly treat like animals. Gay bashing is the new code for all our lovely homegrown hatreds --- and some European imports like anti-semitism too.



Just so that nobody misunderstands, I do not mean to imply that all southern heritage groups are homophobic or even racist. I'm speaking of certain clearly racist groups that are only slightly less reprehensible than straight up white supremecists. (And the white supremecists are seriously into gay bashing as well.)



.




.
digby 6/20/2005 08:42:00 PM |

 
Patriot Act Too

Before Monsignor Tim releases his new book ("Big Russ and Me: The Bedwetting Years") and makes another appearance on his good friend Rush's radio show to hawk it, maybe somebody ought to send him a couple of these t-shirts his pal is selling before the dittoheads buy out the inventory.

The t-shirts read, "Your Tropical Retreat from the Stress of Jihad," "I Got My Free Koran and Prayer Rug at G'itmo," and "My Mullah went to Club G'itmo and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt."

This is some funny stuff. Especially when the FBI questions you for wearing t-shirts that proclaim you are a terrorist. Read those babies again. Swarthy males probably ought to think twice --- there're some militia types with itchy trigger fingers out there. And we've all been warned more than once to watch what we say.

I see a "Law and Order" episode in my future.



.
digby 6/20/2005 07:29:00 PM |

 
No News Is Bad News

Arianna has an interesting post up about blogs expanding the news cycle. But what I found most astonishing were these statistics:

Here are the number of news segments that mention these stories: (from a search of the main news networks’ transcripts from May 1-June 20).

* ABC News: "Downing Street Memo": 0 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 42 segments; "Michael Jackson": 121 segments.
* CBS News: "Downing Street Memo": 0 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 70 segments; "Michael Jackson": 235 segments.
* NBC News: "Downing Street Memo": 6 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 62 segments; "Michael Jackson": 109 segments.
* CNN: "Downing Street Memo": 30 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 294 segments; "Michael Jackson": 633 segments.
* Fox News: "Downing Street Memo": 10 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 148 segments; Michael Jackson": 286 segments.
* MSNBC: "Downing Street Memo": 10 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 30 segments; "Michael Jackson": 106 segments.

Wow. Is anyone in denial that cable news is just an arm of the entertainment industrial complex? Arianna suggests that we tune out all these non-stories the minute they come on. I'm actually giving up altogether. I can't find anything to watch on cable news anymore. And I'm a news junkie.



.
digby 6/20/2005 05:51:00 PM |

 
In Our Faces

In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility ... it would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation.

I suppose it's a waste of breath to try to convince the media and the rightwingers that Bush is the biggest bald faced liar in history, but still, the internet is such a nice repository of documentary proof of this that it seems a worthy exercise, nonetheless, if only for the history books.

I had the sad experience of accidentally deleting one of my own posts over the week-end, one on which I spent a great deal of time. (I can only assume that my subconscious was trying to tell me something.) However, in the course of researching that post, I happened upon a very nice resource that handily catalogues all the president's speeches (as well as other politicians') and I came to realize something quite astounding. During the campaign Bush repeatedly lied about the reasons for the Iraq war, even based upon the irrefutable public record, and as best I can tell the travelling press corp never bothered to comment upon it.

I recall a slight kerfluffle a while back about Bush saying that Saddam refused to allow the inspectors into Iraq, which those of us in the blogosphere noted with stunned surprise, but which was pooh-poohed by the press as being just another Bushism. But he actually continued to say it; he just said it more artfully. It was still an outright lie. And the only people who paid any attention to these words were voters who hadn't followed the lead up to the war in all its subterfuge and Machiavellian detail --- many of whom undoubtedly believed the president.

As I was searching through the archives of Bush's speeches, I found that these lies were part of his stump speech until just before the election in October of 2004 at which point he suddenly switched gears and started talking about "freedom on the march." Up until then, however, he had consistently said something virtually every single day on the stump that was a lie.

More than one actually, and they are all doozies:

6/27/03

In Afghanistan and Iraq, we gave ultimatums to terror regimes. Those regimes chose defiance, and those regimes are no more. (Applause.)


8/26/03

We gave a clear ultimatum to Saddam Hussein that he must disarm. He chose to defy us, and Saddam Hussein is no more. (Applause.)

09/12/2003

And we have pursued the war on terror in Iraq. Our coalition enforced the demands of the U.N. Security Council, in one of the swiftest and most humane military campaigns in history. Because of our military, catastrophic weapons will no longer be in the hands of a reckless dictator. (Applause.)(Applause.)


10/18/2003

But it wasn't just us who recognized a threat. Free nations recognized the threat. The United Nations passed resolution after resolution after resolution calling upon Mr. Saddam Hussein to disclose his weapons and to disarm. And finally, in Security Council resolution 1441, led by the United States, he was told that he had one, final chance to disarm -- disclose what he had and disarm, or there would be serious consequences. The world spoke, he chose defiance, and Saddam Hussein is no more. (Applause.)


10/22/03

Since the liberation of Iraq, we have discovered Saddam's clandestine network of biological laboratories, the design work on prohibited long-range missiles, his elaborate campaign to hide illegal weapons programs. Saddam Hussein spent years frustrating U.N. inspections, for a simple reason -- because he was violating U.N. demands. And in the end, rather than surrender his programs and abandon his lies, he chose defiance, and his own undoing.


1/15/04

Terrorists declared war on the United States of America, and war is what they got. We've captured or killed many of the key leaders of the al Qaeda network, and the rest of them know we're on their trail. In Afghanistan, and in Iraq, we gave ultimatums to terror regimes. Those regimes chose defiance, and those regimes are no more. (Applause.)


2/24/04

September the 11th affected my way of thinking when it came to the security of the country. We saw a danger, and so I gave him an ultimatum-the world really gave him an ultimatum. And he refused. (Applause.)

3/4/04


In 2002, the U.N. Security Council yet again demanded a full accounting of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs. As he had for over a decade, Saddam Hussein refused to comply. (Applause.)


5/3/04

Now, anytime an American President says, disarm, or face serious consequences, the American President better mean it. When the Commander-in-Chief speaks for the country, I believe the person ought to speak clearly and mean what he says. And so I acted on those sentiments, as well. I said, Mr. Saddam Hussein, disarm, or face serious consequences. He chose not to. He defied the world again.

5/13/04

My administration looked at the facts and the history and looked at the intelligence in Iraq, and we saw a threat. Members of the United States Congress from both political parties looked at the same intelligence, and they saw a threat. In 2002, the United Nations Security Council yet again demanded a full accounting of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs. They did so because they saw a threat. And as he had for over a decade, Saddam Hussein refused to comply. He deceived the inspectors. He did everything he can to deny access to the truth.

7/14/04

The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in.

8/29/04

Because the use of force should be the last option of the Commander-in-Chief, the very last option, I went to the United Nations in the hopes that diplomacy would solve the threat. You might remember, the debate went on, and after consideration, the U.N. Security Council voted 15 to nothing to say to Saddam Hussein, disclose, disarm, or face serious consequences. So the world spoke.

As he had for over a decade, he defied the demands of the free world. This wasn't the only U.N. resolution he ignored. We then sent inspectors in-or the world sent inspectors in, and he systematically deceived the inspectors.(Applause.)


9/27/04

Before the Commander-in-Chief commits troops into harm's way, he must try everything possible to prevent war. And so I went to the United Nations hoping that diplomacy would finally work with Saddam Hussein. That's why I went there. I have a duty to the moms and dads and husbands and wives of those who wear the uniform to try everything to protect our country without the use of the military. And so I stood in front of the United Nations and made the case. They looked at the same intelligence I did, they remembered the same history, and they voted 15 to nothing to say to Saddam Hussein: disclose, disarm, or face serious consequences. I believe when an international body speaks, it must mean what it says. (Applause.)

Saddam Hussein didn't believe it. He didn't believe it. Last year -- after all, for 16 years, he had ignored the United Nations -- excuse me, 10 years, 16 resolutions. That's resolution, after resolution, after resolution. As a matter of fact, when they sent inspectors into his country, he systematically deceived them. Diplomacy wasn't going to work. He wasn't about to listen to our demands. So we gave him a last chance; he ignored the last chance. And then I had a choice to make: take the word of a madman, forget the lessons of September the 11th, or do what's necessary to defend this country. Given that choice, I will defend America every time. (Applause.)

At about this time in the last month of the campaign, his stump speech changed:

October 6, 2004

I understand some Americans have strong concerns about our role in Iraq. I respect the fact that they take this issue seriously. It's a serious matter. I assure them we're in Iraq because I deeply believe it is necessary and right and critical to the outcome of the war on terror, and critical for long-term peace for our children and grandchildren. (Applause.)

If another terror regime were allowed to emerge in Iraq, the terrorists would find a home and a source of funding and a source of support, and they would correctly conclude that free nations do not have the will to defend themselves. If Iraq becomes a free society at the heart of the Middle East, an ally in the war on terror, a model for hopeful reform in that region, the terrorists will suffer a crushing defeat. (Applause.) And that is why Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman calls Iraq "a crucial battle in the global war on terrorism." And that is why Prime Minister Tony Blair has called the struggle in Iraq "the crucible in which the future of global terrorism will be determined." That is why the terrorists are fighting with desperate cruelty -- they know their future is at stake. Iraq is no diversion. It's a place where civilization is taking a decisive stand against chaos and terror, and we must not waver. (Applause.)

(That is particularly interesting in light of the recently revived and ever popular "flypaper" excuse. Bush just said on Saturday that it's a good thing that terrorists are flocking to Iraq so that we could fight them over there --- presumably so that useless wogs will be killed instead of innocent Americans.)

Bush slipped up again, however, as he got closer to the election and gave this speech on 10/12/04:

Before I ever commit troops into harm's way, or any President, we must try all means to deal with the threat. No President ever wants to send our young into harm's way. No President ever wants to have to do that. So I went to the United Nations, in hopes that diplomacy would work. That was my hope. I hoped that the free world would come together and make its voice clear, which it did. The Security Council voted 15-to- nothing, and said to Saddam Hussein, disclose, disarm or face serious consequences. Now, I believe that when an international body speaks, it must mean what it says. (Applause.) And that goes for the President, as well. (Applause.)

Saddam Hussein had no intention of listening to the demands of the free world. He ignored the resolution. He deceived the inspectors that were trying to get into -- that were in his country.[I think he really came to believe that Saddam wouldn't let inspectors into the country. ed] Why should he change? This is resolution number 17. Resolution after resolution after resolution had been passed, and nothing happened. He wasn't about to listen. As a matter of fact, when we gave him the final chance, he continued to deceive and evade. So I have a choice to make at this point in our history: Do I forget the lessons of September the 11th and take the word of a madman, or do I take action to defend this country? Given that choice, I will defend America every time. (Applause.)

We did not find -- we did not find the stockpiles that we all thought were there. But I want to remind you what the Duelfer report said. It said that Saddam Hussein retained the intent, the knowledge, and therefore, the capability to rebuild his weapons programs. Now, think about that.

The sheer chutzpah of that entire statement is actually quite dazzling. He was very sneaky all along saying that the security council voted unanimously for Saddam to disarm or face "serious consequence," while leaving the impression that the security council also agreed that this was all that was required for the US to invade. As we know, they didn't agree at all. With the exception of the US and Britain, the security council believed the inspections were working and that 1441 did not give any automatic authorization to invade. The security council did not authorize the US and Britain to go to war under 1441, yet Bush repeatedly implied that they did all through the campaign and nobody called him on it.

But that was slick spin that the press was too lazy to unwind. What is stunning is that all through the campaign, almost until election eve, Bush continued to say that Saddam refused to disarm, defying the world and the UN. The truth was that even at the time the consensus was that Saddam was giving the inspectors unprecedented cooperation. And more importantly,by the fall of 2004, for at least a year we had known definitively that Saddam had no arms. Therefore, Bush's reasonsing, quite artfully put together I admit, is nonetheless adsurd --- so much so, I suspect, that people couldn't quite figure out a way to approach it. It truly is the best example I've seen of "The Big Lie." It's almost as if Bush was daring people to refute him, knowing full well that it was such an illogical claim that it would make people uncomfortable to call him on it. (Indeed, he had ample reason to think so --- nobody had called him on his earlier assertion that Saddam refused to let the inspectors in at all, which is simply delusional.)

Today the media are yawning and telling us that Bush making an irrevocable decision to go to war almost immediately after 9/11 is old news. "Everybody already knew that," they say. And yet the president of the United States, time after time after time, lied directly to Americans in his campaign speeches, in addresses to fundraisers and, by extension, on the local news throughout the country by saying that the United Nations backed his decision to invade on the basis of the fact that Saddam refused to disarm. Everything about that statement is false. And yet even though he said it hundreds of times, and the press also now says they knew that Bush had decided tyo go to war as early as 2001, nobody said a word.

I didn't either. I'll be honest. I didn't because I couldn't bear to listen to Bush's stump speech so I didn't realize that he said this every day. However, the campaign press corpse, if they could hear the speech over the cacophany of piped in applause and the sound of their own drooling over all that delicious campaign food, never bothered to report this glaring lie. Neither, for some reason, did the Democrats. It's almost as if everybody just accepted the fact that the Big Lie was unstoppable and assumed that there was nothing they could do about it.

But there is really no excuse for the press to let this lie go unaddressed. He was saying this constantly all over the country and it was being picked up by local news and newspapers and repeated verbatim. I know it's hard to believe, but not everybody reads the NY Times and the Washington Post. A hell of a lot of Americans heard, without refutation, that Bush had the backing of the UN for the invasion and that he invaded as a last resort because a defiant Saddam refused to disarm. Again, that entire premise is false.

This is another reason why the Downing Street Memos mean something. It's not just that Bush and his cadre decided to go to war long before they admitted it --- they also lied repeatedly after the fact about their reasons and legal basis for doing it. It may be the most baldfaced lie a president has ever made to the American public --- even eclipsing "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" which Clinton only said on television once (and was repeated as evidence of his lying, thousands of times by the news media.)

As Juan Cole points out here(noticing as well that he's lying about the UN) Bush said it again just the other day:

"And so we worked hard to see if we could figure out how to do this peacefully, take a -- put a united front up to Saddam Hussein, and say, the world speaks, and he ignored the world. Remember, 1441 passed the Security Council unanimously. He made the decision. And the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power."

It is shocking journalistic malpractice not to point out every single time he says this that the security council does not agree that 1441 authorized the president to go to war, and in fact Britain tried mightily to get authorization and couldn't do it. It is also malpractice to continue to allow Bush to say that Saddam "defied," "ignored" or otherwise thwarted the inspections leaving us no choice. HE WAS COMPLYING. WE PULLED THE INSPECTORS OUT OF THERE. AND THERE WERE NO WMD.

In this very interesting TOM Dispatch, Mark Danner, who wrote the first real expose of the DMSs in The NYRB, of all places, responds to critics who say that this is old news. (Read the whole thing, but this passage in particular is relevant to my point:

The memo, moreover, is not an anonymous statement to reporters but a record of what Britain's highest security officials actually said. It tells us much about how the decision was made, and shows decisively that, as I wrote in my article, "the idea of UN inspectors was introduced not as a means to avoid war, as President Bush repeatedly assured Americans, but as a means to make war possible."

And as I have illustrated above, even after the facts on the ground were well known, Bush continued to use Saddam's non-existent defiance of UN weapons inspections as his cassus belli throughout the presidential campaign --- and the press allowed him to do it.

For the record,
this was the situation on March 7, two weeks before the invasion:

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said what he heard from the chief inspectors' reports Friday morning was a "catalogue still of noncooperation" and that what cooperation Iraq gave came grudgingly and "primarily under the threat of force." He also said that he expected a vote next week because "I don't think this can just continue on and on and on."

Blix, executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, told the council that inspectors have been given prompt access to Iraqi sites and have faced "relatively few difficulties." He said Iraq's cooperation could be a result of strong outside pressure.

ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the council that inspectors have found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons program.

[...]

Blix said Iraq has not resolved all of the remaining issues regarding its weapons programs. He said that verifying Baghdad's disarmament would take time and that inspectors would need to remain once it was completed.

Blix also said that he hoped Iraq would be more forthcoming with documents and other evidence. And he said Iraq has given inspectors names of people who helped destroy biological and chemical weapons in 1991. The availability of names indicates that Iraq should have records, he said.

Blix said inspectors have not found any evidence of mobile or underground weapons facilities. He said Iraq is making a serious effort to quantify biological and chemical weapons destroyed in 1991, unearthing several complete bombs from a re-excavated site.

Blix added that Baghdad also must account for how much of the weapons were produced.

ElBaradei said inspectors have found no evidence that high-strength aluminum tubes and powerful magnets Iraq has purchased were intended to produce nuclear weapons.

ElBaradei also said accusations that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger are "unfounded."

He said Iraqi scientists have agreed to be interviewed without escorts or recording devices, and that inspectors were still seeking to have those interviews conducted outside the country.

Here was the state of play a week later, just five days before the invasion:

President Bush will meet the leaders of Britain and Spain in the Azores Islands on Sunday for a "final pursuit" of a U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq, the White House announced this morning.

"In an effort to pursue every last bit of diplomacy the president will depart Sunday morning for the Azores to Meet Prime Minister [Tony] Blair and Prime Minister [Jose] Aznar to discuss prospects for resolving the situation peacefully with diplomacy in final pursuit of a United Nations resolution," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. The Azores, part of Portugal, are in the Atlantic Ocean about 900 miles west of Lisbon.

The three countries are sponsors of a proposed resolution that would open the door to military action against Iraq if President Saddam Hussein failed to meet specific disarmament requirements within a very short time frame, probably less than a week. The resolution has been blocked by strong opposition from France, Russia, China and Germany. All four are members of the Security Council; France, Russia and China are permanent members with power to veto any resolution.

Nothing changed. The UN refused to back to use of force. Three days later Bush gave this amazing speech [Read it. I'd forgotten what he said. ed] to the nation telling Saddam Hussein to leave within 48 hours. Ari Fleisher verified the very next day that we were invading whether Saddam left or not:

Q So the bottom line is, Americans are going to occupy Iraq, no matter what, at this point?

MR. FLEISCHER: The bottom line is, a coalition of the willing will disarm Saddam Hussein's Iraq, no matter what.

Even if they haven't any arms to dis.

While the press may find all this as hilarious as George W. Bush does, the DSMs show that Bush knew a year before the war that Saddam didn't present a threat --- and the public record shows that he knew for sure a month before the war that the inspectors hadn't found any evidence of WMD and that Saddam had been cooperating. Indeed, one could easily conclude that he rushed to war to prevent the inspectors from making that conclusive.

And then he continued to lie with impunity for the next two years, up to this very minute, when he says he went to war as a last resort, with the support of the UN, because Saddam refused to disarm --- despite the fact that we know definitively he didn't have any arms. The press is evidently so insular and so cynical that they simply accepted that Bush was lying day in and day out to the American public in the presidential campaign. And now all we hear from the them is caterwalling about "old news." That really is astonishing.

If you want to see Bush clumsily spinning like a top about Iraq, treat yourself to a re-reading of this debate transcript. Perhaps if the press had done its job during the campaign, or devoted even a fraction of the energy they devoted to Gore's mother's dog prescriptions, or Hillary donning a Yankee cap, this utter gibberish coming from the leader of the world would have been the death knell of his presidency as it should have been. Instead, it was just a "bad performance." What a tragedy.



.
digby 6/20/2005 12:42:00 PM |

Sunday, June 19, 2005

 
Father Tim and The Flyboy

I don't know how many of you bothered to sit through the Padre's eyelash batting McCainiac flirtathon on Press The Meat this morning, but Arianna did and she homes in on one of Russert's most annoying traits --- indeed, it's one of the most annoying traits I see across the TV wasteland. I don't know if it's that these people are getting so much direction in their ear pieces that they can't hear what their subject is saying or if it's that they are too self-absorbed to listen to anything but the sound of their own voices, but whatever the reason, they simply don't seem to hear the answers to their questions. If they did, their shows wouldn't become a sort of bizarre kabuki when things like this happen. From Arianna:

# McCAIN: Too often...the American people have been told that we're at a turning point, whether it be the capture of Saddam Hussein, or Uday and Qusay, or the elections...

# McCAIN: It's a hard slog, Tim. And we've made serious mistakes. And we're paying a price for those mistakes.

# McCAIN: What I think we should do, Tim, is wait until we achieve the successes, then celebrate them, rather than predict them. Because too often that prediction has not proven to be true.

# McCAIN: The biggest mistake I think we made after September 11 was not calling on Americans to serve. We shouldn't have just told them to go shopping or take a trip.

# McCAIN: The weight of evidence [in Guantanamo] has got to be that we've got to adjudicate these people's cases, and...if it means releasing some of them, you'll have to release them. Look, even Adolf Eichmann got a trial.

So after McCain ran down this laundry list of failures (and is there a more serious area for a president to fail than in war?), one would assume Russert would have asked him a question that would draw a conclusion of accountability for these mistakes. After all, these “mistakes” didn’t just happen. Shouldn’t Russert have pointed out, with all due respect to the senator, that “we” didn’t make these mistakes. That they were made, with not a small amount of hubris and incompetence, by specific people. And shouldn’t he have asked the “Straight Talk” senator to name these people?

And after that shouldn’t he have asked him if he agreed with his good friend and colleague Chuck Hagel, who is quoted in tomorrow’s US News and World Report saying: “the reality is that we're losing in Iraq."

But no, instead, he allowed him to say without a challenge:

McCAIN: On the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I've been totally in agreement and support of President Bush. ... And I'm particularly talking about the war on terror, the war in Iraq, national security, national defense, support of men and women in the military, fiscal discipline...

I heard the same thing and I shook my head in wonder. Monsignor Tim gave a delicious little shudder when he heard that, I swear he did. But he didn't seem to find it curious in the least.

Oh, and one other thing. After Dick Durbin does what JJ orders him to do and prostrates himself before the US Senate begging forgiveness for even thinking that we are treating prisoners in ways that might be compared to repressive totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, I expect JJ to apologize for implying that we are treating the prisoners in Guanatanano worse that we treated the Nazis. After all, he said: "Look, even Adolf Eichmann got a trial."

Of course, what Mccain said is true. Just as what Dick Durbin said was true. We did treat captured Nazis better than we are treating captured cab drivers and assorted losers in Guantanamo. But then, I guess the Nazis weren't the "transcendent" threat that "terror" is. The GWOT is unprecedented in its horror and requires that we forswear all trappings of civilization that might get in the way at any given moment. Good thing we citizens of today have a lot of TV and shopping malls to distract us, or we'd really be freaked out.

Still and all, if McCain runs, lets hope that Grover and the boys succeed in skuttling his candidacy. He's a phony who doesn't come across as one and that's a very valuable trait. The beltway boys choir still loves the guy and they'll help him any way they can. His problem is that he's unacceptable to the theocrats and ideologues. But he's just as unacceptable to us. He might not openly condone torture, but he said today that he's open to confronting Syria. And he said a lot of other nonsense too. The guy is just as myopic about modern global threats as the rest of them.

Father Tim and his marching band love him because he's the man they see looking back at them in the mirror when they blow dry what's left of their hair. And maverick JJ loves the adulation just a little bit more than any authentic Real American should. But he hides it well, I'll give him that. He's the best actor they've got.



.
digby 6/19/2005 04:08:00 PM |

 
Lil' Blogger Sleuths

This is just adorable.

The lil'est blogger sleuths are all excited again about their biggest and bestest scoop in the whole wide world! First the lil fellas found out that icky ole Dan Rather was a bad man who couldn't validate those funny looking Killian memos. And they won a great big prize, too, and everybody tol' them what good boys they were.

So they put their little noggins together and thought really, really hard and figured out that the mean Democrats musta made up those dumb Martinez talking points about that dead girl cuzit couldn't be true. It turned out that some dumb guy in Senator Martinez's office wrote 'em, but he coulda been a mean Democrat anyway cuz he was so dumb.

And now they put on their lil' thinkin' caps and figured out all by themselves that the Downing Street memos are fakes too --- all the icky memos just have to be fakes even when people who wrote 'em and read 'em say they aren't! Cuz the lil'est blogger sleuths are on the case, an' they know when memos are good and bad, so be good for goodness sakes!

Don't tell anybody, but they look like Batman and Superman an' the Flash, too and they can drive really fast cars and they can see through walls and beat up Democrats allthetime cuz ... they're the lil' blogger sleuths of America! Yea! All the bad memos are fake, fake, fake!



.
digby 6/19/2005 12:50:00 PM |

 
We CAN All Get Along

People talk a lot about cultural decay and declining values and the blame is usually placed on evil liberals. I suspect it is something much more simple than that. It's because we are dumb as posts. If you don't believe me, read this:

A recent Gallup survey shows that just about three in four Americans hold some paranormal belief -- in at least one of the following: extra sensory perception (ESP), haunted houses, ghosts, mental telepathy, clairvoyance, astrology, communicating with the dead, witches, reincarnation, and channeling. There are no significant differences in belief by age, gender, education, or region of the country.

Now, since we all know that a vast, vast majority of Americans are Christians and huge numbers of them are flocking to church pretty much seven days a week veritably drenching themselves in sanctimony, these numbers would seem to show that a good many of the pious Christians also believe in reincarnation or ghosts or astrology. I'm not sure how that works, but then I don't find a whole lot of difference, personally, between any of it. But that's just me.

However, it's now obvious that we should be prepared to teach astrology, clairvoyance, witches and channelling alongside creationsim in the science classroom. After all, a lot of people "believe" in those things --- and these beliefs have been around for millenia --- so it isn't right not to have them be part of any comprehensive science curriculum.

I expect, by the way, to see this movment come out of Un-Real America, in places like my own town, where "psychics" form a rather large part of the local new age belief systems. (People around here talk about psychics as if they are professionals.) But hey, if the Bible can be taught in science class, I see no reason to exclude the works of Shirley McClain or John Edwards (the ugly one.) And according to this poll it doesn't sound as if most people would have a problem with that, even in Kansas.

Since more than three quarters of the public believe these things, then it's possible that Real America has more in common with Un-Real America than we think. Maybe this is a Kumbaya moment in which we can all join hands and celebrate our common tradition, across all regional, gender, ethnic and religious lines, of believing in utter bullshit. Let the healing begin.


Thanks to Lindsay for the link.
.
digby 6/19/2005 09:34:00 AM |

Thursday, June 16, 2005

 
Why oh Y

Matt Yglesias took up the "why did we invade Iraq?" meme on Tuesday and others have followed. Matt says:.

... there's a difference between observing that the United States went into war without a plan -- without a realistic assessment of what we could accomplish, how it could be accomplished, and whether the costs of such a course of action would outweigh the benefits -- and the news that our main ally in the conflict made that observation long before the war happened. Yet the Brits joined up anyway. Why?

To this day, no one really knows. The impression one gets from the British memos is that Prime Minister Tony Blair's assessment was that the United Kingdom is well served by a policy of standing by the United States under virtually any conceivable circumstances, no matter how ill-advised any particular venture may happen to be. That's not the kind of thing you tell your voters, but I think a surprisingly strong case can be made in its favor.

But what was the White House after? Why did they do it? We have plenty of evidence that not only were the specific claims the administration made about WMD false (often knowingly so), but also that all of this was basically irrelevant to their actual thinking about why we should go to war.

But what were they thinking?

Maybe someone will someday be in a position to press a high ranking Bush official on this. It is doubtful that it will ever happen in the normal course of events, but perhaps "Woody" can catch Junior and the Retreads at a Crawford bar-b-que one of these days and get them to tell him on the q-t.

It's quite interesting that in the responses to my post below on the subject, there are as many possible answers as there are lawyers on Larry King, which only proves my point. Meanwhile, the rightwingers are all screeching about liberal conspiracy theories as if we were talking about alien abduction instead of having a quite reasonable curiosity as to the real reason we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars, showing our intelligence services to the world as incompetent boobs, and weakening our military to the point of real risk.

Let me be clear. Nobody saying that there was a conspiracy. What we are wondering is why, in light of the information that they knew Saddam wasn't a threat to US national security and knew that there were no terrorist ties, did they really want to invade --- particularly after 9/11 when it had been made very clear that a real threat existed that needed our full attention?

For all I know they had a perfectly reasonable rationale. But whatever it was, it was not the one they said it was. We had just suffered a massive terrorist attack and the entire country was prepared to do whatever was necessary to prevent it happening again. Yet the governments of the US (colluding with Britain) decided very soon after 9/11 that invasion of Iraq was essential, a decision that has not been adequately explained. It is not conspiracy mongering to want to know why they did what they did.

Just as a reminder of what the legal rationale for the invasion was as it was presented to the congress, here is the text of the joint resolution that authorized the president to take military action:

JOINT RESOLUTION:

To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.

Whereas in 1990 in response to Iraq's war of aggression against and illegal occupation of Kuwait, the United States forged a coalition of nations to liberate Kuwait and its people in order to defend the national security of the United States and enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq;

Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism;

Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;

Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998;

Whereas in Public Law 105-235 (August 14, 1998), Congress concluded that Iraq's continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international peace and security, declared Iraq to be in `material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations' and urged the President `to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations';

Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations; Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolution of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait;

Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people; Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council;

Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq; Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;

Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations;

Whereas Iraq's demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself;

Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) authorizes the use of all necessary means to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 660 (1990) and subsequent relevant resolutions and to compel Iraq to cease certain activities that threaten international peace and security, including the development of weapons of mass destruction and refusal or obstruction of United Nations weapons inspections in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), repression of its civilian population in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 (1991), and threatening its neighbors or United Nations operations in Iraq in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 949 (1994);

Whereas in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1), Congress has authorized the President `to use United States Armed Forces pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) in order to achieve implementation of Security Council Resolution 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, and 677';

Whereas in December 1991, Congress expressed its sense that it `supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 as being consistent with the Authorization of Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1),' that Iraq's repression of its civilian population violates United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 and `constitutes a continuing threat to the peace, security, and stability of the Persian Gulf region,' and that Congress, `supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688';

Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;

Whereas on September 12, 2002, President Bush committed the United States to `work with the United Nations Security Council to meet our common challenge' posed by Iraq and to `work for the necessary resolutions,' while also making clear that `the Security Council resolutions will be enforced, and the just demands of peace and security will be met, or action will be unavoidable'; Whereas the United States is determined to prosecute the war on terrorism and Iraq's ongoing support for international terrorist groups combined with its development of weapons of mass destruction in direct violation of its obligations under the 1991 cease-fire and other United Nations Security Council resolutions make clear that it is in the national security interests of the United States and in furtherance of the war on terrorism that all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions be enforced, including through the use of force if necessary;

Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war on terrorism through the provision of authorities and funding requested by the President to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;

Whereas the President and Congress are determined to continue to take all appropriate actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;

Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States, as Congress recognized in the joint resolution on Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40); and

Whereas it is in the national security interests of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This joint resolution may be cited as the `Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002'.

SEC. 2. SUPPORT FOR UNITED STATES DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS. The Congress of the United States supports the efforts by the President to--

(1) strictly enforce through the United Nations Security Council all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq and encourages him in those efforts; and
(2) obtain prompt and decisive action by the Security Council to ensure that Iraq abandons its strategy of delay, evasion and noncompliance and promptly and strictly complies with all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.

SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.
(a) AUTHORIZATION- The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to--
(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.
(b) PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION- In connection with the exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to use force the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon thereafter as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours after exercising such authority, make available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his determination that--
(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and
(2) acting pursuant to this joint resolution is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorist and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.
(c) War Powers Resolution Requirements-
(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.
(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS- Nothing in this joint resolution supersedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.
SEC. 4. REPORTS TO CONGRESS. (a) REPORTS- The President shall, at least once every 60 days, submit to the Congress a report on matters relevant to this joint resolution, including actions taken pursuant to the exercise of authority granted in section 3 and the status of planning for efforts that are expected to be required after such actions are completed, including those actions described in section 7 of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338).
(b) SINGLE CONSOLIDATED REPORT- To the extent that the submission of any report described in subsection (a) coincides with the submission of any other report on matters relevant to this joint resolution otherwise required to be submitted to Congress pursuant to the reporting requirements of the War Powers Resolution (Public Law 93-148), all such reports may be submitted as a single consolidated report to the Congress.
(c) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION- To the extent that the information required by section 3 of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1) is included in the report required by this section, such report shall be considered as meeting the requirements of section 3 of such resolution.

I defy anyone to read that and not admit that subsequent events and information raise serious questions about this invasion. The only offenses cited in that resolution that turned out to be true are:

Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolution of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population ... by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq ... and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait

Now, I don't know what the real reasons were. But of the reasons they cited to get legal authorization (although they would never admit they even needed legal authorization) these are the only ones that are still operative. Out of all that mumbo jumbo about threats to the United States and to the region and WMD and terrorism, this is all that's left. And if that's all we need, get ready, because there are a few dozen countries we are going to have to invade. Quite a few of them are our allies --- especially Britain. (Talk about failing to return items unlawfully seized. Anybody been to the British Museum lately?) In fact, if this holds up as a legal basis for war, we're going to have to invade ourselves.

It is not just cynical "told you so" partisan sniping to question the motives of those who took us to war based upon the reasons stated above. That resolution reminds us that the primary justifications have simply not been born out in fact and the Downing St Memos now show that they were aware they would not be borne out in fact before they submitted to the congress for authorization. The taxpayers of this country are shelling out a billion fucking dollars a week on an inscrutable action in a very dangerous part of the world and so far, they have nothing to show for it. The evidence that formed the legal bases for action as stated in that resolution has been shown to be false. We have a a right to know what in the hell they were really thinking.

As Matt points out in his article:

... we can't even begin to formulate an Iraq policy without confidence that the policymakers are telling us something resembling the truth about what they're trying to do and why.

Nor can we conduct any kind of reasonable diplomacy related to the situation as long as the nature of the situation remains shrouded in mystery and transparent deceptions. The issues are inextricably linked. The British memos have given us a tantalizing glimpse but don't get to the heart of the matter. The recent right-wing assault on the character of Mark Felt can be read as an effort to encourage everyone to keep the American people in the dark, but the truth is bound to come out sooner or later. Better that it be done in time for it to do some good.

Yes, that would be nice.

Update: Fafnir offers what I think is the best analysis I've read:

...just as America's enemies would love to know every American troop movement and battle plan, so would the jihadist foe also like to know why the United States is in Iraq at all. Is it a secret plan to lull the enemy into a false sense of winning? A grand plan to spread freedom in the form of militant Islamism? Is it all a massive fake out, a "look at Iraaaa... whooops, got yer Syria"? Is the entire War On Terror merely a front for a larger, grander, even nobler War On Something Else (War On Tyranny, War On Evil, War On War, War On Stuff)?

Only the Medium Lobster knows, and he refuses to compromise the safety and strategy of spin doctors in the field. Until victory is assured, Americans must trust that the plan is working - and that it exists.

I'm pretty sure this sums up the thinking of the 101st fighting keyboarders anyway. Trust, don't verify. All hail the Emperor.


Update II: Liberal Oasis has a very cogent post on this topic as well.

I understand that many of us as individuals believe that we know why the administration took us to war. I have my pet theories. But the fact that these answers differ proves my point. The official rationale is clearly false and there is no consensus on the real rationale. This is absurd. We live in the United States of America, not the Soviet Union circa 1956 or Nazi Germany circa 1938. It is, dare I say it, unamerican for the "greatest country in the world" to invade and occupy another country for reasons that are not crystal clear. If I recall correctly, "moral clarity" was their mantra for over two years.

We may know that there were reasons for this operation that had nothing to do with the reasons they stated --- but in order for us to properly proceed from here, they HAVE TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE. This means that we must relentlessly press them in whatever way we can on this subject.


Jesus, sorry for the typos. I'm in an inconvenient place for blogging.


.
digby 6/16/2005 07:42:00 AM |

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

 
More Entertainment

Freepers on Schiavo:

"Just because the vision center of her brain was blind doesn't mean her brain couldn't have compensated somewhere else."

"Considering that she died of intentionally inflicted starvation and DEHYDRATION, is it any wonder that her brain was half the size of a normal brain?"

"We have to remember that this is from the WaPo, not a credible news organization, so they might find it convenient to omit certain, necessary facts."

Well we do know that Michael owns the County Sherriff so how hard would it be for him to buy the Medical Examiner. The only way I would have trusted the autopsy is if it was done by the FBI...."

And the wingnuts lecture left wing bloggers for being conspiracy nuts when we wonder why we invaded Iraq.

What is really interesting about this thread is that there are just as many Freepers who are calling out the nutballs as there are nutballs. This issue seriously divides the right. We should flog it mercilessly. That's what they'd do to us if the shoe were on the other foot.

Every time a Christian right lunatic starts sanctimoniously pontificating about a "culture of life" we should talk about Terri. She is the symbol, in every way you can think of, of where this nation is headed if these radicals get what they are after.


Hat tip to BCF for the link.


.
digby 6/15/2005 05:06:00 PM |

 
Support Guaranteed Health Insurance, Support Osama bin Laden

From my wingnut e-mailer, for your entertainment:

MORE DEMOCRATIC TREASON

Ronald Reagan expressed it most famously when he said , "why do they always blame American first?" Ann Coulter recently wrote an entire book called "Treason" about the Democrats. I recently turned on Air America, the new liberal radio network, to hear Al Frankin pretending to shed real tears about how much he loved our troops in Iraq but two minutes later his patriotism seemed to fade instantly as he made fun of the troops in Afghanistan for not finding Osama Bin Laden. Yesterday, Paul Krugman's ultra liberal column in the Times dismissed the American free market, which is 100% responsibly for giving us the highest standard of living in the history of the world, in favor of single payer socialist healthcare.

So why do liberals hate America? The answer is simple: America, since the Revolution, has been mostly about freedom from gov't and therefore about freedom from Democrats. Throughout American History the Democrats have always been for less and less freedom from gov't despite the hundred million or so dead bodies gov't has caused during that period. One has to consider that their philosophical illegitimacy is what makes their loyalty so questionable and their style so nasty and seemingly treasonous. They want to belong here but the facts always paint them as anti-American. In a way you have to feel sorry for the painful position in which they find themselves, but you also have to wonder why it is that they seem to have an absolute inability to learn to think?

The latest liberal treason award should probably go to The New York Times. We are at war in Iraq against Saddam Hussein and his Baathist Party. By almost any standard we are the most noble country in the history of the world while Saddam Hussein's Iraq is among the most ignoble. Today, in fact, there is a story out of Iraq about an enemy soldier who blew up a bomb in a public square killing about 20 people many of who turned out to be orphan children peddling groceries in the street. Their idea of acceptable collateral damage extends to any man woman or child who might be near anyone who might be vaguely associated, if only by geographic default, with the war against them, and this is when they cannot behead a living, fully conscious, captured soldier or hostage, and all this is in support of a regime that is arguably more grotesque and has less electoral legitimacy than even Adolph Hitler's.

So in the last year how many times did the vaunted TIMES (the so called newspaper of "record") run front page headlines about how perhaps the scummiest, most illegitimate regime on earth conducts war: zero! How many times did they run front page headlines about how America conducts war? There have been 49 front page headlines about our so called conduct at Abu Ghraib alone. It wasn't that we were blowing up innocent children in the street or slowly cutting off the heads of fully conscious prisoners as the insurgents do, it was that a few Americans, later found to be criminals, were making the prisoners get in human pyramids while naked or in women's underwear.

Why is it that the liberal Times wants you to know more and care more about the way America is conducting the war than the way Saddam's Hussein's Nazi Baathists are conducting the war? The answer is simple: the liberals hate America and always have. In Vietnam they shouted, "Ho Ho, Ho Chi Minh." They are not yet shouting, "Saddam Saddam ,Saddam Hussein" but the effect is exactly the same. They are seeking to undermine America; not America's evil enemy. So what does that make a liberal? Our troops, many of them kids, are on the battlefield with the simple moral clarity to fight against pure evil. When they get wounded they heal, when possible, and then heroically and voluntarily return to fight again along side their fellow soldiers. Don't we owe them more than the treasonous, undermining liberal commentary we get on the front page of the Times? Don't the liberals know that once the war is on, and there is no way out, we're all supposed to be on the same team? Are they so alienated from the soul of America that they would rather see its children die on the battlefield than prevail against evil?

Imagine what the morale of the Nazi Baathists would be if the world's liberal press were united against their evil, instead of united against America? Imagine what the morale of our troops would be if the most significant and influential newspaper in the world at least tried to be loyal to the truth, instead of, in effect, the enemy? Imagine what the state of the world would be if the world's liberal press organized the world's citizenry against evil, instead of the American freedom that they blindly see, to the exclusion of everything else, as insensitive and uncaring. But if that happened it wouldn't be a liberal Democratic press would it?

No comment. It speaks for itself.



.
digby 6/15/2005 03:03:00 PM |

 
My Peeps

Schwarzenegger Jeered at Graduation Speech:

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's return to his alma mater turned into an exercise in perseverance when virtually his every word was accompanied by catcalls, howls and piercing whistles from the crowd.

Schwarzenegger's face appeared to redden during his 15-minute commencement address Tuesday to 600 graduates at Santa Monica College, but he ignored the shouting as he recalled his days as a student and, later, his work as a bodybuilder and actor.

``Always go all out and overcome your fears,'' he told the graduates. ``Work, work, work. Study, study, study.''

Inside the stadium, the drone from hundreds of rowdy protesters threatened to drown out the governor's voice at times. Many in the crowd erupted in boos when a police officer pulled down a banner criticizing the estimated $45 million cost of the Nov. 8 special election that Schwarzenegger proposed Monday.

The governor is backing three ballot initiatives that call for imposing a cap on state spending, stripping lawmakers of the power to draw their own districts and increasing the time it takes teachers to gain tenure.

At times during Schwarzenegger's speech, cheers and boos mingled, and the graduates themselves appeared eager to hear the governor. Many applauded at one point when the noise from the bleachers briefly subsided.

``It didn't matter. I just ignored them,'' graduate Ray Lewis, 21, of Los Angeles, said when asked about the racket from protesters. Schwarzenegger's ``political views and all that had nothing to do with the graduation,'' Lewis said.

Schwarzenegger has been feuding for months with groups he calls ``special interests'' - teachers, nurses and other public employee unions who accuse him of selling out to big business while shortchanging education, health care and other programs. Those groups have hounded Schwarzenegger at his public appearances.

The special election ``is a waste of money that you could be using for education, hospital care. He's wasting it on his vanity election,'' said Sue Cannon, a nurse who was among the crowd outside the stadium.

About two dozen Schwarzenegger supporters also rallied outside the stadium. One of them, Ben Eisenberg, who heads the Santa Monica College Republicans, said the ceremony ``should be about the students.''

Schwarzenegger left the stage almost immediately after his speech, speeding across the infield in a golf cart surrounded by sprinting security guards. Across the field, he pulled up toward a waiting SUV and a large steel gate was closed behind him.

Schwarzenegger took general studies classes at the two-year community college between 1970 and 1974. He later took correspondence courses through the University of Wisconsin-Superior, where he earned a degree in 1979. "

There's more:

The protest included a group of faculty members on stage who turned their backs on Arnold during the speech and constant booing from students throughout his remarks. At the same time, Air Arnold - a plane pulling a banner with the message: "Real Governors Don't Steal From Students" - was forced to fly above the clouds, hiding the message to Arnold in apparent violation of federal aviation law, and forcing the pilot to bring the plane down.

A Santa Monica College student attended the graduation in a chicken suit to make the point that Arnold was too chicken to face criticism from students, after the school banned them from wearing pins and t-shirts of protest or displaying posters. Even though Arnold got the school to ban any signs of dissent (even those flown above the graduation!), he couldn't silence the voices of students and teachers, who don't like what they've been hearing.

That's how it's done, my friends. Movie stars and fratboy heiresses are used to being treated with deference and awe. They get all flustered when people fail to worship at their feet. Here in Soviet Monica,however, movie stars are a dime a dozen. They don't turn heads. Rich Republican phonies, however, get our attention.

And whoever told Schwarzenneger that it was a good idea to say that teachers, nurses and firefighters were sell-outs to big business must have been drunk. (Mike Murphy, perhaps?) That kind of statement doesn't exactly ring true, especially coming from multi-millionaire Republican movie stars. He has managed to radicalize the middle class.

Since Schwarzenneger wants to hold a special election this fall come hell or high water, maybe we need to start talking about making it a recall.



Update: To clarify, when I say above that Arnold Schwarzennegger says nurses teachers and firefighters are special interest sell-outs to big business, I'm operating from an out of date lexicon. For all of history, "special interests" referred to business interests. The Frank Luntz American Heritage Book (The FLAHB) has changed that phrase to mean middle class people who work for the public good. I forgot. My bad.




.
digby 6/15/2005 07:44:00 AM |

Monday, June 13, 2005

 
Apple Corp

Isn't it interesting that the bad apples who were just having some kicks on the night shift at Abu Ghraib came up with similar kinky sexual humiliation "hijinks" to those the interrogators down at Gitmo were using on orders:

Over the next month, the interrogators experiment with other tactics. They strip-search him and briefly make him stand nude. They tell him to bark like a dog and growl at pictures of terrorists. They hang pictures of scantily clad women around his neck. A female interrogator so annoys al-Qahtani that he tells his captors he wants to commit suicide and asks for a crayon to write a will.

How odd that little Lynde Englund came up with the idea all on her own of putting a leash and dog collar on prisoners like that. Is life full of coincidences, or what?



.
digby 6/13/2005 03:27:00 PM |

Sunday, June 12, 2005

 
The Elephant

I honestly don't know why there is any question that the Downing St Memo is the most important historical document to emerge showing that Bush and company took us into Iraq on false pretenses. It's true that there have been many hints --- the biggest of which is that, uh, there weren't any fucking WMD --- but this is clear proof that they lied prior to that. I'm not sure what Michael Kinsley is saying here, but I agree with Kevin that it's absurd to think that the meeting minutes of the highest levels of our closest military ally were simple impressions of Bush's body language or something. It is a full-on game plan for obfuscation and "rolling out the product" that proves they knew that Iraq wasn't a threat.

Now, it's true that many of us knew that already. I wrote back in September of 2002 over on Eschaton:

I don't object to going into Iraq because I think Saddam doesn't want nukes. Of course he does. So do a lot of people, including al Qaeda. And a lot of unstable regimes already have them, like the countries of the former Soviet Union and Pakistan. I object because I don't believe there is any new evidence that he's on the verge of getting them or that he had anything to do with 9/11, or that he’s crazy because he gassed his own people (without our objection at the time), or that he’s just plain so evil that we simply must invade without delay --- all of which have been presented as reasons over the past few weeks. There are reasons why we are planning to invade Iraq, but they have nothing to do with the reasons stated and are based upon political and ideological not security goals.

I particularly object because I deeply mistrust the people who are insisting that Saddam presents an urgent danger because they have been agitating for invasion and regime change, offering a variety of rationales, for 11 years. Pardon me for being skeptical but there is an entire cottage industry in the GOP devoted to the destruction of Saddam for a variety of reasons, none of which have anything to do with an imminent threat to the US. Until they concocted this bogus 9/11 connection, even they never claimed that the threat was to the US, but to Israel, moderate Arabs and the oil reserves.

I very much object because among these obsessives are the authors of the Bush Doctrine, which is nothing more than a warmed over version of the PNAC defense policy document that was based upon Cheney's 1992 defense dept. draft laying out the neocon case for ensuring the continued status of the US as the only superpower after the cold war. They did not take the threat of terrorism into account when they formulated this strategy and have made no adjustments since the threat emerged. Instead they are cynically using the fear created by 9/11 to advance goals that have absolutely nothing to do with terrorism and in fact will make another attack more likely. We will not be able to protect ourselves against another 9/11 by asserting a doctrine of unilateral preventive war in Iraq or anywhere else.

I'm not an insider at the pentagon nor do I have any connections with the intelligence establishment. But I'm a political junkie who obsessively follows this stuff --- and who had made it my business to investigate the writings of the neocon faction of the Republican establishment. Most Americans in September of 2002 were still in a state of shock, or felt that we couldn't take any chances, or believed that Bush and company must know something that a broken down nobody blogger in Santa Monica California couldn't possibly know. I was told by more than one Democratic friend of mine that I was being ridiculously arrogant to be so sure that they weren't holding back important information for security reasons.

But, you know, I grew up in a period in which the government repeatedly and blatantly lied about a war in which friends of mine died and that tore the country in two in ways that I'm seeing mirrored today. I have not had the illusion that one should "trust" the government in these things since I was in high school. And this group made McNamara and his best and the brightest pals look like open books. If there was ever a case to be made for open government and transparency it was with the neocons.

It is obvious that the political media had access to the same information I did, and much much more. Bob "muckraker" Woodward was inside the planning rooms in late 2001 when the administration was agitating for the war. Wolf Blitzer could get anyone he wanted on the phone. They knew. But I wrote about what I could see and discern and they didn't. As Atrios says in his post today, blogs did their best, but we all knew we had slightly less influence than a lone protestor on a freeway off ramp. Millions of people in the streets all over the world could barely get the press to look up from their safari suit fittings --- and the bosses all told the kewl kidz that this was not a story they wanted flogged.

The fact of the matter is that the media are part of the political establishment, as as such, had as much of a stake in making the case for the war as the administration did, despite the fact that many of them knew very well there was no threat. They couldn't wait to go to war. They were intoxicated by bloodlust and they sold that bloodlust like it was the best reality show in history --- "9/11: America's Revenge" and they were right. It was a hell of a show.

All of this we know and have known for some time. But that doesn't mean that there is no story now. Indeed, the Downing Street Memo presents a chance for the press to redeem itself; this isn't the end of the story. So far, it has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into even broaching the subject of what this administration has done and their own complicity in it. They may never be able to admit all that. But in that it officially documents the fact that the administration knew there was no threat and knew there was no connection to terrorism, the Downing Street Memo gives the press the chance to ask, finally, why we really invaded Iraq.

Have any of you been at a social gathering in which this question comes up? Have you felt the palpable discomfort? Nobody really knows. Those that adhere to the "CIA fucked up" rationale can't explain Downing Street. Those who think you had to back the government in a time of war, are visibly discomfitted by the fact that we never found any WMD. Flypaper is crap. The amount of money we are spedning is becoming salient. The project looks endless.

I speculated back in September of 2002 that the neocon faction was pushing its American Empire wet dream and using 9/11 as an excuse. Others believe that in the grand sweep of things we invaded to place permanent military bases to protect the oil fields.(Ann Coulter says "why shouldn't we invade for oil? We need oil.") Still others think we needed to show some muscle and Afghanistan just wasn't sexy enough. Was it Israel? I wrote the other day that it now appears that Bush may have bribed Blair into invading Iraq by promising that he'd hold back just long enough to cripple al Qaeda and keep them from blowing up London --- something which the evidence suggests that Bush and his cronies really had no interest in. And then there's the racist and revenge motives.

We really don't know, do we? Perhaps it was all those things. Which would then raise another important question. How is it possible for the United States of America in 2003 to invade and occupy another country for a handful of different, unstated reasons? What kind of fucked up process could have the president with one reason for invading, the vice president another, the Secretary of Defense yet another --- and the congress and the press simply signing off on official lies?

These are the big questions that the Downing St Memo has opened up. Yes, we already knew the intelligence was fixed, we knew they understood that Saddam was no threat, we knew they lied to the American people and we knew that they intended to go to war no matter what. But we still don't know for sure why they did all that. Until we do, I don't think we will be able to figure out how to deal with it.



Update: To answer Atrios' question, and in keeping with this post, I would submit that the pithy way to frame this is by asking the question: "Why did we invade Iraq?"



.
digby 6/12/2005 05:27:00 PM |

 
Courtiers and Fools

Press The Meat today was one for the books. After a colorless exchange between the usual ineffectual Democrat and a looney tunes, delusional Republican (Joe Biden and Curt Weldon) Monsignor Lil' Russ joined the roundtable where they ignored everything that had just been said to breathlessly offer their learned opinions on the runaway bride and Michael Jackson of the beltway --- Hillary and Howard.

Gwen Ifill pointed out that while Dean is popular with the rank and file, the Washington Democrats are very upset. The Knights of the Botox all made it quite clear that while Bush catering to his base is a smart strategy, they agree with the DC Dems that catering to the filthy Democrat rabble is quite beneath any civilized politician. But then, as we all know, Bush's base are Real Americans while the Democratic base consists of a bunch of godless, bi-coastal, terrorist sympathizers who are waaaay outside the mainstream. All 49% of 'em. No way are Judy, Gwen, Father Tim, and Dean Broder associated with those treasonous bastards. Why, everybody on Nantucket practically lives on pork rinds these days. (Atkins, don't you know.)*

Woodruff pointed out that the Republicans have wisely learned to throw their red meat "below the radar" -- through the local news and direct mail ---while the Democrats haven't. No comment on why the Republican red meat remains "below the radar" when the creme de la creme of Washington punditry clearly knows all about it. Nor was there any speculation about how it came to pass that Dean's comments dominated the cable news networks with an obsessive glee usually reserved for Bill Clinton's pants, while Tom Delay can put out a hit on federal judges and it gets a one minute segment betwen the blog report and Bay Buchanan.

Certainly, the press wasn't in any way responsible. The news is apparently an organic thing, unconnected with those who report it. The subjects of the news determine how it's going to be reported and evidently the Democrats consistently mishandle that responsibility quite badly. Dean was asking for trouble and he got it. As Ifil pointed out, Democrats need to learn to "act right all the time because someone's always watching." (Unless they can figure out how to cleverly stay "under the radar," as those awesome Republicans do.)

The roundtable also agreed that Hillary Clinton's comments this week about abuse of power and timid press coverage were simply silly little broadsides designed to get her elected in 2006 and 2008 and nothing more. Broder, especially, seemed miffed, saying that she needs to read some history books where she will see that this is common practice. As we all know, the only crime in Washington is when some cracker Rhodes Scholar and his smartmouth lawyer wife come to Broder's town and "trash the place."

All Hillary's complaints are just typical Democratic carping, particularly the complaints about the press. What does she know from press coverage anyway? They used the Downing St. Memo as an example of how the press has been just as hard on Bush as they ever were on Clinton. I'm not kidding. Broder mentioned Walter Pincus' front page article today to prove that the WaPo has been on Bush's case about Iraq from the very beginning.

They all agreed, furthermore, that all of this had been amply dealt with during the election and that the public just didn't think it was important. Strangely, however, the polls seem to suggest that they are beginning to care now. Why would that be? Nobody knew.

Their assessment of Bush's tumbling poll numbers went like this. Broder said (and the bobble heads all nodded affirmatively) that if Clinton were in the White House they would be burning the midnight oil to change course. Bush doesn't do that. He stands firm. His codpiece veritably bursts with confidence. All hail the massively unpopular George W. Bush.

And anyway, Democrats are icky and everybody knows they have no chance in 06 or 08, so whut-evuhr. Michael Moore is fat.

Christopher Isherwood once wrote:

"You have never seen inside a film studio before?"

"Only once. Years ago."

"It will interest you, as a phenomenon. You see, the film studio of today is really the palace of the sixteenth century. There one sees what Shakespeare saw: the absolute power of the tyrant, the courtiers, the flatterers, the jesters, the cunningly ambitious intriguers. There are fantastically beautiful women, there are incompetent favourites. There are great men who are suddenly disgraced. There is an insane extravagance, which is a sham; and horrible squalor behind the scenery. There are vast schemes, abandoned because of some caprice. There are secrets which everybody knows and no-one speaks of. There are even one or two honest advisors. These are the court fools, who speak the deepest wisdom in puns, lest they should be taken seriously. They grimace, tear their hair privately and weep."

The political press became a ranking member of the entertainment industrial complex some time ago. And the full flavor of the court Isherwood describes has returned to the seat of power in Washington DC. I'll leave it to you to decide in today's media and political world, which are the courtiers and which are the fools.




*In fairness, Ifil and the guy from the WSJ (can't remember his name) mentioned that Dean has raised a lot of money and that this Dean flap is mostly a beltway game that will not have lasting impact as long as Dean doesn't run for president. Ifil, in particular, made a point of puncturing the slavering Monsignor Tim's balloon over a Harold Ford quote that he would not want Dean to come to Tennessee. Small favors.


.
digby 6/12/2005 08:26:00 AM |

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

 
Nuh-uh, I Never Said That

I'm taking bets on how the wingnuts try to re-write this embarrassing history. You know they will have to eventually. They've had to rewrite their history for the last 60 years. (And in the case of the hard core confederates, the original "Ownership Society" --- 200.) But it's getting harder what with these internets and all.

This may be the ultimate reason why they have had to resort to the alternate discourses of "I know you are but what am I" and "You can believe me or you can believe your lyin' eyes." (Not to be confused with "the emperor is strutting around stark naked in the white house, but at least he isn't getting a blow job.")

Any thoughts on how Wolfie and his cadre are going to explain this to the children?



.
digby 6/08/2005 08:08:00 AM |

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

 
The Coolest Robots In The World

I just saw Kraftwerk, the Beatles of electronica, outdoors at the Greek Theatre on a beautiful summer night in LA.

Sometimes life is really sweet.



.
digby 6/07/2005 12:10:00 AM |

Monday, June 06, 2005

 
A Land Called Honalee

Those liberal activist judges are at it again. They really are. A majority, which includes the moderates on the court, just ruled that the federal laws against medical marijuana are constitutional (as opposed to federal laws against guns near schools or violence against women.) If this were a case about, say, a federal law that overrode state laws against gay marriage, I suspect you'd be seeing a slightly different reaction from the wingnuts and probably on the court. The moderates (there are no liberals) upheld federal power over states' rights which is consistent with their position.

Rehnquist, Thomas and O'Connor dissented on the basis of states' rights, which is also consistent with their position. Kennedy swung with the majority --- he has no discernible position. The "surprise" is that Little Nino, who is proving himself to be more and more of a straight-up whore every day, voted with Ginsberg and Stevens and the rest. Not because he agrees with the legal doctrine involved --- nothing in his judicial history would suggest that --- but because he just doesn't want people smoking pot. Or perhaps he just thinks that federal power is ducky when it's in the hands of his friends. Either way, he's intellectually bankrupt.

The court is operating on the same basis that the political system operates. The liberals and moderates in the minority play by the rules thinking that consistency and intellectual integrity are important and that people will hold it against them if they deviate from their stated position.( And, of course, they are right. Even when they haven't actually deviated from their position they are accused of it and called "flip-floppers.") The shrinking number of real conservatives pay lip service to their belief system as long as it won't affect the outcome: they are subject to the same intimidation as the moderates and liberals if they don't. The right wing radicals just power their way through using any means necessary, willingly taking the help of liberals and moderates who perform the function of useful idiots with their fealty to process and institutional integrity in a time of pure power politics. I'm sure they are greatly soothed by the fact that all good children go to heaven.

The good news is that, as Stevens says in the opinion, it preserves the right of federal legislators to change the laws, so that's nice. When we finally get over our reefer madness in this country, which I expect to be in a couple of hundred years or so, maybe the Armageddon Party can join with the Theocrats and make it legal. But of course, it won't be necessary because Pfizer will have found a way to perfectly re-create the effect of marijuana in a pill form and will have made millions selling it by prescription to those who can afford it --- which is, after all, the whole point.



.
digby 6/06/2005 08:23:00 AM |

Sunday, June 05, 2005

 
The Drinking Debate

I hope that everyone is making a habit of checking out Harry Shearer's column over on the Huffington Post because he's got access to some of the most amazing footage you are ever going to see.

Check this out. George and Laura on Larry King talking about "the drinking debate" in South Carolina in 2000. As Shearer points out, the strange, mummified puppet who calls himself Larry King didn't have the wherewithall to follow up. He was too busy pimping himself, as it seems he does constantly, to his guests.

Has anyone heard anything to the effect that everyone was drunk during the famous South Carolina debate between Mccain, Bush and Keyes? Oddly, Karen Hughes didn't mention it in her memoir.



.
digby 6/05/2005 09:00:00 PM |

 
Whose Party Is It Anyway?

Atrios is on fire today. This explication of the Democrats' position and challenges on Iraq is spot on.

He mentions Matt Yglesias' observation that the liberal hawks are unwilling to admit they were wrong because to do so would create a hit to their credibility. This is very interesting. We know that Bush and his cronies believe they will lose credibility if they admit they are wrong about anything and they are probably right. Without their claim to God-like infallibility, I suspect they know that their whole delicate house of cards might collapse. They do not want their base to ever get it in their heads that the emperor has no clothes and they will fight like hell to see that they don't.

However, there are plenty of liberal hawks like Joe Biden, for instance, who also seem to be backed into a corner because they think that they will lose credibility with...who, exactly? Fred Hiatt? Tim Russert? Because they sure as hell won't lose credibility with the base of the Democratic party --- they'd be heroes. See, to us, admitting you were wrong about Iraq means that you gain credibility, not lose it. Indeed, the reality based community tends to believe that it's important to admit when you were wrong. It's all part of that whole godless scientific method, empirical data, age of reason, enlightenment lah-de-dah we hold so dear.

But then it's obvious they have no respect for the base of the Democratic party. Just this morning, both Biden and Edwards dissed Howard Dean big time. While Bill Frist bumps and grinds the pole to James Dobsons' every command three years before the presidential election, our presidential hopeful club is already running to the middle as fast as their chubby little legs will carry them. Or perhaps they are just running toward their nannies, the liberal punditocrisy who get ever so upset at the harsh rhetoric being flung by that rabble rouser, Dean:

Dean ''doesn't speak for me with that kind of rhetoric and I don't think he speaks for the majority of Democrats,'' Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday on ABC's ''This Week.''

While discussing the hardship of working Americans standing in long lines to vote, Dean said Thursday, ''Republicans, I guess, can do that because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives.''

Oh mercy me, pass me ovah the smellin' salts, daddy! I'm like to be bowled ovah with a feathah!

Dean's words are actually quite powerful to anyone who isn't a hypocrite, a member of the Sally Quinn circle jerk society or a paid spokesman of the RNC. It's the kind of thing that real people say in real life. It's authentic, Real Murica speak, not Washington pearl clutching bullshit. The presidential race is three long years away and Joe and John both should have laughed and said, "Howard was talking about the Republican leadership and their lobbyist buddies who can't seem to get anything done for the American people --- but they sure do take care of themselves. I think a lot of people probably agree with him on that." Instead they twisted their little lace hankies like a couple of rich old biddies and sniffed and whimpered about how they don't agree with such tawdry sentiment. It's really a wonder we get any votes at all.

Which brings me to Rick Perlstein's guest post on Political Animal the other night. I still haven't received my copy of his new book, and I'll discuss it in much greater depth when I have, but I think that Perlstein's quite correct when he asks:

Here's a riddle: what is a swing voter? More and more, it is an American who thinks like a Democrat but refuses to identify as one.

...If it is true that party identification — which, as Stan Greenberg argues, is a form of social identity that endures over the long term — is the best predictor of voter behavior, isn't getting this selfsame public to identify with the Democratic Party much, much more than half the solution?

There is much more to his prescription, of course, than merely respecting the base. But if party ID is a form of social behavior that endures over the long term, it is a necessary first step. The grassroots of the Democratic Party were the ones who pushed for Howard Dean to become the chairman of the DNC. When you treat him like an unruly child or a slightly crazed relative, you are saying to the voters who have already committed to the party and strongly identify as Democrats that they are a bunch of losers. Why on earth would anyone join a party that does that?



.
digby 6/05/2005 06:46:00 PM |

 
You Gotta Ask Me Nicely, Danny

This pretty much ruined my day. (Goes directly to taser video --- not for the faint hearted.)

This woman was tasered with 50,000 volts by the police for not getting out of her car fast enough at a traffic stop. The officer waited less than 40 seconds before tasing her. Then she is tasered again for not responding properly after she fell out of the car and was writhing on the ground in pain.

I realize that police officers face a lot of danger. And this woman was driving with a suspended license. (They didn't know this when they jolted her, however.) All they knew was that she was talking to someone on the phone and narrating what was happening to her and did not respond immediately to the officer's demand that she get out of the car. She did not appear to pose any physical danger to them, only to their authority.

Evidently, because the officers had been tased in their training they believe that it isn't "that bad." (Someone needs to instuct them about pain threshholds and adrenaline and how it feels to fall from the open door of an SUV onto ashphalt with 50,000 volts coursing through your system and two angry cops pointing loaded guns at you.) Apparently, police credit the taser with preventing shootings, and perhaps they are right. But then so would simply bashing suspects over the head with a baton if they don't cooperate within 30 seconds. Or shooting them. It certainly does make the job easier if you don't have to evaluate the situation or try to talk sense into a young woman who is incooperative but instead can simply stun her into compliance like something out of a science fiction movie.

According to this series of reports by the Palm Beach Post, tasering is commonly used to shut up loudmouths. It's "safe" you see. Doesn't leave any marks and is considered perfectly legal.

The company that makes this convenient, lawful device is under intense scrutiny by authorities for securities violations as well as serious safety concerns:

Since the summer, reports in The Republic and the New York Times have brought to light contradictions about Taser's claims of safety.

For years, Taser maintained that its stun guns never caused a death or serious injury. As proof, Taser officials said no medical examiner had ever cited the weapon in an autopsy report.

But Taser did not have those autopsy reports and didn't start collecting them until April. Using computer searches, autopsy reports, police reports, media reports and Taser's own records, The Republic has identified 88 deaths after police Taser strikes in the United States and Canada since 1999.

Of those, 11 autopsy reports have linked deaths to the stun gun. Medical examiners cited Taser as a cause or contributing factor in eight deaths and could not rule it out as a cause in three others.

The Republic has also reported that several police officers have sustained career-ending injuries that they attribute to being shocked with Taser.

In reports to bolster safety claims, Taser officials have said more than 100,000 police officers have been shocked during training exercises without suffering a serious injury.

In October, Taser issued a press release saying a Department of Defense study, whose full results have not yet been released, found that its guns were safe. But The Times reported that the Air Force researchers who conducted the study actually found that the guns could be dangerous and that more data was needed to evaluate their risks.

Of course, whether or not tasers inflict permanent damage or death is beside the point. They clearly administer terrible pain to people who are officially only suspects or witnesses and it's clear that they are being used to simply make people behave in a docile manner when in the presence of police. It makes the policeman's job easier. But again, so would hitting them over the head.

From yesterday's Palm Beach Post editorial:

The review of three years' use by police from Boca Raton to Fort Pierce, starting in 2001 when the weapon arrived in South Florida, revealed that one of every four suspects zapped was not armed, violent or posing any immediate potential threat to anyone, including themselves. In at least 237 incidents, the stun gun was used to achieve compliance from passively resisting or fleeing suspects — who often were not even arrested.

Police agencies recognize that they have a problem in their widely varying policies for recording and tracking Taser use, which often require no explanation for why officers fired the weapon. The manufacturers' marketing also skates past questions about respiratory, cardiac, neurological, psychological and other effects, including the effect of being zapped multiple times.

There are reasons why it is a bad idea for police to be allowed to inflict pain on people who are uncooperative or disagreeable --- the most important being that this means police are sanctioned to commit violence on the public under color of law in instances where their safety is not at issue. That's one of the hallmarks of a police state not a free society. (And yes, I realize that Saddam pulled the legs off of puppies on Christmas morning and I'm damned lucky not to be living under that kind of hellish nightmare. But every lil' totalitarian has to start somewhere.)

It's not just Gitmo. Sophisticated torture techniques are becoming common policing and interrogation methods in America. I remember watching the excrutiating video of police meticulously applying q-tips dipped in pepper spray to the inside of logging protesters' eyelids when they refused to unchain themselves from one another. It was explained that because they weren't actually blinded or permanently harmed, this was really the humane way to get them to cooperate. The most chilling thing about this was the dry, benign way the police calmly went about methodically pulling the immobile protesters' heads back and then their eyelids, to carefully daub the painful chemicals directly into the eye as they screamed in agony. Don't ever think that the systematic "banality of evil" regime couldn't happen here. The police didn't seem to be enjoying themselves, nor were they bothered. It was just all in day's work.



(It should be noted that police had dealt with this form of protest -- in this case blocking a congressman's office -- many times before and had always simply cut the steel armbands with no ill effect. This was a method to force the protesters to willingly bend to the authorities' will.)

They sued and had two hung juries, the first of which had the judge stepping in after the mistrial with a verdict for the defendants ("no reasonable person could conclude that this was excessive force.") Many appeals followed, including the one that overturned that first judge's unbelievable ruling and removed him from the case for bias. Just last April, they finally won on the third try. (I wonder if Abu Ghraib may have had an influence?)

The common rationale for the torture regime is that policemen must have the right to inflict great pain (if not permanent damage) on the spot, at their discretion, to gain the cooperation of suspects or witnesses because they have a dangerous job. Tasers have made that call a little bit easier because they allegedly cause no lasting damage. I would imagine that many people instinctively think that is not such a big deal. Until they get pulled over by a cop in bad mood who goes from 0 to 60 in 30 seconds and determines for whatever reason that you must be physically subdued. Or maybe he just doesn't like your looks. After all it's "not that bad." No harm no foul. Why if it weren't for the Bill of Rights we wouldn't have to think about it at all.



.
digby 6/05/2005 02:40:00 PM |

 
Expanding the Cult

Kevin at Catch catches Ben Stein deep throating Richard Nixon's corpse again. Aside from peddling the latest Peggy Nooner dolphin fantasy --- that Mark Felt is responsible for genocide because the Mahatma Nixon died for our sins, or something --- he comes up with some especially colorful rhetoric to describe him:

Have you noticed how Mark Felt looks like one of those old Nazi war criminals they find in Bolivia or Paraguay? That same, haunted, hunted look combined with a glee at what he has managed to get away with so far?

He goes on to say how odd it is that Felt would betray the savior of the his people.

If he even knows what shame is, I wonder if he felt a moment's shame as he tortured the man who brought security and salvation to the land of so many of his and my fellow Jews. Somehow, as I look at his demented face, I doubt it.

Click the link at Catch to read some of Isaac Bashevis Nixon's inspiring words about the Jews.

I have once again misunderestimated Republicans. I had thought they had cast all their considerable historical revisionist desires totally into Saint Ronald. As the obsessive object of their fear and love had done with Lenin, I had assumed the Reagan cult would serve as the Republican historical example of perfect leadership and humanity. I was wrong. Being the great winners of ideological struggle apparently entitles them to raise all Republican leaders to the status of gods. In fact, there is no Republican leader on earth, from Joe McCarthy to Richard Nixon, who has not been entirely misunderstood until now. They have all not only been great warriors and leaders of men, they are also, each in their way, Jesus-like in their transcendent love for their fellow man and devotion to peace. All of them. Even the paranoid drunks and crooks.

Perhaps this is something necessarily present in the totalitarian mindset. The movement is infallible and all leaders of the cause must, therefore, be perfect. We've seen this before, of course. Caligula made his horse into a senator (and you know, Bill Frist does have a rather equine visage...) Still, it never fails to amaze me that somewhere along the line the right wing in America came to identify so closely with their left wing nemeses. Perhaps obsessing about communism all those years created a kind of mass Stockholm Syndrome. Whatever the explanation, they become more and more like them every day.



.
digby 6/05/2005 09:11:00 AM |

Saturday, June 04, 2005

 
Shoes Tumbling To The Ground

If any Democratic Senators are looking for a way to shine light on the Downing St Memo(and I'm not holding my breath) this may be the way to do it. And the beauty of it is that they can use that loudmouthed cretin John Bolton to do it:

John R. Bolton flew to Europe in 2002 to confront the head of a global arms-control agency and demand he resign, then orchestrated the firing of the unwilling diplomat in a move a U.N. tribunal has since judged unlawful, according to officials involved.

A former Bolton deputy says the U.S. undersecretary of state felt Jose Bustani "had to go," particularly because the Brazilian was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad. That might have helped defuse the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined a U.S. rationale for war.

[...]

The Iraq connection to the OPCW affair comes as fresh evidence surfaces that the Bush administration was intent from early on to pursue military and not diplomatic action against Saddam Hussein's regime.

An official British document, disclosed last month, said Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed in April 2002 to join in an eventual U.S. attack on Iraq. Two weeks later, Bustani was ousted, with British help.

[...]

After U.N. arms inspectors had withdrawn from Iraq in 1998 in a dispute with the Baghdad government, Bustani stepped up his initiative, seeking to bring Iraq - and other Arab states - into the chemical weapons treaty.

Bustani's inspectors would have found nothing, because Iraq's chemical weapons were destroyed in the early 1990s. That would have undercut the U.S. rationale for war because the Bush administration by early 2002 was claiming, without hard evidence, that Baghdad still had such an arms program.

In a March 2002 "white paper," Bolton's office said Bustani was seeking an "inappropriate role" in Iraq, and the matter should be left to the U.N. Security Council - where Washington has a veto.

Bolton said in a 2003 AP interview that Iraq was "completely irrelevant" to Bustani's responsibilities. Earle and Bohlen disagree. Enlisting new treaty members was part of the OPCW chief's job, they said, although they thought he should have consulted with Washington.

Former Bustani aide Bob Rigg, a New Zealander, sees a clear U.S. motivation: "Why did they not want OPCW involved in Iraq? They felt they couldn't rely on OPCW to come up with the findings the U.S. wanted."

Bustani and his aides believe friction with Washington over OPCW inspections of U.S. chemical-industry sites also contributed to the showdown, which went on for months.

The article discusses at some length what an asshole Bolton was, menacing and inapprorpiate, but then what else is new. What is interesting is that the article connects the dots between Downing St and this explicitly.

This is an AP article. Unfortunately, it is also on the wires on Saturday where it is most likely to be overlooked. Unless we refuse to let it.

The media needs a hook to start talking about Downing St. I think Bolton's toast, but if the nomination goes forward I would certainly hope that the Democrats would use this as an opening to start talking about it. If Bolton ends up withdrawing because of this (and he might) then the media also has an excuse to talk about it.

I wonder if Monsignor Russert will see fit to discuss this between Hail Mary's on Press the Meat tomorrow morning?


Hat tip to samela



.
digby 6/04/2005 06:35:00 PM |

Friday, June 03, 2005

 
What's Good For The Goose Is Only Good For The Goose

It is interesting that the ACLU got a ruling requiring that all the Abu Ghraib pictures be released to the public. What is really interesting is that the government argued that releasing them would be contrary to the Geneva Conventions. (Via Talk Left)

"It is indeed ironic that the government invoked the Geneva Conventions as a basis for withholding these photographs," said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney at the ACLU. "Had the government genuinely adhered to its obligations under these Conventions, it could have prevented the widespread abuse of detainees held in its custody in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay."

It's nearly impossible to be as obtuse as is the Bush administration without having either some sort of cognitive problem or psychological impairment. I suspect it's the latter.

This recent phony outrage about Amnesty International is another example of this pathology. They had no problem using Amnesty to buttress their case against Saddam, but balk at being called to task for our own very obvious and well known human rights abuses in Guantanamo. Of course, there is little mention of this (except by Jon Stewart) so it doesn't matter. Patriotic correctness requires that any criticism of the United States be immediately struck down as treasonous, if not blasphemous.

If anybody still wants to know why they hate us, this would be a good place to start.



.
digby 6/03/2005 12:09:00 PM |

 
Who Cares What We Think?

Matt Yglesias, blogging from his fancy new digs at the TPM Cafe, says today:

At today's Take Back America conference I saw some interesting polling data from Diane Feldman on a subject I'd pondered now and again. Unfortunately, the written summary of the presentation doesn't contain the exact numbers and I didn't write them down because I assumed this question would be included in the summary. The point, however, was that when you ask if America is "the greatest country in the world" most voters say that it is. When you ask if Democrats believe that America is the greatest country, most voters say that they do not.

I think it's clear that this perception creates some electoral problems. Indeed, it's a particularly serious kind of electoral problem because my guess is that the perception is probably correct.

It seems to me that if you are a member of the "reality based" community, as so many of us liberals claim to be, that you can't answer such a question without qualifiers. This means that we are unable to respond in appropriate knee jerk fashion and are therefore assumed to be unpatriotic. The question is simple minded and it demands a simple minded answer and that's a problem for us. Perhaps we should just lie, like everyone already does about going to church or whether they are faithful or all the other things Americans are forced to lie about in our right wing PC times.

Patriotism is defined in the dictionary quite simply as "love of one's country and a willingness to sacrifice for it." That is not the same thing as believing that your country is the greatest country in the world. I love many things in life that aren't "the greatest" and I don't see the conflict. One doesn't have to abandon all intellectual integrity to love something, imperfect and not-so-great as it may be. America is certainly the most powerful country in the world. One would think that people could be satisfied enough with that, but apparently not.

What does it mean to be the "greatest country in the world, or as I've heard it put, "the greatest country the world has ever known" anyway? Is it measured by how fair and just our system of government is or standard of living or military prowess, or what? Is it, as George W. Bush pushes incessantly, because its people are "good?" Or is it that by all measures of all things it is simply the best?

I raise this because I suspect that what people really want from liberals is not patriotism, but chauvinism, one important facet of which is characterized in this context by the belief that your national culture and interests are superior to any other. (Our vaunted "exceptionalism" is not made up of a whole lot more than that simple definition.) And, yes, some liberals do not sign on to that, for good reason. Because it's bullshit. And America, the home of mutts from all over the world, the give-me-your-tired-your-poor immigrant nation, should be more aware of the shallowness and idiocy of this than any other country in the world. It's not as if we are Germans trying to preserve the fairy tale of a thousand year Reich. It's one of the good things about not being European, with all that baggage --- or would be if we thought about it for half a minute.

Simple observation of the world shows that all nations are made up of human beings, which automatically taints the project. America and Iraq and China and everywhere else are comprised of this very flawed species. If you live long enough you see that, as much as our fearless leader likes to claim otherwise, Americans are not "better" and therefore our country is not "better." Only individual people can be judged better or worse and it is without regard to nationality, culture or religious belief.

Our democratic experiment has been a worldwide inspiration and our Bill of Rights is one of the most important contributions any nation has made to mankind. This country has welcomed immigrants (in fits and starts) from all over the world and created a wealthy, successful nation because of it. I would easily sacrifice for the country, it's my home. I love it the way anyone loves their home, with a deep and emotional connection that transcends intellectual thought. But I don't need to suspend my judgement or my faculties and further say that this country is the greatest country on earth. There is no such thing as the greatest country on earth.

Matt feels that this presents an electoral problem. I would agree if people like me were expressing these views in a political campaign. (Just call me Ward Churchill, I guess.) However, the perception that Matt talks about isn't fueled by some quasi intellectual argument about chauvinism. It's fueled by Rush Limbaugh and his band of flaming gasbags who have spent the last fifteen years saying that liberals hate America day after day.

John Kerry volunteered for Vietnam, fought bravely, and came home and devoted himself to ending what he saw as an unjust war. Meanwhile his rival George Bush spent the war drinking beer and fucking off. Yet Kerry was made out to be a coward and Bush a hero. I suspect that my candidate, Wes Clark, would have been similarly reduced to sissy status despite the fact he was a four star general. Proof of love and devotion to country is not particularly relevant --- just as what liberals really think about America is not particularly relevant.

Our political problems stem from some very deep and ongoing cultural anxieties that we need to think about and confront. What we can't do anything about is the idea that liberals tend to be more --- dare I say it --- nuanced than conservatives. It is a characteristic not a policy. We're stuck with that and we're just going to have to find a way to make it work for us.



.
digby 6/03/2005 08:26:00 AM |

Thursday, June 02, 2005

 
Common Sense

Dear FEC,

I write to you today to request your kind advisory as to whether this pamphlet defines me as an ACTIVIST or a JOURNALIST. Whilst I am loathe to corrupt our pristine electoral system with my calls to political action, neither would I wish to cause our sanctioned press any undue hardship due to its perceived affiliation with rabble like myself. I do understand that "citizen journalists" not being PROPERLY CREDENTIALED creates terrible confusion amongst the leaders of government and society. I humbly request, therefore, that you peruse my pamphlet with an eye toward giving me the designation I shall need going forward if I wish to publish and disseminate my words without government interference. I anxiously await your verdict.

Sincerely,


Thomas Paine


.
digby 6/02/2005 07:32:00 PM |

 
For The Record

Yesterday I mentioned the fact that that FoxNews had the incredible chutzpah to discuss openly why nobody is reporting the Downing Street Memo --- without actually reporting on the Downing St memo. It turns out that there is a movement afoot to gain some attention for this thing and I think it's worth doing, if only for history's sake if nothing else. There should be a record of some Americans' interest in such a damning document that proves the president of the United States knowingly took the country to war on false pretenses. It may come in handy someday.

Shakespeare's Sister informs me that theBig Brass Alliance is a collection of bloggers who are supporting a group called After Downing Street that is dedicated to gaining exposure for this issue. One positive thing that anyone can do is sign (along with 88 members of congress) this letter that John Conyers has written to the president requesting some answers to the obvious questions this document raises.

This isn't some pie-in-the-sky lefty kumbaya petition (not that there's anything wrong with that.) This memo is smoking gun proof that Bush lied us into war. Many of us knew this from the get. But, I think it's probably true that most others already know this on some level as well --- a fair number are glad he did, a few more don't care, and the rest just don't want to confront their own bloodlust or willfull blindness. It's hard to admit you were wrong about something so deadly.

The rest of us need to keep a clear head and insist that this not be swept under the rug to the extent that we can. We have to keep the idea that there will be some sort of rational accountability for such acts alive in this culture or we are goners.



.
digby 6/02/2005 09:41:00 AM |

 
Losing Their Religion

Regarding right wing Christians putting their embryos up for adoption and insisting they not be adopted by gays or non-Christians (preferably not a working woman either) AMERICAblog wonders how this Bush promoted religious discrimination can get past the editors of the NY Times unaddressed.

I'll tell you how:

Though we have our lapses, (pdf) individual news stories on emotional topics like abortion, gun control, the death penalty and gay marriage are reported and edited with great care, to avoid any impression of bias. Nonetheless, when numerous articles use the same assumption as a point of departure, that monotone can leave the false impression that the paper has chosen sides. This is especially so when we add in our feature sections, whose mission it is to write about novelty in life. As a result, despite the strict divide between editorial pages and news pages, The Times can come across as an advocate.

The public editor found that the overall tone of our coverage of gay marriage, as one example, “approaches cheerleading.” By consistently framing the issue as a civil rights matter -- gays fighting for the right to be treated like everyone else -- we failed to convey how disturbing the issue is in many corners of American social, cultural and religious life.

[...]

Too often we label whole groups from a perspective that uncritically accepts a stereotype or unfairly marginalizes them. As one reporter put it, words like moderate or centrist “inevitably incorporate a judgment about which views are sensible and which are extreme.” We often apply “religious fundamentalists,” another loaded term, to political activists who would describe themselves as Christian conservatives. ...

The editors didn't fail. They succeeded. They "re-framed" the issue of religious discrimination and gay rights. They are simply being "sensitive" and "conveying how disturbing the issue us in many corners of American social, cultural and religious life" when they uncritically report on a White House endorsed publicly funded group that enables Christian bigots to discriminate even though it's clearly against the law.

I think it's time we called out the PC police on the wingnuts. Nobody likes political correctness, not even liberals, really. And our day is long past. This is the new province of the right and they have finally hammered the press into thinking that discrimination and bigotry are really just normal expressions of religious belief and must be treated with kid gloves. I call bullshit every time one of these timorous cowards clutch their tiny lace hankies and blubber something about how they are being sensitive to the beliefs of bigoted assholes.

Just in case James Dobson and his new friends, the intellectuals at the NY Times, have forgotten their eighth grade American history class, Confederates used the Bible to justify slavery, too. Bin Laden uses the Koran to justify terrorism. Just because they wrap themselves in the Holy Books doesn't mean these theo-fascists they aren't breaking the laws of both God and Man.



For a more in depth analysis of the NY Times "credibility" report, see Reading A1
.
digby 6/02/2005 09:28:00 AM |

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

 
Buy This Book

The Stock Ticker and the Superjumbo : How the Democrats Can Once Again Become America's Dominant Political Party

I have ordered it and await it eagerly. Rick Perlstein is one of the clearest observers of American politics around and one of the very few historians who really understands how the right wing works.

It's only 8 bucks and I guarantee that it will be worth reading even if you don't agree with his conclusions:

A majority of Americans tell pollsters they want more government intervention to reduce the gap between high- and lower-income citizens, and less than one-third consider high taxes to be a problem. Yet conservative Republicanism currently controls the political discourse. Why?

Rick Perlstein probes this central paradox of today's political scene in his penetrating pamphlet. Perlstein explains how the Democrats' obsessive short-term focus on winning "swing voters," instead of cultivating loyal party-liners, has relegated Democrats to political stagnation. Perlstein offers a vigorous critique and far-reaching vision that is a thirty-year plan for Democratic victory.

If you are very good, I may even be able to persuade the author to do a little blogospheric interview if he's so inclined. It's long past time that liberals supported their writers and thinkers the way the wingnuts support theirs.


Update:

Speaking of books, are any of you libertarians out there a little bit discomfited by the fact that "On Liberty" by JS Mill got an honorable mention in the 10 worst books list by HumanEvents magazine? I mean, "Mein Kampf" and "Das Kapital" aren't big surprises. I'm not shocked by "The Feminine Mystique" or even the inclusion of John Maynard Keynes (although you have to love this commentary: "FDR adopted the idea as U.S. policy, and the U.S. government now has a $2.6-trillion annual budget and an $8-trillion dollar debt." Haha.)

But "On Liberty"? What, he wasn't sufficiently agitated about stem cell research? The capital gains tax?

Jesus, I now have not one single intellectual connection to the right. Not one. They are aliens from another planet.



.
digby 6/01/2005 06:24:00 PM |

 
The Party Of Krugman

Somebody asked me what my favorite columnist was the other day and I said that I thought most liberal bloggers like Krugman because he writes the way we write --- he doesn't suffer fools and he writes with all the righteous indignation he feels at what he sees. And, I suspect that this is why establishment journos like Daniel Okrent don't like him. He just refuses to play the game by establishment rules.

This post by Brad DeLong exposes the entire silly social aspect of this and gives us a window into why liberals are being marginalized in the mainstream media. We are supposed to be nice. The other side is expected to be tough and uncompromising. Krugman is a fighter and he never gives ground when he thinks he's right. That's unbecoming in a liberal because it means that you have to engage in the facts and have a real argument instead of just hurling insults or bumper stickers as you can when dealing with right wing critics.

Daniel Okrent finds his behavior unseemly and annoying:

For a man who makes his living offering strong opinions, Paul Krugman seems peculiarly reluctant to grant the same privilege to others. And for a man who leads with his chin twice a week, he acts awfully surprised when someone takes a pop at it

[...]

On Prof. Krugman's defense of his unfamiliarity with it, he's effectively saying, "If I didn't know about it, it must not be important." This is a polemicist's dodge; no self-respecting journalist would ever make such an argument.

[...]

Believe me -- I could go on, as could a number of readers more sophisticated about economic matters than I am. (Among these are several who, like me, generally align themselves politically with Prof. Krugman, but feel he does himself and his cause no good when he heeds the roaring approval of his acolytes and dismisses his critics as ideologically motivated.) But I don't want to engage in an extended debate any more than Prof. Krugman says he does. If he replies to this statement, as I imagine he will, I'll let him have what he always insists on keeping for himself: the last word.

I hate to do this to a decent man like my successor, Barney Calame, but I'm hereby turning the Krugman beat over to him.

Oh Boo hoo hoo. God forbid a liberal should accuse one's critics of being ideologically motivated. You would think that the ombudsman of the NY Times would have a slightly bigger bone to pick with the right wing which has been calling them ideologically motivated for 40 fucking years. But then, that would require they acknowledge reality and that is what cannot happen.

Paul Krugman is an in-your-face, unapologetic member of the reality based community. He calls it as he sees it and he doesn't mince words in doing so. As he amply demonstrated in his response to Okrent's shallow criticisms (which, even if true, would hardly back-up his calumnous accusations in his last piece) Krugman does not particularly enjoy being told he is wrong on the facts when he isn't. World class economists may be used to being called to task for their conclusions or their predictions, but saying that he is cooking the numbers for partisan reasons are fighting words. His reputation rests on his intellectual integrity. Of course he is going to fight when challenged by lame conventional wisdom and spoonfed propaganda. If only more liberal pundits had his guts we might not be where we are today.

Paul Krugman is tough and fearless and we need more like him -- people who are not part of the cliquish Sally Quinn social scene (it about made me puke to read that unctuous little screed again) and who do not depend upon the approbation of aging social mavens for their self esteem.

Tell me that the party of Krugman is a bunch of soft cowards who can't fight terrorism or run a disciplined economic agenda. Tell me the party of Krugman doesn't know what it believes in. The party of Krugman believes in reality, that the emperor has no clothes, that up is up and down is down. And it isn't afraid to tell snivelling little babies like Daniel Okrent to stick it where the sun don't shine. The party of Krugman doesn't lay down and take it. It fights.



Update! Somerby takes Okrent, skewers him quickly and then slowly roasts him over a very high flame. It is awesome. Okrent, the Manhattan fop.
digby 6/01/2005 04:27:00 PM |

 
No Mirrors Available

This is too much. Shakespeare's Sister spots a FoxNews headline that says: Downing Street Memo Mostly Ignored in US.

Can you believe it? And then Fox goes on to wonder why that might be. They simply can't figure it out. They interview people and ponder the question and go to great lengths to explain why it isn't being reported. I don't see that they interview Roger Ailes or John Moody, however. Perhaps they were too busy.

They even point out that the left has been trying in vain to get attention for the issue:

Several popular left-leaning blogs have taken up the cause to keep the story alive, encouraging readers to contact media outlets. A Web site, DowningStreetMemo.com, tells readers to contact the White House directly with complaints.

"This is a test of the left-wing blogosphere," said Jim Pinkerton, syndicated columnist and regular contributor to FOX News Watch, who pointed out that The Sunday Times article came out just before the British election and apparently had little effect on voters' decisions.

"In many ways that memo might prove all of the arguments the critics of the war have made," he added. "But the bulk of Americans don't agree, or don't seem that alarmed, so it is a power test to see if they can drive it back on the agenda."

I guess the fact that most people don't know is irelevant. Certainly, it can't be because FoxNews itself isn't reporting it. Except, of course, to report that nobody cares.

Even though Pinkerton is trying to turn this into a test of the liberal blogosphere for gawd knows what reason, it is an important story that we should continue to press. Sometimes these things take time.

Check out DowningStreetMemo.com. They'll tell you where to send your angry lefty e-mail.



.
digby 6/01/2005 02:05:00 PM |

 
Your Lovin' Don't Pay My Bills

John Aravosis wonders if liberals have "issues" with money --- he sees a hostility toward money on the left and wonders where it comes from. His readers offer some very interesting opinions on the matter, so be sure to read the comment thread if you find this topic intriguing.

I have a slightly different perception on the matter than most, it seems. I admit to having issues with it, probably because I always valued time over money. (Of course, as you get older you begin to realize that you run out of that too.) However, I don't harbor resentment toward others. I made my choices and I don't live a life full of regret about much of anything. I have no moral qualms about making money (in a decent way) and I don't think that it's my business to judge others on what they choose to spend it on. I appreciate what it can do to make life comfortable for the individual and how it motivates people to work. I certainly accept that there is something intrinsic to human nature in the acquisition of wealth and the desire to succeed. But I do have issues, nonetheless.

John's readers more than adequately explain what I think is the common liberal argument against money and it's the general belief in egalitarianism --- that it is not really moral to have too much when others have so little. These are ideas that, ironically enough, stem from Christian teaching. So much for the godless heathens of the left.

I don't approach this from a moral standpoint, although I'm sympathetic to the notion just from a human empathetic standpoint. If you've ever spent much time in the third world, you realize right quick that human life is valued very differently on our planet and it won't make you feel particularly terrific about your own (except, of course, for the South Park Republicans who apparently can't think beyond their good luck --- what they would call their natural superiority --- at being American.)

It has been my experience that money confers power over others and that is where I personally get uncomfortable. This is not directly related to marxist theory, although I would suspect that there isn't a lefty (or a righty for that matter) who hasn't been influenced to some degree by it, so it's certainly relevant to my thinking on the issue. (He diagnosed the illness, it was his prescription that wasn't so hot.) Mostly,though, I think it's a matter of human psychology. People who work for wages, particularly those lower on the scale, are simply not in control of their lives in the same way as are those who work for themselves or those who are independently wealthy. From being treated like a lackey by the boss to having to answer to your mother-in-law because she loaned you money for the down payment, there is a slight, and sometimes not so slight, corruption of your freedom every time you are dependent upon another individual's goodwill. And it is a rare person who will not immediately exercise this power over others if they feel threatened or angry and a rare person who will not feel the metaphorical lash at having to answer for it.

As much as I am concerned as they are with individual freedom, this is why I find it so hard to relate to libertarians; I think that the common experience of working for wages and being beholden to another individual is more of a tangible infringement upon personal liberty than the extraction of taxes for the greater good. The infringement on personal freedom that is most immediate and constant in most people's lives is having to brownnose another human being or play fast and loose with the rules because their financial survival depends upon it. It's why I support unions and workplace rules and consumer rights. In the everyday lives of most people, the biggest limits on their freedom and challenges to their integrity come not from government regulators but greedy and powerful employers.

And yet, it is the way of the world and we each have to find a way to live with a modicum of decency and integrity within it. And I think it is a much more complicated and difficult row to hoe than we Americans think it is. It is not as easy to obtain financial freedom as some would have it nor is financial success a perfect illustration of an individual's merit. That's why I don't much like money, in a general conceptual way. It has corrupted friendships, family, jobs and relationships in ways that nothing else in my life ever has. It can and is used as a weapon as often as a tool. In a hyper capitalist society such as ours, it's perhaps the single most powerful method the individual has (or doesn't have) to create his or her own destiny. It's both a blessing and a curse.

It's a good thing to think about how you really feel about it --- most Americans never question their assumptions. In many ways, it's probably easier that way. Bravo to John for bringing it up.

And by the way, I hope this makes it clear that I do not hold with the idea that because a blogger accepted donations that he or she is required to answer to the donors. Indeed, I think the opposite. People give money because they appreciate the work. When they don't appreciate the work they don't give money. It's one of the cleanest exchanges of goods and services around, fully voluntary and without further obligation on either part.

This reminds me of a relative who wanted to help out her grandfather in his later years. He was living with an aunt who also had little money. This relative agreed to send a hundred dollars a month. When she went to visit she found out that granddad was drinking a couple of beers every night and the aunt played bingo on Saturdays. The relative considered these expenses to be a waste. She figured her hundred a month entitled her to straighten up these people's bad habits and she insisted that because she had sent them, by this time, more than a couple thousand dollars that they already owed her quite a lot, even if she withdrew her monthly stipend. They gave up the beer and the bingo but the relative continued to find their spending habits objectionable and made sure that they knew it and did as they were told. Granddad was reduced to sneaking around and the aunt was isolated from all the friends she used to see at weekly bingo. They felt like children. Luckily they both died before long and ended the ritual humiliation the whole thing had evolved into. The money was not worth it.

If Aravosis wanted to blow all his donations on lottery tickets they'd be his to blow. If that bothers you, don't donate again. But making a donation doesn't entitle anyone to think they own John or his blog. He owns himself, always.



.
digby 6/01/2005 12:52:00 PM |

 
Maybe He Won't Be Back

Check out this fascinating pictorial deconstruction of Schwarzeneger's ad on BagNewsNotes today. (Or just click the ad at left.) For those of you who don't live in California, this ad is just pathetic, and it's chock full of product placement. I don't think I've ever seen this many brand names in a political commercial before.

But, as BNN points out, it's also aesthetically just a terrible ad --- even by political ad standards which aren't very high. It's not that it has some sort of cinema verite authenticity in its badness. It's just ugly and ineffectual.

This is the mega star of the 1980's we're talking about here. The man whose entire claim to fame is his celebrity. Yet his people produce an ad that could have been done by someone(with lots of high placed friends in the food and beverage business) running for the San Bernardino school board. And it comes on the heels of months of very effective ads done by the public employees unions featuring the the sunny smiles of elementary schoolteachers and nurses and the rugged all American features of heroic firefighters. (Jon Stewart said "those are some MILFS.")

I think that people expect Schwarzenneger's ads to be professional show business quality. That is, after all, the only thing he's got going for him. Nobody voted for Arnold because of his great ideas or policy prescriptions. He didn't have any then and he doesn't have any now. They did expect him to at least play the part of the Governor well on TV. But then again, he never was the actor Ronald Reagan was in the movies, either. And that's saying something.



.
digby 6/01/2005 09:33:00 AM |

 
The Incredible Shrinking President

Funny how we haven't seen any of the weekly news magazines do a cover story on the fact that Bush is the earliest lame duck in history. Considering that they were writing Bill Clinton's epitaph within three months of his first term, one might conclude that they are using a different standard. How unusual.

But then again, it isn't his fault and it isn't his job. Unlike Clinton he doesn't have a congressional majority of his own party to lead. Oh wait...

Bush Rejects Talk of Waning Influence:

President Bush dismissed yesterday suggestions that his influence is waning less than six months into his second term, blaming partisanship and timidity in Congress for the lack of action on his plans to bring change to the United Nations, restructure Social Security and enact a new energy policy this year.

"I don't worry about anything here in Washington, D.C.," Bush said during a news conference in the White House's Rose Garden. "I feel comfortable in my role as the president, and my role . . . is to push for reform." With Democrats and Republicans alike questioning the clout of a president whose approval ratings have sunk to new lows, Bush said it is Congress that must prove it is "capable of getting anything done."

His job is to "push for reform?" I thought he was keeping the babies safe and fending off drone planes with his bare hands. What's going on here? The man with the codpiece can't get a Republican congress to enact his agenda? Man, those panting security moms must be disappointed. The difference between the 85% Collossus of 2002 and the petulant powerlessness of today is stark.

And he clearly didn't like the way people were talking about his soul brother Vladimir:

Speaking a few hours after former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was sentenced to nine years in prison after a trial that many democratic activists called politically motivated, Bush said he has expressed concerns about the legal proceedings to President Vladimir Putin and will watch the appeals process closely. "Here, you are innocent until proven guilty, and it appeared to us, at least people in my administration, that it looked like he had been judged guilty prior to having a fair trial," Bush said.

I guess he wanted to preserve his personal deniability for when he and Vlady next meet over beers and pork rinds at the ranch set. Or he just didn't see the problem. After all, this is the man who said several thousand times that Saddam had to be disarmed and then pulled out the weapons inspectors when they didn't find the proof. Seems to me that he has an affinity for the concept of judging guilty before having a fair trial.

And, of course he and everyone in the press corpse are too thick to see the utter vacuity of his statement in light of what he said just a few minutes before about alleged human rights abuses Guantanamo:

"It seemed to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth,' Bush said."

Yes, he actually said "disassemble" --- and then had the nerve to be snotty about it and define it. There is no end to the man's arrogance and ignorance.

Bush apparently has no idea that when he starts lecturing Moscow or Beijing about "fair trials" everyone now collapses in convulsive laughter. Guantanamo has changed forever the idea that Americans have a fair and impartial judicial system based upon the rule of law and the constitution. Bush and his cronies have shown that we are more than capable of suspending those things at will. If we ever had any moral authority, it has been officially flushed down the toilet.

Not that it really matters to these people. They don't believe that it's important to have moral authority. They only believe that it's important to have big guns and a willingness to use them. Unfortunately, we don't seem to be all that good at the Empire building thing. Maybe keeping our moral authority backed by the threat of force rather than a clumsy and useless demonstration of our ineptitude might have been a better way to go.

This is going to be a long 3 and a half years. But I'm beginning to think I may enjoy them more than Junior will.



.
digby 6/01/2005 08:44:00 AM |

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

 
New Ideas

This is good. Some in the administration are apparently questioning whether waging a "Global War on Terror" is an effective way to deal with the threat of islamic fundamentalism. Wow. Next thing you know they'll be wondering whether taxes and expenditures ought to be in balance or something. Weird.

The review marks the first ambitious effort since the immediate aftermath of the 2001 attacks to take stock of what the administration has called the "global war on terrorism" -- or GWOT -- but is now considering changing to recognize the evolution of its fight. "What we really want now is a strategic approach to defeat violent extremism," said a senior administration official who described the review on the condition of anonymity because it is not finished. "GWOT is catchy, but there may be a better way to describe it, and those are things that ought to be incumbent on us to look at."

Yeah. "GWOT" is a catchy phrase that's been sweeping the nation like wildfire.

So they've decided that what we really need is a strategic approach to defeat violent extremism. Hmmm. I have an idea. How about we invade and occupy a non terrorist country in the middle of the region, create political chaos and foment a civil war? Surely that can only be seen as a gesture of goodwill on our part. But just in case we should probably say that the country has nukes strapped to drone planes that are ready to attack the eastern seaboard at any moment. (Nobody will remember any of that in a year anyway.)

Well, maybe that's not such a hot idea after all.

Much of the discussion has focused on how to deal with the rise of a new generation of terrorists, schooled in Iraq over the past couple years. Top government officials are increasingly turning their attention to anticipate what one called "the bleed out" of hundreds or thousands of Iraq-trained jihadists back to their home countries throughout the Middle East and Western Europe. "It's a new piece of a new equation," a former senior Bush administration official said. "If you don't know who they are in Iraq, how are you going to locate them in Istanbul or London?"

Interesting. Who would have ever dreamed this could happen? Oh, that's right. Those of us who were against the invasion. In fact, it was the central practical argument that I and most others I know set forth at the time. It was always obvious that invading Iraq was going to foment terrorism, not quell it. Anybody with a sixth grade education could see that. Well, except for some Republicans who went to Andover, Yale and Harvard, that is.

I really can't believe it. After they just ran a ruthless, mendacious, presidential campaign of character assasination against anyone who diverted even a half step from their party line, here they are, basically admitting that their entire GWOT is a fucking goddamned mistake.

The good news though is that just as they were before 9/11, the administration is focused like a laser beam on combatting terrorism:

The review may have been slowed somewhat by the fact that many of the key counterterrorism jobs in the administration have been empty for months, including the top post at the State Department for combating terrorism, vacant since November, and the directorship of the new National Counterterrorism Center. "We're five months into the next term, and still a number of spots have yet to be filled," Cressey said. "You end up losing valuable time."

The counterterrorism center was created nearly a year ago by Bush to serve as the main clearinghouse for terrorism-related intelligence but is not yet fully operational, and has been run by an acting director and caught up in the broader wave of bureaucratic reorganization that resulted in the creation of the new directorate of national intelligence, whose fiefdom the center will join.

As part of the reorganization, a new office of strategic and operational planning is slated to become the focal point for operations aimed at terrorists, but that, too, has yet to start working fully, the senior counterterrorism official said.

Townsend just hired a deputy last week, Treasury official Juan Carlos Zarate, to take on the terrorism portfolio at the NSC; Townsend had been doing that as well as serving as the president's top homeland security aide for the past year. Several counterterrorism sources said the State job will soon be filled by CIA veteran Hank Crumpton and the counterterrorism center post is slated to go to Air Force Gen. Charles F. Wald, current deputy commander of U.S. forces in Europe.

"They recognize there's been a vacuum of leadership," said a former top counterterrorism official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "There has been a dearth of senior leadership directing this day to day. No one knows who's running this on a day-to-day basis."

Well, that's good. We're creating terrorists by the thousands day after day but the administration can't get it together enough to hire the people it needs to fill the anti-terrorist positions. The president himself is awfully busy, as we know, tilting at his private windmill accounts and riding his trike in the woods. Cheney is undoubtedly putting all his efforts into figuring out how to justify the use of tactical nuclear weapons on California. Who has time to deal with this terrorism thing? It's so 2002.

Ooops, I forgot one very important member of the administration who is working night and day on this problem. Karen Hughes has the vital responsibility of changing the negative perception of Americans in the middle east, which is key to their new strategy of combatting violent extremism. I hear her latest campaign is about to be revealed: she's going to tell those terrorists and jihadists that the US is a compassionate crusader --- an occupier with optimism --- an inspirational imperialist with integrity! Once those terrorists hear the mellifluous melody of her awesome alliteration, just like the Red States they will all fall in love.




Update: James Wolcott tells us that Michael Ledeen is just hopping mad about all this "re-evaluation" business. You can certainly understand why. He's the guy who seriously made the case to invade France and Germany just two years ago. This has to be a blow.

Twice in the past, the president slid into a similar funk, first permitting himself to be gulled by the Saudis into believing he had to make a deal with Arafat before he was entitled to liberate Iraq, then permitting the British to drag out the run-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom with endless votes in the Security Council. Each time he realized his error, and pressed on with greater vigor. It’s time for him to do that again."

The 101st Keyboarders need to saddle up their Aaron chairs and cock their control buttons. This is bigger even than the GWOT. It's a fight for the Codpiece and that's a battle only they know how to fight with the relish and expertise that's called for. They may have lost their beloved leader General Sullivan, but they will valiantly carry on without him. These brave souls will never give in, never give in, never give in.



.
digby 5/31/2005 06:29:00 PM |

 
Spent Capital

I'm Baaaack. Sorry for the interruption in service folks. I've been indisposed, but now I'm right as rain and ready to rumble. Or thunder. Or something...

And what do I see first thing? Bush's Political Capital Spent, Voices in Both Parties Suggest. Sweet.

Two days after winning reelection last fall, President Bush declared that he had earned plenty of "political capital, and now I intend to spend it." Six months later, according to Republicans and Democrats alike, his bank account has been significantly drained.

In the past week alone, the Republican-led House defied his veto threat and passed legislation promoting stem cell research; Senate Democrats blocked confirmation, at least temporarily, of his choice for U.N. ambassador; and a rump group of GOP senators abandoned the president in his battle to win floor votes for all of his judicial nominees.

With his approval ratings in public opinion polls at the lowest level of his presidency, Bush has been stymied so far in his campaign to restructure Social Security. On the international front, violence has surged again in Iraq in recent weeks, dispelling much of the optimism generated by the purple-stained-finger elections back in January, while allies such as Egypt and Uzbekistan have complicated his campaign to spread democracy.

The series of setbacks on the domestic front could signal that the president has weakened leverage over his party, a situation that could embolden the opposition, according to analysts and politicians from both sides. Bush faces the potential of a summer of discontent when his capacity to muscle political Washington into following his lead seems to have diminished and few easy victories appear on the horizon.

Well, yes. But it's because he never had any political capital to begin with. This was a big lie, just like the alleged mandate. He had neither. There was just enough of a fading vestige of 9/11 around (and enough of the media's unctuous sycophancy) to keep a little of that hi-pro glow on the Prez. But he never had a mandate for any of his policies. These guys rode a wave, they didn't win a landslide.

At some point hype, like helium, dissipates and you are left with nothing but the flaccid balloon. Junior and Rove are not geniuses or political wizards who have reshaped politics in their image. They are the guys who got in on a hummer in 2000 and were in office on 9/11. Period. The only truly impressive legislative victory has been passing massive tax cuts for rich people, which is hardly a difficult thing to ask politicians to do when you also break open the pork barrel and let them gorge on all the pig they can possibly stomach. That's quite an achievement.

The fact is that Junior has been a lame duck since January 21, 2005. And I believe he's happy with that. All he ever cared about was getting legitimately elected and doing what his father did not --- win a second term. He doesn't give a damn about legacy. As he famously said, "History, we don’t know. We’ll all be dead."

He's just going through the motions, like a high school senior who's already been accepted to college. The Republican caucus is under new leadership --- the GOP PepBoys Dobson, Frist and DeLay. I'm beginning to look forward to 2006.



.
digby 5/31/2005 03:56:00 PM |

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

 
Give 'Em An Inch

TBOGG points to this statement by Dr. "Whip It Good" himself:

The rules that blocked conservative nominees remain in effect, and nothing of significance has changed. Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Antonin Scalia, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist would never have served on the U. S. Supreme Court if this agreement had been in place during their confirmations. The unconstitutional filibuster survives in the arsenal of Senate liberals.

I assume he isn't a complete idiot and is just playing to guys like the one who wrote that mess below. Surely he can't be this stupid. Does he not know that Rehnquist and Thomas were confirmed under Democratic majorities and Scalia with a 98-0 vote?

Democrats confirmed his three ultra-conservative heroes and these are all the thanks we get. Clearly it's time we stopped doing that. This thing doesn't exactly go both ways.

The last ultra-liberal on the court was confirmed in 19-fucking-39, for crying out loud --- William O. Douglas. The only liberals of the last fifty years have been Brennan, Warren, Blackmun, Marshall, Fortas, and Goldberg. The last of them, Blackmun, retired in 1994.

There are no actual liberals on the court today, ultra or otherwise. Stevens, Ginsberg, Souter and Breyer are moderate place holders under a conservative majority. They are only liberals by comparison to the ultra-conservative triumverate and the conservative twins.

Dobson seems to think that we tried to filibuster his three fave justices, when in fact, we made the terrible mistake of trusting Republicans to be fair, tell the truth and keep their word. A mistake we have, sadly, probably just made again. Not that any of our choices are very good. We really needed to win that last election.



.
digby 5/25/2005 03:35:00 PM |

 
You're Going To Love This One


From my right wing e-mailer:

STEM CELLS AND LIBERALS

Firstly, we might thank the South Koreans for stem cells since they seem to be leading the way. If a loved one is saved from a slow horrible death by stem cells you might also thank conservatives since they saw fit to invade South Korea and save it from the Liberal Communists. Instead of starving to death under big government, the freedom loving South Koreans are now inventing stem cells to save your life. Oh how it must kill the cowardly liberals to see it.

As for the slippery slope objections raised regarding stem cells, one has to wonder, since every slope is slippery and everything is on a slippery slope. We have a well respected Constitution that has kept everything nicely balanced on the slippery slope for 200 years. We have a huge military, 1000's of local police forces as well as about 22 Federal police forces, The Social Security Administration, an ever growing Federal Budget, the Supreme Court, labor unions, Congress, a one man Executive Branch who can take us to war with the phony Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or a phony search for weapons of mass destruction, but through it all our remarkable Constitution has kept power sufficiently divided so that our country has not fallen prey to many of the evils that had afflicted every society before it, throughout all of human history. And, as if that has not been enough, we have even created and preserved the freedom that much of the rest of the world enjoys.

In comparison to all the evil that might have afflicted us, stem cells seem like a trivial threat, but an incredibly huge potential benefit. The threat is that one day we'll take stem stem cells from older and older embryos or even full grown human beings who are raised for spare parts or even as alter egos. The benefit is that stem cells might cure every sickness on earth. It might save billions of lives from death and excruciatingly painful illness! That this is a good thing ought to be the most painfully obvious thing in the world. If it isn't obvious, it will be when they or a loved one is dying, at least to about 99% of us in that position.

Perhaps it feels like a threat to many because it is too good to be true; it is a threat to normalcy because eternal life removes too much of the normal burden of everyday life? Indeed, life would be totally redefined. Everything could be put off till tomorrow, but every goal could eventually be reached too. It scares the religious right to death given that their religion was conceived of at a time when science was not. Or, could it be that science, with its nuclear bombs, global warming, genetic technology, and abortions is merely the weapon with which we will finally manage to destroy ourselves as per biblical prophecy?

In any case we face an inevitable brave new world. The immediate problem in which is that you have to kill the embryo to get the stem cells. Never mind that the embryo was scheduled to be killed anyway, or that nature aborts most pregnancies spontaneously, or that we kill 40 million dogs from neglect every year or kill 100 million cows each year all of whom seem far more human than a few embryonic cells too small to even see. Yet to abortion opponents harvesting these stem cells is close to an abortion since there is an embryo or embryo like thing dying in each case.

In reality it is not an embryo since it has been especially prepared by removing genetic material from the mother (egg donor) to be replaced by genetic material exclusively from the patient who wishes to be cloned, or to merely harvest stem cells that eventually can replace damaged cells in his or her own body. The embryo is not put in a human womb or incubator where it might develop into a human being, although one assumes that it will be possible to do so in the very near future.

Personally, seeing an embryo meet its end this way, not even considering the incredible possible benefits, is less troubling than seeing a live lobster being dropped into a pot of boiling water, or a puppy dog being tossed into an incinerator, which we do and ignore millions of times each year.

But, in 100 years when each of us can whip up a nuclear device, weaponized anthrax, and a clone of ourselves that will live forever, sophisticated liberals might well wish quaint religious little old Bush had been taken more seriously. This seems especially true given that today's liberals don't have the brains or the guts to go to the Axis of Evil to take away the very deadly, but still very rudimentary, technology that they are manifestly far too immature to handle. Today's liberals are failing brave new world kindergarten badly.

My own view is that the brave new technological world is inevitable, possibly very beneficial, but catastrophically dangerous as long as cowardly and dumb liberals are involved in the management of it.

This is the problem we face, ladies and gentlemen. Better learn to put on better show because reason is clearly inoperative.



.
digby 5/25/2005 12:02:00 PM |

 
Changing Their Tune

It appears that the word has gone forth. The GOP voices of God have said "ye shall spin it as a win."

Sam Rosenfeld at TAPPED quotes Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council:

"... Majority Leader Bill Frist has displayed extraordinary patience and determination in the face of liberal obstinacy. We commend him and stand with him in his effort to end the obstruction and move forward with the task of restoring a judiciary that will interpret the Constitution, not legislate a liberal agenda for the nation."

Rosenfeld comments:

That's a lot of backpedalling for one day. Not only did the agreement go from "ignoble" to "long-overdue," but the Frist commendation went from muted to slavish. These religious-right powerbrokers are some real tough guys. We'll wait to see how the base they speak for reacts in the coming weeks and months. Far be it from me to call them easily led...

I'm surprised it took them so long to get with the program.

Has anyone heard Rush today? Is he still pissed or has he been "persuaded" that the Republicans are the winners in this deal?



.
digby 5/25/2005 10:59:00 AM |

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

 
Talking Our Game

Oh how I wish I weren't so busy right now so that I could spend all of my time parsing the filibuster deal and thrilling my readers with my insights. Luckily, everybody else is doing it so I don't have to.

There are a couple of points that I'd like to highlight, however. I think Dwight Meredith has the right of it in how low or high the bar has been set with Janice Rogers Brown. It's actually a little bit more complicated than it seems at first glance.

On another point, I recognise that the right being upset and screaming about this is nothing unusual --- they love to be victimized --- and it doesn't indicate that we actually won anything. In the post below, I was referring to the optics of the deal; as long as the right is screeching about this as a sell out and a Democratic victory there is good reason to think that many average folks will come to believe that it is so. The right wing noise machine bleeds into the discourse whether we want it to or not. This is one instance where we want it to.

According to Dobson and Weyrich, the Dems thrust their big swinging man(and woman)hoods at John McCain and they won. This is something we want the American people to think we are capable of. Remember, we are the party that is losing white males by the bucket load. It's this kind of thing that may release them from their adolescent "manly" impulse to side with the alleged tough guys on the right against their own best interests.

The fact is that on the substance, this deal is a compromise that cuts both ways. That's what compromises usually do. But for Democrats, who have virtually no power anyway, it is as important to be seen as strong and resolute as it is to actually win. The game we are really playing is for 2006. Because let's face it, this is a Republican majority government and they can, if they really want to, do any damned thing they please whether we like it or not.

The far right and religious fanatic base is not going to convert to the Democratic party. We need to prove to the moderates, independents and western libertarians that we are tough enough. If James Dobson and Rush Limbaugh want to portray us as dragon slayers, more power to them. They have a big microphone. Let them use it to shout to the world about the big meanie Dems and the sniveling cowardly Republicans who buckled under to them. Works for me.



.
digby 5/24/2005 12:54:00 PM |

 
Live To Fight Another Day

My first reaction to the nuclear fizzle was disappointment, partially I admit, because I thought this was a very clever opportunity for Democrats to do the single most important thing they have to do improve their image with the public --- stand up for themselves and show some guts. The "optics" of this were sufficiently murky to make that a risky play, but I felt that we had nothing much to lose. As the Milquetoast Party, anything that shows our willingness to stick together, act on principle and face down the Republicans is indisputably a good thing. This deal doesn't exactly get that done, I'm afraid.

On the other hand, the way the wingnuts are whining and blubbering, it did, so maybe that's all that matters. I'll be very interested in hearing what Rush has to say today. If he's gotten the word to spin this their way, that dynamic will change forthwith. The right prefers the fight so their first instinct when denied one is petulance. But they'll fall into line if their voices from God tell them to.

My only question going forward is this: if Janice Brown is not considered to be an "extraordinary circumstance" then who in the world could Bush possibly nominate who would be worse? Ann Coulter? (She does, after all, call herself a constitutional scholar.) I'm not sure that there are any judges who are to the right of Brown or who express more hostility not only to the constitution but to the enlightenment thought that guides it. The only thing absolutely worse would be to put an Islamic fundamentalist on the supreme court.

I suppose that they may have made some sort of informal agreement as to what constitutes a circumstance more "extraordinary" than this, but I don't know how much trust I would put in such a thing. If Brown, Owen and Pryor are confirmed, the bar has been set very, very low. It's hard to imagine how Bush could come up with anyone even less qualified or philosophically unacceptable than that, but they seem to be able to find the worst judicial freaks in the country so maybe they've been holding out on us. It also pays to remember that Earl Warren wasn't even a judge before he became Chief Justice. Bush could name James Dobson if he wanted to.

In the end, politically, I think the filibuster showdown is a wash. The Republicans didn't get to turn the Senate into the House of Representatives but they will get three unabashed idiots, racists and pre-modern troglodytes on the federal bench. It could have been worse.

More importantly, the fascist element, led by Dick Cheney, was denied the opportunity to flush another little piece of of our system of government down the toilet as a fun exercise of pure power. Each time these bastards rip out another bit our of the constitution or "change the rules" to favor one party government or "reinterpret" the law to favor Republicans, we move one step closer to a country that we will soon not be able to recognise as the one in which we grew up.

This action put that day off --- in the case of the nuclear option, maybe forever. That's a good thing.



.
digby 5/24/2005 07:47:00 AM |