Hullabaloo

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

 
K.I.S.S.

by digby

Samela writes in the comments:

I think the simplest story that reveals the difference between what people perceive as 'big-business influence through lobbying" (which they relate to both parties) and the Culture of Corruption swirling around the Republicans is the one involving the Magazine Publishers of America.

Back in 2000 the magazine industry hired Abramoff as a lobbyist (he was then at Preston Gates Ellis) to help stem a proposed rise in postal rates. Now, most people can understand why the magazine industry would not want higher postal rates: it affects the bottom line of their business. Aside from printing, postage is one of their biggest costs. No one, of course, likes higher postal rates (and no one particularly wants magazine subscription rates to rise). But sometimes they are necessary to keep the postal system running. Nonetheless, it would seem perfectly legitimate for the MPA to hire a lobbyist to try to put their case before congressional members. One would assume the USPS would similarly be trying to jawbone legislators to present their side of the story, arguing FOR the need to raise postal rates. Senators and representatives should then duly consider the arguments from both sides and come to a decision about whether rates should rise or not.

This is not what happened. Mr. Abramoff was paid $525,000 by the MPA to seek a postal rate reduction in Congress. Did he make a heckuva case for them? Not exactly: he asked the MPA to give an additional $25,000 to a Seattle-based charity (slush fund) he'd helped found--and then he used that money (as well as another $25K from elottery) to help pay the salary for the wife of Tom Delay staff member Tony Rudy. It's called money laundering and bribery.

It's okay for lobbyists to collect money from clients to argue their cases before legislators. It's even okay (though problematic) for businesses or interests who have a stake in congressional legislation to try to elect the people they think can help them by donating to their campaigns, within the law. (Though I'd like to see changes in those laws.) What's not okay is money laundering and bribery. That is what a number of Republican Congressmen and their staffers are involved in here .... but no Democrats, to our knowledge.

The Democrats may be too tied to corporate contributions, and it's a problem that needs to be addressed. But we have thus far not seen any widespread shakedown, extortion, bribery, money-laundering schemes to which high-level Democrats or their staffers were party.

It's an easier story to understand than the baroque Indian tribe one (though smaller in scale). But it's been going on a long time, and DeLay and his staffers were at the very heart of it.

And yeah.... the Republicans are famous for defending their own until the fire gets too hot. The Democrats let go of Trafficante the moment his shenanigans hit the fan (it might even have been before), disavowing him. The Republicans have been trying to defend DeLay even AFTER his indictment. They got him to relinquish his leadership role, but they have in no way repudiated him formally.

samela

There you have it.


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digby 1/10/2006 02:51:00 PM |

 
How Can He Be Even More Right? A Modest Proposal.

by tristero

George W. Bush's latest thoughtful speech was, as usual, boldly audacious. With his demand that responsible debate over Iraq must be limited entirely to arguments over exactly how much praise he deserves, The President's speech will go down in history as among the most remarkable utterances ever.

The American people know the difference between responsible and irresponsible debate when they see [sic] it. They know the difference between honest critics who question the way the war is being prosecuted and partisan critics who claim that we acted in Iraq because of oil, or because of Israel, or because we misled the American people. And they know the difference between a loyal opposition that points out what is wrong, and defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right.

In other words:

Is the Bush administration doing (1) a heckuva job; (2) a heckuva great job; or (3) a totally heckuva great job? And how can we help The President be more right?

Before we can answer that second question, we need to understand exactly why The President refuses to consider the topics he mentions as worthy of responsible discussion.

Of course, we didn't invade Iraq because of oil. Why this isn't obvious to everyone is one of the mind-boggling mysteries of our epoch. Briefly, all we're trying to do is grow the Iraq economy. Now, everyone knows the world is in a post-industrial phase, where it's high tech that rules, not Big oil-gobbling Iron. Therefore, it's vital to Iraq's infrastructure that they make use as soon as possible of their most abundant resource - sand - and become the major player they deserve to be in the international chip market.

All we're doing is expediting that process by purifying the sand. We're simply eliminating all that putrid-smelling retro petro-pollution from their valuable natural mineral resource and shipping the smelly sludge - at our own companies' expense, mind you - back to the US. This is not about oil but about transforming a volatile region into a Land Of Milk and Honey. And Sand. Because of The President's actions, I can predict with near certainty that within five years Iraq will become the pre-eminent Silicon Desert of the Middle East.

As for Israel, it simply must be recognized that any critic who mentions Israel in the same sentence with Iraq is not only thoroughly irresponsible but clearly an out and out anti-Semite. Now I admit, Pat Robertson may have been overstretching a bit, but only those who refuse to acknowledge cause and effect fail to see the connection between Sharon's recent stroke and the unremitting criticism he received in the past few months by all those here in the US who refused to support the Iraq war.

Now regarding the alleged misleading of the American people, I submit that The President never did such a thing. The proof, as if any is needed (he is after, all The President, and doesn't need proof), can be found in this very speech of 10 January, 2006. Notice how carefully and repeatedly The President distinguishes between "Saddamists" and "foreign terrorists." He's telling us he's known all along that there's a difference and that he's never confused them. Furthermore, notice how he fearlessly deplores the utterly unprecedented abuse of Iraqi prisoners by Iraqi security forces. This also subtly alludes to the moral axis of The President's actions in Iraq. After all, where else could those murderous Iraqi security police possibly have learned to perpetrate such horrors if not while suffering under the obscene guidance of the monstrous Sons of Saddam - Uday and what'shisname?

But The President goes even further in clearing our mind of dangerous clutter. Little noticed by the punditocracy - at least so far - The President makes it very clear he has secret evidence American troops never blew up innocent wedding parties. Those were suicide bombers disguised as American planes and Blackhawks.*

But we digress. Back to that second question: How can The President be more right? Okay. I'll tell you and I'm not going to mince words. And I don't care who wants to turn me in for saying them!

I think the Big Problem is that everyone thinks The President is wrong and they won't trust his judgment. I think it's wrong that these people are wasting The President's time by making him worry that he's only doing a heckuva job. I think responsible debate should be limited to whether The President is doing a heckuva great job or better. If this proposal is adopted, The President by definition would immediately be more right! And that's what we, and he, want.

I think if irresponsible opponents weren't clogging The President's time with so many questions and empty scandals that his presidency has begun to resemble a New Orleans sewer, The President would have been able to sign the necessary emergency orders for more upper body armor for our troops. Now, let me be crystal clear about this: Because The President couldn't find time to sign that order, the critics of the The President's performance are responsible for much more - way much more - than aiding and comforting our enemies. The irresponsible critics of The President are systematically killing our soldiers. And I don't care who knows it.

Now, the Doomsayer Democrats object to certain wiretaps made without authorization. I say if they don't like them, here's a plan that will end the "illegal" wiretaps debate immediately. Disconnect the critics' telephones! And while we're at it, deny 'em ADSL. Let them rant over a 28.8k AOL connection and see how well they like it.

Bottom line: The President couldn't be more right. After all, he wouldn't be The President if that wasn't so. That's self-evident, just like it says in the Constitution. Or somewhere.



*Don't let yourself be misled by the irresponsible rantings of mere eyewitnesses who swore they were American planes. They weren't and I have a reason why they were mistaken.

Now, of course I have only the greatest sympathy for a bride whose husband was turned into viscous red goo in the middle of their vows, but, to be perfectly blunt, such an hysterical woman does not a reliable witness make. Indeed, probably very few men would either, in her position (not as the bride of another man, of course, nor did I mean to imply by "her position" anything smutty, it's just that I meant...oh, you get it, I don't need to explain).
tristero 1/10/2006 12:46:00 PM |

 
Corrupt Reformers

by digby


I admire Rich Lowry's intellectual integrity in pointing out that no matter how much the Republicans might wish to portray the Abramoff scandal as bi-partisan it just isn't. But his prescription just won't do.

You see, this graft and corruption has been going on in plain sight for a long time and GOPers had their mouths so full of pork they apparently couldn't say a word about it until a Republican Justice Department public integrity section stumbled over Jack Abramoff. The Republican party has no standing to reform itself now. It's like the mafia saying they promise to clean up their act once Sammy the Bull blew the whistle.

The Abramoff scandal is about corrupt lobbying and money laundering, which was coordinated at the highest levels of the party, run by the majority leader of the House of representatives. But that's just one of many corrupt GOP practices. There are the perjury and obstruction cases in the CIA leak investigation. And the SEC investigation into the majority leader of the Senate. There are the numerous payola and propaganda schemes. Bribes on the floor of the House. Crooked Pentagon appropriations and missing billions in Iraq. Dirty tricks in New Hampshire. Hiding the real cost of the prescription drug program (and Billy Tauzin being on Pharma take when he got it passed.) The list goes on and on.

(Here are just a few of the alleged GOP ethics abuses from the Washington Post. Here's an even longer one. And here's Think Progress' indispensible compendium of Abramoff criminals.)

This Republican party is crooked. And despite what George Will says, it's not because of big government. Government spending has exploded under the allegedly "small government" Republicans while delivering less and less to average Americans. They have proven that they are completely full of shit on that issue and anyone who votes for them on that basis is an idiot. Judging by their performance the only things they actually care about are padding their own pockets and protecting their own power. If there are a hoard of "reform" Republicans out there who have been objecting to this pillaging of the treasury, they haven't exactly been speaking up. All I've heard is "praise God and pass the contributions."

I expect Republicans to take potshots at Clinton and his supporters whenever possible so I don't usually respond, but this statement is too self-serving to let pass:

Republicans must take the scandal seriously and work to clean up in its wake. The first step was the permanent ouster of Tom DeLay as House Republican majority leader, a recognition that he is unfit to lead as long as he is underneath the Abramoff cloud. The behavior of the right in this matter contrasts sharply with the left's lickspittle loyalty to Bill Clinton, whose maintenance in power many liberals put above any of their principles.

That might be an apt analogy except for the fact that Democrats defended Clinton out of the principle that a rabid partisan witchunt into a president's sex life was beyond the pale.

By contrast, both the Republican president and the invertebrate Republican congress have engaged in or silently acquiesced to blatant graft and corruption for years while the Democrats impotently screamed into the void. The party was keeping the seat warm for months while the majority leader remained under indictment. They changed the rules so that an indicted leader could keep his seat until the public outcry forced them to retreat, for crying out loud, and then they launched a grassroots campaign to defend him:

Conservative leaders are crafting plans to launch a public campaign to defend House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

The move follows a meeting last week among DeLay, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the chief deputy majority whip, and nearly two dozen conservative leaders, including David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union; Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; Morton Blackwell, president of the Leadership Institute; and Edwin Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation.

Perkins, Keene and Feulner called the meeting, according to participants.

“It was a rallying cry to our conservative community that we are under assault. We need to fight back. We’re going to have a challenging year with the judicial issue bubbling up in the senate and the impact it may have on our ability to get things done,” said Cantor, who said he described to the group how Democrats and liberal groups have waged a coordinated battle to raise doubts about DeLay’s conduct.

Several of the conservative leaders who met last week are planning to launch a grassroots campaign targeted at conservatives in the districts of House Republican lawmakers whose support for DeLay may be wavering.

This man is a corrupt thug who ran a corrupt political machine. Everybody in Washington knew it. Republicans celebrated it and bragged about it publicly. For them to now go all Claude Rains about it is just funny.

It's possible that the voters will not care or will not hold Republicans responsible for this corruption. But these are early days in the 2006 election cycle and many more shoes are going to drop over the next few months. I wouldn't want to place a bet that Americans won't laugh at any Republican claiming the mantle of reform come election day. It's going to be very easy to find pictures of Republicans kissing the ring of Tom DeLay.


Update: Read this great post by Tom Watson (via Wolcott)on this topic.


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digby 1/10/2006 10:35:00 AM |

 
Wallflowers

by digby

I feel so dirty. My Alito the freeper post is linked on both The Corner and Free Republic. Seems bedwetters don't like my armchair analysis of the chickenhawk pathology one little bit.

Here's Jonah:

I DUNNO... [Jonah Goldberg]

Byron - Seems to me the cops at the '68 convention proved their "manhood" without going to Vietnam or joining the croud chanting "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh!" and echoing Che Guevara's call for "two, three, many Vietnams."

Also, it's kind of funny listening to liberals argue that getting laid "a lot" makes you a man.

Addendum: I posted too fast. I meant to say it's kind of funny listening to liberals argue that there are only two paths to becoming a man -- getting laid "a lot" and going to war. And here I thought they didn't like social Darwinism.

He actually wrote the words "getting laid a lot makes you a man" and then came back with an oops "I posted too fast." You can't make this shit up.

Of course if he'd read the post in question he would know that I didn't actually say that there are only two paths to manhood, but that's just nitpicking. He's right. There is a tried and true path to manhood for right wing chickenhawks: they can host Kaffee Klatches for mama, Linda Tripp and Michael Isikoff and then make a whole career out of it.


The best freeper comment is this:

This Freeper will gladly meet Mr. "Digby", anytime, anywhere, for a little test of "physical courage". Hygiene-challenged, hairy little socialist creeps who throw like girls ought not write checks their skinny butts can't cash. I know: when the phone doesn't ring...I'll know it's him. Chickenhawk? Chickensh!t.

Me thinks the lady doth protest too much.


Here's a thread to vote on Alito's freeper handle over at MYDD. I'm thinking "wallflower".



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digby 1/10/2006 08:58:00 AM |

Monday, January 09, 2006

 
Freeping The Court

by digby

I watched the Roberts hearings and couldn't help being impressed by the guy even though I knew he was way too conservative for me. He was obviously intelligent, confident and smooth and I ended up thinking that anybody who was smart enough to keep a good distance between himself and the Federalist Society might just be smart enough to see through their more ridiculous theories. That's probably wishful thinking, but still.

By contrast, I just had a chance to see Alito's opening statement and I have to say that I think he came off as an asshole:

And after I graduated from high school, I went a full 12 miles down the road, but really to a different world when I entered Princeton University. A generation earlier, I think that somebody from my background probably would not have felt fully comfortable at a college like Princeton. But, by the time I graduated from high school, things had changed.

And this was a time of great intellectual excitement for me. Both college and law school opened up new worlds of ideas. But this was back in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

It was a time of turmoil at colleges and universities. And I saw some very smart people and very privileged people behaving irresponsibly. And I couldn't help making a contrast between some of the worst of what I saw on the campus and the good sense and the decency of the people back in my own community.

This is the same guy who wanted to keep women out of Princeton. Presumably, they wouldn't have "felt comfortable" there. But that's not what made that statement so revealing. It's this notion of smart and privileged people "behaving irresponsibly."

I think it's fairly certain that he's not talking about branding frat boys' asses or getting drunk and stealing Christmas Trees. He's talking about anti-war protestors, feminists etc. And like so many campus conservatives of that era, he sounds like he's still carrying around a boatload of resentment toward them.

Roberts apparently came out of all that unscathed. Confident in his own abilities and social prowess, he didn't appear to have this puny, pinched view of liberalism as a threat to decency and morality. (He may have it, but it didn't show --- or he was smart enough to hide it in his hearings.) Alito is one of those other guys. You know the ones:

The only political aspirants among those three groups who failed to meet the test of their generation were the chickenhawks. And our problem today is that they are the ones in charge of the government as we face a national security threat. These unfulfilled men still have something to prove.

And, I suspect because their leadership of the "conservative" movement has infected the new generation, we are seeing much of the same pathology among younger warhawks as well. This is why we hear the shrill war cries of inchoate bloodlust from these quarters every time the terrorists strike. It's a primal scream of inner confusion and self-loathing. These are people whose highest aspirations and deepest longings are wrapped up in their masculinity, and yet they are flaccid failures. They are in a state of arrested development, never having faced their fears, never becoming men, remaining boys standing in the corner of the darkened hallway watching Bill Clinton emerge from a co-ed's dorm room to lead a rousing all night strategy session --- and sitting in the bus station on the way home for Christmas vacation as Chuck Hagel and John Kerry in uniform, looking stalwart and strong, clap each other on the back in brotherly solidarity and prepare to see what they are really made of. They have never been part of anything but an effete political movement in which the stakes go no higher than repeal of the death tax.

In other words, he's a freeper. I say filibuster the creep.



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digby 1/09/2006 07:20:00 PM |

 
Welcome Back Newtie

by digby

As much as I love having Newtie back on the scene reprising his former role as a fake Republican reformer, I can't help but wonder how he hopes to explain the fact that he was officially reprimanded as Speaker for his unethical behavior by a special counsel . I realize that this happened almost ten years ago, so it's ancient history, but it was quite the circus at the time:

The House ethics committee recommended last night that House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) face an unprecedented reprimand from his colleagues and pay $300,000 in additional sanctions after concluding that his use of tax-deductible money for political purposes and inaccurate information supplied to investigators represented "intentional or . . . reckless" disregard of House rules.

The committee's 7 to 1 vote came after 5 1/2 hours of televised hearings and the release of a toughly worded report on the investigation by special counsel James M. Cole. The recommendation, which followed a week of partisan conflict that has split the House into warring camps, sets the stage for a resolution of this investigation into Gingrich's actions.

Gingrich earlier admitted he had violated House rules and was prepared to accept the committee's recommendation for punishment. If the full House votes as expected on Tuesday, Gingrich would become the first speaker to be reprimanded for his conduct and would begin his second term politically weakened and personally diminished.

[...]

Cole said he had concluded that Gingrich had violated federal tax law and had lied to the ethics panel in an effort to force the committee to dismiss the complaint against him. He said the committee members were reluctant to go that far in their conclusions, but said they agreed Gingrich was either "reckless" or "intentional" in the way he conducted himself.

[...]

Cole made clear he had concluded that Gingrich's activities were not random acts but part of a pattern of questionable behavior. "Over a number of years and in a number of situations, Mr. Gingrich showed a disregard and lack of respect for the standards of conduct that applied to his activities," he said.

Newtie was always loosey goosey about ethics, even as he excoriated the Democrats. (He did it just recently, saying that people expect the Democrats to be corrupt.) And like all Republicans, his hypocrisy knew no bounds:

How sweet a victory it must have been when Newt Gingrich ran former House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Texas) out of town because he made $55,000 off the bulk sale of his book to lobbyists. The trick was turned by Gingrich's insistence that an independent counsel be appointed. As Gingrich put it back in 1988: "The rules normally applied by the Ethics Committee to an investigation of a typical member are insufficient in an investigation of the Speaker of the House, a position which is third in line of succession to the Presidency and the second most powerful elected position in America. Clearly this investigation has to meet a higher standard of public accountability and integrity." Gingrich's words must haunt him now, when his own far more lucrative and questionable book deal has been added to complaints filed with the House Ethics Committee alleging his improper use of political-action-committee and nonprofit-foundation money.

Gingrich has attempted to squiggle out of the book controversy by giving up the $4.5-million advance from HarperCollins, the book publishing company owned by Rupert Murdoch...he had met secretly with Murdoch -- Mr. Multinational himself, a man who built his media empire by hustling legislators on three continents -- Nov. 28, three days before he began negotiating the book contract. But when the book deal was announced in December, Gingrich's press spokesman, Tony Blankley, told reporters he didn't know whether his boss had ever met with Murdoch. Why didn't Gingrich step forward then and admit to the meeting if there was nothing to hide? Why was it only after the New York Daily News broke the story that he confessed?

The truth leaked out when a Murdoch spokesman the next day conceded that an NBC lawsuit against the Murdoch-owned Fox network, based on the foreign-ownership issue, was discussed. And two days later, we learned from Murdoch's Washington lobbyist, Preston Padden, who was also at the meeting, that this was not a chance courtesy call but rather was planned to counter NBC's lobbying.

This week, Gingrich was dissembling once again: "They said something to me about, 'We are in this big fight with NBC,' and I said fine. I mean, I don't care. I never get involved in individual cases like that."

And then, of course, there's this:

In August 1999, Gingrich revealed that he had been carrying on an extramarital affair for the past six years with a House clerk twenty-three years his junior, Callista Bisek. Critics noted that Gingrich's adultery had taken place while he was leading moral attacks against Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal. Because of the similarity of the situations, critics charged Gingrich's attacks on Clinton had been grossly hypocritical

Still, despite his checkered past, we really shouldn't be surprised that Newtie is the Republicans' front man on ethics and a likely candidate for president. At this point he's about the cleanest they've got.



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digby 1/09/2006 03:33:00 PM |

 
Tolerance In The Heartland

by digby


TBOGG has the scoop on the Utah theatre that banned "Brokeback Mountain". It's quite strange when you think about it because Mormans were traditional adherants of polygamy which Rick Santorum contends is the inexorable consequence of legalizing gay marriage.

In fact, I find all this Utah intolerance to be quite puzzling. Here's Orrin Hatch in 2003:

'I'm not here to justify polygamy,'' he said. ''All I can say is, I know people in Hildale who are polygamists who are very fine people. You come and show me evidence of children being abused there and I'll get involved. Bring the evidence to me.''

Hatch said he could not take unsubstantiated claims and enforce law, and he would not ''sit here and judge anybody just because they live differently than me.

''There will be laws on the books, but these are very complicated issues,'' Hatch said.

Gee, and gay sex isn't even illegal.


For those looking for the bigger picture, here's the latest on the grosses for the film that everyone assumned would fail big time in Real Murika:

Don't look now, but Brokeback Mountain is selling in the heartland. The gay cowboy romance, which has been cleaning up in early awards races, was considered a difficult box-office sell nationwide because of its subject matter.

But Brokeback Mountain is averaging $10,000-plus per screen in such markets as San Antonio, Nashville and Columbus, Ohio, according to Nielsen EDI.

The Ang Lee film was ninth at the box office this weekend with $5.8 million on 483 screens, a healthy $11,904 per-screen average. That's a higher average than the No. 1 movie of the week, Hostel.

"It's been humbling to see how the movie is getting received across the country," says Jack Foley, head of distribution for Focus Features. "We knew we were getting good reviews and doing well at the awards. But that's never a guarantee you can sell your movie across the country — particularly the most conservative parts of it."

And all the Oscar talk is bringing in couples, including a lot of hetero men who suffer from Larry David syndrome:

Comedian Larry David joked in a New York Times commentary that "cowboys would have to lasso" him into the theater, because he's sure the voice in his head would say, " 'You like those cowboys, don't you? They're kind of cute.' "

I think everyone can agree that Jake Gyllenhall does have a purdy mouth.



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digby 1/09/2006 01:28:00 PM |

 
Who's A Terrorist?

by digby

Kevin responds to Joe Klein's tremulous admonition that Democrats should temper their criticism of the NSA illegal spying because it makes us look like we don't care about terrorism:

Politically, I continue to think Democrats should make it absolutely clear that what they're attacking isn't necessarily the NSA program itself, but the fact that the president unilaterally decided that he could approve the program without congressional authorization. In the world of 10-second sound bites, that might end up being a difficult distinction to make, but it's worth making it over and over anyway. We're not opposed to cranking up our intelligence efforts, but we are opposed to a president who thinks that a vague and indefinite state of war gives him the authority to do anything he wants.

Absolutely. But then, I don't understand why anyone is worried about this in the first place. I don't think anyone seriously suggests that the government doesn't have the power to spy on suspected terrorists. The polls show that a majority of people already believe that the president should have to get a warrant before spying on American citizens. Indeed, I think all of us naturally assumed that the FBI has been doing that for years and those in the know understood that the NSA had the ability to do it through the FISA court. I don't know of anyone who is saying that the government should be able to do this at all --- this idea that people are just "against wiretapping" is a straw man.

There is no downside to criticizing this administration for illegally wiretapping Americans in no uncertain terms. But, I think we can take it one step further. We need to be asking why they couldn't even get John Ashcroft to sign off on the renewal of this program back in 2003. Why did the FISA court deny more applications after 9/11? It's impossible to imagine that they were tightening existing rules at a time like that. The history of this program is suspicious and it isn't just unAmerican civil libertarians like me who are aware of the potential for abuse. Even people who support the program see it. Here's a quote from the AP poll over the week-end:

The issue is full of grays for some people interviewed for the poll, including homebuilder Harlon Bennett, 21, a political independent from Wellston, Okla. He does not think the government should need warrants for suspected terrorists.

"Of course," he added, "we all could be suspected terrorists."

This is an issue that cuts across all the abuses of power in the GWOT, from rendition to torture to illegal wiretapping. What constitutes a suspected terrorist? Without due process how do we know that innocent people aren't being accused? There is no review. There is no oversight. We are asked not only to take the word of the president that he is using these extra-legal powers judiciously, we are asked to believe that all the people he's judiciously using these powers against are guilty.

Some Americans don't trust this president. Some Americans wouldn't trust a Democratic president. And some of us don't trust any president with the power to unilaterally decide who is a terrorist and who isn't and then unleash extra-legal actions against them. Certainly, we don't believe that any president can unilaterally declare someone guilty.

Yet that is exactly what has been happening. And we know that many of the people who the president has decided are guilty were not. A fair number of those who were beaten, abused and tortured in our custody at Gitmo and elsewhere have turned out to be cases of mistaken identity. Others were "sold" to Americans as terrorists by rivals. Still more were low level grunts who had no operational knowledge of anything. This has happened quite often. Yet, we have accepted it because we "we're at war" excuses a great deal of inhumane behavior (which is why we should always be careful about saying that we are waging one.) It's very easy for people to fall into a primitive tribalism --- the old "the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim" or perhaps "if you don't want to be seen as a terrorist, don't be a Muslim."

But this NSA illegal spying issue has brought all that home. We have a president who believes that he knows who is guilty and who is not. He believes that he has the inherent constitutional power to declare American citizens "unlawful combatants." He interprets the office of president to be above the laws. When you have a president who takes this position, it is not illogical to assume that he might declare some innocent Americans to be suspected terrorists as well. And that innocent American could be anyone.

The supporter of wiretaps who I quoted above knows that, too. I can't see any reason why Democrats and civil libertarians of all stripes should be afraid to make that point openly. It's why due process was made a part of the Bill of Rights in the first place.

If we willingly discard this principle in the case of morons who are planning to attack the Brooklyn Bridge with a blow torch, why on earth should we adhere to the principle in cases of dangerous gangs or serial killers or child molesters? After all, throwing those people in jail without due process, wiretapping them without a warrant, holding them indefinitely without trial could easily be seen as the president upholding his personal oath to "protect the American people" which has now officially usurped his official oath to protect the constitution.

The fourth amendment is in place to protect innocent people who mistakenly or purposefully get caught up in the government's hugely powerful maw. To pussyfoot around that bedrock principle is to help destroy it.

I'm betting that Joe Klein and his band of would-be tough guy liberals are on the wrong side of this. Fifty-six percent of the country already believes that the government should have to follow due process. Even that guy who supports wiretaps knows very well that there is a danger in allowing anyone the unilateral power to decide who is a suspected terrorist. I hope that Democrats ignore the mewling of timorous pundits and call upon Americans' regard for liberty and their healthy skepticism of government power to make this argument explicitly.



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digby 1/09/2006 10:42:00 AM |

 
Presidential Infallibility

by digby


Atrios flags this catch by Weldon Berger regarding Bush's use of "signing statements" (which I admit I only vaguely understood until until recently.) Weldon writes:

Bush doesn’t veto bills because in his view, he doesn’t have to; he can simply ignore the ones he doesn’t like.

The administration have made that argument explicit, but only in terms of the president’s capacity as “commander in chief” during an endless war, as with the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping, the decisions to ignore various Geneva Conventions and the selective suspension of habeas corpus. According to the Hutcheson story, though, it isn’t only legislation dealing with national security issues that the White House asserts the right to ignore.

The Hutcheson story lays out how Bush has used these signing statements:

President Bush agreed with great fanfare last month to accept a ban on torture, but he later quietly reserved the right to ignore it, even as he signed it into law.

Acting from the seclusion of his Texas ranch at the start of New Year's weekend, Bush said he would interpret the new law in keeping with his expansive view of presidential power. He did it by issuing a bill-signing statement - a little-noticed device that has become a favorite tool of presidential power in the Bush White House.

In fact, Bush has used signing statements to reject, revise or put his spin on more than 500 legislative provisions. Experts say he has been far more aggressive than any previous president in using the statements to claim sweeping executive power - and not just on national security issues.

"It's nothing short of breath-taking," said Phillip Cooper, a professor of public administration at Portland State University. "In every case, the White House has interpreted presidential authority as broadly as possible, interpreted legislative authority as narrowly as possible, and pre-empted the judiciary."

Signing statements don't have the force of law, but they can influence judicial interpretations of a statute. They also send a powerful signal to executive branch agencies on how the White House wants them to implement new federal laws.

In some cases, Bush bluntly informs Congress that he has no intention of carrying out provisions that he considers an unconstitutional encroachment on his authority.

"They don't like some of the things Congress has done so they assert the power to ignore it," said Martin Lederman, a visiting professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. "The categorical nature of their opposition is unprecedented and alarming."

Lest anyone think that this is a unique practice of the Bush administration, the article points out that other presidents have issued signing statements too. But Bush has made a fetish out of them by issuing more than 500 of them, often specifically citing the Presidential Infalliibility Doctrine (aka the "Unitary Executive Theory").

Here's what I find fascinating about that. Other presidents issued signing statements to bills. (I have no idea if they also cited the Presidential Infallibility Doctrine.)But they were almost always working with a congressional majority of the other party. You can see why a president would want to establish his interpretation of a hard fought negotiation with political opponents. So, although I am appalled at the idea of unchecked presidential power under any circumstances, I can at least see the logic of a typically authoritarian Republican using these tactics when dealing with a liberal Democratic congress. But you have to ask yourself why he can't get laws passed exactly the way he wants them to in his rubber stamp congress? He couldn't get Bill Frist, his own handpicked puppet, and Tom DeLay, his own Tony Soprano, to pass bills in language that he could agree with? After 9/11?

The answer is of course he could have. He chose not to:

The roots of Bush's approach go back to the Ford administration, when Dick Cheney, then serving as White House chief of staff, chafed at legislative limits placed on the executive branch in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and other abuses of power by President Nixon. Now the vice president and his top aide, David Addington, are taking the lead in trying to tip the balance of power away from Congress and back to the president.

Weldon Berger puts it this way:

The upshot of this is that until someone gets around to challenging the White House, Congress is just an advisory body with the authority to dole out bucketloads of cash. For now, we have a coup.

I can't help but chuckle mordantly at these chickenshit congressional Republicans who have laid down their integrity and their duty to the constitution for this spoiled little Dauphin and his evil grey eminence, Dick Cheney. But then, they've been paid handsomely in mountainous piles of pork, so I suppose they've been amply rewarded for their pusillanimous gluttony.

Barring a filibuster, it looks as if Alito will be confirmed on a party line vote (or close to it.) There is little doubt in my mind that he believes in this doctrine. However, after Bush vs Gore, I also no longer have any illusions that the Supreme Court is above partisan politics. I suspect that Alito and others will have qualms about codifying the Unitary Executive Theory because someday a Democratic president could face a Republican congress.

But it doesn't matter. The president doesn't believe that the Supreme Court has the power to rule on the issue of presidential power in the first place. I'm sure the Federalist Society will come up with an appropriate remedy should a Democrat ever become president and decide to exercise the same power.


If you are interested in going deeply into this topic, Michael Froomkin is an expert on this doctrine of presidential infallibility (aka "the Unitary Executive Theory") and has been writing about it for quite some time:

[This is] an argument popular with the Federalist Society, but not taken seriously by mainstream academics, for unlimited, uncontainable, Presidential power. The so-called “unitary executive” argument is set out most clearly in a Harvard Law Review article, Steven G. Calabresi & Kevin H. Rhodes, The Structural Constitution: Unitary Executive, Plural Judiciary, 105 Harv. L. Rev. 1155 (1992). My explanation as to why this article is profoundly wrong and dangerous can be found at A. Michael Froomkin, The Imperial Presidency’s New Vestments, 88 Nw. L. Rev. 1346 (1994), which in turn sparked separate and not entirely consistent answers from each of the two authors of the Structural Constitution article. My rebuttal article Still Naked After All These Words, 88 Nw. L. Rev. 1420 (1994) is also online.

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digby 1/09/2006 08:23:00 AM |

Sunday, January 08, 2006

 
Sickness

by digby

New details have emerged of how the growing number of prisoners on hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay are being tied down and force-fed through tubes pushed down their nasal passages into their stomachs to keep them alive.

They routinely experience bleeding and nausea, according to a sworn statement by the camp's chief doctor, seen by The Observer.

[...]

Edmonson's affidavit, in response to a lawsuit on behalf of detainees on hunger strike since last August, was obtained last week by The Observer, as a Guantánamo spokesman confirmed that the number of hunger strikers has almost doubled since Christmas, to 81 of the 550 detainees. Many have been held since the camp opened four years ago this month, although they not been charged with any crime, nor been allowed to see any evidence justifying their detention.

Thanks to Lindsey "Goober Pyle" Graham, they never will, either:

This and other Guantánamo lawsuits now face extinction. Last week, President Bush signed into law a measure removing detainees' right to file habeas corpus petitions in the US federal courts. On Friday, the administration asked the Supreme Court to make this retroactive, so nullifying about 220 cases in which prisoners have contested the basis of their detention and the legality of pending trials by military commission.

Someday, US Army grunts and innocent Americans with no operational information are going to be held captive by another country and that country is going to use the same rationale for imprisoning and tormenting them indefinitely. And the people who do it will eventually go to the ninth circle of hell and join George W. Bush and Dick Cheney as they scream into the void for eternity about how they had to become sadistic monsters in order to prove they weren't afraid.



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digby 1/08/2006 03:29:00 PM |

 
Nixonian Rhapsody Part Deux

by digby

Glenn Greenwald has an excellent post up today about the latest Republican "public intellectual's" assertion that president has a right to use the constitution as toilet paper whenever he unilaterally decides that we are at "war." Someone named "fly" writes in the comment section:

As a "Bush defender" I would like to point out that the NYT article entitled "Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts" encourages readers to conclude that this is a first in domestic surveillance ...

Reader Poputonian wrote this in response:

As a Bush supporter, fly, you are absolutely right to point out that he is not the first president to use the wiretap illegally. At least one past president confronted matters of grave national security by shifting the legal locus of control to his own domain. He understood how secret spy programs were necessary to preserve this great nation of his. He believed that citizens would willfully surrender their liberties to him, and he knew the threat constituted by a hostile media, and he knew what to do about it. He also understood how to make a nation of bedwetters feel more secure. But his theory died when an activist judge ruled against the argument of executive privilege, a ruling which was later upheld by the Supreme Court. By then, what might be called ‘harangue fatigue’ was creeping into the American living room and, frankly, people were sensing that they had reached their limit.

All of which now necessitates Mansfield’s illusory extra-legal theory of what the founders really meant when they designed this system of government. Let’s call it -- 'Mansfield's Separation of Powers, Except' -- clause to the Constitution. Naturally, it would tip off the enemy if this were stated directly in the Constitution, so what the founders did was they cloaked it in mysterious ambiguity so only a future ideologue could detect its presence. But make no doubt about it, as a previous Chief Executive had ascertained, a very close reading of the Constitution shows the founders' original intent, and it was as plain as the nose on his face. It really does give the president extra-legal power, in spite of what the courts ruled.

Some might argue whether or not history repeats itself, but one thing is sure -- it often rhymes.

He's right. This isn't unprecedented. In fact, it's a pattern.



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digby 1/08/2006 02:39:00 PM |

 
Culture Of Conservatism

by digby

Frank Rich's column today is getting lots of attention as it should. It's great. But I have to take issue with one passage:

Real conservatives, after all, are opposed to Big Brother; even the staunch Bush ally Grover Norquist has criticized the N.S.A.'s overreaching.

Norquist isn't a "real conservative." In fact, there is no such thing as a real conservative in the Party or movement leadership. The only "real conservatives" left are regular citizens, a few scholars and a couple of pundits.

This is an easy trap to fall into. Whenever their leaders inevitably suck the treasury dry, usurp the constitution, turn America into an international pariah (you know, the usual) "conservatives" protect their valuable brand by simply saying that these particular leaders weren't really "conservative" after all.

Grover Norquist believes in one thing and one thing only --- the perpetuation of Republican power. His job is managing the leaders of the GOP base --- which he fatuously calls "the leave us alone" coalition:

The Leave Us Alone Coalition is an idea popularized by conservative/libertarian activist Grover Norquist for a wide-ranging and loose collaboration among various elements of U.S. politics, united by a common desire for minimal involvement with and restrictions from government, especially the U.S. federal government. There is no actual organization by this name, rather, it is a description of a hoped-for reality of cooperation between social conservatives, libertarians / free market supporters, and various single-issue voters such as gun rights supporters.

He has to say that he opposes the NSA wiretaps if he hopes to keep this political devil's bargain together. Here's what Norquist is really all about:

"The Republicans are looking at decades of dominance in the House and Senate, and having the presidency with some regularity," Norquist told the New York Times last week. A few days earlier, he made the same point, with slightly less confidence, to CNBC Washington bureau chief and Wall Street Journal columnist Alan Murray: "For the next 10 years in the House and Senate, we're looking at Republican control." In the Washington Post last month, Norquist wrote of a "guarantee of united Republican government" that "has allowed the Bush administration to work and think long-term."

[...]

[I]n the November 1992 American Spectator, he wrote an article titled "The Coming Clinton Dynasty," in which he admitted that "any vision of conservatism as the ultimate winner in a two-steps-forward, one-step back Leninist march, is a flawed one."

Instead, Norquist explained, the way a party ensures its perpetual dominance is by controlling the levers of power. In 1974, Watergate led to the election of 75 new Democrats in the House. In Norquist's view, "this liberal band of congressmen" was "willing to change the rules to ensure their continuation in power." Without the benefits of incumbency (bigger staffs, larger budgets, taxpayer-funded mail, pork, and the ability to "extort campaign contributions from industries"), Norquist argued, the Democrats could not have remained in office for the subsequent 18 years. Power perpetuates itself. The correctness of conservative ideas paled before the ruthless "minority ideological cabal" in Congress.

It's shocking that such a delusional person is so influential in American politics, but he is. And despite his rare faux libertarian statements of principle he quite clearly desires a permanent Republican state endowed with unlimited power. He just worries that someone he disagrees with might try to do the same thing. I don't think that's conservatism. He's just a good old authoritarian statist. Here's Grover on his idol Josef Stalin:

He was running the personnel department while Trotsky was fighting the White Army. When push came to shove for control of the Soviet Union, Stalin won. Trotsky got an ice ax through his skull, while Stalin became head of the Soviet Union. He understood that personnel is policy.

This article in the WaPo from January 2004 on Grover is very entertaining and informative. I particularly liked this part:

Some conservatives have stopped attending the meetings because, they say, the institution has "gone Beltway." Now that Republicans are in power, the emphasis has shifted from ideology to lobbying for rich clients, they say. At one session, former representative Bob Livingston (R-La.) promoted a telecom client. At another, former Oklahoma governor Frank Keating (R) talked to the audience as president of the American Council of Life Insurers. One coalition dropout dismissed Norquist as a "homo economicus" -- driven by market forces rather than by social issues.

Part of the reason for "having the personnel in place," of course, is to ensure that money is funnelled where it needs to be. And Grover, along with his best pals from the College Republicans, Abramoff and Reed, made sure that this happened. Norquit's name has already come up in the Abramoff proble and I would expect it to come up again. He's right in the middle of that mess.

But why wouldn't he be? As you can see from the quote above, he believes that corruption is the method by which a political party maintains power. And there is nothing Grover cares about more than maintaining power.

Basically, he ascribes to George W. Bush's political ideology:

"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator,"

There you have it; modern conservatism in a nutshell.


Update: For more evidence of the mindset, check this out from Josh Marshall:

You have to love this. Three and a half years ago members of the New Hampshire state Republican party, the Republican National Committee and others entered into a criminal conspiracy to disrupt Democratic get-out-the-vote activities on election day.

[...]

Now, in recently filed court papers, the Republican State Committee’s attorney, Ovide Lamontagne, is claiming that the Dems' suit is "in attempt to use the court system to interfere with the (GOP’s) constitutionally protected election activities." There's a certain amount of sense to this, I suppose, since the Republican party, in its current incarnation, does seem to rely heavily on law-breaking as an electoral tool. Still, I've never heard it alleged that such criminality is constitutionally protected

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digby 1/08/2006 12:02:00 PM |

 
Nixonian Rhapsody

by digby


Finally, somebody in the press wakes up:

"But the climate of those years was so grim that half the Washington press corps spent more time worrying about having their telephones tapped than they did about risking the wrath of Rove, Libby and Cheney by poking at the weak seams of a Mafia-style administration that began cannibalizing the whole government just as soon as it came into power. Bush's capos were never subtle; they swaggered into Washington like a conquering army, and the climate of fear they engendered apparently neutralized The New York Times along with all the other pockets of potential resistance. Bush had to do everything but fall on his own sword before anybody in the Washington socio-political establishment was willing to take him on."

Oh sorry. Transcription problem. That was actually Hunter S. Thompson, in the October 10, 1974 Rolling Stone, writing about the Nixon administration. My bad.



Thanks to Rick Perlstein for the gonzo catch. I have a feeling we're going to see a whole lot of juicy stuff like that when he publishes his new book.
digby 1/08/2006 11:32:00 AM |

 
Private Partisans

by digby

Via Political Cortex

As it hunted down tax scofflaws, the Internal Revenue Service collected information on the political party affiliations of taxpayers in 20 states.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of an appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the IRS, said the practice was an “outrageous violation of the public trust” that could undermine the agency’s credibility.

IRS officials acknowledged that party affiliation information was routinely collected by a vendor for several months. They told the vendor last month to screen the information out.

“The bottom line is that we have never used this information,” said John Lipold, an IRS spokesman. “There are strict laws in place that forbid it.”

[...]

In a letter to Kelly, Deputy IRS Commissioner John Dalrymple said the party identification information was automatically collected through a “database platform” supplied by an outside contractor that targeted voter registration rolls among other things as it searched for people who aren’t paying their taxes.

They don't mention who the contractor was, unfortunately, and that is worth finding out. As we know, Brownies have been rewarded by the GOP patronage machine all over the place, both in and out of government. Anybody want to place a little bet?

I have long thought that privacy is a potent issue for Democrats and all these nasty revelations about Republican snooping and interefering in people's personal decisions just make it more so. With the exception of a few sincere Goldwaterites who have all passed on, the libertarian strain in the Republican party was always just a simple cultural appeal on guns and taxes. History shows that they clearly favor big government that serves their corporate special interests and are more than willing to use the full force of the state at their discretion. (This is most vividly demonstrated by the new presidential infallibility doctrine on one hand and Terry Schiavo on the other.)

Between the Bedwetter Caucus and the Christian Right you also have a very large faction of the GOP that considers people with opposing views to be dangerous. The true philosophy of modern conservatism is about control and domination, not freedom and equality.

I posted this (Warning pdf) before, but it's worth posting again.

What makes you feel free?

36.

Next I am going to read some basic American rights. For each one, please indicate whether this is crucial to your own sense of freedom, very important but not crucial, somewhat important, or not important at all.


Crucial---very important---Somewhatimportant---Not Important---No opinion



The right to vote 60 37 2 1 *

Freedom of religion 55 39 5 1 *

The right to free speech 52 40 7 1 *

The right to due process 52 37 7 1 3

The right to privacy 47 44 9 * *

The right to petition the government 44 37 15 2 2

Protection against unreasonable searches/seizures 40 39 16 2 2

Freedom of the press 36 37 22 4 1

The right to keep and bear arms 30 26 27 15 2

You'll notice that the right to privacy is considered more crucial than some other rights that are explicitly written into the Bill of Rights. (You'll also notice that number one is not a right --- which was noted by none other than Uncle Nino during the Florida debacle. Too bad the press was so busy handwringing about preganant chads that it didn't bother to discuss that fact in any depth.)

And this issue pertains to Republican (and, frankly, certain Democratic) partners in crime as well --- the corporations and the "contractors" who are invading citizxens' privacy these days as if all information is not only public, it is also for sale.

John at Americablog caught this one yesterday:

Anyone can buy a list of your incoming and outgoing phone calls, cell or land-line, for $110 online.

He bought his own records so he knows it's true. And it turns out that the congress has known all about this and doesn't give a damn.

I support the idea of Democrats introducing a constitutional amendment to codify a right to privacy once and for all. I have heard some say that we should not do this because people will then realize that we don't already have that right. I think that's weak. The only people who are currently concerned with that argument in any practical sense are judges and they understand the issue very well. This is about taking a public stand and fighting for something that most Americans, not just Democrats, believe in and care about.

A constitutional amendment is a very difficult thing to do and would probably require decades to accomplish, but it is something that we can hang our hats on as a matter of fundamental principle. It should be a standard Democratic line along with "health insurance for all Americans" or "equal rights under the law." People need to understand that when the Republicans say there is no right to privacy in the constitution, they like it that way --- and that we disagree. Strongly.



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digby 1/08/2006 08:26:00 AM |

Saturday, January 07, 2006

 
Puppet Theatre

Did anyone catch the ignominious debut of the new MSNBC freakshow called "Week-ends With Maury and Connie" today?

I could be wrong, but I think they might be trying to do a sort of grandparents version of The Daily Show. It could also be a tribute to early television pioneer Dave Garroway and his chimp, J. Fred Muggs (Maury is playing the part of the chimp.)

I honestly don't know what to make of it. I'm pretty sure that Maury is working with Michael Jackson's plastic surgeon, though. I never saw the resemblance between him and Lena Horn before.



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digby 1/07/2006 05:24:00 PM |

 
Christian News Network

by digby

I see that conservative evangelical leaders have stepped up to criticize Pat Robertson's wacko statements:

I'm appalled that Pat Robertson would make such statements. He ought to know better," said Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest U.S. Protestant denomination.

"The arrogance of the statement shocks me almost as much as the insensitivity of it," Land said in an interview.

[...]

Land, who sat next to Robertson at a Washington event last year honoring Sharon, said that Robertson spoke for "an ever diminishing number of evangelicals, and with each episode like this the rate of diminishment accelerates."

Land said Robertson might have isolated himself from anyone but yes men. "When you're the head of your own organization, if you don't cultivate people telling you what you don't want to hear, sometimes you don't hear it," Land said.

The Rev. Kevin Mannoia, chaplain at Azusa Pacific University and past president of the National Assn. of Evangelicals, was among those who suggested that Robertson's comments could have been a misguided effort to restore his once powerful standing as a religious and political voice in America by creating new controversy.

"I wonder whether, consciously or subconsciously, this is an effort on the part of an individual who has significant influence in the church and the country and recognized that influence is waning," Mannoia said.

"He continues to try to maintain that influence by increasingly controversial statements — perhaps statements out of desperation, perhaps statements out of [wanting] more attention," he said.

Meow. Pull your claws in, boys.

No matter what they say, Pat Robertson is incredibly influential among the rank and file Christian Right through his immensely successful tax exempt television empire, Christian Broadcast Networks. From the Columbia Journalism Review, May/June 2005:

CBN’s new digs are abuzz with activity. The Republican Senator Trent Lott came by for an interview earlier in the day, as did Jim Towey, who directs the White House office of faith-based initiatives. Now Lee Webb, the CBN anchor in from Virginia, sits behind the desk in one of the studios preparing to deliver the network’s first half-hour nightly newscast from this gleaming set. Behind him is a floor-to-ceiling world map illuminated in violet and indigo and a screen emblazoned with CBN’s logo. At his side, just beyond the camera’s view, sits a squat pedestal that holds a battered American Standard Bible. Webb lowers his head and folds his hands. “Father, we are grateful for today’s program,” he says. “We pray for your blessing. We ask that what we’re about to do will bring honor to you.” Then the cameras roll.

To many people — especially in blue-state America — God, news, and politics may seem an odd cocktail. But it’s this mix that fuels much of CBN’s programming.

CBN’s flagship program, the 700 Club with Pat Robertson, is familiar to many Americans. But few outside the evangelical community know how large the network is — it employs more than 1,000 people and has facilities in three U.S. cities as well as Ukraine, the Philippines, India, and Israel — or how diverse its programming...As Christian broadcasting has grown, pulpit-based ministries have largely given way to a robust programming mix that includes music, movies, sitcoms, reality shows, and cartoons. But the largest constellation may be news and talk shows. Christian public affairs programming exploded after September 11, and again in the run-up to the 2004 presidential election. And this growth shows no signs of flagging.

[...]

Christian radio news networks experienced their largest growth spurt in the months after September 11. That was also when CBN launched NewsWatch, the first nightly Christian television news program. The show is on three of the six national evangelical television networks, as well as regional Christian networks and the ABC Family Channel. FamilyNet TV, part of the Southern Baptist Convention’s media empire, followed suit in 2004 by hiring a news staff. And at the 2005 NRB convention, Christian television networks from around the world joined forces to form a news co-op. They intend to pool footage and other resources as a means of improving coverage and helping more Christian stations get into the news business.

Pat's getting at least a million viewers a day on the 700 Club alone. And to those who were listening to his broadcast, his faux pas about Ariel Sharon wouldn't have sounded the least bit odd:

Christian news networks devote an enormous amount of airtime to Israel, and their interest has theological underpinnings. In addition to being the place where many biblical events unfolded, Israel plays a pivotal role in biblical prophecy. Most evangelicals emphasize that God granted Israel to the Jews through a covenant with Abraham. They believe that the Jews’ return to Israel was biblically foreordained, and that Jewish control over Israel will trigger a cascade of apocalyptic events that will culminate in Christ’s second coming. Israel’s strength is vital to their own redemption.

Such beliefs explain the unwavering support for Israel expressed by some evangelical talk show hosts. Among them is Kay Arthur, whose radio and TV program, Precepts For Life, offers audiences biblical solutions to everyday dilemmas such as divorce and addictions. She took to the stage at the Israeli Ministry of Tourism Breakfast, held in conjunction with the 2005 NRB conference, and told the hundreds of broadcasters in the audience, “If it came to a choice between Israel and America, I would stand with Israel.” Janet Parshall, host of a popular political program that also runs both on radio and TV, implored the Israelis in attendance, “Please, please, do not give up any more land.” Lest anyone think her alone in her zeal, she urged all those who believed “in the sovereignty of Israel” to stand. Virtually everyone in the room got up.

[...]

The Israeli government has responded with gratitude. Senior officials meet regularly with evangelical broadcasters. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent Pat Robertson a taped message for his seventy-fifth birthday, thanking him for his stalwart support.

I'm sure that Pat's good friend Benjamin had no problem with his comment that Sharon's stroke was divine retribution. He might even agree.

Pat's been popular with conservative politicians for a long time, as everyone knows. But even though he's been spouting off like a lunatic every couple of months (America was asking for it on 9/11 etc.) the Republican party knows which side of the communion wafer its bread is buttered on:

... a few months after the 2000 presidential election, when President Bush invited the NRB’s executive committee to join him and Attorney General John Ashcroft for a meeting in the Roosevelt Room at the White House. After the gathering the NRB’s board chairman wrote an exuberant message to members, saying there was a “new wind blowing in Washington, D.C., and across the nation . . . . The President has surrounded himself with a wonderful staff of people of faith. And it’s obvious that people of faith are being welcomed back to the public square.” The message also urged members to seize the opportunity to “make a difference in our culture” — which in the parlance of religious conservatives generally means effecting political change.

In the months that followed the Roosevelt Room gathering, the NRB executive committee continued to meet periodically with senior White House staff members. On occasion, Bush himself attended. And monthly NRB-White House conference calls were established to give rank-and-file NRB members a direct line to the Oval Office.

George W. Bush also attended NRB’s 2003 convention and gave a speech, much of it dedicated to promoting the looming war in Iraq. At the event, the NRB passed a resolution to “honor” the president. Though the NRB is a tax-exempt organization, and thus banned from backing a particular candidate, the document resembled an endorsement. The final line read, “We recognize in all of the above that God has appointed President George W. Bush to leadership at this critical period in our nation’s history, and give Him thanks.”

Just last spring, when Pat opened up his shiny new DC CBN studios during the fight over judicial nominees, the Republican leadership happily stepped forth to kiss Pat's ring and genuflect appropriately:

The judiciary was also front and center during opening week at the network’s new Washington bureau. A parade of senators — all of them Republican — made their way into the studio, to go on camera advocating the nuclear option. During his interview, broadcast as part of NewsWatch’s inaugural Washington, D.C., program, Trent Lott stood with studio lights glinting off the American flag pin on his lapel, and held up a scrap of paper with a list of senators’ names and how they intended to vote on the initiative. The tally seemed to be stacking up in his favor. Pat Robertson, who interviewed Lott, asked no tough questions and offered not even a passing nod to opposing viewpoints. Instead, Robertson scored Democrats for trying to “eliminate religious values from America” by blocking the appointment of conservative judges. All the while, the dizzying blend of God, news, and politics that he has crafted and honed was bouncing off satellites, winding through thousands of cable systems, rippling over the airwaves, and glowing on television screens across America.

And contrary to what Reverend Land and others are trying to say, Pat's news and entertainment network is growing, not shrinking:

January 2005:

The 700 Club's average daily audience, according to AC Nielsen's November sweeps, is up 26% over last year. At a time when most daily shows are struggling The 700 Club is experiencing tremendous increases. November's average daily audience of 922,000 households is the highest in ten years and we experienced the same success in October and November.

I suspect that some of this criticism of Pat is simple jockeying for influence in the Christian broadcasting field. You'll notice that Land's Southern Baptist Convention has its own competing network. Pat's the Rupert Murdoch of religious programming and there are a number of little Mini Pats nipping at his heels.

But I'm not worried about him. He's got two thirds of born again Christians watching his news show and they're not going to stop watching because of something he said about Ariel Sharon:

( Mar 14, 2005) The reshaping of Americans’ lives is evident in various facets of their life, including the spiritual dimension. A new nationwide survey conducted by The Barna Group indicates that while 56% of adults attend church services in a typical month, a much larger percentage is exposed to religious information and experiences through various forms of media. Radio and television are the most popular Christian media, but faith-related Internet sites as well as religious magazines, newspapers and books also enjoy significant exposure...Two-thirds of the born again population views Christian programming each month, which is more than double the proportion of non-born again adults (30%) who follow that pattern.

It isn't just FOXNews. CBN is a powerful force in the Mighty Wurlitzer too. Robertson may be a nutcase, but he's also a huge player in GOP politics whether they like it or not.


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digby 1/07/2006 02:36:00 PM |

 
Who Knew?

I just want to follow up a little bit on Glenn's fine post on this blog (and on his own) in which he takes on Highpockets' pathetic argument defending the Bush apologist war cry that revealing the NSA illegal spying scandal harmed national security.

I agree, of course, that despite the fact that Bush likes to talk about how they hide in caves, islamic terrorists aren't cave men. They can read as well as anyone. And because they have what you might call a "particular interest" in such things, they would be more likely than 99% of Americans to know about American surveillance law and practices such as FISA, if such things concerned them.

I also agree that this alleged revelation about "switches" and "encryption" is a red herring. In the first place the Times story didn't mention it, but even if it did, it makes no difference. All this technological information was in the public domain, as were the laws, so if any terrorist was concerned about how the US went about surveillance or the state of technology that enables it, they could have easily found out.

But none of that really matters. The NY Times story revealed nothing that would give a terrorist pause because the fact is that everyone in the world assumed that we were monitoring terrorists' electronic communications. I assumed that. So did Osama bin Laden. I further assumed that American friends of terrorists and their friends would be monitored, too. And I have no doubt that Osama bin Laden assumed the same. But while both Osama bin Laden and I undoubtedly made exactly the same assumptions, only one of us has any interest in the NY Times revelation that the surveillance was illegal --- and it isn't Osama.

This article from the Washington Times, via Glenn, bears that out, saying that all this surveillance has resulted in no good intelligence about al Qaeda in the US.

U.S. law enforcement sources said that more than four years of surveillance by the National Security Agency has failed to capture any high-level al Qaeda operative in the United States. They said al Qaeda insurgents have long stopped using the phones and even computers to relay messages. Instead, they employ couriers.

"They have been way ahead of us in communications security," a law enforcement source said. "At most, we have caught some riff-raff. But the heavies remain free and we believe some of them are in the United States."

But even if that were not true and American suicide bombers were plotting their next attacks in AOL chat rooms, the government would have no trouble getting warrants to spy on them. And that's the rub. I just don't see any scenario in which a FISA judge would not retroactively grant a warrant in a case that thwarted a terrorist plot. Neither can I imagine that if the administration made a case to the congress that it needed to extend the 72 hour retroactive limit to three weeks (or three months!) that the GOP congress wouldn't have gone along. Nor would they have withheld the money required to hire all the people needed to do the paperwork, or whatever the excuse of the day is. The administration would have gotten whatever it needed to legally monitor terrorist suspects. In fact, the terrorists and Anmericans alike assumed it had already done so.

Therefore, the only logical reason that the administration believed that it had to secretly and illegally spy on Americans is because they knew that Americans would not approve of which Americans they were monitoring. As Glenn says, the only security threatened by the revelations in the NY Times story is the Republican Party's political security.



.
digby 1/07/2006 10:45:00 AM |

 
Hanging In Wingnutland

by digby

Man, am I one lucky lil' blogger or what? Let's have a hand for Julia of Sisyphus Shrugged and Glenn Greenwald of Unclaimed Territory. I'm sure you will all be visiting their great blogs often. If there were an award for best guest blogging, they would be shoo-ins. Many thanks to both of them for filling in while I was hanging with the wingnuts.

How is FoxNews indoctrinating the subjects these days, you ask? Well, it's interesting. From this small subset of wingnuts, it looks like the Abramoff scandal is spawning a kind of feverish excitement, although they don't seem to realize that it's going to affect their favored political party more than the hated liberal traitors. The atmosphere was very reminiscent of gatherings during Whitewater and Monicagate and it occurred to me that they are either addicted to scandal in general or they were so conditioned during the Clinton years that they now automatically associate scandal with an advantage to their side.

Keep in mind that while these are wingnuts they are not Pat Robertson wingnuts, so they aren't faithbased. However, they are military and their tribal indentification with the GOP is very stong. They are unable to admit, as yet, that this is a throughly Republican scandal, but they are scandalized nonetheless. They say generic stuff like "it's time to throw all those bums out" which, if you knew these particular wingnuts, is as close as they are ever going to get to openly admitting that the Republicans have fucked up.

They also complained that Bush is on TV too much. His hectoring bozo-ism embarrasses them now.

Of course they were also saying, "somebody ought to put a stop to that woman."

Baby steps.




Corrected shoo-in

.
digby 1/07/2006 09:07:00 AM |

 
Hey, me too...

What he said. Thanks for the conversation, and for making me feel at home, and thanks to Digby for inviting me.

Since this came up in the comments of an earlier post, Wampum (home of the Koufaces, and they're still a little short the money they need to pay for them, if you happen to think of it when you drop by), firedoglake and his rooness all have smart posts up explaining why if you think that "the tribes donated to Democrats" means that Democrats are implicated in the Abramoff scandal, you don't really understand what the Abramoff scandal is about.

That makes me kind of nervous. We're the ones who are paying attention. Imagine what impressions the people who aren't paying attention are getting.

I think we need to get on message here, folks.

Just, you know, saying.

edit: Oh, man. I almost forgot to make Digby profoundly uncomfortable by suggesting that you head over to the Bloggies with this blog in mind.

Best writer seems to be the popular category.
julia 1/07/2006 08:34:00 AM |

 
A couple of last points

by Glenn Greenwald

Thanks to Digby for asking me to blog here while he was away, and thanks to all of his readers for the lively and provocative comments in response to mine and Julia’s posts. This is the place where one finds what I think is the most consistently superb writing and analysis on the Internet, and I've enjoyed blogging here these last few days.

I wanted to bring two final items to your attention:

(1) The nonpartisan and independent Congressional Research Service released a Report yesterday (.pdf) which analyzed and, in a mild though clear tone, decimated the legal theories advanced by the Administration to defend George Bush’s lawless eavesdropping.

Though lengthy and legalistic, the Report is well worth reading. Of particular note is its discussion of the history of eavesdropping abuses on U.S. citizens by the Executive Branch which necessitated the protections of FISA (page CRS 13); the Report’s destruction of the Administration’s claim that the AUMF (the Congressional resolution authorizing military force against Al Qaeda) can be read to have provided Bush an "exemption" from the mandates of FISA (CRS 32); and its emphatic rejection of the notion that a President can simply violate a Congressional law (rather than asking Congress to amend it) simply because the President views the law as undesirable for national security (CRS 41).

(2) Atrios has spent the last several days repeatedly asking if there are any Bush followers, anywhere, who can answer this question:

Can anyone - anywhere - explain, just a little bit - just one time - how "national security has been damaged" by revelations that the Administration was eavesdropping without FISA-required warrants and judicial oversight rather than with them?

One of the most devoted and loyal Bush followers, John at Powerline, has courageously stepped up to the plate, and attempted to provide an explanation as to how it can be said that disclosure of the illegality of the eavesdropping program "harmed national security."

It’s the first such attempt (at least which I’ve seen) to answer this question. For reasons that I point out here on my blog, John’s explanation is not just astoundingly incoherent, but conclusively demonstrates that John -- as I believe is the case for many Bush followers -- does not have any idea what FISA says or what this scandal is actually about.

The utter emptiness of his response makes quite clear that the only thing "harmed" by disclosure of this illegal program is George Bush’s political interests, not American national security interests. The rage and "treason" accusations arising from this scandal rest on the borderline-religious belief that to criticize and undermine George Bush is the same as criticizing and harming the United States, and harming George Bush’s political interests -- even by pointing out that he broke the law -- is, therefore, by definition, to commit treason. That really is the premise of those who are defending George Bush in this scandal.
Glenn Greenwald 1/07/2006 05:05:00 AM |

Friday, January 06, 2006

 
Hanging the Messenger

by Glenn Greenwald

Atrios asked this question yesterday:

So, what if it does come out that the administration was spying on journalists, political opponents, etc... How WILL the broders/russerts/matthews/hiatts/ roberts/humes of the world react?

I’m not sure exactly what those commentators would say (although I’m sure it would be appropriately balanced and would give due deference to the view that Bush had good arguments for such spying and did so only with the best of intentions for all of us), but I definitely know what Bush’s followers would say: It’s about time, and it doesn’t go far enough. Bush’s blogosphere followers have already begun justifying and excusing the Administration’s potential spying on journalists.

But clearly they believe that a lot more should be done to anti-Bush journalists than simply spying on their calls. Since the New York Times disclosed the undisputed fact that George Bush ordered his Administration to eavesdrop on American citizens with no judicial oversight and outside of FISA, the attacks on the media by the Administration and Bush’s followers have seriously escalated. Since this scandal arose, they have been relentlessly calling the Times and its sources "subversives" and "traitors," and have been openly claiming that they are guilty of treason.

When Bush followers use terms like "subversives" and "traitors," and when they accuse people of engaging in "treason," many assume that they are joking, that it’s a form of political hyperbole and it’s only meant symbolically. Pajamas Media member and Instapundit favorite Dean Esmay wants it know that the terms "traitors" and "treason" are used literally, and that these traitors must meet the fate which traitors deserve:

When I say "treason" I don't mean it in an insulting or hyperbolic way. I mean in a literal way: we need to find these 21st century Julius Rosenbergs, these modern day reincarnations of Alger Hiss, put them on trial before a jury of their peers, with defense counsel. When they are found guilty, we should then hang them by the neck until the are dead, dead, dead.

No sympathy. No mercy.Am I angry? You bet I am. But not in an explosive way. Just in the same seething way I was angry on 9/11.

These people have endangered American lives and American security. They need to be found, tried, and executed.

Similarly, on Powerline yesterday, Big Trunk shared some of his dirty fantasies about criminally prosecuting and imprisoning the reporters and editors of the Times who were responsible for having disclosed the fact that his Leader ordered the Government to eavesdrop on American citizens in violation of the law:

Assuming that the terms of the statute apply to the leaks involved in the NSA story, has the Times itself violated the statute and committed a crime? The answer is clearly affirmative. . . .

Is the New York Times a law unto itself? In gambling that constitutional immunity protects it from criminal liability for its misconduct, the New York Times appears to me to be bluffing. Those of us who are disinclined to remit the defense of the United States to the judgment of the New York Times must urge the Bush administration to call the Times's bluff.

Even discussions of this sort have the effect, by design, of intimidating the nation’s media into remaining quiet about illegal acts by the Administration. With an Administration which throws American citizens indefinitely into military prisons without so much as charges being brought and with access to lawyers being denied, or which contemplates military attacks on unfriendly media outlets, isn’t it just inevitable that all of this talk about treason and criminal prosecution of the Times and its sources is going to have some substantial chilling effect on reporting on the Administration's wrongdoing?

None of this is new. It’s all been tried before. The New York Times previously obtained classified documents revealing government misconduct with respect to the Vietnam War, and the Nixon Administration argued then, too, that the Times’ publication of that classified information was criminal and endangered national security. The U.S. Supreme Court in New York Times Co. v. The United States (the Pentagon Papers Case) 403 U.S. 713 (1971), barred the Nixon Administration from preventing publication by the Times of this information.

In doing so, Justice Hugo Black wrote a concurring opinion which makes clear just how dangerous and perverse it is for the Administration and its followers to seek to silence the media from reporting, truthfully, on the Administration’s illegal eavesdropping. I’m quoting from it at length because it is so instructive and applicable to what is occurring today:

Our Government was launched in 1789 with the adoption of the Constitution. The Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, followed in 1791. Now, for the first time in the 182 years since the founding of the Republic, the federal courts are asked to hold that the First Amendment does not mean what it says, but rather means that the Government can halt the publication of current news of vital importance to the people of this country. . . .

Yet the Solicitor General argues and some members of the Court appear to agree that the general powers of the Government adopted in the original Constitution should be interpreted to limit and restrict the specific and emphatic guarantees of the Bill of Rights adopted later. I can imagine no greater perversion of history. . . .

In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.

The subtle and not-so-subtle threats against journalists for committing "treason" are not confined to the rabid Bush followers in the blogosphere. Bush’s closest political allies routinely make similar accusations, and Bush himself, in his very first Press Conference after disclosure of his eavesdropping, accused those responsible for the disclosure of “helping the enemy,” i.e., committing treason:

There is a process that goes on inside the Justice Department about leaks, and I presume that process is moving forward. My personal opinion is it was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program in a time of war. The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy. . . .

With a Congress that is controlled by Republicans and hopelessly passive, and with a judiciary increasingly packed with highly deferential Bush appointees, the two remaining sources which can serve as meaningful checks on Executive power are governmental whistle-blowers and journalists, which is exactly why the most vicious and intimidating attacks are now being directed towards them.
Glenn Greenwald 1/06/2006 09:31:00 AM |

 
I'm frequently dispirited at the way the obvious doesn't seem to be obvious to the people who provide our news coverage, but every so often I read something that makes me feel as if perhaps someone is paying attention.

Frequently it's written by EJ Dionne

It almost makes you feel sorry for Jack Abramoff.

Republicans once fell all over themselves to get his "moolah," the term used famously by the disgraced superlobbyist, and to get his advice on dealing with that warm and cuddly entity known as "the lobbying community."

Suddenly, Abramoff enters two plea bargains, and these former friends ask, in puzzled tones, "Jack Who ?"

Over the past few days, politicians -- from President Bush and House Speaker Dennis Hastert on down -- raced to return Abramoff contributions, or compassionately sent the moolah off to charity. There's a scramble to treat him as a wildly defective gene in an otherwise healthy body politic, and to erase the past. But seeing the record of the past clearly is essential to fixing the future.

Abramoff, who used to pall around with close Bush allies Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed in the College Republicans and who has been a central figure in the rise of Republican dominance in Washington, is not a lone wolf. He is a particularly egregious example of how the GOP's political-corporate-lobbying complex has overwhelmed the idealistic wing of the Republican Party.

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, insisted on Wednesday that Bush does not know Abramoff personally. But the record makes clear that Abramoff was a loyal and serious player in Bush's circles.

According to an Oct. 15, 2003, story in Roll Call, Abramoff was one of a half-dozen lobbyists who raised $100,000 for Bush's 2000 campaign. When Bush was battling Al Gore's efforts to recount Florida's votes, Abramoff was there with the maximum $5,000 contribution Bush was taking for the effort. A September 2003 National Journal story noted that Abramoff was so confident he would meet his fundraising goals for the president's 2004 campaign that he was planning, as the lobbyist generously put it, "to try to help some other lobbyists meet their goals."

The administration, in turn, was open to Abramoff. As National Journal reported in its April 20, 2002, issue, "Last summer, in an effort to raise the visibility of his Indian clients, Abramoff helped arrange a White House get-together on tax issues with President Bush for top Indian leaders, including Lovelin Poncho, the chairman of the Coushattas," one of the tribes Abramoff represented.

When journalists would raise questions about Abramoff's role as a lobbyist-fundraiser just a couple of years ago, Bush's lieutenants played down his influence peddling and proudly claimed Abramoff as one of their own.

On an Oct. 15, 2003, CNBC broadcast, journalist Alan Murray asked Ed Gillespie, then chairman of the Republican National Committee, about fundraising by "people like Jack Abramoff, who represents Indian tribes here," and another lobbyist whose name I'll leave out because he has not been implicated in any scandals. "Are you going to sit here and tell us that their contributions to your party have nothing to do with their lobbying efforts in Washington?"

"I know Jack Abramoff," Gillespie replied. He mentioned the other lobbyist and insisted: "They are Republicans; they were Republicans before they were lobbyists. . . . I think they want to see a Republican reelected in the White House in 2004 more than anything."

Roll Call reported on March 12, 2001, that "GOP leaders on and off Capitol Hill are organizing a new drive to lean on major corporations and trade associations to hire Republicans for their top lobbying jobs." The article spoke of a "Who's Who of Republican lobbyists" who had held a meeting on the subject the week before. At the top of the list was Jack Abramoff...

There's been quite a flurry of attempts to play this unholy mess as a bipartisan scandal (I particularly enjoyed this bizarrity from the ever Republican-friendly Gallop, where they make a valiant attempt to "prove" that corruption is a bipartisan problem for Congress in the wake of blanket news coverage of Mr. Abramoff's activities based on polls taken, um, a while ago).

It's not working, and we shouldn't let it work. That means, among other things, you might want to consider defending the Democrats. After all, individual lobbyists weren't making tens of millions of dollars selling both sides of the mall to anyone with money when we held them (pace the junior generation of the Boggs family). Maybe we should grab them back.

If we showed a bit of enthusiasm for the good our team is trying to do rather than focussing on what they're not doing the way we would, it might help.

Just saying.
julia 1/06/2006 09:04:00 AM |

 
An ideology of lawlessness

by Glenn Greenwald

When Rudy Giuliani first became Mayor of New York in 1993, he famously ordered the Police Department to begin enforcing relatively minor "quality of life" laws -- long-ignored prohibitions on things like jumping turnstiles and panhandling. These actions were based on the "Broken Windows" theory of criminality long touted by conservative theorist James Q. Wilson, which held that allowing even small infractions of the law is to endorse criminality which, in turn, leads to more serious crimes and then all-out lawlessness. To this day, whenever it is their turn to pay tribute to the heroic greatness of Rudy Giuliani, conservatives heap lavish praise on his refusal to overlook law-breaking and his glorious re-instatement of the rule of law.

But like the Geneva Convention, precepts of due process and so much else, "rule of law" theories are now quaint relics being cast aside by the so-called conservatives running our Federal Government. In their place, we now have a governmental culture where violations of the law are literally the norm.

What we have in our Federal Government are not individual acts of law-breaking or isolated scandals of illegality, but instead, a culture and an ideology of lawlessness. It cannot be emphasized enough that since September 11, the Bush Administration has claimed the power to act without any constraints of law or checks from the Congress or the courts. Its view of its own power and governing philosophy is based upon, and perfectly encapsulated by, this single paragraph from the incomparably pernicious September 25, 2001 Memorandum, written by then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo:

In both the War Powers Resolution and the Joint Resolution, Congress has recognized the President's authority to use force in circumstances such as those created by the September 11 incidents. Neither statute, however, can place any limits on the President's determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be used in response, or the method, timing, and nature of the response. These decisions, under our Constitution, are for the President alone to make.

That decisions about what actions our country takes "are for the President alone to make" – without any interference from the Congress, the courts, or anything else – is not a fringe academic theory. It is a definitely authoritarian and lawless ideology that has truly -- expressly -- become the governing philosophy of George Bush and his Administration. And it is not something the Administration has merely embraced in theory. It has been aggressively exercising these limitless powers.

When the President and the Vice President assure us that all of their actions are in "full accordance with the law," what they mean by "the law" is what is described in the Yoo Memorandum. For everything broadly relating to the undeclared and eternal "war" on terror -- not just on international battlefields but domestically as well -- decisions are "for the President alone to make." Pursuant to this theory, even when the President acts in violation of what we used to understand as "the law" (i.e., acts of Congress which are signed into law by the President), he is still acting "in accordance with the law," because the power to make such decisions rests exclusively with him.

The NSA scandal has received the bulk of the media’s attention over the past month, and deservedly so. But it has drowned out other acts of wanton law-breaking by the Administration. We have learned recently that multiple federal agencies have been tracking the computer activities of American citizens in patent violation of the law. And it was disclosed in the last couple of days that the Administration some time ago unilaterally granted itself an exemption to the National Security Act of 1947, whereby it has refused to brief the Senate and House Intelligence Committees with regard to the NSA’s eavesdropping activities as required by that law. And in violation of the President’s (itself illegal) Executive Order directing the NSA to eavesdrop only on international calls in violation of FISA, the NSA has eavesdropped on domestic calls as well.

Such individual acts of law-breaking are always either excused as being inconsequential or defended as being necessary for our safety. But the dangers posed by this theory are self-evident and severe.

Just two weeks ago or so, I wrote a post asking Bush followers how any limits at all could be recognized on George Bush’s powers in light of the theories of the Yoo Memorandum, and specifically wondered why the debates we were having about things like renewal of the Patriot Act and prohibitions on torture even matter, if, as Bush claims, "such decisions alone are for the President to make." Both Matt Welch at Reason and Scott Lemieux asked the same question with regard to other powers that the Administration could assert. It did not take long for those questions to be answered, and the answer -- coming directly from the Administration -- is that there are no cognizable limits on the President’s law-breaking power.

This answer was delivered in the form of a woefully under-reported "signing statement" which was issued last Friday by the President when he signed into law a defense appropriations bill passed by Congress. That bill included the McCain Amendment, which bans the use of torture as an interrogation tool and which the Administration aggressively argued against. As Marty Lederman has detailed, Bush’s signing statement plainly amounts to a re-iteration – a reminder to all of us – of the theory of the Yoo Memorandum: that while the President was participating in the symbolic ritual of signing the McCain Amendment into "law," he has the power to violate it should he deem it in the national interest to do so. Here is what Bush said in his statement:

The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks.

So this new "law" will be interpreted "in a manner consistent" with the Administration’s view of "the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief." Of course, the Administration’s view regarding the President’s "constitutional authority" is that such decisions are not for Congress to make, but "are for the President alone to make," which is just another way of saying that the President can violate the law the minute he thinks he should.

Lest anyone think that this description of the President’s view of his right to break the law is exaggerated or unfair, we should listen to what the Administration itself is saying about this matter:

A senior administration official, who spoke to a Globe reporter about the statement on condition of anonymity because he is not an official spokesman, said the president intended to reserve the right to use harsher methods in special situations involving national security. . . .

But, the official said, a situation could arise in which Bush may have to waive the law's restrictions to carry out his responsibilities to protect national security. He cited as an example a ''ticking time bomb" scenario, in which a detainee is believed to have information that could prevent a planned terrorist attack.

''Of course the president has the obligation to follow this law, [but] he also has the obligation to defend and protect the country as the commander in chief, and he will have to square those two responsibilities in each case," the official added. ''We are not expecting that those two responsibilities will come into conflict, but it's possible that they will."

Isn’t it rather extraordinary to observe the Congress pass a much-debated bill which the Administration vigorously opposed, and watch the President sign it into law, only for the Administration, on the very same day, to actually come right out and say that the President "may have to waive the law’s restrictions"?

Since when do we have a system of Government where the President can simply "waive" away laws? This law was enacted specifically to prohibit acts of torture which the Administration has engaged in, and the President is openly telling us that he may have to unilaterally "waive" the law. Generously, we hear that he hopes not to have to break the law, "but it’s possible" that he will.

The NSA law-breaking scandal cannot be seen as some isolated act. It is merely the most flagrant symptom (thus far) of the fact that we have a President -- with three full years left in office -- who has claimed for himself the right to ignore Congressional law and who believes that virtually all decisions of any real significance in our country are his "alone to make." FISA. The National Security Act of 1947. The McCain Amendment. These are all federal laws -- laws -- which the Administration is openly claiming it has the right to violate.

Shouldn’t we be having much more of a discussion than we have had about the fact that we have a President who believes he has the power to ignore laws? We have had all sorts of vigorous and sweeping debates lately about things like torture, habeas corpus, surveillance powers under the Patriot Act. But those debates are all just gestures. Like George Bush’s signing a "law" which he simultaneously claims he has no obligation to obey, the oh-so-heated debates we’ve been having are all just some sort of illusory role-playing, where we pretend that we have a representative Congress which makes laws. But what we actually have is a President who says he can violate those laws at will because such decisions are "his alone to make."

Maybe Americans want to have a President who has these powers and can operate without much restraint. Other countries at other times have decided that they want that, usually as a means for protecting themselves against perceived external threats. But shouldn’t we be having this discussion much more explicitly and with much greater urgency than we have had it thus far?

The "war" which is said to justify these extraordinary powers isn't going anywhere any time soon. The Administration itself constantly reminds us that it's a long struggle which could last decades. That means that whatever law-breaking powers we permit to be vested in the President are ones that George Bush, and then subsequent presidents, are going to wield for a long time to come. At the very least, such a radical shift in how our government functions should not be effectuated in secret and without real debate.
Glenn Greenwald 1/06/2006 03:49:00 AM |

Thursday, January 05, 2006

 
FYI

The Talking Dog, who is a bit of a lawyer himself, professionally, has been interviewing the lawyers for a number of the defendants who have been caught up in the current administration's no-constitutional-rights-for-citizens-we-say-are-terrorists (only we don't have to prove it) legal policy.

Today, he posted an interview with Mr. Padilla's lawyer.

As you may or may not know, the current administration is attempting to transfer Mr. Padilla's case from the military courts to the criminal courts in an attempt (unsuccessful, so far) to keep the Supreme Court from deciding on the constitutionality of their denial of constitutional protections to Mr. Padilla, on the basis of their argument that the executive branch has the right to ignore the constitution.

That right, presumably, emanating from the penumbra of something or other. Love me some original intenters.

Anyway, read. It's fascinating stuff.
julia 1/05/2006 07:16:00 PM |

 
O bliss o glee o joy for all my former woes a thousand times repaid...

The Abramoff mess has spread to Maryland, where it is now complicating the life of my beloved Governor Ehrlich.

I'm a lucky girl.
julia 1/05/2006 12:46:00 PM |

 
why the White House is not returning between $100-200 thousand bundled by pioneer Jack Abramoff

President George Bush is giving $US6000 ($8000) in political contributions from Abramoff, his wife and a client to charity, but will keep more than $US100,000 that Abramoff collected for Mr Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, officials said.

The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said the $US6000 from the Abramoffs and the Saginaw Chippewa tribe of Michigan would go to the American Heart Association.

A Republican National Committee spokeswoman, Tracey Schmitt, said the money Abramoff raised as a "pioneer" for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign would be kept. "There is nothing to indicate that those contributions reflect anything but support for the re-election campaign," she said.

And truly, Mr. Abramoff's associates and clients (he doesn't appear to have too many friends, now, does he?) had a long list of reasons to be very, very interested in keeping Our Fearless Leader in the White House.

A few highlights:

Abramoff Arranged White House Meeting at in Exchange for Donation to Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform. A lawyer for the Saginaw Chippewa Indian tribe in Michigan revealed that tribal leaders had "three or four" meetings at the White House—including one with Bush and another with Rove—after they gave a $25,000 donation to Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform at Jack Abramoff's request. ATR later confirmed that Norquist arranged White House meetings for Indian tribal leaders and others who were "supportive of the president's agenda." [Newsweek, 5/2/05]

Jack Abramoff Advised Department of Interior Transition. Abramoff advised the Interior Department during the Bush transition. [Wall Street Journal, 3/19/01]

Abramoff's Former Assistant Became Rove's Gate Keeper. In 2001 Abramoff's personal assistant, Susan Ralston, took a similar job under Karl Rove in the White House. This move essentially made Ralston, "Rove's gatekeeper." [New York Times, 5/1/05]

Lobbying Network Involved Bush Administrator. According to The Washington Post, "in an attempt to influence the Interior Department -- which has the final say on a tribe's gambling ambitions -- Abramoff directed his tribal clients to give at least $225,000 to the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, a conservative group that was founded by Gale A. Norton before President Bush chose her to be his interior secretary. [Washington Post, 3/13/05]

DC Lobbyist Jack Abramoff Advised Bush Interior Department Transition While Representing Indian Tribes. Abramoff advised the Interior Department during the Bush transition. Aside from the Department of Homeland Security, which regulates coastline gaming, and the Department of Treasury, which regulates illegal financial transactions, the Bureau of Indian Affairs is one of the few means the Federal Government has to regulate the gaming industry, specifically the Native American gaming industry. [Wall Street Journal, 3/19/01; www.doi.gov]

Abramoff Directed Tribal Clients Contributions to Interior Secretary Gail Norton's Foundation. According to The Washington Post, "in an attempt to influence the Interior Department -- which has the final say on a tribe's gambling ambitions -- Abramoff directed his tribal clients to give at least $225,000 to the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, a conservative group that was founded by Gale A. Norton before President Bush chose her to be his interior secretary. [Washington Post, 3/13/05]

Abramoff Also Arranged A Meeting With Interior Secretary Gail Norton For the Coushattas Tribe. Abramoff also invited the Coushattas to a fall 2001 dinner party attended by Interior Secretary Gale Norton. The Coushattas provided Abramoff with millions in consulting fees and contracts. [National Journal, 4/20/02]

Obviously Mr. Abramoff's little circle was extremely anxious to keep the current team in place.

After all, they'd already paid a great deal of money to Mr. Abramoff in return for favors from inside the White House. They had an investment to protect.

The DCCC has updated their scandal website with the latest noisome details.
julia 1/05/2006 11:51:00 AM |

 
Attacking Bush's only weapon: Fear

by Glenn Greenwald

Among those who now recognize that the Bush Administration has not just deliberately and repeatedly broken the law, but is literally claiming that George Bush has the “wartime” power to continue to break the law, there is a growing impatience to move to the next step – to take action to ensure that there are serious consequences from Bush’s brazen law-breaking. But in order for that to happen, Bush opponents must finally overcome the one weapon which has protected George Bush again and again: fear. Fear of terrorism is what the Administration has successfully inflamed and exploited for four years in order to justify its most extreme and even illegal actions undertaken in the name of fighting terrorism.

Without pause, the Administration has sought to make Americans as frightened as possible about terrorism and has used that fear to justify its actions with regard to almost every issue. Here is Dick Cheney, just yesterday, proudly defending the Administration’s illegal NSA program by arguing that Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping on Americans, like everything else the Administration does, is justified by fear of terrorists:

As we get farther away from September 11th, some in Washington are yielding to the temptation to downplay the ongoing threat to our country, and to back away from the business at hand. . .

The enemy that struck on 9/11 is weakened and fractured yet it is still lethal and trying to hit us again. Either we are serious about fighting this war or we are not. And as long as George W. Bush is President of the United States, we are serious -- and we will not let down our guard.

As always, Cheney urgently warns Americans not to let our fear of terrorism diminish. George Bush has also been fueling these flames of fear in almost every speech he’s given since September 11, 2001. Here he is in a quite typical speech delivered on October 6, 2005, transparently attempting to whip up as much fear as possible in order to bolster support for our ongoing occupation of Iraq:

We know the vision of the radicals because they've openly stated it -- in videos, and audiotapes, and letters, and declarations, and websites. . . . Their tactic to meet this goal has been consistent for a quarter-century: They hit us, and expect us to run. They want us to repeat the sad history of Beirut in 1983, and Mogadishu in 1993 -- only this time on a larger scale, with greater consequences.

"The militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region, and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia. With greater economic and military and political power, the terrorists would be able to advance their stated agenda: to develop weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate Europe, to assault the American people, and to blackmail our government into isolation."

"Our enemy is utterly committed. As Zarqawi has vowed, 'We will either achieve victory over the human race or we will pass to the eternal life.' And the civilized world knows very well that other fanatics in history, from Hitler to Stalin to Pol Pot, consumed whole nations in war and genocide before leaving the stage of history.

"The murderous ideology of the Islamic radicals is the great challenge of our new century. Yet, in many ways, this fight resembles the struggle against communism in the last century. . . .

With the rise of a deadly enemy and the unfolding of a global ideological struggle, our time in history will be remembered for new challenges and unprecedented dangers.

Islamic terrorists here, as always, are depicted as omnipotent villains with quite attainable dreams of world domination, genocide, and the obliteration of the United States. They are trying to take over the world and murder us all. And this is not merely a threat we face. It is much more than that. It is the predominant issue facing the United States -- more important than all others. Everything pales in comparison to fighting off this danger. We face not merely a danger, but, in Bush’s words, an "unprecedented danger" -- the worst, scariest, most threatening danger ever.

And literally for four years, this is what Americans have heard over and over and over from their Government – that we face a mortal and incomparably powerful enemy on the precipice of destroying us, and only the most extreme measures taken by our Government can save us. We are a nation engaged in a War of Civilizations whose very existence is in imminent jeopardy. All of those plans for the future, dreams for your children, career aspirations, life goals – it’s all subordinate, it’s all for naught, unless, first and foremost, we stand loyally behind George Bush as he invokes extreme and unprecedented measures necessary to protect us from this extreme and unprecedented threat.

It is that deeply irrational, fear-driven view of the world which has to be undermined in order to make headway in convincing Americans that this Administration is engaged in intolerable excesses and abuses of its power. The argument which needs to be made is the one that we have seen starting to arise in the blogosphere and elsewhere: that living in irrational fear of terrorists and sacrificing our liberties and all of our other national goals in their name is the approach of hysterics and cowards, not of a strong, courageous and resolute nation.

Several weeks ago, Digby wrote a widely-discussed post describing how Bush followers are driven by their all-consuming and pitifully child-like fears of terrorists, leading them to consent to any measures taken by George Bush as long as he promises to save them. And this weekend, Kos wrote a similar post, in which he contrasted the classic and previously defining American bravery of Patrick Henry with the frightened Bush followers who beg the Government to restrict their liberties in exchange for saving them from the terrorists.

If the blogospheric reaction of Bush supporters is any indication, this argument is as politically potent as it is self-evidently true. Kos’s post provoked shrieking seizures among the tough-guy, blindly loyal Bush followers -- the ones who revealingly give themselves play name like Rocket and Captain and who never tire of touting their own toughness. In response to Kos’s post, they squealed and they yelled and they called him all kinds of names – they did everything but refute the argument.

And notably, in their anger, there was none of that smug bravado or all-too-familiar attacks on the courage of Bush opponents, because with this plainly accurate depiction, they stand revealed as being driven by nothing other than limitless, irrational fear. They are scared and they want to continue to implant their extreme fear into our national policies and onto our national character.

There is no more important goal than exposing and undermining the cowardly and exaggerated fear which lies at the core of the Bush agenda. If, as has been the case, we are bullied into starting from the tacit premise that Islamic terrorism is a unique and unprecedented evil which threatens our very existence -- rather than one of many challenges which we must calmly face and overcome -- then it is a foregone conclusion that whoever advocates the most extreme “anti-terrorist” measures, no matter how excessive and regardless of whether they comport with legal niceties, will prevail.

If that fear-mongering premise is left unchallenged – if we are too afraid to dispute the premise that Islamic terrorism is the “unprecedented” existential threat to the United States which, at any moment, is likely to cause our cities to be in flames and our children to be glowing with radiation and therefore must outweigh every other issue and concern – then we will lose that debate every time, which is what has been happening.

After all, if it really were the case that Islamic terrorism constituted the sort of imminent, civilization-ending threat which the Administration has spent the last four years drumming into everyone’s head, then it would be extremely difficult to gin up much outrage over an eavesdropping program, warrants or not. When one’s very survival is at stake and is in imminent danger, what will matter is being protected from that danger. Everything else will pale in importance, and there will be extreme gratitude towards those who seek to save you, even if they break a few abstract rules to do it.

What must be emphasized is that one can protect against the threat of terrorism with courage, calm and resolve – the attributes which have always defined our nation as it has confronted other threats. Hysteria and fear-mongering are the opposite of strength. The strong remain rational and unafraid.

In a rational world, the basic principle of risk is that it equals impact times probability: "In professional risk assessments, risk combines the probability of a negative event occurring with how harmful that event would be." But the Administration has spent four years urging Americans to ignore that way of thinking and instead assent to any Government measure, no matter the costs or comparative harms, as long as they are pursued in the name of fighting this Ultimate Evil.

In fact, it is now essentially prohibited in good company to even raise the prospect that the threat of terrorism is exaggerated. It is an inviolable piety that there is no such thing as overstating the terrorism risk. One is compelled to genuflect to, and tremble before, the paramounce of this Ultimate Threat upon pain of being cast aside as some sort of anti-American, terrorist-loving loon.

During the 2004 election, John Kerry accidentally stumbled in his clumsy and half-hearted way towards challenging this fear-mongering when he told The New York Times Sunday Magazine: ‘’We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance." That provoked the predictable outraged and pious braying that Democrats are unserious about the Terrorist Threat and too weak to protect our children from this unparalleled menace. And as happens almost always when Bush opponents express a view that meets with some initial disapproval, all sorts of apologetic backtracking and retraction ensued, and that topic has been basically off-limits since.

But this is a message which Americans are clearly ready to hear, if there are people willing to deliver it. We are four years away from September 11 and, despite the dire warnings of the Bush Administration, people in rural Kansas and suburban Georgia and everywhere else are beginning to realize that on the list of problems and threats which endanger their children and impede their dreams, the potential of an attack by Islamic terrorists is not anywhere near the top of that list. We are not engulfed by the Civil War or fighting World War II. And it is past time to bolster that growing recognition by pointing out over and over that the Bush Administration’s insistence that we live in never-ending fear and panic of terrorists is the opposite of the American virtues of strength and courage in the face of threats.

And it's a message which Americans can understand. Most people know individuals in their lives who live in this type of irrational, all-consuming fear on the micro-level – people who are scared before they are anything else, pathologically risk-averse, always hiding and exerting excess caution lest something go wrong. In its more extreme version, that sort of fear manifests as a life-destroying mental disorder. It is a pitiful image, and such people typically achieve very little. They cannot, because their fear is paralyzing.

The Bush Administration has been trying for four years to reduce this country to a collective version of that affliction. And it is hard to imagine what a nation which is fueled by such fear can accomplish. Hysteria and paranoia have never been the American national character, but along with the founding principles of our Republic, the Bush Administration has been attempting to change that, too.

The Administration has managed to get away with the Orwellian depiction of fear as being the hallmark of courage, and conversely, depicting a rational and calm approach as being a mark of cowardice. They were aided in this effort by a terrified national media and a national political elite who live in Washington, DC and New York and were so petrified of further attacks that they were easily whipped into a state of passive, uncritical compliance in exchange for promises of protection. But we are far away from the emotional shock of September 11, and the power of that Fear weapon is breaking down.

In order to persuade the population that George Bush must not be allowed to claim the powers of a King, literally including the power to break the law, Bush opponents must attack that fear as the by-product of weakness and cowardice which it is. A strong nation does not give up its freedoms or sacrifice its national character in the name of fear and panic. But that is what George Bush has spent the last four years urging the country to do, and it is what he is counting on -- it is the only chance he has -- for having this NSA law-breaking scandal join the litany of other scandals which have meekly and inconsequentially faded away in a cloud of manufactured fear.

Glenn Greenwald 1/05/2006 05:36:00 AM |

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

 
What happened to conservative legal theories?

by Glenn Greenwald

Listening to the Bush Administration and its defenders try to justify George Bush’s deliberate and ongoing violations of the law, one can’t help but notice that the Constitution and Congressional statutes sure do seem quite "flexible" in the hands of those seeking to defend him -- a particular irony given how stridently Bush followers rail against such legal theories in other contexts. The defenses being dredged up to justify Bush’s law-breaking certainly are notable for the liberties they take with "conservative" principles of legal argument, as well as with how sharply they contradict the legal views which the Administration itself previously claimed it believed in.

The central problem for the Administration is that George Bush deliberately engaged in conduct which FISA clearly and expressly makes it a crime to engage in. All of the legalistic smoke screens aside, the issue really is that clear. That’s because the Administration cannot escape the plain and easy-to-understand language of Section 1809 of FISA:

"A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally— (1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute."

The Administration itself admits, as it must, that it engaged in electronic surveillance in a way that FISA expressly prohibits (by doing so secretly and without judicial approval). Section 1809 says that anyone who does that is guilty of a criminal offense. The law here is clear, and Bush’s violations of the law are equally clear. That presents the Administration with obvious difficulties in defending George Bush.

Because there is no plausible argument to make that Bush’s eavesdropping complied with the requirements of FISA, Alberto Gonzalez’s Justice Department is insisting that Bush had the legal right to eavesdrop on Americans in violation of that law. The DoJ issued a detailed Memorandum (.pdf) advocating its two principal legal theories as to why George Bush was permitted to engage in conduct which FISA makes it a crime to engage in. Both theories are about as far away as possible from the conservative legal principles which Bush has always claimed to believe in and which he says he wants his judicial appointees to apply.

Thus, we have one argument which claims that the 2001 Congressional Resolution authorizing military force in Afghanistan and against Al Qaeda (the “AUMF”) -- a resolution which obviously never mentioned FISA, eavesdropping or surveillance, because it had nothing to do with any of those things -- should nonetheless be "construed" and "interpreted" to have "impliedly" amended FISA by giving Bush an "exemption" entitling him to eavesdrop in violation of that law. And this argument is made even though the Congress which supposedly gave Bush that exemption says that it did no such thing, but to the contrary, expressly refused to provide that very authority.

And then we have the second Bush-defending argument: a dressed-up Constitutional theory which claims that George Bush has the "inherent" authority under Article II of the Constitution to violate Congressional law and eavesdrop on American citizens without the judicial oversight required by FISA – even though nothing in Article II mentions or even references the power to eavesdrop, the power to engage in surveillance, or the right to violate Congressional statutes. Indeed, the only express clause in Article II which seems to relate to this controversy is one that would rather strongly undercut the claim that the President has the right to violate Congressional law. That’s the part mandating that the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed . . . "

So much for plain language and original intent. Who has time for those fancy constructs when George Bush needs defending? What we have in their place are implied, hidden amendments to laws which are silently buried in other laws which don’t even reference the law which it supposedly amended. And that's backed up by a claim that George Bush has certain Executive powers which the Constitution doesn’t mention, but which instead, one presumes, are lurking quietly somewhere in Article II of the Constitution, maybe hiding behind some penumbras or sprouting from the evolving, breathing document.

Just how frivolous (and, for self-proclaimed judicial conservatives, hypocritical) these defenses are is demonstrated by the fact that the Bush Administration itself has aggressively argued against the exact legal theory which it is now trying to peddle in order to argue that Congress silently gave Bush an "exemption" to FISA. In the case of Breuer v. Jim’s Concrete of Brevard, 538 U.S. 691 (2003), the Administration vehemently (and successfully) argued in a Brief to the U.S. Supreme Court (.pdf), signed by Bush’s own Solicitor General, Theodore Olson, that a statute (such as FISA) cannot be "amended by implication" in the absence of clear Congressional intent to amend it. Thus, the Bush Administration itself just two years ago emphasized:

the cardinal rule that repeals by implication are not favored, and will not be found unless an intent to repeal is clear and manifest. . . . In the absence of an affirmative showing of an intention to repeal, the only permissible justification for a repeal by implication is when the earlier and later statutes are irreconcilable. In other words, where the two statutes are capable of co-existence, it is the duty of the courts, absent a clearly expressed congressional intention to the contrary, to regard each as effective.

So, before George Bush needed an excuse for intentionally violating FISA, this was the Administration’s own argument -- that Congress cannot be said to have silently repealed its own law except where it subsequently passes a new law that is in direct conflict with the first one.

The Administration’s previous view of this matter is, of course, the precise opposite of its position now. The Administration now seeks to claim that the Congress -- when it enacted its 2001 resolution authorizing the use of military force in Afghanistan and against al Qaeda -- somehow intended with that Resolution to amend FISA and thereby silently and "impliedly" gave the Administration the right to engage in exactly the secret, warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens which FISA makes it a criminal offense to engage in.

What we really have from these paragons of Judicial Restraint trying to defend George Bush is everything except plain language and original intent – the very tools of construction which these "conservatives," when not concocting legal defenses for the President, claim that they believe in. That’s because the plain language of the law is crystal clear ("A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally— (1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute") and leaves no doubt that George Bush broke it.

The clarity of this law is why the Administration is reduced to peddling legal theories which, no matter how they are sliced, amount to a claim that George Bush has the right to break the law. And to argue that he has that right, they are employing on George Bush's behalf the very legal theories which advocates of "judicial restraint" have spent the last two decades ridiculing and attacking.
Glenn Greenwald 1/04/2006 01:59:00 PM |

 
Leave it to MSGOP

Winners and losers in the Abramoff scandal
The GOP could suffer, opening the way for a third-party movement

It's really kind of sweet.

Mr. Fineman and his friends at the courthouse are shocked to discover that since the party they favor of the two existing parties has taken complete control over the federal government, the influence of money has sullied the spiritual purity of Washington.

Clearly, the answer is a new party who are nothing like Democrats and who are not called Republicans (Mr. Wittmann, your moment has arrived).

You know, it's just that kind of bold thinking by Mr. Fineman and his friends that made us what we are today.

A country controlled by an incredibly corrupt single party that cares more about money than PhDs, and about the people not at all.

Congratulations.
julia 1/04/2006 11:32:00 AM |

 
Lucky Duckies

by digby

Unfortunately, I have to leave town for a couple of days and won't be able to post. However, I am sure you will enjoy the blogospheric stylings of two fantastic guest bloggers: Julia of Sisyphus Shrugged and Glenn Greenwald of Unclaimed Territory.

Enjoy. I'll see you on the week-end.



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digby 1/04/2006 11:27:00 AM |

 
Credibility

by digby

Back when The NY Times was relentlessly flogging Whitewater, I agreed with Franklin Foer that it would be a bad idea to help discredit the mainstream press because their reputations would be so sullied that eventually they'd have no clout to protect sources and tell the truth.

I thought when the Washington Post took every self-serving leak from the Starr investigation and put it on the front page like it was VE Day that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to vilify their obvious slavishness to GOP operatives because it would be bad when we need the media to have credibility on other major issues.

I was angry about the fact that more than 60 newpapers, including the NY Times editorialized ("until the Starr investigation, 'no citizen ... could have grasped the completeness of President Clinton's mendacity or the magnitude of his recklessness.'") that Clinton should resign because of a personal indiscretion. But I didn't rail against the press for jumping on this Republican manufactured bandwagon because I thought that it was important not to paint mainstream journalism with a broad brush just because they were being absurdly obtuse in this particular case.

When the media treated Al Gore like a circus clown and overlooked the fact that George W. Bush was a gibbering idiot (and admitted openly that they did it for fun) I held in my intemperate remarks because I thought it would harm the party in the long run if we attacked the press as the Republicans do. When they reported the election controversy as if it would create a constitutional crisis if the country had to wait more than a month to find out whether they had the right president I kept my own counsel. After all, who would defend democracy when something truly serious happened?

After 9/11 when they helped the president promote the idea that the country was at "war" (with what we didn't exactly know) I knew it was a terrible mistake and would lead to a distorted foreign policy and twisted domestic politics. But I didn't blame the media because it was very difficult to fight that at the time. They're human, after all.

And when they helped the government make their case for this misbegotten war in Iraq, I assumed that they knew what they were talking about. After all, I had been defending their credibility for years now, in spite of everything I've mentioned. If they would screw up something like this, then for what was I holding back my criticism? This was the most serious issue this country had faced in many a decade.

When no WMD were found and I was informed that they had assigned a neocon shill to report the story, and then defended her when she was implicated in a white house smear to cover up its lies going into Iraq, I no longer saw any need to defend the NY Times.

This is fifteen long years of watching the Times and the rest of the mainstream media buckle under the pressure of GOP accusations that they are biased, repeatedly take bogus GOP manufactured scandals and run with them like kids with a brand new kite, treat our elections like they are entertainment vehicles for bored reporters and generally kowtow to the Republican establishment as the path of least resistence. I waited for years for them to recognise what was happening and fight back. It didn't happen. And I began to see that the only way to get the press to work properly was to apply equal pressure from the opposite direction. It's a tug of war. They were not strong enough to resist being dragged off to the right all by themselves. They needed some flamethrowers from our side pulling in the opposite direction to make it possible for them to avoid being pulled all the way over.

So, it is with great respect and reverence for the press, which I consider to be indispensible to democracy, that I have become a rabid critic. It did this country no good to allow the Republicans to perpetuate their permanent "mau-mau the media" campaign for 25 years. And it does the press no good to be defended by liberals when they succumb to the mau-mauing. Indeed, history shows that their reaction is to lean even more closely to the GOP to show they are not liberal themselves.

I have criticized the press for its absurd behavior in the Plame leak --- refusing to write about it, protecting their powerful administration sources even when they've been used as a weapon for political purposes, their trivial cocktail party insularity. The politically powerful should not be allowed to use the press to do their ratfucking for them. There is, of course, a huge difference between that and protecting genuine whistle-blowers, which I defend unconditionally.

But I will no longer defend the press unconditionally. They have proved that they can't resist the powerful pull of rightwing intimidation and seduction without some counterbalance on the left and I'm more than willing to call a spade a spade to do that. It has not served my politics or my country well to quietly support the media so that they could maintain crediblity. I honestly don't see that we have anything more to lose when presidents are being impeached for trivial reasons, elections are being stolen and wars are being waged on lies. Just how bad would it have to get to justify criticizing the press for its complicity in those things?



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digby 1/04/2006 10:49:00 AM |

 
in light of the deaths of 12 coal miners, a timely reminder that Mr. Alito is on the record as deciding that the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act should protect miners less than it does.

It's also worth remembering that since reaching office, Our Fearless Leader cut MSHA (Mine Safety and Health Administration) funds in real dollars, fired a whistleblower, put a mining company executive in charge, reduced staff by 170, tried to slash funding even more, and exempted the MSHA from the Freedom of Information Act.

He did, however, arrange a photo op with the last group of high-profile miners trapped in the ground, and said this for the cameras:

"It was their determination to stick together and to comfort each other that really defines kind of a new spirit that's prevalent in our country, that when one of us suffer, all of us suffers."

Mr. Bush, we are told, has given up spirits.

edit: are we all suffering now?

Scott and Barb tell us that the mine in question had (among other issues) a full 273 safety violations in the past two years

Leah puts all this into context
julia 1/04/2006 10:17:00 AM |

 
Good morning.


I'm Julia, and Digby's asked me to put some stuff up here for a few days.

I thought I'd introduce myself by giving you a little background on our local New York Republican mess, since it's been in the national papers quite abit lately, and there's nothing quite so... operatic... in its sheer byzantine silliness as our local New York Republican mess.

from the Times: Republican federal corruption OG Al D'Amato sticks his oar in on behalf of the Democrat

Alfonse M. D'Amato, the former senator, sharply criticized a leading Republican candidate for governor, William F. Weld, saying last night that Mr. Weld was under the "cloud" of a federal investigation for once running a "sham college."

Mr. D'Amato, a Republican, also chastised Mr. Weld for resigning as governor of Massachusetts in 1997, before his second term was over, and then seeking to lead New York "without any real experience here."

...

Mr. D'Amato also said that Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, had done an "excellent" job in office.

This is remarkably interesting for what it says about the current state of New York Republican politics.

a brief digression about Mr. Pataki, Mr. D'Amato and local politics, recent and not-so-recent, here in New York

Mr. D'Amato was, for many years, the autocrat of the New York Republican party, and he pretty much invented our departing Republican governor (mostly to piss Rudy Giuliani off - New York Republicans don't much like Mr. Giuliani, but Mr. D'Amato likes him less than most. Mr. Giuliani is also a bit of a crook, but not part of this group). Unfortunately for the former Senator, Mr. Pataki isn't doing all that well, and the rest of his current political stable is - shall we say - not quite ready for prime time.

Mr. Pataki (like NYC Mayor Mr. Bloomberg) cut a sweetheart deal with a politically well-placed union to get their endorsement in his re-election campaign. This hurt him badly with the national Republicans he's desperately courting for a federal appointment (he's pretty much played out here in New York).*

In this, parenthetically, he differs from Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire who is in it for the good the Republican party can do his media empire through judicious deregulation. There are those cynical souls who think that his single-minded focus on the good of media company stockholders might have had something to do with the universal press support he got at election time for his less-than-universally-appreciated performance in office, but I digress.

Back to the strike: Like Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Pataki saw an opportunity to get himself back in the good graces of fiscal hawks by cracking down on the transit union. With his usual deft political touch, he saw this opportunity after Bloomberg, badly bloodied in the court of public opinion, caved, declared victory and went home.

Part of Mr. Bloomberg's cave-in was a deal to give the transit workers a refund of pension contributions they had made prior to an earlier contract which lowered the percentage of their pension contributions. This is particularly humiliating for Mr. Bloomberg, since the givebacks will more than cover any Taylor Law fines (two days' pay for every day out on strike-public employees are barred by law from striking in New York) that were levied against unionmembers during the course of the strike, but of course Mr. Bloomberg doesn't much care how much of the MTA's money he spends to make his little problems go away (you'd want to keep in mind that Mr. Bloomberg might only control four out of the nine MTA board, but Mr. Pataki needs Republican friends with money very badly right now).

This left the field wide-open for Mr. Pataki, who is currently playing to the balcony by attempting to retroactively derail the contract agreement. Says the MTA board (which kept him apprised of the negotiations) never told him about the giveback (they say they did). Now he wants to unilaterally change the MTA's agreement with the union to remove the givebacks, which would most likely send the union back out on strike, as well as (and here's the beauty part) removing the "bargaining in good faith" component of the MTA's negotiations that trigger the Taylor Law.

Honestly, it's better than All My Children. You just have to find someplace other than the Times to read about most of it. I recommend Newsday.

end of brief digression about Mr. Pataki and local politics, recent and not-so-recent, here in New York

Back to Mr. D'Amato and Mr. Weld: it seems that the former Senator is still a bit testy about the former Governor leading the Justice Department investigation of the former Senator's brother for misusing the former Senator's office for private profit which ended in the conviction of the former Senator's brother (later overturned on appeal). This is one of the factors that led to the former Senator's defeat by Mr. Schumer, thus ending a staggering series of ethics violations and endless televised bootless trips to the fishing hole on Whitewater.

Amusingly, Mr. Weld's experience in Tennessee is controversial specifically because it involved, er, for-profit education, working-class students getting screwed and backdoor union-busting.

It's a shame. He sounds like Al's kinda guy.



*This has been a real boon to New York politics watchers who needed a good laugh, as the national party gifted us with Mrs. Pirro's short-lived Republican challenge to Hillary, which was the greatest thing since State Senator Espada and we all appreciated it
julia 1/04/2006 08:43:00 AM |

 
MSM Kudos

by digby


Multiple props to Janet Hook and Mary Curtius of the LA Times for getting the lead of this excellent story 100% correct.

See, it can be done:

The corruption investigation surrounding lobbyist Jack Abramoff shows the significant political risk that Republican leaders took when they adopted what had once seemed a brilliant strategy for dominating Washington: turning the K Street lobbying corridor into a cog of the GOP political machine.

Abramoff thrived in the political climate fostered by GOP leaders, including Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), who have methodically tried to tighten the links between the party in Congress and business lobbyists, through what has become known as the "K Street Project."

GOP leaders, seeking to harness the financial and political support of K Street, urged lobbyists to support their conservative agenda, give heavily to Republican politicians and hire Republicans for top trade association jobs. Abramoff obliged on every front, and his tentacles of influence reached deep into the upper echelons of Congress and the Bush administration.

Now, in the wake of a plea agreement in which Abramoff will cooperate in an influence-peddling investigation that might target a number of lawmakers, some Republicans are saying that the party will need to take action to avoid being tarnished.

"This is going to be a huge black eye for our party," said Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), a senior member close to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). "Denny's going to have to be very tough and really speak out against people who are indicted. He's going to have to do it quickly and decisively and frequently."

Hastert moved Tuesday to inoculate himself from the scandal by announcing that he would give to charity about $60,000 he received from Abramoff and his clients. He is the latest of several lawmakers who have returned or redirected money they received from Abramoff-related sources.

That's the story folks. If Democratic staffers would keep their yaps shut about how scared they are of "innocent people getting swept up" and if the party would come out swinging, the truth might get out. This needs reinforcement.



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digby 1/04/2006 07:38:00 AM |

 
Democrats Are Wimps, Republicans Are Crooks

by digby

Those two memes are the fundamental negative images people have held of the two parties for the last quarter century. The Abramoff scandal offers the Democrats an opportunity to change their negative meme and reinforce the GOP's by swinging hard against this corrupt political machine.

Unfortubately it seems they are going to change it by turning it into "Democrats are wimps AND crooks, Republicans are just crooks."

While Mr. Abramoff is most closely linked to Republicans, even Democrats, many of whom also benefited from his largesse, acted skittish.

"We're talking about people who have longstanding careers in Congress who took contributions from somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody who knew Jack Abramoff," said a Democratic Congressional aide who insisted on anonymity so as not to drag his boss into the scandal. "Now they're panicked. The hope is that this investigation will root out the wrongdoing without innocent people getting hit with the ricochet."

Mr. Abramoff's plea bargain is scary to Washington's power brokers precisely because he was so entangled with so many of them.

His ties to Grover G. Norquist, a leading conservative strategist and president of Americans for Tax Reform, and Ralph Reed, the former director of the Christian Coalition who is now a candidate for lieutenant governor in Georgia, date from his college days.

He once worked as a lobbyist alongside David H. Safavian, who was the head of the White House procurement office until just before his arrest last fall in the Abramoff investigation. And Mr. Abramoff's former personal assistant once worked for Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political strategist.

At the White House, administration officials have been reluctant to comment on the case, referring questions to the Justice Department and declining to defend Mr. Safavian. But on Tuesday morning, the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, denounced Mr. Abramoff's actions.

We have Abramoff intimately connected with two of the most powerful movement conservatives in Washington and directly with the White house and Karl Rove. This is the kind of thing that used to set the cable gasbags afire with speculation in the Clinton White House. Victoria Toensing's head would be spinning like a top while she screeched about dirty money the rule of law. And Dan Burton and Orrin Hatch would be liberally quoted in the NY Times saying that there was a need for immediate congressional investigations to determine the length and breadth of Democratic corruption and if leads directly to the president, well, so be it.

Yet, right out of the box, the Democrat quoted in this article is an anonymous staffer discussing how afraid the Democrats are that a couple of them might be caught up in the scandal. Nancy Pelosi and others did speak out yesterday and they aren't given any prime space in this article. But the truth is that the Democrats do seem skittish and it's just plain stupid. There should be great joy and energy in Democratic circles at the idea of crippling the GOP machine --- Delay, Norquist and Rove are all in trouble and that is unalloyed good news. It won't destroy the machine entirely, but those three are extremely valuable cogs that are not easily replaced. And there is also the potential to expose these scam artists and strong arm thugs for what they are --- thus proving that we aren't actually wimps. Instead we are reinforcing that impression --- and allowing the Republicans to frame this as some sort of abstract "Washington" problem. The press, needless to say, is going where the action is. Since we are motionless, they are focusing on the GOP response.

Why we are skittish about this I do not know. There is no serious downside for us. The scandal is just the latest in a series of Republican screw ups and it's a doozy.

I just heard Newt Gingrich talking on Fox about how the Republicans need to take up the mantle of reform and vow to clean up the corruption in Washington. He said this without irony because he's quite serious. He mentioned that the Democrats were investigated ten years ago for illegal foreign campaign contributions. He didn't mention that there was never any there there. But it sounds good, doesn't it? And the Republicans may just be able to finesse this because Democrats are so skittish about a couple of their brethren being caught up in the sweep that they are pulling their punches.

Republicans beat a decorated war hero with a fey draft dodger during wartime because they skillfully exploited the public's long held anxieties about Democratic bona fides on national security. If Democrats can't can't run on the corollary "Republicans are crooks" meme in the midst of the biggest government abuse and corruption scandal since Watergate, then we really are useless. We saw this coming for months. And yet we are caught flat footed and the GOP is going to run as the party of reform. Dear gawd.


Update: Sam Rosenfeld has much more on this here. Highly recommended.
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digby 1/04/2006 07:37:00 AM |

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

 
Jack's Loyal Friend

by digby


Tom: You were around the old timers -- and meeting up on how the family should be organized. How they based them on the old Roman legions and called them regimes -- the capos and the soldiers. And it worked.

Abramoff:Yeah, it worked. Those were the great old days you know. And one was like the Roman Empire. The Family was like the Roman Empire.

Tom: It was once. Jackie -- when a plot against the Emperor failed -- the planners were always given a chance to let their families keep their fortunes.

Abramoff: Yea -- but only the rich guys Tom. The little guys -- they got knocked off and all their estates went to the Emperors. Unless they went home and uh, killed themselves -- then nothing happened. And their families -- their families were taken care of Tom.

Tom: That was a good break -- nice funeral.

Abramoff: Yeah -- they went home -- and sat in a hot bath -- opened up their veins -- and bled to death. And sometimes had a little party before they did it.

Tom: Don't worry about anything Jackie Five Angels.

Abramoff: Thanks Tom -- thanks.


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digby 1/03/2006 07:17:00 PM |

 
Socially Close

by digby

Jane makes a vital catch.

What in gawd's name is Alice Fisher doing anywhere near a political case? She should recuse herself immediately. Full stop.

The probe is being overseen by Noel Hillman, a hard-charging career prosecutor who heads the Public Integrity Section and who has a long track record of nailing politicians of all stripes. But politics almost certainly will creep into the equation. Hillman's new boss will soon be Alice Fisher, who is widely respected but also a loyal Republican socially close to DeLay's defense team.

Now, ask yourself if an investigation was being held into powerful Democrats under a Democratic administration if there would be shrieking harpies flying all over the airwaves today demanding a special prosecutor.

Yeah, I know. Whatever.


update: More from Jane on Alice.


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digby 1/03/2006 02:14:00 PM |

 
Bipartisan BS

by digby

The media is working hard to make this into a bi-partisan scandal but that is simple bullshit. Ed Henry on CNN, for instance, couldn't stop talking about Byron Dorgan being implicated in this scandal. I don't know if Dorgan's going to be swept up, but let's just say that if he is he probably deserves it because he would be the stupidest man in the world. He's the top Democrat on the Indian Affairs Committee and even Steno Sue writes:

Dorgan has asked some of the toughest questions in the committee hearings probing the $82 million Abramoff and Michael Scanlon charged their tribal clients.

I suppose some people would think this is a normal thing for a man on the take to do, but I would suggest that it's unlikely. Here's a good rundown on the Dorgan connection (and the media's predictably bad reporting on it) from Media Matters.

Fasten your seatbelts. The press is surely under tremendous pressure from the Republicans to report this as a bi-partisan scandal and they are already buckling under. But that doesn't change the fact that this is a GOP operation from the get --- and they know it.


I wrote a piece a few months back about Abramoff and his two college Republican lieutenants Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist called Nixon's Babies in which I discussed just how important Abramoff is to the "movement." And I highly recommend reading Nina Easton's Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Ascendacy Anybody who looks at Jack Abramoff and sees anything but a hard core GOP influence peddler who was paid very well to finance the GOP machine is either a shill or a fool.

I just saw CNN's Henry again say that this was a bi-partisan scandal and that Democrats were going to find it very hard to make the "culture of corruption" charge. This was not "he said/she said" --- he was editorializing in his piece and his opinion is either uninformed, myopic or biased. This piece was followed by another from William Schneider in which he helpfully points out that while the public indicates that it thinks Democrats are less corrupt than Republicans that's only because the public understands that it's because the Republicans are in power and have more opportunity.

Bullshit. The reason people think this is because every few years we find out that Republicans leaders have no respect for the law. It's like clockwork. If they aren't selling themselves outright to big business on the floor of the congress they are claiming the constitution allows them to break any law they choose. Just in the past couple of weeks we've had news reports about legal trouble for corrupt Republicans George W. Bush, Ken Lay, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Duke Cunningham, Ralph Reed and Jack Abramoff. Lot of dots there. Is it too much trouble for the media to connect them?

This characterization of the scandal as being "bi-partisan" is typical bad mainstream journalism, particularly the emphasis they are placing on the very small handful of Democrats who've even been mentioned (much less included in any legal procedings.) Not only are they creating some equity and illegality where none exists, by doing it they are missing the real story, as usual.

This isn't a story about power corrupting or about a few bad apples. This is about a corrupt political machine --- a system of money laundering and public corruption on behalf of one political party. It's about a party that has used every tool at its disposal to legally and illegally enrich itself and enhance its power. It's right there. It's unravelling before our eyes.

And all Dana Bash and Ed Hanry can say is that Jack Abramoff lent his skybox to Democrats and Republicans alike. Which he did. He lent it 1% of the time to Democrats and 99% of the time to Republicans. That makes all of them equally corrupt.


Update: Crooks and Liars has some great Tweety spin footage. Seems it's not partisan because Abramoff is Satan.



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digby 1/03/2006 12:52:00 PM |

 
Press The Meacham

by digby


Media Matters caught Jon Meacham calling Howard Dean insane on Russert yesterday. I think that's especially rich considering Meacham is the guy who penned this crazy shit:

The uniqueness—one could say oddity, or implausibility—of the story of Jesus' resurrection argues that the tradition is more likely historical than theological.

He's also the guy who told Imus (scroll down) that Joe Wilson went on his trip to Niger after we had invaded Iraq to "discover if those 16 words were true." He really knows his stuff.



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digby 1/03/2006 09:40:00 AM |

Monday, January 02, 2006

 
Pratfalls

by digby

Watching Hardball, I just saw Bush's full face in his appearance yesterday. He looks like shit. It's not just the scratch on his forehead, which I realize could be the result of some extreme brush clearing over the week-end. There's something wrong with his lip too and his eyes are all puffy.

I will say it again. It is not normal for a healthy 59 year old man to injure his face as often as this guy does. It just isn't.

Here's today (the picture doesn't do justice to how bad he rally looks):




Here are a couple of pictures from previous pratfalls in the first term:






The first one was the pretzel incident. The second was a fall from his bike in May of 2004. There was another incident just last July when he fell off after crashing into a security officer in Scotland.

I continue to think this is very odd, even for a daredevil brush clearing cycler like Junior.



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digby 1/02/2006 03:05:00 PM |

 
Contextualizing

by digby

Jane discusses this article in today's NY Times about how blogging is affecting journalism and she makes this important point:

They do not spend the hours and days sifting through raw data now available to average people on the internet. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough. That is not what they do. If you want to know some obscure detail about something Judith Miller did or said in June of 2003 you call emptywheel. If you need to know about journalists named in the subpoenas sent to the White House in January 2003 you email Jeralyn. If you expect that kind of depth of knowledge about details from the people whose job it is to dig up new dirt in this case, they don't have it. They don't have the time.

In this light bloggers serve the function of analysts. Or re-analyzers, more aptly, who attempt to contextualize as they sort through available data and look for patterns, inconsistencies and greater truths. For my money if I was trying to marry a blog with a newsroom that's where I'd start -- I'm constantly amazed that with all the access to information now available the big news bureaus don't have a deeper pool of researchers to be the adjunct memories of people who spend their time in the development of external news sources.

There was a guy who did this kind of journalism long before technology made it possible for many of us to carry on the tradition. At their best, bloggers are the heirs to IF Stone, whose methods wwere described by his friend Victor Navasky this way:

His method: To scour and devour public documents, bury himself in The Congressional Record, study obscure Congressional committee hearings, debates and reports, all the time prospecting for news nuggets (which would appear as boxed paragraphs in his paper), contradictions in the official line, examples of bureaucratic and political mendacity, documentation of incursions on civil rights and liberties. He lived in the public domain. It was his habitat of necessity, because use of government sources to document his findings was also a stratagem. Who would have believed this cantankerous-if-whimsical Marxist without all the documentation?

Sound familiar? And while we scruffy bloggers are (mostly) not marxists, we are greeted with great skepticism because we are unregulated, uncredentialed, and in some cases psuedonymous, so we also must go to great lengths to document our findings. Luckily, the technology that gives us such amazing instant access to reams of information also gives us the ability to link directly to our source material --- as Arianna once described it "showing our work." And over time we gain credibility with our readers the same way that newspapers do.

What Jane says about contextualizing is absolutely correct. If you followed the Whitewater scandal (or attempted to) you came to realize that the journalists who were writing about it were so caught up in day to day reporting that somewhere along the line they lost sight of both the big picture and the details. It became a daily exercize in futility trying to sort out what exactly was going on. Until Gene Lyons' articles in Harpers (that led to his book "Fools for Scandal") and then a couple of jury trials, I honestly couldn't figure out what was going on. And I read three or four papers a day at the time. It was a story in desperate need of context, research and command of detail, mostly because it was a story being dribbled out a daily basis by political operatives and Arkansas opportunists to journalists who, in the midst of daily reporting, couldn't see the larger story. (I have no idea where their editors were.)

I didn't know how that worked in those days, thinking that journalists would see through spin and report it if it was clearly partisan. But I was wrong. They did fall for that story and turned it into an unintelligible, meaningless scandal that harrassed the president from almost his first day in office.

Today, certain bloggers would keep meticulous track of details, speculation and obvious spin and would report and discuss them in real time. Others would bring the whole story into historical perspective. Still others would try to tie all the disparate threads together to show larger patterns and trends. And many would speculate about the meaning of the scandal and the political ramifications. The scandal might happen anyway, but at least there would also be informed, engaged readers and easy access to those who have taken the time to analyze and contextualize the story as it unfolds. The alternative is to continue to allow the powerful triumverate of official sources, professional PR flacks and political operatives to lead the press (and, therefore, the country) around by the nose as they have so often in the last 15 years.

I'm not suggesting that blogging is a replacement for mainstream journalism. The daily papers, news broadcasts and news weeklies are indispensible. But more and more, people are recognizing mainstream journalism's vulnerability to conventional wisdom, establishment pressure and partisan spin. And the longstanding reliance on he said/she said "objectivity" is simply no longer adequate in the modern world of sophisticated public relations. Blogs fill in some of the gaps.

I'm a little surprised that so many reporters are fighting them so hard instead of doing the smart thing, which is co-opt them. Good bloggers can be a reporter's best friends if he learns how to use them.



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digby 1/02/2006 10:11:00 AM |

 
Up Down By 15 Points!

by digby


Steve Benan points out that Elaine Chao needs to find a standard of success other than the Dow Jones to tout this fabulous Republican economy:

[W]hile it was the 0.6% decline for the year that generated headlines, most seem to have overlooked the fact that on the day Bush was sworn into office in January 2001, the Dow Jones stood at 10,732.46. As of now, it's at 10,717.50.

In other words, after five years of Bush's presidency, the stock market has a cumulative gain of negative 15 points.

Under Reagan, the Dow went up 148%. Under Clinton, it grew 187%. After five years, Bush isn't quite breaking even.

This reminds me of an article I read in the LA Times over the week-end. In the relativistic fashion we've come to love in the Bush era, that inconvenient fact has made many people simply decide that the Dow is no longer relevant:

As for the Dow, many believe the 109-year-old index of 30 large, blue-chip companies hasn't been an accurate barometer of the economy or the broader stock market for the past two years.

Yes, and we're actually winning in Iraq and global warming is a hoax --- which you'd never know just by looking at the facts. Clearly, the facts are biased.



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digby 1/02/2006 08:34:00 AM |

Sunday, January 01, 2006

 
Hold Harmless

by digby

Hey all you macho Republicans. Do you know why you elected Junior Bush to be the president?

I was elected to protect the American people from harm.

Thank goodness for Daddy.

And here I thought the Republicans were against that sort of fuzzy wuzzy kumbaaya pussified crapola. I guess not. How about a federal helmet law for bicyclists, then? (Gawd knows he needs one) Maybe he could outlaw pretzels and alcohol too. Or driving over 35 miles an hour. Or trans-fats. If protecting us from harm is what we elect presidents to do then he's been seriously falling down on the job. There's a ton of harm out there he hasn't done even one thing about.



Oh, and isn't it inappropriate for the administration to be talking about this while there's an ongoing investigation? Seems I heard that somewhere.



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digby 1/01/2006 09:16:00 PM |

 
Divine Right Of Republicans

by digby

This Newsweak story is, well, weak:

The message to White House lawyers from their commander in chief, recalls one who was deeply involved at the time, was clear enough: find a way to exercise the full panoply of powers granted the president by Congress and the Constitution.

First of all, I'm sick of this bullshit about the president being the commander in chief all the time. This isn't a military dictatorship. Citizens, and even lawyers in the Justice department, don't have a commander in chief. We have a president. I know that's not as glamorous or as, like, totally awesome, but that is what it is. A civilian, elected official who functions as the commander in chief of the armed forces.

But that's nit-picking. This is some real bullshit:

When the story of the NSA's program broke in The New York Times on Dec. 16, there was an immediate uproar in the press and on Capitol Hill. The reaction was predictably partisan. Most Republicans and conservatives defended Bush for safeguarding the country (though warrantless spying gave libertarians some pause). Most Democrats and liberals cited the eavesdropping program as more damning evidence that Bush and Cheney, already caught countenancing torture and jailing detainees without any legal rights, were running roughshod over civil liberties.

This is wrong. The Cato institute, which I think everyone in the DC orbit will agree is a libertarian think tank said this:

Cato senior fellow in Constitutional studies Robert A. Levy says, "President Bush's executive order sanctions warrant-less wiretaps by the National Security Agency of communications from the United States to foreign countries by U.S. persons. Reportedly, the executive order is based on classified legal opinions stating that the president's authority derives from his Commander-in-Chief power and the post-911 congressional authorization for the use of military force against Al Qaeda. That pernicious rationale, carried to its logical extreme, renders the PATRIOT Act unnecessary and trumps any dispute over its reauthorization. Indeed, such a policy makes a mockery of the principle of separation of powers.

Crook and Liars has footage of libertarian (and Republican hitman) William Safire joining with the critics this morning on Press the Meat.

That's more than a pause. It's a full stop, hold your horses, what the fuck do you think you're doing? This is a partisan issue to the extent that the Republicans are invertebrate, hypocritical chichenshits who would be having a full on case of the vapors if anybody but their Dear GOP Leader tried a stunt like this. They certainly called for the smelling salts often enough over a couple of furtive blowjobs, shrieking to high heavens about tyranny and the rule 'o law.

Harken back to the immortal words of Henry Hyde:

That none of us is above the law is a bedrock principle of democracy. To erode that bedrock is to risk even further injustice. To erode that bedrock is to subscribe, to a "divine right of kings" theory of governance, in which those who govern are absolved from adhering to the basic moral standards to which the governed are accountable.

We must never tolerate one law for the Ruler, and another for the Ruled. If we do, we break faith with our ancestors from Bunker Hill, Lexington and Concord to Flanders Field, Normandy, Iwo Jima, Panmunjon, Saigon and Desert Storm.

Let us be clear: The vote that you are asked to cast is, in the final analysis, a vote about the rule of law.

The rule of law is one of the great achievements of our civilization. For the alternative to the rule of law is the rule of raw power. We here today are the heirs of three thousand years of history in which humanity slowly, painfully and at great cost, evolved a form of politics in which law, not brute force, is the arbiter of our public destinies.

We are the heirs of the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic law: a moral code for a free people who, having been liberated from bondage, saw in law a means to avoid falling back into the habit of slaves.

We are the heirs of Roman law: the first legal system by which peoples of different cultures, languages, races, and religions came to live together in a form of political community.

We are the heirs of the Magna Carta, by which the freeman of England began to break the arbitrary and unchecked power of royal absolutism.

We are the heirs of a long tradition of parliamentary development, in which the rule of law gradually came to replace royal prerogative as the means for governing a society of free men and women.

We are the heirs of 1776, and of an epic moment in human affairs when the Founders of this Republic pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor - sacred honor - to the defense of the rule of law.

We are the heirs of a tragic civil war, which vindicated the rule of law over the appetites of some for owning others.

We are the heirs of the 20th century's great struggles against totalitarianism, in which the rule of law was defended at immense cost against the worst tyrannies in human history. The "rule of law" is no pious aspiration from a civics textbook. The rule of law is what stands between all of us and the arbitrary exercise of power by the state. The rule of law is the safeguard of our liberties. The rule of law is what allows us to live our freedom in ways that honor the freedom of others while strengthening the common good. The rule of law is like a three legged stool: one leg is an honest Judge, the second leg is an ethical bar and the third is an enforceable oath. All three are indispensable in a truly democratic society.

Very moving, no? All those fine words about the rule of law safeguarding our liberties, the arbitrary exercise of power and Bunker Hill, Lexington and Normandy went right out the window on 9/11. That was when Henry and the rest of his stalwart defenders of the rule of law promptly wet their pants and then let their president use the constitution to clean up the puddle.


Update: For a full compendium of conservative critics of the president on the NSA illegal spying scandal (including one leg of the Powerline stool!) read this excellent post by Glenn Greenwald.


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digby 1/01/2006 06:48:00 PM |

 
Shaft of Sunlight

by digby

I wrote the other day that I thought it was time for some angry Justice Department lawyers to step up and reveal what in the hell went on with the White House cherry picking and stovepiping the legal advice that allowed them to create a new commander in chief infallibility doctrine.

It looks like we know the name of one of them and he's a biggie, James Comey. Comey is, by all accounts, a very straight arrow. He's exactly the kind of guy whose credibility is required to make this case if there is one. If this article is true, he refused to sign on on their little plan when he was filling in for Ashcroft when he was in the hospital. Jane has all the details. She's been following Comey for a long time and will have lots of tid-bits about this development for us I'm sure.

Also, Walter Pincus reports this morning that the NSA shared its illegally obtained information with other departments, including the pentagon, which we know has been tracking anti-war protestors.

The picture gets clearer every day. The evidence increasingly points to the possibility that NSA and others illegally monitored Americans who disagreee with administration policy and shared that information with all the federal police agencies in the government. This does not surprise me. They've called us unpatriotic to our faces. They've written best-selling books calling us treasonous. It's not exactly a stretch to suspect that these were not just rhetorical flourishes.



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digby 1/01/2006 10:01:00 AM |

Saturday, December 31, 2005

 
Happy New Year Everyone!







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digby 12/31/2005 07:58:00 PM |

 
Clearing The Ranchette

by digby

This is the wierdest damned article I've read in ages. I knew that Junior did the brush clearing thing, but I assumed that he did it for photo-op purposes. It turns out that he's actually obsessed with it.

He's obsessed with brush clearing.

On most of the 365 days he has enjoyed at his secluded ranch here, President Bush's idea of paradise is to hop in his white Ford pickup truck in jeans and work boots, drive to a stand of cedars, and whack the trees to the ground.

If the soil is moist enough, he will light a match and burn the wood. If it is parched, as it is across Texas now, the wood will sit in piles scattered over the 1,600-acre spread until it is safe for a ranch hand to torch -- or until the president can come home and do the honors himself.

President Bush, shown clearing cedar at his Crawford, Tex., ranch in 2002, has not lost his enthusiasm for the task during recent trips to what aides call the Western White House.

Sometimes this activity is the only official news to come out of what aides call the Western White House. For five straight days since Monday, when Bush retreated to the ranch for his Christmas sojourn, a spokesman has announced that the president, in between intelligence briefings, calls to advisers and bicycling, has spent much of his day clearing brush.

This might strike many Washingtonians as a curious pastime. It does burn a lot of calories. But brush clearing is dusty, it is exhausting (the president goes at it in 100 degree-plus heat), and it is earsplitting, requiring earplugs to dull the chain saw's buzz.

For Bush, who is known to spend early-morning hours hacking at unwanted mesquite, cocklebur weeds, hanging limbs and underbrush only to go back for more after lunch, it borders on obsession.

The president of the United States likes to spend his suburban ranchette vacation killing time cutting stuff down with a chainsaw and then torching it. Holy shit. Does it get any more symbolic than that?

(It reminds me of the tales his pals told about his childhood, stuffing frogs with firecrackers and blowing them up.)

Certainly the 1,583 acres of rugged canyons and rocky hillsides, creeks and pasture land on Prairie Chapel Ranch contain a lot of brush. Bush, a creature of habit, is not in danger of finishing the job. The Bush ranch, however, is not a working ranch. The president has kept only a handful of cattle on the property since Kenneth Engelbrecht, who sold him the former hog farm six years ago, stopped leasing back some pasture land that supported a herd of cows.

[...]

Real ranchers, who need to clear a whole lot of brush for pasture land, either hire someone to spray herbicides from the air or run an excavator through it. They tend to tend cattle, several said.

Bush, by contrast, practices a selective, do-it-yourself sculpting to enhance his enjoyment of his property, local experts say. He will clear underbrush to preserve beautiful live oaks and pecan trees, or to prepare the 50 acres where Laura Bush is cultivating native grasses, or to help carve nature trails through the ranch's many canyons.

"It's a selective control of the brush," said Sam Middleton, owner of a West Texas ranch brokerage, who added that this enhances a ranch's value.

Then again, there will be times when the president drives around his property and "will see a stand of cedar trees and say 'Let's clear those,' " said Joseph Hagin, Bush's deputy chief of staff, who has been cutting brush with his boss all week. They do not talk a lot of policy over the sound of their chain saws, he said.

You can't compare this to his bicycling or running obsessions, because those have a certain meditative yet thrilling physical challenge. This is something else entirely. This is the the only thing he can think of to do when he isn't running or biking. Mindless, loud, repetitive manual labor. It's like obsessively jackhammering sidewalks for fun.

A reader wrote me an e-mail asking me what conclusions I had come to about Bush after all this time. Is he evil? Is he stupid? Is he a religious fanatic, a spoiled frat boy, what?

I haven't actually changed my mind from the first impression I had of him when he said "Christ. He changed my life" in answer to the debate question about favorite political philosophers. He's simple but well-trained. And he hasn't changed. The person we have been watching for the last five years is the same inarticulate, testy, arrogant and shallow, rich mediocrity he was when he took office.

He's also as laughably robotic and unresponsive as ever. (Only Scott McClellan is less spontaneous.) But the Republicans discovered that if the president doesn't submit himself to spontaneous situations and is disciplined in his message, people will get used to it after a while and stop expecting him to actually answer questions. This was new. Reagan wasn't a genius, but he understood the public after a lifetime of training in what they wanted from a celebrity. He also had a good sense of humor and great timing. He was very capable of dealing with the press. Clinton was a master of detail who could riff on anything. His intellect and his obvious enjoyment in governing prepared him to answer any question that was thrown at him. Bush senior was bumbling but professional. He responded.

Junior simply doesn't engage unless he is forced to, seeing encounters with the press as nothing more than an oppportunity to get out the message of the day and run out the clock. He is a living stone wall who speaks in strange parables and cliches and sometimes just pure gibberish. He falters, he stammers, he looks uncomforatble and weak. Yet he was until fairly recently perceived by most to be a strong and resolute leader. (The post 9/11 delusion was some powerful mojo.)

I know that it's not considered wise to "misunderestimate" him and I've heard many people say that he's got political acumen that we elitist nerds just don't get. I don't believe it. I know what I see. The man has been in over his head since the day he entered the presidential race and he's still in over his head. 9/11 got him reelected in 2004, but he and his administration have been hanging on by their fingernails since the day they took office. They wear suits and ties and say sir and ma'm, but it's all to cover for the fact that they had no idea how to govern and by now it's clear they never will.

I see a man who is barely holding back his panic; a man who clings to his pathetic "war president" image like a talisman. He looks confused and hurt by the criticism he's receiving from people who he thought bought into the program and reportedly knows on some level that he's been duped by his advisors. He has no choice but to keep barreling along pretending that he knows what he's doing. He barks at underlings and pretends to be in charge even as he gets more and more confused. He's distanced from his father, the one person everyone thought could help guide this callow airhead if the shit came down. He trusts no one now.

So he clears brush like a madman everytime he gets the chance, hiding behind his Oakley's, blessedly unable to hear anything over the sound of chainsaws ---- maybe even the voices inside his head that remind him that he's still got three more years of this horrible responsibility he knows he cannot handle.



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digby 12/31/2005 03:25:00 PM |

 
Constitutional Thuggery

by digby

Mark Kleiman makes a point about the NSA sping scandal that I think is essential:

Of course the Rasmussen Poll purporting to show 64% support for the Bush secret eavesdropping policy is an artifact of artful question design.

But, unlike some of my liberal friends, I don't think the answer would be much different if the phrase "without a warrant" had been included. The key missing word was "illegally."

The word wiretapping should always be preceded by the word illegal. That's the qualifier. Nobody thinks that wiretapping is always wrong and nobody knows from warrants. I have little doubt that most people assumed the government was wiretapping terrorists suspects and their suspected friends. What we didn't assume was that the president would consciously break the law to do it --- and that he believes himself immune from all laws during "wartime," (which he alone defines.)

Kleiman goes on to say that the issue should be framed as "rule of law" rather than civil liberties and I slightly disagree with that. I think you must do both. The frame of civil liberties is important for our party's long term health because it is a fundamental value --- and we need to be willing express those even when the country as a whole might not agree. Right now a good many people think that the only things we believe in are gay rights and abortion, and they have no concept of the fundamental values that undergird our positions on those issues. Liberals should not be afraid to wave around the Bill of Rights any more than the right waves around the only amendment it cares about (the second.)

I do not think that conflicts with the argument that America is a land of laws not men. Indeed, I would suggest that the two messages go quite well together. If you want to go all "originalist" on us, the belief that the president cannot violate the laws and the Bill of Rights whenever he feels like it is as fundamental as it gets.

As I listen to the Bush apologists on Fox and elsewhere, it's become clear to me that they are hinging their argument solely on the idea that the president was "protecting" us infantile Americans and was only monitoring the "bad guys." This shows the weakness of their argument. They are not standing up and saying "yes, even if they did illegally listen in your phone calls, comrade, it's the least you can do to keep the homeland safe" or "if you have nothing to hide you won't mind if the government illegally spies on you." The ramifications of data mining aside, they are saying that only guilty people were monitored. Sure.

As Kleiman points out, there is already one excellent example of using the power of the federal government for political purposes in a post 9/11 environment:

The ability to spy on domestic conversations is obviously abusable. And we already know that Tom DeLay tricked the Department of Homeland Security into tracking the whereabouts of Texas Democratic legislators who had fled to Oklahoma to try to block a quorum for DeLay's redistricting scheme. And we know that DeLay got away with it. So if the question on the table is "Will the Republicans abuse domestic-security powers for political purposes?" we know that the answer is "Yes."

Governor Bill Richardson, who isn't exactly shrill (he's running for president as a centrist) is very suspicious that the NSA illegally tapped his domestic calls to Colin Powell regarding the North Korean crisis --- and then illegally gave the transcripts to John Bolton:

"The governor is upset that his conversations with Secretary Powell would be intercepted since most of them were domestic calls," said Richardson spokesman Billy Sparks. "The governor felt his calls about North Korea were confidential."

This is where the Plame scandals and the NSA illegal spying scandals intersect. It's the ethics, stupid. These people are partisan thugs. They used journalists to leak classified information for political purposes. They are now going to try to destroy both whistleblowers and journalists for political purposes. And if that doesn't tell you that they are willing to illegally monitor citizens for political purposes then you are absurdly naive. In fact, this government is the poster child for the division of power and the rule of law. They were written into the constitution with these guys in mind.



Update: I don't know how reliable Wayne Madsen usually is,(Michael Froomkin says he's not a nut) but in the course of writing that post, I came upon this:

December 30, 2005 -- More on Firstfruits. The organization partly involved in directing the National Security Agency program to collect intelligence on journalists -- Firstfruits -- is the Foreign Denial and Deception Committee (FDDC), a component of the National Intelligence Council. The last reported chairman of the inter-intelligence agency group was Dr. Larry Gershwin, the CIA's adviser on science and technology matters, a former national intelligence officer for strategic programs, and one of the primary promoters of the Iraqi disinformation con man and alcoholic who was code named "Curveball."

Gershwin was also in charge of the biological weapons portfolio at the National Intelligence Council where he worked closely with John Bolton and the CIA's Alan Foley -- director of the CIA's Office of Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control (WINPAC) -- and Frederick Fleitz -- who Foley sent from WINPAC to work in Bolton's State Department office -- in helping to cook Iraqi WMD "intelligence" on behalf of Vice President Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby.

In addition to surveilling journalists who were writing about operations at NSA, Firstfruits particularly targeted State Department and CIA insiders who were leaking information about the "cooking" of pre-war WMD intelligence to particular journalists, including those at the New York Times, Washington Post, and CBS 60 Minutes.

The vice chairman of the FDDC, James B. Bruce, wrote an article in Studies in Intelligence in 2003, "This committee represents an inter­agency effort to understand how foreign adversaries learn about, then try to defeat, our secret intelligence collection activities." In a speech to the Institute of World Politics, Bruce, a CIA veteran was also quoted as saying, "We've got to do whatever it takes -- if it takes sending SWAT teams into journalists' homes -- to stop these leaks." He also urged, "stiff new penalties to crack down on leaks, including prosecutions of journalists that publish classified information." The FDDC appears to be a follow-on to the old Director of Central Intelligence's Unauthorized Disclosure Analysis Center (UDAC).

NSA eavesdropping on journalists and their sources is sending chills throughout Washington, DC and beyond.

Meanwhile, WMR's disclosures about Firstfruits have set off a crisis in the intelligence community and in various media outlets. Journalists who have contacted WMR since the revelation of the Firstfruits story are fearful that their conversations and e-mail with various intelligence sources have been totally compromised and that they have been placed under surveillance that includes the use of physical tails. Intelligence sources who are current and former intelligence agency employees also report that they suspect their communications with journalists and other parties have been surveilled by technical means.

Scroll down to December 28th to get the first story on "Firstfruits." Bob Baer mentioned this tracking of journlaists on Hardball a week or so ago too, causing Andrea Mitchell to blink hard a few times.

For a primer on the meaning of the biblical word "Firstfruits" try this. Feel free to speculate in the comments as to why you think they chose it to describe a surveillance program.

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digby 12/31/2005 09:49:00 AM |

Friday, December 30, 2005

 
Cui malo?

by digby


Krauthamer just said that he needs to see a case of abuse before he is convinced that the leakers in the illegal NSA spying case are whistle blowers. That's interesting. It shouldn't be required to show harm in a criminal case like this, but perhaps on a public relations level this is really what needs to happen.

I believe there is only a one percent chance that this extra-constitutional power grab did not result in abuse. The FISA court and the justice department both pulled in the reins in 2004 for a reason. The president kept this program secret long past the time he could have developed some reasonable legislation to accomplish what he needed to accomplish. There is something very wrong with this program or they wouldn't have handled it the way they did.

Considering the history, "trust us we're only monitoring the bad guys" doesn't pass the smell test. We need real hearings and if we get them Krauthamer may very well get the examples of abuse that he needs.



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digby 12/30/2005 03:49:00 PM |

 
Our Allies

by digby

Kos has the story on the Uzbek torture memos that are being leaked to blogs in the UK (and preserved by blogs in the US.) I honestly don't know what to say about this except reiterate futile statements about oil, the Great Game and moral clarity.

If we are in the business of invading countries to depose tyrants, there's no good reason that we didn't go to this one first. That it is our ally in the "War on Terror" is a cosmic joke of epic proportions.

Here's just a small excerpt of one of the memos:

The Economist of 7 September states: "Uzbekistan, in particular, has jailed many thousands of moderate Islamists, an excellent way of converting their families and friends to extremism." The Economist also spoke of "the growing despotism of Mr Karimov" and judged that "the past year has seen a further deterioration of an already grim human rights record". I agree.

Between 7,000 and 10,000 political and religious prisoners are currently detained, many after trials before kangaroo courts with no representation. Terrible torture is commonplace: the EU is currently considering a demarche over the terrible case of two Muslims tortured to death in jail apparently with boiling water. Two leading dissidents, Elena Urlaeva and Larissa Vdovna, were two weeks ago committed to a lunatic asylum, where they are being drugged, for demonstrating on human rights. Opposition political parties remain banned. There is no doubt that September 11 gave the pretext to crack down still harder on dissent under the guise of counter-terrorism.

Yet on 8 September the US State Department certified that Uzbekistan was improving in both human rights and democracy, thus fulfilling a constitutional requirement and allowing the continuing disbursement of $140 million of US aid to Uzbekistan this year. Human Rights Watch immediately published a commendably sober and balanced rebuttal of the State Department claim.

Oh, and we commonly "render" suspects to Uzbekistan for interrogation. I'm sure they promise not to boil them though.


Update:

correction: "render-ed." Via Upyernoz I see that we have, apparently, seen the light and cooled our relationship with Uzbekistan since the government there opened fire on a bunch of civilians last May. Still, people wonder why (considering that we didn't object to the boiling and all) a little random shooting into crowds would cause our relationship to suddenly be strained. I suggest that someone look into Vladimir Putin's soul for the answer.


Update II:

Americana has more on this.



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digby 12/30/2005 11:28:00 AM |

 
Missed Opportunities

by digby


I've been thinking about what might be the biggest cock-up of this metaphorical war on terrorism and there are so many that it's hard to limit it to just one. Invading Iraq has to be the grandaddy, but Gitmo, abu Ghraib and letting bin Laden go at Tora Bora rank right up there. (Speaking of bin Laden at Tora Bora, I don't know why this story by Seymour Hersh about Konduz has been flushed down the memory hole.)

Making enemies of the entire world wasn't such a great idea. Secret prisons in Europe not so much either.

After giving it some thought, I think that it's possible that our biggest mistake in dealing with radical islam is our failure to respond with everything we had to the Pakistani earthquake. And we should have done it in tandem with our response to Katrina and the Tsunami, with a full-on international disaster response led by the United States. If we can afford to spend a billion a week on this misbegotten war, we could have come up with a plan to help these poor people all over the world, even in our own country, who were the victims of natural disasters. Bush should have been all over the TV. He should have gone to Pakistan personally and made a pledge to every single victim there that we would do everything we could to help.

I know that sending Karen Hughes around to share her experiences as a suburban mom with poor women in Indonesia is extremely useful in changing our image overseas, but this was a tremendous opportunity lost.

Instead, we pretty much did nothing to help the people who live in the very center of militant radical islam. Husain Haqqani, Kenneth Ballen of the the Carnegie Endowment wrote last November:

The most critical location for immediate international engagement is not Iraq or Afghanistan but Pakistan.

The devastation in Pakistan from the earthquake is as devastating as Southeast Asia's tsunami last year. But the international response has fallen short. The death toll has risen to 87,000 and the severe Himalayan winter is only weeks away. Equally horrendous is the number of people displaced - three times as many as those affected by the Indian Ocean tsunami. And yet international assistance provided following the tsunami dwarfs the aid provided to Pakistan. Eighty per cent of the aid pledged for the tsunami (more than $4-billion) was given with two weeks. Pakistan so far has only received $17-million, just 12 per cent of aid pledged. According to the United Nations, pledges to date total only 25 per cent of what is needed.

For the tsunami, 4,000 helicopters were donated to ferry life-saving aid to stricken areas, and in Pakistan just 70 - even though there are almost three times as many people who need the food and shelter to survive than after the tsunami.

International humanitarian assistance doesn't just save lives, it helps fight the war on terror. According to post-tsunami polls conducted by the Maryland-based, non-profit group Terror Free Tomorrow, support for Osama bin Laden dropped by half as a result of international assistance to tsunami victims in the world's largest Muslim nation.

In nuclear-armed Pakistan right now - another of the world's largest Muslim nations, where 65 per cent of the population think favourably of Mr. bin Laden - radical Islamist parties are mobilizing and are in the vanguard of those helping in the most-stricken areas. The void left by the Pakistan government, the United States and the international community has been filled by Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the Al-Rasheed Trust, both groups linked to al-Qaeda, as well as Jammat-i-Islami, the leading radical Islamic party in Pakistan.

Even Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao had to acknowledge that the radicals are now "the lifeline of our rescue and relief work."

In fact, radical Islamic groups have vigorously opposed U.S. and international aid because they know this will weaken their propaganda efforts. In a speech last week, Jamaat's leader, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, said, "The Americans are [providing relief in Pakistan] to damage the solidarity of the country, and will work for materializing their ulterior motives."

The United States and the world community must now do nothing less than spearhead a response similar to that following the tsunami, not only for self-evident and overwhelming humanitarian needs but also for long-term national security.

I know that it would have been difficult to muster the relief effort after Katrina, but that's what leadership is about. If the administration really wants to fight the scourge of Islamic terrorism, they need to come up with something other than torture, imprisonment and incoherent military occupations to do it. Coming to the rescue in this terrible disaster --- or at least visibly mustering an international response --- would have gone a long way toward helping our allies regain some faith in our good intentions and persuade the people most vulnerable to al Qaeda's arguments that we are not the great Satan. We didn't do it.

But maybe Karen Hughes can go over later this year and share her secret for eliminating ring around the collar, so that's good.



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digby 12/30/2005 10:29:00 AM |

 
No Comment

by digby

So the Justice Department is going to investigate the leak of the illegal NSA spy scandal. Fine. I assume this also means that nobody from the White House will be able to comment in any way since there is an ongoing investigation.

And that means no matter what comes up, Scotty is required to stonewall. Even when he doesn't want to. Thems the rules.



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digby 12/30/2005 10:10:00 AM |

Thursday, December 29, 2005

 
The Sequel


From the great uggabugga:





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digby 12/29/2005 03:23:00 PM |

 
Patrick Henry Democrats

by digby

As much as I appreciate all these Republicans offering us advice about how we are endangering our political prospects by not supporting illegal NSA spying, I have to wonder if they really have our best interests at heart. I just get a teensy bit suspicious that it might not be sincere.

The truth is that I have no idea where the NSA spying scandal is going and neither do they. The Republicans would like it to go nowhere for obvious reasons and so they are trying to psych out timid Dems. What I do know is that the most important problem Democrats have is not national security; it's that nobody can figure out what we stand for. And when we waffle and whimper about things like this we validate that impression.

In Rick Perlstein's book, "The Stock Ticker and The Super Jumbo" he notes that many Democrats are still reeling from the repudiation of the party by the Reagan Democrats. And while they continue to worry about being too close to African Americans or being too rigid on abortion or too soft on national security, they don't realize that the most vivid impression people have of the Democrats is this:

"I think they lost their focus"
"I think they are a little disorganized right now"
"They need leadership"
"On the sidelines"
"fumbling"
"confused"
"losing"
"scared"


The reason people think this is because we are constantly calculating whether our principles are politically sellable (and we do it in front of god and everybody.) We've been having this little public encounter session for well over 20 years now and it's added up to a conclusion that we don't actually believe in anything at all.

Perhaps the NSA scandal is a political loser for Dems. We can't know that now. But it is a winner for us in the long term. We believe in civil liberties and civil rights. With economic fairness, they form the heart of our political philosophy. If this particular issue doesn't play well, that's too bad. People who believe in things sometimes have to be unpopular. Over time, they gain the respect of the people which is something we dearly need.

A party that is described as fumbling, confused and scared is unlikely to win elections even if they endorse the wholesale round-up of hippies and the nuking of Mecca. People will listen to us if we can first convince them that we know who we are and what we believe in.

I'm of the mind to adopt "give me liberty or give me death" as my personal motto. If I have to kowtow to a bunch of childish Republican panic artists who have deluded themselves into believing that fighting radical Islam requires turning America into a police state, then it's just not worth it.



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digby 12/29/2005 02:08:00 PM |

 
Imperial Nutball

Julia connects the dots on Michael Scheuer and concludes that he is a bit unhinged. I'm inclined to agree.



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digby 12/29/2005 01:52:00 PM |

 
No Likee

by digby

I know this will come as a great disappointment to Republicans who have taken to saying that the NSA spy scandal boosted Bush's approval ratings ten points, but the new CNN/USA Today poll has his job approval rating at 41%, which is down a point from the last one. In fact, his rating has been pretty steady at around 40% since last August.

Just as point of contrast:

December 20, 1998
Web posted at: 10:48 p.m. EST (0348 GMT)

(AllPolitics, December 20) -- In the wake of the House of Representatives' approval of two articles of impeachment, Bill Clinton's approval rating has jumped 10 points to 73 percent, the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll shows.

Bush also hit a new low in "favorable opinion" down to 46%. Some might think he would be described as unpopular since they called him popular until he hit 48%. But no. He's now "poised for a comeback."



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digby 12/29/2005 01:21:00 PM |

 
Uh Oh

by digby

This gives me the creeps.

Via ReddHedd at firedoglake, the LA Times reports:

A little-noticed holiday week executive order from President Bush moved the Pentagon's intelligence chief to the No. 3 spot in the succession hierarchy behind Rumsfeld. The second spot would be the deputy secretary of defense, but that position currently is vacant. The Army secretary, which long held the No. 3 spot, was dropped to sixth....

But in its current incarnation, the doomsday plan moves to near the top three undersecretaries who are Rumsfeld loyalists and who previously worked for Vice President Dick Cheney when he was defense secretary.

ReddHedd points out that this is taking cornyism to new heights, which it is. But, I got a sick little shiver when I read it. Do they know something? Failed military coup? Bin laden determined to strike in the United States, perhaps?

Under the new plan, Rumsfeld ally Stephen Cambone, the undersecretary for intelligence, moved up to the third spot. Former Ambassador Eric Edelman, the policy undersecretary, and Kenneth Krieg, the undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, hold the fourth and fifth positions.

If something happens, pray for Rumsfeld's health because Cambone is an even wilder nutcase than Rummy is. Jesus. Three more years of this?


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digby 12/29/2005 12:53:00 PM |

 
Mistakes

by digby

The National Security Agency's internet site has been placing files on visitors' computers that can track their web-surfing activity despite strict federal rules banning most of them.

These files, known as "cookies," disappeared after a privacy activist complained and The Associated Press made inquiries this week, and agency officials acknowledged Wednesday they had made a mistake. Nonetheless, the issue raises questions about privacy at a spy agency already on the defensive amid reports of a secretive eavesdropping program in the United States.

They say they are strictly listening to conversations between terrorists and their American friends who are plotting to blow up weddings. They don't need anyone looking over the shoulders, not even a rubber stamp secret Star Chamber. They are professionals who aren't interested in tracking people for any reason but terrorism. No oversight necessary, nosirree.


Yet we are supposed to believe they don't know they have a fucking cookie allowing them to track every visitor to their web site and we are also supposed to believe that they aren't making any other "mistakes" in their data mining of American citizens' communications. The alternative, of course, would be to believe that they knew very well they had a cookie on their site and were, in fact, tracking the surfing habits of those who vistited it, in which case we know for a fact that they aren't just monitoring communications with al Qaeda. Either way, I think this little episode proves that the NSA could use a little oversight, don't you?

Maybe not. In a debate at the WaPo yesterday on the subject, a fine Republican wrote:

An al Qaeda operative can walk into any Radio Shack, buy X number of cell phones, activate them with an American company (thereby acquiring a US phone number), then take them to another country to use.

The Fourth Amendment offers protection to Americans against UNREASONABLE searches. Is it unreasonable, after 9/11, to monitor the phone calls of foreign al Qaeda operatives to those using cell phones with American numbers when we know in hindsight that Atta -- while in this country preparing for the attack -- communicated with al Qaeda's leadership abroad? Is it unreasonable for the government to do whatever it can to intercept such conversations, knowing that Able Danger had identified Atta as an al Qaeda operative before the attack? What about the civil rights and liberties of those slaughtered on 9/11 by al Qaeda?

IF these phone calls really were domestic spying, I, too, would object. But, they're not. They are international calls with one end outside the country. The remedy is simple and involves personal responsibility: If an American citizen does not want his calls monitored, then he shouldn't be chatting with foreign al Qaeda operatives on the phone. And to me, it is that simple.

Simple.

But just in case the NSA is making more "mistakes," (or fibbing just a little bit) the best thing to do to be perfectly sure the government isn't spying on you is to not make any phone calls. Or surf the internet. Or leave the house. But the very best thing to do is vote Republican and support the war and you won't have any trouble at all. (Shhhh. Don't tell the terrorists.)


Update

To be clear:

All I'm saying is that if the nation's premiere surveillance agnecy can make "mistakes" about something as simple as a cookie, they can certainly make mistakes about much more complicated and serious matters.


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digby 12/29/2005 12:16:00 PM |

 
Kept Down By The Pansies

by digby

Yglesias notes that Marshall Wittman is whining that liberal hawks get no respect. He points out that despite representing almost no actual Democrats, Democratic hawks have dominated the Democratic leadership in congress virtually forever. And that leadership has failed to win elections that would justify to liberals who were against the Iraq war that they should continue to support them.

They don't deliver votes, they join in Republican calumny against the Democratic Party and they are wrong. Why, exactly should they have even more influence than they already do?

And what in the hell is up with these powerful conservatives of both parties who see themselves as constantly being beseiged by people who they simultaneously perceive as weak and useless? Does this make any sense at all?



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digby 12/29/2005 11:59:00 AM |

 
Hollywood Confidential

by digby

Matt Stoller has a very interesting post up over at MYDD. It's written by his brother, Nick Stoller, a screenwriter whose new movie "Fun With Dick and Jane" has an extremely funny trailer, so I'm looking forward to seeing it.

I've always thought of the original "Fun With Dick and Jane" starring George Segal and Jane Fonda as the quintessential "malaise" movie. It was the chronicle of a middle class family who fell through the cracks in a harsh economy and ended up robbing banks. It's a comedy, of course, but for those of us who lived through the late 70's it had a bit of a bite. When I saw that it was being re-made I had one of those "of course" moments. I had just been reading about rising gas prices and GM lay-offs. Deja vu all over again.

Stoller's post asks why Democrats don't rely more on Hollywood for expertise instead of just fund-raising. I've been asking that question for years. Politics today requires narrative and stagecraft --- and Hollywood knows from narrative and stagecraft. It's about heroism, spectacle and soap opera. It's about myth. I realize that this offends our wonky souls on some level but it's a fact that the Republicans understand and exploit to their great advantage and we don't.

In the final days of the presidential campaign as John Kerry was being introduced by Bruce Springsteen on the stump with a moody, soulful solo rendition of "No Surrender" (which I loved) George W. Bush was landing in stadiums at sunset on the Marine one helicopter to fireworks and the theme to "Top Gun" screaming from the speakers. Which one do you suppose felt more like a rally?

The Bush administration has been working with a very defective product as we all know; a barely literate ignoramus with dismal communications skills. Yet they were able to bring him close enough to steal it in 2000 and eke out a narrow victory in 2004. They did it almost entirely with image, iconography and an archetypal warrior/leader narrative. And they used professionals to pull it off:

Officials of past Democratic and Republican administrations marvel at how the White House does not seem to miss an opportunity to showcase Mr. Bush in dramatic and perfectly lighted settings. It is all by design: the White House has stocked its communications operation with people from network television who have expertise in lighting, camera angles and the importance of backdrops.

[...]

''They understand the visual as well as anybody ever has,'' said Michael K. Deaver, Ronald Reagan's chief image maker. ''They watched what we did, they watched the mistakes of Bush I, they watched how Clinton kind of stumbled into it, and they've taken it to an art form.''

The White House efforts have been ambitious -- and costly. For the prime-time television address that Mr. Bush delivered to the nation on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the White House rented three barges of giant Musco lights, the kind used to illuminate sports stadiums and rock concerts, sent them across New York Harbor, tethered them in the water around the base of the Statue of Liberty and then blasted them upward to illuminate all 305 feet of America's symbol of freedom. It was the ultimate patriotic backdrop for Mr. Bush, who spoke from Ellis Island.

For a speech that Mr. Bush delivered last summer at Mount Rushmore, the White House positioned the best platform for television crews off to one side, not head on as other White Houses have done, so that the cameras caught Mr. Bush in profile, his face perfectly aligned with the four presidents carved in stone.

And on Monday, for remarks the president made promoting his tax cut plan near Albuquerque, the White House unfurled a backdrop that proclaimed its message of the day, ''Helping Small Business,'' over and over. The type was too small to be read by most in the audience, but just the right size for television viewers at home.

''I don't know who does it,'' Mr. Deaver said, ''but somebody's got a good eye over there.''

That somebody, White House officials and television executives say, is in fact three or four people. First among equals is Scott Sforza, a former ABC producer who was hired by the Bush campaign in Austin, Tex., and who now works for Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director. Mr. Sforza created the White House ''message of the day'' backdrops and helped design the $250,000 set at the United States Central Command forward headquarters in Doha, Qatar, during the Iraq war.

Mr. Sforza works closely with Bob DeServi, a former NBC cameraman whom the Bush White House hired after seeing his work in the 2000 campaign. Mr. DeServi, whose title is associate director of communications for production, is considered a master at lighting. ''You want it, I'll heat it up and make a picture,'' he said early this week. Mr. DeServi helped produce one of Mr. Bush's largest events, a speech to a crowd in Revolution Square in Bucharest last November.

To stage the event, Mr. DeServi went so far as to rent Musco lights in Britain, which were then shipped across the English Channel and driven across Europe to Romania, where they lighted Mr. Bush and the giant stage across from the country's former Communist headquarters.

A third crucial player is Greg Jenkins, a former Fox News television producer in Washington who is now the director of presidential advance. Mr. Jenkins manages the small army of staff members and volunteers who move days ahead of Mr. Bush and his entourage to set up the staging of all White House events.

''We pay particular attention to not only what the president says but what the American people see,'' Mr. Bartlett said. ''Americans are leading busy lives, and sometimes they don't have the opportunity to read a story or listen to an entire broadcast. But if they can have an instant understanding of what the president is talking about by seeing 60 seconds of television, you accomplish your goals as communicators. So we take it seriously.''

The president's image makers, Mr. Bartlett said, work within a budget for White House travel and events allotted by Congress, which for fiscal 2003 was $3.7 million. He said he did not know the specific cost of staging Mr. Bush's Sept. 11 anniversary speech, or what the White House was charged for the lights. A spokeswoman at the headquarters of Musco Lighting in Oskaloosa, Iowa, said the company did not disclose the prices it charged clients.

[...]

''They seem to approach an event site like it's a TV set,'' said Chris Carlson, an ABC cameraman who covers the White House. ''They dress it up really nicely. It looks like a million bucks.''

Even for standard-issue White House events, Mr. Bush's image makers watch every angle. Last week, when the president had a joint news conference with Prime Minister José Mariá Aznar of Spain, it was staged in the Grand Foyer of the White House, under grand marble columns, with the Blue Room and a huge cream-colored bouquet of flowers illuminated in the background. (Mr. Sforza and Mr. DeServi could be seen there conferring before the cameras began rolling.) The scene was lush and rich, filled with the beauty of the White House in real time.

''They understand they have to build a set, whether it's an aircraft carrier or the Rose Garden or the South Lawn,'' Mr. Deaver said. ''They understand that putting depth into the picture makes the candidate or president look better.''

Or as Mr. Deaver said he learned long ago with Mr. Reagan: ''They understand that what's around the head is just as important as the head.''

Stoller asks:

Why didn't Michael Bay direct an awesome action adventure ad where John Kerry singlehandedly blows up the terrorist insurgency with a solemn nod of his granite-chiseled chin? Why weren't the writers of SNL and the Daily Show brought in to create hilarious, ruthless anti-Bush spots that would have been forwarded all around the internet? Why wasn't James Brooks hired to create a touching, pull-the-heartstrings Kerry-Edwards-cares-about-the-voter commercial? This schlock works -- remember that 9/11 Bush ad where he's holding the crying girl? With the Hollywood talent the Democratic party has at its disposal, we could have blown that spot out of the water, made it look like a mediocre episode of Touched by an Angel next to our sinking of the Titanic. I don't care if you think "I am king of the world" is a cheesy line -- it made people cry. Nothing Kerry said made people cry. Except perhaps accidentally, out of boredom or pain.

[...]

In the end, there is no intersection between Hollywood and the Democratic Party (or none that I have noticed besides that of fundraising). This is a missed opportunity of gargantuan proportions. There are hundreds of writers and actors and directors who are angry and who want to do something besides give money. We are expert message machines offering our (generally overpriced) services for free and the Democratic Party does not use us. We create villains and good guys, we write America's jokes, we create the narrative of America, the lines that are repeated by boys and girls, men and women, over lunch and the water cooler and we have been left completely un-consulted.

If I were to guess, I would suspect that it's because political consultants believe that the liberal Hollywood elites don't understand average Americans.

Think about that for a minute. The purveyors of television, films and commercials don't understand average Americans. After all, only the brie 'n cheese eating set watch any of that stuff, right? Everyone else in America does nothing but homeschool and pray in their free time.

If I'm right and political consultants tell their employers that they shouldn't consult with professional show business, they should be fired. In today's world if you ignore the show business aspect of politics you lose. The Republicans have been on to this for decades and it (at least partially) explains why they've become more successful despite the fact that a minority of people support their policies.

I'll give you one word: Schwarzenneger. The man won the governorship of the most populated state by simply repeating the tag lines from his movies. Nothing else. He had no platform, no policies and no ideas. And latte liberals and anti-immigrants alike voted for him in droves. (Now, remember, I'm talking about getting elected here, not about governance --- a whole different issue.)

The fact is that as much as endorsing an ideology, people cast the role of "Leader" and choose "Best Story" when they vote and it behooves us to recognize this. Our culture is awash in showbiz values. I'm not crazy about this development but it's real and we ignore it at our peril.

Stoller also says:

Fun with Dick and Jane" (which, again, you should all see) has a relatively overt liberal message. However, that message has received none, or very little, mention in the press. Creatively, I discovered something interesting. At the beginning of the process, I was incredibly excited to fill the film with political message (like in Hal Ashby's Shampoo). However, every Gore-Lieberman poster (the movie takes places in 2000) and Bush reference takes one out of the movie, distracts from the laughs. Movies are supposed to be entertaining. Anything that distracts from entertainment feels preachy and extraneous.

And that's just fine, too. Regardless of whether the Democrats wise up and use its resources more wisely, Liberal Hollywood still provides an essential service by keeping our values, if not our politics, mainstream. There have always been Hollywood films with an overt political message, from "The Grapes of Wrath" to "Syriana." But it's the comedies like "Fun with Dick and Jane" that show the plight of the downsized or even an ostensibly "conservative" show like "Law and Order" which educates people about the legal system in a compelling and complex way, that really carry the liberal mail. "Will and Grace" goes into homes all over the country, not just San Francisco and it's probably been more influential in mainstreaming gay life than any activism. "The Simpsons" and now "The Family Guy" are two of the most liberal subversive television shows in American history --- and they are both on Fox.

And here's the great thing about it. Nobody is selling this stuff out of the goodness of their hearts or for propaganda purposes (as the right does with its communistic subsidized media.) Hollywood produces this stuff because there is a massive audience for it. They must make money or die. And through this virtuous feedback loop our values of tolerance and freedom, social and economic justice are kept alive in a period of reactionary politics.

Why do you think the Republicans hate us Hollywood liberals so much anyway?



Update: I should also add that the GOP sadists who endorse torture should thank liberal Hollywood for mainstreaming it in endless shows that have cops routinely beating the shit out of suspects to get information. Nobody's perfect.
digby 12/29/2005 09:01:00 AM |

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

 
Just Another Republican Hustler

by digby

Via Susie Madrak

IT WAS astounding enough for Washington’s political elite: last month they discovered that the man at the heart of a scandal over the planting of US propaganda in Iraqi newspapers was a dapper but unknown 30-year-old Oxford graduate who had somehow managed to land a $100 million Pentagon contract.

What is even more remarkable however, after an investigation by The Times, is that just ten years ago Christian Bailey, whose US company is under investigation for planting fake news stories in Iraqi newspapers, was a nerdy, socially awkward English school-leaver called Jozefowicz.

[...]

The journey from the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, which Mr Bailey left in 1994, to the heart of K Street in Washington, the centre of money and influence in the US capital, has been remarkably rapid. Today he has a reputation in Washington for being a socialite with links to influential Republicans. He is a helicopter and aircraft pilot and his home is in a fashionable area.

Through a Lincoln Group spokesman, Mr Bailey answered questions from The Times to help to explain how, at just 30, he landed the Pentagon as an important client. He was born Christian Martin Jozefowicz on November 28, 1975, in Kingston upon Thames, to Jerzy and Anne Jozefowicz.

[...]

In his third year at Oxford he hired an assistant to help him to run his first proper company, Linck Ltd, which sold self-help tapes. In 1998, he changed his name to Bailey. “Following his father’s death, Bailey assumed the name for family reasons, something which children commonly do,” a Lincoln Group spokesman said. In the late 1990s he moved to San Francisco to try his hand as a dotcom entrepreneur, and then to New York, where he became treasurer of the Oxonion Society, a club for intellectual Anglophiles. He became co-chairman of a networking group for young Republicans. With his Republican contacts growing, Mr Bailey moved to Washington, where he spotted a golden business opportunity: the looming war in Iraq. He formed a partnership with Paige Craig, a former US Marine who served in Iraq.

In early 2003, just before the invasion, Mr Bailey formed a Lincoln subsidiary, the Lincoln Alliance Corp, offering “tailored intelligence services [for] government clients faced with intelligence challenges”. He also formed another subsidiary, Iraqex, which won a $6 million Pentagon contract to launch “an aggressive advertising and PR campaign that will accurately inform the Iraqi people of the c oalition’s goals and gain their support”.

The big breakthrough came in June this year when the Pentagon awarded the Lincoln Group a contract worth up to $100 million over five years to support the US military’s “joint psychological operations”, known as “psyops”.

I think this guy has a future in the ministry.



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digby 12/28/2005 01:33:00 PM |

 
Stovepiping The Legal Findings

by digby

This review of John Yoo's book in the New York Review of Books illuminated something that I hadn't fully understood before:

Few lawyers have had more influence on President Bush's legal policies in the "war on terror" than John Yoo. This is a remarkable feat, because Yoo was not a cabinet official, not a White House lawyer, and not even a senior officer within the Justice Department. He was merely a mid-level attorney in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel with little supervisory authority and no power to enforce laws. Yet by all accounts, Yoo had a hand in virtually every major legal decision involving the US response to the attacks of September 11, and at every point, so far as we know, his advice was virtually always the same— the president can do whatever the president wants.

I hadn't realized that Yoo was not a senior officer in the justice department. I guess I just assumed that he was quite high level. This makes me wonder if we are looking at another case of stovepiping and cherry-picking.

We know now that the pre-war WMD findings were subject to extreme pressure to conform to the administration's desire to substantiate their claims of an Iraqi threat. It looks like they may have done something similar with the legal findings supporting the president's desire to seize unprecedented power. They relied exclusively on the one guy who could be counted on to tell the president he could do anything he wanted.

The internal battles between and within the CIA, pentagon, state department and the white house have come to light because of the glaring reality that there were no WMD found. A mistake like that forces information out into the public domain as people step up to defend themselves. Up to now, despite a lot of controversy, that has not happened with the Justice Department. Perhaps it never will. It's always possible that the administration never asked anyone but John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales for advice, both of whom they knew would radically expand presidential power. But if there was any dissension within the Justice Department, it may be time for certain fed-up lawyers to step up and set the record straight if they value their reputations.

This NSA spying scandal is the tipping point, in my opinion. It's not the worst of the legal atrocities (I would argue that the sickening finding on torture remains the gold standard) but the culmination of all these revelations show that this president understood 9/11 to be a threat so dire that his vow to preserve and protect the constitution had been superceded by a new vow to protect the American people by any means necessary.

I know that the fevered warbloggers agree that the 9/11 attacks were the opening salvo in a war in which civilization itself is under attack by an unimaginable, all powerful evil. Others, not so much. To many of us who spent our childhoods diving under our desks in nuclear drills, the idea that the oceans had always protected us and this was the most frightening threat the world has ever known is ridiculous.

Frightened people overreacted to 9/11 and sought out people who would justify their actions. (All you have to do is look at the My Pet Goat footage of a paralyzed leader in a time of crisis to know it's true.) John Yoo, with his radical, untested theories was there to provide them. The question now is whether there are any lawyers in the Justice department at the time who presented opposing views. If there were, perhaps these hearings won't be the bust we are all expecting them to be.


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digby 12/28/2005 01:17:00 PM |

 
Don't Worry Be Happy


by digby

I don't know how many of you are watching CNN today, but something terrible has happened. It has been taken over by the writers of Republican Hallmark cards.

The man who performed in the Dunkin Donuts commercials died over the week-end, leaving a hole in our hearts. Puppies are tearfully reunited with their masters. Saxby Chambliss and Carol Lin are weeping together over baby Noor. Military moms keep a stiff upper lip. All morning, over and over again.

And right now Carol Lin is implying that it's disrespectful to veterans for a man to put up a sign that says "Remember The Fallen Veterans" (with the numbers) next to a recruiting center. She says that Iraq veterans are angry about it.

Who says that the Clinton News Network doesn't report the good news?



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digby 12/28/2005 12:26:00 PM |

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

 
Standards

by digby

Matthew Yglesias points out that William Kristol is acting dumb, which he is. This ridiculous excuse that Bush had to act quickly in the days after 9/11 to "perteckt thea Murican peepul" makes no sense at all in light of the fact that the administration continues to do it more than four years later.

I would also point out that all this nonsense about how the administration couldn't ask the pansy ass congress to amend the law because they wouldn't appreciate the administration's need for unfettered power, neglects the fact that since January of 2003, the congress has been a rubber stamp herd of invertabrate GOP sheep who would do anything their Dear Leader required when it comes to the GWOT. If they couldn't get that congress to pass this vital change in the FISA law then they need to take it up with Bill Frist and Tom DeLay. (And if the administration didn't think they could get the invertebrate herd of GOP sheep to do something you really have to ask yourself what in Gawd's name they wanted them to do.)

But there is, of course, much more to this than just congressional bedwetters not having the guts to defend the nation from islamofascists.

There's also this, from the original NY Times article:

In mid-2004, concerns about the program expressed by national security officials, government lawyers and a judge prompted the Bush administration to suspend elements of the program and revamp it.

For the first time, the Justice Department audited the N.S.A. program, several officials said. And to provide more guidance, the Justice Department and the agency expanded and refined a checklist to follow in deciding whether probable cause existed to start monitoring someone's communications, several officials said.

A complaint from Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the federal judge who oversees the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court, helped spur the suspension, officials said. The judge questioned whether information obtained under the N.S.A. program was being improperly used as the basis for F.I.S.A. wiretap warrant requests from the Justice Department, according to senior government officials. While not knowing all the details of the exchange, several government lawyers said there appeared to be concerns that the Justice Department, by trying to shield the existence of the N.S.A. program, was in danger of misleading the court about the origins of the information cited to justify the warrants.

"...concerns about the program expressed by national security officials, government lawyers and a judge."

Clearly, this program has had problems even by the standards of an administration that thinks the president has the inherant constitutional right to ignore specific laws passed by congress if he deems it necessary in order to "perteckt thea Murikan peepul." That bar is mightly low and yet there still were problems that were subject to suspension and revamping.

I realize that we are just supposed to trust this president in spite of the fact that he has repeatedly and blatantly lied to our faces, but I would think that this would pique the interest of even the most vociferous bush defenders. If the Ashcroft Justice department had issues with this program that ought to be enough even for Bill Kristol to question its legality.

After all, as I have written before, Bill has a history of holding presidents to very high standards:

The lines have been drawn. What Republicans now need is the nerve to fight. They must stand for, to quote Helprin again, "the rejection of intimidation, the rejection of lies, the rejection of manipulation, the rejection of disingenuous pretense, and a revulsion for the sordid crimes and infractions the president has brought to his office." (William Kristol, Weekly Standard, May 25, 1998, page 18.)

Of course the president in question was secretly surveilling Monica Lewinsky's underwear, which was a terrible threat to the nation. Kristol had no choice but to throw the book at him.



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digby 12/27/2005 07:21:00 PM |

 
Jihadi Media

by digby

Over pictures of people who are handling rocket launchers and wearing ski masks with strange suits, the braindead Brit who is filling in for Cavuto today asked John Podhoretz if the New York Times should be charged with treason.

Charging a newspaper with treason seems like a stretch, but I could be wrong. I think the proper legal charge would be sedition. But implying that the New York Times staffers are jihadis seems a bit inflammatory to me.

The Pod was unpleasant.



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digby 12/27/2005 04:12:00 PM |

 
Just Don't Count 'Em

Steve Benen of the Carpetbagger Report is filling in for Kevin over at Political Animal and he has an interesting post up about the new movement to deny automatic citizenship to babies born in the United States. It's one of those Lou Dobbs obsessions that's gaining ground among the wingnuts.

His post reminded me of another Dobbsian boogeyman that I've been meaning to discuss which will have a very pernicious effect on politics if it is enacted: the anti-immigrant fanatics want to change the census to only include citizens. And they quite openly say it is because they want to change the make-up of the congress.

This is another one of those Karl Rove specials. It's ostensibly about the scourge of illegal immigration, and plays perfectly into people's cultural anxieties, but it's really about structural political change.

Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson's exceedingly interesting book Off Center talks (among other things) about how the Republicans have gone about creating a "backlash proof" system in which Republican seats are safe no matter how unpopular their beliefs or voting records are in the country at large. It's a huge part of their long term strategy to change the political system in their favor. The book doesn't mention this specifically, but it's exactly the kind of thing that Karl and Tom would try to push to assure a long term majority.

This article in the Arizona Republic, shows that the estimate is that the seats lost would mostly be in Democratic states:

The U.S. Constitution should be changed so that only legal citizens can be counted when determining a state's number of congressional districts, a Republican lawmaker argued Tuesday.

"This is about fundamental fairness and the American ideal . . . of one man or one woman, one vote," said Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich, testifying to a U.S. House subcommittee on federalism and the census.

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires that, "Representatives of the (U.S.) House shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state . . . "

But Miller, backed by 29 House co-sponsors, is pushing a vote on an amendment that would change the word "persons" to "citizens," excluding non-citizens as a factor in determining how many of the 435 U.S. House seats each state gets.

According to the 2000 census, there were more than 18 million non-citizens in the country, representing about 6.6 percentof the nation's total population. They included as many as 8 million undocumented immigrants, along with guest workers, foreign students or others on temporary visas.

[...]

Recent studies, including one in May by the Congressional Research Office, show that had only citizens been counted in the most recent apportionment based on the 2000 Census, California - with more than 5.4 million non-citizens -- would have six fewer U.S. House seats.

Texas, New York and Florida would each have one seat less.

Lower-immigration states like Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Wisconsin and Indiana would each have one more seat.

There could be a shift of 10 seats affecting 15 states if non-citizens are excluded in 2010, according to early projections by Polidata, a Lake Ridge, Va., firm that analyzes demographic information.

Arizona would not lose any of its seats. The state's 462,239 non-citizen residents represent 9 percent of its total population - the seventh highest percentage in the nation. However, even if these individuals were not counted, Arizona's population would still be high enough to still qualify for eight congressional seats in 2010.

But removing non-citizens from those calculations would have impact within the state. Arizona's congressional district lines would have to be drawn much differently than they are now to equalize "citizen" representation.

For instance, based on their existing congressional districts, Rep. Rick Renzi, a Republican, is currently representing 620,000 "citizen" residents in his largely rural district, while Rep Ed Pastor, a Democrat, represents 480,000 citizen residents in his central-southwest Valley district. If non-citizens are no longer be counted , both Renzi' and Pastor's districts - as with all of Arizona's congressional districts -- would have to be redrawn so that they have more-comparable citizen numbers.


... an estimated 10 million legal permanent residents in the nation who are eligible to become citizens are Latino, and that 77 percent of these Latinos live in California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey or Arizona.

While not disputing there are large undocumented populations in these states, Gonzalez said, "the reality is that these states also have hundreds of thousands of immigrants who are law-abiding citizens, have played by the rules and are preparing to become full participants in this nation."

Kenneth Prewitt, director of the Census bureau from 1998-2000, warned Miller's amendment would lead to less cooperation by immigrants who are already too often wary of census takers, and a less complete and less accurate census.

I think it's pretty clear which party would benefit from this, don't you? It's true that a couple of upper midwest swing states might gain a seat or two, but for the most part it's the big blue population centers that will suffer. And you can bet that the necessary gerrymandering that comes with such a scheme will be well planned to take care of Republicans in states in which immigrant communities suddenly "disappear" from the body politic.

These are the little landmines that Karl and company have set throughout our political structure that are going to have reverberations for decades. Right now the immigration debate is dividing the GOP more than the Republicans and Democrats. But who knows where things will be in a couple of years? Karl and company play the long game and bet that it's always better to institutionalize their strict numerical advantage.

Short term they may be trying to play to the hispanic vote, but ultimately it's all about solidifying their base to such an extent that they never have to do more than win a few showy races to maintain a majority. Big business doesn't care one bit about whether legal and illegal immigrants are represented in the census. If it takes the heat off of the cheap labor debate, they would be perfectly happy to support it. And this feeds the angry white vote nicely.

This is how you keep a political machine well oiled and working even if you wind up spending quality time in a federal prison. The mob works this way too.



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digby 12/27/2005 12:39:00 PM |

 
Clutched Pearl Cluster

The Kippies have been announced and each one is more perfect than the rest. I do have one quibble, however. My personal favorite, Chris Matthews, didn't win Best Wank for his repeated exhortation that a man, a real man, a manly man filled with masculinity, be sent in to save the day in New Orleans. Is there a bigger public wank in history than this?

Will the most powerful vice president in American history become the man who ramrods the rise of the new South and with it a legacy that could promote a draft for a Cheney presidency? The question is a big one. Is Cheney charging down South to serve as President Bush's executioner or full-fledged viceroy?

[...]

"a tough guy...smart politician.. trying to figure out how to get his president out of a jam... smart guy, tough warrior..aware that now that he's put his [huge] boots on the ground he has a stake in this. How big a foot is he going to land on this issue."

Fo shizzle my nizzle

I'm sorry that Chris didn't win a Kippie this year despite his many heroic paeans to Republican manly manness. But then Cary Grant never won an Oscar either. Sometimes life isn't fair. (As with so many of the greats, maybe the problem is that he just makes it look so easy.)

Chris can take heart that he earned the Media Matters "misinformer of the year" so it's not like his stand-out performance went unrewarded. And there's always next year --- all the commentators are telling us on a loop that Bush is poised for a comeback, and there is no greater chronicler of the rise of the codpiece than our man Chris.


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digby 12/27/2005 11:36:00 AM |

 
Truthiness

by digby

Jane appropriately excoriates the WaPo ombudsman, Deborah Howell, for her he said/she said prescription for even more confusing and useless reporting. I think this column may just be the perfect example of everything that's wrong with modern journalism.

Howell comments on a report about military recruiting that stated that more recruits are coming from low income and rural families:

Numbers aren't just facts. They can be interpreted in many ways, even if they come from the same or similar sources.

Ann Scott Tyson, a respected military reporter just back from Iraq, wrote in a front-page story Nov. 4 that "newly released Pentagon demographic data show that the military is leaning heavily for recruits on economically depressed rural areas where youths' need for jobs may outweigh the risks of going to war."

[...]

The story, which was largely based on Pentagon data, included some analysis done by the National Priorities Project (NPP), a liberal-leaning think tank that questions the war in Iraq. The NPP also used Pentagon, census and Zip code data. A different analysis, released by the conservative Heritage Foundation a few days later, was reported by other media outlets.

In looking at the story, I talked to Curt Gilroy, who, as director of accession policy for the secretary of defense, has oversight of all active-duty recruiting; Tim Kane, a Heritage researcher; Betty Maxfield, demographer of the Army; Bruce Orvis, director of the Manpower and Training Program at the Rand Corp.'s Arroyo Center, and Robert Brandewei, director of the Defense Manpower Data Center in Monterey, Calif.

All said the story and NPP analysis lacked context because they did not report trends over the past several years and did not look at "nationally representative data" or the entire recruit population. A statement from Gilroy and Maxfield said that "incomes and socioeconomic status of recruits' families closely mirror the U.S. population. These findings are contrary to those" in Tyson's article.

[...]

My bottom line on polls and surveys, no matter what kind: Look for the widest context. Ask as many experts as possible what the numbers mean. Numbers can be right but not tell the full story, and that's the case with the article on recruiting.

Shorter Deborah Howell:

There are those who think with their heads and those who know with their hearts... But the gut's where the truth comes from...I know some of you may not trust your gut yet. But with my help you will. The truthiness is that anyone can report the news to you, but I promise to feel the news at you.

Unfortunately for Howell, her "clarification" only leads to a muddy, unfathomable mess. After reading her further reporting, you have absolutely no idea what the truth is. She should have written her cute little opener to say "numbers are partisan and have an agenda. If you are a supporter of the administration you can believe the pentagon and Heritage analysts. If you are a liberal traitor, you can believe this crappy NPP think tank. It's all about choice."

Howell is promoting that absolute worst kind of he said/she said journalism in this piece. She does not recommend any kind of context in the reporting that might illuminate the Pentagon or Heritage agendas, such as the trouble the military has had with recruiting or the different sales pitches that the military uses in different areas. She does not seek out an academic statistician who might be able to look at all the statistics and sort them out in some way so that readers could come to a reasonable conclusion.

And for someone who so believes in telling all sides of a story, I think it might have been helpful if she told her readers what prompted her to write on this subject in the first place, don't you? Was it, perhaps, a complaint from the pentagon which pointed out the conservative Heritage Foundation's contradictory figures? (We know it wasn't average readers, whom she and others at the Post consider nuisances.)

I do not know if the WaPo's new ombudsman is political but she is remarkably willing to assume liberal bias in the Post's reporting and recommend a "counterbalance" of right wing bullshit to even it out. In fact, this seems to be the Post's answer to everything, lately.

As we have all written about ad nauseum in the blogs these last few years, this is what we hate about mainstream journalism these days. This idea that "numbers aren't just facts." Yes, they fucking well are. Numbers are numbers. They don't have feelings, they aren't obscure. They are what they are. They can be used in different ways, yes, but the job of journalists isn't just to point out all the different interpretations and let the reader choose on the basis of which political party they belong to, it's to reveal how they being used in different ways and why.

I already know that the Heritage Foundation and the pentagon have an agenda. I take Howell at her word that the NPP is a liberal think tank that is against the war. I don't give a shit about any of that. What I would like to know is whether or not the military is recruiting more from lower income and rural areas and if so, why?

The editor of the paper defended the original piece by saying this:

Post National Editor Michael Abramowitz said, "Ann set out to tell the story of what kind of young people are joining today's military. Obviously the armed services draw from a range of demographic, income and ethnic groups. The Pentagon's own numbers indicate that that the military is drawing disproportionally from rural and southern communities, and from families with slightly lower incomes than the population in general.

"The numbers also show a close correlation between the unemployment rate and recruiting. These are the phenomena that Ann accurately described in her story. While we did note some trends, such as the growth in wealthier recruits, we probably could have done a better job highlighting some of the nuances in recruiting patterns and providing more context. But the overall thrust of the story still seems accurate and sound to us."

That's not good enough for Howell, whose further consultations with pentagon, Heritage and Rand analysts report a bunch of arcane gobblodygook that I defy Howell or anyone else to interpret.

But then, I guess that's the point. In order to be fair one must go out of one's way not to tell the truth. The facts, after all, are biased.



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digby 12/27/2005 10:02:00 AM |

Monday, December 26, 2005

 
Southern Fried

Atrios links to Novakula's column today in which he discusses Trent Lott's agnizing over whether to seek another term. I think we've all wondered if Katrina would have an impact on the GOP in Mississippi and Alabama and this may be the test. (New Orleans' African American disapora is very likely to result in a stronger Louisiana GOP) I suspect he thinks it's time to cash out. They'll never be a better opportunity.

Atrios also highlights Novak's last line which I also think is the most interesting aspect of the piece:

When George W. stood aside while Trent Lott was tossed out, I wrote on Dec. 23, 2002, that the secret liberal theme behind his defenestration was that "the GOP's Southern base, the bedrock of its national election victories, is an illegitimate legacy from racist Dixiecrats.

Now, three years later, that bedrock may be eroding.

I don't know why he thinks it was secret. That view is right out in the open and it happens to be true. Both the Republicans and Democrats have been talking about the southern strategy for decades. (Perhaps Novak thinks the mass defections from Democrat to Republican in the south directly on the heels of the voting rights act of 1964 was a coincidence?)

In any case, that's not what's interesting. It's that he thinks the "bedrock" of the southern GOP base may be eroding. Personally, I doubt it, at least in any significant sense. However, many of the structural problems conservative writer Christopher Caldwell predicted in his famous contrarian article "the Southern Captivity of the GOP" from 1998 could be coming to fruition.

9/11 obscured them but the problems remain. Here are some excerpts from that article:

The party's 1994 majority came thanks to a gain of nineteen seats in the South. In 1996 Republicans picked up another six seats in the Old Confederacy. But that only makes their repudiation in the rest of the country the more dramatic. The party has been all but obliterated in its historical bastion of New England, where it now holds just four of twenty-three congressional seats. The Democrats, in fact, dominate virtually the entire Northeast. The Republicans lost seats in 1996 all over the upper Midwest -- Michigan, Wisconsin (two seats), Iowa, and Ohio (two seats). Fatally, they lost seats in all the states on the West Coast. Their justifiable optimism about the South aside, in 1996 it became clear that the Democratic Party was acquiring regional strongholds of equal or greater strength.

[...]

The Republican Party is increasingly a party of the South and the mountains. The southernness of its congressional leaders -- Speaker Newt Gingrich, of Georgia; House Majority Leader Dick Armey and House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, of Texas; Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, of Mississippi; Senate Majority Whip Don Nickles, of Oklahoma -- only heightens the identification. There is a big problem with having a southern, as opposed to a midwestern or a California, base. Southern interests diverge from those of the rest of the country, and the southern presence in the Republican Party has passed a "tipping point," at which it began to alienate voters from other regions.

As southern control over the Republican agenda grows, the party alienates even conservative voters in other regions. The prevalence of right-to-work laws in southern states may be depriving Republicans of the socially conservative midwestern trade unionists whom they managed to split in the Reagan years, and sending Reagan Democrats back to their ancestral party in the process. Anti-government sentiment makes little sense in New England, where government, as even those who hate it will concede, is neither remote nor unresponsive.

[...]

Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, ... and insists that libertarians and moralists can still cohabit. And since Norquist is a key -- if not the key -- adviser to Newt Gingrich, his interpretation can be taken as a semi-official Republican understanding of what's left of Ronald Reagan's electorate. "The Reagan coalition is the Leave Us Alone coalition," Norquist says. "Tax activists want their paychecks left alone. Pro-family people want their kids left alone. Ralph Reed's constituents are not interested in running other people's lives. They don't care what odd people do in San Francisco on Saturday afternoon."

For his part, Reed, formerly the executive director of the Christian Coalition and now a Georgia-based political and public-affairs consultant, thinks the two wings get along as well as ever. Looking at the Republican field for President in 2000, he says, "Traditional supply-siders like Steve Forbes are enthusiastically embracing the social dogma of the party. Lamar Alexander is moving to the right, guys like John Ashcroft are picking up steam, John Kasich is talking about faith in God. I see a holistic message developing." To an extent Reed is right: this is not 1963 or 1964, when the Rockefeller wing and the Goldwater wing fought an intraparty civil war. Yet there is something more troubling going on. Every Republican candidate now has to "make his bones," to prove his good faith by declaring his unequivocal willingness to alienate the "elites" of the country. Describing the Christian right to a reporter last fall, the former Washington congressman Randy Tate, who is now the executive director of the Christian Coalition, said, "They don't just want to be given crumbs off the table and taken for granted." Far from proving Republican tolerance, the rapprochement Reed points to is merely the sound of the Republicans' cosmopolitan wing crying "Uncle."

This southern takeover is part of a natural, if paradoxical, transformation. It parallels the way the Goldwater debacle of 1964 destabilized the Democratic Party -- by sending alienated northern Republican progressives into the Democrats' ranks. These progressives joined with northern urbanites to forge a party that was more to their liking, though it was too liberal for the Democratic Party's stalwart southern conservatives -- and, eventually, too liberal for the nation as a whole. In like fashion, Democratic excesses since the seventies may have destabilized the Republican Party by chasing those southerners into the fold, transforming the Republican Party into a machine that is steadily becoming too conservative for the country.

There has always been tension between the Republicans' constituent wings. What long masked it was the Cold War. The Reaganite party was never a two-part but always a three-part coalition, of social conservatives, economic conservatives, and foreign-policy hawks. The hawks' group was minuscule, but it happened that their passion (anti-communism) was shared by Christians and capitalists alike.

[...]


When the Republicans can no longer promise tax cuts, they're left with only the most abrasive aspects of the Reagan message, kept under wraps throughout the 1980s: the southern morals business. If the Republicans didn't believe in shrinking government, they didn't believe in the freedom that it was supposed to promote -- which made it much harder to argue that their moral agenda was being advanced in the name of live and let live. And what did they have besides the moral agenda?

The Republicans are too conservative: their deference to their southern base is persuading much of the country that their vision is a sour and crabbed one. But they're too liberal, too, as their all-out retreat from shrinking the government indicates. At the same time, the Republicans have passed none of the reforms that ingratiated the party with the "radical middle." The Republicans' biggest problem is not their ideology but their lack of one. Stigmatized as rightists, behaving like leftists, and ultimately standing for nothing, they're in the worst of all possible worlds.

There is messaging "gold" in that article now that it is crystal clear that the Republicans are not the party of small government and it lies here:

If the Republicans didn't believe in shrinking government, they didn't believe in the freedom that it was supposed to promote -- which made it much harder to argue that their moral agenda was being advanced in the name of live and let live.

How can Norquist's "leave us alone" coalition exist in a party that supports the government spying on its citizens and supports intrusion into a family's most difficult medical decisions? How can a "leave us alone" coalition support a president who acts like a king? How can decent people who believe in moral values continue to work hard and support a party that is corrupt to its core?

They can't.

Caldwell concluded with this:

Their party is now directionless, with only two skills to recommend it: first, identifying and prosecuting the excesses of its opponents; second, rigging the campaign-finance system to protect its incumbency long after it has ceased having any ideas that would justify incumbency. The Republican Party is an obsolescent one. It may continue to rule, disguised as a majority by electoral legerdemain. But it will be a long time before the party is again able to rule from a place in Americans' hearts.

They gave up trying to rule from a place in America's heart some time ago and are now ruling from some place in America's gut. Fear (or the fun "horror movie" version of it anyway) is what they use to keep the disparate threads of Norquist's coalition together. I think, however, Bush's misdhandling of Iraq and Katrina -- not to mention the ridiculous overplaying of the terrorist threat --- may have dampened their prospects for a repeat of their successful communist fearmongering of the past.

I think that Caldwell's thesis is proven by the fact that Bush won so narrowly in 2004 and that they were unable to gain any Senate seats outside of deep red territory. They couldn't win any house seats outside of the rigged Texas gerrymander. Bush's popular vote margin came from turnout in the deep south, not because of any gains elsewhere. I ask you, if a Republican incumbent couldn't win big in that election, when we were just three years from a major terrorist attack and deeply engaged in wars in two countries, then what will it take?

They've got the south for the time being. The question for them is if they can legitimately win anywhere else. If Novak is right and they are starting to lose their grip a little bit there then they've reached their high water mark.



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digby 12/26/2005 01:34:00 PM |

 
Jeanne D'Arc needs a new computer.

I can't imagine a blogosphere without Body and Soul, can you?

It's common wisdom that this administration has, from the outset, and right up to the present, made a habit of accusing others of what it is guilty of. I've always thought of that as just an effective technique -- put your opposition on the defense, so that, at best, no one notices what you're doing, and, at worst, people excuse your crimes because the other side supposedly does it too.

But when self-described Christians are choosing to replicate the history of their faith in reverse, casting themselves in the villains' place, while somehow still claiming the innocence of holy victims, it looks more like pathology than political spin. They remind me of Alex in A Clockwork Orange, aroused by Christian iconography, fantasizing himself as a Roman soldier. Then throw in something too twisted for Alex --fantasizing himself, simultaneously, as a martyr.

Sick. Just sick, these Clockwork Christians.

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digby 12/26/2005 12:36:00 PM |

Sunday, December 25, 2005

 
Guest Post


Bush's Head

by Poputonian


James Wolcott’s recent reference to Digby’s blog as “a Paul Revere gallop through the pitched night of the Bush years” reminds me of this passage from Paul Revere's Ride, a 1994 book by the great historian David Hackett Fischer. The passage seems relevant to the recent discussion (triggered by the Kos article in WM) about the role blogs play in political discourse. Fischer sees Revere in relationship to the overall Revolutionary movement and debunks the myth that he was a "just a messenger." He describes Revere as an important cog *in a liberal movement* that was "open and pluralist" and made up of "an alliance of many overlapping groups." Revere was a silversmith by day, but away from his trade he was doing much more for the rebel cause, and it was more than a poetic midnight ride. This has a feel to it, like maybe this is what bloggers did before computers, in a day when everything was closer, within physical reach, and people did their politics face to face.


Paul Revere's Role in the Revolutionary Movement

The structure of Boston's revolutionary movement, and Paul Revere's place within it, were very different from recent secondary accounts. Many historians have suggested that this movement was a tightly organized, hierarchical organization, controlled by Samuel Adams and a few other dominant figures. These same interpretations commonly represent Revere as a minor figure who served his social superiors mainly as a messenger.

A very different pattern emerges from the following comparison of seven groups: the Masonic lodge that met at the Green Dragon Tavern; the Loyal Nine, which was the nucleus of the Sons of Liberty; the North Caucus that met at the Salutation Tavern; the Long Room Club in Dassett Alley; the Boston Committee of Correspondence; the men who are known to have participated in the Boston Tea Party; and Whig leaders on a Tory Enemies List.

A total of 255 men were in one or more of these seven groups. Nobody appeared on all seven lists, or even as many as six. Two men, and only two, were in five groups; they were Joseph Warren and Paul Revere, who were unique in the breadth of their associations.

Other multiple memberships were as follows. Five men (2.0%) appeared in four groups each: Samuel Adams, Nathaniel Barber, Henry Bass, Thomas Chase, and Benjamin Church. Seven men (2.7%) turned up on three lists (James Condy, Moses Grant, Joseph Greenleaf, William Molineux, Edward Proctor, Thomas Urann, and Thomas Young).

Twenty-seven individuals (10.6%) were on two lists (John Adams, Nathaniel Appleton, John Avery, Samuel Barrett, Richard Boynton, John Bradford, Ezekiel Cheever, Adam Collson, Samuel Cooper, Thomas Crafts, Caleb Davis, William Dennie, Joseph Eayrs, William Greenleaf, John Hancock, James Otis, Elias Parkman, Samuel Peck, William Powell, John Pulling, Josiah Quincy, Abiel Ruddock, Elisha Story, James Swan, Henry Welles, Oliver Wendell, and John Winthrop). The great majority, 211 of 255 (82.7%), appeared only on a single list. Altogether, 94.1% were in only one or two groups.

This evidence strongly indicates that the revolutionary movement in Boston was more open and pluralist than scholars have believed. It was not a unitary organization, but a loose alliance of many overlapping groups. That structure gave Paul Revere and Joseph Warren a special importance, which came from the multiplicity and range of their alliances.

None of this is meant to deny the preeminence of other men in different roles. Samuel Adams was especially important in managing the Town Meeting, and the machinery of local government, and was much in the public eye. Otis was among its most impassioned orators. John Adams was the penman of the Revolution. John Hancock was its "milch cow," as a Tory described him. But Revere and Warren moved in more circles than any others. This gave them their special roles as the linchpins of the revolutionary movement -- its communicators, coordinators, and organizers of collective effort in the cause of freedom.

Another list (too long to be included here) survives of 355 Sons of Liberty who met at the Liberty Tree in Dorchester in 1769. Once again, Paul Revere appears on it. There were at least two other Masonic lodges in Boston at various periods before and during the Revolution; Paul Revere is known to have belonged to at least one of them. In addition to the North Caucus, there was also a South Caucus and a Middle Caucus. Paul Revere may or may not have belonged to them as well; some men joined more than one. No definitive lists of members have been found. But it is known that Revere was a member of a committee of five appointed "to wait on the South End caucus and the Caucus in the middle part of town," and that he met with them (Goss, Revere, II, 639). Several Boston taverns were also centers of Whig activity. Revere had connections with at least two of them-Cromwell's Head, and the Bunch of Grapes. The printing office of Benjamin Edes was another favorite rendezvous. In the most graphic description of a gathering there by John Adams, once again Paul Revere was recorded as being present.

In sum, the more we learn about the range and variety of political associations in Boston, the more open, complex and pluralist the revolutionary movement appears, and the more important (and significant) Paul Revere's role becomes. He was not the dominant or controlling figure. Nobody was in that position. The openness and diversity of the movement were the source of his importance. Appendix D, page 301, Paul Revere's Ride, by David Hackett Fischer, New York, 1994.

People will use blogs as they wish, but their important role in directing the actions and messages of a political movement is becoming more and more undeniable. The liberal blogs that I read *usually make their assertions* in an open and pluralist way, not in a top down hierarchical fashion; independent and distributed, yet coordinated and overlapping. This is quite the opposite of our *conservative* adversaries. [I changed rightwing to conservative because the real conservatives hate to be painted with the Bush brush. Tough shit.]


Fischer's description of Revere as a 'linchpin, communicator, coordinator, and organizer of collective effort' seems also seems apropos (heh). It's pure teamwork, where each role is small, even miniscule, but in the aggregate can lead to an essential outcome, which in today’s political environment is the shedding of authoritative conservatism in favor of an open pluralism.


And wouldn't you give just about anything to sit in a place called, Bunch of Grapes? Or how about The Green Dragon Tavern or Cromwell's Head? With luck, maybe someday there will be an establishment called Bush's Head.



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digby 12/25/2005 11:58:00 PM |

Saturday, December 24, 2005

 
Radioactive Muslims

Glenn Greenwald sees through the new "leak" about the government being forced (gosh darn it to heck) to monitor Muslims for nukes. Similar to how the convenient color coded terrorist warnings leading up to the election last year were designed to keep the president's poll numbers from falling, this one is designed to muddy the waters of the NSA spying scandal. After all, if Muslims are suspected of building nuclear devices right in our backyards (God Save Us ALL!) why in the hell are we worried about a little harmless phone tapping?

The Administration’s purported efforts to find radiological activity in Muslim mosques is now supposed to be thrown onto the pile along with its lawless NSA eavesdropping program, so that the whole confusing controversy is aggregated into nothing more than the same tired, irrational terrorist-defending fetish of trying to impede George Bush in his valiant crusade to protect us from The Terrorists. And sure enough, like puppets on cue, the most blindly loyal of the Bush defenders are spitting out exactly this scary tale.

And with the images now darkly dancing around in our heads of Muslims hiding in their mosques in Los Angeles and Queens and Georgia suburbs and maybe in your own backyard, standing over a toxic brew of radiology and TNT ready to zap us all with their mushroom clouds, all of this annoying chatter about FISA and the Fourth Amendment and the NSA is supposed to meekly fade away, drowned to death by nightmares of our children with their hair on fire and glowing in the dark and George Bush trying to save them.

He asks if they will get away with it again. I dunno. At some point you have to wonder if the citizens of the US will tire of playing this little fantasy of being a nation under seige (while they shop til they drop) and want to switch the channel to little "Morning in America."

I heard a stranger in a line at the book store say the other day that he was tired of hearing the president talk about "protecting us" like he's some kind of super hero. It's possible that they've gone to the well with this one too many times. We'll see.

Update: I see that I was unclear. (Eggnog?) This looks like it was leaked because it is the kind of thing that some people will find reasonable. (I doubt that it's any more effective than making grandma take off her slippers at the airport, but whatever.) The point is that the administration likely leaked this themselves for the purpose of obscuring the seriousness of the NSA spy scandal.

If this is true, it is another case of the administration leaking classified information for political purposes. How surprising.



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digby 12/24/2005 12:08:00 PM |

 
Little Red Data Miner

It turns out the Little Red Book Story was a hoax. Thank Goodness. But lest anyone think that this means anything, check this out:

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries, they said.

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.

[...]

"There was a lot of discussion about the switches" in conversations with the court, a Justice Department official said, referring to the gateways through which much of the communications traffic flows. "You're talking about access to such a vast amount of communications, and the question was, How do you minimize something that's on a switch that's carrying such large volumes of traffic? The court was very, very concerned about that."

Since the disclosure last week of the N.S.A.'s domestic surveillance program, President Bush and his senior aides have stressed that his executive order allowing eavesdropping without warrants was limited to the monitoring of international phone and e-mail communications involving people with known links to Al Qaeda.

What has not been publicly acknowledged is that N.S.A. technicians, besides actually eavesdropping on specific conversations, have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might point to terrorism suspects. Some officials describe the program as a large data-mining operation.

That's what we all thought. TIA Redux. Which means they have likely been sifting through millions of Americans' communications, with the acquiescence of your friendly neighborhood phone and internet provider, looking for keywords, patterns ... well, we don't know, now do we, because it's all done with no oversight. They could be looking for signs of illicit blow jobs, which is, as we all know, a major threat to the republic.

I would not expect that this mining is quite as sophisticated as we might like. After all, we are surveilling Quakers and PETA because they are terrorist threats so I wouldn't look for the NSA to have some mind boggling, science fiction level capabilities to sort out the person who is discussing current events from the terrorist trying to kill us all.

Oh well. If you don't want to be a suspect, just don't use your phone or computer. Or the US mail. Or an airplane. Or a library. And if you do use those things, just don't say anything that a computer might interpret to be a threat. Is that so hard? Use your heads, people. This is what we have to do to preserve our freedom.




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digby 12/24/2005 09:23:00 AM |

Friday, December 23, 2005

 
Meme of Fours

by digby

Kevin passes the torch of this new meme to me thinking that it will reveal something interesting about me. I doubt that it will, but here goes:


Four jobs you've had in your life: pizza cook, Alaska pipeline worker, medical transcriber, VP of business affairs.

Four movies you could watch over and over: The Godfather, Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally, Dr Strangelove.

Four places you've lived: Fairbanks Alaska; Ankara Turkey; Bangkok Thailand; Bay St Louis, Mississippi.

Four TV shows you love to watch: The Daily Show, The Family Guy, Deadwood, Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Four places you've been on vacation: Mykonos, Greece; Chitna Alaska; Pismo Beach California, Avignon, France

Four websites you visit daily: Atrios, Firedoglake, The Sideshow, Alicublog (and gawd knows how many hundreds of others ...)

Four of your favorite foods: sourdough bread, salami, soft cheese, chocolate (and Zocor)

Four places you'd rather be: Amsterdam, Kauai, San Francisco, Lake Como


Peter Daou, the ball is in your court.

Update:
Here it is.


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digby 12/23/2005 01:10:00 PM |

 
Something To Believe In

the digby


Lots of people are discussing this article about Kos in the new Washington Monthly and wondering whether we need more wonkery and less partisanship in the blogosphere.

It seems to me that there is a lot of great accessible policy analysis in the left blogosphere. Max Sawicky notes that that wonkery rises to the occasion when needed, as in the social security debate (and, I would argue, Juan Cole and other foreign policy specialists when Iraq debates have raged.) Specialists abound. There is political wonkery in the form of analysts like Ruy Teixeira at Donkey Rising. Nathan Newman is the go to on labor issues. PZ Myers and Chris Mooney on science. Economists and lawyers abound, Maxspeak, Angry Bear, Balkinization, Talk Left, Scotusblog, the list goes on. TPM Cafe is a salon devoted to wonkery.

And within the wonkosphere there are generalists and specialists, more often the latter, for obvious reasons. Kevin Drum is a generalist wonk. He has many interests that he enjoys exploring with graphs and data. Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias do too. Most blogwonks aren't like that. (You'll notice that all three of those guys are employed by liberal magazines that specialize in popular wonkery.)

These and the many great blogwonks are essential to the left blogosphere. They are a tremendous resource that I (a card carrying partisan crank) treasure and I link to them more often than anyone else. They are often compelling writers who effectively convey complex information to the lay reader and offer excellent analysis. So I'm not sure I see the beef. I rarely find it difficult to get educated on any number of subjects when I need to (which is often.)

Having said that, I disagree that the rest of the blogsphere is a bunch of screaming hysterics who engage in nothing but "agitation" or partisan catcalling. They all discuss politics --- you're not a member of the left blogsphere if you don't --- and they discuss the subject in different ways with analysis, humor, polemic, grassroots activism, criticism and historical perspective. The big blogs like Kos and Atrios have created virtual communities within the larger community for people to gather and talk about the issues of the day. And that, believe it or not, is the essence of politics.

In the Politics Aristotle said:

"That man is much more a political animal than any kind of bee or any herd animal is clear. For, as we assert, nature does nothing in vain, and man alone among the animals has speech....[S]peech serves to reveal the advantageous and the harmful and hence also the just and unjust. For it is peculiar to man as compared to the other animals that he alone has a perception of good and bad and just and unjust and other things of this sort; and partnership in these things is what makes a household and a city."

Politics is way more than wonkery, although wonkery is essential. And the partisan catcalling is a natural part of it, particularly in highly polarized times such as this. It's human, for better or worse. People need to find solidarity and they need to express their fears, frustrations, desires, needs and beliefs. People turn to bloggers and each other to connect the dots and connect to others.

Wonkery is reason. The comaraderie we find among those of our online political tribe is heart. Successful politics requires both. I've often felt that one of the problems with liberalism is that we lost touch with that side of ourselves --- as Ezra has called it, our "inner RFK" --- the part that gets inspired (or angry) because we deeply believe in something.

Our technocratic side is far superior for actual governance, as we've recently been shown in spades. But it is a grave mistake to think that politics is, or ever has been, fueled by a concept like "competence." It's fueled by much bigger concepts like "leadership" and "inspiration" and "committment." We need some of that stuff, badly.

So I say hooray for the wonkosphere and the crankosphere. I know that each side sometimes offends the sensibilities of the other but we should warmly embrace our bretheren no matter what our temperaments incline us to. Robust progressive politics requires both.



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digby 12/23/2005 08:35:00 AM |

Thursday, December 22, 2005

 
He Said/She Said

by digby

Speaking of media malfesance, here's a barn burner of a post by Avedon Carol on the alleged "even-handedness" of the press.

The so-called "objectivity" we are seeing today is very different from what we saw 30 years ago, for the simple reason that when you refuse to acknowledge that one side is telling the truth while the other is lying, that's not objective. Objectively, Bush lied and Gore didn't, but you'd never have known that from the mainstream media's coverage of the 2000 campaign. Objectively, there is no more important thing to do in an election than make sure everyone can vote and then count all the ballots, but you wouldn't have known that, either.

In that regard, I have to give some props to Andrea Mitchell today sitting in for Chris Matthews. She actually did call glassy-eyed Governor Bill Owen of Colorado out on his RNC mandated stream of consiousness blather about "Aldrich Ames - Brooklyn bridge - Jamie Gorelick - known terrorists - protecting America - 9/11 - Clintoncarterdemocrats." She said outright that what he was saying wasn't true.

The problem is that the Republican machine is like the Borg. They only have one brain. Owen did not compute her factual rebuttal; he just repeated his mantra, calmly and cooly, because he doesn't really know what he's saying --- he's just reading from the approved script. He has no idea what's true and what isn't and he doesn't care.

I'd like to welcome Andrea Mitchell into the reality based community. Maybe she'll stay awhile.



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digby 12/22/2005 05:37:00 PM |

 
Down Boy

by digby

Commenter francesangeles spotted this article by Richard Morin, the angry WaPo pollster, from just the other day:

Finally, an explanation for why bar bets sometimes escalate into bar fights: Levels of a "high-octane" form of testosterone soar when men think others don't trust them.

When I saw the picture attached to the article, I realized that I had seen Richard Morin interviewed by Fox's Bill Hemmer yesterday about the president's exciting new poll numbers. I commented to the cat how bizarre it was that the guy appeared to be so happy, almost giddy, about it. (Fleaber agreed that the guy's affect was downright euphoric.) If anyone has footage, let me know.

I think we might be dealing with a straight-up kool-aider.



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digby 12/22/2005 03:37:00 PM |

 
Protect Us

by digby

For a connect-the-Bush-atrocities, with heavy linkage, check out this post at HuffPo by Joshua Bearman. It makes a nice Christmas e-mail for your Republican relatives:

It would be one thing if we were safer. But our modern day Sun King cloaks his seizure of power in so much poll-tested national security language despite that he is not, in fact, protecting us at all. The residents of the three cities Bush cited voted overwhelmingly against him because they rightly sensed that Bush's reckless foreign adventures and lack of a real domestic security policy MAKES US ALL LESS SAFE. It doesn't take much critical analysis to figure out why. Here is a guy who, after September 11, failed to increase funding for nuclear non-proliferation, which the non-partisan commission the President himself appointed called the single greatest threat to our safety. Collecting the world's loose nukes was the first thing on my mind on September 12th, 2001, so I'm a little confused as why it's taken the President four years to catch on.

Then there's Iraq, where Bush has decided to throw away $200+ billion -- money that could have paid for an entire wish list of domestic security programs. Right now, our own military, fueled by Bush's swaggering cowboy routine has become the most effective recruiting tool for anti-American sentiment and insurgents in Iraq. If you find that to be a subjective assessment, here's a joint study by the Israeli and Saudis (!) that quantifies the Iraq Effect. And who doesn't recall Rumsfeld accidentally wondering aloud if the insurgents weren't replacing their numbers faster than our troops could ever kill them?

"To protect us"?

Is that why the 9/11 Commission's report card earlier this month had a single "A" out of 41 categories, while the bottom was filled out with 12 "D"s and 5 "F"s? The President got a "D" on Securing WMD's, the supposed reason we're stirring up the hornets' nest in Iraq. Commission member and former republican governor of Illinois James Thompson said it straight: "Are we crazy? Why aren't our tax dollars being spent to protect our lives?"

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digby 12/22/2005 03:10:00 PM |

 
Repentant Republicans

by digby

Last night I wrote post called "Adults Wanted" and a reader sent me a link to this essay called "Confessions of a Repentant Republican" which is an extremely cogent, precise and lucid critique of the current administration's policies from the perspective of someone who understands the enlightenment principles that undergird our system. He speaks in terms that transcend politics and go far beyond our current partisan obsessions.

Here's an excerpt:

Americans, with broad bipartisan support, have not only embedded our unambiguous rejection of torture into American law (establishing legal constraints which the Bush administration is now determined to dismantle), but have for generations been in the forefront of establishing such standards worldwide through treaties including the Geneva Conventions.

Similarly, previous generations of Americans - left, right, and center - have been unified in the belief that not only is such conduct essential for the safety of our own captured servicemen and women, but that any nation which does not adhere to its own basic values (regardless of any self-proclaimed virtue) would cease to possess the moral prerequisites for genuine success.

Our present need for "the decent respect for the opinions of mankind" is no less compelling than it was for our founders. But the primary need for realigning our actions with our values is not improved public relations. The most compelling need is, for the benefit of our own society, to reaffirm moral constraints upon our actions, individual and collective, without which the character of our nation will be diminished.

Accomplishing this can only be done by reframing the issues in a manner which befits our Judeo-Christian and American values.

This will be contentious. The unifying values implanted by America's founders - values of liberty, non-aggression, and antipathy to authoritarian government; have historically prevailed only despite significant opposition from Americans with less honorable priorities. Indeed, the very eloquence with which Jefferson, Madison, and other founders defended civil liberties and warned repeatedly of the dangers of unrestrained executive power and the pernicious consequences of war and empire is primarily because their views were not universal. Their beliefs in liberty, defended by non-aggressive, anti-imperial foreign policy, and the right of dissent have survived to become the "common ground" of the American civic vision only after bitter and divisive political battles. During such times these cherished principles - now universally claimed (even those whose oppose the substance of their beliefs claim them rhetorically as their own) and taken for granted have not infrequently been severely threatened.

Today the rhetoric of this consensus American vision of liberty and non-aggression remains unscathed. But the substance of the beliefs of our founders (which constitutes the basic common ground of our political compact) is under assault. Certainly no one overtly challenges our commitment to liberty and democracy. Yet we witness proponents of freedom at home and abroad advocating perpetual military occupation, rationalizing permanent detention of American citizens without charges or trial, and those who claim to respect the rule of law remaining silent while administration lawyers concoct methods for the president to evade American legal prohibitions of torture and promote the legal theory that the president has the inherent authority to set aside American law.

This being the web, it's always possible that this person is a Democrat in disguise but I don't think so. His critique hinges on the idea that isolationsim is inherently American, and that is bedrock conservative of the old school, not liberal of the new school.

His critique is something that I had expected more "adult" Republicans to come to by now, to tell you the truth --- the people I think many of us expected were peppered throughout the ruling class and who would step up if the kids got out of hand. Sadly, it seems that most of them are either dying out or have become consumed by the partisan war that saps so much strength from all of us.

I urge you to read his entire essay. Even though he considers himself part of the "anti-war" majority, progressive intellectuals will undoubtedly disagree with some of it. But he lays out the argument around which people of good will who value the basic fundamental principles of our constitutional system might be able to find consensus. I just don't know how many of those people are out there.



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digby 12/22/2005 12:16:00 PM |

 
Public Scorn

by digby

Following up the post below about the White house polling operation, Paul Lukasiak in the comments notices another dimension to this problem that I missed and it's very interesting:

The Post had no problem asking this question as far back as March 2005

17. (IF DECREASED, Q16) Should all U.S. forces in Iraq be withdrawn
immediately, or should they be decreased, but not all withdrawn immediately?

Now, at that time (and to this day) NO Democratic Congressional Leader or Serious Presidential Candidate was advocating "immediate withdrawal" --- this was just the Bush "cut and run" straw man representation of the Democratic position.

The Post does not bother to formulate questions based on proposals advanced by leading Democrats --- there is no question about Murtha's actual proposal (phased redeployment over 6 month period when "practicable with a significant "over the horizon" presence) or withdrawal formulas offered by people like Kerry (withdraw 10,000 american troops for every 30,000 Iraqi troops that are trained.)

Furthermore, the Post is quite comfortable advancing White House straw man arguments using the "some people" method, as in this question asked starting in August...

"18. Some people say the Bush administration should set a deadline for withdrawing U.S. military forces from Iraq in order to avoid further casualties. Others say knowing when the U.S. would pull out would only encourage the anti-government insurgents. Do you yourself think the United States should or should not set a deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq?"

This was a truly insidious question --- "some people say" that the presence of US forces only exacerbates and strengthens the insurgency, and that apparently includes the vast majority of Iraqis who want us out. But you don't get that information in the question -- the only "reason" for setting a deadline is "reduction of casualties." (Not to mention the fact that no Democratic leader was saying "set a firm deadline" in August 2005....)

The reality is that the Post doesn't ask about impeachment because asking the question legitimizes the idea of impeachment -- and the Post is too beholden to the White House to permit that to happen.

This cuts to the heart of the matter. When the Washington Post (or others) ask a question, it legitimizes the question. Back in that poll in 1998, just five days after the story broke. The imnpetus for taking it was not that "serious" people were talking impeachment, it was just that "some" people were talking impeachment. And those people, with te exception of the silly George Stephanolopulos, were beltway Republicans.

Matt at MYDD today notes another example of egregious WaPo polling:

From the Washington Post's polling director Richard Morin's online chat yesterday:

New York, N.Y.: When a newspaper like The Post commissions a poll, it gives the result prominent play, usually on the front page. But when a different organization conducts a separate poll, that poll's results are given much less prominent play, and often not mentioned at all. The implicit assumption is, "Our poll is better than theirs." Is this sound journalism?

Richard Morin: See the last answer. It would be unsound journalism to ignore other survey results, particularly if they offer insights your own may lack. But to give them as prominent play? No, and I think it is unreasonable to expect us to

.

The Washington Post put on their front page a story by Richard Morin titled 'Majority of Americans Support Alito Nomination'. A Fox News poll just showed Alito with cratering approval ratings. Morin's story clearly ignores other survey results which present completely different findings, something he just called unsound. It's clear this is not an isolated incident - Chris just documented Morin's failure to live up to standards he sets for himself.

The Washington Post polling operation has a problem. They are clearly responsive to GOP pressure in their questioning and yet they get angry at what they see as coordinated Democratic pressure. Morin even insulted a member of the public for using a copy and paste e-mail to complain about polling.

Most recently, a psychology professor from Arizona State University sent me the copy-and-paste e-mail, not a word or comma was changed. I only hope his scholarship is more original.

We first laughed about it. Now, four waves into this campaign,we are annoyed. Really, really annoyed.

Some free advice: You do your cause no service by organizing or participating in such a campaign. It is viewed by me and others with the same scorn reserved for junk mail. Perhaps a bit more.

First they laugh and then they get angry. Does he assume that these aren't real people, that they are fakes, paid shills, that they don't believe what they are saying because the language has been cut and pasted? If each e-mail were originally composed would it make a difference? It doesn't seem so. It's the fact that a web-site encouraged average people to complain to the Washington Post about something those people clearly agreed was a problem. Why is that deserving of laughter and annoyance? Did he take the time to think, even once, about the substance of the complaint? If it had been lodged by a high level Republican would he have laughed and then been annoyed?

A parade of operatives and politicians go on television every day spouting robotic talking points ad nauseum and nobody says that they are illegitimate. And nobody does it more effectively than the GOP. Frank Luntz proudly and openly discusses the fact that he tells his GOP clients exactly how to phrase things. Newt Gingrich wrote the book on repeating emotional phrases over and over to paint the opposition in derisive terms.

It's quite obvious that the Republicans have staged a quarter century "campaign" to sway media coverage. Now that they are in power they marshall very heavy hitters to lodge complaints and they go right to the top. John Harris and Len Downie admitted last week that high level Republicans and the White House complain all the time and they go out of their way to allay those complaints.

I*'ll use the same example of how this works that I used in a post last week. I'm sure the same thing happens at the Post:

Russert: Libby called me to complain about something he had seen on MSNBC...

Imus: What did he complain about on MSNBC, do you remember?

Russert: I haven't gone into it,--you know-publicly-cause I just didn't want to get involved with all that viewer complaints, but I do remember it because of his language that he chose and that's why- I actually called Ben Shapiro, the president of NBC news and said I just gave your direct line to this guy named Lewis Scooter Libby, who is upset about something he watched on TV and you may hear from him.

So when a "viewer" from the White House complains it gets referred to the president of NBC News. WaPo editor Len Downie says "We want to make sure people in the [Bush] administration know that our news coverage by White House reporters is separate from what appears in Froomkin's column because it contains opinion."

Yet when readers and viewers from around the country complain via a web campaign, the recipients view their complaints with the "same scorn that is reserved for junk mail, maybe more."

It's quite clear that the mainstream media think that their readers are irrelevant when it comes to political coverage. Perhaps this explains why so many people find the mainstream media increasingly irrelevant.




Update: Here's the link to the Democrats.com post that asked people to contact the major media outlets and ask why they were refusing to ask the question when the Rasmussen and Zogby polls were showing a rather large number of Americans supporting impeachment. I don't know why this should be considered illegitimate --- especially when political editor John Harris uses a friend's enjoyment of Dan Froomkin's column as evidence of Froomkin's liberal bias.



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digby 12/22/2005 09:28:00 AM |

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

 
Madder Still

Jane reports on Richard Morion pollster for the Washington Post actually had the temerity to write this drivel yesterday in an online chat:

Naperville, Ill.: Why haven't you polled on public support for the impeachment of George W. Bush?

Richard Morin: This question makes me mad...

Seattle, Wash.: How come ABC News/Post poll has not yet polled on impeachment?

Richard Morin: Getting madder...

Haymarket, Va.: With all the recent scandals and illegal/unconstitutional actions of the President, why hasn't ABC News / Washington Post polled whether the President should be impeached?

Richard Morin: Madder still...

[...]

[W]e do not ask about impeachment because it is not a serious option or a topic of considered discussion --witness the fact that no member of congressional Democratic leadership or any of the serious Democratic presidential candidates in '08 are calling for Bush's impeachment. When it is or they are, we will ask about it in our polls.

Jane points to this Media Matters report:

A January 1998 Post poll conducted just days after the first revelations of Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky asked the following questions:

"If this affair did happen and if Clinton did not resign, is this something for which Clinton should be impeached, or not?"

"There are also allegations that Clinton himself lied by testifying under oath that he did not have an affair with the woman. If Clinton lied in this way, would you want him to remain in office as president, or would you want him to resign the presidency?"

"If Clinton lied by testifying under oath that he did not have an affair with the woman, and he did not resign, is this something for which Clinton should be impeached, or not?"

Morin was the Post's polling director at the time, and he wrote the January 26, 1998, article reporting the poll results.

I just have to expand on this a little because this is a truly unbelievable example of media bias. In an impeachment story in the Washington Post written the same day as the poll was released, January 26, Ruth Marcus breathlessly reported:

In the whirlwind five days since the story first broke, nothing has been conclusively proven about the truth of the allegations that Clinton had an affair with Lewinsky, urged her to lie about it in an affidavit in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit, and then lied about it himself under oath when questioned by Jones's lawyers.

But it is a measure of the political and legal explosiveness of the allegations that they immediately provoked discussions of impeachment, a prospect raised the morning the story broke by former presidential adviser George Stephanopoulos and discussed at length on yesterday's TV talk shows.

It was discussed on all the talk shows because useful idiot George Stephanopoulos brought it up five days before and the Republican Borg immediately fanned out across the airwaves and pretended that this sexual affair was a threat to the Republic. And the Washington post ate it up with a spoon, sending out their pollster post-haste to take the public's temperature on this trumped up piece of tabloid garbage.

Today, the same pollster gets mad when people bring up the idea of impeachment in the context of a hugely unpopular president lying about national security. He gets madder still at regular Americans who annoy him with mass e-mails which he obviously considers less legitimate than a gaggle of paid GOP shills marching in lockstep on Press The Meat. This, even though the current polling already shows that 52% of the public believe that Bush deliberately misled the country on Iraq and 56% think that it is very important for congress to question the Bush Adminstration about the way the intelligence was used. (Clinton had a 59% approval rating in that 1998 poll.)

Media Matters asks:

Please explain WHY a question asking if President Bush should be impeached if he lied to the country about war is "biased".

Please also explain how this is consistent with polls the Post ran -- under your direction, I might add -- in 1998 asking whether then-President Clinton should be impeached if he had an affair with Monica Lewinsky. Do you now believe those questions you asked -- and reported on -- throughout 1998 were "biased"? If so, do you believe you and The Post owe Clinton an apology?

Why does The Post think it is appropriate to raise the spectre of impeachment when there is a Democratic president, but not when there is a Republican in office?

Because the beltway press corps has conditioned itself to respond only to Republicans. They've trained themselves not take Democrats seriously, either the rank and file who inconvenience them with e-mails they do not want to read, or the leadership they simply disdain. Unpopularity obligates them to criticize Bush at least mildly, but the relief they feel when his numbers edge up a bit is palpable. They don't seem to know this about themselves.


And although they will likely continue to choose to avert their eyes, impeachment is on the table.



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digby 12/21/2005 06:43:00 PM |

 
Adults Wanted


by digby


Kevin Drum has a whole bunch of good posts up today discussing the right wing reaction to the spying scandal. A more reprehensible group of moral and intellecutual cowards I have never seen.

There are the typical lies and obfuscations to which we've all become accustomed, of course, such as selectively citing passages of Supreme Court opinions that actually came to opposite conclusions and purposefully misconstruing Clinton and Carter's executive orders to imply that they had done the same thing. That's just par for the course.

But there are two things about this that do chap my hide and they are related. The first is that for 40 years --- and certainly for the last 25 since Reagan became president --- we have had to listen to endless blathering about how the Republicans want to "get the government out of your lives." "If someone says 'we're the government and we're here to help you' you should run." Rugged individualist Republicans, taking care of their own, not looking to the state to solve their problems like the betwetting girly men and manly girls on the left.

During the 90's the atmosphere was redolent with militia fevered, anti-government rhetoric that echoed throughout the right wing message infrastructure. Here's a snippet of the zeitgeist of the Gingrich revolution:

My books, such as Circle of Intrigue, Big Sister is Watching You, and Project L.U.C.I.D., tell the absolute truth about the evil powers of intimidation. It documents the crimes and schemes of the black-hooded, jackbooted thugs of the BATF and many other federal Gestapo, alphabet agencies. This hidden elite constitute the true Nazis. In fact, as fascists, they are worse than Nazis. They are "CommuNazis!"

Once upon a time, America had law enforcement of which it could be proud. No more. Today, the BATF, CIA, FBI and other federal bureaucracies continue to drag the good name of law enforcement through the gutter. As my friend, Officer Jack McLamb, recently said in a World of Prophecy interview, "The scum of law enforcement has risen to the top."

"The problem," says McLamb, "is that God is gone from government."

These were extremists, to be sure, but the language on the floor of the congress often echoed this kind of thinking. Tom Delay, for instance, called the EPA the "Gestapo of government ... a bunch of jack-booted thugs.”

They won elections in the west and the south by swaggering around extolling the blessed Bill Of Rights and the need to keep the federal government at arms length because Real Men and Women don't need no Democrat sissy nanny state and her Big Brother taking away their rights.

9/11 changed everything. Suddenly the he-men of WalMart and the NRA leaped into Big Brother's arms and shrieked "save me, save me! Do what ever you have to do, they're trying to kill us all!" They now look to Daddy Government not to discipline the children, but to check under the bed for them every night, reassure them that the boogeyman won't hurt them and then read them a nice bedtime story about spreading freedom and democracy. It turns out that underneath all this swaggering bravado, the Republicans aren't the Daddy party --- they're the baby party.

This article in the Boston Globe from yesterday (via Maha in this terrific post) gets to what I think is the central problem with this country's response after 9/11; the alleged super-hawks who were leading this country wet their pants with fear and behaved like frightened children:

In march of 1933, Franklin Roosevelt, facing the crisis of the Great Depression, said in his inaugural address that ''the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

The fear people felt then was not nameless, unreasoning, nor unjustified, as Roosevelt well knew. In fact, his address went on to say that ''the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone . . . Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment."

What Roosevelt meant was that fear can distort judgment and cloud the mind's ability to perceive right turns from wrong turns in the road to safety.

[...]

The Bush administration's predilection to torture was clearly a result of mind-clouding fear caused by the greatest terrorist attack in history on Sept. 11th, 2001. The same can be said of the excesses of the Patriot Act, and, too, the decision to use the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens without benefit of warrant as required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The Bush administration has shamelessly used fear to get its way. Both the president and vice president have tried to picture a withdrawal from Iraq as resulting in an Al Qaeda takeover of Iraq, and an Al Qaeda-led Caliphate stretching across the Muslim world. In reality al Qaeda hasn't the remotest chance of taking over Iraq, not with 80 percent of the population either Kurdish or Shi'ite, and a timely end to American occupation might sooner lead to an Iraqi-Sunni disenchantment with foreign terrorists.

Of course, the right has traded on fear for so long that we can hardly remember a time when they didn't. If it isn't the commies, it's the hippies or the ATF or the terrorists. And as Kevin points out they make these ridiculous decisions over and over again because they are essentially afraid of their own shadows:

The fact is, superhawks always claim their programs are vital to American security, and they almost always turn out to be wrong. We didn't need to intern Japanese-Americans during World War II, we didn't need Joe McCarthy's theatrics during the Cold War, and we didn't need COINTELPRO during the Vietnam War. And when the Church Committee outlawed the most egregious of our intelligence abuses in the 70s, guess what happened? The Soviet Union disintegrated a decade later. Turns out we didn't need that stuff after all. America is a lot stronger than its supposed defenders give it credit for.

This idea that we are living in a unique time that calls for special measures is what they always say. (And this current fantasy about the unique threat that proved our oceans couldn't protect us is particularly rich considering they fearmongered a communist threat of total annihilation for decades.) Often cooler heads are able to quell the worst excesses (like the fervent belief that we needed to launch a tactical nuclear war against the commies) and satisfy the right wing's other ongoing paranoid fantasy --- the left as a fifth column --- with silly, wasteful surveillance of animal rights groups or Quakers or former Beatles (along with pernicious surveillance of their partisan opponents.)

They are rhinestone cowboys who are scared to death and don't know how to contain their fear. So they lash out at their domestic political enemies, who they can bluster about and pretend to be tough, while hiding behind the military uniforms of their Big Brother and Preznit Daddy (which is a real stretch when it comes to Junior.)

The fact that they continue to win elections as being the tough guys perhaps says more about our puerile culture than anything else. They lash out like frightened children and too many people see that as courage or resolve.

Violent Islamic fundamentalism is a serious problem, not an existential threat. And it's a difficult problem that requires adults who can keep their heads about them when the terrorists put on their scary show, not big-for-their-age eight year olds staging a temper tantrum.





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digby 12/21/2005 11:52:00 AM |

 
Christmas Morning

Thank you all so much for your kind contributions. I am quite overwhelmed. All I want now for Christmas is well ... Fitzmas. I knew the readers and writers of the left blogosphere were top shelf, super smart, generous and kind. What I didn't realize was how brave you are: you must realize that the NSA Shift Supervisor assigned to this blog is harried beyond belief today tracking all those transactions, some of them from .... overseas. Merry Christmas, NSA supervisor.

Special thanks to the Mensches Who Saved Christmas, my fellow bloggers who linked to my post yesterday and sent readers over here, some of whom said "I've never read your blog, but here's some money anyway, because (fill in the blank) told me I should." Now that's clout. Democrats take heed:

Jane at Firedoglake, Jeralyn at Talk Left, TBOGG, The Cunningrealist, Dave at Seeing the Forest, Kevin at Catch, A Tiny Revolution, Kevin at Lean Left, Fallen Monk and various commenters were kind enough to put out the word on the their blogs and in comment threads throughout the blogosphere. (Perhaps others who I failed to catch as well.) It's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me. And I mean that.

And thanks especially to Atrios, my blogfather, for using his valuable real estate to exhort readers to send me turkee. There are Democratic candidates out there who envy me today.

Thanks also to Sean-Paul over at the Agonist and Jake and Ellwood's dad, who heard my plaintive cry and bought ads. Kos and Jerome too. Click through, people. It'll be worth your while.

I will be sending you all individual thanks, of course, but there are quite a few of you so it will take a little time. (High class problem, eh?) I will also compile all the great advice and criticism about the site and will take it into account as I contemplate a redesign. Thanks for taking the time to let me know your thoughts and sending me your great graphic ideas. And thanks also to my pal (you know who you are) for insisting that I do this even though I was reluctant.

Finally, many of you requested a snail mail address and here it is:

Digby's Hullabaloo
2801 Ocean Park Blvd.
Box 157
Santa Monica, Ca 90405

Checks can conveniently be made out to Digby's Hullabaloo, as well. I have also been reliably informed that some of the Paypal problems may be related to stale old cookies. A few people have said that they had better luck when they cleared out their cache.


Thanks again for all of your donations and especially your kind words. They mean more to me than you will ever know.


d


Update:

More Mensches Who Saved Christmas:

John at Crooks And Liars

My good friend Peter Daou

Ian at BopNews

Da Man: James Wolcott

The fabulous Julia!

Matt at MYDD

Sadly No

The Moquol

The great Tom Tomorrow

Low and Left

Pastor Dan at Street Prophets

Three Bulls


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digby 12/21/2005 05:30:00 AM |

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

 
Stocking Stuffer Request


While everybody has their credit cards out buying a "secret Santa" moustache mug for their most hated colleague at the office, I wonder if some of you might want to throw a little cash my way while you're at it? For reasons I haven't figured out, this blog is doing miserably at selling blog-ads. Indeed, if it weren't for my friend Michael Shaw at BagNews notes (whose great graphics make any blog look better than it already does) I would have no ads at all today. During the biggest shopping season of the year, no less.

I do not know how others sell blogAds on their blogs. I belong to the
"Advertise Liberally" blog-ad network which is designed to sell across the liberal spectrum. I don't think my problems are because my ads are too expensive. I charge what everybody else charges. There have been some months that I collected a few sheckles and they really came in handy. But now, not so much.

I don't have the kind of regular community that a lot of the more popular bloggers have (although I would argue that my commenters are among the sharpest in the blogosphere) but my traffic is within the top 20 of all liberal blogs, which isn't bad for a solo blogger like myself. I've won awards, even. But one week shy of my third anniversary and I'm back to doing this for free. I may be a raving leftist, but I have to live in this capitalist world.

There is an element of the Bataan death march to daily blogging when you do it for three years running. I write slowly and do a lot of research and reading, so it takes more time than is readily evident. Every minute of it is fun, of course, but it's still ridiculous. In fact it's so much fun that I would never expect to make serious money doing it. Life could not possibly be that sweet. But I can't justify doing this without any compensation at all either. I wish to gawd that I were an eccentric billionaire who blogs psuedonymously in order to see how the little people live. Unfortunately, that is very far from the truth. (Look at it this way. If I were an eccentric billionaire, I could afford to buy my own bandwidth instead of blogging for free on blogspot, right?) No, sad to say, like most people I have those boring financial needs --- for things like shelter and food. And books. And MaxCat Senior in chicken and lamb flavor. In a blogging world where money is to be made, I just can't justify to myself that I would do it for free. I can't justify to my family that I continue turn down work for no other compensation either.

I've never asked for money on this blog before, and I will probably not ask again.(As you can gather, this embarrasses the hell out of me, which is why I'm rambling like a lunatic.) But, if you like what I do and have gotten something out of what I've written these past three years, a couple of bucks in the tip jar (in the left column over there) would be very greatly appreciated.

Oh --- and if you don't have any extra money, you could do me a big favor by just clicking on the ads I run. (I suspect that part of my problem is that I don't get much click through.) So, if you want to support me but you don't have any extra change (which I completely understand) just use my page to check out the ubiquitous blog ads. In fact, go over right now and click on BagNews notes and read what he is saying today. You won't regret it.


And Happy Hollandaise to everyone.



digby

Update: And many, many thanks to the folks who have thrown me a tip already this year, a couple of you more than once. I am very grateful.


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digby 12/20/2005 08:22:00 AM |

Monday, December 19, 2005

 
Crying Wolf

by digby

Can someone please tell the Republicans that even if the NY Times had printed the NSA story next month instead of last week that there would not have been a great swelling of Bush love over the Iraqi elections last week?

The reason the story didn't capture the public's imagination is not because the other one stepped on it; it's because we've heard it all before. The public has lost count of how many of these "milestone elections" have taken place. Each time, we are supposed to have a big group hug and congratulate ourselves for our great generosity. And then each time shit starts blowing up again in Iraq almost immediately.

The American public can hardly keep its attention on its own elections. Getting all excited about Iraqi elections that happen every few months and don't seem to mean anything just isn't going to interest them. The proof is in the pudding. Either the violence stops or it doesn't. Either we get out or we don't. The magic of the purple finger wore off months ago.



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digby 12/19/2005 07:23:00 PM |

 
Countering The Threat

by digby

Glen Greenwald takes the time to rebut Hewitt's ridiculous argument that
United States v. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan et al gives the president the power to wiretap Americans at will, when the case actually does the exact opposite. Apparently, the right blogosphere is chattering about this absurd claim like a bunch of drunken magpies.

I have nothing to add except to point to my post yesterday, when I referenced the same case, to point out again the great irony in the fact that the author of that opinion was Lewis Powell, the man who inspired the Great Republican Political Machine.

Powell was not some bleeding heart liberal. He believed that the nation was under serious threat from the New Left:

William Kunstler, warmly welcomed on campuses and listed in a recent student poll as the "American lawyer most admired," incites audiences as follows:
"You must learn to fight in the streets, to revolt, to shoot guns. We will learn to do all of the things that property owners fear."2 The New Leftists who heed Kunstler's advice increasingly are beginning to act -- not just against military recruiting offices and manufacturers of munitions, but against a variety of businesses: "Since February, 1970, branches (of Bank of America) have been attacked 39 times, 22 times with explosive devices and 17 times with fire bombs or by arsonists." Although New Leftist spokesmen are succeeding in radicalizing thousands of the young, the greater cause for concern is the hostility of respectable liberals and social reformers. It is the sum total of their views and influence which could indeed fatally weaken or destroy the system.

A chilling description of what is being taught on many of our campuses was written by Stewart Alsop:

"Yale, like every other major college, is graduating scores of bright young men who are practitioners of 'the politics of despair.' These young men despise the American political and economic system . . . (their) minds seem to be wholly closed. They live, not by rational discussion, but by mindless slogans." A recent poll of students on 12 representative campuses reported that: "Almost half the students favored socialization of basic U.S. industries."

A visiting professor from England at Rockford College gave a series of lectures entitled "The Ideological War Against Western Society," in which he documents the extent to which members of the intellectual community are waging ideological warfare against the enterprise system and the values of western society. In a foreword to these lectures, famed Dr. Milton Friedman of Chicago warned: "It (is) crystal clear that the foundations of our free society are under wide-ranging and powerful attack -- not by Communist or any other conspiracy but by misguided individuals parroting one another and unwittingly serving ends they would never intentionally promote."

But nonetheless, he still didn't believe that the threat was so overwhelming that you needed to discard the constitution and give the president dictatorial powers. He had another idea:

The overriding first need is for businessmen to recognize that the ultimate issue may be survival -- survival of what we call the free enterprise system, and all that this means for the strength and prosperity of America and the freedom of our people.

The day is long past when the chief executive officer of a major corporation discharges his responsibility by maintaining a satisfactory growth of profits, with due regard to the corporation's public and social responsibilities. If our system is to survive, top management must be equally concerned with protecting and preserving the system itself. This involves far more than an increased emphasis on "public relations" or "governmental affairs" -- two areas in which corporations long have invested substantial sums.

A significant first step by individual corporations could well be the designation of an executive vice president (ranking with other executive VP's) whose responsibility is to counter-on the broadest front-the attack on the enterprise system. The public relations department could be one of the foundations assigned to this executive, but his responsibilities should encompass some of the types of activities referred to subsequently in this memorandum. His budget and staff should be adequate to the task.

But independent and uncoordinated activity by individual corporations, as important as this is, will not be sufficient. Strength lies in organization, in careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations.

Clearly, they listened and created the most formidable national political machine in this country's history.

And despite his clear antipathy to everything that the left stood for, Powell went on to rule in the above cited case that the president did not have the unilateral power to eavesdrop on American citizens, no matter what "national security" reasons were cited. Guys like him understood that protecting America meant protecting the constitution above all. The Federalist Society? Not so much.



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digby 12/19/2005 05:46:00 PM |

 
The President's Program

by digby


Well now. Bush personally called the publisher and the editor of the NY Times in to the oval Office to get them not to publish the wire tapping story. Here's Jonathan Alter in Newsweek:

I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting, but one can only imagine the president’s desperation.

The problem was not that the disclosures would compromise national security, as Bush claimed at his press conference. His comparison to the damaging pre-9/11 revelation of Osama bin Laden’s use of a satellite phone, which caused bin Laden to change tactics, is fallacious; any Americans with ties to Muslim extremists—in fact, all American Muslims, period—have long since suspected that the U.S. government might be listening in to their conversations. Bush claimed that “the fact that we are discussing this program is helping the enemy.” But there is simply no evidence, or even reasonable presumption, that this is so. And rather than the leaking being a “shameful act,” it was the work of a patriot inside the government who was trying to stop a presidential power grab.

No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story—which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year—because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker. He insists he had “legal authority derived from the Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing force.” But the Constitution explicitly requires the president to obey the law. And the post 9/11 congressional resolution authorizing “all necessary force” in fighting terrorism was made in clear reference to military intervention. It did not scrap the Constitution and allow the president to do whatever he pleased in any area in the name of fighting terrorism.

We know that Cheney was intimately involved with this what with his closed briefings to certain members of congress and all. But this is the first of these scandals that really lands right on Bush's desk. It's his baby. This one's personal.



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digby 12/19/2005 05:31:00 PM |

 
TIA

Check out the handwritten letter from 2003 that Jay Rockefeller just released which completely obliterates the ridiculous defense that members of congress "approved" this action.

He makes it clear that he has very serious reservations about this program and says that since he is not a technician or a lawyer, and is prohibited from speaking with staff, experts or colleagues, he cannot properly evaluate this program.

He evokes Poindexter's TIA.

And he concludes with this:

I am retaining a copy of this communication in a sealed envelope in the secure spaces of the Intelligence Committee to ensure that I have a record of this communication.

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digby 12/19/2005 03:37:00 PM |

 
Efficiency Expert

Atrios and First-Draft have posts up highlighting one of the most egregious explanations for the NSA spying from this morning's briefing by Gonzales and NSA chief General Hayden: they didn't ask congress for permission because they were told by "certain" congressmen that they couldn't get it passed.

Gonzales:...We've had discussions with members of Congress, certain members of Congress, about whether or not we could get an amendment to FISA, and we were advised that that was not likely to be -- that was not something we could likely get, certainly not without jeopardizing the existence of the program, and therefore, killing the program. And that -- and so a decision was made that because we felt that the authorities were there, that we should continue moving forward with this program.

That's not Brownie It's not even Karl Rove. That's the Attorney General of the United States talking.

But there's more:

Q General, when you discussed the emergency powers, you said, agility is critical here. And in the case of the emergency powers, as I understand it, you can go in, do whatever you need to do, and within 72 hours just report it after the fact. And as you say, these may not even last very long at all. What would be the difficulty in setting up a paperwork system in which the logs that you say you have the shift supervisors record are simply sent to a judge after the fact? If the judge says that this is not legitimate, by that time probably your intercept is over, wouldn't that be correct?

GENERAL HAYDEN: What you're talking about now are efficiencies. What you're asking me is, can we do this program as efficiently using the one avenue provided to us by the FISA Act, as opposed to the avenue provided to us by subsequent legislation and the President's authorization.

Our operational judgment, given the threat to the nation that the difference in the operational efficiencies between those two sets of authorities are such that we can provide greater protection for the nation operating under this authorization.

Q But while you're getting an additional efficiency, you're also operating outside of an existing law. If the law would allow you to stay within the law and be slightly less efficient, would that be --

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALEZ: I guess I disagree with that characterization. I think that this electronic surveillance is within the law, has been authorized. I mean, that is our position. We're only required to achieve a court order through FISA if we don't have authorization otherwise by the Congress, and we think that that has occurred in this particular case.

Yes, the Bill of Rights is hell on efficiency. We really should do something about that.

They knew they were circumventing the law as written, that the congress would not agree to change it and they used a very dicey theory of presidential infallibility in wartime. They are saying that the president is re-authorizing "his program" every 45 days solely so that shift supervisors don't have to waste time with paperwork.


The original NY Times article said:

Several senior government officials say that when the special operation first began, there were few controls on it and little formal oversight outside the N.S.A. The agency can choose its eavesdropping targets and does not have to seek approval from Justice Department or other Bush administration officials. Some agency officials wanted nothing to do with the program, apparently fearful of participating in an illegal operation, a former senior Bush administration official said. Before the 2004 election, the official said, some N.S.A. personnel worried that the program might come under scrutiny by Congressional or criminal investigators if Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, was elected president.

I find that interesting, don't you?

In mid-2004, concerns about the program expressed by national security officials, government lawyers and a judge prompted the Bush administration to suspend elements of the program and revamp it.

For the first time, the Justice Department audited the N.S.A. program, several officials said. And to provide more guidance, the Justice Department and the agency expanded and refined a checklist to follow in deciding whether probable cause existed to start monitoring someone's communications, several officials said.

Now, what do you suppose these "concerns" were all about?

Here's a hint:

Those involved in the program also said that the N.S.A.'s eavesdroppers might need to start monitoring large batches of numbers all at once, and that it would be impractical to seek permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court first, according to the officials.

I would guess that these large batches of numbers were very large indeed. So large that it would be "inefficient" go to the FISA court and seek permission after the fact.

I would further guess that these large batches of numbers include a whole shitload of Americans who have nothing to do with al Qaeda. And since they had to suspend some areas of the program in 2004, I would suspect that those numbers include some people who are of interest to the administration for reasons other than terrorism.

If I were one of those "shift supervisors" (especially if I was one who had worried about John Kerry becoming president) I'd get myself a lawyer.



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digby 12/19/2005 02:19:00 PM |

 
Passion Of The Cowboys

by digby

Will "Brokeback Mountain" play in Plano? In the movie's first weekend in the Dallas suburb where the 2004 Mel Gibson film "The Passion of the Christ" earned some of its biggest grosses, the answer appeared to be yes.

After setting a record for the per-theater average for a dramatic movie in limited openings in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, critically acclaimed "Brokeback Mountain" faced its next obstacle as Focus Features expanded the so-called gay cowboy movie to strategically selected smaller cities.

The movie, directed by Ang Lee and starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as two ranch hands who develop an enduring emotional bond, "Brokeback Mountain" took in an additional $2.36 million in its first foray outside those three metropolitan cities, rising to No. 8 at the box office, Focus Features estimated Sunday. Its 10-day total is $3.3 million.

The closely watched debut in Plano, Texas, "was a revelation about the accessibility of this movie," said Focus head of distribution Jack Foley. "This is not gay-dependent. Attendance at those theaters indicates the film has the attention of suburban moviegoers."

It was the first time since Disney's animated "Pocahontas" in 1995 that a movie in fewer than 100 theaters cracked the top 10 box office ranking, according to tracking service Nielsen EDI Inc.

Real America watches "Desperate Housewives" and drinks Starbucks and votes Democratic some too. Keep your eye on what people actually do, not what they tell some pollster they think. Popular culture is an excellent window through which you can view how people actually think and live. Right wing evangelical Christians are not a monolith, even in the red states. It's a mistake to assume they are.



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digby 12/19/2005 01:45:00 PM |

 
Checks And Balances

by digby


I'm hearing various pundits discuss how bold-yet-cadid, manly-yet-sensitive the preznit is today after finally going on offense, hitting it out of the park and turning the corner. His numbers are shooting back up and he's on firm ground.

They just love it when he spanks them:

QUESTION: I wonder if you can tell us today, sir, what, if any, limits you believe there are or should be on the powers of a president during wartime.

And if the global war on terror is going to last for decades, as has been forecast, does that mean that we're going to see, therefore, a more or less permanent expansion of the unchecked power of the executive in American society?

BUSH: First of all, I disagree with your assertion of unchecked power.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

BUSH: Hold on for a second, please.

There is the check of people being sworn to uphold the law, for starters.

There is oversight. We're talking to Congress all the time.

And on this program, to suggest there's unchecked power is not listening to what I'm telling you. I'm telling you, we have briefed the United States Congress on this program a dozen times.

This is an awesome responsibility, to make decisions on behalf of the American people. And I understand that. And we'll continue to work with the Congress, as well as people within our own administration, to constantly monitor a program such as the one I described to you, to make sure that we're protecting the civil liberties of the United States.

To say "unchecked power" basically is ascribing some kind of dictatorial position to the president, which I strongly reject.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

BUSH: I just described limits on this particular program, and that's what's important for the American people to understand. I am doing what you expect me to do and, at the same time, safeguarding the civil liberties of the country.

He's not actually lashing out at the masochistic media, no matter how much they enjoy it. He's lashing out because this is where his argument is weakest. He's trying to make the case that the congress somehow "approved" this action as a check to executive power.

This is not true. Notifying members of congress in a classified briefing they cannot disclose publicly is not a check. Intelligence committee members cannot give authorization to the president to break the law in the first place And to say that "telling" them what they are going to do and then classifying the information so they cannot reveal it amounts to a check on executive power is to invoke dictatorial powers.

As an exasperated Carl Levin just pointed out, the check on executive power in these circumstances is written into the law. It's called the FISA court. And they have not yet given any reasonable explanation as to why they could not have applied for a review within the 72 hour period they are alotted after initiating the intercepts. They keep saying that they have to move fast and cannot wait and other gibberish about "long term monitoring" none of which adequately explains why they had to break the law.

The only thing we can assume from the information we have is that they didn't want anyone, not even a rubber stamp secret court, to know who they were monitoring. Now why would that be?


The NY Times withheld certain tchnical information about this program in their story last week because of alleged national security concerns. Now that the president has admitted to authorizing it and he and his flunkies have been babbling incoherently about "moving fast" and "long term monitoring" I think it's now imperative that they tell the public the whole story.



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digby 12/19/2005 09:24:00 AM |

Sunday, December 18, 2005

 
Hot Dick On Bush Action

I also want to speak to those of you who did not support my decision to send troops to Iraq: I have heard your disagreement, and I know how deeply it is felt. Yet now there are only two options before our country – victory or defeat. And the need for victory is larger than any president or political party, because the security of our people is in the balance. I do not expect you to support everything I do, but tonight I have a request: Do not give in to despair, and do not give up on this fight for freedom.

Somebody give Richard Cohen a cigarette. (Let's hope he didn't watch this speech in public.)


I have one question for the media. Why is everyone so impressed that Bush is taking responsibility for going into Iraq? Has there ever been any question about that? We know he made the decision. He has made a fetish of taking responsibility for doing it. indeed, we watched him do it in defiance of virtually the whole world and half the country. This is not an admission of a mistake.

Likewise, admitting that there were no WMD is like admitting that the sun came up this morning. It's true, yes, but saying it is not "candor" --- it's stating the obvious.

Saying that the intelligence was wrong is not taking responsibility for getting it wrong. We know it was wrong.

These are cheap rhetorical tricks and they fall for it every single time. Some GOP hack hands them a sheet talking up the president's newfound "candor" and they all gobble it up like hungry little baby birds.



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digby 12/18/2005 06:44:00 PM |

 
Clear And Present Danger

by digby


The president says he is operating within the law because his appointed lawyers have interpreted the law to say that he has. He says that the US does not torture and he believes it. He believes it because his lawyers have told him that torture is defined as pain equal to that experienced by organ failure or death. Therefore, waterboarding, which only replicates the experience of drowning is not torture. Being shackled in unusual positions for long periods of time subject to extreme heat and cold likewise is not torture. One could argue that pulling someone's fingernails out as is shown in the film "Syriana" is not torture.

Spying on Americans is likewise legal because the president's lawyers have said that he has the authority under the constitution to spy on Americans during wartime. In fact, they have said the executive has the authority to do anything he feels is necessary during wartime, a war which he has sole authority to wage, a war which he alone defines and which has no set definition of victory.

You might think that this redefinition of what constitutes war applies only to the GWOT. But redefining war and victory also applies to the more conventional invasion and occupation of Iraq as well, which Bush also defines as a "different kind of war."

Here's how he put it in his interview with Jim Lehrer:

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I think that this is a different kind of a war. I mean, in World War II we think of the USS Missouri and Japan-- We surrender. However, if you think about World War II, there was still a mission to be accomplished, that Harry Truman saw through, which is to help an enemy become a democracy. We achieved a, by kicking Saddam Hussein out, you know, a milestone. But there's still work to help this country develop its own democracy and there's no question there's difficulties because of the past history and the fact that he starved an infrastructure and the reconstruction efforts have been uneven.

But victory is, against a guy like Zarqawi, is bringing him to justice. Victory is denying safe haven to al-Qaida, and victory is marginalizing those who would destroy democracy.

He compares Iraq to WWII and even discusses the surrender on the USS Missouri, which everyone in the world accepted as the end of the war. When Harry Truman went on to "accomplish the rest of the mission," he didn't do it under the auspices of the country still being at war because it wasn't. Bush has always liked this analogy, however, going back to his famous strut on another aircraft carrier when he declared "Mission Accomplished." Unfortunately, his advisors forgot to tell him that in Germany there was no insurgency, although for months Condi and Rummy were spreading lies about the Werewolf "dead-enders" in Germany, so maybe that's what they were telling him too.

In any case, the ridiculous WWII analogy should have been put on the shelf a long time ago. Yet Bush evidently continues to believes that he is saving the world from the existential threat of the Axis powers. And in his usual incoherent fashion, while seeing himself as Harry Truman he also says that "victory" in this war, which is a "different kinda war," will be won when we bring a guy like Zarqawi to justice. Or deny a safe haven to al-Qaeda. Or "marginalize those who would destroy democracy." Victory may even depend upon how the Iraqi people 'feel." In other words, we will have achieved victory when he says we have achieved victory.

Keep in mind that we are not talking about the Big Boogeyman, terrorism, here. We are talking about Iraq, a country in the middle east that we invaded and are occupying. We could just as easily be the Romans or the Turks or the British. There's nothing "different" about it. But even in Iraq we don't know what constitutes victory or defeat. Therefore, we could, theoretically, always be at war.

This is the most troubling aspect of the Yoo Doctrine. It is offensive enough that he contends that the president has completely unfettered powers during wartime. But the fact that he also believes that the president can "make war" at his discretion, define war in any way he chooses, consider "victory" to be any one or all of a thousand of unknown conditions that we may or may not be able to discern, is the truly unique factor here. And the fact that the administration is applying this vague definition of war and victory even to a conventional war like Iraq is very dangerous. It gives imperial powers forever to any president who simply says we are "at war."

It's probably important to draw some distinctions here between a legal theorist like John Yoo and Ted "Arkansas Project" Olsen, both of whom have promulgated this theory of unfettered executive power for years. In Yoo's case I have no reason to believe that this is a purely political view; he is certainly a Republican, but his belief is philosophical and academic. I would be surprised if he would come out against these powers in the hands of a Democrat. (I could be wrong.) Ted Olsen, on the other hand, is nothing more than a cheap GOP operative who will change his tune on a dime when the presidency changes parties.

Events of the last couple of days show that for most of the Republican party this is purely a political game that they will support as long as the president is a Republican. (See: Kosovo) Judging from John McCain's dodging of the question this morning, I assume that if he or any other Republican president will continue with this doctrine. He may not like torture, but he didn't seem too troubled by spying on Americans --- or the idea that the president has unfettered powers during wartime. (If anything, he looked a little bit excited by the prospect.)

There can be no doubt about where this is going. This administration has asserted a doctrine of unfettered executive power in "wartime" that will not confine itself to "suspected terrorists" as we understand them. Everything we know about human nature --- and particularly about the nature of this modern Republican party --- says that these powers will be used for domestic political purposes. That they felt they had to do this (even though they can monitor anyone they choose immediately as long as they make an application for a FISA review within 72 hours) can only raise suspicions that this is what they were doing. Coming on the heels of the pentagon spying story, you have to have overdosed on kool-aid not to wonder why they refuse to show the secret FISA court who they are monitoring. (Somebody needs to shake loose that list of NSA intercepts of American citizens John Bolton requested.)

The architect of the modern Republican Political Infrastructure, Justice Lewis Powell, said in an earlier case:

National security cases ... often reflect a convergence of First and Fourth Amendment values not present in cases of 'ordinary' crime. Though the investigative duty of the executive may be stronger in such cases, so also is there greater jeopardy to constitutionally protected speech. 'Historically the struggle for freedom of speech and press in England was bound up with the issue of the scope of the search and seizure power. History abundantly documents the tendency of Government—however benevolent and benign its motives—to view with suspicion those who most fervently dispute its policies. Fourth Amendment protections become the more necessary when the targets of official surveillance may be those suspected of unorthodoxy in their political beliefs. The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect 'domestic security.' Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent. Senator Hart addressed this dilemma in the floor debate on § 2511(3):

"'As I read it—and this is my fear—we are saying that the President, on his motion, could declare—name your favorite poison—draft dodgers, Black Muslims, the Ku Klux Klan, or civil rights activists to be a clear and present danger to the structure or existence of the Government."

The administration may even be fooling itself that it needs all this "wartime" power to "protect America." But the real purpose of a government spying on its own citizens is only really about one thing --- political power. If there's anything we know about the modern Republican party it's that everything that can be done to feed the machine will be done. They are the very definition of why the founders created this ridiculously byzantine system of checks and balances --- to keep people like Ted Olsen and Karl Rove from turning this country into the tyranny like the one from which we had just freed ourselves.



Has Christopher "I heart Orwell" Hitchens weighed in on this yet? I'll be anxious to hear him try to defend this new front in the fight against Oceania.



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digby 12/18/2005 05:30:00 PM |

 
Spiking The News

Jane notes that aside from the NY Times and the NSA spying issue there were quite a few other examples of the press withholding stories before the election. I can think of a couple more that she didn't mention.

First there was the fact that 60 Minutes never showed the Niger uranium story (which they had bumped for the ill-fated National Guard expose.) They have never shown it to this day even though it has turned out to be much more relevant than the Dan Rather fiasco. And the NY Times wouldn't run the story about the suspicious bulge in Bush's jacket even though there was credible, scientific evidence that he was wearing some sort of ususual device on his back during the presidential debates (not to mention the incontrovertible evidence that we could see it with our own eyes.)

Karl Rove had blamed Bush's loss in the 2000 race on the DWI story in the final days of the campaign and complained bitterly that the press had conspired to sandbag them. (It was nonsense, of course, because the story had come from a local FOX affiliate in Maine, but no matter.)We know that the press has often bent over backwards for the Republicans since the early 90's to prove they are not politically biased. And after 9/11 they bent over backwards to prove they are not soft or unpatriotic. Withholding this story was a natural result of all those pressures.

The media need to stop rationalizing their behavior and recognise that they have, in many small and large ways, capitulated to GOP pressure for some time now and they lost their perspective. I am sympathetic to how difficult it must be to deal with the Republicans. They are aggressive, hostile and relentless. But it's gone way too far. The havoc they wreaked on domestic politicsin the 90's was bad enough. We survived a partisan impeachment circus and a dubious presidential election, but it weakened our system.

Now we are talking about national security and very serious constitutional issues. The president is openly admitting that he did things that were illegal --- and he and his supporters are asserting a defense that the president has no obligation to follow the law in wartime.

The press simply has to step up. This is serious shit; it's not about ancient land deals in Arkansas or lying about infidelity. This isn't about "sending a message." It's real and its dangerous. This democracy is dying the death of a thousand cuts and in this world of too much information, over stimulation and endless distractions we must depend upon the press to wake up and start telling the American people what they know. The president is asserting a new interpretation of the constitution and unless this country makes it very, very clear that we will not stand for it, we are in deep trouble. This won't happen unless the media does its job and tells the country the truth:

The president broke the law, admitted it and says that he will continue to do so. He did this because he believes that the president has the right to break any law he chooses in his capacity as commander in chief.

Does that sound like America?



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digby 12/18/2005 10:37:00 AM |

 
TV Guide

In case you missed it, John Amato of Crooks and Liars will be on CNN's
About the Story" again today at 1-2 p.m. ET.



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digby 12/18/2005 08:16:00 AM |

Saturday, December 17, 2005

 
Bush's Bitches

Democrats on the committee said the panel issued 1,052 subpoenas to probe alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration and the Democratic Party between 1997 and 2002, at a cost of more than $35 million. By contrast, the committee under Davis has issued three subpoenas to the Bush administration, two to the Energy Department over nuclear waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, and one last week to the Defense Department over Katrina documents.

Some experts on Congress say that the legislative branch has shed much of its oversight authority because of a combination of aggressive actions by the Bush administration, acquiescence by congressional leaders, and political demands that keep lawmakers out of Washington more than before.

Yah think?

People say the Democrats are spineless, but they are nothing to the invertebrate GOP congress who have willingly abdicated their constitutional duty to enhance the power of the president and the Republican Machine. No pride, no integrity, no standards.


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digby 12/17/2005 11:43:00 PM |

 
The Larger Truth

by digby

ReddHedd at firedoglake highlights this passage in the WaPo story about the NY Times' NSA story:

The paper offered no explanation to its readers about what had changed in the past year to warrant publication. It also did not disclose that the information is included in a forthcoming book, "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration," written by James Risen, the lead reporter on yesterday's story. The book will be published in mid-January, according to its publisher, Simon & Schuster.

It was the following that I found truly interesting however:

The decision to withhold the article caused some friction within the Times' Washington bureau, according to people close to the paper. Some reporters and editors in New York and in the bureau, including Risen and co-writer Eric Lichtblau, had pushed for earlier publication, according to these people. One described the story's path to publication as difficult, with much discussion about whether it could have been published earlier.

As it happens, this very same thing happened a few months ago --- at the Washington Post. Only the reporter wasn't lobbying to report the news. In fact, he tried very hard to persuade his editor to hold back the news until his book came out.

Guess who:

Downie was insistent that the paper be adequately prepared for the death of Deep Throat --- whoever he was. During the past year he'd pressed Woodward to tell him the name, arguing that the current editor should know the identity of our source. Woodward had resisted.

[...]

In March Bradlee told Woodward that Downie was right; the time had come to tell the current post editor who Deep Throat was; then appropriate plans could be made to cover Felt's death. Woodward, an assistant managing editor at the paper, consented uneasily.

[...]

Woodward told Downie that the book should come out several weeks after Felt's death, and that the Post could run a pre-publication excerpt and break the news at that time.

In retrospect it was a ridiculously haphazard plan, given the excitement that would inevitably and imediately follow Felt's death without a confirmation or denial from Woodward and myself. Too much speculation was already focused on Felt.

[...]

[Downie] was adamant that the Post make the disclosure immediately after receiving the news of Felt's death. First of all, it might leak, and he didn't want to get scooped. Second, now that he knew Deep Throat's identity for certain, he could not foresee allowing an obituary of Felt to appear in the Post that did not include this rather vital news. The Post, Woodward, Bradlee, myself --- and now Downie --- would be criticized severely if Felt's identity as Deep Throat was withheld for more than a few hours after he died.

Among other considerations, it would appear that the delay was related to a commercial proposition --- the marketing of a book --- and Downie declared that he would have no part in that. He would not hold news, "and this would be news," he said. Period. Frankly, he said, he could not comprehend how Woodward could consider any delay. "You have always said that the identity of Deep Throat would be disclosed upon his death," he said, implying strongly, and perhaps in this instance correctly, that Woodward was losing touch with the daily flow of news.

("Watergate's Last Chapter" Carl Bernstein, Vanity Fair October, 2005,

No kidding. As we all learned a few weeks ago, Woodward does not particularly care about whether something is news or not.

I don't know all the facts about the NY Times, obviously; by all accounts the reason for withholding the story was because the paper capitulated to administration arguments about national security. But it looks bad. Tony Blankley used the impending book release to deride the story on Mclaughlin.

Franklin Foer and the Columbia Journalism Review seem to agree with the John Harris contention that the blogosphere's criticism of the mainstream media is a partisan crusade on both sides. It simply isn't. The left blogosphere doesn't complain that the media is too conservative or Republican. We see it as being cowardly in the face of Republican thuggishness and that's something else entirely. And it's not just editors like John Harris or Tim Russert kow towing to Republican complaints or the reporters adherence to the ridiculous conventions of "he said/she said." Those are just the obvious. The more insidious type of cowardice is that which takes scurrillous Republican tips and runs with them under the guise of "it's out there" or that simply lets them stick without bothering to put resources to debunking them. It's derisively giggling on Imus at the puerile bitchiness of GOP talking points like "earth tones" and "flip-flop" like a bunch of teen-age Heathers. It's mainstreaming rightwing hatemongers by putting Ann Coulter on the cover of Newsweek and giving Rush Limbaugh a slot on election night coverage.

This isn't about policy or partisanship. It's about a press corps that takes the easier path and capitulates to the aggressive, hostile (and sometimes seductive) Republican machine or gets so lost in their arcane standards of objectivity and journalistic ethics that the truth no longer matters.

The Bernstein article goes on to describe a ridiculous tug of war that ensued when Vanity Fair broke the Felt story a few months later and Woodward insisted that the paper not confirm the story. He believed they couldn't be sure that Felt really wanted to be released from the confidentiality agreement because he was old and couldn't be relied upon to know his own mind. He argued that it would be dishonorable to confirm it even if the whole damned world already knew about it. Keeping the secret had become a singular virtue so important that it superceded all journalistic values.

Bernstein agreed at first and then was persuaded otherwise. He wrote:

In our conviction to uphold one fundamental principle (protecting our sources) we risked violating another --- loyalty to the larger truth --- and offense that would damage the reputation of all involved: The Post, felt ourselves.

It's that --- the loyalty to the larger truth --- that we are looking for.



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digby 12/17/2005 10:53:00 PM |

 
Timely

As far as I'm concerned, this tears it. Josh Marshall says

It turns out that FISA specifically empowers the Attorney General or his designee to start wiretapping on an emergency basis even without a warrant so long as a retroactive application is made for one "as soon as practicable, but not more than 72 hours after the Attorney General authorizes such surveillance." (see specific citation, here).

"Timliness" was stated over and over again yesterday by administration apologists as the reason that they could not take the time to apply to the FISA cout for permission. That is obviously crap. They simply do not want to have to apply for permission from FISA.

As far as I'm concerned there is only one reason for that. They do not want FISA (who has only been known to deny permission one time since its inception) to find out who they are surveilling.

Wanna guess why?

Maybe we should ask John Bolton.



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digby 12/17/2005 10:15:00 PM |

 
Mao Was An Islamofascist

by digby

This is the problem with a surveillance society --- and makes me nervous as hell. I research this kind of stuff all the time. Can anybody explain why a student who has traveled abroad should be visited by the FBI because he requests "The Little Red Book" from the library?

A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."
Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.

The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.

The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a "watch list," and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.

"I tell my students to go to the direct source, and so he asked for the official Peking version of the book," Professor Pontbriand said. "Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring inter-library loans, because that's what triggered the visit, as I understand it."

Although The Standard-Times knows the name of the student, he is not coming forward because he fears repercussions should his name become public. He has not spoken to The Standard-Times.

The professors had been asked to comment on a report that President Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to spy on as many as 500 people at any given time since 2002 in this country.The eavesdropping was apparently done without warrants.

The Little Red Book, is a collection of quotations and speech excerpts from Chinese leader Mao Tse-Tung. In the 1950s and '60s, during the Cultural Revolution in China, it was required reading. Although there are abridged versions available, the student asked for a version translated directly from the original book.

The student told Professor Pontbriand and Dr. Williams that the Homeland Security agents told him the book was on a "watch list." They brought the book with them, but did not leave it with the student, the professors said.

I keep hearing that there have been no abuses of the system, that the governemnt would never spy on people who don't deserve it. But can there be any good reason why, in the name of protecting the country from terrorism, that Mao's "Little Red Book" would be considered worthy of monitoring? Unless the Justice Department is using the Patriot Act to monitor citizens for Chi-Com sympathizing (which is entirely possible) I can only assume that a terrorist somewhere read the book and quoted from it, so reading it is considered a sign of terrorist activity.

If that's the case, then I would assume that reading any revolutionary, historical or political tract that a terrorist has been known to read makes one a terrorist suspect. That's an extremely broad brush and the only way that anyone could ensure that he or she is not going to come into the cross hairs of the government would be to not read any of those books, not criticize the government, not study terrorism, marxism, or even the American and French revolutions since a terrorist somewhere may have read about those things too.

And, in typical Bushian blowback this will result in less understanding of terrorism:

Dr. Williams said he had been planning to offer a course on terrorism next semester, but is reconsidering, because it might put his students at risk.

Update: Rick Perlstein reminds me that there is one powerful American political movement that studies Mao quite closely:

In Before the Storm, p. 396 and 31, I quote from "How To Win An Election" by Barry Goldwater's campaign manager Steve Shadegg, who cites Mao Tse-tung's "valuable book on the tactics of infiltration" as an inspiration for one of his specific organizing tactics for getting Barry elected. He quotes Mao: "Give me just two or three men in a village, and I will take the village."

He also notes:

Paul Weyrich wrote, Cultural Conservatism, Theory and Practice:
"Perhaps the model for Cultural Conservatism as a political force is Chairman Mao in reverse. His theory for taking over China was to capture the countryside; isolated the cities would fall. If we think of America outside Washington as the countryside and "Inside the Beltway" as the city, his theory is right."

Perhaps the NSA heard something dicey at one of Grover Norquist's Wednesday meeting that prompted them to follow-up on anyone reading "The Little Red Book."

Grover, after all, is the connection between the movement conservatives and the Taliban.


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digby 12/17/2005 09:08:00 AM |

Friday, December 16, 2005

 
If The President Does It It's Not Illegal

by digby

Oh for Gawd's sakes. Tom Brokaw is on Matthews boo-hooing that this NSA story stepped on Junior's wonderful Iraq triumph. He explains that when you are at war you need to do things that are difficult and believes that most people in the country will agree that the administration needed to spy on Americans after 9/11. He agrees with analyst Roger Cressy (who I used to think was sane) that once the "window" of a possible impending attack closed they should have gone up to the hill and sought permission to keep spying on Americans with no judicial oversight. (I haven't heard about this "window" before. Tom and Roger both seem to have a fantasy that the administration would not simply say that the "window" remains open as long as evil exists in the world.)

Look, the problem here, again, is not one of just spying on Americans, as repulsively totalitarian as that is. It's that the administration adopted John Yoo's theory of presidential infallibility. But, of course, it wasn't really John Yoo's theory at all; it was Dick Cheney's muse, Richard Nixon who said, "when the President does it, that means it's not illegal."

This was not some off the cuff statement. It was based upon a serious constitutional theory --- that the congress or the judiciary (and by inference the laws they promulgate and interpret) have no authority over an equal branch of government. The president, in the pursuit of his duties as president, is not subject to the laws. Citizens can offer their judgment of his performance every four years at the ballot box.

After the election, George W. Bush said this:

The Post: ...Why hasn't anyone been held accountable, either through firings or demotions, for what some people see as mistakes or misjudgments?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 election.

He, like Nixon, believes that the president has only one "accountability moment" while he is president. His re-election. Beyond that, he has been given a blank check. And that includes breaking the law since if the president does it, it's not illegal, the president being the executive branch which is not subject to any other branch of govenrment.

John Yoo, the former deputy attorney general who wrote many of the opinion undergirding these findings (on torture as well as spying) explains that the congress has no right to abridge the president's warmaking powers. Its only constitutional remedy to a war with which they disagree is to deny funding; they can leave the troops on the field with no food or bullets.

I suspect that there are many more of these instances out there in which the administration has simply ignored the law. They believe that the constitution explicitly authorizes them to do so.


After 9/11 these people went crazy and convinced themselves that the country was in such mortal, exitential danger that this theory of imperial presidential perogative was a necessity. They say they are doing it to protect the citizens of this country. But one thing that American conservatives used to understand was that our system of government was forged by people who understood that too much power invested in one place is dangerous and that sometimes the people needed to be protected from their own government. That's fundamental to our laborious process of checks and balances and a free press. (Indeed, it was that principle on which they based their absolutist stand on the second amendment.)

Now we hear conservative commentators like Ronald Kessler, who was just interviewed (alone) on FoxNews, opining that the president did nothing illegal and was completely within his rights to spy on Americans. There is no longer any question that the government would ever abuse its power by, for instance, spying on Americans for political purposes and even if it did, we're fighting for our lives and we have to accept these infringements for our own safety. I'm quite sure he'll agree that a President Howard Dean should be given the same level of trust, aren't you?

I think the president said it best:

"If this were a dictatorship we'd have it a lot easier. Just so long as I'm the dictator."




Update:

A commenter to Larry Johnson's post over at TPM (reminding us that John Bolton was involved in some doing about NSA intercepts and American citizens) gives a nice historical view of the Yoo Doctrine:

Re: Spying on Americans and John Bolton (5.00 / 2) (#31)
by JamesW on Dec 16, 2005 -- 06:23:50 PM EST

The second part of the Yoo Doctrine is critical: it's the President, not Congress, who decides whether the country is at war or not.

In an extreme Tory argument, Yoo can just about argue that this was English 18th-century doctrine, but since Parliament rigorously controlled the purse-strings, it surely wasn't practice after 1688. [Yoo does make this argument --- ed] I doubt if English Whigs like Fox accepted the theory either, let alone American rebels.

Where Yoo surely parts company with any sane constitutional thinking since the Roman Republic is the extension that the monarch/president gets to decide what counts as a war. For George III, George Washington, Lincoln. Woodrow Wilson and FDR, war is an organised conflict between societies or social groups. Police actions against pirates, slavers, and terrorists are not war. By treating the rhetorical "war on terror", infinitely redefinable, as a real war with war's legal consequences, the Bush administration has entered the 1984 terrain of totalitarianism.

.
digby 12/16/2005 02:08:00 PM |

 
Making Rove Happy

by digby


Murray Waas has a very interesting article up today that reveals that the Plame smear happened concurrently with another smear job against Francis Townsend. It's pretty clear that the cabal around Cheney has been operating as a shadow government within the White house agitating for its own policies from the beginning. (And Scooter Libby is a real piece 'o work.)

The senior staff in the Office of the Vice President adamantly opposed Townsend's appointment. The staff included two of Cheney's closest aides: Libby, then the chief of staff and national security adviser to the vice president; and David Addington, who at the time was Cheney's counsel but who has since succeeded Libby as chief of staff.

Among other things, Libby and Addington believed that Townsend would bring a more traditional approach to combating terrorism, and feared she would not sign on to, indeed might even oppose, the OVP's policy of advocating the use of aggressive and controversial tools against terror suspects. One of those techniques is known as "extraordinary rendition," in which terror suspects are taken to foreign countries, where they can be interrogated without the same legal and human-rights protections afforded to those in U.S. custody, including the protection from torture.

Libby's opposition to Townsend was so intense that he asked at least two other people in the White House to obtain her personnel records. These records showed that she had been turned down for two lesser positions in the Bush administration because of her political leanings, according to accounts provided by current and former administration officials. Libby also spoke about leaking the material to journalists or key staffers or members on Capitol Hill, to possibly undercut Townsend, according to the same accounts.

I am going to take a great speculative leap here and suggest that Rove helped Libby with the Wilson smear at least partially as a way to smooth things over after he was ordered to support Townsend. Maybe that's what led him to take that walk down the hall and tell Scoot that he'd gotten the job done with Novak.

After all, "Official A" not only mentioned that he had spoken with Novak --- he told Libby that Novak was going to write a story about it.


Libby: Junior must have blown a gasket on that Novak column about Townsend. You're slipping old man.

(High fives Addington)

Rove: Hey, you owe me one, dude. I got him to run with the Wilson thing.

Libby: Awesome!

(high fives all around.)

There have been reports that Rove was seriously pissed that he got caught up in one of Cheney's little bag jobs without having all the facts (for instance that Plame was a NOC.)


According to Waas, Novak and Rove corroborate each others' version of events in the Plame matter. Novak happened to be pursuing this story on Townsend and Plame came up at the end of the conversation:

The papers on Frances Townsend that Rove had on his desk on July 9 appear to have corroborated Rove's and Novak's accounts to prosecutors that the principal focus of their conversation was Townsend's appointment. But on the issue of Valerie Plame, prosecutors have been unable to determine whether in fact Novak was the one who first broached the subject, and whether Rove simply confirmed something that Novak already knew. Sources close to the investigation say this uncertainty is one of the foremost reasons Fitzgerald has not decided yet whether to bring criminal charges against Rove.

I'm not sure why that's relevant, actually, unless Fitz has been trying to nail Rove on a conspiracy charge. As far as I know (and contrary to an earlier Waas story) Rove apparently admitted the Novak conversation from the beginning. His problems stem from his strangely vague recollection of where he got the information and repeatedly lying about the Cooper conversation, doling out the truth only in dribs and drabs as he was absolutely forced to do so.

I wouldn't necessarily be able to prove it in a court of law, but it's obvious to anyone who's followed this story that there was a concerted effort to out Plame. This story today actually serves more as supplemental proof that the White house is a cauldron of intrigue and double dealing, a place in which it's perfectly believable that outing a CIA agent for political purposes or because of interagency pique is common practice. That's the type of people we are dealing with. But then we knew that.

But there is a little tid-bit in this article that I find very, very interesting:

Novak indicated to Rove that he was still going to write a column that would be critical of Townsend. But according to an account that Novak later provided of his conversation with Rove, he also signaled to Rove that Wilson and Plame would be the subject of one of his columns. "I think that you are going to be unhappy with something that I write," he said to Rove, "and I think you are very much going to like something that I am about to write."

On July 10, Novak's column appeared in newspapers across the country, with a headline suggested by Novak's syndicate: "Bush Sets Himself Up for Another Embarrassment."

The column referred to Townsend as another potential "enemy within." Novak opined that Townsend would likely prove disloyal to Bush, because she had been "an intimate adviser of Janet Reno as the Clinton administration's attorney general," and he pointedly noted that earlier in her career, "Townsend's boss and patron ... was [then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York] Jo Ann Harris, whose orientation was liberal Democratic."

Four days later, on July 14, Novak wrote his now-famous column on Plame, in which he outed her as an "agency operative."

According to the article, Rove had not been in favor of her appointment originally, but he'd been tasked by Bush to defend her in the press and by all accounts he followed orders and did that. If Novak's statement is true, then the column that Novak thought Rove was going to be unhappy about was the Townsend article. That means that Novak knew that the column about Wilson was going to make Rove happy.

In order to understand why this is significant, you have to go back and look at the column in which Novak outs Plame. It quite mildly states that the Vice President didn't send Wilson (which Wilson had never claimed) but it is not particularly critical of Wilson --- the man with whom both Rove and Libby are reported to have been obsessed. In fact, it is surprisingly complimentary:

Wilson's mission was created after an early 2002 report by the Italian intelligence service about attempted uranium purchases from Niger, derived from forged documents prepared by what the CIA calls a "con man." This misinformation, peddled by Italian journalists, spread through the U.S. government. The White House, State Department and Pentagon, and not just Vice President Dick Cheney, asked the CIA to look into it.

That's where Joe Wilson came in. His first public notice had come in 1991 after 15 years as a Foreign Service officer when, as U.S. charge in Baghdad, he risked his life to shelter in the embassy some 800 Americans from Saddam Hussein's wrath. My partner Rowland Evans reported from the Iraqi capital in our column that Wilson showed "the stuff of heroism." President George H.W. Bush the next year named him ambassador to Gabon, and President Bill Clinton put him in charge of African affairs at the National Security Council until his retirement in 1998.

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.

If Novak told Rove that he would be happy with that column there can be only one reason ---- Plame. And you can see why. After all, Rove has admitted to coordinating a campaign to circulate the information about Plame after Novak's column was published.


Newsweek reported:

Wilson told NEWSWEEK that in the days after the Novak story appeared, he got calls from several well-connected Washington reporters. One was NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell. She told NEWSWEEK that she said to Wilson: "I heard in the White House that people were touting the Novak column and that that was the real story." The next day Wilson got a call from Chris Matthews, host of the MSNBC show "Hardball."? According to a source close to Wilson, Matthews said, "?I just got off the phone with Karl Rove, who said your wife was fair game.Â" (Matthews told NEWSWEEK: "I am not going to talk about off-the-record conversations."?)