Sid's Fishbowl
A proud member of the reality-based community (aquatic division)
Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Four months till election day. We're all going to need Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanies (better known as tinfoil hats)....

Testing... One, Two, Three...

This guy has more faith in the current Supreme Court than I do:

Though it is against the law to threaten the president in real life, a work of fiction is usually protected by the First Amendment.
Wait wait, don't tell me: 9/11 changed everything.

Pope says sorry for crusaders' rampage in 1204:

The Pope delivered an emotional apology to Orthodox Christians yesterday for the Catholic plundering of Constantinople eight centuries ago, saying it caused him 'pain and disgust'.

He made his comments during a visit to the Vatican by Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and the head of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians.

'In particular, we cannot forget what happened in the month of April 1204,' the Pope said, in reference to the sacking of Constantinople by crusaders. 'How can we not share, at a distance of eight centuries, the pain and disgust.'
Wait, wait... I have a prediction. The year is 2863, and Jeb Bush XIV is issuing an apology for the First Crusade of the Modern Era, way back in 2003 and 2004...

If it's good enough for the Holy Father, surely it's good enough for the new First Family.

From Tomburka.com, an excellent list of proposed new rules for the Senate, based on Cheney's outburst last week:

[I]n the event of a tie, the Vice-President will break the tie by voting in the affirmative and saying "Aye", or, when voting in the negative, saying "Go fuck yourselves."

Additonally, the more traditional "Aye" or "Nay" will be henceforth replaced by "Fuck Me" and "Fuck You."

[...]

"We want to thank the Vice President for ushering in a new, more open era of Senate civility," said. Sen. Bill Frist. "I mean, fucking-A."
Well, fuck us!

Voting Official Seeks Terrorism Guidelines:

The government needs to establish guidelines for canceling or rescheduling elections if terrorists strike the United States again, says the chairman of a new federal voting commission.

Such guidelines do not currently exist, said DeForest B. Soaries, head of the voting panel.

Soaries was appointed to the federal Election Assistance Commission last year by President Bush. Soaries said he wrote to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in April to raise the concerns.
So, if we vote, the terrorists have won?

(via Atrios)

Un-frickin'-believable:

As attorneys for detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, began preparing the first of hundreds of expected lawsuits demanding that the government justify the detentions, administration officials acknowledged that they were unprepared for a rebuke in two landmark Supreme Court decisions that rejected the military's treatment of prisoners in the war on terrorism.

Now, after being handed the losses, the administration has been left to scramble to develop a strategy for granting hearings to detainees without having to cope with an unwieldy series of lawsuits throughout the nation.

"They didn't really have a specific plan for what to do, case by case, if we lost," a senior Department of Defense official said on condition of anonymity. "The Justice Department didn't have a plan. State didn't have a plan. This wasn't a unilateral mistake on Department of Defense's part. It's astounding to me that these cases have been pending for so long and nobody came up with a contingency plan."

[...]

An internal Justice Department memo reviewed Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times outlining communications plans in response to high court rulings on the issue listed two pages of talking points to be used "in case of win," and a page of talking points to be used "in case of win if some sort of process is required" -- a partial victory. Yet, there was no category for action in the event of a broad defeat in the memo, titled "Supreme Court Decision Communications Plan."
They had pages of talking points, but no actual plans. Don't ya just love these guys?

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

You've read a lot of this sort of thing over the past year. But this one is qualitatively different. David Neiwert, whose judgment and skills as an investigative reporter are first-rate, vouches for Paul Lukasiak as a top-notch researcher whose judgment he's learned to implicitly trust. And after a careful examination of Bush's military records, Lukasiak prepared this meticulously documented report (in draft form). I've bold-faced the key portions:

HOW BUSH FAILED TO FULFILL HIS DUTY:

An examination of the Bush military files within the context of US Statutory Law, Department of Defense regulations, and Air Force policies and procedures of that era lead to a single conclusion: George W. Bush was considered a deserter by the United States Air Force.

After Bush quit TXANG, he still had nine months of his six-year military commitment left to serve. As a result, Bush became a member of the Air Force Reserves and was transferred to the authority of the Air Reserve Personnel Center (ARPC) in Denver, Colorado. Because this was supposed to be a temporary assignment, ARPC had to review Bush's records to determine where he should ultimately be assigned. That examination would have led to three conclusions: That Bush had "failed to satisfactorily participate" as defined by United States law and Air Force policy, that TXANG could not account for Bush's actions for an entire year, and that Bush's medical records were not up to date. Regardless of what actions ARPC contemplated when reviewing Bush's records, all options required that Bush be certified as physically fit to serve, or as unfit to serve. ARPC thus had to order Bush to get a physical examination, for which Bush did not show up. ARPC then designated Bush as AWOL and a "non-locatee" (i.e. a deserter) who had failed to satisfactorily participate in TXANG, and certified him for immediate induction through his local draft board. Once the Houston draft board got wind of the situation, strings were pulled; and documents were generated which directly contradict Air Force policy, and which were inconsistent with the rest of the records released by the White House.

[...]

It is also clear that the Bush records were tampered with to hide this fact. Many documents were thrown out that should have been kept, and there is indisputable evidence that at least one key documents has been altered.

The documentary evidence also strongly suggests that when news of Bush's situation reached Texas, strings were pulled that resulted in Bush being "rehabilitated" in a manner completely inconsistent with Air Force policy.

The paper trail is incomplete, and in some cases ambiguous. But "clerical error" is not sufficient to explain the anomalies, because the level of "coincidence" required for a "clerical error" explanation is well beyond any rational possibility.
Now, in one sense, this is meaningless. No one is going to indict Bush for desertion, and the whole controversy has been tarred with the "it's just politics" brush.

But in my mind this sorry episode is the linchpin in the argument that George W. Bush is a child of privilege who has been handed opportunity throughout his adult life, who has shirked responsibility whenever possible, and who has had other people clean up his messes for him. Can someone point to a single responsible action that GWB has taken as an adult that has turned out well?

In fact, this reliance on other people to clean up after him may be what gives this scandal some life. may Neiwert says: "[This report] makes clear, irrevocably, that Bush's military record should be a scandal not merely for what it contains (or rather, doesn't) but because of the extent to which it has been tampered with and lied about in the past eight years or so." And who was doing that tampering?

The Poor Man thinks that is the only possible explanation for the Hitler ad. He just might be right.

Clear Channel (those delightful people) sent me an e-mail this morning offering me a chance to buy a ticket on the Rock 'N' Roll Holiday Escape.

A week cruising the Caribbean with Journey, REO Speedwagon, and Styx? What a frightening thought. I'm going to crawl back under the covers now.

Monday, June 28, 2004

Juan Cole notes and speculates:

Paul Bremer suddenly left Iraq on Monday, having "transferred sovereignty" to the caretaker Iraqi government two days early.

It is hard to interpret this move as anything but a precipitous flight. It is just speculation on my part, but I suspect that the Americans must have developed intelligence that there might be a major strike on the Coalition Provisional Headquarters on Wednesday if a formal ceremony were held to mark a transfer of sovereignty. Since the US military is so weak in Iraq and appears to have poor intelligence on the guerrilla insurgency, the Bush administration could not take the chance that a major bombing or other attack would mar the ceremony.

The surprise move will throw off all the major news organizations, which were planning intensive coverage of the ceremonies originally planned for Wednesday.
This is still more evidence of the complete collapse of all pretense that the Bush Administration actually has a plan other than "hasta la vista, baby." Remember the "series of six weekly speeches" in the runup to June 30? That was dropped after two miserable episodes, cancelled faster than a summer sitcom on the WB network. And it certainly wouldn't do to have hundreds of TV cameras trained on a ceremony where most of the participants are just hoping they don't get blown to Kingdom Come.

Mission accomplished, baby!

Liz Cox Barrett at CJR Campaign Desk offers up an amusing piece on how the press has turned on John Kerry in four short years. In 2000, when Kerry was being considered as a potential veep for Gore, he was showered with praise for his energy, enthusiasm, and charisma. And now? Well, you read the papers, don't you?
The "handsome," "charismatic" candidate who four years ago had an "easy manner," "charm," and a record impregnable to Republican attack has undergone a hideous transmogrification, as described by reporters.

[...]

Kerry, it seems, was repeatedly whacked by an Ugly Stick sometime between 2000 and 2004. (Not exactly a ringing endorsement for Botox, if you -- like the Tribune and other news outlets -- entertain that sort of scuttlebutt).

But there are worse things than ugly; Kerry has also, apparently, lost any shred of charisma, and is now utterly free of charm.
Imagine that.

The article offers a good thesis and lots of current Kerry-bashing quotes, but it's missing a tremendously important bit of evidence. Where are the links (or at least sources) for those stories from four years ago? CJR has well documented the current crop of "Kerry is ugly, uncharismatic, and aloof" quotes. But the story doesn't really get any oomph until they provide specific examples of reporters, analysts, and publications that said one thing in 2000 and another in 2004. As it stands, when I read the story I don't know whether it was one set of people and publications that wrote that nonsense in 2000 and a completely different group that is writing the current blather.

I suspect there are lots of great examples of hypocritical analysts and reporters on this issue. But if CJR wants to lecture bloggers on how to be a journalist, they'd better practice what they preach.

[Cross-posted at Daily Kos]

The Supreme Court overruled the Bush Administration in Hamdi, Padilla & Rasul. (Thanks to Phil Carter for the links.) Although they agreed that the Executive branch has a right to hold enemy combatants, the Court made it very clear that Bush overstepped his bounds:

We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens.
In Jose Padilla's case, the most eagerly watched, the Court punted, throwing it back to the lower court on the tecnicality that Padilla's lawyers incorrectly named Donald Rumsfeld instead of the commandant of the naval brig where Padilla is being held.

So, the Constitution hangs on by a thread.

Are there any bloggers who want to join forces with me? If you're interested in combining the content from this site with the content on your blog, or if you'd like to be a guest contributor here, drop me a line. (Click my name at the bottom of any post to send me an e-mail.)

Sunday, June 27, 2004

Apologies for the long, long post, but this one's just chock-full of good stuff. Read all the way to the end.

Irish commentator Tom McGurk wraps up Bush's ugly visit to Ireland in the Sunday Business Post. I've excerpted big chunks of it here, but the entire essay is brilliant and sad and so, so true:

Kennedy came in glory, Bush came in guilt. Has anyone spotted the ironic significance of yesterday's date, June 26?

On June 26, 1963, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy arrived at Dublin airport aboard Air Force One for a triumphant Irish visit. Yesterday, June 26, 2004, President George W Bush left Shannon Airport on Air Force One having spent 19 hours in an armed camp.

41 years ago, thousands upon thousands of Irish people lined the streets to give Kennedy an ecstatic welcome. Yesterday, the Irish public had to be kept away with barbed wire as tanks and ground-to-air missiles provided protection for President Bush.

Could the comparison be more vivid, could two presidents have come to us amid scenes and emotions of greater contrast?

[...]

How can it be that a country, out of whose roots close to 40 million of its own citizens have come, despises him so widely? Has any visiting head of state ever been made as unwelcome here by such a vast cross-section of Irish political, church, trade union, legal and citizens groups?

One wonders would Pol Pot have been as unwelcome.

Perhaps the view from Texas or even Washington is something we cannot contemplate, perhaps without the horror of a 9/11 blasted into the national psyche, we are essentially only onlookers.

But it's hard not to form the strong impression that our opposition to Bush's foreign policy has gone beyond politics and is now a moral position. Indeed, I think one has to look back before World War II to find a western government acting with such belief in the notion that might is right.

[...]

If in global terms, al-Qaeda's attacks have been pinpricks of violence, the US response, by contrast, has sent tidal waves of resentment across Islam.

Are all empires, all imperial mentalities doomed to make the same mistakes? In recent times, one might have wondered, given American excesses in Iraq, if Osama himself was writing the script.

Muslims being fed the Great Satan propaganda line, cannot be blamed for swallowing it when the US appears to adopt the role with such relish.

Even at this point, as all the calculations -- even those of the Americans themselves -- show the war on terror is failing, the Bush presidency seems still incapable of accurately comprehending the nature of the threat.

Even now, the world's greatest military superpower seems unable to acknowledge the impossibility of dealing with an ideological threat by military means. A year into the Iraq invasion, the dimensions of the quagmire are unmistakable.

[...]

The cynicism of the whole manoeuvre leaves one breathless. Far from being liberated, the reality is that, since invasion, Iraq has simply ceased to exist as either a political or civil society and instead has now broken down into constituent armed tribal and religious groupings.

This is precisely the situation that allowed the Taliban to seize power in Afghanistan, and there is every possibility that Iraq could descend into the same morass.

[...]

To the millions of dispossessed and discontented Muslims across the world, the cause of their generation may now be to make war on the West.

Ironically, by characterising this struggle as one between good and evil, and reducing it to a competition between militarism and terrorism, the Bush approach has almost certainly guaranteed the very response we didn't want.

The only currency fundamentalist Muslims have is the pathological relationship between their religious conviction and its association with violence, the precise narrow ground that this American administration chose to meet them on.

This presidency has sown seeds, the fruit of which future generations, both east and west, will harvest.

Could one ever have imagined feeling nostalgic for the relative security of the Cold War, for all its nuclear threat, very real when John F Kennedy arrived in Dublin this very weekend all those years ago.
As everything, and I mean everything, unravels around him, George W. Bush seems to be retreating into a defiant shell that might have shocked even Richard Nixon. His interview on Irish television was breathtaking in its arrogance. (Read the transcript, or better yet, watch the video to get a full sense of his imperiousness.) Digby, as usual, has the best summary on the episode:

If anyone hasn't seen this utterly humiliating interview between the spoiled little Brat King and Carole Coleman of RTE, here it is. You might want to have a nice soothing glass of fine Irish Whiskey in your hand (I know it's early -- haven't you ever heard of an Irish Coffee?) for the moments when you need a stiff belt to calm yourself when you realize that this major league fuckhead represents you around the world -- and also to toast Ms Coleman for trying to get Bubbleboy to actually answer a question instead of ramble on with some nonsensical blather about freedom and compassion. His Highness doesn't like his incomprehensible gibberish questioned. (And for every time she pisses off the prickly little moron for absolutely no reason, have another.)

It makes you proud to be an American, it does, to see our president act like a fucking, goddamned asshole on international TV. He is rude, thickheaded and childish, insisting that he be allowed to blather his incoherent and totally irrelevant talking points to eat up the clock and then getting mad when the reporter tries to get him to focus on the actual question asked.
His administration is feuding with itself. His campaign has already officially played the Hitler card, with more than four months to go before Election Day. How much uglier can it get? I shudder to think.

The Anchorage Daily News busted Rush Limbaugh for yet another incorrect and self-aggrandizing statement:

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, who has made light of Iraqi prisoner abuse reports, last week told his listeners this: A U.S. senator authored an amendment aimed at censoring him, but Limbaugh talked to Sen. Ted Stevens, and Stevens had it "watered down" for him.

Stevens, through his spokeswoman, said the Alaska Republican only faxed Limbaugh a copy of the amendment, after the Senate already had passed it.

"We did not water it down," said Courtney Schikora, Stevens' spokeswoman.
If he keeps this up, Rush might turn this red state blue!

Oh, what a lovely war:

Rumsfeld said Washington would have hoped for a better security situation in Iraq after the war but he said he expected the Iraqi people would be able to recapture their country from radical militants he linked to al Qaeda.

On the wider war on terror and the battle between extremists and radicals, Rumsfeld said it was hard to say who was winning.
"Answering the question as to whether we are winning that is a very difficult one," he said.

It was impossible to know how many new recruits were signing up and being trained, Rumsfeld said.

"Unless one knows that, you can't answer the question of if you are winning or losing," he added.
After 15 months and more than $120 billion, with more than 800 dead soldiers, this is what we have to show for it? How do these people sleep at night?

Reuters:

President Bush declared an end on Saturday to Western rifts over Iraq but won little in his search for European military help and took heat over prisoner abuse.

"The bitter differences of the war are over," Bush told a news conference, which was delayed by anti-American protests staged around the lightning U.S.-EU summit in Ireland.

Fenced off from his detractors by 2,000 soldiers and 4,000 police -- a third of the Irish security forces -- Bush holed up in a picturesque western Irish castle with European Union leaders before flying to Turkey ahead of a NATO summit.

An EU-NATO commitment to train Iraqi security forces was the most concrete sign of any new transatlantic unity.

But it fell way short of Washington's original goal of getting NATO troops into Iraq, and diplomats said it may be just the lowest common denominator the two sides can live with.
They needed 6,000 armed military and police officers to keep the people away from the President of the United States? Wow.

Can we please please please hold the elections tomorrow so we can throw these clowns out?

Saturday, June 26, 2004

January 5, 2004, Republican National Committee Web site:

Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie today made the following statement regarding a second ad posted on the MoveOn.org Web site comparing President Bush to Adolf Hitler and calls from Jewish leaders for MoveOn.org to apologize for posting the ads.

[...]

"Such ads are anything but appropriate for television, and MoveOn.org should apologize for posting the ads, as the Simon Wiesenthal Center today asked them to. Further, every Democrat seeking his or her party's nomination and who stands to benefit politically from MoveOn.org's efforts to defeat President Bush in November though millions of dollars in advertising should support the Simon Wiesenthal Center's request, and urge MoveOn.org to apologize for posting these ads on their Web site and deeming them appropriate for television."
January 13, 2004, Altercation:

MoveOn moved quickly to limit the damage, noting that claims that it had sponsored the spots were "deliberately and maliciously misleading," while simultaneously repudiating the ads and pulling them off its site.

Nevertheless, conservative media mavens such as Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report and Bill O'Reilly of Fox News hammered away at the story, quoting Gillespie's characterization of the MoveOn project as "the worst and most vile form of political hate speech." Mainstream outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press soon followed suit. Few mentioned the statement issued by MoveOn founder Wes Boyd in which he admitted the group had made a mistake and regretted that the two contest entries had slipped through the organization's screening process, which was aimed at filtering out spots in poor taste.
June 25, 2004, JohnKerry.com blog:

Kerry campaign spokesperson Phil Singer has called on the Bush campaign to remove a disgusting web ad laced with images of Adolph Hitler from the Bush website:

[...]

"The fact that George Bush thinks it's appropriate to use images of Adolph Hitler in his campaign raises serious questions about his fitness to spend another four years in the White House. Adolph Hitler slaughtered millions of innocent people and has no place in a campaign that is supposed to be about the future and hope of this nation. The President’s use of these images during a month that evoked the memory of World War II is remarkably insensitive to the sacrifices of the millions of people who lost their lives during Hitler's reign of terror.

"The Bush Campaign should immediately remove these hateful images from its website and apologize for using them. The use of Adolph Hitler by any campaign, politician or party is simply wrong."
June 26, 2004, GeorgeWBush.com Official Blog:

The Kerry campaign says, "The use of Adolf Hitler by any campaign, politician or party is simply wrong." We agree.

[...]

We created this web video to show the depths to which these Kerry supporters will sink to win in November.

Is this the Democratic Party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt who reassured his countrymen we have nothing to fear but fear itself?

No. This is John Kerry's Coalition of the Wild-eyed, who have nothing to offer but fear-mongering.
So to summarize. A left-wing organization not affiliated with any campaign, politician, or party has a contest. Two entries out of several hundred posted on the Web site (not a wise move) compare Bush to Hitler. The RNC complains, MoveOn repudiates the ads and pulls them from its site immediately.

The official Web site of the Bush campaign compares Al Gore, Howard Dean, Michael Moore, and all of John Kerry's supporters to Hitler. The Kerry campaign complains, and the Bush campaign says, in the words of Dick Cheney, "Go fuck yourself."

Classy.

The New York Times has in interview with Ken Lay:

[O]n the eve of what may be the government's final decision on whether to charge him with a crime, Mr. Lay is talking for the first time about the company's collapse in 2001 and the scandal that enveloped it. In more than six hours of interviews with The New York Times, Mr. Lay remained steadfast in his expressions of innocence, even as he acknowledged, as head of the company, accountability for the debacle rests rightfully with him. "I take full responsibility for what happened at Enron," said Mr. Lay, 62. "But saying that, I know in my mind that I did nothing criminal."

In his first unrestricted interview since the collapse, Mr. Lay discussed the issues that have swirled around him, including his role in the events leading up to the collapse, the rationale behind the off-books partnerships that crippled the company, and how his life and personal finances have changed.

As Mr. Lay describes it, the Enron collapse was the outgrowth of the wrong-headed and criminal acts of the company's finance organization, and specifically its chief financial officer, Andrew S. Fastow. He says that both he and the board were misled by Mr. Fastow about the activities and true nature of a series of off-the-books partnerships that played the decisive role in the company's collapse.

[...]

"At our core, regrettably, we had a chief financial officer and a few other people who in fact mismanaged the company's balance sheet and finances and enriched themselves in a way that once we got into a stressful environment in the marketplace, the company collapsed," he said. "But by the same token, most and I mean 98 percent of the people who worked at Enron were good, honest, hardworking individuals. They were not crooks."
Yep, just a few bad apples. The guy at the top knew nothing about it. Why would you expect the President CEO to be on top of things?

Chris Bowen at MyDD says it's official, Peter Cobb is the Green Party nominee for President. And that means Ralph Nader's best shot at mounting a legitimate third-party campaign has failed.

The Nader threat to Kerry is over, as Nader will be on the ballot in less than 15 states now. The Green party itself will be weakened, but a 'no nominee' or Nader endorsement would have destroyed it.
This is a genuine repudiation of Nader's bankrupt candidacy. I hope he'll take the hint and quit, but I suspect we'll get more spin and bullshit instead. It's sad to see a one-time hero reduced to this.

And this update from Chris (who is doing a superb job of covering this story, by the way):

It is over for Nader. I will personally be stunned if he makes the ballot in twelve states. He does not have the money for a limited national advertising drive like he had in 2000. There will be no Nader "super-rallies" like in 2000, where he regularly drew crowds exceeding 10,000 people. He has no party support. He has nothing.

From now on, no poll that includes Nader should be taken seriously. Libertarian + Constitution now probably poses a larger threat to Bush than Nader + Cobb poses for Kerry. It is time for everyone in the Democratic Blogosphere to relax their sphincters and allow their blood pressure to drop. It is time we started paying Nader the attention he deserves in this campaign--none. To continue complaining about him would border on mental illness.
Works for me. Ralph who?

February 23, 2004
Remarks by the President to the Republican Governors Association:

"[W]e stand for a culture of responsibility in America. We're changing the culture of America from one that said, 'if it feels good, do it,' and 'if you've got a problem, blame someone else,' to a culture in which each of us understands we're responsible for the decisions we make."
June 26, 2004
Neil Cavuto Interview With Dick Cheney:

CAVUTO: Did you curse at him?
CHENEY: Probably.
(LAUGHTER)
CAVUTO: Do you have any regrets?
CHENEY: No. I said it, and I felt that... And I informed him of my view of his conduct in no uncertain terms. And as I say, I felt better afterwards.
Well, glad we cleared that up.

Terry Jones:

For some time now, I've been trying to find out where my son goes after choir practice. He simply refuses to tell me. He says it's no business of mine where he goes after choir practice and it's a free country.

Now it may be a free country, but if people start going just anywhere they like after choir practice, goodness knows whether we'll have a country left to be free. I mean, he might be going to anarchist meetings or Islamic study groups. How do I know?

The thing is, if people don't say where they're going after choir practice, this country is at risk. So I have been applying a certain amount of pressure on my son to tell me where he's going. To begin with I simply put a bag over his head and chained him to a radiator. But did that persuade him? Does the Pope eat kosher?

My wife had the gall to suggest that I might be going a bit too far. So I put a bag over her head and chained her to the radiator. But I still couldn't persuade my son to tell me where he goes after choir practice.

I tried starving him, serving him only cold meals and shaving his facial hair off, keeping him in stress positions, not turning his light off, playing loud music outside his cell door -- all the usual stuff that any concerned parent will do to find out where their child is going after choir practice. But it was all to no avail.

I hesitated to gravitate to harsher interrogation methods because, after all, he is my son. Then Donald Rumsfeld came to my rescue.
Keep reading. Honestly, are comedians the only people who are actually allowed to speak the complete, unvarnished truth these days?

Friday, June 25, 2004

I would rather bang my head against a wall for four hours then listen to even 10 minutes of this.

Do you think any of this crap is available on Kazaa?

Digby has a wonderful set of ruminations on why Dick "Big Time" Cheney might be losing it.

My $.02 tossed in: Factions within this Administration seem to be at war with one another. But if Big Time is forced out -- or worse, indicted -- there isn't enough money in all the secret bunkers in Iraq to keep him from taking the rest of the crew with him.

Kevin Drum says:

This is one of Bush's problems: he honestly thinks that the mere act of making 'strong decisions' makes him a leader. It doesn't even occur to him that a leader is someone who makes good decisions and then persuades other people to support them.
And that's when it dawns on me. Bush thinks if he can just get the facial expression and the tone of voice right, the people will rally behind him. Derek Zoolander had "Blue Steel" and "Le Tigre," which of course were all the same look.

Ironically, Zoolander the movie was released two weeks after 9/11. Coincidence? I think not.

Priceless.

I especially like the reaction from Sen. Hatch, (R-Hypocrisy):

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), while pointing out that he was unaware of the incident, described Cheney as "very honest" and said: "I don't blame anyone for standing up for his integrity."
Oh, and I extra specially liked that the Washington Post didn't bleep the Veep. All four letters are there for your viewing pleasure.

Kevin Drum captures a bon mot from Joe Biden: "About six months ago, the president said to me, 'Well, at least I make strong decisions, I lead.' I said, 'Mr. President, look behind you. Leaders have followers. No one's following. Nobody.'"

Roger speaks:

"Fahrenheit 9/11" is a compelling, persuasive film, at odds with the White House effort to present Bush as a strong leader. He comes across as a shallow, inarticulate man, simplistic in speech and inauthentic in manner. If the film is not quite as electrifying as Moore's "Bowling for Columbine," that may be because Moore has toned down his usual exuberance and was sobered by attacks on the factual accuracy of elements of "Columbine"; playing with larger stakes, he is more cautious here, and we get an op-ed piece, not a stand-up routine. But he remains one of the most valuable figures on the political landscape, a populist rabble-rouser, humorous and effective; the outrage and incredulity in his film are an exhilarating response to Bush's determined repetition of the same stubborn sound bites.
C'mon, everybody, it's Take a Republican to the Movies Week!

1st-Quarter Growth Slashed, Inflation Up:

The U.S. economy grew much more slowly than previously thought in the first quarter while inflation was higher, a government report showed on Friday.

The surprise downward revision to gross domestic product -- which measures total output within the nation's borders -- cut growth to a 3.9 percent annual rate in the first three months of 2004 from the 4.4 percent reported a month ago and below the 4.1 percent pace in the final quarter of last year.

The government also ratcheted up a key gauge of inflation, confirming an acceleration in price rises that has fueled expectations the Federal Reserve will begin raising interest rates from 1958 lows next week to head off inflation.
Let's see. Terrorism is down. No, wait, it's up. Inflation is down. No wait, it's up. But the economy is growing strongly. No?

God, I hope the Republican internal polls say George W. Bush is ahead. Since they can't measure anything right, that would be the surest indicator of a Kerry landslide yet.

Thursday, June 24, 2004

Switching sides:

I never actively campaigned for anybody, except in 1980 and 1984 for Ronald Reagan and in 2000 for George W. Bush. I was deeply involved in the Bush campaign, stumping for him in Michigan and Pennsylvania, where I spent most of my life. I hate to tell you this now, I even appeared in a couple of Bush campaign ads.

But this year I'm supporting John Kerry to be the next President of the United States.

All of my best friends are Republicans, and they ask me, "Are you crazy or something? Why are you doing this?" Well, it's simple. I tell them the world is changing. Our country is changing. And we need a leader who understands that change that's taking place. And most important, we need a leader who will level with us about how we can adapt to that change and make things change for the better.

I've met privately with John Kerry, I've talked with him, I read all his position papers, and I would suggest you do likewise. I like him. And I'm endorsing him to be our next President because I like what he says about getting every American a fair shot at a secure, well-paying job so they can provide for their families -- provide for their families and enjoy life a little more.

[...]

John Kerry would make a great commander-in-chief, I have no doubt about that. He would also make one hell of a CEO. That's what a President is.

He knows how to surround himself with good people, and he knows how to set priorities. He's a doer. And he does know how to make a tough decision now and then, believe me.

And most of all, John Kerry has a clear plan for where he wants to take the country, and what he'll do as President in his first hundred days and then in his first two years, halfway through his first term.

[...]

Now, I'm doing this not as a Democrat or Republican, but as an American, simply.

I have two great causes left in my life. One is to find a cure for diabetes. I've been working on it for about 21 years now, and believe it or not, we've had a couple of breakthroughs. We're getting closer, really.

The other is to change the direction of my country. To do that, we need a great leader, and it's -- believe me -- a real honor for me to be able to introduce that leader, the next President of the United States, John Kerry.

Atrios points to this tale of class in the Vice President's office, courtesy of the incomparable Wonkette:

CNN is reporting that on the floor of the Senate yesterday, Dick Cheney told Sen. Pat Leahy, "Go fuck yourself."

... the fighting words sprang from an exchange in which Cheney told Leahy he didn't like what Leahy had been saying about Halliburton, to which Leahy replied that he didn't like Cheney calling him a bad Catholic. So you'd see how "Go fuck yourself" is the only appropriate response.
Of course, I've always considered Cheney a major league asshole. Yeah, big time.

Gore Says Bush Lied About Iraq to Push for War:

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore on Thursday accused President Bush of telling "an artful and important lie" soon after the Sept. 11 attacks to set the stage for war on Iraq.

"Beginning very soon after the attacks of 9/11, President Bush made a decision to start mentioning Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in the same breath in a cynical mantra designed to fuse them together as one in the public's mind," Gore said in a speech at Georgetown University Law Center.

Gore, a Democrat who lost to Bush in a White House race ultimately decided by the Supreme Court despite winning the popular vote in 2000, cited the recent report by the Sept. 11 commission saying no credible evidence existed of a link between the Iraqi leader and bin Laden.

He said Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney continue to argue for a connection between bin Laden's al Qaeda network and the deposed Iraqi regime because it supports their push for war in Iraq and justifies "some of the new power they've picked up from the Congress and the courts" since the 2001 hijack attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

"As a result, President Bush is now intentionally misleading the American people," Gore said. "Indeed, Bush's consistent and careful artifice is itself evidence that he knew full well that he was telling an artful and important lie -- visibly circumnavigating the truth over and over again as if he had practiced how to avoid encountering the truth."

In an hour-long address punctuated by polite laughter and applause, Gore also accused the Bush administration of working closely "with a network of 'rapid response' digital Brown Shirts who work to pressure reporters and their editors for 'undermining support for our troops.'"
Don't you wish he was President?

Say, maybe Kerry could pick Gore as his Veep candidate?

Bush Is Interviewed in Inquiry on Leak of Operative's Name:

President Bush was interviewed by federal prosecutors today in connection with their attempts to discover who leaked the identity of an undercover officer for the Central Intelligence Agency last summer.

The White House said Mr. Bush was questioned for 70 minutes in the Oval Office by United States Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who is heading the Justice Department's inquiry into the episode, and assistant prosecutors. Jim Sharp, a Washington trial lawyer who was retained recently by Mr. Bush, was also present.

The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said the president was happy to cooperate with the investigators. "The leaking of classified information is a very serious matter," Mr. McClellan told reporters. "No one wants to get to the bottom of this matter more than the president of the United States."

The interview suggested that the Justice Department may be in the final stages of its investigation into who leaked the name of the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Plame, to the syndicated columnist Robert Novak. Ms. Plame is married to Joseph C. Wilson IV, who has been critical of the administration's Iraq policy and who questioned Mr. Bush's assertion early in 2003 that Saddam Hussein had sought to buy uranium in Africa.

When asked if the president had answered every question put to him, Mr. McClellan said Mr. Bush "was pleased to share whatever information he had." And when asked if Mr. Bush had any information on who had leaked Ms. Plame's name, Mr. McClellan said such questions should be directed to investigators, adding, "I would not read anything into that one way or the other."

It is extraordinary in itself for a president to be interviewed in connection with an investigation into possible criminal wrongdoing. And 70 minutes is an unusually long segment of time in the schedule of a president, whose movements are typically budgeted minute by minute.
I've lost count of the number of scandals in the current White House. Every single one, though, involves criminal activities that are directly related to the functioning of the Government and the public trust, unlike the President who was in the White House for most of the 1990s. The press continually called Clinton's Administration "scandal plagued." When will they apply the same label to this one? When "senior Administration officials" are giving background briefings in a Federal prison?

Sheesh.

Kevin Drum reports:

The Supreme Court has ruled that Dick Cheney doesn't have to turn over the records of his energy task force meetings. Bummer. For an unvarnished look at what Republican administrations care about and what they don't, this probably would have been unbeatable.

And just what is it about energy policy that the White House thinks ought to be kept secret, anyway? After all, it's not like national security or military policy was part of the discussion, right?

Right?
Why does this remind me of a classic Monty Python sketch? With a few alterations, it works just fine...

Landlady: Come on in, Mr and Mrs Johnson and meet Mr and Mrs Phillips.

Mr Phillips: Good afternoon.

Johnson: Good afternoon.

Landlady: It's their third time here; we can't keep you away, can we? And over there is Mr Hitler Cheney.

(In the corner are three German generals in full Nazi uniform, poring over a map.)

Hitler Cheney: Ach. Ha! Gut time, er, gut afternoon.

Landlady: Oho, planning a little excursion, eh, Mr Hitler Cheney?

Hitler Cheney: Ja, ja, ve haff a little... (to Himmler Rumsfeld) was ist Abweise bewegen?

Himmler Rumsfeld: Hiking.

Hitler Cheney: Ah yes, ve make a little *hike* for Bideford.

Johnson: Ah yes. Well, you'll want the A39. Oh, no, you've got the wrong map there. This is Stalingrad Baghdad. You want the Ilfracombe and Barnstaple section.

Hitler Cheney: Ah! Stalingrad Baghdad! Ha ha ha, Heinri...Reginald Donald, you have the wrong map here you silly old leg-before-vicket English American person.

Himmler Rumsfeld: I'm sorry mein Fuhrer, mein (cough) mein Dickie old chum.

Landlady: Oh, lucky Mr Johnson pointed that out. You wouldn't have had much fun in Stalingrad Baghdad, would you? Ha ha. (stony silence) I said, you wouldn't have had much fun in Stalingrad Baghdad, would you?

Hitler Cheney: Not much fun in Stalingrad Baghdad, no.
Uncanny, don't you think?

Compassionate conservatism, my ass:

A senior Agriculture Department official's comment that people who eat at food banks are "taking the easy way out" was taken out of context, an agency spokeswoman said Wednesday, after several members of Congress called for his resignation.

Eric Bost, the department's undersecretary for food and nutrition programs, was quoted in a June 6 story in The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch about the growing use of food banks as saying he was skeptical of claims that food needs among the poor were increasing.

"There's a bump, but how much of that is due to people taking the easy way out? I don't know," he said.
(Via Suburban Guerrilla)

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

It's an allegory, sort of.

Ruy Teixeira rounds up some interesting economic facts from a study by CIBC World Markets:

...U.S. job creation since late 2001 has been concentrated in low-paying industries such as hospitality, education and personal services, while job losses have hit higher-wage sectors such as transportation, manufacturing, utilities and natural resources.....The message is clear: The vast majority of the jobs that evaporated during the job-loss recovery were high-quality jobs.

The Republican reply to this kind of claim is to say that many high-wage industries are now growing and adding workers. That's true, but even if such industries are now adding workers, if they are growing slower than the average industry--which turns out to be the case--their share of overall employment will continue to decline and the employment share of low-wage industries will continue to rise.

Score one for the Democrats.
Not to mention that average weekly earnings are dropping, health care costs are soaring, and gas prices are rising. The Bush Administration wants you to be grateful because, after three years of horrible economic news, we finally had three OK months.

Maybe W needs to ask his Daddy about the perils and pitfalls of not understanding how the economy affects everyday people.

David Neiwert says:

I'm starting a new Hall of Shame for the World's Dumbest Men. My list so far:
Ethan Hawke

Eric Benet

Jack Ryan

Pretty good start so far, don't you think?
Lyle Lovett was a candidate for the list a while back, but seems to have acquitted himself recently.

The astute Brad DeLong explicates Levels and Rates of Change:

That the labor market is finally improving--that it is no longer becoming harder and harder month by month to find jobs--does not mean that the labor market is good. A few months of employment gains are good news: they mean that it is a little less bad out there in the labor market than it used to be. But don't confuse rates of change with levels: there are still perhaps 4 million people either unemployed or out of the labor force who would have jobs if we had a labor market in equilibrium. (And there are 6 million who would have jobs if we were in a boom like the late 1990s.) It's still unusually hard for Americans to find work--just not as unusually hard as it was six months ago.
It's still closer to midnight than morning in America.

[1] Headline courtesy of The Firesign Theatre

The Poor Man takes a well-deserved shot at Stephen F. Hayes:

Stephen Hayes says whatever Doug Feith tells him to say, and Doug Feith is an incompetent, dishonest, rigidly ideological fool. Nonetheless, expect his book on how Osama and Saddam were basically the same person to be treated with implicit credulity by all the usual suspects.

I'd like to get a list of everyone who buys this book so I can telemarket them non-existent Florida real estate and hypersonic centaur repellent and Godzilla insurance and magic money machines and authentic reproduction Papal dispensations and whatever other shit I make up. Lookin' good costs, baby. I gotta bite off my piece.
I love it when the blogosphere rallies around a good cause.

AP Sues for Access to Bush Guard Records: "The Associated Press sued the Pentagon and the Air Force on Tuesday, seeking access to all records of George W. Bush's military service during the Vietnam War."

According to the lawsuit, the White House has ignored a written request submitted in April, even though Bush, in his Meet the Press interview, gave an "oral waiver" of his right to keep those records confidential.

For those that have followed this story, the crucial missing piece of the puzzle, which has never been released, is the DD214. As Thomas H. Lipscomb noted in the Chicago Sun-Times earlier this year:

An Air National Guard officer such as George Bush left an extensive paper trail of service. The vital summary sheet of a military record is a simple form called the DD214 or NGB 22. It covers all the basic questions being asked about Bush today. Every military veteran has one.

Kerry has one. On it are listed his dates of service, the nature of his discharge and the medals and service ribbons he has every reason to be proud of. It was filed away at the time of discharge and is almost impossible to alter.

Did a single member of the thousands in the press take the trouble to look up just one DD214 or NGB22 -- President Bush's?

Apparently not. And that is the saddest part of the story.
Well, I recall quite a few bloggers asking for this document, most notably Kos. But that form and one other were mysteriously missing from the "complete" personnel file released in February.

Let's see how far the story goes this time.

Via Cursor.org comes this pointer to some excellent Knight-Ridder reportage:

Stung by the perception that the Bush administration may have endorsed torture as an interrogation technique, White House officials declassified documents Tuesday that show President Bush ordered in early 2002 that al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners be treated "humanely" even though he said they weren't protected by the Geneva Conventions.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department disavowed its controversial advice to Bush that suggested terrorists could be tortured if necessary. It said its lawyers were "scrubbing" all of its legal guidance on interrogation methods.

And the Department of Defense revealed that Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld initially approved interrogation techniques that included exploiting detainees' phobias, such as the fear of dogs, but replaced them with less aggressive ones in April 2003.

Tuesday's developments come as the administration is under increasing pressure to explain how abuses occurred in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and in Afghanistan, even as the president insists he never condoned torture or abuse.

But the unusual release of sensitive communications from the White House, the Defense Department and the Justice Department didn't quell growing partisan rancor on Capitol Hill.
Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats who last week tried to subpoena 23 documents from the White House and Justice Department were quick to point out that 21 were missing from the more than 250 pages released Tuesday.

The documents also didn't include anything about interrogation policies in Iraq or at Abu Ghraib, and outlined administration policy only with respect to detainees captured in Afghanistan and those held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.

The White House released "a small subset of the documents that offers glimpses into the genesis of this scandal," said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. "All should have been provided earlier to Congress, and much more remains held back and hidden away from public view."

Still, administration officials insisted Tuesday that Bush's order, in early 2002, was the foundation for all of its interrogation policies in the war on terror. They stressed that his approach was restrained in the face of a threat that poses unusual challenges.
In other words, "Hey, count your blessings. We could have eaily made this an even bigger clusterfuck. And we still might, if you keep pushing."

Tim Dunlop traces the history of propaganda all the way to Frank Luntz, current "communications advisor" and pollster for the Republican Party. Here's a generous excerpt from his memo explaining how to sell Iraq to a skeptical public:

The overwhelming amount of language in this document is intended to create a lexicon for explaining the policy of "preemption" and the "War in Iraq."
However, you will not find any instance in which we suggest that you use the actual word "preemption," or the phrase "The War in Iraq" to communicate your policies to the American public. To do so is to undermine your message from the start. Preemption may be the right
policy, and Iraq the right place to start. But those are not the right words to use.

Your efforts are about "the principles of prevention and protection" in the greater "War on Terror."

Please do not underestimate the importance of these rhetorical nuances. Let us understand the stark reality of public opinion which provides the context for this language research. Like it or not, the situation in Iraq is the poster-child for the War on Terror. It is today's ground zero. You must develop a better way to talk about Iraq in the greater context of the War on Terror. Here are the five essential message points:

WHAT MATTERS MOST


1) "9/11 changed everything" is the context by which everything follows.
No speech about homeland security or Iraq should begin without a
reference to 9/11.

2) The principles of "prevention and protection" still have universal
support and should be addressed prior to talking about Iraq.

3) "Prevention at home can require aggressive action abroad" is the best
way to link a principle the public supports with the policies of the
Administration. "It is better to fight the War on Terror on the streets of
Baghdad than on the streets of New York or Washington."

4) "Terrorism has no boundaries, and neither should efforts to prevent it."
Talk about how terrorism has taken the lives of the British, the
Spanish, Italians, Germans, Israelis, innocents from all across the
globe. Remind listeners that this is truly an international challenge.
"Americans are not the only target."

5) "The world is a better place without Saddam Hussein." Enough said.


....MAKING THE CASE: THE LANGUAGE OF THE WAR ON TERROR


1) Set the Context: 9/11 changed everything. On this issue more than any, context is everything. The American people have notoriously short attention spans – and they do not always see the big picture unless it is unveiled to them. Start with what we all hold in common – the shared experience of the tragedy on September 11th, but then explain what it has done to the present and what it means for the future. Before Americans will accept where you want to go, you need to emphasize where we all have been.
It's very rare to find this sort of naked explanation of how the lies and deceit of the right wing are constructed, block by block. It's mind-boggling to think that there truly is an army of people who read this stuff and actually follow its orders to the letter.

A 2003 Mother Jones article has some more good stuff on Luntz and his single-minded assault on the truth.

First we get an enlightening lesson on how Arab names are constructed. Then we get a blisteringly thorough trashing of the laughable claim that a member of Saddam's Fedayeen was an al-Qaeda operative. Finally, we get this conclusion:

Mr. Carney, Mr. Lehman, journalist Stephen Hayes, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, and all the other persons who gave a moment's thought to the idea that these two are the same person, based on these names, have wasted precious moments of their lives and have helped kill over 800 US servicemen, over an elementary error deriving from complete ignorance of Arabic and Arab culture.

Isn't it a shame that we have these key people doing important things who are either incompetent ignoramuses or dumb as posts?

Stephen Hayes of the [Weekly Standard] was on Jon Stewart's Daily Show Monday, by the way, peddling his book, which is full of similar nonsense, and at one point Stewart actually told him he thought the book was a load of crap. Stewart's Daily Show is among the best sources of news analysis on television.
My wife thought John Stewart was being mean. I think Hayes willingly signed on to play the role of patsy for the Bush Administration, and he deserves whatever he gets. (He suffered a similar humiliation when he was the junior member of a panel at the AEI last month.)

Isn't it telling, by the way, that Bushco had to use a third-rate hack writer for a second-rate publication to flog this story? Maybe the press corps is finally getting wise after all.

And thank you, TiVo.

Last night I watched Monday's episode of the Daily Show, in which "author" Stephen F. Hayes (Connection) was neatly sliced, diced, filleted, and packaged in shrink-wrap by Mr. Stewart. Normally, an author goes on TV to sell his book. After watching Hayes stammer, stutter, giggle, and basically disavow the entire premise of his book under Stewart's relentless questioning, I can only imagine that people were lined up at bookstores the next day demanding their money back.

Amazingly, Comedy Central is turning out some of the most honest, accurate, on-the-money reporting around these days. Do you think CNN is watching?

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Billmon sums up the pending perjury case against the Attorney General: "Ashcroft forgot the first rule of a cover up: Don't flatly deny something under oath if there are witnesses who you can't control."

Two eyewitnesses directly contradict what Ashcroft swore to under oath. Does anyone have the guts to file charges?

Winston Smith takes down the myth of the wimpification of the Western male. Hilarious. Hope Kim du Toit doesn't shoot him.

On second thought, that headline is probably unfair to slime. Read this analysis by Media Matters of Novak's appearance on Meet the Press last weekend, and then ask yourself why this guy is allowed to use a keyboard.

Kevin says, Please, dear god, make it stop.

(via Digby)

John Kerry in Aspen: "Just to put your minds all at ease, I have four words for you that I know will relieve you greatly. How does this sound? Vice President Hunter Thompson."

I'd vote for it!

This is gutless.

Update: The New York Times notes: "Two Republicans, Senators Olympia J. Snowe of Maine and John McCain of Arizona, voted in favor of permitting news photographers to have access to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where coffins containing the war dead from Iraq arrive." The times said they were the only Republicans to break ranks, but they missed the courageous Sen. Fitzgerald (R-IL).

The Times also said seven Democrats voted against the amendment, but I counted 10. Take a bow, Senators Bayh, Biden, Breaux, Carper, Landrieu, Levin, Lincoln, Miller, Nelson, and Pryor.

And whoever reported this for the Times needs to go back to school.

Oops:

The CIA concluded 'a long time ago' that an al-Qaida associate who met with two of the Sept. 11 hijackers in Malaysia was not an officer in Saddam Hussein's army, as alleged Sunday by a Republican member of the 9/11 commission.

Commissioner John Lehman, who was Navy secretary under Ronald Reagan, said 'new ... documents' indicated that 'at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen,' an elite army unit, 'was a very prominent member of al-Qaida.'

Lehman's remarks on NBC's 'Meet the Press' lent support to the Bush administration's insistence that there were strong ties between Hussein and al-Qaida.

The administration official said the CIA and U.S. Army obtained the lists of members of the Fedayeen shortly after the invasion of Iraq last year. Some, he said, had names 'similar to' Ahmad Hikmat Shakir. But, he said, the CIA had concluded 'a long time ago' that none were the al-Qaida associate. He would not say whether the al-Qaida associate is in U.S. custody. Other sources said he was not.
Meanwhile, Stephen Hayes gets to go on the Daily Show. There is no justice.

Monday, June 21, 2004

Unbelievable.

Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau reporter Jonathan S. Landay files this story: Intelligence experts cast doubt on ties between Iraq, al-Qaida

Defenders of President Bush's charges that Saddam Hussein worked with al-Qaida have been citing what they say is new evidence that could help substantiate one of the administration's main justifications for invading Iraq.
They say the evidence is the name of a paramilitary officer in captured documents that appears identical to that of an Iraqi who met two Sept. 11 hijackers in Malaysia nearly two years before the attacks in New York and Washington.

But U.S. officials told Knight Ridder on Monday that U.S. intelligence experts were highly skeptical that the Iraqi officer had any connection to al-Qaida.

On Sunday, John F. Lehman, a Republican member of the independent commission that's probing the attacks, cited the documents as "new intelligence" on Iraq's links with al-Qaida.

"We are in the process of getting this latest intelligence," Lehman said on NBC. "Some of these documents indicate that there is at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al-Qaida. This still has to be confirmed."

The U.S. officials said the lieutenant colonel's name is different from that of the man who met the hijackers in Malaysia. The man who met the hijackers wasn't in Iraq at the time the documents were dated and he's never been implicated in the Sept. 11 plot by any top al-Qaida operatives in American custody.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the documents remain classified.

The officials said they were unsure why Lehman portrayed the documents as possible new intelligence on Iraq's links to al-Qaida. The documents have been cited by such staunch administration defenders as conservative author Stephen F. Hayes and The Wall Street Journal editorial page.
Folks, you read it here first. This story is not new. It made the rounds last year, long before the 9-11 Commission began taking testimony, when the Bush White House was still refusing to hand over any documents.

The whole shaky story is based on one piece of paper filled with statements of extraordinarily dubious veracity. Dick Cheney's office leaked it to Steven Hayes, who stretched it into a book, about which the Wall Street Journal wrote an editorial.

There's nothing to this story. Nothing. But the public who looks at the story casually comes away with the belief that the Bush Administration has a smoking gun and the commission is just playing politics.

Like I said, unbelievable.

A new WaPo poll says W is losing his mojo when it comes to the Great War on Terra:

Public anxiety over mounting casualties in Iraq and the doubts about long-term consequences of the war continue to rise and have helped to erase President Bush's once-formidable advantage over Sen. John F. Kerry on who is best able to deal with terrorist threats, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Exactly half the country now approves of the way Bush is managing the U.S. war on terrorism, down 13 points since April, according to the poll. Barely two months ago, Bush comfortably led Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee, by 21 percentage points when voters were asked which man they trusted to deal with the terrorist threat. Today the country is evenly divided, with 48 percent preferring Kerry and 47 percent favoring Bush.
Holding the GOP convention in NYC is looking more and more like a dumb idea. But why should that surprise anyone?

This is eye-opening:

A prominent federal judge has told a conference of liberal lawyers that President Bush's rise to power was similar to the accession of dictators such as Mussolini and Hitler.

"In a way that occurred before but is rare in the United States ... somebody came to power as a result of the illegitimate acts of a legitimate institution that had the right to put somebody in power. That is what the Supreme Court did in Bush versus Gore. It put somebody in power," said Guido Calabresi, a judge on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which sits in Manhattan.

"The reason I emphasize that is because that is exactly what happened when Mussolini was put in by the king of Italy," Judge Calabresi continued, as the allusion drew audible gasps from some in the luncheon crowd Saturday at the annual convention of the American Constitution Society.

"The king of Italy had the right to put Mussolini in, though he had not won an election, and make him prime minister. That is what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in. I am not suggesting for a moment that Bush is Hitler. I want to be clear on that, but it is a situation which is extremely unusual," the judge said.

Judge Calabresi, a former dean of Yale Law School, said Mr. Bush has asserted the full prerogatives of his office, despite his lack of a compelling electoral mandate from the public.

"When somebody has come in that way, they sometimes have tried not to exercise much power. In this case, like Mussolini, he has exercised extraordinary power. He has exercised power, claimed power for himself; that has not occurred since Franklin Roosevelt who, after all, was elected big and who did some of the same things with respect to assertions of power in times of crisis that this president is doing," he said.

The 71-year-old judge declared that members of the public should, without regard to their political views, expel Mr. Bush from office in order to cleanse the democratic system.

"That's got nothing to do with the politics of it. It's got to do with the structural reassertion of democracy," Judge Calabresi said.

His remarks were met with rousing applause from the hundreds of lawyers and law students in attendance.

Judge Calabresi was born in Milan. His family fled Mussolini in 1939 and settled in America.
(via Max)

Christopher Hitchens continues his long, ugly descent into the quicksand of intellectual depravity with his latest contribution to Slate: Unfairenheit 9/11 - The lies of Michael Moore:

To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.
Well. One could substitute "this column" for "this film" and have a pretty good summary of how depraved Hitchens is in this piece. But really, that would be dignifying the man too much. It's much easier and more productive to report that Christopher Hitchens has become my reverse oracle. If he says something, I can be confident the opposite is true. If he believes something, I can look deep into my soul and know that I believe the exact opposite. If he hates a film, I'll be right there in the front of the line.

Chris, even Fox News thinks Fahrenheit 911 is "a really brilliant piece of work, and a film that members of all political parties should see without fail."

I was hoping this stuff would just resolve itself while I was away having fun. But no.

[A]s the Supreme Court prepares to rule on the legal status of the 595 men imprisoned here, an examination by The New York Times has found that government and military officials have repeatedly exaggerated both the danger the detainees posed and the intelligence they have provided.

In interviews, dozens of high-level military, intelligence and law-enforcement officials in the United States, Europe and the Middle East said that contrary to the repeated assertions of senior administration officials, none of the detainees at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay ranked as leaders or senior operatives of Al Qaeda. They said only a relative handful -- some put the number at about a dozen, others more than two dozen -- were sworn Qaeda members or other militants able to elucidate the organization's inner workings.
That bold-faced part in the center? That means, "They lied."

It's an epic piece of journalism, with gems like these:

In September 2002, eight months after the detainees began to arrive in Cuba, a top-secret study by the Central Intelligence Agency raised questions about their significance, suggesting that many of the accused terrorists appeared to be low-level recruits who went to Afghanistan to support the Taliban or even innocent men swept up in the chaos of the war, current and former officials who read the assessment said.

Nearly two years later, military officials said, the evidence against many of the detainees is still so sparse that investigators have been able to deliver cases for military prosecution against only 15 of the suspects, 6 of whom have already been designated as eligible for trial by President Bush. Investigators are now preparing 35 to 40 other cases for the military tribunals, those officials said.

[...]

American and foreign officials have also grown increasingly concerned about the prospect that detainees who arrived at Guantanamo representing little threat to the United States may have since been radicalized by the conditions of their imprisonment and others held with them.

"Guantanamo is a huge problem for Americans," a senior Arab intelligence official familiar with its operations said. "Even those who were not hard-core extremists have now been indoctrinated by the true believers. Like any other prison, they have been taught to hate. If they let these people go, these people will make trouble."
Mission accomplished!

Thursday, June 17, 2004

We interrupt this vacation to ask you to sign the petition!

Thursday, June 10, 2004

Reagan's still dead, right?

I'm gonna take advantage of this opportunity to slip away for 10 days. Back in a while.

Still looking for guest bloggers/collaborators/partners.

President Bush is playing the sort of word games that drove Republicans into fits when Clinton did it. Let's see what kind of reaction he gets to this:

President Bush said Thursday he ordered U.S. officials to follow the law while interrogating suspected terrorists, but he sidestepped an opportunity to flatly denounce the use of torture.

Bush's comments came as a 2-year-old State Department document surfaced warning the White House that failing to apply international standards against torture could put U.S. troops at risk.

"What I've authorized is that we stay within U.S. law,'' Bush told reporters at the close of the G-8 summit in Savannah, Ga.

Asked if torture is ever justified, Bush replied, "Look, I'm going to say it one more time. ... The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law. That ought to comfort you.''

Bush's comments follow disclosure of Justice Department memos to the White House advising the president that he could suspend international treaties prohibiting torture. The Justice Department also told the White House that U.S. laws against torture do not apply to the war on terror.

Bush said he doesn't recall seeing any of the Justice Department advice."
He refuses to make a simple statement that the United States government rejects torture and stands behind the conventions we've agreed to over the years. Instead, he uses the weasel words "stay within U.S. law" and "adhere to law."

Of course, his Attorney General was telling him that the Justice Department's expert legal opinions allowed a great many types of interrogation activities that stopped just short of violent death and would not be considered torture under their tortured interpretation of the law.

Of course, he doesn't recall seeing that memo. Can you imagine George W. Bush reading a 56-page legal memo? Puh-leeze. Ashcroft told him he had a firm legal basis (the divine right of kings, essentially) for the interrogation techniques they were using, and Bush relied on that advice. Ashcroft said, in essence, if you tell people to stay within these lines, this will all be within U.S. law. "Do you want to see the memo, Mr. President?" No, thanks. I'll take your word, John.

Bush is now being very, very careful about what he says on this subject. Why? Because he knows if he gets it wrong, it could blow up in his face, with impeachment and criminal charges both as real possibilities.

And no, I'm not comforted.

Digby nails it in his analysis of what makes the torture memo really shocking:

What was the process by which they came to these dry legalistic definition of when, how and where on is allowed to inflict terrible pain as long as it doesn't reach the level of intensity that would accompany serious physical injury or organ failure? Did they discuss this around a conference table over a take-out Chinese dinner? Did they all nod their heads and take notes and write memos and have conference calls and send e-mails on the subject of what exactly the definition of 'severe pain' is? Did they take their kid to school on the way to the meeting in which they finalized a report that says the president of the United States has the unlimited authority to order the torture of anyone he wants? Did they tell jokes on the way out?

These nice people with nice backrounds and nice jobs spent weeks contemplating how to legally torture human beings. Then they went home and watched television and ate dinner and went to bed and made love to their wife or husband and got up and did it again because it was their job and their duty to find ways to legally justify it.
Read the rest for yourself. It's well worth it

My wife thinks our culture is failing and that we as a people passed the tipping point some time ago. She thinks that evil has already won. In my many optimistic moments I disagree and I plead the case for goodness to triumph at the last minute. But then I see shit like this, and, well...

Our new best friend in the War on Terror has been cheating:

While the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, was renouncing terrorism and negotiating the lifting of sanctions last year, his intelligence chiefs ordered a covert operation to assassinate the ruler of Saudi Arabia and destabilize the oil-rich kingdom, according to statements by two participants in the conspiracy.

[...]

A senior Bush administration official said that the emergence of convincing evidence that Colonel Qaddafi ordered or condoned an assassination and terror campaign could cause a "180 degree" change of American policy toward Libya.
Obviously, Fearless Leader did not get a chance to do his patented "I have looked into his soul" routine with the Colonel before forming this partnership.

Wednesday, June 09, 2004

From the comments at Whiskey Bar:

I thought that "Bush-Cheney 04" bumpersticker on Reagan's hearse was too much.

Goddamnit, they just keep lying. And then someone realizes that they'll get caught, or that it's just plain wrong to peddle a pack of pure unadulterated bullshit. And so you get this: The New York Times Army Now Says G.I. Was Beaten in Role:

Reversing itself, the Army said Tuesday that a G.I. was discharged partly because of a head injury he suffered while posing as an uncooperative detainee during a training exercise at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Army had previously said Specialist Sean Baker's medical discharge in April was unrelated to the injury he received last year at the detention center, where the United States holds suspected terrorists.
I'm running out of tinfoil. They were rehearsing this stuff. They had long documents answering the questions they had about how far they could go. This was not a few bad apples.

Put Reagan on the $100,000 bill? I like this idea!

Jerry Bowles:

[T]he evidence continues to mount that the good ship America has been hijacked by the biggest and most dangerous gang of pirates and thugs to occupy the world stage since Hitler and Stalin and their associates had their billets punched.

[...]

The real tragedy here is we live in a time when half of the American population refuses to recognize treason, war crimes and creeping fascism when they see them all around. Such is the level of partisanship, it would be a political disaster for Kerry to point out that the Bush administration's perversion of American values and decency may be the biggest threat to the survival of our nation in our history, certainly since the Civil War. Only a handful of brave Republican senators--John Warner, John McCain and a few others--dare confront the nightmare that America has become and they face the contempt of the jerks in the House.

In at least one way, Ronnie was lucky to have been out of it for the last decade. Even he knew that John Wayne never drew first and never beat up a man who was tied to a tree."
I want to see the seismographs after they finally put Reagan in the ground. I'm willing to bet that scientists will be able to detect noticeable motion.

I don't know what to make of this:

Two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with most of the nation's air traffic still grounded, a small jet landed at Tampa International Airport, picked up three young Saudi men and left.

The men, one of them thought to be a member of the Saudi royal family, were accompanied by a former FBI agent and a former Tampa police officer on the flight to Lexington, Ky.

The Saudis then took another flight out of the country. The two ex-officers returned to TIA a few hours later on the same plane.

For nearly three years, White House, aviation and law enforcement officials have insisted the flight never took place and have denied published reports and widespread Internet speculation about its purpose.

But now, at the request of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, TIA officials have confirmed that the flight did take place and have supplied details.
I remember reading about this long ago and being puzzled over the denials. Now it seems this really was a story after all.

Hundreds of innocent Middle Easterners were rounded up in the days after 9/11. Some were kept in jail on no charges for months. Meanwhile, wealthy Saudis were allowed to leave, no questions asked.

House of Bush, House of Saud.

(via Talking Points Memo)

This is appalling.

Laura Bush, whose father died from Alzheimer's, said on Wednesday she admired Nancy Reagan's devotion to former President Ronald Reagan until his death but could not back her call for relaxation of stem cell research restrictions.

Reagan, the 40th U.S. president, died on Saturday at 93 of pneumonia after a long battle with the brain-wasting disease. His wife, Nancy, and children were at his bedside.

Mrs. Bush, whose father died in 1997, said she had great respect for the former first lady and that she was an excellent role model for families struggling to cope with the illness.

"I know how very difficult it is for the patient, obviously, but also for the caregiver. It requires unbelievable strength of character to take care of the person you love as you see them slip away like that -- 'the long goodbye' they call Alzheimer's," the first lady told the CBS "Early Show" from Sea Island, Georgia, where leaders of the Group of Eight countries are meeting.

But Mrs. Bush said she did not endorse Nancy Reagan's call, already rebuffed by the White House, to allow greater stem cell research to proceed in the hope it would provide some answers to the disease or possibly a cure.

The Bush administration has placed restrictions on embryonic stem cell research and opposes using stem cells from most embryos, a stand Mrs. Bush said she supported.

"There are stem cells to do research on and ... we have to be really careful between what we want to do for science and what we should do ethically," the first lady said. "Stem cell ... is certainly one of those issues that we need to treat very carefully."

Pressed on whether she was prepared to endorse Mrs. Reagan's impassioned call for restrictions to be lifted, she replied, "No."
Compassionate conservatives, my ass.

I've written previously about Stephen F. Hayes, the hack Weekly Standard writer who turned a one-page collection of raw intelligence information into a magazine article and then stretched it into a book. Its premise is that there is strong evidence of a connection between Saddam and Osama.

Over at American Prospect Online, Matthew Yglesias sums up the argument in one sentence: "This is, simply put, nonsense."

The New York Times closes its story on the relationship between the Bush and Reagan families with this whopper:

"I think the name is Bush, but he is a true Reaganite," said Kenneth M. Duberstein, Mr. Reagan's last chief of staff, speaking of the current president. "It's bold strokes and primary colors, not pastels."
You mean, like this?

So, what should we do with someone who has planted bombs and sabotaged government facilities in Baghdad? They're terrorists, right? They need to be put down, locked up, even killed if necessary to preserve order.

Or we could make that "terrorist" the new prime minister of Iraq:

Iyad Allawi, now the designated prime minister of Iraq, ran an exile organization intent on deposing Saddam Hussein that sent agents into Baghdad in the early 1990's to plant bombs and sabotage government facilities under the direction of the C.I.A., several former intelligence officials say.

Dr. Allawi's group, the Iraqi National Accord, used car bombs and other explosive devices smuggled into Baghdad from northern Iraq, the officials said. Evaluations of the effectiveness of the bombing campaign varied, although the former officials interviewed agreed that it never threatened Saddam Hussein's rule.

No public records of the bombing campaign exist, and the former officials said their recollections were in many cases sketchy, and in some cases contradictory. They could not even recall exactly when it occurred, though the interviews made it clear it was between 1992 and 1995.

The Iraqi government at the time claimed that the bombs, including one it said exploded in a movie theater, resulted in many civilian casualties. But whether the bombings actually killed any civilians could not be confirmed because, as a former C.I.A. official said, the United States had no significant intelligence sources in Iraq then.

One former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was based in the region, Robert Baer, recalled that a bombing during that period "blew up a school bus; schoolchildren were killed." Mr. Baer, a critic of the Iraq war, said he did not recall which resistance group might have set off that bomb.

Other former intelligence officials said Dr. Allawi's organization was the only resistance group involved in bombings and sabotage at that time.

But one former senior intelligence official recalled that "bombs were going off to no great effect."

"I don't recall very much killing of anyone," the official said.

When Dr. Allawi was picked as interim prime minister last week, he said his first priority would be to improve the security situation by stopping bombings and other insurgent attacks in Iraq — an idea several former officials familiar with his past said they found "ironic."

"Send a thief to catch a thief," said Kenneth Pollack, who was an Iran-Iraq military analyst for the C.I.A. during the early 1990's and recalled the sabotage campaign.
My vote for best unintentional irony in the article is when Allawi's chief bomb maker complains that the CIA stiffed him on one of the payments. "Mr. Khadami said that 'we blew up a car, and we were supposed to get $2,000' but got only $1,000..."

If you can't trust the CIA, who can you trust?

Al Giordano can't spell too good, but he sure does know how to think:

"This document would bring down a regime in any civilized country.

"At this point, I accept the correlary of Bush's 'if you are not with us you are against us' doctrine. There is no way to sugarcoat it: If you are with him, you are complicit in the war crimes. And as the pendelum starts moving the other way it is coming like a wrecking ball, because big atrocities require big justice."

Professor Michael Froomkin has read the memo and is is horrified:

The discussion of Presidential powers begins (page 20) with the observation that in the exercise of the commander-in-chief function, and in particular in the conduct of operations against hostile forces, the President enjoys complete discretion". That the Presidents powers are at their greatest in these circumstances cannot be disputed. But while the discretion is indeed very great, I do not see how it could possibly be read to include the authority to commit war crimes, even pre-Nuremburg. And today it clearly cannot include that authority, at least without explicit Congressional authorization. Thus, the entire discussion of Presidential power is based on a premise so false that any student who has taken introductory International Law should be able to recognize its error. And as any logician will tell you, when you begin with an erroneous premise, you are in trouble.

[...]

On pages 22-23 the Walker Working Group Report sets out a view of an unlimited Presidential power to do anything he wants with "enemy combatants". The bill of rights is nowhere mentioned. There is no principle suggested which limits this purported authority to non-citizens, or to the battlefield. Under this reasoning, it would be perfectly proper to grab any one of us and torture us if the President determined that the war effort required it. I cannot exaggerate how pernicious this argument is, and how incompatible it is with a free society. The Constitution does not make the President a King. This memo does.

[...]

This memo is labeled "draft". Even so, if the second half is like the first, then everyone who wrote or signed it strikes me as morally unfit to serve the United States.

If anyone in the higher levels of government acted in reliance on this advice, those persons should be impeached. If they authorized torture, it may be that they have committed, and should be tried for, war crimes. And, as we learned at Nuremberg, "I was just following orders" is NOT (and should not be) a defense.
By comparison, Nixon was a man of great honor.