PBD may be sketchy again for the next week or so, given uncertain Internet access while I'm travelling. It will be back on a daily basis after that. Let me leave you with these three tidbits for now.

"RESULTS MATTER"

Record-level deficit "not as bad as it looks"

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/31/politics/31budget.html
Joshua B. Bolten, President Bush's budget director, presented the new forecast as good news, saying "the improved budget outlook is the direct result of the strong economic growth the president's tax relief has fueled."

Bush/Cheney practice racial profiling in granting interviews

http://www.azstarnet.com/dailystar/dailystar/32301.php
President Bush's re-election campaign insisted on knowing the race of an Arizona Daily Star journalist assigned to photograph Vice President Dick Cheney....The Star refused to provide the information.....A rally organizer for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign asked Teri Hayt, the Star's managing editor, to disclose the journalist's race on Friday......Danny Diaz, a spokesman for the president's re-election campaign, said the information was needed for security purposes......"All the information requested of staff, volunteers and participants for the event has been done so to ensure the safety of all those involved, including the vice president of the United States," he said......Diaz repeated that answer when asked if it is the practice of the White House to ask for racial information or if the photographer, Mamta Popat, was singled out because of her name. He referred those questions to the U.S. Secret Service, which did not respond to a call from the Star Friday afternoon.

Coalition of the sort-of-willing

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/31/politics/31dipl.html
For the first time, administration officials are acknowledging the delicate nature of their "coalition of the willing" - the group of some 30 nations that lent their names and limited numbers of troops to the occupying force built mainly of American and British forces. The multinational force, which the administration stitched together as traditional NATO allies balked, is increasingly tattered.....Secretary of State Colin L. Powell acknowledged his dismay this week over the erosion of support...

[Watch for this: news here in London suggests that Bush Co. will soon reverse its policy of not granting contracts in Iraq to countries that didn't support the war -- an unbelievably arrogant and counterproductive pronouncement in the first place. But other than that, everything is going just great in Iraq now, thanks.]

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 1:28 PM

 
IT AIN’T THE STORY, IT’S THE COVERAGE

Berger absolved of any serious wrongdoing (will this get the same coverage as the original accusations, including Tucker Carlson’s claim that he removed every copy of a particular document?)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/berger-cleared-of-withholding-material.html
Officials looking into the removal of classified documents from the National Archives by former Clinton National Security Adviser Samuel Berger say no original materials are missing and nothing Mr. Berger reviewed was withheld from the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

[More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003374]

Remember that LA Times story yesterday about massive corruption and misuse of funds in Iraq? Here’s a nice analysis of how the “liberal” Washington Post covered the same story

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/how-post-spins-massive-corruption.html

Bush’s early campaign strategy

1. Go negative early (it’s rare for the Presidential candidate to take on the personal attacks – usually this falls to the VP)

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/07/30/bush_criticizes/index_np.html
President Bush launched his counterattack against John Kerry on Friday, saying his Democratic rival has spent 19 years in the U.S. Senate with “no signature achievements.”……“My opponent has good intentions, but intentions do not always translate to results,” Bush told thousands of supporters who repeatedly interrupted his remarks with standing ovations. Over and over, Bush repeated a new refrain: “Results matter.”

[The problem is, the VP isn’t that good at it, and his own credibility is shaky right now:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_25.php#003231]

2. “Results matter,” eh?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/7/30/8473/01608

3. Suggest that in an era of terror, there is no choice

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27212-2004Jul30.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing
The idea, of course, is to counter "We can do better," which was the unofficial theme of the Democratic National Convention that officially designated Sen. John F. Kerry as its champion this week…… Mike Allen writes in The Washington Post: "Aides said Bush's campaign-trail mantra will be: 'We have turned the corner, and we are not turning back.'"

4. Act negative, but keep promising to turn positive

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_07_25_atrios_archive.html#109122328283184758
Nicolle Devenish, the Bush campaign's communications director, said the president will deliver a retooled stump speech during stops in Missouri, Michigan and Ohio that will pivot away from tough rhetoric against Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry and focus more on "laying out a vision" for the next four years.

[More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_25.php#003230]

5. And when all else fails, a little extortion doesn’t hurt…

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/want-to-see-your-vice-preznit-sign.html
If you happen to be in New Mexico this weekend and you want to see the man who is paid with your tax dollars to be your Vice President you must sign this loyalty oath:

"I, (full name) ... do herby [sic] endorse George W. Bush for reelection of the United States." It later adds that, "In signing the above endorsement you are consenting to use and release of your name by Bush-Cheney as an endorser of President Bush."

Why they’re right to be worried

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/shorter-john-zogby-give-it-up-george.html
The most recent Zogby poll shows deeper trouble for President George W. Bush beyond just the horserace. Mr. Bush has fallen in key areas while Senator John Kerry has shored up numerous constituencies in his base. The Bush team's attempted outreach to base Democratic and swing constituency has shown to be a failure thus far, limiting his potential growth in the electorate.

[More: http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/07/election_polls_and_predictions.html]

Economic growth lags behind rosy predictions

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/30/business/30CND-ECON.html?hp

[More: http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001247.html]

Tom Ridge about to step down: Has anyone noticed the pattern here? The people of more moderate sensibility and competence are quitting or forced out, the ideologues and true believers (despite a string of embarrassing failures) are re-upping their enlistment

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003376

The National Security State – here’s what happens when all government agencies, even the US Census bureau, get corralled into surveillance duties

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/30/politics/30census.html?ei=5006&en=47c73e07e92e3f18&ex=1091764800&partner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=print&position=
Christiana Halsey, a spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection, said the requests were made to help the agency identify in which airports to post signs and pamphlets in Arabic. "The information is not in any way being used for law enforcement purposes," she said. "It's being used to educate the traveler. We're simply using basic demographic information to help us communicate U.S. laws and regulations to the traveling public."……But critics of the information sharing said general demographic snapshots could be derived without such detailed information and that the ZIP-code-level data with its breakdowns of ancestral origin seemed particularly excessive because for all of the groups only English or Arabic need be used……"The real question is to Homeland Security," said Samia El-Badry, an Arab-American member of the Census Bureau's decennial census advisory committee. "What are they hiding? Why do they need this?"……James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, said the data sharing was particularly harmful at a time when the Census Bureau is struggling to build trust within Arab-American communities. "As this gets out, any effort to encourage people to full compliance with the census is down the tubes," Mr. Zogby said. "How can you get people to comply when they believe that by complying they put at risk their personal and family security?"

This is rich: Bush Co. excuse for opposing 9-11 Committee recommendations: “because they might weaken civil liberties”

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-commish31jul31,1,1539843.story?coll=la-home-headlines
"We need to, in considering each of these recommendations, place a premium and real attention on how to protect civil liberties while better safeguarding our homeland," the official said……Civil rights advocates said they shared the White House's concerns, but questioned whether an administration that has been accused of weakening civil liberties was seizing on the privacy issue to delay action on proposals it dislikes……Rights advocates expressed surprise and suspicion about what they called the administration's sudden concern with privacy issues. They described the administration's argument as ironic in light of the rollback in civil liberties it pushed in the USA Patriot Act……"I wish they had had similar concerns about civil liberties before the Patriot Act," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "Of course, this newfound concern with civil liberties has to be taken with a grain of salt. The administration has shown a great disregard for civil liberties in the wake of 9/11, and it's a cynical ploy to trot out arguments on civil liberties when they don't like the findings of the 9/11 report."

Bonus item: Mostly speculation, but fascinating

http://www.juancole.com/2004_07_01_juancole_archive.html#109125286487494616
Did al-Qaeda Game Bush into Iraq War?
Douglas Jehl of the New York Times explains how Ibn al-Shaykh Libi, a high al-Qaeda official of Libyan extraction, was captured in fall of 2001 and alleged to CIA interrogators that Iraq had provided al-Qaeda with training in chemical and biological weapons……When the CIA came back to Libi with these statements of his colleagues, he folded and admitted he had lied……What is going on here? It has been suggested that Libi told the CIA whatever they wanted to hear because they tortured him. But there is another possibility, which is that he deliberately misled them……I think Bin Laden and his lieutenants wanted to provoke wars between the US and Muslim states. I think they knew that the 9/11 attacks would guarantee a US war on Afghanistan, and that they were confident they could draw the US into the country and defeat it, as they had the Soviets……Libi's story about Iraq training al-Qaeda, delivered after 9/11, is of a piece with the rest of this strategy. It was aimed at instigating a war by the US on Iraq……All of these wars were intended to stir hatred of the US invader throughout the Muslim world, to weaken the "puppet" governments of the Middle East that were allied with the US and make them ripe for overthrow, and to mire the US in a series of Islamic quagmires that would sap its will and strength and ultimately force its withdrawal from the region……In form, the Libi strategy resembles the Maoist hope that the rural third world could be brought into a confrontation with the industrialized capitalist countries, one in which contradictions would be sharpened and the capitalist minority ultimately surrounded and overwhelmed by socialist villagers. Substitute "radical Islamist" for "socialist" and you have the Libi plan……Even though Libi recanted his earlier disinformation, Vice President Dick Cheney has continued to rely on his allegations. Note that it should no longer be necessary for the US to depend on a single unreliable source such as Libi, since it has captured the Baath intelligence files and should by now know pretty much exactly what the Baath government was up to with regard to terrorism. If the US does not know, it would be because it irresponsibly gave those intelligence files to Ahmad Chalabi……Chalabi was playing the US from the other side, feeding it disinformation about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and al-Qaeda ties that was just made up out of whole cloth……Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz allowed themselves to be manipulated by Libi and Chalabi because it suited them.
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 4:04 AM

 
SHOULDA SEEN IT COMING

Kerry’s speech: a good analysis

http://slate.msn.com/id/2104539/fr/rss/

Well, TNR predicted they were going to do it, Bush Co. went ahead and did it, and STILL the networks fell for it

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003371
[TNR] This spring, the administration significantly increased its pressure on Pakistan to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman Al Zawahiri, or the Taliban's Mullah Mohammed Omar, all of whom are believed to be hiding in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan……The Bush administration denies it has geared the war on terrorism to the electoral calendar. "Our attitude and actions have been the same since September 11 in terms of getting high-value targets off the street, and that doesn't change because of an election," says National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack. But The New Republic has learned that Pakistani security officials have been told they must produce HVTs by the election. According to one source in Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), "The Pakistani government is really desperate and wants to flush out bin Laden and his associates after the latest pressures from the U.S. administration to deliver before the [upcoming] U.S. elections."……A third source, an official who works under ISI's director, Lieutenant General Ehsan ul-Haq, informed tnr that the Pakistanis "have been told at every level that apprehension or killing of HVTs before [the] election is [an] absolute must." What's more, this source claims that Bush administration officials have told their Pakistani counterparts they have a date in mind for announcing this achievement: "The last ten days of July deadline has been given repeatedly by visitors to Islamabad and during [ul-Haq's] meetings in Washington." Says McCormack: "I'm aware of no such comment." But according to this ISI official, a White House aide told ul-Haq last spring that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July"--the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_25.php#003220
This is just the latest, but perhaps the most blatant, example of how this administration has placed politics and, really, political dirty tricks above national security itself, and along the way persisted in defining political deviance down until tactics we used to associate with banana republics start to seem commonplace here.

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/000983.html
Pakistan has arrested Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian al-Qaida suspect with a $25 million reward on his head, in connection with the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the interior minister said Friday……Ghailani was arrested on Sunday in the eastern city of Gujrat along with at least 15 others, Interior Minihttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifster Faisal Saleh Hayyat told Pakistan’s Geo television network.

They arrested him on Sunday and only announced it today, the day Kerry happens to be scheduled to give his prime time acceptance speech?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004416.php
UPDATE: In fairness, here's the Washington Post's take on the timing of the announcement:
Pakistani officials have rejected allegations that they delayed the announcement for four days to obtain maximum publicity. Hayat said the delay was a result of "double checks and even triple checks in such cases.”…But in the arrests of other high-profile al Qaeda targets in Pakistan, including Abu Zubayida, Khalid Sheik Mohammad and Ramzi Bin al Shibh, the news media received word almost immediately.

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/000987.html
Three important points to note:
1) US officials -- the CIA and FBI -- were in on the intelligence leading to the arrest, and have already been involved in his interrogation.
2) The timing of the announcement of the arrest was highly unusual, compared to previous Pakistani arrests of al Qaeda suspects.
3) And Ghailani is not "low level" at all - he is on the FBI's list of the 22 most wanted people in the world. As CNN notes here , "Ghailani was one of seven alleged terrorists who were highlighted by Attorney General John Ashcroft in a news conference in Washington on May 26. Ashcroft said Ghailani had 'the skill, ability to undertake attacks both against American interests overseas as well in the United States.'"

Iraq funds: a burgeoning scandal

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-probes30jul30,1,2690769.story?coll=la-home-headlines
A comprehensive examination of the U.S.-led agency that oversaw the rebuilding of Iraq has triggered at least 27 criminal investigations and produced evidence of millions of dollars' worth of fraud, waste and abuse, according to a report by the Coalition Provisional Authority's inspector general……The report is the most sweeping indication yet that some U.S. officials and private contractors repeatedly violated the law in the free-wheeling atmosphere that pervaded the multibillion-dollar effort to rebuild the war-torn country……More than $600 million in cash from Iraqi oil money was spent with insufficient controls. Senior U.S. officials manipulated or misspent contract money. Millions of dollars' worth of equipment could not be located, the report said……"We found problems in the CPA's financial management, procurement practices and operational controls"

British govt report concedes the miserable failure of current Iraq policies

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/brits-raise-warnings-on-iraq-and.html
“Iraq has become a ‘battle ground’ for al Qaida, with appalling consequences for the Iraqi people. The coalition’s failure to bring law and order to parts of Iraq created a vacuum into which criminal elements and militias have stepped.”……“The insufficient number of troops in Iraq has contributed to the deterioration in security……“The failure of countries other than the US and the United Kingdom to send significant numbers of troops has had serious and regrettable consequences, not only for the Iraqis but also in terms of the burden placed on UK resources and perceptions of the legitimacy of operations in Iraq.”……“The alternative to a positive outcome in Iraq may be a failed state and regional instability.”……“Fine communiqués and ringing declarations are no substitute for delivery of the forces and equipment which Afghanistan needs on the ground.”……“There is a real danger if these resources are not provided soon that Afghanistan – a fragile state in one of the most sensitive and volatile regions of the world – could implode, with terrible consequences.”……At a news conference to launch the report, the committee chairman, Labour MP Donald Anderson, conceded that the invasion of Iraq had resulted in a heightened terrorist threat……“It would be difficult to resist the argument that the threat has increased,” he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3935755.stm
”The Iraqi police and army remain a long way from being able to maintain security."……"However, we also conclude that the coalition's failure to bring law and order to parts of Iraq created a vacuum into which criminal elements and militias have stepped."……The report says the failure of countries other than the US and UK to send significant numbers of troops to Iraq has brought "serious and regrettable consequences”……"The fact is if there were not that support to help the Iraqi government in terms of security, in the short term there is a real danger of Iraq becoming a failed state that would be a danger not only to its own fragmented groups... but to the countries in the region," he said.

Tony Blair recently denied suggestions that Afghanistan had become a "forgotten" country amid complaints from some of the MPs on the committee who visited the country……Conservative committee member Sir John Stanley told reporters that security in Afghanistan was "on a knife edge"……"We could end up with a situation that everything we have tried to achieve could be set back almost to square one," added Sir John.

[You can call it the "failure" of other countries to come on board, but the actual failure is in the US (and UK) failing to frame Iraq policies in such a way that they could secure broad international cooperation]

Bush Co.’s bad penny: Chalabi just won’t go away

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-chalabi29jul29,1,2955125.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Chalabi is a survivor. Snubbed by the Bush administration neoconservatives who once embraced him, and excluded from the interim government, he is building a grass-roots coalition of Shiite Muslim groups who lack a voice in the new Iraq……At the same time, he's reaching out to Iraq's most prominent anti-American Shiite cleric, Muqtada Sadr, whose followers come mainly from Baghdad's urban underclass and the impoverished south of the country. Political analysts here believe that the new approach will eventually win support from a significant segment of Sadr's followers if Chalabi chooses to run for office — and, as expected, Sadr chooses to wield his power from the pulpit instead……That would give Chalabi and his new organization, the Shiite Political Council, mass support that could yield considerable clout in the majority Shiite community.

Not news to millions of Americans: personal income drops 10% in 2 years of Bush economic policies

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/29/business/29tax.html?ex=1248840000&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1091096784-LT48kjod6Q6LHaD+2+n06A
The overall income Americans reported to the government shrank for two consecutive years after the Internet stock market bubble burst in 2000, the first time that has effectively happened since the modern tax system was introduced during World War II, newly disclosed information from the Internal Revenue Service shows…….The total adjusted gross income on tax returns fell 5.1 percent, to just over $6 trillion in 2002, the most recent year for which data is available, from $6.35 trillion in 2000. Because of population growth, average incomes declined even more, by 5.7 percent……Adjusted for inflation, the income of all Americans fell 9.2 percent from 2000 to 2002, according to the new I.R.S. data.

Failings of the 9-11 Commission – a five-part series by Bob Dreyfuss

http://www.tompaine.com/archives/the_dreyfuss_report.php

Keep an eye on Florida (again)

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=16606

Tom DeLay has lost his mind (or maybe he’s looking for other battles to fight besides a losing Presidential election)

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/07/supersized-insanity-tom-delay.html

Bonus item: The segment of the conservative media still open to being shamed starts distancing itself from poisonous Ann Coulter

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_07_29_bestof.html#109111653541994001

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 4:03 AM

 
ACTIVE/PASSIVE

More evidence that Bush is in trouble: the Reagan defections

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/2004/07/nancy-reagan-not-on-gop-podium-in-2004.php

http://nydailynews.com/front/story/216561p-186368c.html
Much to the dismay of the Bush campaign, Nancy Reagan has just said no to appearing at the Republican National Convention next month....GOP strategists had hoped the former First Lady and Hollywood actress would make a cameo appearance onstage after a video tribute to her late husband, particularly after her Bush-bashing son, Ron, agreed to speak at the Democratic convention last night.

Abu Ghraib? – what was that again?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19360-2004Jul27.html
The American general who headed the U.S. military prison at Abu Ghraib personally witnessed abuses there, an Iraqi man alleged in a federal lawsuit protesting his treatment.

More consequences of our prudent, well-thought policies in Iraq

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_07_25_atrios_archive.html#109101473712585593
Yesterday I wrote a little piece about Iraq in which I briefly mentioned that the U.S. is planning to spend $60 million dollars to get 30,000 "corrupt, violent or useless" members of the New [and Improved] Iraqi Police Force to resign....This left me to wonder about what other creative ways the Bush administration might develop to spend our tax dollars in Iraq....Well, how about that bribery program?

Even patrol leaders now carry envelopes of cash to spend in their areas. The money comes from brigade commanders, who get as much as $50,000 to $100,000 a month to distribute for local rehabilitation and emergency welfare projects through the Commanders Emergency Response Program....There are few restrictions on the expenditures, and officers acknowledge they consider the money another weapon...."I'm trying to give them something to do rather than take shots at someone," said Sinclair, who said he gets $50,000 every three or four weeks to distribute. "It's not bribery. It's priming the pump. And it works well."

Pretty cool, huh? I'm sure that none of that easy cash winds up in the black market or in the hands of the insurgents our men and women are fighting, aren't you? I imagine a portion of this slush fund finds it's way into the pockets of our underpayed and overworked soldiers, so it's not all bad.

Oh, and let's not forget Halliburton. Looks like Dick Cheney's company is as careful with government equipment as, say - Florida is with their electronic voting records:

Halliburton Co. has lost $18.6 million of government property in Iraq, about a third of the items it was given to manage, including trucks, computers and office furniture, government auditors claim.

Sibel Edmunds STILL being kept under wraps

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/29/politics/29fbi.final.html?ex=1248840000&
A classified Justice Department investigation has concluded that a former F.B.I. translator at the center of a growing controversy was dismissed in part because she accused the bureau of ineptitude, and it found that the F.B.I. did not aggressively investigate her claims of espionage against a co-worker.....The Justice Department's inspector general concluded that the allegations by the translator, Sibel Edmonds, "were at least a contributing factor in why the F.B.I. terminated her services".....Ms. Edmonds worked as a contract linguist for the F.B.I. for about six months, translating material in Turkish, Persian and Azerbaijani. She was dismissed in 2002 after she complained repeatedly that bureau linguists had produced slipshod and incomplete translations of important terrorism intelligence before and after the Sept. 11 attacks. She also accused a fellow Turkish linguist in the bureau's Washington field office of blocking the translation of material involving acquaintances who had come under F.B.I. suspicion and said the bureau had allowed diplomatic sensitivities with other nations to impede the translation of important terrorism intelligence....The Edmonds case has proved to be a growing concern to the F.B.I. because it touches on three potential vulnerabilities for the bureau: its ability to translate sensitive counterterrorism material, its treatment of internal "whistle-blowers," and its classification of sensitive material that critics say could be embarrassing to the bureau.....The Justice Department has imposed an unusually broad veil of secrecy on the Edmonds case, declaring details of her case to be a matter of "state secrets." The department has blocked her from testifying in a lawsuit brought by families of Sept. 11 victims, it has retroactively classified briefings Congressional officials were given in 2002, and it has classified the inspector general's entire report on its investigation into her case. As a result, groups promoting government openness have accused the Justice Department of abusing the federal procedures in place for classifying sensitive material.

For those of you who have just been waiting for “Homeland Security” to be used as an excuse for monitoring and infiltration of domestic (and legal) protest groups

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/g-8-follies-is-we-safer-yet.html

Bush Co. tries to co-opt the 9-11 committee recommendations

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22288-2004Jul28.html?nav=rss_nation
Hamilton said that he and other commission members will vocally oppose any attempt by the Bush administration or Congress to make major changes in their recommendations...."We believe that the reforms are a package and that if some are broken off, then the result is that you diminish the impact of our recommendations," Hamilton said in an interview Wednesday. "You end up with something of less value."

Bush/Cheney in no hurry to debate (and why should they be?)

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/07/28/debate_commission/?source=RSS

Dems finally wake up, start to play offense and not just defense

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/magazine/25DEMOCRATS.html

The wizards of Bush’s education policy

http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/07/20/oregon.education.ap/index.html

Bonus item: The unbelievably lazy and ill-informed “professional” press corps, and how the Right manipulates them

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=gsFRoo8JhgVZ2zU6cwPDNh%3D%3D

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/cnns-truth-squad-lies.html
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 3:23 AM

 
THE DEMOCRATS' STAR TURN

Illinois saves the Democrats! Blogosphere goes gaga over Obama!

[The Speech]
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040728/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_obama_text_1

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000498.html

http://www.electablog.com/2004/07/obamamania.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_07_25_digbysblog_archive.html#109098060155243865

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/obama.html

http://billmon.org/archives/001609.html

And how about the coolness of the first blogged convention? Even videoblogs:

http://stevegarfield.blogs.com/videoblog/

Why Bush must lose

1. Even the defenses are starting to sound self-parodying

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_07_26_bestof.html#109084354314762684
William Safire on why the Democrats are playing nice with each other:
The party-unifying target is That Man in the White House and his coldblooded coterie of warmongering neocon homophobic tax cutters.
Apparently, he thinks he's joking.

2. Bush’s greatest supposed weakness, according to the latest spin, is that he’s been such a SUCCESS

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110005288

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_25.php#003207

3. The deep political dilemma posed by Dick Cheney

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001237.html

4. Because “worst President in US history” doesn’t sound hyperbolic any more

http://www.counterpunch.org/landau07232004.html

5. Bush’s impossible choice on assault weapons

http://www.banassaultweapons.org/

6. He’s reduced the Army and National Guard to begging (and draft talk refuses to go away)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16332-2004Jul26.html?nav=rss_nation

7. Toxic waste out of control

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19679-2004Jul27.html?nav=rss_nation

8. Bush Co. trying to spin 9-11 Report as vindication for their policies (have they READ it?)

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003354

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/27/politics/27panel.html?ex=1248580800&en=0e109556992353cf&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14011-2004Jul25.html?nav=rss_nation

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003348

[Just one reminder, from page 265 of the report]
“In sum, the domestic agencies never mobilized in response to the threat. They did not have direction, and did not have a plan to institute. The borders were not hardened. Transportation systems were not fortified. Electronic surveillance was not targeted against a domestic threat. State and local law enforcement were not marshaled to augment the FBI’s efforts. The public was not warned. The terrorists exploited deep institutional failings within our government.”

9. ‘Nuff said

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/07/27/deficit/index_np.html
The White House will project soon that this year's federal deficit will exceed $420 billion, congressional aides said Tuesday, a record figure….

Florida’s voting policies: a joke and a scandal

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/28/politics/campaign/28vote.final.html?ex=1248753600&

Bonus item: Goofy Kerry photo used to “Dukakisize” him

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-na-kerryphoto28jul28,1,7586358.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[CNN’s increasingly shameful performance]
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003353

[But don’t forget THIS one]
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_07_25_digbysblog_archive.html#109089519484686743


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 4:20 AM

 
UPON FURTHER REVIEW...

A closer look at the 9-11 report

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004364.php

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/national/25PANE.html?ex=1248408000&en=661c21fdba652ea9&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland

Will Bush rush to implement its recommendations (do pigs fly)?

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_07_24_bestof.html#109070493352028464

A closer look at those rediscovered National Guard records

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_18.php#003197

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_18.php#003199

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/07/bush_payroll_records_are_damning_evidence.html
Although, as many bloggers noted, the AP tried to whitewash the sudden Hilary-Clinton-like rediscovery of Bush’s military pay records by saying that they “shed no new light on the future president’s activities during that summer” it’s obvious to anyone with half a brain that in fact they do shed light on a dark corner. Like the curious case of the dog in the nighttime, the pay records speak volumes for what they do NOT say: they lack any indication that Lt. Bush met his service obligations......

The outrages just keep coming

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/politics/25DRUG.html?ex=1248408000&en=d4247ba48584e3f2&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
The Bush administration has been going to court to block lawsuits by consumers who say they have been injured by prescription drugs and medical devices……The administration contends that consumers cannot recover damages for such injuries if the products have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. In court papers, the Justice Department acknowledges that this position reflects a "change in governmental policy," and it has persuaded some judges to accept its arguments, most recently scoring a victory in the federal appeals court in Philadelphia.

Could Kerry become a great President, not just a good alternative to GWB?

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=8118

Is “F911” having any impact?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/7/24/8218/63208

Latest poll results, and a nice insight into how to interpret them

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/07/24/new_polls.html
If the election for President were being held today, Sen. John Kerry would get 48% compared to 44% for President Bush, according to a Time magazine poll to be released tomorrow. Bloomberg has a story on the poll....A new Quinnipiac poll also shows Kerry leading Bush, 46% to 43%.

http://www.nathannewman.org/log/archives/001800.shtml#001800
Charlie Cook looks at the poll numbers and notes that Bush and Kerry have been de facto dead even in the polls for months. And that's possibly fatal news for Bush:

given the fact that well-known incumbents with a defined record rarely get many undecided voters -- a quarter to a third at an absolute maximum -- an incumbent in a very stable race essentially tied at 45 percent was actually anything but in an even-money situation...The point is that this race has settled into a place that is not at all good for an incumbent, is remarkably stable, and one that is terrifying many Republican lawmakers, operatives and activists. But in a typically Republican fashion, they are too polite and disciplined to talk about it much publicly.

Here's the point of these comments. Don't read polls just for the spread between Bush and Kerry. Look for the spread between Bush and 50%. If Bush is much below 50%, he's in deep trouble in that state.

The tipping point?

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/weekinreview/25ores.html?ex=1248408000&
For Mr. Bush, the country is about evenly divided on approval of his presidency, according to the latest poll. But there are some ominous signs that Mr. Bush is beginning to suffer from a Johnson-style "credibility gap" after sending the country to war to root out weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda, and being unable to prove either one. When asked by The New York Times and CBS News in June whether Mr. Bush was being completely honest about the war in Iraq, 20 percent of voters said he was mostly lying and 59 percent said he was hiding something. Only 18 percent thought he was telling the entire truth…..The question for Mr. Bush is how damaged is his bond with the voters? Has he tipped into a negative zone from which he cannot recover? Or can he win a second term?……"The bond can break, and in Bush's case the bond has broken for some previous supporters," said Thomas E. Patterson, a professor of government and the press at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "However, presidential support is based on multiple influences - including partisanship. It took a long time, for example, for certain groups of Americans to conclude in 1973-74 that Nixon had to go. Bush will have a lot of trouble regaining those that have become deeply dissatisfied with his leadership. But I don't have a sense yet that he's lost so many early backers that he's a goner."

On the incredibly polarized, partisan, electorate

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/politics/campaign/25VOTE.html?ex=1248408000&en=2c41198df52f19a7&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland

Hey Nader supporters: just ask yourselves, why would the GOP do this?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_18.php#003202
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader's quixotic presidential campaign says it submitted about 5,400 signatures to get on the Michigan ballot, far short of the required number of 30,000. Luckily for him, approximately 43,000 signatures were filed by Michigan Republicans on his behalf, more than meeting the requirement.

Bonus item: Tucker Carlson, a real creep

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_18.php#003195

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/tucker.html


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 3:05 AM

 
THE TRIFECTA: 9-11, PLAME, NATIONAL GUARD

Complete 9-11 report, in more readable HTML format

http://www.kottke.org/plus/misc/911commission.html

If you can’t read all 600 pages, don’t miss Chapter 8

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/blinking-red.html

http://seetheforest.blogspot.com/2004_07_01_seetheforest_archive.html#109056017663421119

More analysis

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7134-2004Jul22.html

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_07_23_bestof.html#109061054100337548

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_07_23_bestof.html#109059742924587565

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/07/22/hastert/?source=RSS

http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=1594
The final report of the 9/11 commission confirms many of the panel's preliminary findings that have--or should have--embarrassed the Bush administration. The commission does note, "Our aim has not been to assign individual blame. Our aim has been to provide the fullest possible account of the events surrounding 9/11 and to identify lessons learned." And it is true that the report does point to screw-ups and negligent policymaking committed during both the Bush II and Clinton administrations. But George W. Bush is the incumbent president who has to face the voters in November. Although Republicans in recent days have been highlighting the mistakes of the Clinton years, it is not inappropriate for voters to focus on what report tells us about Bush and his administration. As a public service, here is a look at several of those critical portions…..

[A must-read]

Did Bush dodge a bullet, or is more trouble to come from 9-11 revelations?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7179-2004Jul22.html
Rather than focus criticism on the Bush administration, the commission spread the blame broadly and evenly across two administrations, the FBI and Congress. The panel, though hardly flattering of the Bush administration, did not endorse the view of star witness and former White House counterterrorism director Richard A. Clarke that the Bush administration cared less about terrorism than the Clinton administration did. And Chairman Thomas H. Kean even stood in the Rose Garden yesterday praising Bush's cooperation -- after months of complaints by the commission about a lack of access…..Bush, who originally opposed the commission's creation and then squabbled with the panel, rushed to embrace it after aides concluded that such a course was wiser than disputing with it. Bush's staff hastily announced yesterday morning's appearance in the Rose Garden, where Bush patted Kean (R-N.J.) and Vice Chairman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.) on the back. Later, in Glenview, Ill., Bush highlighted the report's emphasis on "deep institutional failings" and said: "The commission's recommendations are consistent with the strategy my administration is following to address these failings and to win the war on terror." Bush read several recommendations, prefacing each by asserting: "We agree."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8766-2004Jul23.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing
It was a very relieved White House yesterday…..The commission nobody there wanted in the first place issued its massive, searing indictment of a government utterly unprepared for the kind of attack unleashed on Sept. 11, 2001, and still not equipped to deal with the new realities of terrorism……But the report didn't overtly blame President Bush….At least no more than it blamed President Clinton and Congress and poor communication and structural issues and a whole host of other problems. It was an indictment without a defendant……But the sense of relief may be short lived…….Underneath its everyone's-to-blame veneer, the report includes some weighty assertions that are potentially very damaging to the White House……The report, for instance, criticizes the concept of the "war on terror" that has been the signature issue of Bush's presidency. It concludes that what is required to defeat Islamist terrorism is something more nuanced than that. And it does not support the argument that the war on Iraq was either related to or helpful in that quest…..And its activist list of proposals puts Bush in a reactive posture during a campaign season when he wants to convey a sense of steady and strong leadership…Bush is clearly cool to many of the specific recommendations, such as creating a national intelligence director position. But arguing that the system isn't broken is no longer really a political option....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4977878-110340,00.html
The commission's 10 members said they planned to team up in pairs - one Democrat and one Republican - to campaign throughout the US for the adoption of their 41 recommendations to make the country safer….."All 10 of us have decided to do everything we can, whether it's testimony or lobbying or speaking or whatever's necessary, to let the American people know about these recommendations - know how important they are, our belief that they can save lives," Thomas Kean, the commission's chair, told reporters on Thursday…..Jamie Gorelick, who served in the Clinton administration, made the point even plainer. "Everyone who is running for office can be asked: Do you support these recommendations?"…..The strategy would mark the start of a new chapter in the life of a commission which has grown in credibility over the last 20 months. It has also accumulated moral force, thanks in large measure to the support of victims' families. Advocates for the families said they would also press for the adoption of the commission's recommendations…..That could prove an embarrassment to the Bush administration, whose officials have responded cautiously to the commission's call for a sweeping overhaul of the intelligence services….The Bush administration's immediate response to the commission's call for sweeping changes to the government's intelligence agencies was cool….."People should recognise that we're talking about pretty fundamental changes here," the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, told reporters. "It only makes sense to try and understand the implications of them before you rush headlong one way."

“Calls for action”

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1087373912245&p=1012571727088

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-assess23jul23,1,1138576.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage

Swift action “unlikely”

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/23/politics/23assess.html?hp

But giving the APPEARANCE of swift action is VERY likely

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/24/politics/24panel.html?ex=1248321600&en=a7491d6afb55dadd&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9018-2004Jul23.html

Worth remembering....

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003339
Wouldn't it be appropriate, now that the 9-11 Commission has finally released its report, for some of the major papers to at least acknowledge in their reportage that President Bush and his staff kicked and screamed, delayed and fought, and pretty much dug in their nails for months and months to prevent this commission from coming into being in the first place? I see nothing in the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the other big dailies. Does anyone else?

Plame indictments may be on the way!

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004362.php

http://www.needlenose.com/pMachineFree2.2.1/weblog.php?id=P1488

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/000958.html

Bush’s “missing” military records suddenly reappear, do not support his claims of service

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-Military-Records.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Like records disclosed earlier by the White House, the newly released computerized payroll records show no indication Bush drilled with the Alabama unit during July, August and September of 1972. Pay records covering all of 1972, released previously, also indicated no guard service for Bush during those three months.

Do the DoD Guantanamo hearings satisfy Geneva obligations? Maybe

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/07/military_to_start_restricted_guantanamo_hearings_asap.html

GOP asks Catholic Church for parish directories

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/07/politicizing-catholic-churches.html

Bush failing to win over Hispanics

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003342



- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:34 AM

 
THE 9-11 REPORT

Another somewhat sketchy update of news stories – hoping to get back to a more regular daily schedule in a few days.

9-11 report: plenty of blame to go around, but only one of these guys is actually RUNNING FOR RE-ELECTION

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/23/politics/23findings.html?ex=1248235200&

Some initial analyses:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7335-2004Jul22.html?nav=rss_nation

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_07_22_bestof.html#109054715616203539

http://slate.msn.com/id/2104208/fr/rss/

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/07/22/report/?source=RSS

http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200430#519

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/000956.html

GOP: trying to change the subject

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/07/22/berger_and_wilson/index_np.html

http://www.newsisfree.com/iclick/i,44613639,5879,f/

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/07/22/hastert/?source=RSS

Sandy Berger: too dumb to be part of Kerry’s cabinet anyway

http://www.slate.com/id/2104138/

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/000937.html

But the story behind the story is how the Bush administration knew about the investigation and manipulated the timing of leaks to distract from 9-11 report

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/22/politics/22berger.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7104-2004Jul22.html?nav=rss_nation

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_18.php#003191

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_18.php#003186

Beyond cynical: Bush Co. kills tax bill to preserve issue for campaign

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/22/politics/22tax.html

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/07/bush-scuttles-tax-deal.html

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/07/its_cynicism_all_the_way_down.html

Bad apples: Army investigates itself, decides that Abu Ghraib torture was “not a systemic problem” (just a hundred or so totally isolated and unrelated cases)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7124-2004Jul22.html?nav=rss_nation

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/23/politics/23abus.html?hp

SSCI report: more good analysis

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001229.html

Where was George?

http://www.democrats.org/wherewasbush/

Bonus item: Scott McClellan is losing his mind

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/best-scotty-line-ever.html

I'm not aware of any one in the White House who is aware of anyone who's aware that the President ever was aware of having made such a comment.

[No, it isn’t a real quote, but sounds awfully familiar…..]


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 4:59 AM

 
WHAT WE'RE UP AGAINST

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_11.php#003166

[T]he Louisville Kentucky Republican party (specifically, the Jefferson County Republican Party ) is handing out signs that read "Kerry is bin Laden's Man/Bush is My Man."……I put in a call to the head of the Jefferson County Republicans, Jack Richardon IV and asked him if this were true………"I believe that if you look at John Kerry's voting record in the senate," he told me, "why wouldn't bin Laden prefer Kerry over Bush?"……When I pressed Richardson on whether or not his party organization was distributing it, he acknowledged that they probably were handing it out on their campaign literature tables at recent events. And if it was being handed out, "I make no apologies for it."

The scariest part is, he MEANS it

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/07/16/quote_of_the_day.html

"I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job."

-- President Bush, quoted in the Lancaster New Era, during a private meeting with an Amish group.

Our man in Baghdad (a suitable heir to his predecessor)

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/16/1089694568757.html?oneclick=true

Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings……They say the prisoners - handcuffed and blindfolded - were lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held…….Dr Allawi shot each young man in the head as about a dozen Iraqi policemen and four Americans from the Prime Minister's personal security team watched in stunned silence…..Iraq's Interior Minister, Falah al-Naqib, is said to have looked on and congratulated him when the job was done……

Bush to identify nominee for CIA head AFTER the election

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56162-2004Jul16.html

Senate puts off Abu Ghraib inquiry (until AFTER the election)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/16/politics/16abus.html
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003306

Abu Ghraib: Hersh describes “war crimes”

http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/getmailfiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:ArticleToMail&Type=text/html&Path=NYS/2004/07/08&ID=Ar00500

http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/002960.html

It’s a race: Can the phony DoD “hearing process” deflect criticism before the courts step in again to protect the rights of Gitmo detainees?

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/17/politics/17gitmo.html?ex=1247716800&en=3cd090044d42a9dc&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland

U.S. stonewalls U.N. inquiry on Iraq payments to Halliburton, etc.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53164-2004Jul15.html?nav=rss_nation

Where’s Donaldo?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-wheres-rumsfeld,1,5442271.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, for years the most public face of the Bush administration's war on terrorism, has suddenly become scarce.

NEWS FLASH! We have finally found the nexus of state-sponsored terrorism between Al Qaeda and….Iraq?….hold on….wait a minute….ohhhhhh….IRAN! (Oops, sorry)

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,664967,00.html

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/iran_end_game.php

Bush in trouble with undecideds….

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/07/15/undecided_voters_likely_to_break_for_kerry.html

….and not doing too well with conservatives either

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-conservatives17jul17,1,5729665.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage

http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=1821

http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=1820

The Bush Cartel: “They Don’t Like Democracy”

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_07_11_digbysblog_archive.html#109008583440622434

Keep an eye on Florida (again)

http://billmon.org/archives/001601.html

We need a new word to replace “hypocrisy” – Bush’s cynical manipulation of the “Gay Marriage” issue

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/15/politics/campaign/15assess.html?ex=1247630400&

Remember that the foreign agents (Chalabi et al.) who duped us into war with Iraq could not have succeeded without active sponsorship by Defense and Intelligence officials

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_11.php#003168

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003305
It's almost as if a network of neoconservative hawks and self-interested defectors inside and outside of the administration put together a system for piping unreliable information about the Iraqi threat straight to the top of the US government in order to bolster the case for war. And not only did the defectors have an obvious interest in getting the US to help them gain power in Iraq, but many of their helpers on the Defense Policy Board had financial interests in pushing for war. Maybe the whole thing wasn't just a screw-up by CIA professionals after all. Imagine that. . . .

Here they come: bogus “deficit reduction” numbers

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003304

Still trying to get the Bush military records

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007297.html

Is the world safer as a result of Bush's policies? (gee, how do YOU feel?)

http://slate.msn.com/id/2103989/

Bonus item: “Outfoxed”? Fox News reveals its own true nature

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003298

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:28 AM

 
THE STATE OF OUR DEMOCRACY

All you need to know about Mr. Macho

Case #1: Blair: "I am responsible for mistakes"
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Iraq-Intelligence.html?ex=1247544000&en=4a5339b140fa23bb&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland

Case #2: Bush: "in denial"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45365-2004Jul12?language=printer

SSCI report: Key intelligence documents withheld or altered

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_07_11_digbysblog_archive.html#108956937710156976
Today's LA Times notes that the SSIC report points to the fact that key revisions were made to the public version of this NIE , which is interesting because nobody knows who did it. Evidently, the public NIE was phrased in language that was much less ambiguous than the original CIA document:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/14/politics/14inte.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
The White House and the Central Intelligence Agency have refused to give the Senate Intelligence Committee a one-page summary of prewar intelligence in Iraq prepared for President Bush that contains few of the qualifiers and none of the dissents spelled out in longer intelligence reviews, according to Congressional officials.....Senate Democrats claim that the document could help clear up exactly what intelligence agencies told Mr. Bush about Iraq's illicit weapons. The administration and the C.I.A. say the White House is protected by executive privilege.......

SSCI report redactions: who is being protected?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003289

http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/002946.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/000913.html

When was the decision made to go to war in Iraq?

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001182.html

War advocates = war profiteers

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-advocates14jul14,1,278590.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Life in Abu Ghraib (hell on earth)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/life-in-abu-ghraib.html

U.S. may still be hiding detainees from the Red Cross

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007253.html

"How Chalabi Played the Press"

http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/4/mccollam-list.asp

The death of "compassionate conservatism"

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003284

Bush's anemic employment numbers

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001196.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/have-you-seen-my-bush-boom-meets.html

The utterly hypocritical and cynical "Marriage" amendment turns into an embarrassment even for its sponsors

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/hatefest-off-to-bad-start.html

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040714/D83QAGO80.html
Short on votes and beset by internal divisions, Senate Republicans struggled Tuesday to salvage a respectable defeat for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, an issue that President Bush pushed toward the top of the election-year agenda.

DeLay corruption update: is he in real trouble now?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004294.php

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003280

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/does-delay-own-house-ethics-committee.html

What are these people doing to our country? Talk about "postponing" election won't go away

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5411741/site/newsweek/

Bonus item:

Oops - didn't anyone look into this? Bush's lawyer is also Ken Lay's lawyer! ("Sharp" move, guys)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_11.php#003159
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 11:21 AM

 
For the next month or so, I will be travelling in several locations, so I will not be online every day. I will try to maintain this blog intermittently, but it won't be a daily event for a while.

(Too bad, looks like the next few weeks could be pretty amazing.)

I'll be back home and hooked up again on August 9.

Nick
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 11:08 AM

 
SHOULD CHANGE HIS NAME TO C.Y.A. TALBOTT

Man, you couldn't MAKE IT UP to be any more outrageous than this

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/09/politics/campaign/09records.html
Military records that could help establish President Bush's whereabouts during his disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago have been inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon......It said the payroll records of "numerous service members," including former First Lt. Bush, had been ruined in 1996 and 1997 by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service during a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm. No back-up paper copies could be found, it added in notices dated June 25.......The destroyed records cover three months of a period in 1972 and 1973 when Mr. Bush's claims of service in Alabama are in question.....

[Now, I ask you, what are the odds of that happening randomly?]

The loss was announced by the Defense Department's Office of Freedom of Information and Security Review in letters to The New York Times and other news organizations that for nearly half a year have sought Mr. Bush's complete service file under the open-records law.

There was no mention of the loss, for example, when White House officials released hundreds of pages of the President's military records last February in an effort to stem Democratic accusations that he was "AWOL" for a time during his commitment to fly at home in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.......The disclosure that the payroll records had been destroyed came in a letter signed by C. Y. Talbott, chief of the Pentagon's Freedom of Information Office, who forwarded a CD-Rom of hundreds of records that Mr. Bush has previously released, along with images of punch-card records. Sixty pages of Mr. Bush's medical file and some other records were excluded on privacy grounds, Mr. Talbott wrote.

He said in the letter that he could not provide complete payroll records, explaining, "The Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) has advised of the inadvertent destruction of microfilm containing certain National Guard payroll records.".......Searches for backup paper copies of the missing records were unsuccessful.".......Mr. Talbott's office would not respond to questions, saying that further information could be provided only through another Freedom of Information application.......

For Mr. Bush, the 1969 period when he was training to be a pilot, is not in dispute. But in May 1972, he moved to Alabama to work on a political campaign and, he has said, to perform his Guard service there for a year. But other Guard officers have said they had no recollection of ever seeing him there. The most evidence the White House has been able to find are records showing Mr. Bush was paid for six days in October and November 1972, without saying where, and the record of a dental exam at a Montgomery, Ala., air base on Jan. 6, 1973........

The lost payroll records stored in Denver might have answered some questions about whether he fulfilled his legal commitment, critics who have written about the subject said in interviews....... "Those are records we've all been interested in," said James Moore, author of a recent book, "Bush's War for Re-election," which takes a critical view of Mr. Bush's service record. "I think it's curious that the microfiche could resolve what days Mr. Bush worked and what days he was paid, and suddenly that is gone."......But Mr. Moore said the president could still authorize the release of other withheld records that would shed light on his service record....
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 11:10 PM

 
For the next month or so, I will be travelling in several locations, so I will not be online every day. I will try to maintain this blog intermittently, but it won't be a daily event for a while.

(Too bad, looks like the next few weeks could be pretty amazing.)

I'll be back home and hooked up again on August 9.

Nick
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:46 PM

 
THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT

Ken Lay: another albatross around Bush's neck

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/08/business/08LAY.html?ex=1247025600&

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/08/business/08CND-LAY.html?ex=1247025600&en=642272e6581106d5&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
Looking and sounding confident but with his face glistening with perspiration, Mr. Lay made a statement, and then told the gathered reporters that he would answer any of their questions........

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-enron8jul08,1,4075915.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Lay lent Enron's corporate jet to the younger Bush eight times during the 2000 campaign, was co-chair of a gala tribute to him and was one of his top campaign contributors. Enron was also a major patron of Bush and the Republican Party.....Immediately after the first TV reports of Lay's indictment, the Democratic National Committee fired off a news release outlining these and other ties between the executive and the president. It was only the first shot in what is likely to be an extended effort....."The indictment plays right into the Democrats' populist theme that there are 'two Americas' -- that middle-class Americans are being left out of the riches of the last four years because of the greed of the people at top," said Bruce Cain, director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley.......Reporters asked Bush about the indictment at a campaign appearance in Waterford, Mich., but he walked away without answering, Reuters reported.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37349-2004Jul8.html?nav=headlines
The White House is trying to put at least an arm's length between President Bush and indicted Enron executive Kenneth Lay, a campaign benefactor Bush nicknamed "Kenny Boy" when the two were up-and-comers in Texas......It has been "quite some time" since Bush and Lay talked with each other, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Thursday, brushing off questions about whether the two were friends.

["A good start": http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/what-do-you-call-this.html]

The Bush-Lay letters

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0708042lay1.html

Is the press underplaying the Bush-Lay link?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/07/08/lay_media/?source=RSS
[A] review of mainstream press coverage since news of the Lay indictment first broke Wednesday afternoon indicates most news outlets, minus the San Francisco Chronicle and a handful of others, have completely downplayed the Bush connection, or simply ignored it all together.....

Well, maybe not: amazing photo and press moment

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/7/8/152851/2384
US President George W. Bush walks away from a briefing with the media, refusing to answer questions after he was asked about Enron and the reported indictment of former CEO Kenneth Lay, who was a close adviser and fund-raiser for Bush and his father, earning him the presidential nickname of 'Kenny Boy.'(AFP/Paul J. Richards)

Yet another vague "security alert" that seems designed to do nothing to make anyone actually any safer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36517-2004Jul8.html?nav=rss_nation
The United States has "credible" information indicating that the al Qaeda terrorist network is preparing a large-scale attack in the United States aimed at disrupting this year's electoral process, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said today...... But no specific intelligence has provided a target, date or location for the attack, and the department is not raising its security alert from the current elevated "yellow" level, Ridge said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/08/politics/08CND-TERR.html?ex=1247025600&en=1ff2e5bdaf10072a&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
Mr. Ridge brushed aside any suggestion that the administration was trying to create a widespread sense of unease that might work to President Bush's advantage less than four months before the election........."It's a wrong interpretation," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35284-2004Jul7.html
"Nothing has been done," said DeForest B. Soaries, chairman of the Election Assistance Commission, which Congress created to help localities improve their voting systems. "It's embarrassing that the federal government hasn't taken this more seriously. . . . I won't be silent."

Once again, U.S. military tries to decide unilaterally what rights Guantanamo detainees do and do not have (some view this as a step forward -- I think it is a pitiful sham. Read on.)

http://166.70.44.66/2004/Jul/07082004/nation_w/181916.asp
The prisoner can choose to participate and present information in his defense.......He will be assigned a military officer, who is not a lawyer, to act as a personal representative, the officials said, and will have access to an interpreter...........It was not immediately determined whether the officer will be required to turn over information the prisoner might disclose that could work against him, the officials said.........The panels will operate on the presumption that the government is properly detaining the prisoners. Officials did not describe what would constitute proof of an illegal detention.

I hate to say it, but in Iraq, growing evidence of Israeli involvement with U.S. interrogations

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/2004/07/more-on-israelis-working-in-iraq.php

http://www.juancole.com/2004_07_01_juancole_archive.html#108926973309887756

Nearing 1000 U.S. deaths in Iraq

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/bushs-carnage-continues.html

And more horrific violence to come

http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=1800

Senate intelligence report: it's all the CIA's fault (again)

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/000884.html

Ashcroft: before recusing himself, was extensively briefed on details of the Plame investigation

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8073
Senior federal law-enforcement officials have expressed serious concerns among themselves that Ashcroft spent months overseeing the probe and receiving regular briefings regarding a criminal investigation in which the stakes were so high for the Attorney General's personal friends, political allies, and political party.

That couple arrested for wearing "anti-Bush" T-shirts at a W.Va. rally? One of them was a federal employee (and I do mean WAS)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/brownshirts-only-beyond-this-point.html

Your "Patriotic" Congress at work

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/politics/9104850.htm
The Republican-led House bowed to a White House veto threat Thursday and stood by the USA Patriot Act, defeating an effort to block the part of the anti-terrorism law that helps the government investigate people's reading habits.......The effort to defy Bush and bridle the law's powers lost by 210-210, with a majority needed to prevail. The amendment appeared on its way to victory as the roll call's normal 15-minute time limit expired, but GOP leaders kept the vote open for about 20 more minutes as they persuaded about 10 Republicans who initially supported the provision to change their votes......."Shame, shame, shame," Democrats chanted as the minutes passed and votes were switched. The tactic was reminiscent of last year's House passage of the Medicare overhaul measure, when GOP leaders held the vote open for an extra three hours until they got the votes they needed.

Federal Marriage Amendment: Action Alert

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007190.html

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003261
This article in Roll Call is interesting, though, because it indicates that some Democrats in the Senate are thinking ahead instead of merely reacting to whatever traps the GOP leadership sets. What it says is that Democrats are thinking of letting the GOP push a vote on gay marriage -- that is, they're considering not blocking the vote on procedural grounds.

While the Democrats are still considered likelier to force a cloture vote that the GOP is expected to lose, some Democrats believe that an up-or-down vote on the issue would be more beneficial, according to three separate sources, all who requested anonymity....."Having a vote on the issue would put it to rest," said one of the sources, a senior Democratic aide.........Democrats who advocate this course said forcing a procedural vote would provide an inaccurate sense of support for the measure. Many GOP Senators who would be tempted to vote against the amendment itself, they say, might support the Republican leadership's right to proceed to the bill, which would become the only vote of record on the issue this year....... By contrast, allowing a direct vote on same-sex marriage would prevent Republicans from characterizing Democrats as obstructionists -- and would force some GOP Senators to take a difficult vote on the issue....... "It would put their hypocrisy on the record," said a Democratic source. "There are many Republican Senators who are embarrassed by the bill and would prefer not to vote to amend the Constitution."

I think they may be right. The support for this bill just isn't there. And religious right leaders in Washington may be pushing the GOP into a debacle.

[More on the politics of this: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003264]

"Why Cheney Can't Leave"

http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2004/07/why_cheney_cant.html

[More: http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001165.html]

I know that once the press gets hooked into a trope it doesn't matter any more whether it's true or fair or not (exhibit A: Gore the exaggerator: http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/24/waldman-p.html). This time around it's Kerry the flip-flopper. But has any recent American politician reversed himself so frequently, with such serious consequence, as George Bush? There isn't even a close second

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=42263

[More: http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/000444.html]
[And more: http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/002709.html]
[And more: http://www.democrats.org/specialreports/top10_flipflops/]

Bonus item: Two things Bush has in common with Herbert Hoover

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004268.php

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:15 PM

 
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (OR NOT)

Ken ("Kenny Boy") Lay indicted

http://www.reuters.com/financeNewsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=5614731

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/kenny-how-do-you-look-in-stripes.html
(WSJ) The Securities and Exchange Commission also is expected to file civil charges against Mr. Lay, accusing him of various securities law violations, including financial fraud and insider-trading stemming from stock-related transactions he engaged in months before Enron's bankruptcy filing. In past indictments against Enron executives, the SEC has also filed separate civil charges.

A timely reminder about Bush's close ties to Lay

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001156.html

Tom DeLay retains legal team

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/07/07/delay_retains_legal_team.html

Who hired Raymond, accused in the "phone jamming" scandal?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_04.php#003132

HHS says official who threatened employees into lying to Congress didn't break the law

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9092199.htm
Former Medicare administrator Thomas Scully broke no law when he repeatedly directed his chief cost analyst to withhold information that members of Congress sought about the cost of the Medicare prescription-drug bill, a report released Tuesday concludes.....The finding by the Health and Human Services Department's independent Office of Inspector General relies heavily on a fresh opinion by the Bush administration's legal advisers.......

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32253-2004Jul6.html
That conclusion contradicted the findings of the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which said in May that the threats against Foster, designed to keep him from giving Democratic lawmakers his projections of the bill's cost, probably broke the law. The Justice Department, in an opinion attached to yesterday's report, said the CRS was wrong......The General Accounting Office, Congress's investigative arm, is also looking into whether the gag order violated federal law.

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_07_07_bestof.html#108919404910303439
Thomas A. Scully isn't a household name......Working under cheesehead Tommy Thomson at Health & Human Services, Scully was the administrator of Medicare. Thomson, at the behest of the White House, took part in a smoke and mirrors campaign to deceive lawmakers and citizens about the huge costs of the Medicare drug "benefit" and its lack of competitive pricing......Scully, for his part, helped write the Medicare law and withheld information from Congress.......The New York Times reports that nothing Scully did, including his $200 billion lie, appears to be illegal and, furthermore, that he is raking in the bucks as a Beltway lobbyist for the same drug companies the laws he helped write were designed to benefit.

In Iraq, "American style democracy" on display

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-martial8jul08,1,7072536.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Responding to public clamor for security, Iraq's interim government Wednesday empowered itself to impose martial law on a region-by-region basis to aggressively combat insurgents.....The interim government enacted a National Safety Law to give Prime Minister Iyad Allawi broad powers to impose curfews, detain suspects and engage in electronic eavesdropping and mail surveillance in order to disrupt militants' movements and confront the insurgents.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/07/international/07CND-IRAQ.html?ex=1246939200&en=b7386a1564ab5396&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
The prime minister also has the power to take direct control of all security and intelligence forces in the area under emergency rule. According to the draft, he can also "appoint a military or civilian commander to assume administration of an emergency area" with the help of an emergency force, as long as the president currently Sheik Ghazi Ajil al-Yawar approves.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/patriot-act-iraqi-style.html
Mr Amin described the law as being similar to the controversial US anti-terror Patriot Act.....

http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=1795
The text of the new emergency powers law claims legitimacy from the TAL:

According to the provisions of Section 2 of the Transitional Administrative Law Annex, and according to the provisions of Article 25 of the above mentioned law, and consistent with the provisions of Chapter two of this law, we promulgate the following order.

Nothing in the aforementioned TAL articles permits the passage of such an emergency measure....

Finally, before it disappears into the memory hole entirely, let's recall what President Bush said about the TAL when it was signed in March:

[I]t provides the essential freedoms and rights to all Iraqis regardless of gender, religion, or ethnic origin -- including freedom of religion, freedom of speech and assembly, the right to a fair trial, and the right to choose their own representatives..... The adoption of this law marks a historic milestone in the Iraqi people's long journey from tyranny and violence to liberty and peace.

The adoption of the emergency law represents quite another historic milestone.
[More: http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=1794]

Fallujah pull-out (the story of Iraq in a nutshell)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/08/international/middleeast/08fall.html?ex=1246939200&en=5e0ee562206de36d&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
American and Iraqi officials say that a decision in April to pull back American forces from Falluja inadvertently created a safe haven for terrorists and insurgents there. But officials are reluctant to send American troops back into the city for fear of touching off another uprising.....The officials say they are unsure how to proceed, but agree they merely postponed the problem when the Americans halted an attack in April, brokering a deal to keep Americans out of Falluja and allow local Iraqis to police the city instead.

And now this: a "July surprise"?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_04.php#003134
(TNR) A third source, an official who works under ISI's director, Lieutenant General Ehsan ul-Haq, informed tnr that the Pakistanis "have been told at every level that apprehension or killing of HVTs [i.e., high-value al Qaida targets] before [the] election is [an] absolute must." What's more, this source claims that Bush administration officials have told their Pakistani counterparts they have a date in mind for announcing this achievement: "The last ten days of July deadline has been given repeatedly by visitors to Islamabad and during [ul-Haq's] meetings in Washington." Says McCormack: "I'm aware of no such comment." But according to this ISI official, a White House aide told ul-Haq last spring that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July"--the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

[More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004267.php
http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/07/corruption_bloody_corruption.html]

Other indications of Bush Co. commitment to supporting democracy around the world

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_04.php#003130
And when you look at the actual record I think there is very little evidence that the assumption is at all valid. I don't mean simply that the Bush administration has been unsuccessful or incompetent in pursuing its plans for democratization. I don't even mean that they've been hypocritical or inconsistent. I mean that democratization as a moral or strategic goal simply doesn't figure into the White House's plans......

In Central Asia the administration has strengthened ties with coalescing autocracies like Uzbekistan.......

In Libya, the US has reestablished diplomatic ties with the Qaddafi government.......

We have just recently awarded Pakistan the title of "major non-NATO ally"........

Other cases are less clear-cut. But attention must be given to Russia.....

In other cases, where on-going projects of democratization hang in the balance -- the Balkans being the clearest, but by no means the only case -- the administration has pursued a policy of, at best, studied inattention......

In essence, if you support the US war on terror, how you run your country is your own business.

Florida: another haven of "American style democracy"

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/was-it-all-dream.html

Voting rights groups sued Florida election administrators on Wednesday to overturn a rule that prohibits manual recounting of ballots cast with touch-screen machines, a lawsuit with echoes of the state's disputed 2000 presidential election voting......The lawsuit said the rule was ``illogical'' and rested on the questionable assumption that electronic voting machines perform flawlessly 100 percent of the time. It also said the rule violated a Florida law that expressly requires manual recounts of certain ballots if the margin in an election is less than 0.25 percent of the votes cast.

Senate report on intelligence failures ducks the central issue

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/08/politics/08inte.html?ex=1246939200&en=f1ea82f3c3e80315&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
A bipartisan Senate report to be issued Friday that is highly critical of prewar intelligence on Iraq will sidestep the question of how the Bush administration used that information to make the case for war, Congressional officials said Wednesday.......But Democrats are maneuvering to raise the issue in separate statements. Under a deal reached this year between Republicans and Democrats, the Bush administration's role will not be addressed until the Senate Intelligence Committee completes a further stage of its inquiry, but probably not until after the November election. As a result, said the officials, both Democratic and Republican, the committee's initial, unanimous report will focus solely on misjudgments by intelligence agencies, not the White House, in the assessments about Iraq, illicit weapons and Al Qaeda that the administration used as a rationale for the war.

WH enlists troops as propaganda spokesmen

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/07/calming_the_troopsor_propaganda.html
A reader sent me something interesting: It seems that just before the July 4th holidays, everyone at Andrews Air Force Base -- including the local contingent of the Air National Guard -- was sent a power point file of talking points about the Iraq War and the Abu Ghraib scandal produced by the Office of the Assistant Secretary Of Defense for Legislative Affairs.....The two-pager includes some information about what the public can do to support the troops, but the main thrust of it is how important intelligence is to the war effort......

Attacking Edwards - can Bush accuse anyone where "inexperience" is concerned?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003257
The RNC's oppo memo on John Edwards seems to have infected news analysis and editorializing alike, as both outlets raise questions about Edwards' lack of experience while failing to note some quite pertinent additional facts.......

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_07_07_bestof.html#108923556111906515
Amusing to watch the GOP spinsters pretending to relish unleashing their "experienced" pit bull, Dick Cheney, on the callow pup, John Edwards. Some of them may actually believe it but there has to be growing concern among the faithful that maybe the Vice has used the "growl and snarl" tactic a little too often.....

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/trial-lawyer.html
Medium John a "Trial Lawyer?" Bring it on, Republican beatches. This is the kind of trial lawyer John Edwards was.......

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/07/07/bush_edwards/?source=RSS
George W. Bush's first public reaction on Tuesday to the John Edwards pick was to say: "I welcome Senator Edwards on the ticket. And I look forward to a good, spirited contest." Note the punctuation on the official White House transcript. "Good, spirited contest" -- not "good-spirited contest."......Just about 24 hours after welcoming Edwards to the campaign, Bush took to vaguely and unfairly demeaning him. When asked by a reporter in North Carolina how Sen. Edwards compared to Dick Cheney, Bush snapped: "Dick Cheney can be president. Next!"...... With this hasty put-down, Bush looked unprepared for an obvious question, undermined his own campaign's attempt to appear "optimistic" and "civil,".......The president only continued what his party started yesterday. Even before John Kerry publicly introduced his running mate to the world, the Republican National Committee was disparaging Edwards, drawing the cheap shot conclusion that Edwards is "a disingenuous, unaccomplished liberal and friend to personal injury trial lawyers." Bush-Cheney '04 also got personal on Tuesday, even ribbing Edwards for his accent. Edwards "delivers his pessimism with a southern drawl and a smile," the campaign charged. Reporters, sensing hypocrisy from the crowd that vowed to "change the tone" in Washington, challenged White House spokesman Scott McClellan today to defend the Bush team's saying one thing and doing another........

Having made such a big issue of contrasting Cheney and Edwards, it seems highly doubtful to me that Bush would dump him now as a running mate - but the rumors won't go away (Giuliani, Danforth, Rice?)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33786-2004Jul7.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007183.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004266.php

Nader supporters: face it, the GOP is bankrolling your campaign

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007185.html

No difference? Next President may get FOUR SC appointments

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000463.html
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 1:22 AM

 
COMFORT AND CONSOLATION

In the midst of another daily dose of outrages, at least we can rely on the wisdom of some old adages to give us comfort....

"The tail wagging the dog" - yes, but who is the dog?

http://slate.msn.com/id/2103239/entry/2103478/fr/rss/
As far as I'm concerned, the elephant in the living room in American politics is that never before has a president of the United States been tied so closely to a foreign power that harbors and supports our mortal enemies. I'm talking about the Bush family relationship with the Saudis, of course. I believe that insofar as the Saudis have played a key role in fostering Islamist terrorism, Bush is compromised in leading a real war against terror.

"Put up or shut up" - so now......?

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/07/06/panel/?source=RSS
"After examining available transcripts of the vice president's public remarks, the 9/11 commission believes it has access to the same information the vice president has seen regarding contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq prior to the 9/11 attacks," the commission said.
[More: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/ats-ap_top13jul06,1,920167.story]

"Don't ask the question if you don't want to hear the answer" - Sibel Edmonds case thrown out by Bush appointee (without hearing her case)

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB1EB7NCWD.html
A federal judge threw out a lawsuit Tuesday by a whistle-blower who alleged security lapses in the FBI's translator program, ruling that her claims might expose government secrets that could damage national security......U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said he was satisfied with claims by Attorney General John Ashcroft and a senior FBI official that the civil lawsuit by Sibel Edmonds could expose intelligence-gathering methods and disrupt diplomatic relations with foreign governments........The judge said he couldn't explain further because his explanation itself would expose sensitive secrets.

Edmonds, a former contract linguist for the FBI, said she will appeal the ruling. She alleged in her lawsuit that she was fired in March 2002 after she complained to FBI managers about shoddy wiretap translations and told them an interpreter with a relative at a foreign embassy might have compromised national security.......Edmonds said the judge dismissed her lawsuit without hearing evidence from her lawyers, although the government's lawyers met with Walton at least twice privately. She noted that Walton, the judge, was appointed by President Bush........ "This shows how the separation of power has basically disappeared," Edmonds said in a telephone interview.......In his decision, Walton acknowledged that dismissing a lawsuit before the facts of the case can be heard is "Draconian".........

"Render unto Caesar..." - CNN's "fair and balanced" coverage of the Edwards VP selection

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_04.php#003125
CNN's subservience to the calls they're getting from the RNC oppo research department this morning is really breathtaking. By contrast, it almost reminds you of when it was really a legitimate news operation. Daryn Kagan seemed to outdo herself, at one point harping on a clip from a Kerry town hall meeting last fall or winter in which Kerry quipped that Edwards might have been in diapers when he, Kerry, was out fighting in Vietnam. Kerry then a few moments later thinks better of comment and says he respects Edwards, etc. Kagan then goes on about how this is an example of Kerry as flip-flopper and then gets Bill Schneider to discuss it..... Of course, they could only go on for so long about that until they needed to run the Bush campaign's phony McCain campaign commercial again.

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_07_06_bestof.html#108915483805528098
Tuned into CNN a little bit ago and thought I had gotten Faux News by mistake. One minute of mixed blessing Ted Kennedy saying nice things about Edwards followed by a twelve-minute segment on his presumed "vulnerabilities." The RNC did a great job in getting its opposition research out there in a hurry; the Dims should have had Gephardt, Clark, Dean; hell, even Sharpton, lined up to saturate the networks and cable folks tonight and tomorrow with lavish praise for the new winning team. Instead, the negative stuff is getting the major play.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_04.php#003127
I wasn't able to catch the CNN coverage of the Edwards pick after, say, mid-late afternoon. But if reader email is any indication, it got pretty bad again after Wolf Blitzer signed on. They've provided more and more examples of the cowed non-ideological press, which becomes worse than ideological, because of its rudderlessness, as it tries to defend itself against sharp and confidently organized complaint......

"Sauce for the goose..." - if Bush Co. wants to trumpet McCain's new-found enthusiasm for the current administration, there's also this

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/mccain-on-edwards.html
(On Edwards) "He's got the ambition, the talent and the brains to go very far, to be president of the United States."
-Charlotte Observer, 2/26/01

http://www.johnedwards2004.com/fourtrials/quotes.asp
"In Four Trials, John Edwards has written movingly of people who were terribly wronged, and whom he helped seek some measure of justice with great skill, determination, and genuine compassion. He shows a perceptive appreciation in these accounts for the strength of his clients' character. And, in the loving portrait of his son, Wade, and the deeply touching account of his loss, John reveals the strength of his own character and gives the reader a look beyond a political biography into the heart of a good man."

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/07/06/mccain/?source=RSS
Bush-Cheney '04 is providing some counterprogramming to the Kerry-Edwards show -- an ad featuring John McCain called "First Choice." It refers to talks between John Kerry and John McCain of forming a bipartisan ticket, which, according to some reports, McCain ultimately rejected.......The McCain was first theme is the main GOP talking point for the day, and it bears more than a whiff of desperation.When faced with a popular, youthful, persuasive, fresh Democratic voice in John Edwards -- who will offer quite a contrast to Dick Cheney when the debates roll around -- the Republicans are forced to resort to an ad featuring a leading Republican who has made news this year for his barely-veiled criticisms of Bush and his statements of support for his good friend John Kerry........McCain...pointed out that he remains close friends with both Kerry and Edwards and doesn't plan to criticize either one of them...... Is this the best spokesman/attack dog Bush-Cheney '04 can come up with on the first day of the newly-unveiled Democratic ticket?..... It's fascinating to watch the Bush campaign use McCain now for its purposes when the Karl Rovian smear campaign against McCain in 2000 is still so fresh in many minds.

http://www.tnr.com/blog/campaignjournal?pid=1792
I'm back and will have more to say about Edwards soon, but the first thing that caught my attention today in all the veep coverage is how successful the Bush campaign has been in injecting its anti-Edwards talking points into the media's bloodstream......Since the Kerry campaign has restricted the number of Democrats who can speak as surrogates for Edwards, and since we won't be hearing from either candidate until tomorrow, there seems to be a bit of a news vacuum that the Bush team is successfully exploiting....... Anyway, the cable networks have given lots of coverage to the new Bush ad, "First Choice," which shows McCain praising the president, an effort to remind voters that McCain rejected Kerry's appeals to join the ticket. But I haven't seen any mention of the fact that in 2000 Bush asked McCain if he was interested in being his running mate, and Bush was similarly rejected:

I'm not running for vice president. President Bush in 2000 asked me if I was interested in being vice president. I said no then. I'm not interested in being vice president now.

Sounds like Cheney was Bush's second choice.

Edwards: the pluses and minuses (a good analysis)

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/updates_04-07-06.htm

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004257.php
Just how desperate will conservative attacks on John Edwards get? It's early days still, but here's the winner so far.....It seems that Edwards favors having translators available at big-city hospitals, and Jim Boulet smells blood:

Why all this interest in translation mandates by a trial lawyer? Professional translators make mistakes. According to the January 2003 Pediatics study, "Errors in Medical Interpretation,"....53% of the translations by professional interpreters contain at least one error "with potential clinical consequences."....Every translation error by a hospital-paid employee can become grounds for a costly lawsuit -- something unlikely to happen if the "translator" is also a friend or family member. Here's a slogan for their campaign: "If you think medical costs are too low, vote Kerry-Edwards in 2004."

Yep, that's right: Edwards favors having translators available not because it would cut down on medical errors, but precisely because it would increase medical errors and thus provide more work for his trial lawyer buddies! What a sly dog that John Edwards is.

"I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed" (Jonathan Swift) - Dick Cheney: help or liability to the Bush ticket?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28013-2004Jul4.html
Cheney's relish for the attack makes him an effective tool for the campaign, allowing Bush's team to level tough charges that will get wide attention, while allowing the president to keep his distance. But Cheney is a blunt instrument in an age when politics is delicately choreographed. His willingness to speak his mind has continued to provoke controversies, strategists on both sides said........At a time when Republicans are unified on nearly every other question, a number of well-known party members continue to talk privately about the possibility that Cheney will be replaced before the party's convention at the end of August. White House officials said there was no possibility that would occur. But one GOP official, exasperated with Cheney's continued talk about Iraq's supposed arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, compared him to the Japanese guerrillas who filtered out of the jungle in the 1950s, not realizing World War II was over.......

White House officials said the trip was a signal that the question has been settled: Cheney is staying, and will be deployed not just to conservative strongholds, but to swing states as well -- to do what he does best, which is attack the opposition and talk tough about protecting the United States......."He is extraordinarily important to the base, and the base is extraordinarily important in this election," the adviser said. A White House official said Bush's aides are always worried about the right wing because of President George H.W. Bush's experience, and that with conservatives, replacing Cheney would be "worse than raising taxes" -- the mistake made by the elder Bush.......

Republican frustration with Cheney increased recently when a White House effort to raise his profile, after years of near-invisibility, produced mixed results. Most notably, he used a four-letter word to insult Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) on the Senate floor on June 22........Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative group that is a crucial White House ally, said in a telephone interview that Cheney's outburst contributed to the coarsening of politics. Perkins said that the decision not to apologize is "telling of who he is as an individual"..........Some Republican officials also said they are concerned about the renewed scrutiny Cheney will receive when Kerry names his running mate. Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, said the risk of Cheney's campaign appearances in swing states is that he "will raise the profile of the things that people don't like about Bush," including secrecy and the administration's case for invading Iraq.......A CBS News/New York Times poll last month put Cheney's favorable rating at 22 percent, compared with 39 percent for Bush. Cheney's unfavorable rating was 31 percent -- nearly tripled from 11 percent early in 2002. Bush had a 79 percent approval rating among Republicans; Cheney's was 48 percent.......

Democrats contend that Cheney helps do their work for them, by symbolizing their charges that the White House is too secretive and more concerned about energy companies than average workers.......Cheney's defense of his ties to Halliburton Co., the Texas-based energy firm that he headed and that is the biggest beneficiary of U.S.-funded contracts in Iraq, gets a close-up in Michael Moore's film, "Fahrenheit 9/11." Comedian Jon Stewart has made repeated use of a clip of Cheney denying to an interviewer last month that he had made a statement connecting Iraq to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, followed by a clip of Cheney making the statement on NBC's "Meet the Press" two months after the attacks.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/05/politics/campaign/05cheney.html
By the second rally of his weekend campaign swing, Vice President Dick Cheney seemed to be getting the hang of it, delivering an entire line of his standard stump speech looking at the audience instead of the podium as he usually does......Then the audience got a little too excited. Their cheers forced him to read the same line twice. The vice president is a man who likes to get on with things......."You guys want to hear this speech or not?" he asked, not angrily but not quite kidding.

The vice president has never been much of one for campaigning.......He does not so much deliver campaign speeches as he does read them in a flat monotone. He is certainly not one to lunge at a crowd; a wave from a distance will do.......And this weekend, as Mr. Cheney emerged from Washington on a three-state bus tour that was his first serious campaign swing for 2004, he showed little sign that he has come to see campaigning as much more than a chore.

Shaking hands outside the Republican Party headquarters in East Lisbon, Ohio, he moved along the rope line with the emotionless efficiency of a shopper loading groceries onto the checkout belt, cocking one side of his mouth only slightly into a smile......Stopping at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, he shook almost no hands and said little more on a tour than "that's great" - when shown a touch-screen machine that allowed his granddaughter to call up information on Joe Gibbs, the Washington Redskins coach.....

He ran through the lines of his speeches quickly, and stuck to a strict script. The throwaway laugh lines that seemed to be ad libbed were - as is standard for stump speakers - the same ones he has used in speeches in the last several weeks.......At the stop in East Lisbon, he was greeted with a whistling and cheering audience outside the two-story red brick party headquarters. He waved, then quickly ducked inside..... "Well, that wasn't what I expected," said a miffed cameraman for WKBN in Youngstown. "I've been here an hour and a half."

When Mr. Cheney emerged a few minutes later, he showed little interest in the vintage car, climbing into it for brief remarks that began less than rousingly: "It's the first time we've used the sound system on top of the bus.".......He quickly moved on: "We've got a minute to shake some hands."........ He spent slightly more than a minute doing so. Then, as the crowd yelled "Cheney! Cheney!" he turned to an aide and said, "We all set?" and got on the bus, turning to wave once before turning and fidgeting his thumb over fingertips as he waited to sit down again.....

"Who will watch the watchers?" - the DoD Inspector General's office, already investigating numerous military scandals (and making no discernible headway on any of them - see PBD June 17), suddenly serves up its own scandal

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-probe7jul07,1,7772685.story?coll=la-home-headlines
A senior Defense Department official conducted unauthorized investigations of Iraq reconstruction efforts and used their results to push for lucrative contracts for friends and their business clients, according to current and former Pentagon officials and documents...... John A. "Jack" Shaw, deputy undersecretary for international technology security, represented himself as an agent of the Pentagon's inspector general in conducting the investigations this year, sources said.

In one case, Shaw disguised himself as an employee of Halliburton Co. and gained access to a port in southern Iraq after he was denied entry by the U.S. military, the sources said....In that investigation, Shaw found problems with operations at the port of Umm al Qasr, Pentagon sources said. In another, he criticized a competition sponsored by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority to award cell phone licenses in Iraq......In both cases, Shaw urged government officials to fix the alleged problems by directing multimillion-dollar contracts to companies linked to his friends, without competitive bidding......

Shaw justified his investigations under a special agreement with the Pentagon inspector general, Joseph E. Schmitz. The August agreement created a temporary office headed by Shaw called the International Armament and Technology Trade Directorate. Its mission was to cooperate with the inspector general on issues related to the transfer of sensitive U.S. technologies or arms to foreign countries. Shaw frequently cited the agreement in his dealings with reporters and military officials, telling them the arrangement allowed him to "wear an IG hat" to conduct investigations .......

"A fox in the henhouse" - Ahmed Chalabi, man of many faces, not only maintains links with Iranian intelligence, but with SAUDI TERRORISTS

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/chalabi_friend_of_terrorists.php

"Penny wise, pound foolish" - Bush's wrecking of the US economy

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/06/opinion/06KRUG.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
When does optimism - the Bush campaign's favorite word these days - become an inability to face facts? On Friday, President Bush insisted that a seriously disappointing jobs report, which fell far short of the pre-announcement hype, was good news: "We're witnessing steady growth, steady growth. And that's important. We don't need boom-or-bust-type growth."

But Mr. Bush has already presided over a bust. For the first time since 1932, employment is lower in the summer of a presidential election year than it was on the previous Inauguration Day.......

If you want a single number that tells the story, it's the percentage of adults who have jobs. When Mr. Bush took office, that number stood at 64.4. By last August it had fallen to 62.2 percent. In June, the number was 62.3......

What about overall growth? After two and a half years of slow growth, real G.D.P. surged in the third quarter of 2003, growing at an annual rate of more than 8 percent. But that surge appears to have been another blip. In the first quarter of 2004, growth was down to 3.9 percent, only slightly above the Clinton-era average. Scattered signs of weakness - rising new claims for unemployment insurance, sales warnings at Target and Wal-Mart, falling numbers for new durable goods orders - have led many analysts to suspect that growth slowed further in the second quarter.......

And economic growth is passing working Americans by. The average weekly earnings of nonsupervisory workers rose only 1.7 percent over the past year, lagging behind inflation......

After good job growth in March and April, the administration declared its approach vindicated. That was premature, to say the least. Whatever boost the economy got from the tax cuts is now behind us, and given the size of the budget deficit, another big tax cut is out of the question......

"If a sparrow falls...." - Bush guts the Endangered Species Act

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5360575/

"Praise God and pass the ammunition" - Karl Rove's holy war

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/07/06/evangelicals/index.html
With Democrats revved up to defeat Bush, independents leaning toward Democrat John Kerry, moderate Republicans turning away from the party and many gay Republicans having left it altogether, it's now more important than ever for the White House to get its conservative evangelical voter base to the polls. And if Republicans can't change the law preventing churches from devoting tax-exempt resources to partisan politics, the Bush-Cheney reelection effort appears ready to stretch the rules as far as possible....

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" - the total fraud of that Hussein statue pull-down (it's even worse than you thought)

http://kirghizlight.blogspot.com/2004_07_01_kirghizlight_archive.html#108886223484833766

Bonus item: not very momentous, but kind of interesting - here's the advance scoop on who Kerry's VP choice was, via an aircraft repair online forum, and the subsequent discussion the night before the announcement (c/o Josh Marshall)

http://www.usaviation.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11966
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 1:13 AM

 
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

Sometimes things unravel so quickly in Iraq it makes your head spin (a problem when you only post once every 24 hours - sometimes the contrivances don't even last THAT long)

Amnesty offered

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27934-2004Jul4.html
Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said yesterday that he is negotiating an amnesty with militant Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr and is prepared to offer the same deal to insurgents willing to surrender their arms and end the campaign against the new Iraqi government and U.S.-led multinational force.

Amnesty debated

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-amnesty5jul05,1,6019376.story?coll=la-home-headlines
The interim Iraqi government, starting its second week on the job, moved ahead Sunday with a plan to offer amnesty to insurgents, a proposal that is already stirring controversy here and in the United States......The plan, which is still being debated, would offer a reprieve for militants who have been battling U.S. and Iraqi forces. But questions about just how far to go, and whom to exclude from such an amnesty, could be incendiary.

Amnesty delayed

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1254490,00.html
Officials in the new Iraqi government today postponed the announcement of a limited amnesty for insurgents......It was the second time the Iraqi government had cancelled a news conference on the controversial issue of an amnesty. The planned amnesty will reportedly aimed at the "footsoldiers of the insurgency" rather than "hardcore criminals"......Delays in making the announcement illustrate how contentious the issue is. The Iraqi government is desperate to improve the security situation, but is mindful of the fact that an amnesty could be seen as legitimising resistance to the occupation.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/9084916.htm?1c
The interim Iraqi government delayed announcement of an amnesty plan for insurgents Monday while the leader of an extremist Shiite militia sent contradictory signals about whether he will agree to a deal.

Amnesty to be announced later (maybe) in the context of a new "security plan"

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5589703

[They're still trying to work out the language of what to call it besides "martial law"]

Meanwhile, frustration with inability of US forces to subdue insurgents grows

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-counterinsurgency6jul06,1,322432.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Almost a year after acknowledging they were facing a well-armed guerrilla war in Iraq, the Pentagon and commanders in the Middle East are being criticized by some top Bush administration officials, military officers and defense experts who accuse the military of failing to develop a coherent, winning strategy against the insurgency......Inadequate intelligence, poor assessments of enemy strength, testy relations with U.S. civilian authorities in Baghdad and an inconsistent application of force remain key problems many observers say the military must address before U.S. and Iraqi forces can quell the insurgents......"It's disappointing that we haven't been able to have better insight into the command and control of the insurgents," said one senior official of the now-dissolved Coalition Provisional Authority, recently returned from Baghdad and speaking on condition of anonymity.......It was July 16, 2003, when Army Gen. John Abizaid stood at a Pentagon podium during his first news conference as head of U.S. Central Command and declared -- after weeks of Pentagon denials -- that U.S. troops were fighting a "classic guerrilla-type war" in Iraq........Now, after a year of violence and hundreds of U.S. combat deaths, some officials and experts are frustrated that a more effective counterinsurgency plan has not materialized and that the hand-over of power to an interim Iraqi government last week was unlikely to significantly improve the security situation.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004252.php
I've read over and over from military analysts of various sorts that we could have won in Vietnam. The basic principles of counterinsurgency are well known, they say, and we were beginning to apply them successfully when Nixon made the decision to pull out. If he had stayed the course, we could have won......Maybe. But if those principles are so well known, why do we never seem to learn them? Instead, three decades after Vietnam, I keep reading stuff like this:

U.S. jets dropped six bombs Monday on a residence believed to be a safehouse used by terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the U.S. military said. At least 10 people and possibly as many as 15 were killed, witnesses and doctors said.......Four 500-pound bombs and two 1,000-pound bombs were dropped in an operation designed to underscore the resolve of coalition and Iraqi forces....

This just scares the shit out of me. My greatest fear in Iraq is that it turns into the West Bank writ large, an endless, slow motion slaughter that demonstrates undoubted resolve but sucks the soul out of both sides in the process.

U.S. number of injured and wounded grossly under-reported in Iraq (would you believe 16,000?)

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/newsArticle.asp?id=1782

And a series of follow-up reports:

Oh, that Saudi prisoner release from Guantanamo stinks to high heaven

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/04/detainee.swap.report/index.html

[Funny to hear all those people parsing the semantics of "connections" and "links" a few days ago, in a different context, now denying any connection where there patently is one. Speaking of connections, help me out here: (1) 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi, and some reportedly had connections to the Saudi military and intelligence services, (2) Saudi citizens (and perhaps members of the royal family) were primary bankrollers of the 9-11 plot, (3) a handful of Saudis, including members of Bin Laden's family and others, were given special privileges to leave the US before they could be fully questioned after 9-11, (4) the Saudis give the US a list of 15 suspected terrorists they want sent home from Guantanamo -- again, before they could be fully questioned -- and get a substantial number of them by using the release of British prisoners as leverage. Hmmm.....any connections here? Oh, probably not.]

It's all the CIA's fault (again)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/06/politics/06INTE.html?ex=1246766400&
The Central Intelligence Agency was told by relatives of Iraqi scientists before the war that Baghdad's programs to develop unconventional weapons had been abandoned, but the C.I.A. failed to give that information to President Bush, even as he publicly warned of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's illicit weapons, according to government officials.

[More: http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/07/intelligence_the_raw_and_the_cooked.html]

[Now, this is SO OBVIOUSLY a leak from Bush sympathizers. Because, you know, if a story had come out before the war that "relatives of Iraqi scientists" had denied that Hussein was developing WMD, well, that would have changed everything, right?......Notice too that this has nothing to do with their numerous claims that Hussein still HAD weapons, even if they were from previous development]

Ashcroft: a liar? or incompetent?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&e=1&u=/latimests/20040705/ts_latimes/fbidelaysinterviewsinfightingterrorplot
More than a month ago, the FBI announced it would launch a wave of interviews across the country as part of an urgent effort to root out a suspected terrorist attack planned for the U.S. this summer......Preparations for the attack were 90% complete, U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said at the time. Preparations for the interviews are another story. It's already July, and the FBI is still weeks away from launching the initiative, law enforcement officials confirm......But the delay also is bolstering a perception that Ashcroft's warning -- which included poster-size photos of suspects, most of whom had been previously identified -- was a public relations exercise that sent mixed signals to citizens, including Arab Americans.

[Imagine, I ask you, what happens if a terrible attack happens later this summer and it is recalled that even though we knew in May that planning was "90% complete" - assuming that claim was true in the first place - Ashcroft and Co. didn't apply any greater urgency to it than this?]

[FUGOP takes the original Ashcroft announcement apart, and all that's left is a bunch of little tiny pieces: http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/07/no-surprise-here.html]

Sibel Edmonds: still has a blockbuster story to tell, and still is being muzzled from telling it

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/07/05/translator_in_eye_of_storm_on_retroactive_classification/
Sifting through old classified materials in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, FBI translator Sibel Edmonds said, she made an alarming discovery: Intercepts relevant to the terrorist plot, including references to skyscrapers, had been overlooked because they were badly translated into English.......Edmonds, 34, who is fluent in Turkish and Farsi, said she quickly reported the mistake to an FBI superior. Five months later, after flagging what she said were several other security lapses in her division, she was fired. Now, after more than two years of investigations and congressional inquiries, Edmonds is at the center of an extraordinary storm over US classification rules that sheds new light on the secrecy imperative supported by members of the Bush administration......In a rare maneuver, Attorney General John Ashcroft has ordered that information about the Edmonds case be retroactively classified, even basic facts that have been posted on websites and discussed openly in meetings with members of Congress for two years. The Department of Justice also invoked the seldom-used ''state secrets" privilege to silence Edmonds in court. She has been blocked from testifying in a lawsuit brought by victims of the Sept. 11 attacks and was allowed to speak to the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks only behind closed doors.......Meanwhile, the FBI has yet to release its internal investigation into her charges. And the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the bureau, has been stymied in its attempt to get to the bottom of her allegations. Now that the case has been retroactively classified, lawmakers are wary of discussing the details, for fear of overstepping legal bounds......''I'm alarmed that the FBI is reaching back in time and classifying information it provided two years ago," Senator Charles E. Grassley, a Republican from Iowa and a leading advocate for Edmonds, said last Friday. ''Frankly, it looks like an attempt to impede legitimate oversight of a serious problem at the FBI."

Zarqawi: the most dangerous man in Iraq, and what Bush didn't do about it when he had the chance

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/06/missed-opportunities.html

Bush officials switch back and forth between two different ways of measuring employment numbers, depending on which is higher

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/only-465000-new-jobs-in-past-5-months.html

GOP: felons can't vote, but if they want to work for our campaign, that's just fine

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/9061150.htm?&1c&ERIGHTS=-2542118114807961104twincities::burbules@uiuc.edu&KRD_RM=3krmpppnkopjqjjjjjjjjjllos%7Cnick%7CY


Hitler juxtaposed with Kerry in latest Bush ad

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/9021894.htm?1c

[OK, so let's trace the evolution of this. MoveOn.org, with no direct affiliation with Kerry's campaign and which gets zero money from them, sponsors an online ad competition and receives hundreds of submitted ads. One or two of those submitted ads feature comparisons of Bush and Hitler, and MoveOn.org rejects them in the competition and removes them from their web site (http://moveonvoterfund.org/smear/release.html). At the time, Bush people decry the OUTRAGE that anyone would associate the president with Hitler (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,107426,00.html: RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie called the ad, "the worst and most vile form of political hate speech.") And now, based on this flimsiest of associations, the Bush campaign feels justified in connecting Kerry with Hitler in their ad. But, of course, THAT'S different.]

On the Bush efforts against domestic terrorism....uhhhh....DOMESTIC terrorism?

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bal-te.anthrax04jul04,0,1894749.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

On Bush's culpability for the genocide that is going on now in Sudan

http://dean4az.blogspot.com/2004/07/powells-sudanese-farce_01.html

On Chalabi

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040607fa_fact1
Vincent Cannistraro, a former C.I.A. counter-terrorism specialist who now consults for the government, told me, "With Chalabi, we paid to fool ourselves. It's horrible. In other times, it might be funny. But a lot of people are dead as a result of this. It's reprehensible."...... The spying charges have forced Chalabi's patrons at the Pentagon to distance themselves from him. Paul Wolfowitz, who was one of the earliest and most outspoken proponents of an invasion of Iraq, and who has been friends with Chalabi for years, spoke of him with studied detachment at a recent congressional hearing. He praised the I.N.C.'s effectiveness in providing battlefield intelligence since the war began, but he said, "I think there's quite a bit of street legend out there that somehow he is the favorite of the Defense Department, and we had some idea of installing him as the leader of Iraq.".......But a prominent State Department official told me that he saw numerous documents that had been prepared by the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, which devoted considerable effort to planning the war. The office was overseen by Douglas Feith. "Every list of Iraqis they wanted to work with for positions in the government of postwar Iraq included Chalabi and all of the members of his organization," the State Department official said......In Jordan, banking officials scoff at Chalabi’s claims of innocence......"This man is a vicious liar. There is no end to it. It's like you find someone killing with a gun in his hand, and he says he's innocent. He just wears you down." The official declined to be named, because he feared Chalabi's influence. "He has more powerful friends in Washington than you or me," he said, adding, "Really, some of your people are such suckers."

Bonus item: Bill Safire (can we find a new word for "toady"? I don't want to slander toads)

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/07/safire_in_outer_space.html

Extra bonus item, to take that bad taste out of your mouth: Barbara Ehrenreich

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/04/opinion/04EHRE.html
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 1:15 AM

 
THE MANY MEANINGS OF "DEMOCRACY"

Celebrating our freedoms

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&e=3&u=/ap/20040704/ap_on_el_pr/bush
Defending the war in Iraq, President Bush said on Independence Day that America is safer......"Our immediate task in battle fronts like Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere is to capture or kill the terrorists ... so we do not have to face them here at home," Bush told a cheering crowd outside the West Virginia Capitol......Two Bush opponents, taken out of the crowd in restraints by police, said they were told they couldn't be there because they were wearing shirts that said they opposed the president.

[You can't wear Kerry t-shirts at Bush events? And the POLICE haul you off if you do?]

Undoing the American Revolution: our own "King George"

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=1519

Bremer warns Iraq won't be an "American style democracy" (well let's hope not - let's hope it's a REAL democracy)

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/07/04/bremer/
"We shouldn't kid ourselves -- it will be sloppy and messy at the beginning. People forget it took us 12 years to write our own Constitution" Bremer said.

[This isn't really the issue, of course. The issue is whether a Shia party -- Sadr's for instance -- will win the upcoming elections. Hence Bremer's attempts to block them from running: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1233652,00.html. OK, so maybe that IS "American style democracy" -- witness what happened in West Virginia, above]

As Blog Left points out, sometimes you have to read the British papers to get any idea of what's really going on:

Abu Ghraib General Karpinski: Rumsfeld "personally approved" of harsher methods

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/04/wtort04.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/04/ixnewstop.html
The former head of the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad has for the first time accused the American Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, of directly authorising Guantanamo Bay-style interrogation tactics......Brig-Gen Janis Karpinski, who commanded the 800th Military Police Brigade, which is at the centre of the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal, said that documents yet to be released by the Pentagon would show that Mr Rumsfeld personally approved the introduction of harsher conditions of detention in Iraq.

Making the case for war: the behind-the-scenes role of Laurie Mylroie

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4963365-103550,00.html
Mylroie believes that Saddam was behind every anti-American terrorist incident of note in the past decade, from the levelling of the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995 to September 11 itself. She is, in short, a cranky conspiracist - but her neoconservative friends believed her theories, bringing her on as a terrorism consultant at the Pentagon......

Former British envoy blasts Iraq policies

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4963344-103550,00.html

U.S aid never made it to Iraq

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1254037,00.html

The investigation into "oil-for food" corruption in Iraq: why it's going nowhere

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_04.php#003120

Nat Hentoff reviews the torture scandal, and what we know so far

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0426/hentoff.php

Sick, sick sick - imagine, JUST IMAGINE, someone running a similar photo of Bush

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_07_04_bestof.html#108895367599119507

Nader: Democrats are Afraid of Democracy

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&e=3&u=/ap/20040705/ap_on_el_pr/nader
Ralph Nader said Sunday that Democrats who see his independent presidential campaign as a threat to John Kerry's candidacy are really afraid of the democratic process.......He also had some choice words for the Congressional Black Caucus, an all-Democratic group whose members urged Nader to drop out of the race during a testy meeting at the Capitol nearly two weeks ago...... "What these people are all afraid of, the Democrats, is democracy. That's what they're afraid of," Nader said......."They're afraid of competition."

[Since this is a slow day for news, let me get something off my chest about Ralph Nader and his supporters. No one denies the right of third parties to organize and compete for support. No one is "afraid" to compete for votes. In particular, no one in the Democratic party is afraid that they will be swamped by the tidal wave of support for Nader. This is a classic example of "changing the subject." Nader wants to suggest that his "competition" is against the Democrats -- while most of us think the competition is against the Republicans, and especially the latest extremist, fundamentalist, and militarist gang running things in Washington.

Here is my gripe: before the 2000 election, Nader supporters said, as third parties usually do, that there was "no significant difference" between the two main parties [http://www.damnedbigdifference.org/quotes]. I say, "fair enough, if you really believe that." But then, in the aftermath of the election, when it became clear that there WAS a hell of a difference between Bush and Gore, when Bush's mask of "compassionate conservatism" slipped aside to reveal what a mean-spirited and ignorant man he really is, when those around Bush took this country down the terrible slide into deficits, disappearing personal liberties, and perpetual war, the Nader argument shifted to "oops - there was a big difference, but IT'S NOT MY FAULT BUSH WON" [http://www.reason.com/0205/cr.mw.speaking.shtml]. Now, that's inexcusable hypocrisy, because it was foreseeable that Nader's candidacy would help Bush win in 2000 - and it certainly did. (Without Nader, Gore would have won Florida and possibly New Hampshire too: http://2act.org/p/663.html) This year, it is equally foreseeable that in several key battleground states a percentage point or two will swing the outcome either way. That's the simple fact of things.
More: http://www.hereinstead.com/sys-tmpl/naderssorrylegacy/]

Bonus item: Letterman's Top Ten Bush Complaints About F911

http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/top_ten/archive/ls_topten_archive2004/ls_topten_archive_20040629.shtml

10. That actor who played the President was totally unconvincing

9. It oversimplified the way I stole the election

8. Too many of them fancy college-boy words

7. If Michael Moore had waited a few months, he could have included the part where I get him deported

6. Didn't have one of them hilarious monkeys who smoke cigarettes and gives people the finger

5. Of all Michael Moore's accusations, only 97% are true

4. Not sure - - I passed out after a piece of popcorn lodged in my windpipe

3. Where the hell was Spider-man?

2. Couldn't hear most of the movie over Cheney's foul mouth

1. I thought this was supposed to be about Dodgeball
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 2:28 AM

 
OUR FREEDOMS

Happy Fourth of July, everyone. Whatever the Bush Co. likes to say, we love and care about our country too - which is what gives us the right to be critical

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/32/features-flacks.php
During periods of social and political turmoil, America's leaders have always sought to impose rituals of loyalty, civics lessons and other forms of patriotic observance. In that tradition, George W. Bush has tried to define opposition to his war policy as unpatriotic. His first response to 9/11 included the declaration that "either you are with us or you are with the terrorists," a comment aimed not only at leaders of other nations but at domestic critics as well. (The misnamed Patriot Act was clearly designed to stigmatize dissent.)......This post-9/11 patriotic fervor has revitalized the conventional wisdom that love of country is synonymous with conservatism. Conservatives, we are told, wave the flag. Or wear it on their lapels. Leftists, by contrast, only scorn it. Or burn it. Since the Vietnam War era, many liberals and progressives have been uncomfortable about patriotism. They equate it with jingoism and militarism. They have been reluctant to wave the flag. They weren't sure it was theirs. And George W. Bush's brand of blind "my country right or wrong" jingoism has, on this Fourth of July, only deepened the dilemma........ But some progressives are now challenging this conventional reflex, no longer conceding that conservatives have a monopoly on Old Glory.......

"Psy-ops," sure - but against WHOM?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-na-statue3jul03,1,5285803.story?coll=la-home-headlines
As the Iraqi regime was collapsing on April 9, 2003, Marines converged on Firdos Square in central Baghdad, site of an enormous statue of Saddam Hussein. It was a Marine colonel -- not joyous Iraqi civilians, as was widely assumed from the TV images -- who decided to topple the statue, the Army report said. And it was a quick-thinking Army psychological operations team that made it appear to be a spontaneous Iraqi undertaking.......After the colonel -- who was not named in the report -- selected the statue as a "target of opportunity," the psychological team used loudspeakers to encourage Iraqi civilians to assist, according to an account by a unit member......Ultimately, a Marine recovery vehicle toppled the statue with a chain, but the effort appeared to be Iraqi-inspired because the psychological team had managed to pack the vehicle with cheering Iraqi children.

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_07_03_bestof.html#108886319578348128
The really sad thing about the admission by the Army that it stage managed the toppling of Saddam's statue is that it was always obvious (even to the journalists who were there) that it was a piece of political theater and yet virtually every newspaper and TV station in the world ran it uncritically as a symbol of Iraqis celebrating their new-found freedom. A handful of Chalabi's boys, aided by Army tanks, threw out the bait and the press swallowed it, hook, line and picture.

Other favors we've done for the Iraqis

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/2004/07/19-billion-in-iraq-oil-revenues.php
$19 billion in Iraq oil revenues disappear as U.S. is accused of depleting fund
Iraq will be a scandal for years to come as international audit seeks to find out how the US spent Iraqi development funds (Hint: look at overpaying US companies like Halliburton, giving Bush-Cheney buddies contracts instead of money directly to the Iraqis)
[More: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.money03jul03,0,5386955.story]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=536623
Baghdad is awash with stories of the corruption, cronyism and incompetence of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which was dissolved this week........ Many of its officials were in Iraq because they were ideological neo-conservatives or were simply well connected to the Republican Party or the White House..........Some were paid astonishing salaries.......Iraqis often say they were astonished by the level of cronyism in Washington's appointments. Privatisation was a high priority for the US administrator, Paul Bremer. But his chief aide in developing the private sector was a Republican businessman from Connecticut called Thomas Foley who was an assiduous fund-raiser for his party but otherwise had little experience useful in Iraq.

And favors we've done for the Saudis (an AMAZING story - you ought to read this)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/04/international/middleeast/04SWAP.html?ex=1246593600&
American officials agreed to return five terrorism suspects to Saudi Arabia from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, last year as part of a secret three-way deal intended to satisfy important allies in the invasion of Iraq, according to senior American and British officials.......Under the arrangement, Saudi officials later released five Britons and two others who had been convicted of terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia, the officials said. British diplomats said they believed that the men had been tortured by Saudi security police officers into confessing falsely.......Officials involved in the deliberations said the transfer of the Saudis from Guantánamo initially met with objections from officials at the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department. Those officials questioned whether some detainees were too dangerous to send back and whether the United States could trust Saudi promises to keep the men imprisoned.......The Saudi prisoners were transferred to Riyadh, the capital, in May 2003. The five Britons and two others were freed three months later, in August....."There is no recollection here of any linkage between these two actions," said the spokesman, Sean McCormick. He described the return of the Saudis as "part of the normal policy of transferring detainees from Guantánamo for prosecution or continued detention."......But American officials involved in the Saudi case described it as highly unusual and said the backgrounds of those detainees raised greater concerns than those of others. Some officials also said the case showed how considerations other than security and intelligence could influence releases of prisoners. ...Saudi officials gave contradictory accounts of the current whereabouts of the five men, saying at first that one or two of them had been released, then denying that any had been freed. The officials also gave contradictory accounts of the suspects' legal status, first saying they had been tried and convicted of seeking to join Taliban forces in Afghanistan, but later saying prosecutions were still pending.

Still stonewalling...

http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=1789
Whatever happened to those reports on Iraq detainee conditions from the International Committee of the Red Cross that the Pentagon was supposed to provide to the congressional oversight committees? Here's DOD spokesman Larry DiRita yesterday:

Q: Why has the Pentagon not yet submitted to Congress the ICRC inspection reports on Iraq that Secretary Rumsfeld promised? Why specifically have you not, and when do you plan to submit them?

MR. DIRITA: It's a question of -- when General Abizaid testified, whenever it was -- in mid-May -- he acknowledged what everybody knows, and that is our -- the process by which reports from the International Committee of the Red Cross are managed in this department is very uneven, and it's done primarily because everybody's trying to give deference to a process that the International Committee of the Red Cross feels must be managed a certain way.......And as I understand it, the ICRC is very anxious about ensuring that there not be any undue exposure to their findings and to their processes. And as a result, over a period of time, we've established a process and a relationship with the ICRC where reports very often come in at levels certainly well below the Pentagon, and very often at levels below the command level. And we did, in fact, see this in the case of the Iraq-related reports.......

Q: Why don't you just go back and ask them for copies of the report? I'm sure they've got a big bulging file somewhere that they'd be happy to share.

MR. DIRITA: The ICRC?

Q: Yeah. Presumably -- that would be --

MR. DIRITA: I'll mark that down. Thank you for the suggestion.

"Bad News for Bush"

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/07/03/bad_news_everywhere_bush_looks/
GEORGE BUSH is captive of real world events -- Iraq and US economy. Whenever he's mishandled them, they've blown up in his face.......

Fundamentalisms today, and fundamentalisms yet to come....

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_07_04_bestof.html#108891430595635879
While our eyes are focused on the US Presidential race and the battle to return the Resident to Crawford, Texas, we may, too easily, lose sight of what is going on in the rest of the world, in particular those parts of the rest of the world where the overwhelming majority of human beings now struggle to survive. They are young, they are hungry, they have every reason to be angry and turn to the simple but compelling ideas of fundamentalist religions to explain why they find themselves in Hell......Read all about it in Mike Davis' Planet of Slums. This is, I kid you not, the scariest thing I've ever read.
[More: http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR26001.shtml]

Blair seeking to distance himself and his policies from Bush

http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=746482004

Dick Cheney speaks out on values

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=3&u=/ap/20040703/ap_on_el_pr/cheney_8
Firing back in the debate over American values, Vice President Dick Cheney used his first campaign bus tour Saturday to label Democrat John Kerry "on the left, out of the mainstream and out of touch with the conservative values of the heartland.".....Kerry in recent days has been invoking values with increasing frequency, promising a crowd in Minnesota on Friday, for example, that he would "honor the values that built our country." ......Cheney, serving notice that the Bush campaign won't cede what has traditionally been a favorite Republican issue, told a cheering crowd at Wheeling Park High School: "Sometimes I think John Kerry developed amnesia out on the campaign trail. His latest thing is to tell audiences that he holds conservative values.......On these and a whole host of values, John Kerry's votes and statements over the decades that he's been in office put him on the left, out of the mainstream and put out of touch of the conservative values of the heartland."

["Oh yeah, and one more thing: Go f--- yourself, John Kerry"]

The Kerry campaign was quick to respond. "Considering that Dick Cheney got five deferments from the military to avoid combat, he's the last person who should be attacking Vietnam veteran John Kerry's commitment to the flag," said spokesman Phil Singer. He added that if the Bush campaign chooses to use "shrill speeches, they're going to do so at their own peril."

Oh, and this is rich: Bush Co. accuses Kerry of "polling" to help him pick his VP (shocking!) and adds, "The adviser went on to contrast Kerry's selection process with Bush's decision to choose Dick Cheney as his running mate for the 2000 election. President Bush picked the best man for the job with zero political calculation or polling")

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/07/its_the_little_.html

[And I thought it was Cheney who picked Bush to be HIS running mate]

Good analysis of Bush's latest campaign ads (sometimes I'm glad to be out of the country, so I don't have to watch things like this)

http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2004/07/mad_scientists_.html
While its incompetence in all matters foreign and domestic at last seems well-understood, the Bush team still seems to retain some reputation for political brilliance.......I just looked at all of the last few Bush ads, and they are really evidence of what happens to a political campaign when it is driven by smug arrogance and sense of historical inevitability, and lacks a candidate who can step in and take control, as Kerry did last fall. These ads may well be the worst political ads of all time. That's entirely apart from the question of their truthfulness or civility. And I don't just mean the ad that inserts images of Hitler in between those of other Democrats criticizing Bush, although I'll get to that.......

But what really strikes me about this ad, and the others, is that Bush seems to believe he can now present himself as the calm, centrist, steady point right in between the wild-eyed left and right. (Perhaps only Hitler puts enough weight on the other side to make Bush seem calm and centrist.) He must realize that he made a choice at some point in his presidency to put large forces into play. He didn't have to cast political arguments into grand battles between the forces of light and the forces of dark. He didn't have to stake everything on radical tax shifting and foreign policy insanity..........But you have to recognize that when you stake your supporters to the cause of stopping gay marriage, when you stake the economy to a gamble on surviving massive deficits, when you stake your reputation as an international leader on a "you break it, you own it" invasion of a country, thoroughly unprepared for either the predicted or unpredictable consequences, you just have to hope that all those dice roll in your favor. If they do, you win "big time." If not, you lose. Bush has no option in his reelection message but to try to reinforce and justify the choice he's made to go the extremes. Thus the policy incompetence cannot be separated from the political incompetence.

Good analysis of the SC decision on the Cheney Task Force case

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20040702.html

Good analysis of those National Guard records, and what we still haven't seen yet

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001133.html
Paul Lukasiak has an analysis of documents in George W. Bush's incomplete (and possibly inaccurate) military service file. Four are especially key:

An ARF retirement summary from ARPC (the Air Reserve Personnel Center) reporting that Bush has been placed on "Inactive Status" as of September 15, 1973.

A document showing that on March 7, 1974--while George W. Bush was taking classes at Harvard Business School--his specialty code was changed from F-102 Pilot (1125D) to Executive Support Officer (7021) by Capt. R.R. Kostelny, Assistant Director, Bureau of Administration, ARPC.

A document showing that on May 27, 1974--while George W. Bush was taking classes at Harvard Business School--Bush was reassigned from ARPC (NARS-B)--an "Active Status" standby reserve position--TO ARPC (ISLRS) (the Inactive Status List Reserve Section) by Capt. R.R. Kostelny, Assistant Director, Bureau of Administration, ARPC.

Bush's discharge: On November 21, 1974, George W. Bush was honorably discharged from the Air Force Reserve, and moved off the rolls of the ARPC (ISLRS) by Capt. R.R. Kostelny, Assistant Director, Bureau of Administration, ARPC.

Paul Lukasiak interprets these documents as follows: the Air Reserve Personnel Center had noted that George W. Bush had failed to take his flight physical, had been suspended from flight status, and that nobody could be found to write him an Officer Effectiveness Report for 1972-1973. As a result, the ARPC concluded that he was not fulfilling his military obligations, and began the process of dismissing him from the Air National Guard/Air Force Reserve. That's what, Lukasiak says, the placing of Bush on "Inactive Status" means. As Lukasiak quotes the personnel manual, someone in George W. Bush's position "will be retained in an active status for the duration of his M[ilitary ]S[ervice ]O[bligation"--unless, that is, he is "sooner discharged for the purpose of complete severance from military service."...... In the spring of 1974, however, somebody takes an interest in Bush's case. They want to fix things. The ideal way would be to ignore the fact that he has not fulfilled his Military Service Obligation, and simply move him into the "Active Status" Non-Affiliated Reserve Section Personnel Pool. But they cannot do this for Bush as long as he remains a pilot--he hasn't taken his flight physical, and he has been suspended from flight status. So the solution is to turn him (most irregularly, from a bureaucratic perspective) into an Executive Support Officer. Then the missing flight physical and the suspension from flight status aren't big problems--since Executive Support Officers don't fly--and he can be moved into the NARS pool.......Once Bush has been shuffled in the NARS pool, he can then be moved to the Inactive Status List Reserve Section, and thus exit the Guard/Reserve not as somebody who has not fulfilled his military service obligations but as somebody who followed the normal course of transfer through the various reserve personnel pools.

Thus somebody did some bureaucratic paper-shuffling in the spring of 1974--while Bush is at Harvard Business School--to save him from the Dishonorable Discharge he was at that time heading for......

Good analysis of the latest Right wing "blame the messenger" strategy

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004249.php
THE CONSERVATIVE WAR ON THE TRUTH.... As I was catching up on a few things this morning I ran across this Knight-Ridder story about the latest right-wing action program:

Conservatives across the country decry news coverage of the war as relentlessly and unfairly negative. Last week Brent Bozell, a conservative activist, launched a $2.8 million advertising and talk-radio campaign to discredit the "liberal news media."

Wow. These guys have $2.8 million to spend solely to convince people that they shouldn't believe anything they read in the papers? That's remarkable......Of course, it's just one small cog in the conservative program to discredit anyone with enough independent expertise to pose a threat to conservative ideology. Scientists? They manipulate the evidence to favor their liberal agenda. University professors who have actually studied an area deeply? Just a bunch of wild-eyed socialists. Reporters? Enough said.

As Franklin Foer points out in this week's New Republic cover story, this attitude is pervasive in the Bush administration:

The most common explanation for this animus is that the White House overflows with political hacks uninterested in the nitty-gritty of policy. But the administration's expert-bashing also has deep roots in ideology. Since its inception, modern American conservatism has harbored a suspicion of experts, who, through adherence to inductive reasoning and academic methodologies, claim to provide objective research and analysis.

Foer has much more on this, and his full article is well worth reading. For a final word on conservative animus toward the "liberal" media, though, here's Nick Kristof today:

As U.S. Lt. Josh Rushing astutely notes in "Control Room," Al Jazeera is the Arab version of the Fox News Channel: "It benefits Al Jazeera to play to Arab nationalism because that's their audience, just like Fox plays to American patriotism, for the exact same reason -- American nationalism -- because that's their demographic audience and that's what they want to see."

That's about right. Conservatives who don't like the message these days either shoot the messenger or else hire their own more compliant messenger. It doesn't change the facts, mind you, but for a short while it makes them feel better.

Good analysis of the morphing churches-as-Bush-campaign-headquarters story

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/7/3/9531/31015

Bonus item: have a great holiday!

http://www.njagyouth.org/Liberty_.htm
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 1:44 AM

 
WHAT WE HAVE WROUGHT

Iraq SitRep: The early Bush justifications tried to paint Iraq as the "central front in the war on terror" -- and now we have just what we asked for

Resistance should now be characterized as a "jihad" (not a few straggling Saddam loyalists, not a ramshackle group of "outside agitators")
http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/07/the_jihad_in_ir.html

Iranian influence growing
http://www.juancole.com/2004_07_01_juancole_archive.html#108882562919303869
"They want a failure of America in Iraq, but they hope the country will be stable enough not to destabilize Iran," said a Western diplomat in Baghdad with extensive experience in the region. "The best thing for them would be a stabilized Iraq with a friendly Shia power in Baghdad created in opposition to the occupation forces." '
Cole: [T]his outcome seems quite likely.
[More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/03/international/middleeast/03IRAN.html]

"Ethnic cleansing"
http://www.juancole.com/2004_07_01_juancole_archive.html#108881713816777371

Sadr
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1802&e=2&u=/washpost/20040703/ts_washpost/a24645_2004jul2

What the Iraqi people REALLY think
http://www.juancole.com/2004_07_01_juancole_archive.html#108874766551090563


Bush Co. -- still making stuff up

http://kirghizlight.blogspot.com/2004_07_01_kirghizlight_archive.html#108880542608711416
Rumsfeld said the Polish defense minister told him this week "that his troops in Iraq had recently come across -- I've forgotten the number, but something like 16 or 17 -- warheads that contained sarin and mustard gas."....Rumsfeld added: "I have not seen them and I have not tested them, but they believe that they are correct that these, in fact, were undeclared chemical weapons."

And now the rest of the story:

Poland said the shells found by its troops dated from the 1980s and that it had bought them through individuals who contacted officials in its military zone in south-central Iraq....But the U.S. military said only two of the rockets had tested positive for sarin gas, and that another 16 rockets found by the Poles had contained no chemical agents.

Let's repeat that. "The U.S. military" -- you know, the group that Rumsfeld is in charge of -- has already tested these things. They said 16 of the 18 weapons "contained no chemical agents," and they had a statement ready for the reporter who asked about it. But that statement didn't make its way up the stovepipe to the boss, who thought the original, incorrect Polish report was more provocative.
[More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/000880.html]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22281-2004Jul1.html?nav=rss_politics/elections/2004
Cheney, at the New Orleans D-Day Museum, delivered the most extensive defense of the administration's Iraq policy. "This week, only 15 months after the liberation of Iraq, we reached an important milestone, as the world witnessed the arrival of a free and sovereign Iraqi government," he said......... Countering the staff of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, which found no "collaborative relationship" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda, Cheney renewed his accusation that they had "long-established ties." He listed several examples and stated: "In the early 1990s, Saddam had sent a brigadier general in the Iraqi intelligence service to Sudan to train al Qaeda in bombmaking and document forgery."....Senior intelligence officials said yesterday that they had no knowledge of this....

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/07/02/cheney/?source=RSS
This is not the only area of confusion being created in the latest offensive by the Bush administration to defend the reasons for and consequences of the Iraq war. Are we safer now because of the Bush administration's policies in Iraq and Afghanistan? Of course, Cheney said yesterday, echoing the recent GOP talking points: "America is safer, and the world is more secure, because Iraq and Afghanistan are now partners in the struggle against terror, instead of sanctuaries for terrorist networks." he said.......An Army War College report said the war in Iraq was an unnecessary detour and diversion of resources and attention from the goal of defeating al-Qaida. A London-based think tank said the "overall risk of terrorism to Westerners and Western assets in Arab countries appeared to increase after the Iraq war began in March 2003." The State Department's own data, revised after it grossly underestimated the terror threat, show that terrorist attacks last year were at a 20-year high. And as for Afghanistan being a "partner in the struggle against terror," as Cheney says: Our mission was only half-accomplished there, leaving the country on the "verge of anarchy," according to a recent report. The Taliban is still operating in Afghanistan, and serving as a disruptive force in the elections...

And...it doesn't seem to be working any longer

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/02/opinion/02HERB.html?pagewanted=print&position=
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll published yesterday found that a majority of Americans now believe the war has increased the threat of terrorism. A New York Times/CBS News poll earlier this week found that 47 percent of respondents believe the terror threat has increased, while only 13 percent say it has declined. Thirty-eight percent of the respondents in that poll said the war had not made a difference.......There is a sound basis for the concern. The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has been a gift-wrapped, gilt-edged recruiting tool for Al Qaeda and its offshoots. If Osama bin Laden had personally designed a campaign to expand the ranks and spread the influence of anti-American terrorists, it's hard to imagine him coming up with a better scenario than the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.

If Zarqawi is, as Bush says repeatedly, the "best evidence" of a Saddam/Al Qaeda link, why did we do NOTHING about him earlier, when we had the chance?

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001132.html

Scandal investigation updates

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004245.php
So it appears the CIA is now going to get the blame for screwing up the prewar intelligence and convincing everyone that Iraq had WMD. Just as they got the blame two years ago for refusing to acknowledge the obvious fact that of course Iraq had WMD......
[More: http://www.trivalleyherald.com/Stories/0,1413,86~10669~2248475,00.html]

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1087373414102&p=1012571727102
The Pentagon's failure to co-operate fully with the congressional probe into the Abu Ghraib scandal is frustrating the investigation, according to campaigners and Senate staff........John Warner, chairman of the Senate armed services committee, was very aggressive in probing the abuses. But Mr Warner suffered strong criticism from some Republicans, including Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House armed services committee, who argued that the Senate and the media were exaggerating the significance of the abuses......But other critics now say the effort is running out of steam. "The investigation does seem to have slowed down," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch........"Senator Warner was severely criticised by some members of his party for pushing as hard as he did. I think he is determined to continue but he decided a brief respite was probably in order."

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/07/gutless.html
Excuse me if I don't join the NYT editorial board in its cheers for the Senate's Vote to require the administration to account for all the prisoners it has captured abroad, and to turn over information about US military prisons to the Red Cross, and to comply with the Geneva conventions.......This cheering is wrong on multiple levels......First, the Senate's action comes just a little late.......And, the Senate's action is limited to military prisons, leaving the CIA gulag in the shadows..... I'll cheer when the legislature starts investigating the CIA's network of interrogation camps. Does anyone ever get out alive?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21841-2004Jul1.html?nav=rss_nation
A group of lawyers who represent 53 detainees at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, demanded yesterday that the Pentagon grant them unfettered access to their clients, saying that a U.S. Supreme Court decision this week leaves no doubt that the detainees have that right......Lawyers with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents two of the detainees involved in the Supreme Court case, made the demand in a letter faxed to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday afternoon.......They asked for access "as expeditiously as possible," contending that under the Supreme Court's ruling in Rasul v. Bush "there is no question of the right of each of them to file petitions for habeas corpus and to have access to counsel in order to do so.".......Pentagon officials said yesterday that they have made no decisions on the impact of the Supreme Court rulings and that there is no plan for informing the nearly 600 detainees about their new rights. Lawrence DiRita, the top Pentagon spokesman, also said that there has been no decision to grant lawyers access to the detainees..... DiRita told reporters yesterday that lawyers with the Defense and Justice departments are still analyzing the decisions to "see what the intent of the rulings was."

US military censoring the content of Saddam trial coverage

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/variety/20040701/va_ne_al/sounds_of_silence_3

US military ALSO censoring which web sites military personnel can access

http://www.boingboing.net/2004/06/09/update_blocked_sites.html

Why all that talk about renewing the draft just won't go away

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/03/politics/03SOLD.html?ex=1246507200&en=4dcd2f6e8d4f8670&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland


I know politics can be a tough, dirty street fight - but the simple fact is when you read these sorts of stories it nearly always is the GOP doing it (must be the "liberal media" only telling us one side of the story, right?)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/07/illegal-activities.html
Voters in counties included in the new Texas 6th Congressional District were surprised to receive a newsletter and questionnaire this week from Congressman Joe Barton. Their surprise comes from the fact that Barton does not represent them at this time. He is running against Democrat Morris Meyer for the congressional seat in the new district.......The mailing was sent through Barton's franking privilege available to him as a member of Congress. There is no stamp on the mailpiece, just his signature. Federal law specifically states that "members of Congress may not make any mass mailings outside of the district from which they are elected." Not only did Barton use taxpayers' money to pay for this mailing, he sent it to voters outside of his district......"As a 20-year Congressman, Barton knows the rules pertaining to franking privileges," Meyer continued. "He has used this to send campaign literature in the guise of an official government newsletter at the taxpayer's expense to potential voters in areas that he does not presently represent."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040701/ap_on_re_us/gop_phone_lines_4
The former head of a Republican consulting group has pleaded guilty to jamming Democratic telephone lines in several New Hampshire cities on Election Day two years ago......The jamming involved more than 800 computer-generated calls and lasted for about 1 1/2 hours on Nov. 5, 2002, the day voters decided several races, including a close Senate contest between outgoing Gov. Jeanne Shaheen and GOP Rep. John E. Sununu, who won by fewer than 20,000 votes.....The lines that were jammed were set up so voters could call for rides to the polls. Democrats say the jamming was an organized, statewide effort that may have even affected the outcome of some local races......."There is, short of murder, not much that is more horrific in America than purposely trying to stop people from voting," said Raymond Buckley, vice chairman of the state Democratic Party.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/07/02/mustreads/?source=RSS
Four years after the Florida vote was decided by 537 ballots, a Miami Herald investigation has found more than 2,100 Florida voters -- many of them black Democrats -- on the state's list of felons potentially ineligible to vote.......

OK, so regular readers of PBD know that Norquist, Rove, DeLay and others have been trying to force DC lobbyists to hire only Republican staff (otherwise they get no access: see http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0307.confessore.html). So it is a revealing indicator when these firms start anticipating that they may need some Democratic connections (in a few months). Read this, then delight in the GOP response

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003239
Jeffrey Birnbaum reports that lobbying firms are increasingly resisting GOP pressure and looking to hire more Democrats, a clear indication that K Street thinks it's become over-exposed to the prospect of significant Democratic gains and needs to hedge its bets. This hardly proves Kerry's going to win, but it's a useful leading indicator of what's going on.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004246.php
K Street Project spokesman Grover G. Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, fumed that the Glickman hiring was "a mistake. It's goofy. It's a studied insult." The Motion Picture Association's "ability to work with the House and Senate is greatly reduced because they've decided to hire a guy whose claim to fame is that he is a retired Clinton hire," Norquist said.....Beier's move to Amgen in December angered K Street Project spokesman Norquist. "That's not very wise on their part," he said. Speaking of key Republican leaders, Norquist added ominously, "People are aware that this has happened. It's going to be treated seriously."

Shameless: they will only stop when we stop them

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004244.php
The Bush administration is offering a novel reason for denying a request seeking the Justice Department's database on foreign lobbyists: Copying the information would bring down the computer system...... "Implementing such a request risks a crash that cannot be fixed and could result in a major loss of data, which would be devastating," wrote Thomas J. McIntyre, chief in the Justice Department's office for information requests...."This was a new one on us. We weren't aware there were databases that could be destroyed just by copying them," Bob Williams of the Center for Public Integrity said Tuesday.

Bush's "Super Rangers"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19026-2004Jun30.html?referrer=email
The Republican National Committee yesterday disclosed the names of 62 "Super Rangers" -- the new elite of fundraisers who have replaced the high-dollar corporate, union and wealthy donors of the past......Each CEO, state party chairman, lobbyist, investor, elected official or corporate lawyer designated as a Super Ranger has raised at least $300,000 for the Republican Party.......Almost all, 54 out of 62, of the Super Rangers had already qualified as Rangers or as Pioneers, in the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, according to calculations by Public Citizen, a consumer organization. This means that those who are Rangers and Super Rangers have raised a minimum of $500,000 apiece during the current election cycle, and those ranked as Super Rangers and Pioneers have raised $400,000 each...... Almost all the Super Rangers are well-known figures in political circles, although less well known in general.........A number of the Super Rangers have been favorably treated by the Bush administration....

No, I'm not going to stop on this topic: Bush continues to use religion as a weapon in his fight for re-election

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/07/02/churches/?source=RSS
The president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is appalled that the Bush-Cheney campaign is asking volunteers to share names and addresses from their church directories with the campaign. From a press release: "It's one thing for the church to have a voter registration drive, to seek to inform church members on public policy issues, to encourage church members to fulfill their Christian duty to vote, and to encourage them to vote their values, beliefs and convictions," Richard Land said. "It's another thing entirely for a partisan campaign to ask church members to bring in church directories for use as contact lists by the campaign and to seek to come into the church and do a voter registration drive and distribute campaign literature.

Bush's "Texas miracle" in education? (the gift that gave us all NCLB)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004243.php
A U.S. Census Bureau study shows that Texas again ranks last in the percentage of high school graduates......The study released Tuesday shows that 77 percent of Texans age 25 and older had a high school degree in 2003, the same percentage as a decade earlier, when Texas ranked 39th in the country. Meanwhile, graduation rates in other states have improved and a record 85 percent of Americans have high school degrees.

Those new job numbers, and what they tell us about the economy

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003240

That Bush interview with Irish television, which got his handlers all worked up because he was "interrupted" so often? Well, you can watch it here - and the most striking thing is the unvarnished view it gives of the way Bush's mind "works"

http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200427#454

Interesting debate (and fun to contemplate now): if Bush loses, what comes next for the Republican Party?

http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/001430.html

Nader off the ballot in Arizona because of fraudulent petition signatures (signatures obtained for him by a REPUBLICAN firm)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/7/2/125811/8392

Bonus item: story board for new Bush campaign ad (pretty funny)

http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/002868.html#more

Extra bonus item: squealing like a stuck pig

http://www.thetalentshow.org/archives/001080.html
BEGALA: [L]et me ask you, Mr. Novak, with your new self-founded -- newfounded self-righteousness, are you going to retract the statement you said last week on "Meet the Press," where you implied that President Clinton was involved in people's deaths over Whitewater? That's the most outrageous thing I've heard said about an American president.

NOVAK: I didn't say he was engaging -- and you're lying.

BEGALA: I'll read your words.

NOVAK: And when I said that...

BEGALA: "I don't believe that the Whitewater case was ever fully investigated. People died, and I believe Bill Clinton beat the rap on Whitewater."

NOVAK: Well, I didn't say he was involved with the thing.

BEGALA: You said...

NOVAK: You...

BEGALA: ... he beat the rap and people died. Who died? Who died in Whitewater?

NOVAK: McDougal died, and...

BEGALA: He died in prison of a heart attack.

NOVAK: Well, people died (UNINTELLIGIBLE). But just a minute. You can't -- you can't say -- go on national television and accuse me of something I didn't say.

BEGALA: I read your words.

NOVAK: I did not say that, and that is a lie. And I...

BEGALA: These are your words, Mr. Novak. I read them.

NOVAK: And I'm ashamed of you for going on the air and saying that.

BEGALA: I got this from the transcript. This is the transcript from "Meet the Press", Bob.

NOVAK: That's an outrage. And it is...

BEGALA: It is an outrage. You owe Mr. Clinton an apology.

NOVAK: ... an absolute outrage because I did not say that he was responsible for those deaths. And this is not fun, Paul.
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 2:19 AM

 
MORE THAN NOTHING

John Ashcroft - can it get any worse?

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/9049330.htm?1c
Attorney General John Ashcroft said Wednesday that the U.S. Supreme Court gave more rights to terrorists in three recent decisions, and Justice Department attorneys are poring over the rulings to determine their consequences......The orders issued Monday on Guantanamo detainees and enemy combatants Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi indicate "that certain terrorists have more rights," Ashcroft said after a meeting with a regional anti-terrorism advisory council. "The Supreme Court accorded to terrorists, in a variety of cases this week, a number of additional rights," he said. "We're digesting those opinions in terms of making sure that we adjust or modify what we do, so that we accommodate the requirements as expressed by the Supreme Court."

Let me translate here: "more" in the following sense:

http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/People/rgs/alice-VII.html
'Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

'I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, 'so I can't take more.'

'You mean you can't take less ,' said the Hatter: 'it's very easy to take more than nothing.'

[More on Ashcroft: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007130.html]

(Remember that even Scalia -- that noted soft-hearted civil libertarian -- signed onto this decision)

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003237

I don't do a lot with polls here, but this really is a stunner

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_06_27_atrios_archive.html#108869070648025936
New surveys by The New York Times and the Washington Post reveal a perilous plunge in the commander-in-chief's credibility. The Times found that 79 percent of the public thinks Bush either is hiding something about Iraq, or worse, is "mostly lying" about it.

In Britain, our closest ally: behind the scenes, they're openly hoping for Bush to lose

http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200427#449
David Broder reports from London that top government leaders in Britain -- which happens to be our single most important ally in Iraq -- are rooting against Bush this fall. Broder quotes "a close student" of the Blair government as saying: "No one in the cabinet wants Bush reelected, except perhaps Blair himself," adding that, but for those very close to Blair, Bush is "scorned here." And Broder makes clear that scorn is not limited to leading Labour lights: "At a luncheon of nine or 10 conservative writers, politicians and strategists at the Centre for Policy Studies, a think tank that became influential in Margaret Thatcher's day, the descriptions of Bush began with "recklessly incompetent" and went downhill from there."

Show and tell: a revealing insight into Bush Co's rhetorical tics

http://slate.msn.com/id/2103168/
"9/11: A leader showed strength and compassion," begins the narrator of this ad......."But what if Bush wasn't there?" the narrator asks. "Could John Kerry have shown this leadership?".....Show, show, show. This is what passes for leadership in the age of television. Leadership used to be the noun form of a verb. A leader was someone who led. Now a leader is someone who "shows leadership." Politicians don't lead. They show....Last month, Bush told an Arab reporter that the Palestinian prime minister must "show leadership, show leadership against the terrorists, and show leadership in putting the institutions in place for a state to emerge." A few days later, Vice President Cheney boasted that American troops had "shown leadership" in Iraq. Three weeks ago, a senior administration official crowed, "One of the very important initiatives that President Bush has shown leadership on is addressing the food security needs of the world."...... All this talk about showing leadership confuses two different things. If you're a soldier under fire in Iraq, you're not "showing" anything. You're doing.......If you're a politician, however, everything is for show. You hug. You gaze. You grab a bullhorn at Ground Zero and shout something bold for the cameras. These gestures are often sincere, and they do count for something. But just as often, campaigns and candidates offer them as substitutes for action. If you haven't led-or led well-you show. And what you show is all the leadership you've shown........

Which explains a lot: a reminder from PBD, June 20

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53548-2004Jun18.html
You're at a photo op, reading a book with schoolchildren and an aide suddenly whispers that a second plane has hit the World Trade Center. "America is under attack."...... You're the president of the United States. What do you do?

George W. Bush was on camera in an elementary school in Sarasota, Fla........."Fahrenheit 9/11" premieres next week, and includes an uninterrupted seven-minute segment showing Bush's reaction after hearing the news of the attack. He doesn't move. Instead he continues to sit in the classroom, listening to children read aloud. Moore lets the tape roll as the minutes pass painfully by........

"The President told us his instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction at a moment of crisis . . . The President felt he should project strength and calm......"

More on the politics of appearances: Wolfowitz "apologizes" (sort of) for his unfair and widely condemned slur against the press

http://www.wonkette.com/archives/thursdays-with-wolfie-smallest-violin-edition-016786.php

The topsy-turvy world of Iraq

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1250526,00.html
American military police yesterday raided a building belonging to the Iraqi ministry of the interior where prisoners were allegedly being physically abused by Iraqi interrogators......The raid appeared to be a violation of the country's new sovereignty, leading to angry scenes inside the ministry between Iraqi policemen and US soldiers.....The military police, who had been told of abuse, seized an area known as the Guesthouse just outside the ministry's main building. They disarmed the Iraqi policemen and at one stage threatened to set free prisoners whose handcuffs they removed, according to Iraqi officials........The arrival of a second group of US military police and a more senior officer led to an argument between the two groups of military policemen over who had command authority for the raid.

Saddam's trial - what you don't know about it (though you won't be surprised)

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/07/backstage_at_sa.html
According to one law prof who just returned from training lawyers in Iraq for war crime trials, "the tribunal statute requires that both the judges and the prosecutors receive assistance from U.S. authorities."

A vision of Iraq's future: Afghan elections postponed AGAIN

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Afghan-Elections.html?ex=1246420800&en=9070041a0fc640ff&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland

A vision of Iraq's present: how many ways can you say "failure"?

http://nytimes.com/2004/07/02/politics/02PREX.html?hp
More than a year of intensive efforts by the American military and the Central Intelligence Agency to destroy the insurgency in Iraq has failed to reduce the number of "hard-core Saddamists'' seeking to destroy the interim Iraqi government, a former senior official of the just-dissolved American-led occupation authority said in an interview on Thursday......The senior official, speaking with a small group of reporters near the White House, said he was repeatedly "disappointed we haven't had better insight into the command and control of the insurgents.''....... On Thursday, the former senior occupation official estimated that the number of insurgents had stayed constant at 4,000 to 5,000, suggesting that as soon as they are killed or captured, they have been replaced........."I have seen no evidence that the number has changed,'' he said, adding that "the intelligence on this stuff is not as good as it should be.''........Moreover, said the former senior official, who has spent more than a year in Iraq and had access to the highest-level intelligence, American officials had found it "almost impossible to penetrate'' the network organized by the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is believed responsible for many of the suicide bombings that have killed both American troops and Iraqis...........The official also said that over the last year, both Iran and Syria had stepped up their activity in Iraq, and that the Iranians might have been financing Moktada al-Sadr, the young radical cleric whom the Bush administration first promised to capture or kill, then decided had to be spared to avoid urban warfare in Najaf, his stronghold. The Iranians have "become more active over time, and not helpful,'' the official said, though he said intelligence indicated that far more foreign fighters were coming over the border from Syria than from Iran..........Taken together, the description of the paucity of intelligence still available to the 138,000 American troops in Iraq and the assessment of how few inroads have been made at reducing the insurgency sounded a very different note from the optimistic-sounding messages that President Bush has been sending all week about the prospects of the new Iraqi government.

Guantanamo: the worst of the worst (Bush Co. told us) -- now it turns out many of them are harmless enough to just be released outright

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000456.html

Just in case you thought the purpose of WH Press Briefings was actually to ANSWER press questions

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/06/20040630-2.html
Q Did anyone in the White House or the administration ask Irish television or its reporter, Carol Coleman, to submit questions in advance of her interview with the President last Wednesday?

MR. McCLELLAN: Bill, a couple of things. I saw I guess some reports on that. I don't know what every individual office -- whatever discussions that they have with reporters in terms of interviews. But obviously, the President was -- is pleased to sit down and do interviews with journalists, both from abroad, as well as here at home, and to talk about the priorities of this administration. And I think anytime that there is an interview that's going to take place, obviously there are staff-level discussions with reporters before that interview and to --

Q -- what are the --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, to talk about what issues might be on their mind, and stuff. That's -- but, reporters --

Q That's not the same thing as asking for --

MR. McCLELLAN: Let me finish. Let me finish.

Q -- and my question is, were questions asked for.

MR. McCLELLAN: Let me finish. Reporters, when they meet with the President, can ask whatever questions they want. And any suggestion to the contrary is just --

Q Right, but that doesn't answer the question. Did somebody in the administration ask her for questions in advance, and is that your policy?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, in terms -- you're talking my policy?

Q No, the administration's policy.

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know what an individual staffer may or may not have asked specifically of this reporter, but some of these interviews are set up by people outside of my direct office and control.

Q Well, will you say from this lectern that it is not the policy of this White House to ask for questions in advance?

MR. McCLELLAN: Will you let me complete what I'm trying to say? Thank you. Just hold on a second. As I said, and you know very well from covering this White House, that any time a reporter sits down with the President, they are welcome to ask whatever questions they want to ask.

Q Yes, but that's beside the point.

MR. McCLELLAN: And certainly there will be staff-level discussions, talking about what issues reporters may want to bring up in some of these interviews. I mean, that happens all the time.

Q Indeed, it does.

MR. McCLELLAN: So reporters are able to ask whatever questions they want, Bill.

Q Right, but that wasn't my question. (Laughter.)

MR. McCLELLAN: I'll be glad to look into this further.

Q Is it policy to ask for questions in advance?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, I don't know what some individual staffer may have done in another office, specifically in terms of this question that you're asking. I'll be glad to look into it. But reporters can ask the President whatever questions they want. I think we've addressed this question.

Q Is it your policy to ask for questions in advance?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, it is not my policy. In fact, if reporters would give me their questions, this press briefing would be a whole lot easier, I'm sure. But that's not my policy.

Q Sometimes you might answer them. (Laughter.)

Won't get fooled again (we hope)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/01/florida.elections/index.html
A state court judge in Florida ordered Thursday that the board of elections immediately release a list of nearly 50,000 suspected felons to CNN and other news organizations that last month sued the state for access to copies of the list.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003231
Douglas McCollam has a fantastic article in the Columbia Journalism Review explaining the Iraqi National Congress's very successful effort to spoon-feed erroneous data to top American and British journalists. A few months ago, a reporter for Knight Ridder revealed the existence of an internal INC list detailing which reporters had been fed information and what they had written up.

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001122.html
Hoagland vs Hoagland

The New Inquisition: Catholic Church activists out to brand Kerry a "heretic" (really!)

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003234

[And so the next logical question is, will they label the millions of other pro-choice Catholics "heretics" also?]

Still more on Bush's religious war for re-election

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_06_27.php#003116
"Send your Church Directory to your State Bush-Cheney '04 Headquarters or give to a BC04 Field Rep. ... Identify another conservative church in your community who we can organize for Bush ... Receive a list from you [sic] County Chair of all non-registered church members and Pro-Bush Conservatives ... place reminder bulletin about all Christian citizens needing to vote in Sunday program or on a board near the church entrance."

Okay, time for a little Ralph-bashing: what will his supporters say if his candidacy pushes Bush through a SECOND time? ("Not our fault," I'm sure)

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/07/01/nader_jacobs/index_np.html
The dark side of Ralph Nader

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/07/01/nader_forges_odd_alliances_to_get_on_ballot.html
Nader Forges Odd Alliances to Get on Ballot

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/07/01/florida_nader/?source=RSS
Ralph Nader has strange bedfellows in yet another swing state today......

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/01/politics/campaign/01NADE.html?hp
Odd Alliances Form to Get Nader on Ballot

http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=1788
THE NEW FACE OF CENTRISM: From today's New York Times piece about Ralph Nader's endorsement by the Reform Party: "We've moved to the center," [Reform Party national chairman Shawn] O'Hara said, while conceding that he once favored the execution of doctors and nurses who performed abortions but now embraced abortion rights as provided by federal law, as Mr. Nader does.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003233
NADER'S STRANGE BEDFELLOWS. The New York Times reports on something we at the Prospect have been noting for some time: All of Ralph Nader 's supporters seem to be rightwingers. He's the official nominee of Pat Buchanan's Reform Party, and:

He is also getting helping from other unexpected quarters. Democrats have sued to keep Mr. Nader off the ballot in Arizona and Illinois and may be planning a similar challenge in Texas, but Republicans and some conservative groups in Oregon, Arizona and Wisconsin are feverishly, if not cynically, mobilizing to get him on ballots in those states in a drive to siphon votes from the likely Democratic nominee, Senator John Kerry...... Mr. Nader said in an interview on Wednesday that "there's no quid pro quo" with the Reform Party or any other that would require him to alter his views......But political analysts say that by turning to parties that may not be consistent with his ideology and reaping benefits from Republican operatives, Mr. Nader risks tarnishing his longtime reputation as a champion for consumer causes.

The Times glosses this as "seeking support from groups that do not necessarily share [Nader's] long-held liberal beliefs," but there's a real question here as to whether or not Nader is a liberal at all. Jon Chait pointed out a few months ago that Nader's held the view that the two-party system is bankrupt since at least 1980 and maintained way back then that Ronald Reagan's election would be a good thing for the country. He's a man, in other words, who for decades seems to have made the defeat of pragmatic progressives his top priority, and this is the logical consequence of his history.

The only thing that's really changed, as Nick Confessore notes below, is that mainstream liberals are finally starting to pay attention to the destructive role Nader's been playing for years.
[http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003232]

Bonus item: Joe Biden speaks truth to power (fun!)

http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200427#447
I was in the Oval Office the other day, and the president asked me what I would do about resignations. I said, "Look, Mr. President, would I keep Rumsfeld? Absolutely not." And I turned to Vice President Cheney, who was there, and I said, "Mr. Vice President, I wouldn't keep you if it weren't constitutionally required." I turned back to the president and said, "Mr. President, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld are bright guys, really patriotic, but they've been dead wrong on every major piece of advice they've given you. That's why I'd get rid of them, Mr. President -- not just Abu Ghraib." They said nothing. Just sat like big old bullfrogs on a log and looked at me......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."

Extra bonus item: Why "F 9/11" is such a phenomenal hit (despite its shortcomings and relentless attacks from the Right)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/02/opinion/02KRUG.html
And for all its flaws, "Fahrenheit 9/11" performs an essential service. It would be a better movie if it didn't promote a few unproven conspiracy theories, but those theories aren't the reason why millions of people who aren't die-hard Bush-haters are flocking to see it. These people see the film to learn true stories they should have heard elsewhere, but didn't. Mr. Moore may not be considered respectable, but his film is a hit because the respectable media haven't been doing their job.

For example, audiences are shocked by the now-famous seven minutes, when George Bush knew the nation was under attack but continued reading "My Pet Goat" with a group of children. Nobody had told them that the tales of Mr. Bush's decisiveness and bravery on that day were pure fiction.

Or consider the Bush family's ties to the Saudis. The film suggests that Mr. Bush and his good friend Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the ambassador known to the family as Bandar Bush, have tried to cover up the extent of Saudi involvement in terrorism. This may or may not be true. But what shocks people, I think, is the fact that nobody told them about this side of Mr. Bush's life.

Mr. Bush's carefully constructed persona is that of an all-American regular guy -- not like his suspiciously cosmopolitan opponent, with his patrician air. The news media have cheerfully gone along with the pretense. How many stories have you seen contrasting John Kerry's upper-crusty vacation on Nantucket with Mr. Bush's down-home time at the ranch?

But the reality, revealed by Mr. Moore, is that Mr. Bush has always lived in a bubble of privilege. And his family, far from consisting of regular folks with deep roots in the heartland, is deeply enmeshed, financially and personally, with foreign elites -- with the Saudis in particular.........

In a nation where the affluent rarely serve in the military, Mr. Moore follows Marine recruiters as they trawl the malls of depressed communities, where enlistment is the only way for young men and women to escape poverty. He shows corporate executives at a lavish conference on Iraq, nibbling on canapes and exulting over the profit opportunities, then shows the terrible price paid by the soldiers creating those opportunities.
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 1:31 AM

 
THE "L" WORD

Can we call Bush a LIAR? Why not?

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/opinion/30KRIS.html?pagewanted=print&position=
So is President Bush a liar? Plenty of Americans think so........A consensus is emerging on the left that Mr. Bush is fundamentally dishonest......I'm against the "liar" label for two reasons. First, it further polarizes the political cesspool, and this polarization is making America increasingly difficult to govern. Second, insults and rage impede understanding.......[O]f course, Mr. Bush did stretch the truth. The run-up to Iraq was all about exaggerations, but not flat-out lies. Indeed, there's some evidence that Mr. Bush carefully avoids the most blatant lies - witness his meticulous descriptions of the periods in which he did not use illegal drugs.......
[Nicholas Kristof]

Commentaries

http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/002849.html
See? The President doesn't lie, he only exaggerates, maybe stretches the truth on occasion, possibly says things in such a way as to deliberately leave the listener with the wrong impression. Indeed, there's some evidence that Mr. Bush carefully avoids the most blatant lies - and if maybe perhaps carefully avoiding the most blatant lies isn't an adequate standard of truthfulness to hold the President to, well, I just don't know what this country is coming to........

He has lied about his time in the National Guard, and lied about his criminal history. He lied about his relationship with Ken Lay, he lied about who would benefit from his tax cuts, and he lied about stem cells. He lied about his visit to Bob Jones University, he lied about why he wouldn't meet with Log Cabin Republicans, and he lied about reading the EPA report on global warming. He lied about blaming the Clinton administration for the second intifada, he lies constantly about how he pays no attention to polls, he lied about how he loves New York, and he lied about moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. He lied about finding WMD in Iraq, he lied about making his decision to go to war, he lied about the CIA's dismissal of the yellowcake rumors, and he lied about the IAEA's assessment of Iraq's nuclear program. He lied about funding the fight against AIDS in Africa, he lied about when the recession started, and he lied about seeing the first plane hit the WTC. He lied about supporting the Patient Protection Act, and he lied about his deficit spending, and now my wrist hurts.

These are all lies, told by the President himself. This doesn't include any distortions, half-truths, or exaggerations, or any lies told by senior figures in the administration. These lies are big and small. Together, these lies involve trillions of dollars and at least tens of thousands of deaths, and Nicholas Kristof is terribly concerned about sharp words and Michael Moore movies. It is indeed too bad that the "political cesspool" is becoming polarized, but I don't think that the solution to this is to shoot the messenger and agonize over ever-finer definitions of falsehood.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/6/30/162017/422
So is President Bush a liar?.....Now that's the kernel of an excellent question. But let's rephrase it.

Jimmy Carter arguably may be the only modern inhabitant of the White House who didn't regularly employ lies in his interaction with the American people. Some of those presidents - in both parties - told whoppers, including lies that helped give impetus for policies that led to the deaths of, in one case, millions of human beings...... In that light, Kristof would do better to inquire: in what way does the president lie? Does he conceal his private life with prevarications? Does he make grandiose campaign promises he fails to keep?.......Or does he use disinformation, misinformation, omissions, inventions, concoctions, deceptions, deflections, revisions, excisions, cageyness and other serpentine resourcefulness in an effort to avoid presenting a factual picture of what is really going on in areas of foreign and domestic policy essential to the well-being of Americans? Of course, that won't fit in a headline.

http://www.roadtosurfdom.com/surfdomarchives/002502.php
The other category we'll call the Freddie Mercury Category, the nothing-really-matters-to-me Category. This is actually the much more commonly invoked Category and it arises when some contradiction is pointed out in the behaviour, arguments, logic or rhetoric of the Bush administration and their coalition. It also arises when the Bush administration (or friends) do something that would be unacceptable if done by the other side of politics, but which supporters are willing to ignore, rationalise, give an infinite benefit of the doubt to when the Bush side does it. I'm sure I'm leaving many instances out, and please feel free to add to it.

So, it doesn't really matter that:

that the incoming Bush administration underrated the threat of terrorism
that the president failed to adequately respond to the August 6 PDB
that the reasons for invasion of Iraq have shifted more times than the sands in Iraq
that the decision to invade was made well in advance of the announcement to invade
that during that time, the administration pretended to be weighing options
that WMD haven't been found
that the Iraqi survey Group have still not presented their final report
that there was no cooperation between Iraq and al Qaeda
that Dick Cheney continues to say there was
that no Iraqis were involved in the 9/11 attacks
that the administration often implied that invading Iraq was in part about avenging 9/11
that the invasion of Iraq was fought at the expense of the stablisation of Afghanistan
that warlords control most of Afghanistan
that Afghanistan is back producing opium
that the President presented false WMD information in his State of the Union speech
that the President sought to undermine the United Nations and eschewed broad international support for the invasion of Iraq
that he has subsequently spent many hours trying to get broad international support
that looting was allowed to run riot in the aftermath of the invasion
that there was no serious planning for the post-war
that troop strength for stabilisation was underestimated
that the strength of the resistance was underestimated
that this lack of planning and underestimation allowed a terrorist insurgence to flourish
that the administration now boasts that Iraq is the "central front in the war on terror"
that the President announced "mission accomplished" for merely partisan, political gain
that Fullujah was handed over to the control of militias
that this has provided cover for the terrorist Zaqawi
that al Sadr was to be arrested for murder and is now running for election
that US forces mistreated Iraqi prisoners
that some prisoners were raped
that some prisoners were killed
that the higher-ups tried (are still trying?) to blame it all on a few lower-downs
that the White House accepted legal advice that put the President above US and international law
that the White House sought legal advice on how to avoid being charged with torture
that Donald Rumsfeld "disappeared" a number of prisoners, held them off the books, away from Red Cross inspection
that Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz didn't know within 200 deaths how many US soldiers had been killed in Iraq
that the President has never attended a single funeral for a US soldier
that the administration has banned the filming and photographing of flag-draped military coffins
that the US has never tried to count how many Iraqis have died
that a CIA operative was outed by someone in the administration
that the President rarely holds press conferences to allow himself to be held accountable for his actions
that when he does, he is an inarticulate embarrassment

Like I said, I've probably left out lots of things, but the main point to remember is that none of these things matter!

Is Bush's National Guard disservice about to become an issue again? Here is the whole miserable story (as we know it so far: if the AP gets the original microfiche of his service records, this is going to blow sky-high. Because, you know, Bush never lies)

http://www.glcq.com/bush_at_arpc1.htm
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.

Guantanamo: now that the "they aren't on US soil so they aren't protected by US laws" ploy has been dismantled by the Supreme Court, the US rushes to bring them onto US soil (because all that stuff about needing a special high security facility built especially for them was a bunch of hooey in the first place).

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/6/30/15297/2394

And lest you think that line by Justice O'Connor was a slap at Bush's Imperial Presidency argument, here is the hilarious WH spin on that

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/politics/administration/whbriefing/
"A state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens," wrote Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. "Whatever power the United States Constitution envisions for the Executive in its exchanges with other nations or with enemy organizations in times of conflict, it most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches when individual liberties are at stake."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/politics/30CND-PREX.html?ex=1246334400&en=a10926008ea2822e&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
Refusing to concede that Monday's Supreme Court rulings were a defeat, the White House said today that it is moving quickly and aggressively to address the justices' concerns over the treatment of detainees seized since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001....... President Bush's chief spokesman, Scott McClellan, said administration officials were pleased that the court "recognized the authority of the president as commander in chief.".....

[Man, Scott, you had to reach pretty deep into the bull---t bin to dig THAT one out.]

More desperate troop management. Since NATO won't send troops to Iraq, ask them to send troops to Afghanistan, then transfer US troops from there to Iraq (are these poor kids EVER going to be able to come home?)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=586&e=3&u=/nm/20040629/wl_nm/afghan_usa_nato_dc

Speaking of which, did the US almost start a second front against Iran (using British troops to do it)?

http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=1785
Today's Daily Telegraph reports that last July, an unspecified number of Iranian Revolutionary Guards crossed their border northeast of Basra and claimed disputed territory about a kilometer into Iraq. According to a senior British officer, U.S. Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez ordered British forces, who were in charge of Basra, to "prepare a full-scale ground offensive" involving "several thousand troops," which the British felt "would almost certainly have provoked open conflict with Iran." The British weren't really keen on this.....

[More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/06/30/wiran30.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/06/30/ixportal.html]

Juan Cole pulls back the curtain on the entire "transfer of power" sham

http://www.juancole.com/2004_06_01_juancole_archive.html#108857959081211510
Early last January a member of the U.S.-appointed Interim Governing Council (IGC) in Iraq, Mahmoud Osman, gave a revealing interview to Al-Hayat of London. He said that officials of the Bush administration in Iraq had been "extremely offended" when the IGC called for U.N. involvement in the transition to Iraqi sovereignty. The administration, he explained, did not want any international actor to participate in this process; rather it wanted to reap the benefits in order to increase President Bush's political stock in the months leading up to the November election. He added: "The fundamental issue for Iraqis is the return of sovereignty. The Americans are in a hurry for it, as well, though for their own interests. The important thing for the Americans is to ensure the reelection of George Bush. The achievement of a specific accomplishment in Iraq, such as the transfer of power, increases, in the eyes of the Republican Party, the chances that Bush will be reelected."

GAO: Iraq worse off now than before the war

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9041465.htm
In a few key areas - electricity, the judicial system and overall security - the Iraq that America handed back to its residents Monday is worse off than before the war began last year, according to calculations in a new General Accounting Office report released Tuesday.

Sudan: too little, too late?

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/01/international/africa/01SUDA.html?ex=1246334400&en=d721b33263e8a684&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland


Another Bush success story: his environmental record

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/06/30/bush_vs_the_environment/index_np.html
In his new book, "Bush Versus the Environment," Oregon journalist Robert S. Devine documents a record of environmental neglect and enmity that's so grim as to be laughable. He uncovers how in the name of "new environmentalism" the Bush crew pursues an agenda that's so radically pro-industry that even conservative Republicans are reluctant to cop to it publicly.......

The Bush response? Go after the funding base for environmental groups

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19102-2004Jun30.html?nav=rss_nation
The Internal Revenue Service announced yesterday that it is cracking down on improper tax deductions taken by people who give real estate and cash to environmental groups, warning that taxpayers could face penalties and charities could lose their tax-exempt status.

I'm glad the IRS is suddenly so concerned about groups abusing their tax-exempt status: look into this one too, will you?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1803&e=1&u=/washpost/20040701/pl_washpost/a19082_2004jun30
The Bush-Cheney reelection campaign has sent a detailed plan of action to religious volunteers across the country asking them to turn over church directories to the campaign, distribute issue guides in their churches and persuade their pastors to hold voter registration drives.....Campaign officials said the instructions are part of an accelerating effort to mobilize President Bush's base of religious supporters. They said the suggested activities are intended to help churchgoers rally support for Bush without violating tax rules that prohibit churches from engaging in partisan activity........"We strongly believe that our religious outreach program is well within the framework of the law," said Terry Holt, spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign........But tax experts said the campaign is walking a fine line between permissible activity by individual congregants and impermissible activity by congregations.

Ashcroft about to be kicked out of the canoe?

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/politics/30ASHC.html
As the country's chief legal officer, John Ashcroft works at the crossroads between politics and the law, and he is not the first attorney general to take the political heat for his administration's legal reversals. But even by those standards, Mr. Ashcroft seems to have entered a turbulent phase......"The role the White House had cut out for Ashcroft even before 9/11 was the role of spear catcher," said an administration official. "It has allowed the president to have the running room he needs to get a lot of policies through. Ashcroft has been amazingly effective, but at great cost to his public persona. It's a role he accepts."

Salem Chalabi: the man we picked to supervise the Hussein show trial (old news, but worth reviewing again now)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,1048204,00.html
That's where the Iraqi International Law Group can help. Indeed, judging by the blurb on their website, they are the only firm worth consulting if you want to strike it rich in Iraq......"At IILG, our task is to provide foreign enterprise with the information and tools it needs to enter the emerging Iraq and to succeed," the website says.......Amid all this boasting about its lucrative connections, IILG is surprisingly modest about the family connections of its founder, Salem Chalabi. The website doesn't mention that he is a nephew of Ahmed Chalabi........

One of Ahmed Chalabi's staunchest supporters in Washington is Douglas Feith, a former lawyer who is currently third in the Pentagon pecking order. The pair worked closely together in the run-up to war, with Chalabi providing "intelligence" about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (much of which proved to be wrong) and boasting that he had a secret network inside Iraq which could be harnessed to help run the country once the US invaded.

Shortly before the war, Salem Chalabi took part in a conference on bringing democracy to Iraq and pushed for a post-war truth and reconciliation commission on the South African model......Later, during the invasion, the Pentagon sought to appoint him as adviser to the ministry of justice, working in Jay Garner's ill-fated project to take over the administration of Iraq.......IILG appears to be part of a carefully-constructed network aimed at channelling business into Iraq......... Interestingly, the firm's website is not registered in Salem Chalabi's name but in the name of Marc Zell, whose address is given as Suite 716, 1800 K Street, Washington. That is the address of the Washington office of Zell, Goldberg &Co, which claims to be "one of Israel's fastest-growing business-oriented law firms", and the related FANDZ International Law Group.....The unusual name "FANDZ" was concocted from "F and Z", the Z being Marc Zell and the F being Douglas Feith. The two men were law partners until 2001, when Feith took up his Pentagon post as undersecretary of defence for policy.

[More: http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=47870]

And Uncle Ahmed? Still there, still making trouble

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/000867.html
The WaPo's Edward Cody interviews Ahmad Chalabi. His arch nemesis Paul Bremer and Bremer's spokesman Dan Senor are gone, Chalabi points out, while he remains, and is urging some changes in how the US left things, specifically to the Iraqi intelligence services and finances:

A good place to start, Chalabi suggested, would be with the new Iraqi National Intelligence Service set up by the CIA to replace Hussein's much-feared services. The new intelligence apparatus, hundreds strong, was organized in secret without a known budget or statute, he said......Next, Chalabi said, the new government should grab control of the country's finances. Specifically, he said, it should demand a full accounting of how Bremer, who had check-signing authority, spent funds from the Development Fund for Iraq, a pool of cash from Iraqi oil sales designated to pay for reconstruction...In addition, Chalabi said, the U.S. Embassy, which replaced the occupation authority on Monday, has sought power to disburse some of the funds even though political authority has been returned to the Iraqi government........

Bill Safire blowing smoke over the Niger/yellowcake story...and why now, and on whose behalf, you might ask? Because there's something here.....

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_06_27.php#003111

More news from behind the scenes: who is "Anonymous"?

http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/multipage/documents/03949394.asp
[I]t's not every day that an active US intelligence officer publishes a work that disputes the Bush administration's assertions, holding that, among other things, bin Laden is not on the run; the invasion of Iraq has not made the United States safer; and that Islamists are in a campaign of insurgency, not terrorism, against the US because of US policies, not out of hatred for American values. But what's a bit harder to grasp is exactly why the media seem so reflexively deferential to the idea that "Anonymous" must be anonymous - especially when critical details revealed in a June 23 New York Times story indicated that his real identity is well-known to at least a few denizens of the Washington press corps.......A Phoenix investigation has discovered that Anonymous does not, in fact, want to be anonymous at all - and that his anonymity is neither enforced nor voluntarily assumed out of fear for his safety, but rather compelled by an arcane set of classified regulations that are arguably being abused in an attempt to spare the CIA possible political inconvenience. In the Phoenix 's view, continued deference by the press to a bogus and unwanted standard of secrecy essentially amounts to colluding with the CIA in muzzling a civil servant - a standard made more ridiculous by the ubiquity of Anonymous's name in both intelligence and journalistic circles...........Nearly a dozen intelligence-community sources, however, say Anonymous is Michael Scheuer - and that his forced anonymity is both unprecedented and telling in the context of CIA history and modern politics......"The requirement that someone publish anonymously is rare, almost unheard-of, particularly if the person is not in a covert position," says Jonathan Turley, a national-security-law expert at George Washington University Law School. "It seems pretty obvious that the requirement he remain anonymous is motivated solely by political concerns, and ones that have more to do with the CIA.

Bonus item: The Right still looking for ways to censor "F9/11", which does nothing but to promote the film and show how much it terrifies them (and if it does get blocked, look for an expedited video and DVD release: "The Movie George Bush Doesn't Want You To See")

http://www.hillnews.com/news/062404/moore.aspx
Michael Moore may be prevented from advertising his controversial new movie, "Fahrenheit 9/11," on television or radio after July 30 if the Federal Election Commission (FEC) today accepts the legal advice of its general counsel...... At the same time, a Republican-allied 527 soft-money group is preparing to file a complaint against Moore's film with the FEC for violating campaign-finance law..........In a draft advisory opinion placed on the FEC's agenda for today's meeting, the agency's general counsel states that political documentary filmmakers may not air television or radio ads referring to federal candidates within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/06/30/mustreads/?source=RSS
Conservatives apoplectic over Fahrenheit
The Wall Street Journal looks at conservative anger over Michael Moore's new film, and says it's reaching "fever pitch -- but figuring out how to prevent the movie from becoming an even wider cultural phenomenon is dividing the political right."......."Some activists want to confront the movie's controversial assertions or even stop theaters from showing it; others, including the White House, are keeping a low profile to avoid hyping the film and thus broadening its potential audience four months before Election Day."....."The Bush administration has kept largely silent about Mr. Moore's film, which portrays the president as out-of-touch, accuses him of connections with the bin Laden family and questions whether he is beholden to Saudi interests. A Republican National Committee spokeswoman says the committee believes the movie won't affect voters' decisions come November and doesn't plan to dignify it with a response. The White House has declined to comment, saying it doesn't 'do movie reviews.'"

Here's a novel free-market approach: just buy up all the movie theatres so you can decide what they will and won't show

http://www.davidsirota.com/2004/06/firm-with-bush-saudi-ties-buys-loews.html
Just days before the release of Michael Moore's film "Farenheit 9/11" (which analyzes the Bush-Saudi relationship), the Washington Post reports the Bush-Saudi connected Carlyle Group purchased Loews Cineplex theaters. The $2 billion deal is part of Carlyle's larger efforts to buy up more telecommunications/media companies....

[Want to see a transcript of "F 9/11"?
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/06/30/conservatives_boil_over_fahrenheit_911.html]

Extra bonus item: Bill O'Reilly IS a liar (there, can we say that?)

http://mediamatters.org/items/200406300001
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/06/index.html#003221
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 1:40 AM