INADVERTENT TRUTHS

A moment of honesty: Bush now says we can never win the war on terror

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/31/politics/campaign/31bush.html?ex=1251691200&
"I don't think you can win it," Mr. Bush replied. "But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world."

[The response to this remark is a reminder of Michael Kinsley’s famous assertion, that the most notorious “gaffes” are not when a politician misspeaks, but when he speaks an unpopular truth. Still, since Kerry would have been savaged for saying this, I’m happy to hear Bush get his due]

The major play on this has been that Bush is “flip-flopping”

http://www.davidsirota.com/2004/08/claim-vs-fact-bush-war-on-terror.html

NOW:

"I don't think you can win [the War on Terror]."
- President Bush, 8/30/04

THEN:

"I have a clear vision and a strategy to win the war on terror."
- President Bush, 7/19/04

"People say, ‘Can you win the war on terror?’ Of course we can."
- President Bush, 5/14/04

"One of the interesting things people ask me, now that we're asking questions, is, can you ever win the war on terror? Of course you can…it's essential we win this battle in the war on terror."
- President Bush, 4/13/04

"We're going to win the war on terror."
- President Bush, 2/12/04

[More: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/30/2013/69172
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_29.php#003377]

It is certainly true that having oversold the “war against terror,” Bush may be trying to lower expectations now.

But I think the real story is elsewhere: If (1) Bush is a wartime president and if (2) the war against terror will never end, it suggests a state of perpetual warfare in which erosions to civil liberties, skewed budgetary priorities, obsessive secrecy, and a “can’t criticize the President during wartime” mentality will be extended without an end in sight. I can even imagine, if Bush is re-elected, his supporters pushing a change to the 22nd Amendment, on the grounds that these are extraordinary times. (Do people forget that this was openly discussed when Reagan was President?)

Damage control today

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-CVN-Bush.html?ex=1251691200&en=f197f43451df890e&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
President Bush said Tuesday “we will win” the war on terror, seeking to quell controversy and Democratic criticism over his earlier remark that victory may not be possible.

It is also interesting that Bush-friendly NYT reporter Elizabeth Bumiller went out of her way to suggest that Bush “misspoke,” when it was clear that he didn’t

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_29.php#003380

Another moment of rare candor: Bush calls Iraq war “a catastrophic success” (which everyone is panning, but which seems a perfectly apt description to me)

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/08/30/bush_calls_iraq_a_catastrophic_success.html

And another example of inadvertent truths slipping out

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_29.php#003375
I loved Bush's comment yesterday about the [Swift Boat] smear-ad: "I can understand why Senator Kerry is upset with us.”

What does he mean by “us”? It means just what it says

http://www.davidsirota.com/2004/08/swift-boat-payoff.html

William L. Schachte is one of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. He claims that he was on the boat when Sen. John Kerry was wounded and subsequently received his first purple heart. Kerry and others on the boat all dispute that he was there. And according to the Washington Post today, Schachte’s story may be motivated by his deep connections to the Bush administration…According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Schachte has been a registered lobbyist for Fastship, Inc, which has been pushing for millions of federal dollars to develop is products. Schachte works at Blank Rome, LLP – a lawfirm that lobbies for Fastship. At Blank Rome, Schachte lists his specialty as “government contracts and defense contracts.” In February 2004, the Bush administration gave a massive $40 million contract to Schachte’s client Fastship…In a 2000 letter to the editor in the Charleston Post and Courier, Schachte urged veterans to support George W. Bush (R) over Vietnam war hero Sen. John McCain (R) in the Republican presidential primary… Schachte has given $1,000 to President Bush’s 2000 and 2004 campaigns. He has also donated generously to other Republican Party candidates.

Ben Ginsburg, Bush lawyer who “resigned” over his ties to Swift Boat ads (bitching and whining all the way) continues his connection with the Bush campaign

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/08/30/bush_lawyer_still_involved_in_campaign.html

More Bush Co. assaults on workplace safety

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47541-2004Aug30.html

Bush explains his health care policy

http://slate.msn.com/id/2105920/fr/rss/
"What I'm telling you is we're not going to nationalize health care under George W., and my opponent is, see. That's the difference. My opponent will; we won't."

Bush’s second term – more of the same

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8431

Nice overview of where the Bush candidacy stands today

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46228-2004Aug30.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing

In Iraq, the rate of U.S deaths increases after handover of power

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-military31aug31,1,3787593.story?coll=la-home-headlines
In August so far, 63 U.S. troops have died, and 54 died in July, the first complete month after the hand-over of power. In June, 42 American troops died, according to Associated Press and the Pentagon.

More “reconstruction” money to be diverted to other uses

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/31/politics/31spend.html

Is CNN working to regain its journalistic integrity?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003752

Meanwhile over an MSNBC, a useful new poll

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3096434/
Did Rudy Giuliani's speech reassure you or move you to support the Bush-Cheney ticket?
• Reassure
• Move you to support

Sharp analysis of the convention speeches: Will Saletan

http://slate.msn.com/id/2105912/fr/rss/

[More on McCain’s speech: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003774]

“We did not seek this war”

http://www.juancole.com/2004_08_01_juancole_archive.html#109393674537048049

[Once again this trope conflates the fight against Al Qaeda and the perpetrators of 9-11, and the war in Iraq. Bush Co. certainly sought out the latter, made the decision to do it, then bent every rule and truth to justify it.]

Denny Hastert, former Mr. Nice Guy, now the master of the “we don’t know” backhanded Cheney slander – this is despicable, really

http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002415.html
HASTERT: You know, I don’t know where George Soros gets his money. I don’t know where — if it comes overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from. And I…

WALLACE: Excuse me?

HASTERT: Well, that’s what he’s been for a number years — George Soros has been for legalizing drugs in this country. So, I mean, he’s got a lot of ancillary interests out there.

WALLACE: You think he may be getting money from the drug cartel?

HASTERT: I’m saying I don’t know where groups — could be people who support this type of thing. I’m saying we don’t know. The fact is we don’t know where this money comes from.

A defeat for democracy: In Louisiana, state appeals court reverses lower-court ruling, says Alexander can run unopposed as a Republican

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/08/30/in_lousiana_alexander_can_run_as_republican.html

I have mixed feelings about this, but Ed Schrock (R-VA), recently outed, abruptly resigns without explanation

http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/virginia/dp-va--congressmanretire0830aug30,0,5223656.story?coll=dp-headlines-virginia
U.S. Rep. Edward L. Schrock abruptly announced Monday that he will not seek a third term in Congress, citing unspecified allegations that have "called into question" his ability to serve…Although Schrock did not comment on why he decided against seeking re-election, several Virginia Republicans said allegations that Schrock is gay have roiled the party since they were posted on a Web log Aug. 19. Schrock, 63, is married and a conservative who voted for legislation to ban gay marriages

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/30/184915/447
U.S. Rep. Ed Schrock withdrew from his re-election race this afternoon, citing unspecified allegations…"In recent weeks, allegations have surfaced that have called into question my ability to represent the citizens of Virginia's Second Congressional District," Schrock said in a press release…Schrock, who would have been seeking his third term, did not elaborate on the nature of the allegations…"After much thought and prayer, I have come to the realization that these allegations will not allow my campaign to focus on the real issues facing our nation and region," the statement said. "Therefore, as of today, I am stepping aside and will no longer be the Republican nominee for Congress in Virginia's Second Congressional District.

Background and commentary: Schrock brought down by a blog

http://michael-d.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/25/0300/10002

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/delegate-on-schrock-resignation.html

http://www.blogactive.com/2004/08/action-write-congressman-ed-schrock.html

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/08/30/virginia_congressman_resigns_abruptly.html
The Virginia Pilot notes "no mainstream newspapers, television stations or Web sites published the allegations. As the rumors continued to build, local Republicans began preparing for the worst."

Franklin update:

What does the leak of the inquiry mean for further investigations? Was it leaked in order to give higher-ups time to cover themselves?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001074.html

http://www.juancole.com/2004_08_01_juancole_archive.html#109387843482849086

FBI furious over leak (even though it was the likely source, says Rozen)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/30/politics/30spy.html?ex=1251604800&en=409cd2fb7a1472a0&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

Questioning of higher-ups continues

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47521-2004Aug30.html?nav=rss_nation

What next?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_29.php#003379
The Post piece is an odd article -- not a bad one but an odd one since various parts of the piece seem to point such different directions. Some passages imply that investigators are simply jotting their 'i's and crossing their 't's before wrapping the whole thing up; others suggest the probe is much broader, reaching far beyond Franklin…The key seems to be -- and this has been reported in other articles -- that Franklin has been "cooperating with investigators for several weeks", as the Post puts it. There's only utility in getting someone like Franklin's cooperation if there are other people in the mix. I trust Strobel's reporting on this one: something bigger than just Larry Franklin is involved here.

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/08/iran-contra-ii-update.html
The Boston Globe is about the only major media that has "gotten it," emphasizing in this morning's editorial the "light [the scandal] casts on the incoherence of policy-making in the Bush administration rather than any conspiracy to pilfer American secrets for Israel." The Franklin investigation is much more about the use of a back-channel to Iran, "surreptitiously" used by a faction in the DoD to undermine other factions in our national security apparatus. The Axis of Incompetence (AoI), Wolfowitz, Feith, and Luti, are seemingly attempting to instigate a war with Iran, perhaps replicating their astonishing success with Iraq.

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001075.html
Today, we learn from the Boston Globe's Brian Bender that there is yet a third investigation, also from the Hill, by the House Judiciary committee, of the activities of Feith's office. And this one, now in the preliminary stages, focuses not just on the DoD-Ghorbanifar Iran back channel we reported on, but also on whether yet another official in Feith's office, Michael Maloof, was involved in a back channel whose purpose was to destabilize Syria…What's at issue here? Whether these alleged Feith office back channels were not just about intelligence gathering [which would be problematic in and of itself], but if they had aspirations to be operational.

More on Ghorbanifar

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001070.html

Uggabugga provides a visual aid on the Franklin network

http://uggabugga.blogspot.com/2004/08/complicated-juan-cole-has-new-post.html

Bonus item: Geekiest protest sign of the year

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/08/geekiest_protest_sign_of_the_year.html

Bonus bonus item: GOP stage setup -- pulpit or podium?

http://www.davidsirota.com/2004/08/gops-pulpit-er-podium.html


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 12:19 PM

 
TROUBLE IN PARADISE

More on the spreading Franklin scandal: did the neo-cons block a prisoner exchange that would have garnered Zarqawi, others?

http://www.juancole.com/2004_08_01_juancole_archive.html#109383994241733290
I haven't seen any more on the Jerusalem Post's tantalizing assertion that Franklin attempted to block the trading of Mojahedin-e Khalq terrorists to Iran in return for five high-ranking al-Qaeda operatives in Iranian custody. But here is an Agence France Presse report from last December that explains the negotiations.

AFP, Dec. 10, 2003:

Several Western diplomats have said Iran has been resisting handing over top-ranking Al-Qaeda fugitives, complaining that the United States had failed to deal with the People's Mujahedeen -- which has waged a brutal armed struggle against Iran's clerical rulers -- after its invasion of Iraq.

There have also been reports that Jordan's King Abdullah II was quietly trying to broker a deal between the United States and Iran over the issue.

Diplomats and Arab press reports have said Al-Qaeda detainees here include bin Laden's son, Saad, Al-Qaeda's spokesman, Sulaiman Abu Gaith, and its number three Saif al-Adel.

The People's Mujahedeen, or Mujahedeen-e Khalq Organization (MKO) set up base in Iraq in 1986 and carried out regular cross-border raids in Iran, with which Iraq fought a bloody war between 1980 and 1988.

For many in Iran's leadership the struggle is also a personal one -- supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had his arm paralysed in a 1981 attack blamed on the group.

By the time this article appeared, the al-Qaeda trade had already fallen through because powerful US politicians, some with Likud Party links, had intervened to protect the MEK.

This summer, 2003 NBC report is also suggestive:

We have exclusive new details tonight on talks between the US and Iran, a nation the President said was part of an axis of evil. Iran can help the American fight against terrorism, but apparently they have named a price." NBC (Brown) adds, "These three, among the most wanted members of Al Qaeda. The alleged poison expert who got medical treatment in Iraq, [Abu Mussab al Zarqawi]. Bin Laden's third oldest son, [Sa'ad bin Laden], known to be planning new Al Qaeda operations. The Al Qaeda spokesman, [Suleiman abu Gaith], famous for introducing bin Laden in this videotape after 9/11. Many US officials believe that Iran is willing to turn them and other key Al Qaeda operatives over to the US or their home countries -- for a price -- in exchange for members of an Iranian opposition group called the Mujahadeen al-Khalq, or the MEK. The MEK has been attacking Iran's Islamic government from Iraq and is now there under US military control.

Iran is reported to have Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in custody in summer of 2003, and to be entirely willing to hand him over to the US in return for some high-ranking MEK terrorists. But first the neocon network, including Franklin, Harold Rhode and Michael Ledeen, intervenes to stop the trade (see below). Then, mysteriously, everything that goes wrong in Iraq from about January of 2004 begins being blamed on Zarqawi (is it alleged that Iran let him go, to deliberately disrupt Iraq by blowing up Shiites? More likely, when Iran won't accommodate the Neocons because of the latters' ties to MEK, the neocons decide to smear Iran as "harboring" terrorists and "sending" them to Iraq. They know this path might even lead to a US war on Iran, which is what they want. That is one reason they did not want the prisoner exchange to succeed).

The mysterious Mr. Ghorbanifar

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/08/how-many-wars-has-ghorbanifar-started.html

The mysterious Judge Silberman

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/08/silberman-ghorbanifar.html
When I first heard about the spy case, it had already developed to the point that Manucher Ghorbanifar's name was being thrown around. His name was familiar, but not for his involvement in Iran Contra, his most impressive foray into American policy making. Instead, I remembered him from Reagan's "October Surprise" story, brought back into the public eye by Kevin Phillips' American Dynasty.

The October Surprise is shrouded in mystery, and likely always will be. The allegations are:

• The Reagan-Bush campaign was afraid that its electoral hopes in the 80 campaign would be dashed if Carter managed to secure release of American hostages from Iran prior to the election.
• Carter had overseen a dramatic reduction in CIA resources, and there was significant support for Reagan in the intelligence agencies.
• Reagan-Bush used these resources to open up a backchannel between the campaign and the Iranian government, securing a promise that Iran wouldn't release the hostages until after the election (and ultimately until Reagan's inauguration).
• The negotiations took place in two meetings, one at L'Enfant Plaza in D.C., and one in a Paris hotel.
• Reagan offered arms sales to Iran in exchange for the delayed release of the hostages.

These are all incredibly serious allegations, and many of them are based on unreliable testimony. There is at least one admitted fact, though: three Reagan-Bush staffers met with a representative of the Iranian government at L'Enfant Plaza. One of these officials was Judge Laurence Silberman. The second meeting is not admitted; that it took place is based on statements from former Iranian President Bani-Sadr. At the second meeting was none other than one Manucher Ghorbanifar.

Judge Silberman is now heading the official investigation our disastrous Iraq intelligence failures. If Manucher Ghorbanifar is the source of some of the flawed intelligence, there may be a small conflict of interest.

Oh yeah, Silberman exonerated a few Iran Contra criminals, stage-managed anti-Clinton smears, and is a total hack.

Where is this going? Could it cost Bush the election (or like Nixon and Reagan -- and Clinton, for that matter -- will he be re-elected only to have the scandal break wide open AFTER the election)?

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5853706/site/newsweek/
Franklin was known to be one of a tightly knit group of pro-Israel hawks in the Pentagon associated with his immediate superior, William Luti, the hard-charging and impassioned protegé of former House speaker Newt Gingrich. As deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Near East affairs, Luti was a key player in planning the Iraq war. He, in turn, works in the office of Under Secretary Douglas Feith, a career lawyer who, before he became the Pentagon's No. 3, was a sometime consultant for Likud, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's political party…

Franklin has also been among the subjects of a separate probe being conducted by the Senate intelligence committee. Part of that investigation concerns alleged "rogue" intelligence activities by Feith's staff. Among these activities was a series of meetings that Franklin and one of his colleagues, Harold Rhode, had in Paris in late 2001 with Manucher Ghorbanifar, the shadowy Iranian arms dealer made infamous during the Iran-contra scandal of the 1980s. One purpose of those meetings was to explore a scheme for overthrowing the mullahs in Iran, though Rumsfeld later said the plan was never seriously considered. But so far, there is no evidence that the Ghorbanifar contacts are related to the espionage probe. And officials familiar with the case suggest that the political damage to Bush and the Pentagon may prove to be more serious than the damage to national security.

Bush: Kerry was “more heroic”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3609312.stm

[Of course, if he really believed this he COULD have said it two weeks ago and saved us all a lot of trouble. What this signals is the end of Swift Boat One – questioning Kerry’s Viet Nam service. They’ve gotten all the mileage they expect to get out of that (since all the substantive claims have been discredited by now), so now they can start distancing themselves from it. Coming up: Swift Boat Two — charging Kerry with disloyalty for opposing the war. Hence their strategy of trying to link anti-war demonstrations in NY to the Kerry campaign, preparing the groundwork for that accusation to come.]

A voice from the wilderness. Why doesn’t every Editor think this way?

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/4952080.html

We are in the middle of an important national event: the real-time confrontation of a political smear. In previous elections, the examination has almost always been in retrospect. Now the smear, against John Kerry's military service, is being critically examined as it happens…I see the recent commentary by John H. Hinderaker and Scott W. Johnson ("Unwrapping Kerry's story of Christmas in Cambodia," Aug. 18) as part of that smear. It did not meet what I believe should be the standards of the Star Tribune's editorial pages…

We have a responsibility to separate legitimate political opinion -- and the latitude is great -- from deliberate smear. That responsibility is especially important in this campaign. Sometimes it's difficult to tell whether a piece crosses that line; to me, this is not one of those times. A legitimate piece might have raised hard questions about Kerry in Cambodia; theirs wasn't that piece.

Colleagues wanted to print today's Hinderaker and Johnson piece to be "fair" to them. But these are folks who take unfair advantage of that concern…And what about fairness for John Kerry? These authors take great umbrage at my use of the word "fraudulent" to describe their writing. That word choice was quite deliberate: They hurled it at Kerry; I merely hurled it back.

Here is some of what I've seen during this presidential campaign: About six weeks ago, former Sen. Rudy Boschwitz submitted a piece that took on former counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke. The piece contained demonstrably false statements. I required that they be stripped from the piece, and they were. The piece ran.

Days later, Sen. Norm Coleman submitted a piece on Joe Wilson, who made the famous trip to Niger to investigate the yellowcake episode. The Coleman piece contained demonstrably false statements against Wilson. I asked that they be stripped out. One was not. It claimed that Wilson had "repeatedly" accused President Bush of deliberately lying to the American people about Iraq. Wilson is on the record, including in the Star Tribune, denying he ever said such a thing. I insisted that Coleman provide at least one quote in which Wilson accused the president of deliberately lying to the American people. His office either could not or would not do that. The piece did not run.

Then along came the Hinderaker-Johnson piece on Kerry. It should have set off all kinds of alarms. As one of the editors responsible for these pages, I regret that it did not -- and that I was not here to weigh in on the decision…Now comes their second piece. I could do extensive line-by-line analysis, but I will not. It would take space I do not have. For the fair-minded, two examples should suffice.

The top of their piece is devoted to negatives: No record of this, no record of that, etc. This proves nothing. There generally are no public records of clandestine activities. The burden of proof here is on Hinderaker and Johnson, not on Kerry and not on me.

On the relatively minor point of the Khmer Rouge, Hinderaker and Johnson rely on someone named Andrew Antippas. What they don't say is that he has just popped up, in an op-ed on the subject published in the Washington Times, the Moonie paper that has been a veritable fountain of attacks on Kerry. I have no idea if Antippas is who H & J say he is, and I suspect they simply appropriated his Washington Times op-ed as truth…

What do I think about Kerry in Cambodia? I have now read his biography and a number of other things, and I believe there is ample evidence that he was at least very near Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968 (see pages 209-219 of his biography, "Tour of Duty," plus the history of the SEALORDS campaign) and at other times as well. I can't prove he actually was ever there, and that wasn't my purpose; I do know that Hinderaker and Johnson failed to prove he wasn't. I have no idea why, 25 years ago in a review of "Apocalypse Now," Kerry mentioned President Nixon. Was it an act of hubris, a mistake, a conflation of memories?…I do know that this shouldn't matter. John Kerry served with distinction in Vietnam, in very dangerous duty. Lots of folks chose not to serve in Vietnam at all.

This is not about who is elected, but about how we allow this campaign to unfold, especially on our pages. I am sick to death of being played for a chump by the likes of Karl Rove. America can definitely do better.

Jim Boyd is the Star Tribune's deputy editorial page editor.

And on the issue of Bush’s own service, the gloves are coming off

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_29.php#003372
Today Scott McClellan went on the offensive against Ben Barnes for describing the "shame" he feels over helping President Bush duck service in Vietnam…"It is not surprising coming from a longtime partisan Democrat," he said. "The allegation was discredited by the commanding officer. This was fully covered and addressed five years ago. It is nothing new."…It turns out that Barnes is such a down-the-line partisan that he supported Texas's Republican State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn for reelection in 2002…Strayhorn is Scott's mom.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_29.php#003366
[Bob] NOVAK: Ben Barnes was one of my favorite Democrats more than 30 years ago. The boy wonder of Texas politics until he was defeated for governor at the age of 34 in 1972. He reappeared this week, when a Texas Bush basher distributed a 45-second video for the Kerry campaign by Barnes, claiming that he, as lieutenant governor of Texas got Bush into the Air National Guard…But, Ben was not yet lieutenant governor when Bush joined the Guard. This sleazy politics is not the way for my old friend Ben Barnes to get back on the front page.

The only problem is that Novak knows this is not true…And the relevant dates of it and the office Barnes was serving in at the time have never been questioned. It happened during the time Barnes was Speaker of the House in Texas …In fact, not only has Barnes been consistent and his account not been questioned, even Bush himself and his campaign have accepted Barnes account. All they have insisted on -- though it is quite improbable -- is that they did not know at the time about his actions and were not involved in any way in requesting it…The president even went so far as to thank Barnes in a personal note for being clear that he had no direct, personal knowledge that the Bush family had contacted the intermediary who contacted him.

Abu Ghraib: Higher officers “responsible,” but not “culpable” – what does that distinction mean in the face of news like this?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45319-2004Aug29.html?nav=rss_nation
Under pressure to extract more information from the prisoners -- to "go beyond" what Army interrogation rules allowed, as an Army general later put it -- the senior U.S. military commander in Iraq sent a secret cable to his boss at U.S. Central Command on Sept. 14, outlining more aggressive interrogation methods he planned to authorize immediately…The cable signed by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez listed several dozen strategies for extracting information, drawn partly from what officials now say was an outdated and improperly permissive Army field manual…Sanchez's order…was one of a handful of documents written by senior officials that Army officials now say helped sow the seeds of prison abuse in Iraq. They did so, according to an Army report released Wednesday, by lending credence to the idea that aggressive interrogation methods were sanctioned by officers going up the chain of command…[T]he U.S. military's ad hoc and informal decision-making in Iraq created confusion and allowed these harsh methods to infiltrate from Afghanistan to Guantanamo and finally to Iraq…

Our shining victory in Afghanistan (and a vision of Iraq’s future?)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/30/international/asia/30CND-AFGH.html?ex=1251604800&
At least seven people, including at least three Americans, were killed Sunday when a powerful bomb exploded outside the compound of an American contractor helping to train the Afghan police…The bombing comes just 40 days before presidential elections, scheduled for Oct. 9, and after warnings that the Taliban and other militant groups were planning major attacks in Kabul before the elections.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=2&u=/ap/20040830/ap_on_re_as/afghan_explosions
The U.S. government warned its citizens to keep a low profile in Kabul Monday after a car bomb hit a private American security company, killing 10 people in the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital in two years.

Bush: we can’t win the war on terror (and as Josh Marshall says, imagine if John Kerry had said this)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_29.php#003373
"Can we win? I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are — less acceptable in parts of the world.”

Texas school performance tanks — but the DOE report’s release will be held until after the election (because it doesn’t fit the Bush message about the success of NCLB)

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/_/2004/08/a_coverup_of_poor_school_performance_in_texas.php

Bonus item: Sheri Drew, chosen to give the opening invocation at the GOP convention (read this – it will make you laugh, it will make you cry…)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/sheri-dew.html
If we had a decent press, every Bush surrogate would be asked "do you agree with Sheri Dew that support for gay marriage is like support for Hitler?"

[This is a another sharp stick in the eye for gay Republicans, who had to watch the platform committee adopt resolutions that were even more harsh, banning not only gay marriage but spousal benefits and any legal recognition at all of gay partnerships. But this fight may not be over:

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-gaygop30aug30,1,793660.story?coll=la-news-a_section
[T]he Log Cabin Republicans…are irate over a platform that they consider a repudiation of gay rights [and are] threatening to withhold an endorsement of President Bush...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/30/politics/campaign/30gay.html
Two gay groups - one of them a gay Republican group - are starting advertising campaigns in the New York market during the Republican convention to attack the party's conservative turn, including the president's support for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage…The Log Cabin Republicans, a group of gay party members, is expected to announce today that it will be running commercials in the New York market this week, people briefed on the plans said. One person briefed on the plans said the commercials would quote from President Ronald Reagan on the subject of the party as a "big tent."]

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:51 AM

 
“SOMETHING WORSE THAN IRAN-CONTRA”

The long-awaited Marshall/Rozen/Glastris expose (“Iran-Contra II”)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0410.marshallrozen.html
The investigation of Franklin is now shining a bright light on a shadowy struggle within the Bush administration over the direction of U.S. policy toward Iran. In particular, the FBI is looking with renewed interest at an unauthorized back-channel between Iranian dissidents and advisers in Feith's office, which more-senior administration officials first tried in vain to shut down and then later attempted to cover up.

Franklin, along with another colleague from Feith's office, a polyglot Middle East expert named Harold Rhode, were the two officials involved in the back-channel, which involved on-going meetings and contacts with Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar and other Iranian exiles, dissidents and government officials. Ghorbanifar is a storied figure who played a key role in embroiling the Reagan administration in the Iran-Contra affair. The meetings were both a conduit for intelligence about Iran and Iraq and part of a bitter administration power-struggle pitting officials at DoD who have been pushing for a hard-line policy of "regime change" in Iran, against other officials at the State Department and the CIA who have been counseling a more cautious approach…

While the FBI is looking at the meetings as part of its criminal investigation, to congressional investigators the Ghorbanifar back-channel typifies the out-of-control bureaucratic turf wars which have characterized and often hobbled Bush administration policy-making. And an investigation by The Washington Monthly -- including a rare interview with Ghorbanifar -- adds weight to those concerns. The meetings turn out to have been far more extensive and much less under White House control than originally reported. One of the meetings, which Pentagon officials have long characterized as merely a "chance encounter" seems in fact to have been planned long in advance by Rhode and Ghorbanifar. Another has never been reported in the American press. The administration's reluctance to disclose these details seems clear: the DoD-Ghorbanifar meetings suggest the possibility that a rogue faction at the Pentagon was trying to work outside normal US foreign policy channels to advance a "regime change" agenda not approved by the president's foreign policy principals or even the president himself…

Over the last year, the Senate Intelligence Committee has conducted limited inquiry into the meetings, including interviews with Feith and Ledeen. But under terms of a compromise agreed to by both parties, a full investigation into the matter was put off until after the November election. Republicans on the committee, many of whom sympathize with the "regime change" agenda at DoD, have been resistant to such investigations, calling them an election-year fishing expedition. Democrats, by contrast, see such investigations as vital to understanding the central role Feith's office may have played in a range of a dubious intelligence enterprises, from pushing claims about a supposed Saddam-al Qaeda partnership and overblown estimates of alleged Iraqi stocks of WMD to what the committee's ranking minority member Sen. Jay Rockerfeller (D-WV) calls "the Chalabi factor" (Rhode and others in Feith's office have been major sponsors of the Iraqi exile leader, who is now under investigation for passing U.S. intelligence to Iran). With the FBI adding potential espionage charges to the mix the long-simmering questions about the activities of Feith's operation now seem certain to come under renewed scrutiny.

[Undoubtedly, this was rushed into print and there is a lot more to come…]

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001070.html
[More from Laura Rozen]

Key points:

1) The secret meetings between Pentagon officials and associates of Ghorbanifar in Europe went on for almost two years, a full year longer than the Bush administration has acknowledged. Ghorbanifar told me of three meetings. While the Pentagon originally told the Post last year that Harold Rhode, an official in Feith's office, had simply run into Ghorbanifar in Paris in June 2003, Ghorbanifar tells me that the two spent weeks planning the meeting.

2) The Italian military intelligence organization SISMI provided logistics and security at the first meeting, in Rome, in December 2001. And the head of Sismi, Nicollo Pollari, as well as the Italian Defense Minister, Antonio Martino, attended the meeting, along with Michael Ledeen, Ghorbanifar, Pentagon officials Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin. [Sismi has been in the news recently for having been reported to have used an Italian middle man to the put the forged Niger docs into circulation.]

3) Ghorbanifar told me he has had fifty meetings with Michael Ledeen since September 11th, and that he has given Ledeen "4,000 to 5,000 pages of sensitive documents" concerning Iran, Iraq and the Middle East, “material no one else has received.” Ghorbanifar, speaking with me by telephone from France, says those meetings took place abroad because he has been refused a US visa the last two times he has applied.

4) Ghorbanifar has also been meeting with an assortment of other American officials, which I will write about later.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_08_22_digbysblog_archive.html#109375699248829563
The article is entitled "Iran Contra II" and that is apt for more reasons than the recurring roles of Mr Ghorbanifar and Mr Ledeen. Once again we see a marked "impatience" with the unfortunately cumbersome working of democratic government. That this may have happened for the second time in twenty years featuring many of the same people is a pretty clear indication that letting bygones be bygones will not do when dealing with this sort of traitorous, undemocratic behavior…It's completely unbelievable that these same players came back into government and ran their game all over again. Unbelievable.

If anyone is unfamiliar with the braintrust that is at the center of this little scheme, Michael Ledeen, here's a little taste of the man's brilliance…I'm sure you'll agree that he is just the sort of guy you want running a secret back channel foreign policy in the middle of a national security crisis…It makes me feel all cozy knowing that a guy like this and his compatriots have been meddling in mid-east policy apparently in concert with a rogue element in the Pentagon for the last three years.

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/08/dissonance.html
Also in the mix, is Italian military intelligence, SISMI, which was present at the Ghorbanifar meetings. SISMI was also the conduit for the Niger forgery. More important, I think, than the Niger forgery was the other forged document. The reason the second document is more important is that it was less plausible. If what you really wanted to do was convince people that document one was real, you wouldn't have included document two. The only purpose of making it was to convince people that that stuff was true. And now we know that Ghorbanifar was, through Ledeen, acting so as to convince people that that stuff was true.

Conceptually, it's quite possible that there are two entirely different groups of people out there trying to convince the US government that Iran is somehow the architect of the global terrorist threat and that these two groups coincidentally both manage to run through Doug Feith's office at the Pentagon and, even more bizarrely, the Italian Ministry of Defense. In the real world, that would be a very strange coincidence indeed. Let's also note that besides all this, SISMI was also the source of early alarmist reporting about Iranian backing for Iraqi insurgents. And that information came to them from, where, exactly?

http://www.juancole.com/2004_08_01_juancole_archive.html#109376785516786360
Here is my take on the Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal in the Pentagon…It is an echo of the one-two punch secretly planned by the pro-Likud faction in the Department of Defense. First, Iraq would be taken out by the United States, and then Iran. David Wurmser, a key member of the group, also wanted Syria included. These pro-Likud intellectuals concluded that 9/11 would give them carte blanche to use the Pentagon as Israel's Gurkha regiment, fighting elective wars on behalf of Tel Aviv (not wars that really needed to be fought, but wars that the Likud coalition thought it would be nice to see fought so as to increase Israel's ability to annex land and act aggressively, especially if someone else's boys did the dying).

Franklin is a reserve Air Force colonel and former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst. He was an attache at the US embassy in Tel Aviv at one point, which some might now see as suspicious. After the Cold War ended, Franklin became concerned with Iran as a threat to Israel and the US, and learned a little Persian (not very much--I met him once at a conference and he could only manage a few halting phrases of Persian)…He seems a canny man and a political operator, and if he gave documents to AIPAC it was not an act of simple stupidity, as some observers have suggested. It was part of some clever scheme that became too clever by half.

Franklin moved over to the Pentagon from DIA, where he became the Iran expert, working for Bill Luti and Undersecretary of Defense for Planning, Douglas Feith. He was the "go to" person on Iran for Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and for Feith. This situation is pretty tragic, since Franklin is not a real Iranist. His main brief appears to have been to find ways to push a policy of overthrowing its government (apparently once Iraq had been taken care of). This project has been pushed by the shadowy eminence grise, Michael Ledeen, for many years, and Franklin coordinated with Ledeen in some way. Franklin was also close to Harold Rhode, a long-time Middle East specialist in the Defense Department who has cultivated far right pro-Likud cronies for many years, more or less establishing a cell within the Department of Defense.

UPI via Dawn reports

An UPI report said another under-investigation official Mr Rhode "practically lived out of (Ahmad) Chalabi's office". Intelligence sources said that CIA operatives observed Mr Rhode as being constantly on his cell phone to Israel, discussing US plans, military deployments, political projects and a discussion of Iraq assets.

Josh Marshall et al. have just published a piece in the Washington Monthly that details Franklin's meetings with corrupt Iranian arms dealer and con man Manuchehr Ghorbanifar, who had in the 1980s played a key role in the Iran-contra scandal. It is absolutely key that the meetings were attended also by Rhode, Ledeen and the head of Italy's military intelligence agency, SISMI, Nicolo Pollari, as well as Rome's Minister of Defense, Antonio Martino…The rightwing government of corrupt billionnaire Silvio Berlusconi, including Martino, was a big supporter of an Iraq war. Moreover, we know that the forged documents falsely purporting to show Iraqi uranium purchases from Niger originated with a former SISMI agent. Watch the reporting of Josh Marshall for more on this SISMI/Ledeen/Rhode connection.

But journalist Matthew Yglesias has already tipped us to a key piece of information. The Niger forgeries also try to implicate Iran. Indeed, the idea of a joint Iraq/Iran nuclear plot was so far-fetched that it is what initially made the Intelligence and Research division of the US State Department suspicious of the forgeries, even before the discrepancies of dates and officials in Niger were noticed. Yglesisas quotes from the Senate report on the alleged Iraqi attempt to buy uranium from Niger:

The INR [that's State Department intelligence] nuclear analyst told the Committee staff that the thing that stood out immediately about the [forged] documents was that a companion document -- a document included with the Niger documents that did not relate to uranium -- mentioned some type of military campaign against major world powers. The members of the alleged military campaign included both Iraq and Iran and was, according to the documents, being orchestrated through the Nigerien [note: that's not the same as Nigerian] Embassy in Rome, which all struck the analyst as "completely implausible." Because the stamp on this document matched the stamp on the uranium document [the stamp was supposed to establish the documents bona fides], the analyst thought that all of the documents were likely suspect. The analyst was unaware at the time of any formatting problems with the documents or inconsistencies with the names or dates.

Journalist Eric Margolis notes of SISMI:

SISMI has long been notorious for far right, even neo-fascist, leanings. According to Italian judicial investigators, SISMI was deeply involved in numerous plots against Italy’s democratic government, including the 1980 Bologna train station terrorist bombing that left 85 dead and 200 injured. Senior SISMI officers were in cahoots with celebrated swindler Roberto Calvi, the neo-fascist P2 Masonic Lodge, other extreme rightist groups trying to destabilize Italy, the Washington neocon operative, Michael Ledeen, and the Iran-Contra conspirators. SISMI works hand in glove with US, British and Israeli intelligence. In the 1960’s and 70’s, SISMI reportedly carried out numerous operations for CIA, including bugging the Vatican, the Italian president’s palace, and foreign embassies. Italy’s civilian intelligence service, SISDE, associated with Italy’s political center-left, has long been a bitter rival of SISMI. After CIA rejected the Niger file, it was eagerly snapped up by VP Dick Cheney and his chief of staff, Lewis Libby, who were urgently seeking any reason, no matter how specious, to invade Iraq. Cheney passed the phony data to Bush, who used it in his January, 2003 address to the nation in spite of warnings from CIA . . .

So Franklin, Ledeen, and Rhode, all of them pro-Likud operatives, just happen to be meeting with SISMI (the proto-fascist purveyor of the false Niger uranium story about Iraq and the alleged Iran-Iraq plot against the rest of the world) and corrupt Iranian businessman and would-be revolutionary, Ghorbanifar, in Europe. The most reasonable conclusion is that they were conspiring together about the Next Campaign after Iraq, which they had already begun setting in train, which is to get Iran.

But now The Jerusalem Post reveals that at least one of the meetings was quite specific with regard to an attempt to torpedo better US/Iran relations:

The purpose of the meeting with Ghorbanifar was to undermine a pending deal that the White House had been negotiating with the Iranian government. At the time, Iran had considered turning over five al-Qaida operatives in exchange for Washington dropping its support for Mujahadeen Khalq, an Iraq-based rebel Iranian group listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department.

The Neoconservatives have some sort of shadowy relationship with the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization or MEK. Presumably its leaders have secretly promised to recognize Israel if they ever succeed in overthrowing the ayatollahs in Iran. When the US recently categorized the MEK as a terrorist organization, there were howls of outrage from scholars associated with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (a wing of AIPAC), such as Patrick Clawson and Daniel Pipes. MEK is a terrorist organization by any definition of the term, having blown up innocent people in the course of its struggle against the Khomeini government. (MEK is a cult-like mixture of Marx and Islam). The MEK had allied with Saddam, who gave them bases in Iraq from which to hit Iran. When the US overthrew Saddam, it raised the question of what to do with the MEK. The pro-Likud faction in the Pentagon wanted to go on developing their relationship with the MEK and using it against Tehran…So it transpires that the Iranians were willing to give up 5 key al-Qaeda operatives, whom they had captured, in return for MEK members…Franklin, Rhode and Ledeen conspired with Ghorbanifar and SISMI to stop that trade. It would have led to better US-Iran relations, which they wanted to forestall, and it would have damaged their proteges, the MEK…

The FBI has evidence that Franklin passed a draft presidential directive on Iran to AIPAC, which then passed it to the Israelis. The FBI is construing these actions as espionage or something close to it. But that is like getting Al Capone on tax evasion. Franklin was not giving the directive to AIPAC in order to provide them with information. He was almost certainly seeking feedback from them on elements of it. He was asking, "Do you like this? Should it be changed in any way?" And, he might also have been prepping AIPAC for the lobbying campaign scheduled for early in 2005, when Congress will have to be convinced to authorize military action, or at least covert special operations, against Iran. AIPAC probably passed the directive over to Israel for the same reason--not to inform, but to seek input. That is, AIPAC and Israel were helping write US policy toward Iran, just as they had played a key role in fomenting the Iraq war…

Franklin's movements reveal the contours of a rightwing conspiracy of warmongering and aggression, an orgy of destruction, for the benefit of the Likud Party, of Silvio Berlusconi's business in the Middle East, and of the Neoconservative Right in the United States. It isn't about spying. It is about conspiring to conscript the US government on behalf of a foreign power or powers.

How influential was Franklin? (the DoD is trying to lowball this, of course)

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_08_29_bestof.html#109379859486466499

A glimpse inside the Feith operation, from Karen Kwiatkowski

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0805-08.htm
[July 2003]
What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline. If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of ``intelligence'' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Hussein occupation has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense. I can identify three prevailing themes.

• Functional isolation of the professional corps. Civil service and active-duty military professionals assigned to the USDP/NESA and SP were noticeably uninvolved in key areas of interest to Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld. These included Israel, Iraq and to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia…In terms of Israel and Iraq, all primary staff work was conducted by political appointees…

• Cross-agency cliques: Much has been written about the role of the founding members of the Project for a New American Century, the Center for Security Policy and the American Enterprise Institute and their new positions in the Bush administration. Certainly, appointees sharing particular viewpoints are expected to congregate, and an overwhelming number of these appointees having such organizational ties is neither conspiratorial nor unusual. What is unusual is the way this network operates solely with its membership across the various agencies -- in particular the State Department, the National Security Council and the Office of the Vice President…

• Groupthink. Defined as ``reasoning or decision-making by a group, often characterized by uncritical acceptance or conformity to prevailing points of view,'' groupthink was, and probably remains, the predominant characteristic of Pentagon Middle East policy development. The result of groupthink is the elevation of opinion into a kind of accepted ``fact,'' and uncritical acceptance of extremely narrow and isolated points of view…

More from Kwiatkowski: a profile of the key players. Long excerpt, but be sure to read the last paragraph

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/03/10/osp_moveon/
[March 2004]
The education I would receive there was like an M. Night Shyamalan movie -- intense, fascinating and frightening. While the people were very much alive, I saw a dead philosophy -- Cold War anti-communism and neo-imperialism -- walking the corridors of the Pentagon. It wore the clothing of counterterrorism and spoke the language of a holy war between good and evil. The evil was recognized by the leadership to be resident mainly in the Middle East and articulated by Islamic clerics and radicals. But there were other enemies within, anyone who dared voice any skepticism about their grand plans, including Secretary of State Colin Powell and Gen. Anthony Zinni.

From May 2002 until February 2003, I observed firsthand the formation of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans and watched the latter stages of the neoconservative capture of the policy-intelligence nexus in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. This seizure of the reins of U.S. Middle East policy was directly visible to many of us working in the Near East South Asia [NESA] policy office, and yet there seemed to be little any of us could do about it…I saw a narrow and deeply flawed policy favored by some executive appointees in the Pentagon used to manipulate and pressurize the traditional relationship between policymakers in the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies.

I witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the president…

To begin with, I was introduced to Bill Luti, assistant secretary of defense for NESA. A tall, thin, nervously intelligent man, he welcomed me into the fold. I knew little about him. Because he was a recently retired naval captain and now high-level Bush appointee, the common assumption was that he had connections, if not capability. I would later find out that when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense over a decade earlier, Luti was his aide. He had also been a military aide to Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich…Name dropping included references to getting this or that document over to Scooter, or responding to one of Scooter's requests right away. Scooter, I would find out later, was I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's chief of staff.

Co-workers who had watched the transition from Clintonista to Bushite shared conversations and stories indicating that something deliberate and manipulative was happening to NESA. Key professional personnel, longtime civilian professionals holding the important billets in NESA, were replaced early on during the transition…Removing such a critical continuity factor was not only unusual but also seemed like willful handicapping. It was the first signal of radical change…At the time, I didn't realize that the expertise on Middle East policy was not only being removed, but was also being exchanged for that from various agenda-bearing think tanks, including the Middle East Media Research Institute, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs…

I soon saw the modus operandi of "instant policy" unhampered by debate or experience with the early Bush administration replacement of the civilian head of the Israel, Lebanon and Syria desk office with a young political appointee from the Washington Institute, David Schenker…Country desk officers were rarely political appointees. In my years at the Pentagon, this was the only "political" I knew doing that type of high-stress and low-recognition duty. So eager was the office to have Schenker at the Israel desk, he served for many months as a defense contractor of sorts and only received his "Schedule C" political appointee status months after I arrived.

I learned that there was indeed a preferred ideology for NESA. My first day in the office, a GS-15 career civil servant rather unhappily advised me that if I wanted to be successful here, I'd better remember not to say anything positive about the Palestinians. This belied official U.S. policy of serving as an honest broker for resolution of Israeli and Palestinian security concerns. At that time, there was a great deal of talk about Bush's possible support for a Palestinian state. That the Pentagon could have implemented and, worse, was implementing its own foreign policy had not yet occurred to me…

With war talk and planning about Iraq, all kinds of new people were brought in. A politically savvy civilian-clothes-wearing lieutenant colonel named Bill Bruner served as the Iraq desk officer, and he had apparently joined NESA about the time Bill Luti did. I discovered that Bruner, like Luti, had served as a military aide to Speaker Gingrich. Gingrich himself was now conveniently an active member of Bush's Defense Policy Board, which had space immediately below ours on the third floor…I asked why Bruner wore civilian attire, and was told by others, "He's Chalabi's handler." Chalabi, of course, was Ahmad Chalabi, the president of the Iraqi National Congress, who was the favored exile of the neoconservatives and the source of much of their "intelligence."…

In late summer, new space was found upstairs on the fifth floor, and the "expanded Iraq desk," now dubbed the "Office of Special Plans," began moving there. And OSP kept expanding…Another person I observed to appear suddenly was Michael Rubin, another Washington Institute fellow working on Iraq policy. He and Chris Straub, a retired Army officer who had been a Republican staffer for the Senate Intelligence Committee, were eventually assigned to OSP.

John Trigilio, a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, was assigned to handle Iraq intelligence for Luti…Trigilio and I had hallway debates, as friends. The one I remember most clearly was shortly after President Bush gave his famous "mushroom cloud" speech in Cincinnati in October 2002, asserting that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction as well as ties to "international terrorists," and was working feverishly to develop nuclear weapons with "nuclear holy warriors." I asked John who was feeding the president all the bull about Saddam and the threat he posed us in terms of WMD delivery and his links to terrorists, as none of this was in secret intelligence I had seen in the past years. John insisted that it wasn't an exaggeration, but when pressed to say which actual intelligence reports made these claims, he would only say, "Karen, we have sources that you don't have access to." It was widely felt by those of us in the office not in the neoconservatives' inner circle that these "sources" related to the chummy relationship that Ahmad Chalabi had with both the Office of Special Plans and the office of the vice president…

Doug Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, was a case study in how not to run a large organization. In late 2001, he held the first all-hands policy meeting at which he discussed for over 15 minutes how many bullets and sub-bullets should be in papers for Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. A year later, in August of 2002, he held another all-hands meeting in the auditorium where he embarrassed everyone with an emotional performance about what it was like to serve Rumsfeld. He blithely informed us that for months he didn't realize Rumsfeld had a daily stand-up meeting with his four undersecretaries. He shared with us the fact that, after he started to attend these meetings, he knew better what Rumsfeld wanted of him. Most military staffers and professional civilians hearing this were incredulous, as was I, to hear of such organizational ignorance lasting so long and shared so openly. Feith's inattention to most policy detail, except that relating to Israel and Iraq, earned him a reputation most foul throughout Policy, with rampant stories of routine signatures that took months to achieve and lost documents. His poor reputation as a manager was not helped by his arrogance. One thing I kept hearing from those defending Feith was that he was "just brilliant."…

I spent time that summer exploring the neoconservative worldview and trying to grasp what was happening inside the Pentagon. I wondered what could explain this rush to war and disregard for real intelligence. Neoconservatives are fairly easy to study, mainly because they are few in number, and they show up at all the same parties. Examining them as individuals, it became clear that almost all have worked together, in and out of government, on national security issues for several decades. The Project for the New American Century and its now famous 1998 manifesto to President Clinton on Iraq is a recent example. But this statement was preceded by one written for Benyamin Netanyahu's Likud Party campaign in Israel in 1996 by neoconservatives Richard Perle, David Wurmser and Douglas Feith titled "A Clean Break: Strategy for Securing the Realm."…Before the Iraq invasion, many of these same players labored together for literally decades to push a defense strategy that favored military intervention and confrontation with enemies, secret and unconstitutional if need be. Some former officials, such as Richard Perle (an assistant secretary of defense under Reagan) and James Woolsey (CIA director under Clinton), were granted a new lease on life, a renewed gravitas, with positions on President Bush's Defense Policy Board. Others, like Elliott Abrams and Paul Wolfowitz, had apparently overcome previous negative associations from an Iran-Contra conviction for lying to the Congress and for utterly miscalculating the strength of the Soviet Union in a politically driven report to the CIA.

Neoconservatives march as one phalanx in parallel opposition to those they hate. In the early winter of 2002, a co-worker U.S. Navy captain and I were discussing the service being rendered by Colin Powell at the time, and we were told by the neoconservative political appointee David Schenker that "the best service Powell could offer would be to quit right now." I was present at a staff meeting when Bill Luti called Marine Gen. and former Chief of Central Command Anthony Zinni a "traitor," because Zinni had publicly expressed reservations about the rush to war…

Instead of developing defense policy alternatives and advice, OSP was used to manufacture propaganda for internal and external use, and pseudo war planning…Even the most casual observer could note the tension and even animosity between "Wild Bill" Luti (as we came to refer to our boss) and Bruce Hardcastle, our defense intelligence officer (DIO). Certainly, there were stylistic and personality differences. Hardcastle, like most senior intelligence officers I knew, was serious, reserved, deliberate, and went to great lengths to achieve precision and accuracy in his speech and writing…I discovered that Luti and possibly others within OSP were dissatisfied with Hardcastle's briefings, in particular with the aspects relating to WMD and terrorism. I was not clear exactly what those concerns were, but I came to understand that the DIA briefing did not match what OSP was claiming about Iraq's WMD capabilities and terrorist activities. I learned that shortly before I arrived there had been an incident in NESA where Hardcastle's presence and briefing at a bilateral meeting had been nixed abruptly by Luti. The story circulating among the desk officers was "a last-minute cancellation" of the DIO presentation. Hardcastle's intelligence briefing was replaced with one prepared by another Policy office that worked nonproliferation issues…

The newly named director of the OSP, Abram Shulsky, was one of the most senior people sharing our space that summer. Abe, a kindly and gentle man, who would say hello to me in the hallways, seemed to be someone I, as a political science grad student, would have loved to sit with over coffee and discuss the world's problems. I had a clear sense that Abe ranked high in the organization, although ostensibly he was under Luti. Luti was known at times to treat his staff, even senior staff, with disrespect, contempt and derision. He also didn't take kindly to staff officers who had an opinion or viewpoint that was off the neoconservative reservation. But with Shulsky, who didn't speak much at the staff meetings, he was always respectful and deferential. It seemed like Shulsky's real boss was somebody like Douglas Feith or higher.

I shared some of my concerns with a civilian who had been remotely acquainted with the Luti-Feith-Perle political clan in his previous work for one of the senior Pentagon witnesses during the Iran-Contra hearings. He told me these guys were engaged in something worse than Iran-Contra. I was curious but he wouldn't tell me anything more. I figured he knew what he was talking about. I thought of him when I read much later about the 2002 and 2003 meetings between Michael Ledeen, Reuel Marc Gerecht and Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar -- all Iran-Contra figures…

Bush: a litany of intelligence disasters

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/29/1299/77279

But no one is ever responsible

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42711-2004Aug28.html

Though Bush’s failures aren’t the only ones

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/accountability-follow-up.html
My bashing of the Post below, though a joke, was actually a serious comment in the context of their editorial. What our media has failed to understand throughout the Bush administration, and especially since 2003, was that they have a slightly different role to play than when divided government exists. With Republican control of everything, the Democrats have no ability to set the agenda. They have no investigative power. They are unable to get out in front in a way which allows the media to happily continue its "one side/the other side" reporting. They actually have to get out in front of things - not just investigate them but make some noise about them…Right now the 4th Estate shouldn't be lecturing anyone on accountability - the lack of accountability can be placed squarely at their feet…

Gitmo “trials”: a fiasco and a sham, of course

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-gitmo29aug29,1,3896808.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage
Nuremberg it was not...Unlike the Nazi war crimes trials, which were conducted by seasoned legal specialists with the world looking over their shoulders, the opening round of the tribunals at Guantanamo Bay naval base last week seemed mired in uncertainty, inexperience and confusion.

As one session ended, the presiding officer appeared to be so blindsided by a defense maneuver that he sat with his face in his hands before issuing a ruling.

Repeatedly, the translation system broke down.

At one point, a defendant unexpectedly fired his court-appointed lawyer and began to blurt out a confession before officials could bring the situation under control.

And the outside world got only glimpses of the proceedings, which were carried out under such tight restrictions that no photographic, video or audio records of what went on are ever to be released.

After four days, the few international observers allowed to attend threw up their hands in disbelief and declared the system "fatally flawed."

"There were times when I actually had to think to myself, 'They're actually planning on prosecuting people in this forum,' " Jamana Musa of Amnesty International said. "It was mind-boggling."

The U.S. may not have been ready for prime time, but the defense attorneys certainly were

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42635-2004Aug28.html?nav=rss_nation
The historic opening last week of U.S. military commissions that have not been used since World War II was marked by twists and turns and a carefully crafted defense strategy designed to bring the cases against suspected terrorists into the American court system.

While it is too early to tell whether they will be successful, military and civilian defense lawyers spent much of the week lambasting the commissions as legal relics and creating a record of what took place at the Navy base here for possible U.S. court review.

In the end, the attorneys are hoping that federal judges will agree with their central argument: that the suspected al Qaeda terrorists and Taliban fighters being tried in a makeshift military courtroom here cannot receive due process and fair trials under the commission process.

"These cases are headed straight to federal court," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, appointed by the military to represent a man who served as Osama bin Laden's personal chauffeur. "They are making this up as they go along."



- posted by Nick Burbules @ 2:45 PM

 
AN EMBARASSMENT OF RICHES

This is the week of the GOP convention, and several blockbuster stories threaten to swamp the upcoming staged events in NYC. I know we are supposed to believe the media and the polls that this is a close contest – but is there ANY way that Bush and his gang of clowns and crooks will survive all this?

A spy in the Pentagon: no surprise that this is centered in Douglas Feith’s shop, which has been the center of so much idiocy and corruption (Feith, called by General Tommy Franks, “the dumbest f***ing guy on the planet” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30904-2004Jul31.html). What IS a stunner is that this thread may unravel a much larger scandal.

This is a huge and complex story. So let’s take it slowly…

The break: from CBS
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/27/eveningnews/main639143.shtml
CBS News has learned that the FBI has a full-fledged espionage investigation under way and is about to -- in FBI terminology -- "roll up" someone agents believe has been spying not for an enemy, but for Israel from within the office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon…60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl reports the FBI believes it has "solid" evidence that the suspected mole supplied Israel with classified materials that include secret White House policy deliberations on Iran.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40004-2004Aug27.html?nav=rss_nation
The name of the person under investigation was not officially released, but two sources identified him as Larry Franklin. He was described as a desk officer in the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia Bureau, one of six regional policy sections…One government official familiar with the investigation said it is not yet clear whether the case will rise to the level of espionage or end up involving lesser charges such as improper disclosure or mishandling of classified information…

Several Pentagon officials sought to play down Franklin's role in policymaking, saying that he was not in a position to have significant influence over U.S. policy…"It is the DOD's understanding that the investigation within DOD is very limited in its scope." Even so, the case is likely to attract intense attention because the official being investigated works under William J. Luti, deputy undersecretary of defense for Near East and South Asian Affairs. Luti oversaw the Pentagon's "Office of Special Plans," which conducted some early policy work for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

That office is one of two Pentagon offices that Bush administration critics have claimed were set up by Defense Department hawks to bypass the CIA and other intelligence agencies, providing information that President Bush and others used to exaggerate the Iraqi threat…The other office was run by a Luti superior, Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, and was known as the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group. Feith reports to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, who in turn reports to Rumsfeld.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/28/politics/28spy.html
The espionage investigation has focused on an official who works in the office of Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, officials who have been briefed about the investigation said. The F.B.I. has gathered evidence that the official passed classified policy documents to officials at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a major pro-Israeli lobbying group, which in turn provided the information to Israeli intelligence, the officials said…

Government officials suggested Friday that investigators were seeking the cooperation of the Pentagon official being investigated.

[You know what THAT means, don’t you?]

The F.B.I. inquiry has been under way for at least a year and has been one of the bureau's most sensitive spy cases in years, officials said. One official said that the suspected involvement of people working at a major pro-Israeli lobbying organization led the Justice Department to move cautiously.

The fact that the official under investigation works for Mr. Feith has also made the case politically sensitive for the Bush administration…Before the war in Iraq, Mr. Feith created a special intelligence unit that sought to build a case for Iraq's ties to Al Qaeda, an effort that has since been heavily criticized by American intelligence professionals as an effort to justify the war.

Mr. Feith has also long been known as a major supporter of Israel, and while he was out of government in 1996 signed a paper, titled "A Clean Break," issued by a Jerusalem-based policy group that called for the toppling of Saddam Hussein in order to enhance Israeli security. Before he came to the Pentagon, Mr. Feith was also a partner in a law firm with L. Marc Zell, a lawyer with a firm now based in Israel.

"The investigation involves a single individual at D.O.D. at the desk officer level, who was not in a position to have significant influence over U.S. policy," the statement continued. "Nor could a foreign power be in a position to influence U.S. policy through this individual. To the best of D.O.D.'s knowledge, the investigation does not target any other D.O.D. individuals.''

[Keep reading!]

…The Pentagon analyst who officials said was under suspicion was one of two department officials who traveled to Paris for secret meetings with Iranian dissidents, including Manucher Ghorbanifar, an arms dealer. Mr. Ghorbanifar was a central figure in the Iran-contra affair in the 1980's, in which the United States government secretly sold arms to Iran in exchange for the release of American hostages in Lebanon and to finance the fighters, known as contras, opposing the Sandinista government in Nicaragua…The secret meetings were first held in Rome in December 2001, were approved by senior Pentagon officials and were originally brokered by Michael Ledeen, a conservative analyst at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute who has a longstanding interest in Iranian affairs. It was not clear whether the espionage investigation was directly related to the meetings with Mr. Ghorbanifar. Nor was there immediate evidence of whether money had changed hands in exchange for classified information.

And now this…

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9524480.htm
An FBI probe into the handling of highly classified material by Pentagon civilians is broader than previously reported, and goes well beyond allegations that a single mid-level analyst gave a top-secret Iran policy document to Israel, three sources familiar with the investigation said Saturday…The probe, which has been going on for more than two years, also has focused on other civilians in the Secretary of Defense's office, said the sources…In addition, one said, FBI investigators in recent weeks have conducted interviews to determine whether Pentagon officials gave highly classified U.S. intelligence to a leading Iraqi exile group, the Iraqi National Congress, which may in turn have passed it on to Iran. INC leader Ahmed Chalabi has denied his group was involved in any wrongdoing.

The linkage, if any, between the two leak investigations, remains unclear.

But they both center on the office of Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, the Pentagon's No. 3 official…Feith's office, which oversees policy matters, has been the source of numerous controversies over the last three years. His office had close ties to Chalabi and was responsible for post-war Iraq planning that the administration has now acknowledged was inadequate. Before the war, Feith and his aides pushed the now-discredited theory that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was in league with al-Qaida…

That analyst, Larry Franklin, works for Feith's deputy, William Luti, and served as an important - albeit low-profile - advisor on Iran issues to Feith and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz…

Investigators are said to be looking at whether Franklin acted with authorization from his superiors, one official said.

Two sources disclosed Saturday that the information believed to have been passed to Israel was the draft of a top-secret presidential order on Iran policy, known as a National Security Presidential Directive. Because of disagreements over Iran policy among President Bush's advisors, the document is not believed to have ever been completed…Having a draft of the document - which some Pentagon officials may have believed was insufficiently tough toward Iran - would have allowed Israel to influence U.S. policy while it was still being made. Iran is among Israel's main security concerns.

In a statement issued late Friday, the Pentagon said it "has been cooperating with the Department of Justice on this matter for an extended period of time. It is the DoD (Department of Defense) understanding that the investigation within the DoD is limited in its scope."

But other sources said the FBI investigation is more wide-ranging than initial news reports suggested…They said it has involved interviews of current and former officials at the White House, Pentagon and State Department…Investigators have asked about the security practices of several other Defense Department civilians, they said.

Franklin's name surfaced in news reports last year when it became known that he and another Pentagon Middle East specialist, Harold Rhode, met in late 2001 with Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms merchant who played a role in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal…Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said publicly last year that nothing came of the meeting, which reportedly was brokered by former National Security Council official Michael Ledeen.

Feith has long been close to Israel. In 2000, he helped author a paper, "A Clean Break," that advised incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to adopt a much tougher approach to the Palestinians and Israel's Arab neighbors.

A former Feith employee, Karen Kwiatkowski, has described how senior Israeli military officers were sometimes escorted to his Pentagon office without signing in as security regulations required.

How much further might this go?

http://www.antiwar.com/ips/lobe080703.html
An ad hoc office under US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith appears to have acted as the key base for an informal network of mostly neo-conservative political appointees that circumvented normal interagency channels to lead the push for war against Iraq…The Office of Special Plans (OSP), which worked alongside the Near East and South Asia (NESA) bureau in Feith's domain, was originally created by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to review raw information collected by the official US intelligence agencies for connections between Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

Retired intelligence officials from the State Department, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have long charged that the two offices exaggerated and manipulated intelligence about Iraq before passing it along to the White House…But key personnel who worked in both NESA and OSP were part of a broader network of neo-conservative ideologues and activists who worked with other Bush political appointees scattered around the national-security bureaucracy to move the country to war, according to retired Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who was assigned to NESA from May 2002 through February 2003.

The heads of NESA and OSP were Deputy Undersecretary William Luti and Abram Shulsky, respectively…Other appointees who worked with them in both offices included Michael Rubin, a Middle East specialist previously with the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI); David Schenker, previously with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP); and Michael Makovsky; an expert on neo-con icon Winston Churchill and the younger brother of David Makovsky, a senior WINEP fellow and former executive editor of pro-Likud Jerusalem Post.

Along with Feith, all of the political appointees have in common a close identification with the views of the right-wing Likud Party in Israel.

Feith, whose law partner is a spokesman for the settlement movement in Israel, has long been a fierce opponent of the Oslo peace process, while WINEP has acted as the think tank for the most powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which generally follows a Likud line…Also like Feith, several of the appointees were protégés of Richard Perle, an AEI fellow who doubles as chairman until last April of Rumsfeld's unpaid Defense Policy Board (DPB), whose members were appointed by Feith, also had an office in the Pentagon one floor below the NESA offices.

Similarly, Luti, a retired naval officer, was a protégé of another DPB board member also based at AEI, former Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich. Luti in turn hired Ret. Col. William Bruner, a former Gingrich staffer, and Chris Straub, a retired lieutenant colonel, anti-abortion activist, and former staffer on the Senate Intelligence Committee…Also working for Luti was another naval officer, Yousef Aboul-Enein, whose main job was to pore over Arabic-language newspapers and CIA transcripts of radio broadcasts to find evidence of ties between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein that may have been overlooked by the intelligence agencies, and a DIA officer named John Trigilio.

Through Feith, both offices worked closely with Perle, Gingrich, and two other DPB members and major war boosters – former CIA director James Woolsey and Kenneth Adelman – in ensuring that the "intelligence" they developed reached a wide public audience outside the bureaucracy…They also debriefed "defectors" handled by the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an opposition umbrella group headed by Ahmed Chalabi, a longtime friend of Perle, whom the intelligence agencies generally wrote off as an unreliable self-promoter.

[Lengthy analysis by Juan Cole: http://www.juancole.com/2004_08_01_juancole_archive.html#109368172121878771]

One more piece: Who is that “law partner” of Feith’s?

http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=2947&fcategory_desc=Special%20Israeli%20-%20US%20relationship
[October 2003]
Washington - The former law partner of the Defense Department's architect of Iraq's post-war planning has teamed up with the nephew of Ahmed Chalabi, a Pentagon-anointed leader in the country, to profit from the multibillion-dollar rebuilding of the war- ravaged nation.

L. Marc Zell, a Jerusalem-based attorney, is the former partner of Douglas Feith, the Pentagon undersecretary who was a major force behind the push for war.

Chalabi's nephew, Salem Chalabi, has set up a law firm in Baghdad and has boasted of daily contact with his uncle, who has emerged as a powerful figure in the new Iraqi interim government. Chalabi is a favorite of Pentagon hawks, including Feith, who pushed for Hussein's overthrow.

In an interview, Zell said Salem Chalabi owns the Baghdad law firm, while Zell helped create the idea and is marketing the firm to U.S. and other clients. Zell said his previous 15-year partnership with Feith, and Salem Chalabi's family ties, are separate from the work the pair is doing in Iraq.

"It has nothing to do with [Ahmed] Chalabi or Doug Feith," Zell said…Both Feith and Ahmed Chalabi say they are not connected to either man's efforts to seek business in Baghdad.

Yet Salem Chalabi's Iraqi International Law Group hints at its ability to offer clients the advantages of its close contacts with the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority and the 24-member Iraqi Governing Council, upon which his uncle sits…A member of Chalabi's inner circle is more blunt about the appearance of impropriety related to Salem Chalabi's law firm: "This looks greedy, careless and stupid."

The Zell-Salem Chalabi venture is just one of several firms with ties to the Bush administration and influential Iraqis hoping to profit from Iraq's reconstruction, a years-long project that World Bank and other estimates say will cost at least $56 billion…Critics say the Zell-Chalabi effort in particular crosses an ethical line by appearing to play on family connections in Iraq to give clients a leg up in getting business. Coupled with no-bid contracts awarded to politically connected firms like Bechtel and Halliburton, critics say, these firms give credence to doubts expressed by skeptical allies and Iraqis over the Bush administration's true motives.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9390
[November 2003]
If the administration is looking for a scapegoat for the situation it faces in Iraq, Feith is the most likely candidate both because of his relative obscurity compared to other administration hawks and the fact that, of virtually all of them, his ideas "particularly on the Middle East" may be the most radical.

A protege of Richard Perle, the former chairman of Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board (DPB) who stands at the center of the neo-conservative foreign-policy network in Washington, Feith has long opposed territorial compromise by Israel. He was an outspoken foe of the Oslo process and even the Camp David peace agreement mediated by former President Jimmy Carter between Egypt and Israel. His former law partner, L. Marc Zell, is a spokesman for the Jewish settlers' movement in the occupied West Bank.

But, more to the point, virtually everything that has gone wrong in Iraq "especially those matters that Congress is either investigating or is poised to investigate" is linked directly to his office. "All roads lead to Feith," noted one knowledgeable administration official this week.

It was his now-defunct Office of Special Plans (OSP) office that is alleged to have collected "often with the help of the neo-conservatives' favorite Iraqi exile, Ahmed Chalabi" and "cooked" the most alarmist pre-war intelligence against Saddam Hussein and then "stovepiped" it to the White House via Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney unvetted by the intelligence agencies…It was also his office that was in charge of post-war planning and rejected months of work by dozens of Iraqi exiles and Mideast experts in the State Department and the CIA, work that anticipated many of the problems that have wrong-footed the occupation. It also excluded many top Mideast experts from the State Department from playing any role in the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq…And it is his office that, with the CPA, has recommended companies for huge and, in some cases, no-bid contracts in Iraq that have amounted, in the eyes of some critical lawmakers, to flagrant profiteering.

Among the companies which have profited the most are those whose consultants or officers also serve on the Pentagon's DPB, members of which are chosen by Feith. Indeed, in a particularly provocative move which raises a host of conflict-of-interest questions, Feith's former law partner, Zell, has set up shop with Chalabi's nephew in Baghdad to help interested companies win contracts for reconstruction projects.

http://www.saudia-online.com/zogbi/2004/zogbi2.shtml
[More on Feith, Zell, and Chalabi]

OK, so what does this all mean? It means the investigation of the leak to Israel may be linked to the investigation of the leak to Chalabi (the information that — “ironically” isn’t even a strong enough word— he passed to Iran). And all of this is against the background of the bizarre confluence of cronyistic financial dealings and intelligence swapping between Feith, Zell, and Chalabi.

But wait: unbelievably, there’s a THIRD piece —the question of who forged the Niger uranium document that started all the Plame business

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/08/spies_in_the_pe.html
How could you tell the difference between an Israeli spy on Doug Feith's staff and everyone else on Doug Feith's staff? A joke, yes, but only sort of. For that reason, I find these details more interesting…Israel, Iran, Rome, Michael Ledeen, the whole cast of characters reminds me of nothing so much as the Niger forgery and its accompanying Grand Islamic Alliance of Bad Guys forgery…

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003364
[Josh Marshall]
I haven't yet been able to comment on the breaking news last night that the FBI is investigating whether an employee at the OSD, Larry Franklin, passed classified US government information to Israel. That is because my colleagues and I have a piece coming out on the subject which will, hopefully, be appearing later today in The Washington Monthly…

A few thoughts though about this story…I'm told the evidence the FBI has on Franklin -- at least on the narrow facts of the case -- is quite strong and involves wire tap information, though why a career DIA analyst like Franklin would allow himself to get tripped up on a phone call mystifies me…The main focus thus far has been on the highly sensitive and troubling allegation that an ally, Israel, was spying on the United States or the recipient of classified information from a US government official.

However, I strongly suspect that as this story develops the bigger deal will be less the alleged recipient of the information, Israel, than the country that is the subject of the information, Iran.

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001067.html
[Laura Rozen]
For months, I have been working with my colleagues Paul Glastris and Josh Marshall on a story for the Washington Monthly about pre-war intelligence. In particular, the component I have been focusing on involves a particular series of meetings involving officials from the office of the undersecretary of defense for Policy Doug Feith and Iranian dissidents…As part of our reporting, I have come into possession of information that points to an official who is the most likely target of the FBI investigation…That individual is Larry Franklin, a veteran DIA Iran analyst seconded to Feith’s office.

Here is what I was told in the days before the FBI investigation came to light…A source told me that some time in July, Larry Franklin called him and asked him to meet him in a coffee shop in Northern Virginia. Franklin had intelligence on hostile Iranian activities in Iraq and was extremely frustrated that he did not feel this intelligence was getting the attention and response it deserved. The intelligence included information that the Iranians had called all of their intelligence operatives who speak Arabic to southern Iraq, that it had moved their top operative for Afghanistan, a guy named Qudzi, to the Iranian embassy in Baghdad, that its operatives were targeting Iraqi state oil facilities, and that Iranian agents were infiltrating into northern Iraq to target the Israelis written about in a report by Seymour Hersh. According to my source, Franklin passed the information to the individual from AIPAC with the hope it could reach people at higher levels of the US government who would act on it. AIPAC presented the information to Elliot Abrams in the NSC. They also presented the part that involved Israelis who might be targeted to the Israelis, with the motivation to protect Israeli lives.

…My source soon after ran into another official from Feith's office, the polyglot Middle East expert and Bernard Lewis protege, Harold Rhode. My source mentioned the FBI meeting and asked Rhode if Franklin was in trouble. “It’s not clear,” Rhode allegedly told my source…

It’s no secret that some prominent neoconservative officials like Doug Feith, Vice Presidential advisor David Wurmser, and the former Defense Policy Board chair Richard Perle are sympathetic to the government of Ariel Sharon and the Likud government. Feith, Wurmser and Perle co-authored the paper, A Clean Break, which advocated that Israel abandon the Oslo peace process. But Franklin, although a passionate advocate of regime change in Iran, is not really among them. From modest beginnings, Franklin reportedly put himself through school, earned a PhD, and is now the Pentagon’s top Iran analyst. It would be an irony if he were to be the target of an investigation into passing US intelligence to Israel.

A friend points out one other irony is that what the Pentagon official is alleged in the CBS report to have passed to AIPAC and the Israelis is essentially a diplomatic document that describes a draft US policy position to Iran; in other words -- hardly the crown jewels, and hardly enough to warrant wiretaps and surveillance of Aipac's offices, he says. "The Israelis can get that stuff by going directly to Condoleezza Rice." In other words, it's not deeply technical knowledge about US satellite technology, for instance, or information the Americans had gotten from the Jordanians, or information about say a possible secret US back channel to Hezbollah. He wonders if this case is not politically motivated. It's no secret as well that there's intense competition over who would be national security advisor in a second term Bush administration. Anything that taints Feith and Wolfowitz could benefit their internal Bush administration foes…

Franklin has been investigated for this before, I'm told. What CBS has may not be the whole thing, but part of a pattern. What I have may be another part of a pattern. "There's got to be something else going on here," I'm told.

The Wash Times' Bill Gertz has an interesting bit of historical information:

One U.S. official said the FBI had unconfirmed information that Mr. Feith supplied information to Israel in the 1980s. However, the officials declined to provide further information citing the ongoing investigation. It could not be learned whether arrests are expected in the case.

With so many people in Feith's office and in the Vice President's office extremely sympathetic to Israel, it's hard to believe the Israelis needed the documents Franklin was providing. Or put another way: Franklin may have the misfortune of being one of the only officials in Feith's office who would need to use Aipac to pass information to the Israelis...

Rhode denies to UPI's Richard Sale that his security clearance was suspended in 1998 pending investigation of allegations he had given classified information to Israel.

The last word (at least until we see that Washington Monthly piece)

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/231
At least a few of the people who read this site are fans of the complicated mystery of who forged the documents claiming Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger, which were used by the Orwell Bush administration to beat the drums for war two years ago.

Well, according to Joshua Marshall, today is the day when his epic investigation of the subject with collaborators Laura Rozen and Paul Glastris -- or at least part of it, I guess -- appears in the Washington Monthly. And it couldn't come out at a better time, since a separate part of the overall story has hit the papers and TV networks already, involving a U.S. defense intelligence official leaking classified information to Israel for the purpose of influencing our policy toward Iran. (The big picture here linking both elements is that, as in the Iran-Contra scandal of the '80s, key members of the administration have been engaging in illegal actions to secretly influence U.S. foreign policy.)

Here's the fun part. One of the wrong-wing weblogs I occasionally amuse myself with is that of Roger L. Simon, a moderately successful novelist/screenwriter who's fallen hard for the neoconservative mythology. So hard that he's actually befriended leading neocon pundit Michael Ledeen, who may have played an indirect role in the promotion or creation of the Niger uranium forgeries, depending on what Marshall et al.'s reporting turns up.

Mark Kleiman’s good question: Why is the story breaking now?

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/_/2004/08/the_israeli_spy_in_the_pentagon_why_is_the_story_breaking_now.php

[My question is whether this will draw attention away from the convention coverage, or get swamped by it.]

Another big story. Ben Barnes, the Texas Lt Governor who got Bush into the National Guard, is now talking: “I’m very ashamed”

Video: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/08/27/barnes/index_np.html

Transcript: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/i-got-young-man-named-george-w-bush-in.html

What Bush said about getting in

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003361
"Mr. Bush," I said. "How did you get into the Guard so easily? One hundred thousand guys our age were on the waiting list, and you say you walked in and signed up to become a pilot. Did your congressman father exercise any influence on your behalf?"

"Not that I know of, Jim," the future president told me. "I certainly didn't ask for any. And I'm sure my father didn't either. They just had an opening for a pilot and I was there at the right time."

Justice Dept refuses to release any more Bush National Guard records

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38452-2004Aug27.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing
The Justice Department has told the Associated Press that the government does not possess any records that would shed further light on the mysteries of President Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service, beyond those that have already been made public, a lawyer for the news agency said yesterday.

[Notice the language here: not that there are no more records, but that the govt unilaterally has decided that they don’t contain any relevant new information]

Lawyers and reporters for the AP are currently engaged in an exhaustive examination of the material that has been made public, making a list of key documents that are missing but that should be on the microfilm…"We believe that we have identified some missing pieces," said AP general counsel Dave Tomlin. "Whether they're missing because they've disappeared from the file or because nobody ever generated them, we don't know. We're doing a sort of audit of them."

[And in case you haven’t discovered this site yet, here is the most complete examination of the record so far, which even based on presently released information is already damning for Bush: http://www.glcq.com/]

Did Bush get photographed wearing a medal he didn’t earn?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x675299

[Thanks to Mark Kleiman and the Democratic Underground]

More evidence that the fundamentalists are winning in Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/international/middleeast/29province.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

Abu Ghraib: more than 50 to be charged (when does the number cross the threshold of “a few bad apples” to become a systemic scandal?)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/politics/27legal.html

Donald Rumsfeld denies abuses occurred during interrogations

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/28/politics/28rumsfeld.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
In his first comments on the two major investigative reports issued this week at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Thursday mischaracterized one of their central findings about the American military's treatment of Iraqi prisoners by saying there was no evidence that prisoners had been abused during interrogations…The reports, one by a panel Mr. Rumsfeld had appointed and one by three Army generals, made clear that some abuses occurred during interrogations, that others were intended to soften up prisoners who were to be questioned, and that many intelligence personnel involved in the interrogations were implicated in the abuses…But on Thursday, in an interview with a radio station in Phoenix, Mr. Rumsfeld, who was traveling outside Washington this week, said, "I have not seen anything thus far that says that the people abused were abused in the process of interrogating them or for interrogation purposes." A transcript of the interview was posted on the Pentagon's Web site on Friday. Mr. Rumsfeld repeated the assertion a few hours later at a news conference in Phoenix, adding that "all of the press, all of the television thus far that tried to link the abuse that took place to interrogation techniques in Iraq has not yet been demonstrated." After an aide slipped him a note during the news conference, however, Mr. Rumsfeld corrected himself, noting that an inquiry by three Army generals had, in fact, found "two or three" cases of abuse during interrogations or the interrogations process. In fact, however, the Army inquiry found that 13 of 44 instances of abuse involved interrogations or the interrogation process, an Army spokeswoman said. The report itself explicitly describes the extent to which each abuse involved interrogations.

No Plame indictments before the election (and why not?)

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/valerie_plame_/2004/08/no_plame_indictment_before_november.php

Dick Cheney: the case for his guilt

http://www.alternet.org/election04/19685/

Tom DeLay: the case for his guilt

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003703

Bad news for Bush on the campaign front

Almost half the public believes Bush re-elect is behind the swift boat ads (and the other half have their heads in the sand)

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aEsO.NWFjSuQ&refer=us

Plus, a closer look at the polls suggests that they may have hurt Bush more than they helped him

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_08_22_digbysblog_archive.html#109374241878920241

And still ANOTHER connection

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003358

See what Bob Dole actually said on CNN (when he was off the air – but with the cameras still running)

http://slate.com/id/2105781/
But Dole also made another statement that day, one that hasn't been aired until now. Of McCain's charge to President Bush during a 2000 debate—"You should be ashamed"—Dole told Wolf Blitzer, "He was right."

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/shame-on-bob.html
Question for Bob Dole: If President Bush should be ashamed of his behavior four years ago, why aren't you ashamed now?

Newsweek: Of course Kerry earned his Bronze Star

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/27/135242/808

Wall Street: Not happy with GWB

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004-2_archives/000065.html

Bush’s big bribe: may propose exempting 50 million tax payers from filing returns (though not from paying taxes). What I want to know is whether they will end up paying MORE taxes by not itemizing and taking deductions (i.e., another regressive tax under the guise of “tax reform”)

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/08/27/bushs_silver_bullet_proposal.html

Alan Greenspan: Laying the foundation for an assault on Medicare and Social Security in Bush term No.2 (just in case anyone is paying attention)

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_08_28_bestof.html#109373089504234274

[Analysis: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003356]

Bush on campaign finance reform, before and after (gee, would you call this a flip-flop?)

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004-2_archives/000060.html

Yet another Bush lie (False Bravado Edition)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38452-2004Aug27.html
The USA Today story makes a big deal about how Bush "says losing the election has never crossed his mind.”…But as I wrote in Monday's column, while Bush doesn't discuss the possibility in public, he certainly has discussed it at least once in private.

Edwin Chen of the Los Angeles Times tracked down several of the steelworkers who met privately with Bush on his bus tour of Ohio several weeks ago, and they told him that although he expressed confidence, "Bush said he would be at peace with himself 'if people elect to send me home.'…Chen quotes John Grogg, a furnace operator, who remembered the president saying: "You know, if I should lose this reelection for president of the United States, I know that I've done as good a job as I can do. And God would say, 'Good servant, take a break.' "

Sure sounds to me like it's at least crossed his mind.

[To say nothing of the hope that God will speak to him.]

Bush explains why he’s the obvious choice for President

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003714
"They’ve seen me make decisions, they’ve seen me under trying times, they’ve seen me weep, they’ve seen me laugh, they’ve seen me hug, they’ve seen me make decisions," he said. "And they know who I am, and I believe they’re comfortable with the fact that they know I’m not going to shift principles or shift positions based upon polls and focus groups."

Bonus item: Post mortems on that absurd interview Bush gave the NYT, and the line of the day

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_08_27_bestof.html#109361136854718383

http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/003095.html
Mr. Bush also took issue with Mr. Kerry's argument, in an interview at the end of May with The New York Times, that the Bush administration's focus on Iraq had given North Korea the opportunity to significantly expand its nuclear capability. Showing none of the alarm about the North's growing arsenal that he once voiced regularly about Iraq, he opened his palms and shrugged when an interviewer noted that new intelligence reports indicate that the North may now have the fuel to produce six or eight nuclear weapons.

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_08_27_bestof.html#109364301033924413
“Bush: Like a Rock…Only Dumber”
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 10:53 PM

 
THE MESS THEY’VE MADE

How can it be that an administration that has pursued policies that have exacerbated inequalities in society, undermined public institutions and civil liberties, lowered the intelligence and thoughtfulness of public discourse, pursued foreign policy adventures which have proved foolhardy and counterproductive, governed with consistently cynical, dishonest, and secretive stratagems, and exacerbated the worst aspects of cronyism and corruption in government patronage, continues to be seen as legitimate and even marginally deserving of another four years to do more of the same?

Another proud Bush achievement: poverty up, more people uninsured

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35175-2004Aug26.html?nav=rss_nation
The number of Americans living in poverty or lacking health insurance rose for the third straight year in 2003, the Census Bureau announced yesterday, reflecting a job market that failed to match otherwise strong economic growth…Overall, the median household income remained stagnant at $43,318, while the national poverty rate rose to 12.5 percent -- 35.9 million people -- last year, from 12.1 percent in 2002. Hit hardest were women, who for the first time since 1999 saw their earnings decline, and children. By the end of 2003, 12.9 million children lived in poverty…As expected, the number of people without health insurance grew last year, to 45 million -- an increase to 15.6 percent from 15.2 percent.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-08-26-census-poverty_x.htm
The White House said the report was old news, reflecting an economy struggling from three tough years of stock market drops, corporate scandals, wars and unprecedented terrorist attacks. The median income is rising slowly in 2004 as the economy picks up speed; jobs have been added in fits and starts…The report "does not include all the data from the past 11 months, when our economy created 1.5 million new jobs," Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said. He noted that poverty rates are still below the average of the 1980s and '90s and said the growing ranks of the uninsured reflect a trend that the White House has offered several plans to counter.

Release of report timed to minimize attention it might receive

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/26/national/26cnd-cens.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position
Some Democrats saw political manipulation in the fact that the administration issued the new numbers a month before their usual late-September release…Publishing the numbers now, at a greater remove from Election Day, "invites charges of spinning the data for political purposes," said Representative Carolyn Maloney, Democrat of New York.

The real force in Iraq: Sistani does in a few hours what Allawi, U.S. couldn’t accomplish after weeks of fighting Sadr

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/international/middleeast/27iraq.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
Hamed al-Khaffaf, an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said that Moktada al-Sadr, the rebel cleric whose fighters have held the Imam Ali Shrine since early August, had agreed to the conditions set forth by Ayatollah Sistani to end the siege…The proposal, which the interim Iraqi government quickly accepted, calls for the withdrawal of Mr. Sadr's fighters from Najaf and the neighboring city of Kufa, as well as a pullout of American forces and the introduction of Iraqi police officers into Najaf. The agreement would allow Mr. Sadr and his fighters to keep their guns and go free…"We pray today that Najaf will recover,'' Kassem Hameed, a 52-year-old oil worker who came from Basra on Thursday to support Ayatollah Sistani, told Reuters. "The military operations have only brought destruction."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34370-2004Aug26.html
In exchange for Sadr's compliance, the government pledged to pull U.S. military forces out of Najaf and to allow Sadr, who had been wanted by the former U.S. occupation authority on murder charges, to participate in politics…"He is as free as any Iraqi citizen to do whatever he would like in Iraq," said Qasim Dawood, a minister of state, after announcing the government's acceptance of the peace plan arranged by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

http://www.turkishpress.com/turkishpress/news.asp?ID=25612
"God is great. This is democracy, this is the new Iraq, this is the greatest defeat we could have inflicted on the Americans. It’s the most beautiful day in my life," he shouted, hurrying inside the main mausoleum to pray.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-najaf27aug27,1,2893072.story?coll=la-home-headlines
By dusk Thursday, U.S. troops were holding their positions 50 to 100 yards from the mosque, awaiting word from commanders on their next move. With the exception of occasional gunfire, the cease-fire appeared to be holding…"It's surreal," said Capt. Patrick McFall of the Army's 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, standing about a block from the mosque and surveying the rows of broken buildings and littered streets…"I don't know why we're doing this. And I look at the other side and wonder why they are doing it, too."…At a U.S. military base on the northern edge of Najaf, exhausted troops in the mess hall abruptly grew quiet during a television report about the talks between Sistani and Sadr. Nearly every head in the tent turned to listen to the update…"I just want to have this solved so we can get out of here," one soldier said.

[It is becoming increasingly clear that what Bush has accomplished by ousting Hussein is simply to lay the groundwork for another Islamist state in the region. The only question remaining is how anti-U.S. it will turn out to be.]

Analysis: this shows how little influence the U.S. has on the unfolding dynamics in Iraq (and how Iran’s is growing). What a stunning catastrophe this is becoming

http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002396.html
http://www.juancole.com/2004_08_01_juancole_archive.html#109359005659851262
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003675
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001062.html
http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/08/the_kindness_of.html

Bush acknowledges mistakes in Iraq (sort of)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/politics/campaign/27bush.html?ex=1251259200&en=9f0c907a26349c89&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
Mr. Bush also acknowledged for the first time that he made a "miscalculation of what the conditions would be'' in postwar Iraq. But he insisted that the 17-month-long insurgency that has upended the administration's plans for the country was the unintended by-product of a "swift victory'' against Saddam Hussein's military, which fled and then disappeared into the cities, enabling them to mount a rebellion against the American forces far faster than Mr. Bush and his aides had anticipated…Mr. Bush deflected efforts to inquire further into what went wrong with the occupation, suggesting that such questions should be left to historians, and insisting, as his father used to, that he would resist going "on the couch'' to rethink decisions.

[So, you see, the problem was that the war went so well, they were thrown into a post-war scenario sooner than they expected. This is not only an obvious falsehood, it doesn’t even make sense. But he probably believes it.]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004577.php
After three and a half years, we’re all well aware of the president’s peculiar style of leadership--his aggressive ignorance, the cocky way he asserts obvious falsehoods, his seeming indifference to the negative consequences of his policies…[T]hey shouldn’t come anymore as a shock…And yet they do.

The Environmental President: Bush doesn’t even know his own administration’s reports on global warming

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/politics/campaign/27bush.html?ex=1251259200&en=9f0c907a26349c89&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
On environmental issues, Mr. Bush appeared unfamiliar with an administration report delivered to Congress on Wednesday that indicated that emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases were the only likely explanation for global warming over the last three decades. Previously, Mr. Bush and other officials had emphasized uncertainties in understanding the causes and consequences of global warming…The new report was signed by Mr. Bush's secretaries of energy and commerce and his science adviser. Asked why the administration had changed its position on what causes global warming, Mr. Bush replied, "Ah, we did? I don't think so."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37232-2004Aug26.html
A Bush administration report suggests that evidence of global warming has begun to affect animal and plant populations in visible ways, and that rising temperatures in North America are due in part to human activity…The report to Congress, issued Wednesday, goes further than previous statements by President Bush. He has said more scientific research is needed before he imposes new restrictions on greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide…

Several administration officials characterized the study as a routine annual summary of scientific research on global warming. John H. Marburger, the president's science adviser, said the report has "no implications for policy."…But environmentalists and conservatives said the report reveals contradictions within the administration's stance on global warming…Jeremy Symons, who heads the National Wildlife Federation's global warming program, characterized the study as "nothing new in terms of the science of global warming, but this is definitely new in terms of the administration's position."…Myron Ebell, director of global warming policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, also said it signals a change. "We're frustrated and disappointed the administration seems to have an incoherent global warming policy”

Abu Ghraib report paints a big red “X” on General Ricardo Sanchez’s chest

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/politics/27abuse.html?ex=1251259200&
Classified parts of the report by three Army generals on the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison say Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former top commander in Iraq, approved the use in Iraq of some severe interrogation practices intended to be limited to captives held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and Afghanistan…Moreover, the report contends, by issuing and revising the rules for interrogations in Iraq three times in 30 days, General Sanchez and his legal staff sowed such confusion that interrogators acted in ways that violated the Geneva Conventions, which they understood poorly anyway…But classified passages of the Army report say the procedures approved by General Sanchez on Sept. 14, 2003, and the revisions made when the Central Command found fault with the initial policy, exceeded the Geneva guidelines as well as standard Army doctrines.

General Geoffrey Miller too

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003684
One of the more gruesome details of abuse described in the Fay/Jones report is the use of dogs to scare and torture inmates. In one incident, soldiers used Army dogs to play a bizarre game in which they scared teenage detainees into defecating and urinating on themselves. This incident is but one example in which Geneva Convention prohibitions against torture and inhumane treatment were clearly violated at Abu Ghraib…But whose authority sanctioned these soldiers to loose dogs on the teens?

We know from the Fay/Jones Report that Military Intelligence officers from the 205th Battalion didn't have any dogs of their own, so they asked soldiers from the 372nd Military Police Company to use MP dogs to scare prisoners. For his part in this, the head of Military Intelligence in Iraq, Col. Thomas Pappas, has been recommended for official rebuke. Thus far, he is the highest-ranking officer that anyone has suggested be reprimanded (though, importantly, the Fay/Jones report does not recommend a criminal proceeding against him)…Pappas, however, testified in the Taguba report that scaring prisoners with dogs was a technique that he personally discussed with Gen. Geoffrey Miller when the then-commander of Guantánamo visited Abu Ghraib in August 2003.

Miller denies this, but the former head of Abu Ghraib, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, has sided with Pappas. Last May she told the Washington Post that Miller was sent to Abu Ghraib to “Gitmoize” the prison. And this, we know from the Schlesinger report, includes one technique, “exploiting individual phobias, e.g. dogs,” that was approved for use in Guantanamo between December 2, 2002, and January 15, 2003. Further, we know that this technique “migrated” to Abu Ghraib sometime after Miller visited the facility in August. Therefore, if we are to believe Pappas and Karpinski, Miller seems to be misrepresenting himself…But does this amount to perjury? Perhaps. On May 19, in sworn testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Miller responded to a question about his August 2003 trip to Iraq:

“No methods contrary to the Geneva Convention were presented at any time by the assistance team that I took to CJTF-7 [Lt. Gen. Sanchez’s command].”

This is either a curious reading of the Geneva Conventions or a blatant lie.

Higher-ups “responsible” but not “culpable” – what a crock

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36943-2004Aug26.html?nav=rss_nation
The dramatic leadership failures revealed by two investigations into the abuse of Iraqi detainees will haunt the Army for months or even years as defense attorneys explore them in court in attempts to mitigate accusations and ease punishments for more than a score who could be charged, military legal experts said yesterday.

But the senior officers cited for indirectly allowing the abuse to flourish at the Abu Ghraib prison will not face charges under the findings of an Army report issued this week -- a fact that three Army generals explained and defended yesterday in interviews. Those in the U.S. command structure who failed to supervise their subordinates, who handed down unclear and in some cases illegal policies, and who ignored signs of abuse were found in Army reports to be "responsible" for the problems but not "culpable" because they did not have a direct hand in the mistreatment…"That's the differentiation that's being made," Gen. Paul J. Kern -- who supervised the Army's most recent investigation, by Marine Gen. George R. Fay and Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones -- said in an interview yesterday

Bush tells IOC to go suck an egg

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003694
President Bush's re-election campaign refused a request by the U.S. Olympic Committee on Thursday to pull a television ad that mentions the Olympics…Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel said the ads will continue through Sunday, the final day of the Athens Games…."We are on firm legal ground to mention the Olympics to make a factual point in a political advertisement," Stanzel said.

The USOC asked the campaign to pull the ads on Thursday, committee spokesman Darryl Seibel said…The International Olympic Committee and the USOC have the authority to regulate the use of anything involving the Olympics…"We own the rights to the Olympic name, and no one has asked us…"

[This is not the most important issue in the world, except for what it demonstrates about the arrogrance of the Bush administration – once again they show utter contempt for international sentiment when it runs against their stubborn pursuit of self interest]

WH refuses FOIA request for information on administration/Swift Boat contacts

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=35271
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) received a letter from the Executive Office of the President denying CREW's Aug. 24 request for records detailing White House contacts with individuals connected to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT). As grounds for the denial, the White House claimed that it was exempt from having to disclose the information.

Bush now says swift boat ads are false (but still refuses to condemn them). So I guess that means it’s okay with him that they’re spreading lies on his behalf…

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/politics/campaign/27bush.html?ex=1251259200&en=9f0c907a26349c89&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
President Bush said on Thursday that he did not believe Senator John Kerry lied about his war record, but he declined to condemn the television commercial paid for by a veterans group alleging that Mr. Kerry came by his war medals dishonestly…Mr. Bush's comments…undercut a central accusation leveled by the veterans group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose unproven attacks on Mr. Kerry have dominated the political debate for more than two weeks.

More Bush 101: Morph an issue you don’t want to talk about into an issue you do want to talk about

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/26/politics/campaign/26CND-SWIF.html?ex=1251259200&en=b24dab1be43ee65a&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
President Bush, responding to criticism that he should act against groups attacking John Kerry's war record, will pursue legal action against all "shadowy" outside groups on both sides of the campaign's fence that use unregulated funds to finance political advertising, the White House announced today…An aide said Mr. Bush spoke of his intention during a brief telephone conversation with Senator John McCain, a prominent Republican and Vietnam War veteran who has criticized the attacks on Mr. Kerry's record in Vietnam by a group of Swift boat veterans that formed to oppose Mr. Kerry's campaign for the presidency…"The president said he wanted to work together to pursue court action to shut down all the ads and activity by these shadowy 527 groups," the chief White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, told reporters aboard Air Force One…

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003352
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Friday editorial:

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign is taking on water. Hole after hole has been blown in the group's credibility. We hope the damage is sufficient to finally sink 30-year-old anguish over the Vietnam War as a campaign issue…The campaign to smear Sen. John Kerry took three more direct hits this week…

One man who can -- and should -- blow this nasty campaign out of the water is President Bush…The answer, Mr. President, is not to restrict the use of political free speech, but to condemn its abuse.

Bush’s credibility as a champion of campaign finance reform?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003346
If President Bush is going to try to pose as an advocate of campaign finance reform to dodge the Swift Boat issue, there's a really, really, really easy rejoinder to this one: mockery…Don't get bogged down on the details. Just mockery. Full stop.

George W. Bush, Mr. Campaign Finance Reform? Please ... A laugh and a smile. Simple as that…His credibility on the issue is zero. Voters know it.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003690
From CBS's Face the Nation, March 5, 2000:

[BOB] SCHIEFFER: Well--but the fact is that you have launched these ads and that your friends have spent $ 2 1/2 million now...

Gov. BUSH: Well, these are--these are...

SCHIEFFER: ...on a, on an ad that you say you know nothing about, attacking his environmental record. I mean, isn't that just exactly what Senator McCain says has gone haywire in America? Where somebody can come in, spend all this money, no one would have known who spent this money up there, attacking his environmental record if the reporters hadn't rooted it out? And yet he--these friends may wind up spending more in New York than you and Senator McCain are spending up there.

Gov. BUSH: Bob, there are people spending ads that say nice things about me. There are people spending money on ads that say ugly things about me.

BORGER: Should...

Gov. BUSH: That's part of the American--let me finish. That's part of the American process. There have been ads, independent expenditures, that are saying bad things about me. I don't particularly care when they do, but that's what freedom of speech is all about. And this allegation somehow that I'm involved with this is just totally ridiculous. It is uncalled for. There is no--no truth whatsoever. This--the notion that this man who ran the ads spent the night in the governor's mansion--I think Senator McCain just made that allegation--they're--they're just not true…

BORGER: ...do you think you should stop these ads?

Gov. BUSH: You know, let me--let me say something to you. People have the right to run ads. They have the right to do what they want to do, under the--under the First Amendment in America.

But McCain isn’t playing along

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/26/politics/campaign/26CND-SWIF.html?ex=1251259200&en=b24dab1be43ee65a&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
Mr. McCain said afterward that he approved of the president's decision to try to rein in third-party "soft money" groups, but he emphasized that he did not want them eliminated…"I'm very appreciative of the president's effort to do that," Mr. McCain said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I want to emphasize if I could that we're not saying that 527's should be abolished. We're just saying they should live under the same campaign finance restrictions" as so-called hard-money groups "because they are engaged in partisan activity."…"I've said before I would like for the president to specifically condemn that ad," Mr. McCain said of the Swift boat group's commercial…

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003677
“Early on I thought the ads should be condemned. I thought a number of the other ads that I saw that unfairly attacked President Bush should be condemned. And I think the President has condemned the ads. Would I like to see a more specific condemnation? Probably, because of the sensitivity of the war issue to me. I'd like to make two most important points. One is I'm sick and tired of re-fighting the Vietnam war. And most importantly I'm sick and tired of opening the wounds of the Vietnam war which I've spent the last 30 years trying to heal. Now there were a whole lot of Vietnam veterans that had trouble getting all the way home because of the divisions within the United States of America. Eighteen and nineteen year old kids didn't understand when they served honorably and came home why they were mistreated by their fellow citizens which contributed to a lot of the problem that they had. So I spent a lot of time, by the way with John Kerry, in trying to resolve the POW/MIA issue. Trying to normalize relations between our two countries. And now these wounds are being reopened in the most unsavory fashion. Meanwhile, yesterday five young American soldiers died in Iraq. We can't erase a single name of that wall on the Vietnam war memorial here. They're dead, they're gone. And now instead of trying to work together to win the war in Iraq and come up with the best ways of handling it we're spending our time re-fighting a war that was over 30 years ago. And it's offensive to me and angering to me that we're doing this. It's time to move on.”

More Bush 101: Perceptions of character are more important than the actual facts of your actions and policies

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/25/opinion/meyer/main638571.shtml
If you had any thought that the first presidential campaign after 9/11 would be especially sober and responsible, give it up. ..There are a million angles to the saga of John Kerry and his swift boat enemies and none of them reveal anything virtuous about politics. But one element that is missing from this story is surprise…Any student of Bush family campaigns could have seen the swift boat shiv shining a mile away. This old family has traditions – horseshoes, fishing, bad syntax and having the help do the dirty work in campaigns as well as the kitchen. And they are very good at getting jobs done without leaving fingerprints, without compromising their patrician image and their alleged character.

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_08_26_bestof.html#109354668486060007
Bush trying to position himself as bravely pretending to disavow Kerry ads with help from slut and 2008 GOP presidential candidate John McCain…This is standard Rovian politics. After two-three weeks of unrelenting attacks on Kerry by Bush surrogates 43 will portray himself as outraged, outraged I tell you, about all these ads by "shadowy" groups. He will group all 527s together, mumble some words about Kerry's honorable service, and the media will credit him with statesmanship and fairplay.

In the meantime, the ads have (1) driven down Kerry's numbers, (2) made Kerry spend money on ads before the GOP convention while they have (3) given the Bush campaign an amazing amount of free publicity in the constant yap about the subject on cable TV and radio. They have (4) virtually made the official Abu-Ghraib report which faults the Pentagon all the way to the top disappear from airwaves and newspapers and (5) distracted Americans from the faltering economy and (6) the continuing carnage in Iraq. Plus, plus, plus.....

And one rhetorical question: when will someone in the mainstream media point out that if there was as strong as connection between Al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein as there is between the SBVFT and the Bush administration the Bushco rationale for going to war in Iraq could have been reasonably argued?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003353
Of course, it's understood as a given in Washington -- among Republicans as much as among Democrats -- that Karl Rove is behind these ads. But publicly we have to go with the ludicrous notion that he has no connection with them -- a willing suspension of disbelief that allows the president some room to express mock sympathy over the results of his own acts…A friend of mine has a magazine article coming out in a few weeks which I'm told gets some of the goods on Rove's history of political bad acts. So we'll see if that moves the bar for him at all.

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/08/con04351.html
Rove Changes Story on Contacts with Perry
August 20, the New York Times reported "Mr. Rove, Mr. Bush's top political aide, recently said through a spokeswoman that he and Mr. Perry were longtime friends, though he said they had not spoken for at least a year."…On August 24, the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the White House seeking, among other things, any documents (such as phone logs) that would show any contact between Rove and Bob Perry since the beginning of 2004…The very next day Rove told Fox News, "I don't want to leave any misimpression. But he's [Perry] not somebody that I've had, you know, any EXTENDED conversation with in years and certainly did not discuss with him or anybody else in the Swift boat leadership what they're doing."…Sure looks like Rove is now admitting that he has spoken to Perry recently and is trying to downplay the significance of the conversations. Unfortunately for Rove, you don't have to have an extended conversation to have illegal coordination

What the hell has happened to CNN?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003349
O'BRIEN: All right, we are listening to Max Cleland, former senator from Georgia and former Lieutenant Jim Rassmann, a former Green Beret whose life was saved by John Kerry in the Mekong Delta in 1969. Although, that is a point of dispute…

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003350
KAGAN: And so here comes a new ad by the Swift Boat Veterans and they're not just attacking the medals that John Kerry might have won…

You heard it here first: Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush in continual email contact during 2000 recount scandal (which they denied at the time) – computer files were destroyed to hide the evidence

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/08/more_evidence_that_jeb_bush_is_dangerous.html

[The point is, WHY are you hearing it here first? How can the facts of Bush’s election theft not have been a bigger scandal? And what will we face next time?]

The upcoming Republican convention: an extended exercise in hiding the true nature and agenda of the GOP

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/08/26/extreme/index.html

Just a regular guy

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/08/26/bush_may_watch_convention_from_firehouse.html
President Bush "wants to watch the Republican convention from a New York City firehouse and 'bond' with the city's Bravest," the New York Daily News reports.

NOT just a regular guy

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/26/175145/425
The Cheneys purchased nine apples, five large tomatoes, three green peppers and a dozen ears of corn. Cheney pulled a $10 bill from his pocket and gave it to Levan. Asked by a reporter whether the $10 covered the cost of the produce, Levan indicated that it did not. But he said it was an "honor" to sell the fruits and vegetables to the vice president, even if at a discount.

It's a cute little story that tells us two things most of us already know about Cheney. First, he's completely out of touch with the cost of produce. This isn't that surprising, as he probably hasn't done much shopping in at least the past three-and-a-half years. He's the Vice President of the United States, so it's to be expected that he's not popping into the Social Safeway on Wisconsin every Thursday. Now, of course, if John Kerry had done what Cheney did, and had mistakenly believed that $10 would cover a bushel of veggies, Instapundit, Sean Hannity, and Wolf Blitzer would be up in arms about how completely out of touch with America and how elitist Kerry and Teresa are…

But what struck me most about this vignette, and what is troubling to me, was the way that Cheney handed the guy a $10 without asking him what the cost of the goods were. It's as if he sized the tomatoes and corn up, sized the farmer up, decided that $10 was appropriate, and that was that. No need to say, "what's the damage?" No need to wait for the farmer to total the cost. Nope -- Dick saw the entire transaction as he might an interaction with a bellhop at the Plaza. He took a commonplace commercial transaction between vendor and consumer, and turned it into a master-servant relationship. In essence, Dick took his veggies, and tipped the guy $10. Now that's weird. Almost shakes your faith in the GOP as the defender of small business . . .

Bonus item: Apparently all that talk about challenging the intolerance of the GOP platform was just that, and nothing more. Opposition groups settled for the most inane and meaningless language change in the final document

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/conventions/articles/2004/08/27/gop_platform_stays_conservative_course_with_few_surprises/
Tightly controlled by party leaders, the meeting of the 110-member platform committee featured few disputes and most of those were at the ideological margins of party orthodoxy…Senate majority leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, who chaired the Republican platform deliberations, said loyalty to the president was responsible for the collegial tone during discussions in subcommittee meetings, behind the scenes, and on the floor of the full committee meetings to reach consensus. But Frist also conceded not everyone is happy with everything in the document.

The new platform, which the Republican National Convention is expected to ratify Monday, the opening day of the four-day event, is sharply different in tone and substance from its immediate predecessor…Gone is the call of 2000 for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Recession, the Bush tax cuts, and the cost of the war contributed to a record-high budget deficit. The Republican platform does not list the tax cut among the factors driving a deficit it calls "unwelcome but manageable." Instead, the new platform applauds Bush's plan to cut the deficit in half within five years and advocates a pay-as-you-go policy for programs considered essential…Similarly, soaring oil prices that are creating high gasoline prices and a drag on the economic recovery receive only a passing mention in a two-page section of this year's platform calling for "a balanced energy policy."…Four years ago, the platform, a broadside at the Clinton administration's foreign policy, included tough talk on oil.

The few moments of real drama involved a toughening of the platform's antigay rights language, not only supporting a constitutional ban on gay marriage but also expressing opposition to the extension of spousal rights, such as those legalized in same-sex civil unions in Vermont…The minority of the platform committee members favoring abortion rights experienced their quadrennial rout with minimal complaint.

http://www.federalnewsradio.com/index.php?nid=125&sid=117918
“As the party of the open door, while steadfast in our commitment to our ideals, we respect and accept that members of our party can have deeply held and sometimes differing views…”


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:41 AM

 
DEAD ENDERS

As predicted, McCain is being dragged back into Swift Boat controversy (but still fails to hold Bush accountable)

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/08/26/mccain_will_appeal_to_bush_about_swift_boat_ads.html
In an interview with the New York Times, Sen. John McCain said "that he was so annoyed over the veterans' television advertisements attacking Mr. Kerry's war record that he intended to personally 'express my displeasure' to the president when they campaign together next week."…In an interview with the Arizona Republic, McCain said, "I'm sick and tired of reopening the wounds of the Vietnam War, which I've spent the last 30 years trying to heal. Now, these wounds are being reopened in the most unsavory of fashion."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/elections/chi-0408260255aug26,1,6521386.story?coll=chi-news-hed
With Vietnam veterans taking sides over Sen. John Kerry's war record, Republican Sen. John McCain, a Navy pilot held prisoner in Vietnam for almost six years, sharply criticized Kerry's critics Wednesday and said the long-ago war in Southeast Asia should not be an issue in the presidential campaign…"I'm sick and tired of reopening the wounds of the Vietnam War," McCain said in an interview…During a recent campaign trip in Florida, New Mexico and Arizona, McCain said he did not talk to Bush about repudiating the current ads questioning Kerry's military service, although he had previously said Bush should do so. "I stated publicly my view," he said. "It's up to him."

Bush can knock down Kerry’s popularity, but can’t revive his own 39% approval rating

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/39.html

Josh Marshall: a campaign built on lies

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003327

Josh Marshall: more on “moral cowardice”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003321

Josh Marshall: more on “bitch slap politics”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003338
Just out from the febrile GOPUSA.com: "If Kerry Can't Handle the 'Swiftees,' How's He Going to Handle the Terrorists?"

“No connection,” Chapter 12 (a.k.a. Scott McClellan, lying weasel)

http://www.tnr.com/blog/campaignjournal?pid=1960
There was a pretty good "Columbo" moment this afternoon during the press briefing down in Crawford, Texas. Most of the questions centered around the front-gate showdown between Max Cleland and Texas State Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson earlier in the day. Asked why the campaign chose Patterson to deal with the Cleland visit, Scott McClellan said, "He was here representing the campaign and speaking on behalf of veterans who support the President."…No fools, White House reporters immediately realized that McClellan's response had opened up a weak spot. Earlier in the day, Commissioner Patterson told reporters that he thought the Swift Vet ads were just fine by him, a comment that is definitely not an approved talking point for a Bushie to be using. At the briefing Dana Milbank went in for the kill:

Scott, you described Patterson as a representative of the campaign. He was out there praising the most recent Swift Boat ads, calling it a very telling ad. Presumably that's at odds with what the President thinks.

Realizing he'd been had, McClellan retreated and refused to repeat his claim, made seconds earlier, that Patterson was actually a BC04 spokesman for the day…[read on – it’s hilarious]

And yet another connection emerges

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003332

As Ken Mehlman repeated ad nauseum over the weekend…

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1197258/posts
Of the $63 million such groups have spent for campaign advertising, nearly all has targeted Mr. Bush and only $2.5 million has been aimed at Mr. Kerry, Mr. Mehlman said.

Of course, it’s good to register this complaint just before you announce two new pro-Bush 527’s funded to the tune of tens of millions of dollars

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/08/25/another_gop_527_group_emerges.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/25/20822/1919

http://www.crosswalk.com/news/1280677.html

The problem with press “even-handedness” (both sides have 527’s, both use attack ads, etc.) is that it misses the central point. The proper complaint against the Swifties isn’t that they are anti-Kerry, but that what they are saying isn’t true.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/08/25/ginsberg/index.html

John O’Neill – proven a liar, yet still getting free air time to repeat his slanders against Kerry

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/liar_26.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003337
ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: Mr. O'Neill, just in the interest of time, look, there are so many inconsistencies here, in my view, in the swiftboat story…Look, this issue of Cambodia, you said, on George Stephanopoulos' show over the weekend that you knew that Kerry was not in Cambodia, that you could not have been in Cambodia on a swift boat, that he didn't go north of Sadak (ph). They just didn't go that far. You were 15 miles away…There's a tape of you, as you now know, in the Oval Office, saying you were in Cambodia, you said to Richard Nixon. You worked along the border, or you were in Cambodia…That seems very different than being 15 miles away and saying the swift boats didn't go to Cambodia. So they can't both be true.

O'NEILL: Alan, yes, they are, Alan. It's two different places, Alan. One place is along the Mekong River, right in the heart of the delta. The second place is on the west coast of Cambodia at a place called Hatien (ph), where the boundary is right along that border…Where Kerry was in Christmas of 1968 was on this river, the Mekong River. We got about 40 or 50 miles from the border. That's as close as we ran…Later, Kerry went, and I went to a place called Bernique's (ph) Creek -- that was our nickname for it -- at Hatien (ph). That was a canal system that ran close to the border, but that wasn't at Christmas for Kerry. That was later for him…So it's two separate places, Alan, and the story is correct.

COLMES: All right. Well, either you were in Cambodia or Kerry was in Cambodia and you claim he wasn't in Cambodia. You claimed at one point you weren't and then you claimed you were. This is very confusing to people.

O'NEILL: Well, it shouldn't be confused. I was never in Cambodia, and Kerry lied when he said he was in Cambodia.

COLMES: You said to Richard Nixon you were in Cambodia…You said to Richard Nixon, "I was in Cambodia, sir."

HANNITY: On the border.

COLMES: There's a tape of you saying that to Richard Nixon.

O'NEILL: What's the next sentence? I was along the Cambodian border…

COLMES: "I was in Cambodia," Those are your words.

O'NEILL: Yes, but you missed the next sentence. You're not reading the next sentence, Alan.

COLMES: Yes, along the border. But you're in Cambodia or you're not in Cambodia.

O'NEILL: Well, I'm sorry, Alan. I wasn't…

Schlesinger report on Abu Ghraib emphasizes “migration” of techniques – as if it happened through passive diffusion, not through intentional policy decisions

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001058.html
In seeking to explain what led to the torture committed by U.S. military police and intelligence officers at Abu Ghraib, former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger and his colleagues use variants of the word "migrate" over a half-dozen times in the 92-page text. That is, the Schlesinger panel posits a simple explanation for how brutal interrogation techniques--initially reserved for Al Qaeda and Taliban "enemy combatants," whom President Bush decided were exempt from the Geneva Conventions--came to be used on Iraqi prisoners, whom the administration never determined fell outside the Geneva rules. Those techniques simply--as Schlesinger would have it--"migrated."…But, of course, no policy "migrates." Officials actively provide instructions to other officials. Or, failing such active authorization from their superiors, some officials take individual initiative based on what they judge to be relevant prior circumstances. A combination of these two factors is what Schlesinger surely means by the "migration" of interrogation policy. What his preferred euphemism glosses over are the questions of who told what to whom, with whose approval.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003665
For all the "major failures" and "blame" that the Schlesinger report supposedly pins on top Pentagon leaders, the report doesn't recommend even the most minor disciplinary action for the top uniformed brass and civilian leaders, who the report contends "created the climate in which the abuse occurred."…In but one of many detailed examples of this kind of leadership failure, the report identifies an unexpected insurgency and limited troop resources which led to a situation in which prisoners outnumbered guards by 75-1 at Abu Ghraib. To make matters worse, as the insurgency grew Arabic translators were transferred from patrol units to military intelligence squads in charge of interrogation. This, the report contends, led to a self-perpetuating crisis in which units on patrol had no idea whom to detain, so they erred on the side of caution and arrested anyone who "looked suspicious." Meanwhile, these mass arrests led to prisoners flooding Abu Ghraib, where overwhelmed and under-supervised prison guards and military intelligence people turned sadistic in manners that will be graphically described in today’s forthcoming Fay/Jones Report.

All the while, those responsible for this kind of awful planning get off without so much as a slap on the wrist: Donald Rumsfeld still seems to be supported by his bosses, who, we shall recall, dubbed him the “best secretary of defense ever"; Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, whom the report identifies as authorizing extralegal interrogation techniques of regular Iraqi prisoners, is not even recommended for a letter of reprimand; and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who was sent in to Gitmoize Abu Ghraib, gets off scot-free.

Later in the day we'll be treated to the Fay/Jones report, which in graphic detail describes specific cases of sodomy and torture. Sane heads will call for those responsible to be brought to justice, and the report will provide 24 names of lower-level military intelligence personnel, guards, and contractors at whom the public can direct its outrage.

But Abu Ghraib could still pull down Rumsfeld

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33789-2004Aug25.html?nav=rss_nation
Both groups said they could find no evidence of policy of abuse or instructions from senior U.S. authorities approving mistreatment of detainees. But taken together, their reports provide a more complete and searing critique than before -- one likely to reverberate as additional prosecutions are launched and more congressional hearings are held to examine the question of accountability…On Capitol Hill, Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) said the Armed Services Committee, which he chairs, will seek to review officer promotions…Asked whether Rumsfeld should resign, Warner said he "essentially" agreed with Schlesinger's rejection of the idea Tuesday. But Warner noted that "the commanding officer has to take responsibility for those actions of his subordinates that are proven to be unprofessional or downright wrong."

Meanwhile, could camp commanders get immunity?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0408250269aug25,1,868017.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
A U.S. military judge warned prosecutors Tuesday that they had until Sept. 17 to file charges against former commanders at Abu Ghraib prison or he may grant the officers immunity and force them to testify at the trials of soldiers accused of abusing Iraqi detainees...Offering immunity to the officers--they have refused to cooperate with investigators on the grounds that they might incriminate themselves--could shed light on whether commanders condoned an atmosphere that led to the ridicule and beatings of Iraqi prisoners.

The warning by the judge, Col. James Pohl, came after a lawyer representing one of the accused soldiers argued that the Defense Department was attempting to cover up a policy that sanctioned harsh interrogation tactics. Pohl said the commanding officers "would have a perspective on what was authorized and what was not."…Two of the officers who may be compelled to testify are Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, and Lt. Col. Steven Jordan, who was in charge of an interrogation unit at the prison…Pohl told prosecutors that Pappas' testimony "would appear to be critical to the defendants ... that this was condoned by higher-ups."…

Pohl also denied a motion by Paul Bergrin, the lawyer for Sgt. Javal Davis, to question Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Undersecretary of Defense Stephen Cambone…Bergrin argued in court that Rumsfeld "approved of aggressive" interrogation techniques, and his support filtered through the chain of command and motivated officers and civilian contractors to set abusive conditions…"It's impossible to believe" that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was limited to the seven military police soldiers now charged, said Bergrin, who used a chart in court to try to trace how Washington policies trickled down to the prison in Iraq…Pohl replied: "I'm not saying there's not a link. I'm saying at this point you haven't shown me specific evidence."

And the story that still hasn’t been adequately investigated: the role of the CIA, Camp Cropper, and Delta Force involvement

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33805-2004Aug25.html
The U.S. Army's internal investigation into the abuse of detainees in Iraq cast a new spotlight yesterday on alleged wrongdoing by a government agency that has until now turned aside external inquiries -- from the military as well as the media -- into the actions of its personnel in Iraq: the CIA…In unusually harsh criticism of an allied agency, the report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay concluded that the CIA's detention and interrogation practices in Iraq "led to a loss of accountability, abuse, reduced interagency cooperation, and unhealthy mystique that . . . poisoned the atmosphere" in the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, in which detainees were mistreated…At a news conference, Fay went further by echoing the complaints of an independent panel on Tuesday that the CIA failed to cooperate fully with the military's effort to get to the bottom of the detainee-abuse allegations. He said that after explaining the direction of his inquiry and requesting access to CIA documents and personnel, "they made it very clear to me that they're going to conduct their own thorough, detailed investigation."…But nothing has emerged from the agency, which has repeatedly spurned requests for information about the involvement of its personnel in reported abuse.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-intel26aug26,1,3932472.story?coll=la-home-headlines
CIA operatives hid inmates, flouted rules and played a corrosive role at Abu Ghraib, the Iraqi facility where prisoners were brutalized and humiliated, according to a military report released Wednesday…The report does not implicate the intelligence agency in the sexually demeaning treatment of prisoners, which triggered an international scandal when photos of the abuse surfaced in April…But CIA agents often behaved as if they were above the rules and beyond reproach, ignoring bans on bringing weapons into interrogation booths and bypassing basic requirements on registering prisoners they had taken to the facility, the investigators found…Agents insisted that at least eight of their prisoners be kept off the books and out of reach of Red Cross inspectors, becoming so-called ghost detainees…The report disclosed new details about a case in which CIA operatives had interrogated a captive who was later found dead in a shower stall.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4917567
As the investigation expands, officials tell NBC News that special operations forces, including both Delta Force and Navy SEALs, were possibly also involved in abusing prisoners in Iraq…In fact, one prisoner, Mon Adel al Jamadi, died while being interrogated in Abu Ghraib by a CIA officer last November, shortly after being captured by Navy SEALs…An autopsy revealed al Jamadi had broken ribs and had been “badly beaten.” His CIA interrogator has told investigators the prisoner was injured before he was turned over to the CIA — something the Navy denies…In a second case, the CIA is being investigated for the death of Iraqi Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush near the Syrian border, also last November. The CIA says he died several days after they questioned him…A third CIA prisoner died last June in Afghanistan — also after a severe beating…Did the CIA or other intelligence agencies tell the guards to get the prisoners to talk?…Intelligence officials deny directing the abuse. But the Army’s investigation said military intelligence and “other government agencies” — the Army’s code for the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and special operations forces, “actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses.”…Now the CIA confirms that some of its officers hid prisoners from watchdog groups like the Red Cross — violations also under investigation.

What is Camp Cropper? We’ve discussed this before, but this is a good time to ask why it isn't mentioned at all

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5094207/
Several U.S. guards allege they witnessed military intelligence operatives encouraging the abuse of Iraqi prison inmates at four prisons other than Abu Ghraib…[including] Camp Cropper.

http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk07242003.html
Amnesty International turned up in Baghdad yesterday to investigate, as well as Saddam's monstrous crimes, the mass detention centre run by the Americans at Baghdad international airport in which up to 2,000 prisoners live in hot, airless tents. The makeshift jail is called Camp Cropper and there have already been two attempted breakouts…Both would-be escapees, needless to say, were swiftly shot dead by their American captors. Yesterday, Amnesty was forbidden permission to visit Camp Cropper.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1208078,00.html
While Washington has tried to portray the scandal as an isolated incident, The Observer has also heard of complaints that torture was carried out at other US facilities including Camp Cropper, a holding area for detainees close to Baghdad's airport.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5024068/
With attention focused on the seven soldiers charged with abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, U.S. military and intelligence officials familiar with the situation tell NBC News the Army’s elite Delta Force is now the subject of a Pentagon inspector general investigation into abuse against detainees…The target is a top-secret site near Baghdad’s airport. The battlefield interrogation facility known as the “BIF” is pictured in satellite photos…According to two top U.S. government sources, it is the scene of the most egregious violations of the Geneva Conventions in all of Iraq’s prisons. A place where the normal rules of interrogation don’t apply…

[That story was in May – have you heard anything more about this Inspector General’s investigation? The Fay report doesn’t address it.]

An ominous trend not being given enough attention: the reconstitution of the Committee on the Present Danger

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/theyre_baaaack.php
Those who thought the neocons were finished (me not being one of those Pollyannas) ought to take a look. What’s interesting about this new venture—actually a reconstituted version of the Great Original Neocon Cabal of the 1970s—is that finally the cabal has an address. Astonishingly, living at that address, besides the usual suspects (yes, Podhoretz, Kemp, Kirkpatrick, Meese, Woolsey) is one Sen. Joseph Lieberman, honorary co-chairman of the thing. It’s an interesting mix of creaky old Cold Warriors like Max Kampelman and Midge Decter, along with young upstarts like Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute and outright loonies like Laurie (“Saddam blew up Oklahoma City”) Mylroie.

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/08/more_cpd.html
CPD is some kind of mish-mash of Likud front and clown show and it's a bit unclear how much of each. But who's the target?

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8226
The group's very name smacks of dishonesty and a preference for propaganda over serious policy analysis. The original Committee on the Present Danger was formed in the 1950s to raise awareness of the Soviet threat, but the current outfit hearkens back more to the second CPD, formed in the late 1970s around Senator Scoop Jackson of Washington. In an eerie echo of contemporary events, the CPD 2 busied itself arguing that U.S. intelligence was underestimating Soviet strength when it was, in fact, overestimating it. Politically, the CPD 2 served as a bridge for hawkish Democrats to exit the party and join the Ronald Reagan-led GOP, but they misjudged Reagan almost as badly as they misjudged the Soviet Union. In the chief accomplishment of his presidency, Reagan ultimately rejected the CPD’s counsel, recognized the underlying feebleness of the Soviet system, and agreed to work with Mikhail Gorbachev to bring the Cold War to a successful conclusion…The ostensibly new group may not be so new after all. Its membership contains significant overlap with that of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), which co-sponsored the CPD launch event, and the two groups share office space in Washington. The FDD, in turn, began life as a pro-Israel public-relations outfit tied to the Israeli Foreign Ministry…But what does the CPD want? Its public statements are maddeningly vague, describing its primary purpose as "educat[ing] the American people about the threat posed by a global Islamist terror movement," though the existence of such a threat is hardly a well-kept secret. There are indications, though, that the group's agenda is to push the United States into conflict with Iran.

http://www.alternet.org/story/19647/
[T]he Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) re-launched itself with a bang last month, proclaiming its new mission to be "dedicated to winning the war on terror."…What it didn't say is that the billionaire philanthropists behind the CPD intend to broaden this "war on terror" beyond al-Qaeda to focus on all militant jihadist groups, including Israel's perceived enemies…On the Committee's web site, one of its members, Frank J. Gaffney Jr., who heads the Center for Security Policy, sums up the reason for the resurrection thus: "The CPD brilliantly waged a 'war of ideas' against an earlier, hostile ideology with global ambitions – Soviet Communism. Now it must help defeat today's ideological threat: Islamofascism."

Bonus item: GOP adopts hard-line platform on gay marriage, abortion rights, inviting a big convention fight

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/08/25/marriage/index.html
A panel made up largely of conservative delegates approved platform language that calls for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and opposes legal recognition of any sort for gay civil unions…The party's full platform committee was taking up the marriage plank and other planks late Wednesday, meantime seeking ways to appease Republicans who support gay rights or abortion rights without embracing their positions…"We are the party of the open door," said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who led platform deliberations on social issues.

[Yeah, as in “there’s an open door – don’t let it hit you in the ass on your way out.”]

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 9:52 AM

 
DOUBLE STANDARDS

Schlesinger report: Highlights what we knew all along – Abu Ghraib responsibility goes to the very top

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30099-2004Aug24.html
A report by a blue-ribbon panel [Rumsfeld] appointed to review the military establishment's role in creating and handling detainee abuse problems at Abu Ghraib prison said that the Iraq war plan he played a key role in shaping helped create the conditions that led to the scandal...In addition, the four-member panel, which was led by one former defense secretary, James R. Schlesinger, and included another, Harold Brown, found that Rumsfeld's slow response when the Iraqi insurgency flared last summer worsened the situation…

The panel's findings…provide new support for two central criticisms of the Rumsfeld team's approach in Iraq last year: that the invasion plan called for too few troops, half as many as were used in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and that the Pentagon failed to plan smartly for occupying the country after the United States defeated the Iraqi military.

Before the war, the Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, said publicly that he thought the invasion plan lacked sufficient manpower, and he was slapped down by the Pentagon's civilian leadership for saying so. After Baghdad fell, Rumsfeld dismissed reports of widespread looting and chaos as "untidy" signs of newfound freedom that were exaggerated by the media…One of the major factors leading to the detainee abuse, Brown said yesterday, was "the expectation by the Defense Department leadership, along with most of the rest of the administration, that following the collapse of the Iraqi regime through coalition military operations, there would be a stable successor regime that would soon emerge in Iraq."… As Schlesinger, the panel's chairman, tartly put it, the leaders of the military establishment "did look at history books. Unfortunately, it was the wrong history."

[More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/25/politics/25assess.html?ex=1251086400&en=cf94dbd2788b9db0&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-prison25aug25,1,2555106.story?coll=la-home-headlines
An investigative panel said Tuesday that ultimate blame for the abuse of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq goes all the way to the Pentagon's top civilian and military command… The panel faulted top generals, including Sanchez, for misinterpreting higher orders and issuing a series of contradictory and confusing interrogation policies. And it criticized Rumsfeld for failing to adequately assemble legal and military experts to set interrogation parameters early in the Iraq occupation…It also traced confusion over interrogation policies to a 2002 memo issued by President Bush that said Geneva Convention protections did not apply to Taliban and Al Qaeda suspects in custody. The panel said the memo led Sanchez to believe that "additional, tougher measures were warranted" in Iraq.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28862-2004Aug24.html?nav=rss_nation
Underscoring the broad scope of mistreatment, the panel said 300 abuse cases have come under investigation -- a number about three times greater than previous U.S. military statements.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2105614/fr/rss/
One point that the papers fly by—and which, in fairness, the report itself might glance over: Much of the recorded abuse didn't happen at Abu Ghraib.

And don’t miss this

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003655
I’m reading the executive summary of the Schlesinger Commission Report (PDF), fresh off the presses, and have just come across the passage in which the buck gets passed…Beginning at the bottom of page 14, the following paragraphs establish the fact that Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez sanctioned the illegal torture of prisoners in Iraq. Apparently, it took an entire month for his superior, CENTCOM commander Gen. John Abizaid, to realize what Sanchez had done. Rather than clearly forbidding interrogators from torturing their prisoners, however, Abizaid met Sanchez halfway and approved of certain interrogation procedures that were included in an outdated version of an Army field manual.

[The Executive Summary: http://news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs/dod/abughraibrpt.pdf]

So who do they go after?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30262-2004Aug24.html
The Schlesinger panel, which reviewed the Fay report and other related investigations, said disciplinary action "may be forthcoming" against Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who commanded the 800th Military Police Brigade at Abu Ghraib; and Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, which was assigned to Abu Ghraib last year.

On Kerry and Bush’s Viet Nam service: The GOP looking-glass world (thanks to Peter Suber)

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/regan-j1.html
The larger truth about Kerry’s military service is as apparent as it is deeply disturbing: it was voluntarily undertaken as a self-consciously political calculation, a nearly psychotic hunt for military honors and decorations as future political currency…Kerry wasn’t likely to get any combat citations serving in the engineering department aboard the guided missile cruiser USS GRIDLEY (CG-21)…so he volunteered for swift boat duty, where he was sure to see some action.1 What can one say about a man who eagerly seeks the opportunity to engage in the use of lethal force against others, and to have others use lethal force against him? Is there a certain bravery there? Maybe. Mostly it is just insanity, though...

Now, I’m no fan of the Shrub, but if in the course of this phony debate it becomes unavoidable to do some sort of "Vietnam era service" comparison, I think this much can be said: nothing the Shrub did or didn’t do calls his sanity into question, and I don’t think he can be cited for being insufficiently brave, either: flying combat aircraft is fairly dangerous work, no matter where it takes place…Nevertheless, the fact that Bush did not volunteer for combat duty in a strange and only vaguely human effort to secure his political future, like Kerry did, merely demonstrates that he is normal by comparison. Or at least closer to normal, a quality which can be found in modern presidential politics only in quite limited degrees, let’s face it.

[Yes, you read that correctly: the fact that Kerry volunteered for dangerous duty counts against him, while the fact that Bush avoided it actually speaks to his favor. And here’s another example…]

http://slate.msn.com/id/2105593/fr/rss/
Edwards broaches the subject by saying that he wants to talk about "what's been happening" in the campaign, and everyone immediately knows what he means. Again, he says that "it's a lie" paid for by "George Bush's friends." If Bush had "backbone and courage and leadership," he would ask his friends to pull the ads from the air, Edwards says. "Yesterday he had a chance" to do that, "because he spoke for the first time, instead of having a spokesperson speak on his behalf. Instead of standing behind a front group, he spoke on his own behalf for the first time on this subject. And what did we get? We got a typical politician's answer, a non-answer." Edwards says that "every day that this goes on" he will demand that Bush tell the group to pull its ads…Then Edwards takes advantage of the controversy to take a moment to restate Kerry's heroics. This is the big plus of the Swift ads for Kerry. Without them, the stories of how the Democratic nominee saved a man's life 30 years ago would have grown tiresome and induce eye-rolling by now. But with Kerry's service being slandered, the tale still has force. Kerry's crewmates "saw him save one of his crewmates, pull him out of a river," Edwards says. "Saw him turn his boat around in the middle of battle and drive it through enemy position in order to save his crew. Strong, decisive, courageous, is that not what we deserve in our commander-in-chief?"

In response to this tactic, the Bush campaign has been reduced to comparing the president to Bill Clinton. Tuesday morning, the campaign e-mailed a statement from campaign chairman Marc Racicot to reporters that read, in part, that the Kerry campaign is trying "to divide America by who served and how—something that John Kerry said we should never do when he declared during the 1992 campaign, 'We do not need to divide America over who served and how.'" (This despite the fact that four years ago, Bush took affront when John McCain compared him to the 42nd president. "Do not compare me to Bill Clinton," Bush said…)

The Swift Boat maneuver could still backfire: new evidence of SBVT/Bush re-elect ties

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/25/politics/campaign/25swift.html?ex=1251086400&en=750d293f0962cc04&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
The Bush campaign's top outside lawyer said he had given legal advice to the group of veterans attacking Senator John Kerry's Vietnam War record and antiwar activism in a book, television commercials and countless appearances on cable news programs…The lawyer, Benjamin L. Ginsberg, said that the group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, called him in July to ask for his help and that he agreed.

[A handy diagram: http://www.newsisfree.com/iclick/i,48816319,5879,f/]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/25/24915/0086
But since we all know this is a perception issue, not a fact-based one, let's turn to the Dallas Morning news for the last word today from columnist Ruben Navarrette:

Carry on this discussion long enough, and voters will figure out who deserves respect and who doesn't. So, if the Republicans are smart, they'll change the subject and get back to friendly terrain - making the case that President Bush has acted heroically in leading the country and the world after Sept. 11, 2001…That's a debate Republicans can win. The one they're engaged in at the moment will, sooner or later, blow up in their face…Don't get me wrong. I'm still sick of hearing about Vietnam. As someone born in 1967, I consider it a blessing to not have to carry around that baggage. And I still think this is an absolutely insane way to go about picking a president, or even a vice president…But that doesn't mean I'm anxious to rewrite history so that the valiant are painted as cowards and the cowardly as valiant.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=669&ncid=669&e=1&u=/usnw/20040824/pl_usnw/crew_foias_white_house_contacts_with_swift_boat_veterans_group137_xml
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA) with the White House asking it to detail its contacts with individuals connected to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT)…CREW asked the White House to release information regarding contacts between the Executive Office of the President and: any member of SBVT; SBVT donors Harlan Crow, Bob J. Perry and Paraclete Armor & Equipment; Merrie Spaeth, who has coordinated the public relations efforts of SBVT; any employee of Stevens Reed Curcio & Poltholm, the advertising agency that has made SBVT's commercials; Rupprath and Associates, the detective agency that gathered the SBVT affidavits; SBVT fundraiser The McIntosh Company; and Kenneth Cordier, a former member of the Bush campaign's veterans steering committee.

Oh, THAT Ben Ginsburg

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004571.php
Hmm. The front-page story everywhere today is that a top lawyer for the Bush/Cheney campaign has, at the same time, been advising the infamous 527 Swift Boat Vets group. The lawyer at the center of the story, Ben Ginsberg, says that everything he's done is technically legal…But what's also true is that Ginsberg himself has attacked what he characterizes as the impropriety of individuals holding dual roles with campaigns and 527s.

An article that appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer just two weeks ago included this bit about Ginsberg: "Ben Ginsberg, a legal adviser to the Bush campaign, specifically condemned the dual roles played by Democrats Harold Ickes and Bill Richardson, who had official roles at the convention and also within prominent friendly 527s. 'They're over the coordination line,' Ginsberg said of Ickes and Richardson. 'The whole notion of cutting off links between public officeholders and soft-money groups just got exploded.'"

To make things even better, Ginsberg doesn't just advise the Swift Boat Guys -- a role he will no doubt seriously downplay over the next few days. He serves as the official chief counsel to Progress for America, another 527 that, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, exists to "form 'issue truth squads' that respond to Democratic attacks on President Bush."…I know these guys are shameless, but still.

Rove’s fingerprints

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/08/25/kerry/index.html
Wayne Slater isn't surprised at all. Slater, the veteran Dallas Morning News reporter who coauthored "Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential," said Tuesday that the Swift Boat Veterans attack was entirely predictable. Slater has watched Karl Rove work for nearly two decades, and he said the "mark of Rove" in a campaign is always the same: Aim nasty attacks right at your opponent's strength, but keep your own fingerprints off them… If the Rove tactic is so successful, why haven't the Democrats emulated it? Why not round up men who served -- actually served -- in the Texas Air National Guard and have them appear in an ad questioning Bush's service? "It's a good idea," said MoveOn's Eli Pariser, and he actually sounded surprised by it. But then he stopped himself. "I think we're mostly going to focus on issue stuff, on Iraq, on the big places where Bush has failed."

Why not fight fire with fire? Why not push the "deserter" issue? Why not work harder to find witnesses who can talk about Bush's pre-sobriety past? "That's never been our approach," Pariser said. "We've been fighting fire with water, which is the truth to these allegations."…Slater acknowledged that Democrats have not been as successful at attacking as Republicans have, and McMahon agreed. "I think Democrats always naively believe that elections are going to be about issues, and Republicans understand that presidential elections are about character, and issues are relevant only to the extent that they provide a more complete context for a person's character," he said.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/08/24/MNGF78DCN01.DTL
Four years ago, as George Bush struggled in the polls, supporters of his bid for the Republican presidential nomination unleashed a ferocious attack on rival John McCain, questioning his commitment to veterans and his fitness to serve…After the charges took root, Bush distanced himself from the veterans group that made the attacks, called the Arizona senator's service "noble'' and cruised to a nomination-saving victory in the South Carolina primary…Monday, in a series of events that some observers say are eerily familiar, Bush distanced himself from a veterans group running fierce attacks on John Kerry's military record and called his rival's service in Vietnam "admirable.

Let’s see, how to say this delicately? John O’Neill is a lying a**hole

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/this-week-with-john-oneill.html
JOHN O'NEILL: The whole country's watching him avoid the question. You asked about Cambodia. How do I know he's not in Cambodia? I was on the same river, George. I was there two months after him. Our patrol area ran to Sedek, it was 50 miles from Cambodia. There isn't any watery border. The Mekong River's like the Mississippi. There were gunboats stationed right up there to stop people from coming. And our boats didn't go north of, only slightly north of Sedek. So it was a made up story. He's told it over 50 times, George, that was on the floor of the Senate. He wrote articles about it, it was a malicious story because it painted all the guys above him, all of the commanding officers, in effect, as war criminals, that had ordered him into a neutral country, it was a lie.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/oneill-in-cambodia_24.html
CNN's Newsnight just played the O'Neill-Nixon tape, with text graphic on screen:

O'NEILL: I was in Cambodia, sir. I worked along the border on the water.

NIXON: In a swift boat?

O'NEILL: Yes, sir.

Swift Boat liars call Rood’s article supporting Kerry “politically motivated”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003326

The (mostly) shameful performance of the press in all this

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/08/24/mustreads/index.html
In an analysis, the New York Times' Alessandra Stanley blames the "fog of cable" for much of the confusion over the accusations of the SBVT against Kerry. While the charges leveled against Kerry are easily checked against the record: Military documents, eyewitness accounts and the previous, contradictory statements of many of those now condemning Kerry, it's never quite that simple on cable TV, where one screaming Republican vs. one screaming Democrat somehow is supposed to equal balance, even if the truth is never ferreted out and the scurrilous charges remain unchecked…Stanley writes: "Facts, half-truths and passionately tendentious opinions get tumbled together on screen like laundry in an industrial dryer -- without the softeners of fact-checking or reflection. Somehow, on all-cable news stations -- CNN as well as Fox News -- a story that rises or falls on basic and mostly verifiable facts blurs into just another developing news sensation alongside the latest Utah kidnapping or the Scott Peterson murder trial.

[More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/politics/campaign/24watch.html]

On the plus side, USA Today begins to turn the focus back onto Bush’s National Guard “duty”

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-08-23-bush-service_x.htm

This paper, meanwhile, is a LITTLE confused

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003324

From the Bloomington, Indiana Herald Times: "Bush calls anti-Kerry ad 'false and libelous."

[Don’t bother with the link – they’ve pulled the article now]

The appalling mess that was the Coalition Provisional Authority

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003649
I came across an August 6 report from Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies that provides some insight:

These figures for “trained” manpower, and the GAO analysis, make an amazing contrast to the new data that the CPA provided on 13 July 2004…The end result was a far less honest reporting system, and one that grossly exaggerated the actual level of training…There is nothing unique about this tendency to issue exaggerated statistics by omitting meaningful categories and definitions, and using meaningless measures of success. From the start, the CPA was a model of obfuscation, omission, and false imagery in every aspect of its public status reports...

Earlier in the report, Cordesman describes CPA reporting on the situation in Iraq as consisting of "half-truths, propaganda, and self-delusions."…It's not possible to succeed in any difficult endeavor unless the people charged with making it work -- meaning the president, the congress, and, ultimately, the American people -- have a clear-eyed view of where the problems are. That means that if you want to succeed, you need to be able to admit where you're failing and where you're falling short…Unfortunately, the imperatives of the president's reelection point in the opposite direction…[T]he president desperately needs to make people think the reconstruction effort is succeeding. But subverting the information-gathering and information-dissemination processes in order to make it appear successful is antithetical to making it actually succeed. As the campaign gets ever-hotter -- and as a perilous security situation makes it harder and harder for reporters on the ground to gain access to independent information -- there's every reason to believe the information situation will get worse, not better.

The Feith/Zell quagmire – why we have failed in the Middle East (warning: real journalists at work)

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001049.html

More testimony in the Plame investigation

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28286-2004Aug24.html?nav=rss_nation
A federal judge yesterday canceled a contempt-of-court order against Time magazine and one of its reporters, Matthew Cooper, after Cooper was interviewed by Justice Department prosecutors investigating who leaked the identity of a covert CIA operative to journalists…Officials at Time said Cooper, who had been threatened with jail time for refusing to respond to a grand jury subpoena, gave a deposition Monday about his conversations with a single anonymous source -- I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Cheney…Time officials said Libby was the only source of Cooper's that special counsel prosecutors asked about.

Bush’s second term: the real agenda

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/08/25/bush_second_term/index.html
President Bush's plans for a second term threaten a devastating series of far-reaching challenges to the viability of the Democratic Party itself. Under Bush's slogan of an "ownership society," the Republicans intend a long-term effort, using changes in Medicare, Social Security and taxes to pit better-off and worse-off Democrats against each other, offering all-but-irresistible incentives for some to desert the others -- and any progressive national coalition. Congressional Democrats reeling from the impact of the last four years of Republican government in the White House and Congress (apart from the brief Democratic-controlled Senate in part of 2001-02) will find no respite in the platform's subtext about the party-splitting wedges ahead. A second-term Bush agenda will constantly impale Democrats on the dilemma of abandoning their poorer, sicker, older and minority groups, or seeing their better-off, healthier and younger members lured off to the other party. If it sounds like a political nightmare for the Democrats, that's because that's what it is planned to be.

[This is to say nothing about redistricting, changes to voting laws, judicial appointments, and other changes designed to lock in a permanent Republican majority. Any Nader supporters reading this?]

Why the Bush cartel can’t afford to lose

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/opinion/24krugman.html
Almost a year ago, on the second anniversary of 9/11, I predicted "an ugly, bitter campaign - probably the nastiest of modern American history." The reasons I gave then still apply. President Bush has no positive achievements to run on. Yet his inner circle cannot afford to see him lose: if he does, the shroud of secrecy will be lifted, and the public will learn the truth about cooked intelligence, profiteering, politicization of homeland security and more.

But recent attacks on John Kerry have surpassed even my expectations. There's no mystery why. Mr. Kerry isn't just a Democrat who might win: his life story challenges Mr. Bush's attempts to confuse tough-guy poses with heroism, and bombast with patriotism.

One of the wonders of recent American politics has been the ability of Mr. Bush and his supporters to wrap their partisanship in the flag. Through innuendo and direct attacks by surrogates, men who assiduously avoided service in Vietnam, like Dick Cheney (five deferments), John Ashcroft (seven deferments) and George Bush (a comfy spot in the National Guard, and a mysterious gap in his records), have questioned the patriotism of men who risked their lives and suffered for their country: John McCain, Max Cleland and now John Kerry.

How have they been able to get away with it? The answer is that we have been living in what Roger Ebert calls "an age of Rambo patriotism." As the carnage and moral ambiguities of Vietnam faded from memory, many started to believe in the comforting clichés of action movies, in which the tough-talking hero is always virtuous and the hand-wringing types who see complexities and urge the hero to think before acting are always wrong, if not villains…After 9/11, Mr. Bush had a choice: he could deal with real threats, or he could play Rambo. He chose Rambo.

Bonus item: Great archive of classic presidential campaign TV ads

http://livingroomcandidate.movingimage.us/index.php



- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:59 AM

 
HELPING THE PRESS DO THEIR JOB

This is simple, guys: He doesn’t mean what he’s saying. It makes a good sound bite, but it doesn’t answer the question, and it isn’t even a true statement of his views. It is simply a way of changing the subject from his position on the Swift Boat ads to Kerry’s position on 527s. And like crows who follow whatever is shiny that is put in front of them, you get led away from the real issue (again)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/23/bush.kerry/index.html
One reporter cited the swift boat ads and asked, "When you say that you want to stop all --" "All of them," Bush responded. "That means that ad, every other ad. Absolutely. I don't think we ought to have 527s."

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003620
MR. McCLELLAN: The President has condemned all of these ads. And when he says he condemns them all, he means it…

Q But does he condemn the actual charge within the ad?

MR. McCLELLAN: That's why I said --

Q Can I assume that, then?

MR. McCLELLAN: He condemns all of these ads --

Q So I can assume he condemns the content.

MR. McCLELLAN: Deb, he condemns all of these ads --

Q -- and the content?

MR. McCLELLAN: Let me answer your question. [HA!!] The President condemns all of these ads. And he's been very clear in that. When he says he condemns all of the ads, he means all of the ads…

Q He's condemning the content of the ad, as well?

MR. McCLELLAN: He's calling for a stop to all of these ads…

Q So can we assume that he's also denouncing the content of the ads?

MR. McCLELLAN: You've heard what he said -- he condemns all of the ads, Deb. He could not be more clear in saying that -- and when he says something, he means it…The President has been consistent from the very beginning. When he signed the campaign finance reforms into law, he thought he got rid of all of this activity and these ads. And he believes --

Q So you're condemning these ads, but not --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, he believes we should get rid of all of this activity and ads by these shadowy groups.

Q But he's not denouncing the specific charge within the ads?

MR. McCLELLAN: How many times are you going to ask the same question, Deb?

Q You didn't answer.

[Can we get a yes or no answer here? Was he criticizing the particular ad, or not?]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/23/politics/campaign/23CND-BUSH.html?ex=1251000000&
Mr. Bush, speaking at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., stopped short of condemning the contents of the ad, as the Kerry camp has called for. He also did not address an assertion made in a new Kerry television ad that the veteran's group is a "front group" for the Bush campaign.

http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200435#658
Nice try, Mr. President, but that doesn't quite cut it. All he's doing is repeating his previous statement. He isn't disavowing the claims in the ad or saying it should come off the air because it contains false charges against Kerry. He's only saying it should come off the air because it's an independent ad (and can a single person in America say with a straight face that this would be Bush's position if Republican 527s were outspending Democratic ones?).

THIS is the real story

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/politics/campaign/24swift.html?pagewanted=1&hp
But the White House quickly moved to insist that Mr. Bush had not meant in any way to single out the advertisement run by veterans opposed to Mr. Kerry.

[This tells you all you need to know about the story. Not only does he refuse to condemn the ad, his people bend over backwards to stress that he wasn’t condemning the ad, lest you think that his global denunciation of 527s was in any way a refutation of the ones who support him.
More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_08_22_digbysblog_archive.html#109333073263906834]

Or, as Mark Kleiman summarizes it

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/election_2004_/2004/08/shorter_george_w_bush.php
I'll ask my friends to stop lying about John Kerry, if he will ask his friends to stop telling the truth about me.

Does Bush really mean we should ban all 527 ads?

http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002382.html
“I can’t be more plain about it,” Bush said. “I hope my opponent joins me in condemning these activities of the 527s (political groups that sponsor to ads). I think they’re bad for the system.”…Why does the Bush campaign object to ads that the Oregon Grocery Association might run? What are they doing that is objectionable?…Sorry to keep harping on this, but it’s pretty incredible that a serious candidate would talk like this. I doubt that five people in a hundred would agree with Bush’s position if it was presented in a cooler-headed context. The right of people to organize and speak out is right at the heart of the First Amendment…And yet, this has been Bush’s talking point: ban all the ads from unregulated groups. The Sierra Club. The Club for Growth. The League of Conservation Voters. GOPAC. The National Association of Realtors. They’re all bad for the system, and none of them should be allowed to advertise at all. Bush thinks that the government should have this kind of power; he claims that he thought that he had already banned these groups from speaking...Incredible.

[More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003626]

Yes, amazingly, Bush now says he thought McCain-Feingold DID ban 527s — which tells you he didn’t even read the bill he was signing

http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002362.html
[Scott] McClellan also says “the President thought he got rid of all of this unregulated soft money activity when he signed the bipartisan campaign finance reforms into law.” Incredibly, he seems to be making the argument that Bush doesn’t understand the laws he signs. Even I know that campaign finance reform did nothing of the sort…But let’s take McClellan seriously for a second. Are we supposed to believe that Bush thought he was signing away the right of Americans to engage in “unregulated soft money activity”? I mean, we Timberites pay money for our bandwidth. We engage in political speech. And we’re completely unregulated…Did Bush think that he was outlawing this?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003629
My colleague Matthew Yglesias rightly notes that President Bush's denunciation of 527s is hypocritical and self-contradictory. This is especially true given…that the campaign finance law the president signed just a few years ago deliberately avoided closing the 527 loophole.

What Bush said when he signed the bill

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/free-speech-bad-for-system.html
However, the bill does have flaws. Certain provisions present serious constitutional concerns…I believe individual freedom to participate in elections should be expanded, not diminished; and when individual freedoms are restricted, questions arise under the First Amendment…I also have reservations about the constitutionality of the broad ban on issue advertising, which restrains the speech of a wide variety of groups on issues of public import in the months closest to an election.

[Yes, that is exactly the opposite of what he saying now.]

And a primer for reporters who let claims like “ban all 527’s” go by without comment

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/free-speech-bad-for-system.html
...for the reporters who are slow:

All ads are not the same.

Not all negative ads are unfair.

Not all negative ads contain explicit lies or are designed to be explicitly misleading.

No matter what your general belief about campaign finance laws, Bush has apparently adopted the extreme position which would deny any "outside group" the right to make any political ads, in contrast to his previous positions on this subject.

Many "outside groups," such as the MoveOn PAC, are subject to stringent disclosure rules.

Moreover, Bush didn’t seem to have any problem with 527’s in the past (when they were helping him)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004564.php

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003629

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003630

Josh Marshall sums it up

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003315
He won't say it. He won't embrace it. He won't denounce it. He won't say he doesn't have an opinion. He won't say he won't get drawn into the debate. Nothing. He hides behind words and behind his friends.

As it happens, as Atrios notes, this isn't even Bush's position -- at least it wasn't until it became political advantageous. He opposed the provisions he's now hanging his hat on.

But of course the bigger point is that President Bush won't denounce the ads…Everyone in the country seems to have an opinion on this -- just go see the chat shows, the opinion columns and talk radio. Everybody has an opinion but George W. Bush, the man at the center of it all…The reason, as we said earlier, is that the president is a coward -- a fact for which this dust-up constitutes merely an example…President Bush's moral cowardice -- not his physical cowardice or bravery, of which we know little and which is simply a side issue -- is the essence of this campaign.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-swiftpress24aug24,1,3137952.story?coll=la-home-headlines
The technique President Bush is using against John F. Kerry was perfected by his father against Michael Dukakis in 1988, though its roots go back at least to Sen. Joseph McCarthy. It is: Bring a charge, however bogus. Make the charge simple…But make sure the supporting details are complicated and blurry enough to prevent easy refutation…Then sit back and let the media do your work for you. Journalists have to report the charges, usually feel obliged to report the rebuttal, and often even attempt an analysis or assessment. But the canons of the profession prevent most journalists from saying outright: These charges are false. As a result, the voters are left with a general sense that there is some controversy over Dukakis' patriotism or Kerry's service in Vietnam. And they have been distracted from thinking about real issues (like the war going on now) by these laboratory concoctions…

No informed person can seriously believe that Kerry fabricated evidence to win his military medals in Vietnam. His main accuser has been exposed as having said the opposite at the time, 35 years ago. Kerry is backed by almost all those who witnessed the events in question, as well as by documentation. His accusers have no evidence except their own dubious word…Not limited by the conventions of our colleagues in the newsroom, we can say it outright: These charges against John Kerry are false. Or at least, there is no good evidence that they are true. George Bush, if he were a man of principle, would say the same thing.

No connection?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003322
If President Bush really wants to tell the Swift Boat group's funder, Bob Perry, that he doesn't like the ads he's paying for, maybe he can bring it up at the fundraiser Perry is cohosting in New York next week…President Bush, Karl Rove, and Tom DeLay are all scheduled to be there.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/politics/campaign/24swift.html?pagewanted=1&hp
The president spoke on a day when Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, in another indication of its web of ties to the Republican Party, acknowledged that a woman who helped set it up and works for it is an officer of the Majority Leader's Fund, a political action committee affiliated with the former House majority leader Dick Armey of Texas…The name of the woman, Susan Arceneaux, is given as the contact person on the post office box that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth lists as its address. She is treasurer of the Majority Leader's Fund. Records show that like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group receives significant financing from Bob Perry, a Texan who has long supported Mr. Bush, and his company, as well as Sam and Charles Wyly, prominent Texas Republican donors. Sam Wyly, under the name "Republicans for Clean Air,'' took out advertisements in 2000 criticizing the environmental record of Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona…Mr. Perry has donated $200,000 to the Swift boat group, records show, and Merrie Spaeth, a Republican strategist who has been advising the Swift boat group, was a spokeswoman for Sam Wyly's advertising campaign in 2000.

Turning the spotlight from Kerry back to Bush/Cheney

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8388
The Washington Post should not even be running such a story…delving into the remotest arcana about what really happened on the Bay Hap River on March 13, 1969 -- in the first place. Len Downie and the paper's other editors would undoubtedly argue that the story represents the Post's tenacity for getting to the truth, without fear or favor. But what the story actually proves is that a bunch of liars who have in the past contradicted their own current statements can, if their lies are outrageous enough and if they have enough money, control the media agenda and get even the most respected media outlets in the country to focus on picayune "truths" while missing the larger story.

And the larger story here is clear: John Kerry volunteered for the Navy, volunteered to go to Vietnam, and then, when he was sitting around Cam Ranh Bay bored with nothing to do, requested the most dangerous duty a Naval officer could be given. He saved a man's life. He risked his own every time he went up into the Mekong Delta. He did more than his country asked. In fact he didn't even wait for his country to ask.

George W. Bush spent those same years in a state of dissolution at Yale, and would go on, as we know, to plot how to get out of going to Southeast Asia. On that subject, here's a choice quote. "I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment," Bush told the Dallas Morning News in 1990. "Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes."…Let's parse that quotation phrase for phrase…[H]is words begin from the presumption that actually going to Vietnam was absolutely not an option. The quote is entirely about how to avoid going. He wasn't prepared to damage his hearing intentionally for the sake of securing a deferment (he probably meant a 4-F classification and confused the two). And he wasn't willing to go to Canada. So he took the third option, the Air National Guard. And note how the choice was about bettering himself, not about thinking of a way to best render service that this child of privilege might -- had he been possessed of the moral fiber and sense of duty of, say, John Kerry -- have considered his obligation, especially considering that, on paper at least, he supported the war.

Dick Cheney is another who, on paper at least, supported the war. But we know Cheney's story: A series of deferments going back to 1963, when he was a student at Casper College in Wyoming…Everyone knows Cheney's quote, delivered to the Senate committee that was vetting him for service as George H.W. Bush's Defense Secretary, that he "had other priorities" than going to fight for his country. But he made another comment at that hearing that's less known and more damning: He said he "would have obviously been happy to serve had I been called." That, as John Nichols notes in his recent book Dick, is not just an obfuscation or a tap dance; it's a lie. He was called, and he ducked.

So now we're having a debate about whether the man who did the honorable thing may have embellished his record a little (although nothing in the documentary record suggests he did this), while we have two cowards who did everything they could to stay miles away from the place Kerry demanded he be sent. This is the fundamental truth. And while yes, Kerry has made his war service a centerpiece in a way that Bush and Cheney for obvious reasons did not, is it really Kerry who deserves scrutiny for how he behaved in 1968 and 1969? Why shouldn't the major media be doing comparisons of how Kerry, Bush, and Cheney passed those years? Why shouldn't The Washington Post be devoting 2,700 words to a comprehensive look at Cheney's deferments? Nichols identifies three young men from Casper who did die in Vietnam: Robert Cardenas, Walter Elmer Handy, and Douglas Tyrone Patrick. Did one of them die because Cheney had "other priorities"?

But The Washington Post won't do that, because there exists no Vietnam Veterans for the Truth About Deferments, financed by wealthy Democratic donors and out peddling its wares. Which is the moral of the story. Our media can sort through the facts in front of their nose and determine, at least some of the time, who's lying and who's not. But they are completely incapable of taking a step back and describing the larger reality…You'd think a press corps that has now officially acknowledged that it was had by this administration on the pre-Iraq war propaganda would think twice before letting itself get used one more time.

And while we’re helping the press do their job, here is a little tidbit called “Ten Lies About Bush’s National Guard Service.” It just took a few minutes to put together. I only chose whoppers where there is NO DOUBT that they are false or, at the very least, less than the entire truth.

(1) Says “I don't believe I received special treatment” to get into the Texas National Guard
http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/04/08/10_military.html

(2) He volunteered to go to Viet Nam (via Marc Racicot)
http://www.hillnews.com/marshall/022604.aspx

(3) Says he was in the Air Force
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_08_08_digbysblog_archive.html#109235273468488250

(4) Says he served out his term with the Texas Air National Guard
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_08_08_digbysblog_archive.html#109234114476052192

(5) Says that after completing training in 1970, “I continued flying with my unit for the next several years”
http://www.members.tripod.com/~pearly-abraham/htmls/GWB2.html

(6) Says he went to Alabama to "finish up his commitment”
http://www.calpundit.com/archives/003303.html

(7) Says he attended military drills in Alabama
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0205-10.htm

(8) Says, "I was there on temporary assignment and fulfilled my weekends at one period of time. I made up some missed weekends. I can't remember what I did, but I wasn't flying because they didn't have the same airplanes.”
http://uggabugga.blogspot.com/2003_01_12_uggabugga_archive.html#87590816

(9) Says he “chose” not to take his flight physical
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/006177.html

(10) Says he has released all of his military records
http://www.awolbush.com/

[More National Guard lies: http://www.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=165]

Now the GOP is telling the press that they plan to lie before they actually do it (and they will still get away with it)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003314
[NYT] Republicans said they would seek to turn any disruptions to their advantage, by portraying protests by even independent activists as Democratic-sanctioned displays of disrespect for a sitting president.

[H]ere we have Nagourney's sources telling him they plan to make the case for a demonstrably false proposition.

[Also caught by Mathew Gross: http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000557.html
Bush aides happily admit they are going to LIE and claim that American citizens they know to be independent are working with the Democrats. And the Times doesn't even blink.]

More GOP plain speaking about their intentions, while the press keeps reporting their lies at face value

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003316
From The Financial Times, December 9th, 2003...

In the early going, when it appeared Mr Kerry would emerge as the frontrunner, one senior Republican commented wryly: "By the time the White House finishes with Kerry, no one will know what side of the (Vietnam) war he fought on."

And from Bush campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, yesterday on Meet the Press...

The fact is this campaign is unprecedented in our praise of our opponent's service during Vietnam.

Yet another independent eyewitness comes forward to corroborate Kerry’s record

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003313

On Kerry’s “superficial” wounds: has anybody bothered to look up what a Purple Heart actually signifies?

http://slate.msn.com/id/2105532/fr/rss/

In the future, Bush attacks on Kerry’s proposed cuts to the intelligence budget will have to carry this footnote

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_08_22_atrios_archive.html#109331802505119150
President Bush's nominee to be the director of central intelligence, Rep. Porter J. Goss, sponsored legislation that would have cut intelligence personnel by 20 percent in the late 1990s…The Bush reelection campaign has been blasting Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry as deeply irresponsible for proposing intelligence cuts at the same time. A Bush campaign ad released on Aug. 13 carried a headline: "John Kerry . . . proposed slashing Intelligence Budget 6 Billion Dollars."…But the cuts Goss supported are larger than those proposed by Kerry…

The upcoming Schlesinger Committee report: bad news for the Bushies (and something else to talk about besides swift boats)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/politics/24abuse.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position
A high-level outside panel reviewing American military detention operations has concluded that leadership failures at the highest levels of the Pentagon, Joint Chiefs of Staff and military command in Iraq contributed to an environment in which detainees were abused at Abu Ghraib prison and other facilities, Defense officials said Monday…The report, set to be released Tuesday, does not explicitly blame Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for the misconduct or for ordering policies that condoned or encouraged it. But the panel implicitly faults Mr. Rumsfeld, as well as his top civilian and military aides, for not exercising sufficient oversight over a confusing array of policies and interrogation practices at detention centers in Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq, officials said.

[The Bush response? I can write it for you now: “We are not focused on the past and laying blame. We are focused on learning from what happened and guaranteeing that it never happens again”]

Bush Co.’s failure to deal with Boykin’s outrageous comments (Why? Because he’s a hero to the people whose support they need – people who LIKE to hear their officials say “my god is bigger than yours,” and think that speaks the truth)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24997-2004Aug22.html

Those damn French, always screwing us up

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_08_24_bestof.html#109332442472074832
Thanks to Atrios for retrieving this out of the memory hole:

So Ambassador Bremer has been talking about a seven-step plan: constitution, followed then by elections and then by the transfer of sovereignty. And it makes perfectly good sense to do this as soon as possible, but to do it in a way that is responsible. And I think that the -- as all of us have said, the French plan, which would somehow try to transfer sovereignty to an un-elected group of people, just isn't workable.

-- Condi Rice, 9/22/2003

New Plame investigation rumor. Good news: someone is supposedly singing to the investigators and three Bushies are in the sling (reportedly including Scooter Libby). Bad news: charges won’t be filed until after the election

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/23/16503/6468

Bush lacks a clear economic plan (but no worry – he’ll get around to specifics during the convention…or maybe right afterwards, or perhaps during the debates, but soon, for sure)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27055-2004Aug23.html
High oil prices, a stagnant labor market -- and the lack of a more forceful response from the Bush campaign -- have sparked worry among White House allies that the administration's economic team has been too content cheerleading in defense of past policies instead of setting more detailed plans for a second term…Responding to such pleas, the Bush campaign recently began advertising the "ownership agenda," with the president intoning, "One of the most important parts of a reform agenda is to encourage people to own something: own their own home, own their own business, own their own health care plan or own a piece of their retirement."…But the advertisement did little to quell the concern. Voters, in fact, received few details.

Bonus item: Judge reopens filing in Louisiana Fifth District to allow others to run against Alexander. Now let’s find someone who can beat him…

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/08/23/alexander/index.html
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:16 AM

 
TURNING THE BOAT AROUND

This Swift Boat nonsense can still backfire against Bush, big time, if it leads to any of these three outcomes:

1. A renewed scrutiny on Bush’s own National Guard record, his refusal to release all relevant information, etc. We’ll see how “even-handed” the press actually is.

2. A historical review of how Bush has repeatedly used surrogates to slime his opponents, while posturing as someone above the fray — ordinary people can understand this sort of thing, and they won’t like it.

3. Pulling McCain back into the dispute and forcing him to take sides.

Will these things happen? The new Kerry ad (“Old Tricks”) makes progress on #2 and #3 — but on a day when the Swift Boat issue was all over the Sunday talk shows, I didn’t see Kerry’s ad mentioned or clipped even once, while the new ad from the Swift Boat Liars was run at least a dozen times.

On prospect #1

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004-2_archives/000019.html
Digby reminds us of what George W. Bush did while John Kerry was on the Mekong, and how Bush characterizes his actions…And Ken Layne writes that the Bushies have gone totally insane to have launched all this talk about Vietnam

http://www.juancole.com/2004_08_01_juancole_archive.html#109324799869056024
But to address the substance of this Big Lie is to risk falling into its logic. The true absurdity of the entire situation is easily appreciated when we consider that George W. Bush never showed any bravery at all at any point in his life. He has never lived in a war zone. If some of John Kerry's wounds were superficial, Bush received no wounds. (And, a piece of shrapnel in the forearm that caused only a minor wound would have killed had it hit an eye and gone into the brain; the shrapnel being in your body demonstrates you were in mortal danger and didn't absent yourself from it. That is the logic of the medal). Kerry saved a man's life while under fire. Bush did no such thing.

What was Bush doing with his youth? He was drinking. He was drinking like a fish, every night, into the wee hours. For decades. He gave no service to anyone, risked nothing, and did not even slack off efficiently…We all know by now that Bush did not even do his full service with the Texas Air National Guard, absenting himself to work on the Alabama senate campaign of Winton "Red" Blount. Whether he was actually AWOL during this stint is unclear. But it is clear that not only did Bush slack off on his National Guard service, but he also slacked off from his campaign work…This little-noted interview with Blount's nephew Murph Archibald, which appeared on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered on March 30, 2004, gives a devastating insight into what it was like to have to suffer through Bush in that period.

All Things Considered (8:00 PM ET) - NPR
March 30, 2004 Tuesday

This campaign season, there have been questions about whether George W. Bush fulfilled his obligations to the National Guard as a young lieutenant in the early 1970s. For weeks, reporters scoured Alabama in search of pilots or anyone who might have remembered seeing Mr. Bush at the time he was serving in the National Guard there. There is one place in Alabama where Mr. Bush was present nearly every day: the headquarters in Montgomery of US Senate candidate Winton "Red" Blount. President Bush has always said that working for Blount was the reason he transferred to the Alabama Air National Guard. NPR's Wade Goodwyn has this report about Mr. Bush's time on that campaign.

WADE GOODWYN reporting:

In 1972, Baba Groom was a smart, funny young woman smack-dab in the middle of an exciting US Senate campaign. Groom was Republican Red Blount's scheduler, and in that job, she was the hub in the campaign wheel. Ask her about the handsome young man from Texas, and she remembers him 32 years later like it was yesterday.

Ms. BABA GROOM (Former Campaign Worker): He would wear khaki trousers and some old jacket. He was always ready to go out on the road…

GOODWYN: The candidate Mr. Bush was working for, Red Blount, had gotten rich in Alabama in the construction business…Blount became friends and tennis partners with Mr. Bush's father, then Congressman Bush. That was how 26-year-old Lieutenant Bush came to Montgomery, at his father's urging…It was Mr. Bush's job to organize the Republican county chairpersons in the 67 Alabama counties…Murph Archibald is Red Blount's nephew by marriage, and in 1972, he was coming off a 15-month tour in Vietnam in the infantry. Archibald says that in a campaign full of dedicated workers, Mr. Bush was not one of them.

Mr. MURPH ARCHIBALD (Nephew of Red Blount): Well, I was coming in early in the morning and leaving in mid-evenings. Ordinarily, George would come in around noon; he would ordinarily leave around 5:30 or 6:00 in the evening.

GOODWYN: Archibald says that two months before the election, in September of '72, Red Blount's campaign manager came to him and asked that he quietly take over Mr. Bush's job because the campaign materials were not getting out to the counties.

Mr. ARCHIBALD: George certainly didn't seem to have any concerns about my taking over this work with the campaign workers there. My overall impression was that he didn't seem as interested in the campaign as the other people who were working at the state headquarters.

GOODWYN: Murph Archibald says that at first, he didn't know that Mr. Bush was serving in the Air National Guard. After he found out from somebody else, Archibald attempted to talk to Mr. Bush about it. The president was a lieutenant and Archibald had been a lieutenant, too; he figured they had something to talk about.

Mr. ARCHIBALD: George didn't have any interest at all in talking about the military. In fact, when I broached the subject with him, he simply changed the subject. He wasn't unpleasant about it, but he just changed the subject and wouldn't talk about it.

GOODWYN: Far from Texas and Washington, DC, Mr. Bush enjoyed his freedom. He dated a beautiful young woman working on the campaign. He went out in the evenings and had a good time. In fact, he left the house he rented in such disrepair--with damage to the walls and a chandelier destroyed--that the Montgomery family who owned it still grumble about the unpaid repair bill. Archibald says Mr. Bush would come into the office and, in a friendly way, offer up stories about the drinking he'd done the night before, kind of as a conversation starter.

Mr. ARCHIBALD: People have different ways of starting the days in any office. They're going to talk about their kids, they're going to talk about football, they're going to talk about the weather. And this was simply his opening gambit; he would start talking about that he had been out late the night before drinking.

GOODWYN: Archibald says the frequency with which Mr. Bush discussed the subject was off-putting to him.

Mr. ARCHIBALD: I mean, at that time, I was 28; George would have been 25 or 26. And I thought it was really unusual that someone in their mid-20s would initiate conversations, particularly in the context of something as serious as a US senatorial campaign, by talking about their drinking the night before. I thought it unusual and, frankly, inappropriate.

GOODWYN: According to Archibald, Mr. Bush would also sometimes tell stories about his days at Yale in New Haven, and how whenever he got pulled over for erratic driving, he was let go after the officers discovered he was the grandson of a Connecticut US senator. Archibald, a middle-class Alabama boy--who, by the way, is now a registered Democrat--didn't like that story.

Mr. ARCHIBALD: He told us whenever he was stopped, as soon as the law enforcement found out that he was the grandson of Prescott Bush, they would let him go. And he would always laugh about that.

On prospect #2

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/22/bush.kerry.ads/index.html
The Bush campaign rejected accusations Sunday from Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign that it was using "tired, old smear tactics" by letting backers attack Kerry's Vietnam War record through an independent group…"The fact is this campaign is unprecedented in our praise of our opponent's service during Vietnam," Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000558.html
Mr. Kerry's advisers said they believed that voters would turn against Mr. Bush if they are convinced that he was behind what several described as unethical behavior. A senior Kerry adviser, Tad Devine, said in an interview that there had been a number of instances over the years in which outside groups had run damaging advertisements against Democrats in races involving Mr. Bush or his father…"When those connections are made in this campaign and are imputed to this president, it's going to be a very bad thing for the president," said Mr. Devine.

Rolling out Bob Dole (a man who long ago was proven to say anything for partisan gain)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/bob-dole-history.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003310
Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman: "The fact is this campaign is unprecedented in our praise of our opponent's service during Vietnam."…Apropos of Mehlman's Orwellian remark, who sent Bob Dole onto the Sunday shows today?…Dole doesn't make such appearances not under direction. He's a party man, a partisan.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003309
Today Bob Dole suggested that one or more of John Kerry's Purple Hearts may have been fraudulent in some way because they were for "superficial wounds."…Dole knows better…In a 1988 campaign-trail autobiography, here's how Dole described the incident that earned him his first Purple Heart: "As we approached the enemy, there was a brief exchange of gunfire. I took a grenade in hand, pulled the pin, and tossed it in the direction of the farmhouse. It wasn't a very good pitch (remember, I was used to catching passes, not throwing them). In the darkness, the grenade must have struck a tree and bounced off. It exploded nearby, sending a sliver of metal into my leg--the sort of injury the Army patched up with Mercurochrome and a Purple Heart."

On prospect #3

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-kerry23aug23,1,2525146.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
In its new 30-second commercial, the Kerry campaign seeks to tie Bush directly to the group's activities, invoking Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who condemned their tactics as "dishonest and dishonorable" earlier in the month…A male narrator says: "Instead of solutions, George Bush's campaign supports a front group attacking John Kerry's military record. Attacks called smears, lies. Sen. McCain calls them dishonest." As the screen flashes split images of Bush and a young Kerry in Vietnam, the narrator continues: "Bush smeared John McCain four years ago. Now, he's doing it to John Kerry." "George Bush: Denounce the smear," the ad concludes. "Get back to the issues. America deserves better."

[Video: http://www.johnkerry.com/video/player.php?video=082204_issues]

[More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/23/politics/campaign/23swift.html?hp]

The Bush campaign response? (this is SO typical)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24891-2004Aug22.html
The Bush campaign announced it will be sending a letter to television stations Monday, stating: "The Bush-Cheney campaign flatly rejects this baseless allegation of illegal coordination between Bush-Cheney '04 and a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The ad running on your station contains this false and libelous charge."

[You think this line of criticism doesn’t scare them? And, no, it isn’t the first time they’ve threatened to sue local stations for running ads they don’t like: http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?archiveDate=03-09-04&storyID=18428]

Another person Bush shouldn’t want to see dragged into the fray

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003308
Ben Barnes was the Speaker of the Texas State House back in 1968. And he was the one who pushed young George W. Bush to the head of the Texas Air National Guard queue after dad's friends came calling. Remember, dad was a congressman from Houston…But he's never really spoken openly about how he helped Bush hop in front of everyone else or other aspects of the president's abbreviated military service, about which he is said to know a great deal…Maybe now would be the time?…Can't we get Molly Ivins or some other worthy to put in a call? Maybe just ask him what he thinks of the Swift Boat business.

So, where does the issue stand at the moment?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004560.php
[W]here are we in this swift boat controversy, what’s likely to happen next, and what ought to happen next?

The answer to the first question is pretty obvious: The Kerry camp, though damaged by the allegations, has all but won on the merits. In the last couple of days, several mainstream press investigations—see here, here, and here—have (despite a certain conventional even-handedness) undermined most of the key charges made by the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans For Truth that John Kerry didn’t deserve his medals. The SBVFT argument has been further damaged by new testimony from previously silent eyewitnesses who back up Kerry’s version of the events that led to his first Purple Heart and his Silver Star. A series of suspicious-if-not-quite direct connections, and one spot-on one, have been established between SBVFT and the Bush campaign. And Kerry seems finally to be hitting back…If that were the end of it, one could argue that this whole controversy might ultimately rebound to Kerry’s benefit. It could become, in the minds of voters, yet another example of the president aligning himself with a pack of politically convenient untruths…

But of course that’s not the end of it. Starting this week, SBVFT begins airing commercials attacking Kerry’s 1971 Senate testimony—a line presaged on the Sunday shows by former Sen. Bob Dole. It has long been understood that Kerry’s greatest potential Vietnam-related vulnerability is his leadership of an anti-war veterans group. In Karl Rove’s playbook, the attack on Kerry’s medals was just a softening-up exercise prior to the real assault. As Maureen Dowd puts it: “The White House must tear down [Kerry’s] heroism before it can tear down his patriotism.”

What I find infuriating about all this is that Kerry’s willingness to protest the war is an essential part of what, to my mind, makes him one of the great heroes—indeed, perhaps the greatest hero--of that era. Here’s a guy who, as a college student, understood and expressed publicly serious and well-founded doubts about the wisdom of America’s Vietnam strategy. Then, unlike many others of his generation, he put his doubts aside and his life on the line in order to do what he could to make his country’s policy a success. Then, having seen first hand that his initial suspicions were correct, and that the line coming out of Washington—that victory was just around the corner, that the “Vietnamization” strategy was working—was a lie, he stood up and told the public the unvarnished truth…And yet, a couple weeks ago, when I asked with a friend working on the Kerry campaign why they weren’t framing Kerry’s protests in this way, my friend said that the polling suggested that American’s just weren’t prepared to hear that argument; that too many voters still think that protesting the war was a dubious act; and therefore the less said about Kerry’s role in those protests the better.

…The campaign has a simple choice: on the issue of Kerry’s role as a Vietnam War protest leader, they can play defense or offense. The choice is as obvious as the argument the Kerry camp should be making. We are currently involved in a war in Iraq that is failing because policymakers in Washington have miscalculated and lied—to themselves and to the American people. In November, do we choose a president who has approved these miscalculations and trafficked in these lies, or one who, throughout most of his career, has calculated correctly and spoken the truth?

Can we get back to Bush’s consistent record of failure?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/22/16266/9619

Bush screws workers with new overtime rules

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/whitehouse/la-fi-overtime23aug23,1,4593563.story?coll=la-news-politics-white_house

Bush=FDR? (puh-LEEZE!)

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000559.html

Blair won’t be a tool in Bush’s re-election campaign

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1576838,00.html

Trying to hide the protestors in NYC

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/23/nyregion/23convention.html

Still more shenanigans in Florida

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24757-2004Aug22.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/23/opinion/23herbert.html

The ridiculous sham of Gitmo “trials”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24823-2004Aug22.html

New revelation in Abu Ghraib scandal: Army ASKED for new guidelines in torturing – errr, questioning -- prisoners

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24822-2004Aug22.html
"The gloves are coming off gentleman regarding these detainees," said the memo, which carried the signature of Capt. William Ponce Jr. The source of the memo, who refused to be identified, said it was sent by the intelligence staff of Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was then commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, to all concerned military intelligence personnel in Iraq…In an apparent reference to Sanchez's head of intelligence, Col. Steven Boltz, the memo asserted that "Col. Boltz has made it clear that we want these individuals broken. Casualties are mounting and we need to start gathering info to help protect our fellow soldiers from any further attacks."…The memo asked for a list by Aug. 17, 2003, of "what techniques would they feel would be effective" and could be reviewed by legal experts.



- posted by Nick Burbules @ 10:18 AM

 
WILLIE HORTON REDUX

It is becoming increasingly apparent that this is a crucial moment in the campaign. If the Swift Boat Liars are able to keep peddling their deceitful garbage, with the media giving it echo treatment and a “he said/she said” lack of judgment (“some Kerry supporters say these are outright lies and distortions, but Bush supporters say Kerry and his people are panicking”), and with no pressure on the Bush campaign to condemn it, there is no telling what will come next.

Then, after the election is over and it’s too late to do anything about it, the media will look back and question itself: “how could we have let such dishonest advertising go unchallenged?” (just as they did with the infamous Willie Horton ads). The shame isn’t just on Bush for condoning these ads — it’s on the mainstream press for adopting a false even-handedness (CNN today: “Swift Boat ads: Lies, or Politics as Usual?”)

As several commentators emphasize below, this is not the time for Kerry to play defense, to be reactive, or to whine about these despicable ads. It is time to take the fight back to Bush and emphasize his own cowardice and gall in sliming someone who voluntarily went to Vietnam, fought bravely, and suffered multiple wounds — facts that no one can question — while Bush was skipping out of his own National Guard responsibilities.

Media Matters covers it all

http://mediamatters.org/

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/22/114654/548
I think Atrios nails it with the observation that

The media are not passive participants in these things, and they need to accept and come to terms with that.

This story is over any time the media get their shock and outrage up and call out Fox News and the Pat Buchanans who think this non-story is worth pushing. The links to the Bush campaign, however, are by now too clear to ignore. So by pushing the story, inconsistencies and all, the blowback to the Bush campaign grows. And at the very least, the ability of the Matthew Dowds to control the story diminishes.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2105494/fr/rss/
With Kerry's push-back against critics of his Vietnam service so far succeeding only in prolonging the discussion over whether he earned his medals, the wisdom of his response seems increasingly questionable. The Post's lead illustrates the dangers for Kerry: Before the Democratic nominee acknowledged the attacks on his record, the big papers didn't have much to report. Now that he's responded, however, papers like the Post are presenting both sides of the argument and leaving it to readers to decide what's true and what isn't. Reporters' dogged commitment to "balance" makes them unwilling to say which side is being truthful and which is not. The Post lead takes this route; the paper says Kerry's critics have failed to prove he's lying but adds that neither side is being totally honest. This answer, although unclear and unhelpful, is where the issue is likely to remain.

The Washington Post article offers a perfect example of this effort at “balance”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21239-2004Aug21.html
Swift Boat Accounts Incomplete

How difficult is this to grasp: (1) they’re lying and (2) they’re intimately tied into the Bush campaign

http://swiftvets.eriposte.com/
Swift Boat Veterans for "Truth" v. The Truth

More evidence: GOP raising money for Swift Boat group

http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/003080.html

Meanwhile, the Swifties can’t even keep their own lies straight

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004557.php
I've mentioned before that one of the reasons you shouldn't trust the SwiftVets group is that until recently a lot of them said nice things about John Kerry — and then suddenly refreshed their memories early this year. Some of those nice things were said to reporters during the past few years, some were said in official reports 36 years ago, while in other cases official documents directly contradict what they're saying today…This probably isn't a complete list, but here's a quick recap of why nobody with a brain should trust a word they say…

[More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/22/politics/campaign/22CND-CAMP.html?ex=1250913600&]

The good news is that not all the media is being taken in — the bad news is that this is from Minneapolis and Boston...

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/4939507.html
Sen. John McCain said it all, and said it straight: The TV ad smearing Sen. John Kerry's Vietnam War service was "dishonest and dishonorable." Just as important was what else McCain said: "It was the same kind of deal that was pulled on me."…Indeed it was. McCain was referring to vicious lies told about him during the 2000 Republican primaries; they were both false and effective. Now, as then, it is absolutely critical to the workings of this democracy that honorable men and women of all political persuasions step up to expose and discredit these shadowy character assassins.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2004/08/22/big_lies_for_bush?mode=PF
IMAGINE IF supporters of Bill Clinton had tried in 1996 to besmirch the military record of his opponent, Bob Dole. After all, Dole was given a Purple Heart for a leg scratch probably caused, according to one biographer, when a hand grenade thrown by one of his own men bounced off a tree. And while the serious injuries Dole sustained later surely came from German fire, did the episode demonstrate heroism on Dole's part or a reckless move that ended up killing his radioman and endangering the sergeant who dragged Dole off the field?…The truth, according to many accounts, is that Dole fought with exceptional bravery and deserves the nation's gratitude. No one in 1996 questioned that record. Any such attack on behalf of Clinton, an admitted Vietnam draft dodger, would have been preposterous…Yet amazingly, something quite similar is happening today as supporters of President Bush attack the Vietnam record of Senator John Kerry.

The real story today is (or ought to be) the Rood article in the Chicago Tribune

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/elections/chi-040821kerry,1,6814873.story?coll=chi-news-hed
"The critics have taken pains to say they're not trying to cast doubts on the merit of what others did, but their version of events has splashed doubt on all of us. It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there."

Matt Yglesias gives voice to the deeper frustration – these guys aren’t going to get away with it AGAIN, are they?

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/08/so_mad.html
I'm really so furious about this whole situation that I don't know what to say. I'm taking out my credit card and making some donations and I would strongly advise any readers who don't feel like continuing to see a lying, cowardly, idiot who's willing to go to any lengths whatsoever to maintain his grasp on political power (and that's all there is to it, this isn't deception in pursuit of some higher goal, the man has no ideological principles whatsoever other than his own self-aggrandizement) so that the gang of criminals he's employed at the highest levels of government can avoid prosecution serve in the White House I would suggest that you do the same. The purpose of negative ads is to demobilize your opponent's supporters. Don't let it work. Give the DNC some money. Or your favorite 527. Whatever you can. It's increasingly clear that the bad actors have, quite literally, no shame whatsoever and will stop at nothing to maintain their grip on the government.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/22/opinion/22dowd.html
It's easy for the Bushes to stay gallant. They delegate the gutter…There are always third-party political assassins, ostensibly independent, to do the dynasty wet work.

W.'s old pal and running partner, Lee Atwater, set up the Bush modus operandi: Lay in the weeds while craftily planting plausibly deniable surrogates to slice up your rival…Karl Rove is Atwater's protégé on jumper cable politics…The weird thing is, given how transparently the Bushes play the game of staying above the fray even as their creepy-crawly surrogates do dishonorable and undignified things, their rivals always seem caught off guard when the third parties show up to rip their throats out…

Charging on Thursday that Mr. Bush wants the Swift boat sleazoids "to do his dirty work," Mr. Kerry reached for yet another Vietnam reference and water metaphor: "When you're under attack, the best thing to do is turn your boat into the attack."…The Skipper would do well to get a swifter boat. How pathetic is it that he's playing defense on Vietnam when W. didn't even serve?

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/08/lets_sink_the_swift_boat_smear_for_good_shall_we.html
By smearing Kerry via the Swift Boat front group the Bush camp wins tactical advantages no matter what happens. Even as the various bizzarro allegations by not-so-Swifties are being systematically proved to be a complete tissue of lies and are even turning off at least one high-profile media supporter, the whole flap is making Kerry spend money on a counter-ad — a very good ad but it’s still money, and distracting people from stuff that matters…It remains to be seen whether Bush/Cheney’s tactical gains can be overcome by a strategic loss — which happens only if Kerry/Edwards can put the albatross of dirty pool around the Bush/Cheney necks.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_15.php#003303
Today at a rally, John Edwards said, among other things, "This is a moment of truth for George W. Bush. We're going to see what kind of man he is and what kind of leader he is. ... We want to hear three words: Stop these ads."…Okay for today. But no more of this.

We already know what kind of a man he is. He's got a track record.

…So, to be frank, this line has some element of disingenuousness…Far more important, it's whining. Begging. At a minimum, it can come off or be characterized that way. And it sounds weak. This is about hitting back, not flaunting high-mindedness…If the president's behavior is really as bad as the Kerry-Edwards team is saying it is, then it's really past the point of asking him to do the right thing and redeem himself.

The excellent ad the Kerry campaign put out today -- the one with McCain confronting Bush -- ends with the line "America can do better."…It doesn't say, "George W. Bush, please stop" or "George W. Bush should do the right thing." It says "America can do better" or, in other words, he's shown us what kind of person he is and he shouldn't be president.

No need to be nasty. "America can do better" says all that needs be said. Drive that point home and move the debate back to the president's failed record at home and abroad…Try "George W. Bush is back to his old tricks because he doesn't want to talk about X (his bad record on jobs), Y (his failed policies in Iraq), Z (you get the idea.)"

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_15.php#003302
Today, though, the Kerry campaign came out with a very powerful ad, one which in its tone and focus is exactly where the Kerry campaign needs to go…It's called Old Tricks and the entire ad is a brief exchange from a debate from February 15th 2000 (which the political junkies among us probably remember) in which John McCain -- then in the thick of Bush's smears -- told Bush to his face to stop getting others to smear him over his war record. He ends by telling him he should be ashamed. The camera focuses on Bush and catches him not knowing how to respond, with what I think even his supporters would have to agree is a callow, trapped look on his face.

I say this is exactly where the Kerry campaign needs to go because it very powerfully captures a truth about President Bush -- namely, that he's a coward who truly lacks shame…I don't say he's a coward because he kept himself out of Vietnam three decades ago. I know no end of men of that age who in one fashion or another made sure they didn't end up in Indochina in those days. (I quickly ran through both hands counting guys I talk to on a regular basis.) And they include many of the most admirable people I know.

He's a coward because he has other people smear good men without taking any responsibility, without owning up to it or standing behind it. And when someone takes it to him and puts him on the spot to defend his actions -- as McCain does in this spot -- he's literally speechless. Like I say, a coward…As I said earlier, this is vintage Bush. And it's also a subtle nod to all the ways that Bush is someone who's always gotten by with help at all the key moments from family friends, retainers and others similarly hunting for access and power.

There's another element to this ad that we'd be remiss not to note too. It puts McCain on the spot and pulls him right back to the center of this battle. Given the fervor of his words, he can hardly disavow them or complain of their use. But there's something else too. If you listen to the ad you'll see McCain hangs his demand for an apology on a letter signed by five senators, each Vietnam vets, calling on Bush to apologize for his smears against McCain…The five, as reported by the Times on February 5th, 2000: Senators Max Cleland of Georgia, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Charles S. Robb of Virginia, and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200434#651
As if we needed to be reminded that My Pet President is a coward, a seven minute second grader, who was main lining Alabama Slammers while avoiding National Guard Service in...Alabama, The Kerry Campaign has finally put together an ad that may begin to tell Americans, who somehow don't know it already, about the true cowardice of the West Texas truant…They have just released "Up to His Old Tricks," which shows John McCain's response, during a February 15th, 2000, GOP debate, to the same Bush attack machine that has now been turned on Kerry. This commercial captures McCain looking directly at Bush and asking, "have you no shame," for Little Boy Bush's false attacks on McCain for "abandoning veterans." This, even though McCain was a POW, while the closest George Bush came to combat was watching the Michael Dukakis tank commercial in 1988 (which, shockingly, was put together by the same producers of the current commercial for (SBVLLBF), or Swift Boat Republicans for Lying Like it is a Bodily Function)…In this current ad, you get to see that same befuddled look on George W. Bush's face, once challenged by McCain, that we all remember distorting his facial features as he sat "trying to look calm" for second graders while buildings were being blown up in New York and Washington.

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 1:31 PM

 
THE KIND OF PEOPLE THEY ARE (PART TWO)

One again, Bush Co. shows its complete contempt for the principle of free speech

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/22/politics/campaign/22repubs.html?ex=1250827200&\
Mr. Bush's advisers said they were girding for the most extensive street demonstrations at any political convention since the Democrats nominated Hubert H. Humphrey in Chicago in 1968. But in contrast to that convention, which was severely undermined by televised displays of street rioting, Republicans said they would seek to turn any disruptions to their advantage, by portraying protests by even independent activists as Democratic-sanctioned displays of disrespect for a sitting president.

Kerry starts hitting back on swift boat lies…(a must see ad)

http://www.johnkerry.com/video/player.php?video=082104_old_tricks

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/21/edwards.swiftboat/index.html
"This is a moment of truth for George W. Bush. We're gonna see what kind of man he is and what kind of leader he is."

…and files an FEC complaint (which will probably fail, even though the evidence of cross-pollination between the Swifties and the Bush re-elect is overwhelming)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/21/politics/campaign/21ads.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-kerryswift21aug21,1,4753479.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage

More evidence of links

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/more-swift-boat-liars.html
…one Swift Boat Liar was a member of the Bush campaign as late as August 19.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_08_15_digbysblog_archive.html#109305910964449236
I wonder if its appropriate for Ken Cordier, a member of the Veterans For Bush-Cheney '04 steering committee to appear in the new "unaffiliated" "independent" 527 Swift Boat Liars For Bush ad?…Of course you will only see his name if you google the cached version (linked above) of the page on the Bush-Cheney web site. Oddly, the current page doesn't list his name.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/busted.html
On the same day that the Bush-Cheney campaign repeatedly denied coordinating attacks with the anti-Kerry group "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," the Bush-Cheney campaign in Florida was caught promoting a rally in Gainesville for the group…A flyer being distributed at the Alachua County Republican party headquarters, which doubles as the Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters for the county, promotes a weekend rally sponsored by "Swift Boat Vets for Truth, Veterans for Bush, Alachua Bush/Cheney Committee," and others.

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001387.html
"Officially" unaffiliated. But is that reality? Every time a Bush runs--against John Anderson in Connecticut in 1980, against Mike Dukakis in 1988, against Clinton, against John McCain in 2000--this kind of thing happens. It was:

John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, called an ad criticizing John Kerry’s military service "dishonest and dishonorable" and urged the White House on Thursday to condemn it as well. ‘It was the same kind of deal that was pulled on me,’ McCain said in an interview with The Associated Press, referring to his bitter Republican primary fight with President Bush’.” [AP, 8/5/04]

Albert Hunt of the Wall Street Journal had this to say about the Swift Boat Veterans:

[John O'Neill] has been a Republican functionary for over 30 years... He’s a liar. He started with—he started with Chuck Colson. He was a pawn of Chuck Colson. I think this is some of the sleaziest lies I've ever seen in politics.”-- Albert R. Hunt, Executive editor, The Wall Street Journal, on CNN's The Capital Gang, 8/7/04

Does Susan Stranahan really believe that this kind of dishonest and dishonorable slime happens *without* coordination from the Bush family? That sleazy liars with a thirty-year history of subservience to Republican politicians starting in the most despicable parts of the Nixon team decide--all on their own, with no prompting--that this is the kind of support George W. Bush needs?…Why shouldn't reporters call a spade a spade?

A summary of the evidence that the Swifties are flat-out liars (if evidence even matters to this story any more)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004552.php

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/21/174612/770

Another swift boat captain (with no axe to grind) comes forward to corroborate Kerry’s heroism

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/swift-boat-skipper-kerry-critics-wrong.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_15.php#003301

WHY ARE WE EVEN TALKING ABOUT THIS?

http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/003076.html
So, I have a question: are we really talking about this? I'm not dreaming? Because I have dreams this weird sometimes. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, really, when you think about who made this ad, and who they made it for. People who believe that dinosaur bones were planted by Satan to trick unsuspecting archaeologists into atheism. People who think that the National Academy of Sciences is a front organization for radical leftists who want to take away your freedom by saying that climate science is real. People who think that Jesus talks to George Bush…People who think that FOX News is, actually, fair and balanced. Basically, people who think that if the facts don't support what you want to believe, you probably aren't believing hard enough. Oh, and they run the country. Yeah, this one. Nice…How far gone are we? We're so far gone that Chris Mathews thinks it's ridiculous. That's how far gone we are. We're completely through the looking glass here, people…

The problem is, they can multiply the lies faster than the responses can discredit them

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20193-2004Aug20.html
A new ad by the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth condemns the Democratic nominee for making allegations of war crimes and atrocities committed by American soldiers. "It hurt me more than any physical wounds I had," a Vietnam veteran says in the ad about Kerry's highly publicized testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971…

Bush is trying to distance himself from the attacks and capitalize on them at the same time. A local Bush-Cheney organization in Florida, for example, is listed in a new brochure promoting an upcoming rally of the anti-Kerry Swift boat veterans. Steve Schmidt, a Bush spokesman, said the effort was not approved by Bush headquarters…Underscoring how personal the dispute has become, Bush's campaign chairman, Marc Racicot, went on CNN and said the Kerry campaign has come "unhinged," and that Kerry himself "looks wild-eyed." Earlier yesterday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Kerry is "losing his cool." In 2000, the Bush campaign used similar language to portray rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as potentially too unstable to run the country.

What Kerry actually said

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003597
Two important themes are more clear in this ad than in the first, though. One is that Kerry lost the war; the other is the continued misrepresentation of Kerry's testimony. Each argument has tremendous potential to dissuade voters from turning to Kerry. Adrian Lonsdale expresses it very concisely at the end of that New York Times story that I was somewhat critical of earlier:

As Mr. Lonsdale explained it: "We won the battle. Kerry went home and lost the war for us.

"He called us rapers and killers and that's not true," he continued. "If he expects our loyalty, we should expect loyalty from him."

As I said yesterday, the Kerry campaign is rapidly running out of time to define Kerry's post-war conduct. It won't matter that the anti-Kerry veterans' use of the "Ghengis Khan" excerpt relies on conveniently chopping off the words "They told me that" so that Kerry seems to say "They had personally raped, cut off ears..." about all Vietnam veterans.

[Kerry “lost the war” – well, THAT’S a new one]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/21/edwards.swiftboat/index.html
The latest ad, a 30-second spot released Friday, uses segments from Kerry's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971. In the ad, Kerry says, "They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads," "randomly shot at civilians," and "razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Kahn."…The ad does not include Kerry's preface, in which he said he is reporting what others said at a Vietnam veterans conference. Instead, a swift boat group member refers to the statements as "accusations" Kerry made against Vietnam veterans…An official transcript shows Kerry was referring to a meeting in Detroit, Michigan, that was part of what was called the Winter Soldier investigation…

The full transcript

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/john-kerry-april-1971.html
I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago, in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis, with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command…They told stories that, at times, they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam, in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

And on that ridiculous “unhinged,” “wild-eyed” slur — you think this is a new strategy for Bush?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/smearing-vets.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_15.php#003300
It's the same cowardly rich-boy viciousness we've seen so many times from this guy and his family. But the Post piece gives some sobering signs about how effective it's been.

Is the Kerry response too little, too late?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/21/8244/52525

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/21/politics/campaign/21assess.html

Finally, why is McCain (despite his repugnance for these ads) backing their guy? As I have said before, he could get Bush to put a stop to it in an instant, simply by saying “I will not support any candidate who condones such advertising.”

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/2004/08/is-john-mccain-becoming-pivotal-factor.php

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040819/pl_nm/campaign_bush_mccain_dc_6

Meanwhile, back on THIS side of the looking glass…a few sobering realities

$8.8 billion of aid for Iraq simply disappears, unaccounted for

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/88-billion-gone.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,129489,00.html

[Even Fox News is outraged by this one.]

Bush gets an earful from steelworkers (not in public, of course)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-steelworkers21aug21,1,7274906.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Sy Hersh to release new book on Abu Ghraib (aptly titled “Chain of Command”)

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001037.html

Rodney Alexander, Louisiana turncoat (who switched parties just minutes before the deadline for anyone to run against him) gets free legal counsel from national GOP

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003607

And this cheerful report that Iran is becoming much more aggressive in Iraq

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001040.html


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 5:30 PM

 
“FAILURE THIS, FAILURE THAT”

Najaf: “I'd say this thing is moving toward an epochal confrontation” (Juan Cole)

http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=1941
Sadr isn't the only one whose behavior follows a general outline. (Provoke a crisis; display yourself as a symbol of resistance to the occupation; force your adversaries into a position where their military options carry potentially prohibitive political costs; at the last minute agree to a band-aid resolution that preserves much of your position; reap acclaim; bide time; repeat.) It's looking like the Allawi government does too.

Step One: Bluster about crushing your enemies. At the outset of the crisis, Allawi swoops dramatically into Najaf on a U.S. military helicopter and swears there will be "No negotiations or truce." You can practically hear the tuned-down power chords and furious double-bass-pedal drumming following his statement.

Step Two: Realize your political breathing room is much lower than you initially thought it was. Only days later, Allawi dispatches a negotiating team to talk with Sadr. You can practically hear the gentle strumming and whispered vocal track.

Step Three: Negotiate in bad faith as a way to give yourself more political breathing room and return to your favored toughness. Talks led by Allawi adviser Mowaffaq Al Rubaie break down after Sadr considers them what a spokesman terms "a conspiracy to commit a big massacre." No problem, Allawi thinks; now I've shown my people I've exhausted all diplomatic options and can call in the Marines. Bass solo!

Step Four: Go back to Step Two. The Iraqi delegates conference is consumed by the prospect of a bloodbath in the holiest city in the country. A team of negotiators from the conference travels to Najaf to present Sadr with more lenient demands. Jangly guitar.

Step Five: Proceed to Step Three. As the negotiators go to Najaf, Allawi's men present battle plans to General George Casey. They reason, once again, that if this new round of non-official negotiations collapses, the Iraqi people won't blame Allawi for attacking the shrine. Anticipation-building feedback.

Step Six: Go back to Step Two. Sadr accepts the more lenient demands. The delegates conference, along with the Arabic-language media, rejoices. When Sadr sends a letter indicating that he'll by into a surely-farcical disarmament process, Allawi grumpily prepares to deal. Lingering strum.

Step Seven: Proceed to Step Three. Where we are now. Allawi's government suddenly jacks up conditions for a deal back closer to its original terms: Sadr must get out of the shrine, turn in the Mahdi Army's weapons, issue a statement dissolving the militia, etc. If not, his defense minister threatens, get ready for an all-out attack. Galloping guitar assault, a la Iron Maiden's "Run To The Hills."

How Sadr suckered us into a fight we couldn’t win

http://www.juancole.com/2004_08_01_juancole_archive.html#109298433633947539

[One of the many lessons of Viet Nam was that overwhelming military power was useless unless you could also secure the “hearts and minds” of the people. Doing so, especially in a context of vast cultural and religious difference, takes a deft touch, cultural understanding, and — yes — even “sensitivity” to the people you are dealing with. Bush’s arrogance and macho posturing (plus Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al.) have had exactly the opposite effect, playing well to the red-meat constituency at home, but alienating allies around the world and reinforcing the very stereotypes that have driven thousands upon thousands into the arms of those fighting against us. And Najaf is the perfect crystallization of this wider failure.]

Not just losing hearts and minds in Iraq

http://www.juancole.com/2004_08_01_juancole_archive.html#109298610424923675
Could Najaf Cost Bush the Election?
A major demonstration was held by Shiite Iraqi-Americans in Dearborn, Michigan, last week. It demanded that US troops get out of Iraq. These expatriate Iraqi Shiites had been the most gung-ho group about the US going to war against the Saddam regime in 2003, and they were big Bush supporters. But now they are filled with second thoughts and regrets. The US military campaign in Najaf has deeply offended their religious sensibilities. They have made an about-face and now want the US out of their country, immediately...Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans have particular presence in the Midwest, including in swing states like Michigan and Ohio (these two plus Pennsylvania and Florida all have more than 100,000 Arab-Americans. Since many Arab-Americans are Christians, they aren't exactly an overlap with Muslim-Americans). They do not ordinarily swing an election, however, because they were about evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. But when the Iraqi Shiites start demonstrating against the Bush administration, it is a sign that they may well vote for Kerry. A large number of Muslim-Americans is deeply upset by the fighting in Najaf, and by what they see as Bush administration trampling of their civil rights…In a very close race, the Muslim Americans and Arab Americans in the above states could be a decisive constituency.

Here’s how bad it’s gotten

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/olympics/2004/writers/08/19/iraq/index.html
Iraqi midfielder Salih Sadir scored a goal here on Wednesday night, setting off a rousing celebration among the 1,500 Iraqi soccer supporters at Pampeloponnisiako Stadium…Afterward, Sadir had a message for U.S. president George W. Bush, who is using the Iraqi Olympic team in his latest re-election campaign advertisements.

In those spots, the flags of Iraq and Afghanistan appear as a narrator says, "At this Olympics there will be two more free nations -- and two fewer terrorist regimes."…"Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign," Sadir told SI.com through a translator, speaking calmly and directly. "He can find another way to advertise himself."

Ahmed Manajid, who played as a midfielder on Wednesday, had an even stronger response when asked about Bush's TV advertisement. "How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women?" Manajid told me. "He has committed so many crimes."…To a man, members of the Iraqi Olympic delegation say they are glad that former Olympic committee head Uday Hussein, who was responsible for the serial torture of Iraqi athletes and was killed four months after the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003, is no longer in power…But they also find it offensive that Bush is using Iraq for his own gain when they do not support his administration's actions. "My problems are not with the American people," says Iraqi soccer coach Adnan Hamad. "They are with what America has done in Iraq: destroy everything. The American army has killed so many people in Iraq. What is freedom when I go to the [national] stadium and there are shootings on the road?"

At a speech in Beaverton, Ore., last Friday, Bush attached himself to the Iraqi soccer team after its opening-game upset of Portugal. "The image of the Iraqi soccer team playing in this Olympics, it's fantastic, isn't it?" Bush said. "It wouldn't have been free if the United States had not acted."

Episode #472 of “they just don’t get it” (What will Al Jazeera do with this story?)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14262-2004Aug19.html
A Defense Department investigation has determined that Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin, the Pentagon's senior military intelligence official, violated three internal regulations while delivering controversial speeches that linked the war on terrorism to what he depicted as an enduring battle against Satan…The 10-month internal investigation, conducted by the department's deputy inspector general for investigations, confirmed news accounts that Boykin said in his speeches that President Bush had been placed in his post by God, that radical Muslims hate America because it "will never abandon Israel" and that the U.S. military is recruiting a spiritual army that will draw strength from a greater power to defeat its enemy.

Arab and Muslim groups sharply criticized these remarks when they were initially publicized last year, accusing Boykin of bigotry and saying he was unfit to keep his post. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) and the committee's senior Democrat, Sen. Carl M. Levin (Mich.), demanded an inquiry and called for Boykin to step down while it proceeded…But Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, speaking at the time, praised Boykin for "an outstanding record" and kept him in his post. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard B. Myers likewise defended Boykin and told reporters that "at first blush, it doesn't look like any rules were broken" because "there is a very wide gray area" of what the rules permit.

The inspector's report, which is dated Aug. 5 but has not been released by the Pentagon, concludes otherwise. It found that Boykin failed to obtain clearance for his remarks, failed to clarify that his remarks were personal and not official, and failed to report reimbursement of travel costs from one of the sponsoring religious groups…But a senior Defense official who is familiar with the report's contents, speaking on the condition of anonymity because no decision has been reached, said the report is seen as a "complete exoneration" that ultimately found Boykin responsible for a few "relatively minor offenses" related to technical and bureaucratic issues.

Although it was the substance of Boykin's remarks and not his regard for Pentagon rules that aroused controversy, the report pointedly steered clear of comment on the appropriateness of Boykin's injection of religion into his depiction of the military's counterterrorism efforts, including his claims that a "demonic presence" lay behind the actions of radical Muslims.

[More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003586]

David Kay’s explosive testimony: How does Rice maintain the reputation of quiet competence when everyone in the know, apparently, thinks she is in way over her head?

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/19/politics/19panel.html
A former Bush administration official who led the fruitless postwar effort to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq told Congress on Wednesday that the National Security Council led by Condoleezza Rice had botched intelligence information before the war...In uncharacteristically caustic remarks about his former colleagues, the weapons inspector, David Kay, said the National Security Council had failed to protect President Bush from faulty prewar intelligence and had left Secretary of State Colin L. Powell "hanging out in the wind" when he tried to gather intelligence before the war about Iraq's weapons programs.

"Where was the N.S.C?" Dr. Kay asked, suggesting that the president had come to depend too heavily on information supplied by Ms. Rice, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, and that the president needed to reach out to others for national security information…"Every president who has been successful, at least that I know of, in the history of this republic, has developed both informal and formal means of getting checks on whether people who tell him things are in fact telling him the whole truth," Dr. Kay told the Senate intelligence committee at a hearing called to discuss the findings of the Sept. 11 commission…"I think this is particularly crucial and difficult to do in the intelligence area,'' he continued. "The recent history has been a reliance on the N.S.C. system to do it. I quite frankly think that has not served this president very well."…Dr. Kay added: "The dog that did not bark in the case of Iraq's W.M.D. weapons program, quite frankly, in my view, is the National Security Council."

“Failure this, failure that” Rumsfeld has a moment of critical self-reflection (NOT!)

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003580

George Will goes off the reservation

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/columnists/will/s_208752.html
On Oct. 23, just 10 days before the election, the war in Iraq will have lasted as long as the 584-day U.S. involvement in World War I, from the April 6, 1917, declaration of war to the Nov. 11, 1918, armistice. And probably in late September or early October the number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq will pass 1,000…

The press finally starts doing its job on the Swift Boat liars, and where their support comes from

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/20/politics/campaign/20swift.html?ex=1093971490&ei=1&en=be5f7961b829c78a
A series of interviews and a review of documents show a web of connections to the Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures and President Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove…Records show that the group received the bulk of its initial financing from two men with ties to the president and his family - one a longtime political associate of Mr. Rove's, the other a trustee of the foundation for Mr. Bush's father's presidential library. A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Mr. Bush's father for his debate when he was running for vice president provided them with strategic advice. And the group's television commercial was produced by the same team that made the devastating ad mocking Michael S. Dukakis in an oversized tank helmet when he and Mr. Bush's father faced off in the 1988 presidential election…

Several of those now declaring Mr. Kerry "unfit" had lavished praise on him, some as recently as last year…In an unpublished interview in March 2003 with Mr. Kerry's authorized biographer, Douglas Brinkley, provided by Mr. Brinkley to The New York Times, Roy F. Hoffmann, a retired rear admiral and a leader of the group, allowed that he had disagreed with Mr. Kerry's antiwar positions but said, "I am not going to say anything negative about him." He added, "He's a good man."…In a profile of the candidate that ran in The Boston Globe in June 2003, Mr. Hoffmann approvingly recalled the actions that led to Mr. Kerry's Silver Star: "It took guts, and I admire that."…George Elliott, one of the Vietnam veterans in the group, flew from his home in Delaware to Boston in 1996 to stand up for Mr. Kerry during a tough re-election fight, declaring at a news conference that the action that won Mr. Kerry a Silver Star was "an act of courage." At that same event, Adrian L. Lonsdale, another Vietnam veteran now speaking out against Mr. Kerry, supported him with a statement about the "bravado and courage of the young officers that ran the Swift boats."…"Senator Kerry was no exception," Mr. Lonsdale told the reporters and cameras assembled at the Charlestown Navy Yard. "He was among the finest of those Swift boat drivers."…

Meanwhile, Bush et al. maintain a conspicuous silence on the issue

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_15.php#003296

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004548.php
Something tells me that before long George Bush is going to be sorry he didn't step up to the plate and disown this group from the start. Their story, tattered from the start, looks worse and worse every time somebody shines a light into another of its dank corners.

Sharp analysis of the underlying dynamics at stake

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_15.php#003295
There is a meta-debate going on here, one that I'm not sure even the practitioners fully articulate to themselves and one that I'm painfully aware the victims don't fully understand…Let's call it the Republicans' Bitch-Slap theory of electoral politics.

It goes something like this…On one level, of course, the aim behind these attacks is to cast suspicion upon Kerry's military service record and label him a liar. But that's only part of what's going on…Consider for a moment what the big game is here. This is a battle between two candidates to demonstrate toughness on national security. Toughness is a unitary quality, really -- a personal, characterological quality rather than one rooted in policy or divisible in any real way. So both sides are trying to prove to undecided voters either that they're tougher than the other guy or at least tough enough for the job…In a post-9/11 environment, obviously, this question of strength, toughness or resolve is particularly salient. That, of course, is why so much of this debate is about war and military service in the first place.

One way -- perhaps the best way -- to demonstrate someone's lack or toughness or strength is to attack them and show they are either unwilling or unable to defend themselves -- thus the rough slang I used above. And that I think is a big part of what is happening here. Someone who can't or won't defend themselves certainly isn't someone you can depend upon to defend you…Demonstrating Kerry's unwillingness to defend himself (if Bush can do that) is a far more tangible sign of what he's made of than wartime experiences of thirty years ago…Hitting someone and not having them hit back hurts the morale of that person's supporters, buoys the confidence of your own backers (particularly if many tend toward an authoritarian mindset) and tends to make the person who's receiving the hits into an object of contempt (even if also possibly also one of sympathy) in the eyes of the uncommitted…This is certainly what Bush's father did to Michael Dukakis and, sadly, it is what Bush himself did, to a great degree, to Al Gore.

In other ways, Bush's bully-boy campaign tactics play to his strengths, albeit unstated and unlovely ones. Many of the polls of the president have shown that while people don't necessarily agree with the specific policies he's pursued abroad many also intuitively believe that there's no one who will hit back harder. There's some of that 'he may be a son-of-a-bitch but he's our son-of-a-bitch' quality to the president's support on national security issues…This meta-message behind the president's attacks on Kerry's war record is more consequential than many believe. So hitting back hard was critical on many levels.

Abu Ghraib: Karpinski points to higher-level involvement

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0408200150aug20,1,741525.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

Jesus. How transparent is this?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-na-wmd20aug20,1,101425.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Having failed to find banned weapons in Iraq, the CIA is preparing a final report on its search that will speculate on what the deposed regime's capabilities might have looked like years from now if left unchecked, according to congressional and intelligence officials…The CIA plans for the report, due next month, to project as far as 2008 what Iraq might have achieved in its illegal weapons programs if the United States had not invaded the country last year, the officials said.

The new direction of the inquiry is seen by some officials as an attempt to obscure the fact that no banned weapons — or even evidence of active programs — have been found, and instead emphasize theories that Iraq may have been planning to revive its programs…The change in focus has angered some intelligence officials and at least one key Democrat in Congress and has brought charges of political motivation.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) protested the decision in a sharply worded letter to acting CIA Director John E. McLaughlin last week. Trying to forecast Iraq's weapons capabilities four years into the future would be, "by definition, highly speculative" and "inconsistent with the original mission of the Iraq Survey Group," Harman wrote…

Such an effort would be a significant departure for a survey group whose primary mission when it was established last year was to locate and destroy stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons that the CIA and other agencies believed were hidden across Iraq…David Kay, who led the group before resigning in January, said that speculating on Iraq's future capabilities was never part of the team's mission…"Absolutely not," Kay said in a telephone interview Thursday. "We were to search for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. No one ever suggested to me in any of the discussions before I took the job, afterward, or even when I left, that [assessing Iraq's future capabilities] was a thing that should have been done."…Kay and others also questioned how such an assessment would be possible…

Speaking in code: anyone who doesn’t realize that Bush intends to dismantle Social Security during a second term just isn’t paying attention

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-security20aug20,1,5063867.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

The elephant in the room

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001381.html
Alan Murray. He talks about two big objections to George W. Bush's "ownership society"--the fact that it is almost surely nothing but cover for another round of right-wing class warfare, and the fact that Bush has been "happy to give away candy but [has] little stomach for administering the medicine."…But he leaves out the third reason--the big reason, the Elephant-in-the-Living-Room reason--to run screaming into the night at the thought of a big Bush initiative. Even if it were well-intentioned (and not just cover for another round of right-wing class warfare), even if Bush were willing to make difficult choices (which he has never shown any ability to do), the Bush administration is still incompetent, and its attempts to make policy have almost invariably been horrible botches.

The Kerry accomplishment you haven’t heard about

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0409.sirota.html
By the end, Kerry had helped dismantle a massive criminal enterprise and exposed the infrastructure of BCCI and its affiliated institutions, a web that law enforcement officials today acknowledge would become a model for international terrorist financing. As Kerry's investigation revealed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, BCCI was interested in more than just enriching its clients--it had a fundamentally anti-Western mission. Among the stated goals of its Pakistani founder were to "fight the evil influence of the West," and finance Muslim terrorist organizations.

Meanwhile, more breaking news from the Bush campaign trail

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13338-2004Aug18.html
"What do you got?" the president taunts them when the questioning session opens, and then calls on the first hand.

"Mr. President," begins a young man in a baseball hat. "I just want to say I'm praying for you and God bless you."

And then one questioner later:

"I would just like to say that I agree with this gentleman, that we should all pray for you."

Every campaign has its preferred way of cavorting with the common man, and they are always somewhat canned…Bush prefers the "Ask President Bush" sessions, the campaign equivalent of the infomercial, with an audience designed to look as if it's been plucked randomly off the street…Typical of the exchanges at Bush's town hall meetings is this one from last week in Beaverton, Ore.

"Mr. President, you were a fighter pilot and you were with the 147th Fighter Wing?"

"Yes," answers Bush.

"And flew a very dangerous aircraft, the Delta F102?"

"Right, and I'm still standing."

"I want to thank you for serving our country"

"Thank you."

"Thank you for serving."

"We have an obligation that people can come and have a level of comfort that the event won't be disrupted," says campaign spokesman Terry Holt. "A few people can ruin the experience for everyone. This will be the first or only time some of our supporters will have a chance to see the president, and we feel strongly that people should have good manners and not work to disrupt the events."

Bonus item: The cheese-steak war. It’s good to know that with the world on the brink of chaos, with terrorism an ever-present threat, and with domestic affairs in a shambles, the press still has time to focus on the truly important issues in this campaign

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/liar.html

The only way this could get sillier is if Kitty Kelley were to get into the mix…oh…uhhh…never mind

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5749539/
Foes of the president are salivating over a description of Kitty Kelley’s forthcoming tell-all about George Bush and his kin. “The Family: the Real Story of the Bush Dynasty” goes on sale Sept. 14, and the description on Amazon.com promises that Kelley — who made international headlines with her scathing Nancy Reagan bio — will reveal “the matriarchs, the mistresses, the marriages, the divorces, the jealousies, the hypocrisies, the golden children, and the black sheep” of the first family. . . .

Let me rephrase that: the only way this could get sillier is if Bush supporters tried to produce their own heavy-handed response to “F9-11,” and rush it into circulation before the election…oh…uhhh…okay then

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/08/20/chetwynd_bossie/index_np.html
An outline of the "The Big Picture" obtained by Salon suggests that the Citizens United documentary will offer not only a staunch defense of Bush but also an aggressive attack on Kerry, including a recitation of various smears having to do with his medal-winning military history put forward lately by the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The outline portrays the Democratic nominee as the preferred candidate of such "foreign leaders" as Osama bin Laden, Kim Jong Il and the Nicaraguan Sandinista Party, and as an "appeaser" of European powers deemed corrupt and hostile to U.S. interests -- especially France. Virtually all the world's other nations are solidly behind Bush and the war in Iraq, according to the outline, which labors to disprove allegations that Bush "lied" about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaida.

Chetwynd, widely known as one of the Bush administration's most fervent advocates in the movie industry, serves on the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. He also happens to be a friend of political strategist Karl Rove…

The structure of the film, assuming that it follows the outline obtained by Salon, will be a methodical and ham-handed refutation of the "Anybody but Bush" arguments attributed to Moore, from the issue of the "stolen" 2000 election to the debate over the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks. The true villains in all those controversies, it claims, are Democrats Bill Clinton, Al Gore and, of course, John Kerry…Among the familiar personalities mentioned as possibly appearing in the film are Solicitor General Ted Olson and his late wife Barbara; actor and former Sen. Fred Thompson, who has appeared in a previous Citizens United ad; syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer; former CIA director James Woolsey; and Florida Rep. Porter Goss, recently nominated as the next CIA director. (A less familiar interview subject, apparently named Ivan Pedanski, is cited as a source on Iraq's disappearing weapons of mass destruction because he would say that the "stuff [is] buried in the ground in Syria.")

An earlier version of the script outline, titled "Initial Notes," promised a more vicious and possibly more comical film. Among the anti-Bush canards mentioned there but omitted from the later outline is that "Bush is a moron." It argues that the president cannot be both a moron and a "devious mastermind attempting to spread US hegemony worldwide" -- and claims that "Bush did well at Yale."…That version of the script indicated the film's second half would be devoted to "deconstructing John Kerry" -- beginning with the character assault mounted by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and mocking him as the "Knight of the Woeful Countenance." It also makes the false assertion that Kerry "never went on to post-grad work" after Yale. (Researchers hired by Bossie presumably will discover that Kerry graduated from Boston College law school in 1976.)

One little problem…

But Bossie's latest project could create legal problems for him and his organization -- in part because Lionel Chetwynd, the award-winning director, is working not only on the documentary but also on two shorter films to be screened at the Republican National Convention…The director's simultaneous involvement in both the convention films and the Bossie documentary raises eyebrows among campaign finance experts, because Citizens United is a tax-exempt foundation legally restricted from "coordinating" its "independent" political broadcasts or messages with the Bush-Cheney campaign or the Republican National Committee. If Chetwynd, Bossie, or anyone else working on "The Big Picture" discussed that project with RNC officials or the Bush-Cheney reelection committee, they could be violating the law…

Exactly how "The Big Picture" was financed, and how much it will cost, remain mysterious. A tantalizing clue, however, showed up in a July 19 post on the right-wing Free Republic Web site, where someone nicknamed Smogger sought guidance from fellow Freepers about a political donation:…"Who is Dave Bossie and Citizens United?" asked Smogger. "I just gave them $50 that they claim they are going to use to create a movie to praise the efforts of George Bush and to counter Farenheit 911 [sic]. They said they were trying to raise $500,000 in 30 days for this effort. I assume they got my number from the RNC…Anyone else receive this phone solicitation? It's so hard to keep track with GWB and RNC calling every other day. I tried to access the Citizens United website but it appears down. I hope I did the right thing."…

Even if the filmmakers behind "The Big Picture" have avoided any unlawful coordination with the RNC or the Bush-Cheney campaign, their movie may yet embarrass Bossie and Chetwynd's friends in the White House…

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_08_15_digbysblog_archive.html#109297336341716385
This (undoubtedly hilarious) piece of s--t is directed by Lionel Chetwynd, the D List director who did that Showtime 9/11 movie starting Timothy Bottoms featuring that unforgettable line: "I'm not gonna let some tinhorn terrorist chase me outta town. Now get me back to Washington!"…This makes me feel happy. Aside from all the possible legal problems that Conason mentions in the piece, this is simply pathetic…Bossie's good at low life bottom feeding, but Oscar level filmmaking may just be a bit above his touch. (It certainly is above Chetwynd's touch.) I have a feeling that this is going to be hilariously embarrassing.

[FWIW, here is my speculation on all this. I think it is doubtful whether they could get any real distribution on a film like this – but they will get hours of free air time by feeding “advance trailers” to Fox News and other right-wing outlets, and eventually (like the Swift Boat ads) the controversy over the film will give them even more exposure via mainstream news outlets. And if they are very, very lucky, the FEC will ban advertising and distribution for both “F9-11” and “The Big Picture” leading up to the election, and call it an even-handed judgment.]

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 9:12 AM

 
A LOT OF DOUBLE TALK (AND A LITTLE BIT OF STRAIGHT TALK)

No surprise here: DoD’s own Abu Ghraib report fails to implicate any officials outside the prison

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-prison19aug19,1,3800296.story?coll=la-home-headlines
A long-awaited report on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal will implicate about two dozen military intelligence soldiers and civilian contractors in the intimidation and sexual humiliation of Iraq war prisoners, but will not suggest wrongdoing by military brass outside the prison, senior Defense officials said Wednesday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/19/politics/19abuse.html?pagewanted=all&position=
But the inquiry found no evidence of direct culpability above the colonel who commanded the military intelligence unit at the prison, these officials said.

[“Evidence of direct culpability” is a convenient standard of responsibility — presumably this means something like “a tape recording of a phone call from Don Rumsfeld directly to the guards saying stack them up this way”]

More on Bush’s phony populism: visits factory for another of his invitation-only events, while all the workers there are given the day off

http://www.chippewa.com/articles/2004/08/17/news/news1.txt
Late last Thursday, people within the Bush-Cheney camp remembered Kell's offer, giving the Chippewa Falls manufacturer of corrugated fiber an opportunity to host the president Wednesday at the firm's headquarters at 421 Palmer Street…"We have informed the employees of the honor and have let them know that we will be closing the plant on Wednesday to accommodate the president," Kell said.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/4933808.html
"I can't imagine why a Kerry supporter would even want to attend a Bush campaign rally, but we're not keeping anyone away," said Peter Hong, a spokesman for the Bush campaign in Minnesota.

[Really? I can think of several, including “asking Bush a question that isn’t on the prepared talking points list”]

“Swift Boat” Kerry critic caught in a direct lie

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13267-2004Aug18.html
In newspaper interviews and a best-selling book, Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy Swift boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam, has strongly disputed Kerry's claim that the Massachusetts Democrat's boat came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory on March 13, 1969. Kerry won a Bronze Star for his actions that day… But Thurlow's military records, portions of which were released yesterday to The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, contain several references to "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at "all units" of the five-boat flotilla. Thurlow won his own Bronze Star that day, and the citation praises him for providing assistance to a damaged Swift boat "despite enemy bullets flying about him."

[Digby takes him down: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_08_15_digbysblog_archive.html#109289024789790803]

[More from Josh Marshall: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_15.php#003294
The Post asked Thurlow to release his records. He refused because "he was unwilling to authorize release of his military records because he feared attempts by the Kerry campaign to discredit him and other anti-Kerry veterans." It seems he had some reason for concern.]

Bush’s double-talk on taxes, and a simple question

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003560

[Now, as Bush likes to say, raising taxes on the rich doesn’t work because “they don’t pay taxes anyway”-- http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/10/85654/8173 -- which is a stunning condemnation of the civic-mindedness of his cronies, assuming he means it. But the simple question is, “if they aren’t paying their taxes anyway, then why were tax cuts for them such a priority?”]

Rove’s electoral dilemma: broadening Bush’s appeal while also driving divisive wedge issues (and why it isn’t working)

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003564

Bonus item: Retiring GOP Congressman utters the unspeakable

http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2004/08/18/top_story/10053833.txt
"I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action," Bereuter wrote in a letter to constituents in the final days of his congressional career…That's especially true in view of the fact that the attack was initiated "without a broad and engaged international coalition," the 1st District congressman said…"Knowing now what I know about the reliance on the tenuous or insufficiently corroborated intelligence used to conclude that Saddam maintained a substantial WMD (weapons of mass destruction) arsenal, I believe that launching the pre-emptive military action was not justified."…As a result of the war, he said, "our country's reputation around the world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened."

UPDATE: Kerry finds his stride

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/19/kerry.ap/index.html

Sen. John Kerry accused President Bush on Thursday of relying on front groups to challenge his record of valor in Vietnam, asserting, "He wants them to do his dirty work."

Defending his record, the Democratic presidential candidate said, "Thirty years ago, official Navy reports documented my service in Vietnam and awarded me the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts."..."Thirty years ago, this was the plain truth. It still is. And I still carry the shrapnel in my leg from a wound in Vietnam."

Kerry received five medals for his service in Vietnam a generation ago, but his record has come under campaign challenge in television commercials aired by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, funded by supporters of the president...Bush and the White House have refused to condemn the ads, despite calls to do so -- from Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, as well as from Democrats.

Senior Democrats, including some inside the presidential campaign, have urged Kerry to respond forcefully to the criticism, fearing that if left unanswered, it could hamper his quest for the White House.

In addition to Kerry's speech before an audience of firefighters, his campaign released a new 30-second campaign commercial that features a former Green Beret saying the young Navy lieutenant saved his life under fire...Recalling when his boat came under attack more than 30 years ago, Jim Rassmann says, "It blew me off the boat. All those Viet Cong were shooting at me. I expected I'd be shot. When he pulled me out of the river, he risked his life to save mine."

In his speech, Kerry employed a wartime metaphor.

"More than 30 years ago I learned an important lesson. When you're under attack the best thing to do is turn your boat into the attack. That's what I intend to do today."

Speaking of the organization airing the ads that challenge his war record, Kerry said, "Of course, this group isn't interested in the truth and they're not telling the truth..."But here's what you really need to know about them. They're funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Republican contributor out of Texas. They're a front for the Bush campaign. And the fact that the President won't denounce what they're up to tells you everything you need to know. He wants them to do his dirty work."

Bush spokesman Steve Schmidt said, "That charge leveled by Senator Kerry is absolutely and completely false."..."The Bush campaign has never and will never question John Kerry's service in Vietnam. The president has referred to John Kerry's service as noble service," the Bush spokesman said.

Kerry said, "Of course, the president keeps telling people he would never question my service to our country. Instead, he watches as a Republican-funded attack group does just that. Well, if he wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: 'Bring it on."'
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 9:34 AM

 
THE POLITICS OF WAR, AND THE WAR OF POLITICS

In Najaf: are you surprised to hear that the U.S. didn’t have a clear plan for dealing with Sadr’s rebels?

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/18/international/middleeast/18najaf.html?pagewanted=all&position
Acting without the approval of the Pentagon or senior Iraqi officials, the Marine officers said in recent interviews, they turned a firefight with Mr. Sadr's forces on Thursday, Aug. 5, into a eight-day pitched battle, one fought out in deadly skirmishes in an ancient cemetery that brought them within rifle shot of the Imam Ali Mosque, Shiite Islam's holiest shrine. Eventually, fresh Army units arrived from Baghdad and took over Marine positions near the mosque, but by then the politics of war had taken over and the American force had lost the opportunity to storm Mr. Sadr's fighters around the mosque…Fighting here continues, and what the Marines had hoped would be a quick, decisive action has bogged down into a grinding battle that appears to have strengthened the hand of Mr. Sadr, whose stature rises each time he survives a confrontation with the American military. It may have weakened the credibility of the interim Iraqi government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, showing him, many Iraqis say, to be alternately rash and indecisive, as well as ultimately beholden to American overrule on crucial military and political matters…As a reconstruction of the battle in Najaf shows, the sequence of events was strikingly reminiscent of the battle of Falluja in April. In both cases, newly arrived Marine units immediately confronted guerrillas in firefights that quickly escalated. And in both cases, the American military failed to achieve its strategic goals, pulling back after the political costs of the confrontation rose. Falluja is now essentially off-limits to American ground troops and has become a haven for Sunni Muslim insurgents and terrorists menacing Baghdad, American commanders say.

What the U.S. media isn’t covering about the ongoing stalemate: Sadr isn’t refusing to surrender or negotiate because he’s crazy or has a death wish — it’s because he’s winning

http://www.juancole.com/2004_08_01_juancole_archive.html#109281411743058076
The Shrine of Ali is a tomb, and although it has a mosque attached to it, it is not just a mosque. It is a Shrine. Like the shrine of the Prophet Muhammad in Medinah or the shrine of Imam Husain in Karbala, it is a sacred resting place of holy remains. A lot of mosques could be damaged with impunity. These shrines cannot…The ignoramus Marines in Najaf clearly don't know all this, and since they don't know it they don't have any business making military policy there. They have endangered all Americans profoundly by potentially spurring a whole new wave of Shiite terrorism against us, recalling the bad old days of the early to mid-1980s (when some of our present allies in Iraq, like al-Da`wa and SCIRI were attacking US targets like the embassy in Kuwait or helping take Americans captive in Beirut)…Meanwhile, the attempt by members of the national conference now meeting in Baghdad to mediate the stand-off in Najaf failed when Muqtada al-Sadr declined to meet with them…Muqtada has a sense that his time has come. He seems to be sure that most Iraqis are siding with him, and that Allawi and the Americans will come after him only at their very great peril.

More on the outing of Khan, and Pakistan’s role in it

http://www.juancole.com/2004_08_01_juancole_archive.html#109280908668332369
Earlier on, Reuters had reported, and I had repeated, that the name of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan was given on background to the press by a Bush administration official. The assertion was confirmed by National Security Adviser Condaleeza Rice in an August 8 interview on CNN with Wolf Blitzer, in which she said that US officials gave the name out on background. Both Reuters and Rice appear to have been wrong in this allegation, and I regret having repeated it. The transcript of the briefing, when released, did not contain Khan's name. However, I am not very embarrassed about being wrong, since Rice misled me. Her office later issued a correction, saying that she had just repeated back to Blitzer his own statement, and had misspoken. This performance by her seems to me bizarre and alarming, but there you have it…The point remains that had Ridge not made his announcement, the press would have had no occasion to go searching for the source of his information. The Bush administration decision to go public put a powerful spotlight on the Pakistani arrests of June and July…Amy Waldman and Eric Lipton said on Tuesday August 18 that the New York Times managed to get the name of Khan, as the source for the plot against the financial institutions, from a Pakistani official.

Bush’s lies about Kerry’s Iraq stance

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/08/17/bush/index.html

Clarifying Kerry’s stance on Iraq, in words of one syllable

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh081704.shtml
KERRY’S POSITION: I voted to give President Bush the authority. Then President Bush f*cked it up.

“Bringing the troops home” – well, not those troops, but this will draw a few more votes for Bush from disgruntled military families, I’m sure

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6461-2004Aug16.html
Bush's announcement of the plan -- which drew mixed assessments from military analysts -- gave him a chance to talk about bringing troops home at a time when his opponent, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), has pledged to substantially reduce U.S. troop levels in Iraq. The administration plan, which will not affect the number of troops in Iraq, has been under development for many months.

[This redeployment was so obvious and long overdue that it can only be asked why he is doing it now, just in time to have SOME happy runway shots on the evening news before the election.]

“Homeland Security” not politicized — nevertheless, Ridge will be able to dominate the evening news for a month during the heat of the campaign

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_08_17_bestof.html#109278290330712482

The last word (from me anyway) on “sensitivity”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/17/163641/286

Bush’s National Guard lies, chapter and verse — but is anyone paying attention any longer?

http://www.glcq.com/

DoD lets Halliburton off the hook (but, hey, what's a little fraud between friends?)

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5999764&src=rss/topNews§ion=news

Election news: the return of “astroturf” (i.e. synthetic grass roots)

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/08/17/astroturf_is_back.html

Rove: no genius (except that he’s willing to do almost anything to win)

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003555

Bush campaign caught in another lie

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007599.html


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 9:10 AM

 
FAULT LINES

Déjà vu all over again: how the US and Allawi regime keep mishandling Najaf

http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=1927

Why words matter: CNN buys Pentagon line, calls Sadr rebels “anti-Iraqi”, not “anti-American” or “anti-occupation” or “anti-regime.” Where do they think these rebels are coming from?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/16/213349/949

[More: http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=1930
Chalk up as a cost to removing Sadr from Najaf the increasing unity of Iraqis against U.S. military action. Reuters is reporting the arrival of roughly 2,000 volunteers from "across Iraq" to the Imam Ali shrine, where they intend on acting as human shields or new recruits to the Mahdi Army.]

In Pakistan: are these our allies, or aren’t they?

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/08/17/pakistan_terrorism/
The day after Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced a new orange alert, the New York Times reported that the information leading to the alert came from the arrest in Lahore, Pakistan, three weeks earlier of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, a computer wizard linked to al-Qaida. It was later revealed that since his arrest Khan had been working as a double agent for the Pakistanis and the Americans, passing on al-Qaida leaders' messages to its operatives and helping uncover members of the global terrorist network. Khan's identification in the New York Times ended his usefulness in ferreting out terrorists -- a tragic loss in the war on terror…Reporters initially fingered American officials for leaking Khan's name. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice all but acknowledged the administration's mistake in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. The matter was then written off as another blunder caused by the fog of war…But in fact, U.S. officials did not leak Khan's name. The first leak of Khan's name, according to well-informed, reliable sources in the region who spoke on condition of anonymity, came from Pakistani officials in Islamabad -- who perhaps were motivated by eagerness to show off their success in arresting al-Qaida figures or, more ominously, by a desire to sabotage the penetration of al-Qaida that Khan's arrest had made possible. A second Pakistani leak to Reuters, blaming the Americans as the source of the leak, served to absolve the Pakistanis of any responsibility in breaking up new al-Qaida cells -- an important move domestically.

And in Afghanistan, matters continue to deteriorate (but is the press paying attention? – “it’s their problem now”)

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/08/bush_the_democr.html

[More: http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_08_16_bestof.html#109268482070458038]

Hardly even news any more: Bush’s disastrous environmental policies

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6462-2004Aug16?language=printer

Bush’s dishonest stem cell policy – now he’s hiding behind Laura’s apron

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64016-2004Aug13.html
Then last week [Laura Bush] suddenly popped off about stem cells. But this was hardly her breakthrough moment. A lot of Republican politicians and operatives spoke out about stem cells last week, all miraculously making the same argument -- an argument so embarrassingly silly and disingenuous that it could only be an official campaign talking point. Anyone thinking for herself would have a hard time getting it out without giggling.

Charter school test scores lag behind public schools (this is a BIG story)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/17/education/17charter.html?ex=1250481600&

Bush 101: Always translate substantive debates over policies and their effects into a question of your motives and intent

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003532

Phony moral equivalence: “Bush haters” just as bad as “Clinton haters”

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004527.php
Tell you what, Jonah. As soon as the most popular liberal editorial page in the country accuses George Bush of murdering one of his aides, maybe I'll give your argument a hearing. And as soon as one of the most influential liberal interest groups in the country starts distributing hundreds of thousands of videos suggesting that George Bush ran a coke ring out of Austin, then I'll really perk up. And when Senate Democrats spend $70 million investigating the Valerie Plame affair — compared to the current $0 — and end up bringing impeachment charges against George Bush, then you'll have me. You'll really have me.

Electoral news: Bush and Kerry in Oregon. Bush meets with 2500 hand-picked acolytes, Kerry meets with 40-50,000 in an open rally

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/16/19217/9455
Of course it helps to have a candidate who isn't afraid of the American people, and doesn't demand they sign loyalty oaths and employ bouncers at the door.

The press seems to be catching on to the fraud of those “Meet the President” events

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4943-2004Aug16.html
The press corps appears to have had about enough of those hokey "Ask President Bush" events…Instead of taking questions from reporters, President Bush has become increasingly partial to playing talk-show host to an audience of sycophantic fans…There were four "Ask President Bush" events last week and in each case, after a long speech and staged interviews with prepped guests, Bush opened the floor to some incredible softballs…

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003537
For instance, in Beaverton:

"Q On behalf of Vietnam veterans -- and I served six tours over there -- we do support the President. I only have one concern, and that's on the Purple Heart, and that is, is that there are over 200,000 Vietnam vets that died from Agent Orange and were never -- no Purple Heart has ever been awarded to a Vietnam veteran because of Agent Orange because it's never been changed in the regulations. Yet, we've got a candidate for President out here with two self-inflicted scratches, and I take that as an insult. (Applause.)

"THE PRESIDENT: Well, I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you for your service. Six tours? Whew. That's a lot of tours.

"Let's see, who've we got here? You got a question?"

Yeah, I'll bet Bush appreciates that.

Good question: If Bush wins, especially in a close race, will people accept the legitimacy of the result?

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/08/what_krugman_left_out.html
[Krugman] When I say that the result will be suspect, I don’t mean that the election will, in fact, have been stolen. (We may never know.) I mean that there will be sufficient uncertainty about the honesty of the vote count that much of the world and many Americans will have serious doubts…

Those despicable “swift boat” ads – complete crap, but still getting “on the one hand, on the other hand” press coverage

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-na-kerryswift17aug17,1,6210087.story?coll=la-home-headlines

One honorable man

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/v-pfriendly/story/222504p-191185c.html
The Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said yesterday that John Kerry "deserved" his combat medals for heroism in Vietnam, which some vets have disputed…Sen. John Warner, an ex-Navy secretary under President Richard Nixon, particularly defended the process by which Kerry won his highest honor, the Silver Star…"I'd stand by the process that awarded that medal, and I think we best acknowledge that his heroism did gain that recognition," Warner (R-Va.) told CNN's "Late Edition."…"We did extraordinary, careful checking on that type of medal [the Silver Star], a very high one, when it goes through the secretary," Warner said. "I feel that he deserved it."

Bonus item (previewed yesterday): Log Cabin, pro-choice Republicans announce fight over platform at GOP convention

http://www.logcabin.org/logcabin/press_081604.html

Further fracturing on the Right: Fukuyama goes after Krauthammer

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/08/podhoretz_and_f.html

[More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003533]

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 9:43 AM

 
THE INCONVENIENT BLESSINGS OF DEMOCRACY

Bush Co. keeps trying to get rid of Chavez, and the people of Venezuela keep saying “we want to keep him” – how inconvenient

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-venezuela.html?ex=1250395200&

[More on the U.S. role behind the scenes: http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_08_16_bestof.html#109265704155917130]

In Iraq, we say we want the people to have freedom of speech, and then they insist, inconveniently, on using it

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/16/international/middleeast/16baghdad.html?ex=1250395200&

But no danger of that happening here: Bush Co. uses FBI to intimidate, discourage protests at RNC

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/16/politics/campaign/16fbi.html?ex=1250395200&en=8d813b5b5e5d2ebe&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been questioning political demonstrators across the country, and in rare cases even subpoenaing them, in an aggressive effort to forestall what officials say could be violent and disruptive protests at the Republican National Convention in New York…F.B.I. officials are urging agents to canvass their communities for information about planned disruptions aimed at the convention and other coming political events, and they say they have developed a list of people who they think may have information about possible violence.

[What a wonderful phrase: “who they think may have information about possible violence” – a frighteningly low threshold. This is the logic of pre-emptive action in Iraq brought home: the fact that someone might at some later point have the capability of doing something, or even may just have potential information about something, justifies the use of coercion and intimidation now. (“Minority Report” comes to life.) Needless to say, the FBI was not so proactive in discouraging protestors at Kerry’s convention.]

More on the cocoon being built around Bush – no inconvenience wanted

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/16/politics/campaign/16letter.html
Last week alone, in Virginia, Florida, New Mexico and Oregon, Mr. Bush had four "Ask President Bush'' question-and-answer sessions with rapt Republican audiences. The week before he had one in Columbus, Ohio, and this week he has one scheduled for St. Croix, Wis…As anyone who has sat through the 90-minute forums knows, the questions are not hand grenades that detonate onto the evening news…Many times the questions aren't even questions at all. Exhibit A might be these words from an audience member in Niceville, Fla., on Tuesday:

"I'm 60 years old and I've voted Republican from the very first time I could vote. And I also want to say this is the very first time that I have felt that God was in the White House.''

"Thank you,'' Mr. Bush replied, to applause.

Bush campaign officials tell reporters at every "Ask President Bush'' forum that the questions are not planted and that the sessions are spontaneous. Senator John Kerry's campaign officials say the events are too ridiculous to be believed…Whatever the case, Bush campaign officials readily say that they carefully screen the crowds by distributing tickets through campaign volunteers. "Our supporters hand them out to other supporters and people who may be undecided,'' said Scott Stanzel, a campaign spokesman…The result is often a love-in with heavily Christian crowds. Mr. Bush relaxes, shows off his humor and appears more human than in his sometimes tongue-tied and tense encounters with the press. He clearly relishes the sessions: As of this coming Wednesday in Wisconsin, Mr. Bush will have had 12 such campaign forums, which is one less than the number of solo news conferences he has had in three and a half years in the White House…Of course, reporters write that the events are canned, but campaign officials care only about the lively snippets of Mr. Bush that get on the local news.

A moment of candor about the real agenda of these events

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/need-some-help-mr-president.html
President George W. Bush famously dislikes press conferences but has embraced "Ask President Bush" sessions packed with supporters at least as eager to pay tribute to him as get an answer…"Mr President, I don't have a question. I've got three 'thank-yous'," one man told him at such an event in Ohio.

Billed as informal question-and-answer opportunities for curious voters to quiz the most powerful man in the world, the carefully choreographed campaign events usually recycle the central points from his stump speech…"We're going to call on some of your citizens to help me make some points," he said at the Ohio event.

Vote suppression in Florida continues apace (and its amazing that they don’t even bother to hide it or deny it)

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_08_16_bestof.html#109263929413572955

More on Bush Co.’s selective interest in “scientific evidence” as a basis for policy (i.e., if it fits trumpet the facts, if it doesn’t ignore it)

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_08_16_bestof.html#109265523089429550

U.S. no closer to finding Bin Laden

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-chase16aug16,1,5700806.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Which puts an interesting spin on this choice of words in Bush’s latest commercial

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58009-2004Aug11.html
“My most solemn duty is to lead our nation to protect ourselves. I can't imagine the great agony of a mom or a dad having to make the decision about which child to pick up first on September the 11th. We cannot hesitate, we cannot yield, we must do everything in our power to bring an enemy to justice before they hurt us again.”

[“An” enemy? – anyone in particular in mind?]

Vs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59518-2004Aug12.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbri
Bush was asked then by Kelly Wallace of CNN why he so rarely mentioned bin Laden, and whether bin Laden was, in fact, dead or alive…Bush's answer: "Well, deep in my heart, I know the man is on the run if he's alive at all. Who knows if he's hiding in some cave or not? We haven't heard from him in a long time…So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you. . .I truly am not that concerned about him."

Iraqi troops deserting in Najaf

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9409919.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

[But you won’t see this on the evening news: http://www.kron4.com/Global/story.asp?S=2175969
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=551871]

Bonus item: The press seems determined to paint this as a “close race,” even though right now it isn’t. Things could change, of course, but at the current rate Bush looks like a sure loser:

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000536.html
Today they're predicting Kerry 327, Bush 211-- which, if accurate, would represent a wonderful and decisive rout of the Neocons and their radical agenda.

[More: http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000537.html]


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 10:05 AM

 
THEY'VE GOT DICK

Cheney’s turn

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/cheney-coward.html
Says Tom Harkin:

"When I hear this coming from Dick Cheney, who was a coward, who would not serve during the Vietnam War, it makes my blood boil," Harkin said. "Those of us who served and those of us who went in the military don't like it when someone like a Dick Cheney comes out and he wants to be tough. Yeah, he'll be tough. He'll be tough with somebody else's blood, somebody else's kids. But not when it was his turn to go."

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/cheney-vs-cheney.html
HH: Vice President Dick Cheney, welcome to the Hugh Hewitt Show.

VP: It is good to be on here.

HH: Today you brought attention to John Kerry's plan to wage a more 'sensitive' war on terror. What do you think John Kerry meant when he said 'sensitive,' Mr. Vice President?

VP: Well, I'm not sure what he meant (laughing). Ah, it strikes me the two words don't really go together, sensitive and war....

...[later]...

HH: Will the Najaf offensive continue until that city is subdued even if that means a siege of the Imam Ali shrine?

VP: Well, from the standpoint of the shrine, obviously it is a sensitive area, and we are very much aware of its sensitivity. On the other hand, a lot of people who worship there feel like Moqtada Sadr is the one who has defiled the shrine, if you will, and I would expect folks on the scene there, including U.S. commanders, will work very carefully with the Iraqis so that we minimize the extent to which the U.S. is involved in any operation that might involve the shrine itself.

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001347.html
Business Week's Michael France is one of the few mainstream reporters that has had the courage to tell the truth about what the Halliburton accounting scandal says about Dick Cheney:

The second most important political executive in our country claims to be ignorant of one of the key business decisions his company made during his tenure as CEO. It may well be that an underling was willing to make such an important call without telling Cheney, but make no mistake: This type of scenario would be very rare, even in pre-Sarbanes-Oxley Corporate America. "The thing executives care the most about is how they look in terms of the numbers," says University of Texas School of Law securities expert Henry T.C. Hu. "An accounting decision that is going to affect performance by nearly half is usually the type of thing the CFO would discuss with the head of the company."…Even if Cheney didn't know about the disclosure decision, he should have. CEOs are paid big bucks for a reason: to stay on top of the important events going on in their companies. When it comes to maneuvers that have such a critical -- and obvious -- impact on earnings, ignorance is no excuse…

Catastrophes in Florida

Hurricane Charley? Call out the National Guard…oh…sorry…never mind

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_08_15_bestof.html#109259151522553245

Election outrages. This time, GOP officials send out incorrect voting information with absentee ballots to (mostly Democratic) Palm Beach County

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_08_15_bestof.html#109255859783232836

More election news

Good analyses: How Bush’s simpleminded stubbornness plays relatively well in the press, even when he’s wrong, while Kerry’s nuanced distinctions get played as “wishy washy”

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004512.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_08.php#003276

Could there be a GOP convention fight over party inclusiveness? (Oh, wouldn’t it be fun!)

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-na-gopfight15aug15,1,7972565.story?coll=la-home-headlines
President Bush and his political lieutenants want the Republican National Convention in New York this month to exude the same sense of unity that characterized the Democratic love fest in Boston…But away from the spotlight, infighting appears about to break out over the GOP platform's stance on gay rights. The issue is important to the White House because the appearance of intolerance could sway critical swing voters…Log Cabin Republicans, a group of 12,000 gay conservatives, is teaming up with Republicans who support abortion rights to challenge the expected GOP platform on family issues…The GOP's platform from 2000 is expected to be the framework for this year's effort. It declares that marriage is the "legal union of one man and one woman," and that "the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed."…The Log Cabin Republicans plan to hold a news conference Monday with Republicans for Choice and the Republican Youth Majority to outline their strategy.

The CW takes a decided shift against Bush’s re-election chances

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/15/81326/5662

Bush policies decimate OSHA

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1315-2004Aug14.html

Bonus item: campaign ads you probably WON’T see (unfortunately)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_08_15_atrios_archive.html#109258153166706473
[ominous music swells]

Rice (from 9/11 Commission testimony): I believe the title was 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack'

Flash on screen: August 6, 2001, accompanied by Law and Order type thunk-thunk sound.

Followed by footage of Bush clearing Brush, Bush playing golf, talking about his vacation, each accompanied by the date and a good thunk-thunk sound. And, then yes, Bush reading about a pet goat. September 11. thunk-thunk.

Final narration: Bush wasn't there when America needed him most.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_08_15_digbysblog_archive.html#109258904467859397
Here's one I'd like to see:

George W. Bush: I can't imagine the great agony of a mom or a dad having to make the decision about which child to pick up first on September the 11th. We cannot hesitate, we cannot yield, we must do everything in our power to bring an enemy to justice before they hurt us again. (from TV ad)

VOICEOVER: Here's what the families of the victims of 9/11 think about George W. Bush.

WOMAN: My husband was killed in the WTC

WOMAN: My father was killed in the WTC

SUSIE ELLIOT, Firefighter husband died in the WTC.: George Bush has not been honest about what happened on September 11th.

ALISON FRENCH, Father died in the Pentagon: He is lying about his record.

CINDY LETSON: Son killed in the WTC: I know that George Bush is lying about 9/11, because I saw the video where he froze up and couldn't figure out what to do when he was told about the attack.

BETSY ODELL, Son killed in the WTC: George Bush lied when he said he did everything he could. I know. I've read the 9/11 report.

DINA CHENOWETH, Husband killed in the WTC: It took us pressuring him for months to even agree to a commission to investigate what went wrong.

MARY HOFFMAN, Son and daughter-in-law killed on Flight 93: George Bush didn't want people to know that he had received explicit warning for months and did absolutely nothing.

KATHY LONSDALE, Sister of brother killed in the Pentagon: He lacks the capacity to lead.

KATIE THURLOW, Husband and son killed on flight 93: When the chips were down, you could not count on George W. Bush.

DEBBIE ELDER, Husband killed in the WTC: George W. Bush is no leader.

ANGELA HIBBARD, Daughter killed in the WTC: He betrayed us. He lied before the American people.

SHELBY WHITE, Husband killed in the WTC: George W. Bush has betrayed all the men and women who died on September the 11th.

BRENDA PONDER, Husband killed at the Pentagon: He dishonored his country. He most certainly did.

JANE HILDRETH: Wife of firefighter killed in the WTC: I watched George W. Bush try to cover up his administration's actions leading to 9/11. George W. Bush cannot be trusted.

VO: 9/11 Widows for Truth is responsible for the content of this advertisement.

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 5:04 PM

 
COMEDY AND TRAGEDY

How do you keep from laughing sometimes?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_08.php#003274

I have told my staff, I want full cooperation with the Justice Department. And when they ask for information, we expect the information to be delivered on a timely basis. I expect it to be delivered on a timely basis. I want there to be full participation, because...I am most interested in finding out the truth.

-- George W. Bush, 10/06/03

In January, Justice Department investigators asked White House staff members to sign a waiver requesting "that no member of the news media assert any privilege or refuse to answer any questions from federal law enforcement authorities on my behalf or for my benefit." But in February the Washington Post reported, "Most officials declined to sign the form on the advice of their attorneys."

-- Salon , 8/13/04

No wonder he can't get our allies to do anything he wants them to do.

Bush meets King

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003517
George Bush sometimes impresses mightily with his jujitsu issue switcheroos -- evading a question on topic A by transforming it into an opportunity to comment on entirely unrelated topic B. In his one-hour sit-down with Larry King last night, Bush pulled two of these switches with gusto. Here, he answers King’s request for a condemnation of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth by condemning 527s:

KING: Do you condemn the statements made about his...

G. BUSH: Well, I haven't seen the ad, but what I do condemn is these unregulated, soft-money expenditures by very wealthy people, and they've said some bad things about me. And what I think we ought to do is not have them on the air. I think there ought to be full disclosure. The campaign funding law I signed I thought was going to get rid of that. But evidently the Federal Election Commission had a different view.

That’s clever, but of course it’s also pretty obvious. This next one is truly inspired. Watch as King presses Bush on the issue of gay marriage and the president answers by plugging the permanent repeal of the estate tax:

KING: Gay people would honestly say they want the benefits of a marriage.

G. BUSH: Well, you can do that through the legal process. You know, people have said to me, well, if you're gay, you can't inherit because -- and you don't get the exemption from income tax. Well, my answer there is get rid of the inheritance tax forever, the death tax, which I'm trying to do.

Pure genius. Has he used this line before and this is just the first time I’ve heard it? It was certainly startling to my ears.

And just in case you don’t get the message about that “soft-money” line, the FEC is revisiting its effort to change campaign rules in the middle of an election (because the Dems are winning the 527 battle)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/politics/9395051.htm

This has been the WH line for a while, if anyone was paying attention: Scottie (August 10)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040810-8.html
Q Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are coming out with their book today. Anything more, whether the President would repudiate what they've said about Kerry's record in Vietnam?

MR. McCLELLAN: You heard last week, I mean, we made it very -- let's not be selective here, because the issue here is looking at this unregulated soft money advertising and activity that is going on. And we made it very clear last week that the President deplores all the unregulated soft money ads and activity that are going on. And that's why we called on the Kerry campaign to join us in calling for an end to all of this unregulated soft money advertising and activity that is going on.

More on those “spontaneous” Meet the President sessions: does it occur to anyone that the effect of these Potemkin-village frauds is as much to shield Bush from political reality as it is to massage the media image of the day? They did this with Reagan too – kept him in a cocoon that let him maintain his sunny outlook on himself and his policies.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html#bush
When King asked Bush whether the people he "runs into" say they support him or that they don't know, Bush said: "I run into both. And when you say, 'run in,' the president doesn't 'run into' anybody."…Bush seemed to write off his isolation as an inevitable part of the presidency. It is, and it isn't. Presidents don't do their own grocery shopping, and they don't chew the fat down at the corner barber shop. But there's nothing in the Constitution that requires presidents to appear before invitation-only crowds, nothing that requires that "Ask the President" events feature only questions designed to highlight the White House talking points of the day. There's nothing that prohibits the president from reading newspapers…Bush has chosen to isolate himself from the electorate, and he doesn't seem to recognize the effect of his decision. When King asked about anger in America Thursday night, Bush said: "I think there may be handfuls of people that are very emotional." Bush seemed to confuse his stage-managed events with real life, forgetting -- or choosing to ignore the fact -- that the people at campaign events are invited guests of the Republican Party, that the Secret Service keeps protestors out of the president's sight.

"When I travel the country, and I've been traveling a lot, there are thousands of people who come out and wave, and they are -- you know, they respect the presidency," Bush said. "Sometimes they like the president, but I have this -- I don't have a sense that there's a lot of anger."

More Bush candor on the 9-11 Commission and other topics: Larry King lets him get away with this, but will the rest of the media?

Bush…explained that he never "really" opposed the creation of the 9/11 commission, even though he said that he opposed it back in 2002. He explained that, when he said at a campaign event this week that a national sales tax was an "interesting idea that we ought to explore seriously," he only meant that "we ought to explore ways to simplify the tax code." Defending his "coalition" in Iraq, Bush said that countries like "Japan or South Korea or Denmark or Holland" have "made sacrifices like we have," even though, between them, they appear to have lost at most two soldiers in Iraq…And when King asked Bush why, on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, he had declared the battle of Iraq over, Bush explained that he "didn't say that. Now let's be careful about that." Yes, let's be careful. What Bush actually said was: "In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."

And that’s not all: even more Bush making s—t up as he goes

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62918-2004Aug13.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing
"KING: John Kerry, your opponent, has said at the convention: Had I been reading to children and had my top aide whisper in my ear, 'America's under attack,' I would have told those kids very nicely and politely, the president of the United States has something he needs to attend to. And there's a film showing you sitting. What was going -- let's explain this, so we hear it from the other side.

"G. BUSH: Well, I had just been told by Andrew Card that America was under attack. And I was collecting my thoughts. And I was sitting with a bunch of young kids, and I made the decision there that we would let this part of the program finish, and then I would calmly stand up and thank the teacher and thank the children and go take care of business.”…

"KING: You first were opposed to the 9/11 Commission and then changed. Why?

"G. BUSH: Not really.

"KING: You weren't opposed?

"G. BUSH: Well, I just wanted to make sure that it was done the right way. I felt like that -- one of my concerns was that it would usurp the Congress' need to fully investigate."

But Bush's aides at the time made it very clear that he didn't support the establishment of a commission, and Bush himself had this to say in May, 2002: "I, of course, want the Congress to take a look at what took place prior to September the 11th. But since it deals with such sensitive information, in my judgment, it's best for the ongoing war against terror that the investigation be done in the intelligence committee [which my party controls]. There are committees set up with both Republicans and Democrats who understand the obligations of upholding our secrets and our sources and methods of collecting intelligence. And therefore, I think it's the best place for Congress to take a good look at the events leading up to September the 11th."

With friends like these…

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html#arnold
In order to put a more moderate sheen on his administration's hard-right record, George W. Bush is working hard to align himself with Republicans who often disagree with him. The trouble is, those Republicans often disagree with him.

Bush campaigned with Sen. John McCain this week, only to face questions about why he has failed to heed McCain's call to condemn a "dishonest and dishonorable" television ad about John Kerry's military service…Now it's Arnold Schwarzenegger's turn to make things a little uncomfortable for the president. While McCain and Schwarzenegger have both been invited to speak at the Republican National Convention, they've both made it clear that they actually like John Kerry and won't be talking trash about him.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Schwarzenegger, appearing on a radio talk show Thursday, declined to say that John Kerry would be a bad president. "No, I'm not saying that at all," Schwarzenegger said, adding that Kerry is a friend with whom he has skied, skated and played hockey. "I promised that in this campaign, I would never talk negative about him, because he's a terrific human being. I just happen to have a different political philosophy and a different way of thinking the way the country ought to be served.''

Except for his convention appearance, it's not at all clear that Schwarzenegger will do much campaigning for Bush at all. Schwarzenegger appeared with Bush at a campaign stop in Southern California Thursday…But as the Chronicle notes, Schwarzenegger "has seemingly changed his mind and changed it again when questioned about his plans to help Bush's re-election effort." Earlier this year, he said he was too busy with state business to travel around the country campaigning. Earlier this week, he told the Los Angeles Times that he likely would campaign for Bush out of state. On Thursday, the Chronicle says, Schwarzenegger was back to saying, "I will not go outside the state."

Bush reduced to kissing Nancy’s ring – drives out to see her during latest trip to California (since she won’t come to the convention), which leads to this pathetic display

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007575.html

Remarks by the President Mrs. Reagan and Mrs. Bush in a Photo Opportunity, The Reagan Home, Bel Air, California (2:37 P.M. PDT)

THE PRESIDENT: Laura and I are honored to come by and pay our respects to Mrs. Reagan. We really admire Mrs. Reagan's strength and her love of a great President, and her friendship. We really thank you for the tour of your beautiful backyard. (Laughter.)

MRS. REAGAN: I'm so glad you came -- so glad you came. Thanks so much.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you.

MRS. BUSH: Thanks so much.

MRS. REAGAN: I'm always happy to see you.

MRS. BUSH: Thank you very much.

MRS. REAGAN: And you met Duchess.

THE PRESIDENT: And I met Duchess.

MRS. REAGAN: You met Duchess.

MRS. BUSH: That's right.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all.

MRS. BUSH: Thanks, everybody.

END (2:38 P.M. PDT)

Now for some serious stuff: Our corporatist administration

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=8344
For most Americans, the last four years have represented a low point in our economic history. But for the big-business interests financing the Bush campaign, these have been high times. In previous eras, and even under previous Republican administrations, corporate America was one of a number of players in the public-policy arena. But under the Bush administration, big business is both the player and the referee, having finally won its decades-long campaign to eliminate the boundary between executive suite and public office…Industry no longer needs to lobby hard for regulatory rollbacks, because many of its own lobbyists have been appointed federal regulators. Congress openly admits that business writes many of the most important pieces of legislation. The White House slaps an official seal on memos from corporate executives and labels them “presidential policy initiatives.” The vice president is permitted to own shares of stock in a company for which he coordinates government contracts. And the Oval Office is occupied by a man whose major life experience was not public service but money-losing business deals (that somehow seemed to just make him richer and richer). In short, the government is now a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America.

Iraq: Tactical wins = strategic losses

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_08.php#003273
Fred Kaplan has a bleak but, I fear, quite possibly accurate piece on Iraq today in Slate.

The key sentence is this one: "the U.S. military—the only force in Iraq remotely capable of keeping the country from falling apart—finds itself in a maddening situation where tactical victories yield strategic setbacks."

This is the essence of the present situation. For us Iraq has become the geopolitical equivalent of a Chinese finger puzzle, the more we exert ourselves the more the situation constricts around us and the higher the price becomes to get ourselves out, at least in any way that mainstream foreign policy types, among whom I would class myself, find acceptable...And the key is Kaplan's point about tactical victories and strategic setbacks. Yet, I think we can go further and say that these don't 'yield' strategic setbacks, they are strategic setbacks in and of themselves...Winning a pitched battle against Shi'a insurgents in the heart of one of Shi'a Islam's holiest sites (and by this I mean not just the Imam Ali Mosque, but the cemetery near it and the area immediately surrounding it) is itself a defeat for us.

Bush Co. making Iraq work for them anyway

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/14/politics/14bush.html?hp
April 21 was an unusually violent day in Iraq; 68 people died in a car bombing in Basra, among them 23 children. As the news went from bad to worse, President Bush took a tough line, vowing to a group of journalists, "We're not going to cut and run while I'm in the Oval Office."

On the same day, deep within the turgid pages of the Federal Register, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published a regulation that would forbid the public release of some data relating to unsafe motor vehicles, saying that publicizing the information would cause "substantial competitive harm" to manufacturers…As soon as the rule was published, consumer groups yelped in complaint, while the government responded that it was trying to balance the interests of consumers with the competitive needs of business. But hardly anyone else noticed, and that was hardly an isolated case.

Allies and critics of the Bush administration agree that the Sept. 11 attacks, the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq have preoccupied the public, overshadowing an important element of the president's agenda: new regulatory initiatives. Health rules, environmental regulations, energy initiatives, worker-safety standards and product-safety disclosure policies have been modified in ways that often please business and industry leaders while dismaying interest groups representing consumers, workers, drivers, medical patients, the elderly and many others…And most of it was done through regulation, not law - lowering the profile of the actions. The administration can write or revise regulations largely on its own, while Congress must pass laws. For that reason, most modern-day presidents have pursued much of their agendas through regulation. But administration officials acknowledge that Mr. Bush has been particularly aggressive in using this strategy.

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 12:55 PM

 
DESPERATION

This is not the kind of campaign a confident, successful administration runs. They can’t run on “mission accomplished,” because it wasn’t; they can’t run on “turning the corner,” because that suggests that things aren’t so great right now (and it also suggests that nothing bad is still ahead); they can’t run on “stay the course,” because no one knows what the course is; and they can’t run on an explicit agenda for the next term, because most people don’t support more of the same (more tax cuts, etc.).

So, they’re reduced to attacks and unfair characterizations of things Kerry did or did not actually say, and cowardly proxy assaults on his character. And we still have three months to go…

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-campaign13aug13,1,5348964.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
Republicans on Thursday leveled some of their most aggressive attacks yet against Sen. John F. Kerry, as a series of polls suggested the Democratic presidential nominee had gained slight leads in some battleground states and the economy continued to weigh on President Bush's prospects.

The ridiculous attack on Kerry’s “sensitive” remarks – what Kerry actually said:

http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200433#617
"I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history. I lay out a strategy to strengthen our military, to build and lead strong alliances and reform our intelligence system. I set out a path to win the peace in Iraq and to get the terrorists wherever they may be before they get us. "

How Bush’s attack dog [Cheney] distorted it:

"America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive...A sensitive war will not destroy the evil men who killed 3,000 Americans. ... The men who beheaded Daniel Pearl and Paul Johnson will not be impressed by our sensitivity."

What Bush has said:

http://www.majorityreportradio.com/weblog/archives/000608.php
Bush in 2001:

"We help fulfill that promise not by lecturing the world, but by leading it. Precisely because America is powerful, we must be sensitive about expressing our power and influence. Our goal is to patiently build the momentum of freedom, not create resentment for America itself. We pursue our goals, we will listen to others. We want strong friends to join us, not weak neighbors to dominate. In all our dealings with other nations, we will display the modesty of true confidence and strength." (Bush Remarks at USS Regan Ceremony, 3/4/01)

Bush last week at the UNITY conference:

"Now, in terms of the balance between running down intelligence and bringing people to justice obviously is -- we need to be very sensitive on that." (Bush Delivers Remarks at the Unity, Journalists of Color Conference, 8/6/04).

Circle your calendars: Bush supporters use the first race-baiting ad against Kerry (you knew it was coming didn’t you?)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58006-2004Aug11.html
A group financed by a major Republican contributor has begun running radio ads in about a dozen cities, many in battleground states, attacking Sen. John F. Kerry as "rich, white and wishy-washy" and mocking his wife for boasting of her African roots...The D.C.-based group, People of Color United, has substantial financial backing from J. Patrick Rooney, the former chairman of Golden Rule Insurance Co. and the founder of a new firm, Medical Savings Insurance Co. Both firms specialize in medical savings accounts, created by Republican-backed 1996 legislation, and health savings accounts, which were created by President Bush's 2003 Medicare prescription drug legislation.

Here’s one of those “imagine if Kerry had said this” moments – and I’ll bet you’re hearing it for the first time

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59518-2004Aug12.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing
In his brand new campaign ad, President Bush vows to "bring an enemy to justice before they hurt us again."…An enemy? Any enemy in particular?

Although there are certainly lots of enemies out there, public enemy number one is obviously al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden…But Bush didn't mention bin Laden -- who, just six days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks Bush said he wanted "dead or alive," and who, almost three years later, is still at large.

…Bush treats bin Laden a lot like those wizards in the Harry Potter books treat He Who Must Not Be Named…Since the beginning of 2003, in fact, Bush has mentioned bin Laden's name on only 10 occasions. And on six of those occasions it was because he was asked a direct question…In addition, there were four times when Bush was asked about bin Laden directly but was able to answer without mentioning bin Laden's name himself…Not once during that period has he talked about bin Laden at any length, or said anything substantive…During the same period, for comparison purposes, Bush has mentioned former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on approximately 300 occasions.

The last time Bush spoke protractedly about bin Laden was at a March 2003 news conference. Bush was asked then by Kelly Wallace of CNN why he so rarely mentioned bin Laden, and whether bin Laden was, in fact, dead or alive…Bush's answer: "Well, deep in my heart, I know the man is on the run if he's alive at all. Who knows if he's hiding in some cave or not? We haven't heard from him in a long time…So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you. . . . I truly am not that concerned about him."

[As Brad DeLong suggests, that last line should be played on a tv ad over and over again: http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001333.html]

“Just four months” – how the GOP manipulates the media echo chamber to create the appearance of a Kerry controversy where there isn’t one. Even four months in direct combat in Viet Nam is four more months than W, Cheney and the rest of the chickenhawks put together. And, of course, the point is that his service during that time was distinguished, even heroic. But that is getting increasingly muffled (and McCain, of course, keeps giving it legitimacy -- he could put an end to it with one sentence, if he chose to: “I will not support a candidate who besmirches the service of any veteran, whether myself, Kerry, Cleland, or whomever.”)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_08_08_atrios_archive.html#109232111103618164
I really can't believe the Post put this in their op-ed:

Mr. Kerry's four-plus months in Vietnam made for an unusually short tour.

But, they're in good company:
We have Fred Barnes on Fox Special Report (8/10)

I wonder what John McCain thinks about Kerry using his four-month record in Vietnam as the centerpiece of his campaign?

Fred Barnes again (8/9)

Now, if he is telling things that are not true about his four months in Vietnam, then that's important.

Again, same day:

Well, it's also part of the record that he left after four months on the basis of three flesh wounds and not many others did that.

David calling into Talk of the Nation on 08/09:

I read in the Boston (technical difficulties) Web site that Kerry could have only served four months in Vietnam.

Uncorrected by the host, Neal Conan.
Mara Liasson, falsely correcting a false statement by Gigot, on Fox News Sunday, (08/08)

GIGOT: You know, Kerry's got a lot of other legitimate vulnerabilities, including that asterisk he's put next to his 20 years in the Senate in that speech. I mean, that's what really ought to concern people, because I think Kerry has also overdone his Vietnam record and tried to say, "Look, because I spent four years in Vietnam, therefore I deserve to be president." I think his Senate record is a much better indicator.

LIASSON: Four months in Vietnam.

GIGOT: Four months, yes.

Novak on Crossfire, 08/07:

I have some question whether 30 years later you should be inspecting the minutiae, the record of John Kerry, which is a very questionable record, how he got his decorations, his very short term of duty, four months of combat, one third of the time.

Tucker Carlson, 08/06, Crossfire:

Kerry has turned his four months in Vietnam into the rationale for an entire presidential campaign.

Republican Chris Horner, on Hannity and Colmes, 08/06:

It is his claims, it is his stake to the presidency on not 19 years in the Senate but four months of Vietnam.

Mara Liasson, 08/06, Talk of the Nation:

Indeed he focuses so much on his four months in Vietnam that critics say he has virtually ignored his 20 years as a United States senator.

Hannity, H&C, 08/05:

You were there with John Kerry for three of the four months that he was there, correct?

Horner, again, John Gibson's show 08/05:

let's talk about the two things that John Kerry thinks qualify him for the White House: the four months in Vietnam and the 19 years in the Senate.

Craig Crawford, from Congressional Quarterly, on CNC's Capital Report:

He wants to run on his four months in Vietnam more than his party or his voting record.

Mary Matalin, on Steffie's show, 08/01:

Four months of honorable service in the height of the Cold War where the national strategies, national security strategies were radically different than what we need today, he's trapped in that thinking.

Novak, 07/31, Capital Gang:

that the tremendous attention for that whole convention, Thursday night, for the whole convention, on his four months in Vietnam is -- is...

Craig Crawford, CBS Political Analyst, the Early Show 07/30:

Well, I think John Kerry hopes to run on his four months in Vietnam as opposed to his many decades in Congress, especially his own votes on the war.

Jeff Greenfield, on Aaron Brown's show, 07/30:

The resume is thin. We heard a lot more about his four months in Vietnam than about 20 years in the Senate.

And on and on...

[More of the same, in newspapers: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_08_08_atrios_archive.html#109232284304266494]

The facts of the matter...

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_08_08_atrios_archive.html#109232509896073026
What's the truth about John Kerry's service in Vietnam? Well, he signed up for two tours of duty during the Vietnam war. He began training on 8/22/66, which of course takes some time. He received his commission as an ensign 4 months later. For the next 6 months, he receives additional training. He then worked on the USS Gridley, which over a 4 month period the follow years was working in direct support of the Vietnam War, including some time spent in the Gulf of Tomkin...During that period, he requests to command a Swift Boat, which were operating in coastal waters...A few months later, he begins the four months of training for that position, after which he reported for duty in Vietnam on 11/17, where he was until the following April. He then served about another 9 months stateside before requesting, and obtaining, a discharge...Is it technically accurate to say, as the Washington Post did, that John Kerry served "four-plus months in Vietnam?" Only in a Bush administration kind of way, and only barely at that. The spin point devalues not just Kerry's lengthy volunteered service, but everyone else who served. Now, was "only" serving "four plus months" in direct combat duty as he did an "unusually short tour?" Well, compared to what?

Meanwhile, on the forgotten issue of Bush’s own National Guard (NOT Air Force) service – the lies started early and often

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_08_08_digbysblog_archive.html#109234114476052192
As I gather the standard of evidence for charges against the military service of your political opponents is essentially non-existent, let's review Dear Leader's service record…As Atrios notes, all his recent troubles began when he lied about his military service in his autobiography. He claimed that he served out his term as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard (TANG). This is a lie. He received a transfer to Alabama, at some point after April 1972, after which point the record becomes murky…

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_08_08_digbysblog_archive.html#109235273468488250
In literature for his failed 1978 congressional campaign, George W. Bush said he served in the Air Force…Asked Tuesday at an appearance in New Jersey whether he was justified in claiming Air Force service, Bush replied: "I think so, yes. I was in the Air Force for over 600 days."…But the Air Force says once a guardsman always a guardsman, even if called to active duty for training or another temporary assignment…A pullout ad from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal on May 4, 1978, shows a huge picture of Bush with a "Bush for Congress" logo on the front. On the back, a synopsis of his career says he served "in the U.S. Air Force and the Texas Air National Guard where he piloted the F-102 aircraft."

Lies about Kerry’s tax policies

http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/000860.html
According to the GeorgeWBush.com, Senator Kerry is now proposing increasing taxes on taxpayers making more than $143,000, rather than only those making over $200,000…The Bush folks are using this data , which shows that the top two rates apply for incomes above $146,750. But although the Kerry document states "Restore top two rates," it doesn't state that Kerry/Edwards will do so for taxpayers earning less than $200,000. In speeches and documents posted on his web site, Kerry has been adamant about his plan not to raise taxes on those making less than $200,000.

And the truth about Bush’s

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61178-2004Aug12.html
Since 2001, President Bush's tax cuts have shifted federal tax payments from the richest Americans to a wide swath of middle-class families, the Congressional Budget Office has found, a conclusion likely to roil the presidential election campaign.

Judicial judo: is the Plame leak case being used to set back the larger cause of press independence? And will this or won't this break before the election?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004501.php
Drudge is reporting that New York Times reporter Judith Miller has been subpoenaed by the grand jury investigating the Valerie Plame case. That means we now have a total of four known subpoenas of reporters:

Matthew Cooper (Time magazine)

Tim Russert (Meet the Press)

Walter Pincus (Washington Post)

Judith Miller (New York Times)

And two "interviews":

Glenn Kessler (Washington Post)

Knut Royce (Newsday) (although I don't have confirmation of this)

This is becoming very interesting...

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/08/13/plame_leaks/index_np.html
Despite this week's dramatic legal ruling in the criminal investigation into which Bush administration officials leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame, it seems the case, reportedly in its final prosecutorial stages, remains many months away from completion. That's because the first of undoubtedly many court appeals has just begun. Experts suggest the case is likely to end up before the Supreme Court…If the justices do take the case, they could once and for all settle the question of whether journalists enjoy a privilege that excludes them from testifying in criminal cases…The risk for media advocates is that the court could strip away the narrow federal protection journalists have enjoyed over the past three decades… Calling the court opinion "devastating," Jane Kirtley, director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota, says Hogan is "deconstructing any attempt to argue constitutionally based privilege" for reporters. Time lawyers have appealed the ruling and are likely to go back to court in September before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Its ruling could come swiftly or sometime in 2005. Whichever side loses will probably petition the Supreme Court to hear the case, which could decide quickly or stretch the proceedings into 2006.

More…

"The question is, who could get to the bottom of this very quickly? The president of the United States," says former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Plame's husband. "There has to be an internal investigation into who's betraying the country -- an investigation with sworn affidavits from everybody on his staff -- and the president ought to insist everybody who talked to any reporter about this subject sign a waiver."…But Bush has done none of this. He simply urged White House employees to cooperate with investigators…In January, Justice Department investigators asked White House staff members to sign a waiver requesting "that no member of the news media assert any privilege or refuse to answer any questions from federal law enforcement authorities on my behalf or for my benefit." But in February the Washington Post reported, "Most officials declined to sign the form on the advice of their attorneys."

More recently, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff and a key player in the Plame leak investigation, told investigators about off-the-record conversations he had last summer with the Post's Glenn Kessler and NBC's Tim Russert, and formally requested that the conversations be disclosed, thereby freeing both reporters from their bond of confidentiality. Both Russert and Kessler agreed to speak with prosecutors, but neither man was a recipient of the leak last summer. Although they are free to talk, neither has come forward to discuss the conversations with prosecutors…There is no indication that Libby has given Time magazine's Cooper the same permission to come forward and reveal any confidential conversations the two had about Plame last summer. In the July 17, 2003, Time.com article that has ensnared Cooper in the investigation, Cooper and his coauthors wrote, "Some government officials have noted to Time in interviews (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." Interestingly, Libby in "an exclusive interview" is quoted on the record in that Time.com story, although not specifically about Plame. Whether Libby asked at any point during that interview to go off the record in order to talk about Wilson's wife remains unknown.

Bonus item: Chalabi returns to Iraq “to fight the charges against him,” then promptly disappears

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001024.html
If Chalabi serves Iran's interests in Iraq by helping forge some united radical Iraqi Shiite political block in alliance with al Sadr, Iran is gaining an extraordinary hand in Iraqi politics, and Chalabi is acting as Iran's agent even as he acts as his own.

But he doesn’t need to worry, because “arrest warrant” apparently doesn’t mean in Iraq what it means everywhere else in the world

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=736&e=6&u=/ap/20040812/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_chalabi
The Iraqi Interior Ministry said Thursday that it had "no intention" of arresting former Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi in the near future on counterfeiting charges, despite an arrest warrant issued by an Iraqi court…The announcement came a day after Chalabi returned to Iraq from Iran to face the charges against him and underscored a lack of coordination between Iraq's Central Criminal Court and law enforcement here less than two months after the interim government took power here…"There was and there is now no intention to carry out any measure in this regard until finalizing the legal measures," Interior Ministry spokesman Sabah Kadhim said, referring to the arrest warrant…"We want to look after the interests of the country. These are only subsidiary things between a citizen and a legal body," he added.

Breaking News: It’s obvious that Iran is providing some support to the Shiite forces in Iraq – but could they be planning to get involved more directly?

http://www.thisisrumorcontrol.org/node/view/287


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 9:37 AM

 
A NATION AT RISK

Remember that line from ANAR? “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.” Well, if an unfriendly foreign power had decimated the U.S. jobs market, turned the largest budget surplus into the largest deficit, undermined our personal liberties, isolated us from our strongest international allies, and manipulated us into an unnecessary war through lies and false promises…

…and yet today about half the country is prepared to put these people back in power: “a nation at risk,” indeed. But how else do you explain the utter collapse of America’s previously healthy institutions:

Wrecking Medicare (and now they want to do the same thing to Social Security)

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-na-medicare11aug11,1,772769.story?coll=la-news-elect2004
Almost half of Medicare recipients dislike the new prescription drug law, and nearly 3 in 10 seniors and disabled persons say the issue will influence their vote for president, according to a national survey released Tuesday.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003483
From my point of view, the Bush administration really jumped the shark with the passage of their godawful Medicare bill. It wasn't a stand on conservative principle, and it wasn't a genuine compromise with the Democrats -- it was just an effort to funnel as much money as possible to GOP-friendly corporations while simultaneously pandering to the senior citizen vote. In a very healthy sign for U.S. politics, it doesn't seem to be working: Seniors don't like the bill by a margin of 47 to 26...If Bush is defeated, I think this will turn out to be one of the most interesting parts of the story. The White House has done so much to politicize every aspect of the government and the policy process that it's become counterproductive. The intended targets of the bill aren't switching their votes over it, while Bush's credibility as someone seriously interested in cutting taxes in order to shrink the government has been irrevocably destroyed…

Tax cuts: aren’t working for Bush, either economically or politically

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54944-2004Aug10.html
For President Bush, tax cuts have been an all-purpose elixir, a cure for budget surpluses and a bursting stock bubble, for terrorist attacks and boardroom scandals, for the march to war and a jobless recovery in peacetime…Now, after three successive tax cuts, and after a record budget surplus has turned to a record deficit, the president faces an unenviable choice. He can either concede that his $1.7 trillion tonic has not worked as advertised, or he can insist that the economy is strong despite the slowdown in growth and job creation.

Bush finally finds a tax increase he likes (a highly regressive one, naturally)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/11/195642/797

Outsourcing our military: Army needs to hire private contractors to guard U.S. bases

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-guards12aug12,1,7251790.story?coll=la-home-headlines
The work was awarded to four firms — two of which got the contracts without having to bid competitively. The contracts are worth as much as $1.24 billion.

The devastation of U.S. moral authority, overseas

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/08/the_new_abuse_s.html
Sunday's Oregonian has an extraordinary report about how a national guardsman looking through his sniper scope in Baghdad spotted police from the Interior Ministry torturing detainees:

He immediately radioed for help. Soon after, a team of Oregon Army National Guard soldiers swept into the yard and found dozens of Iraqi detainees who said they had been beaten, starved and deprived of water for three days…In a nearby building, the soldiers counted dozens more prisoners and what appeared to be torture devices -- metal rods, rubber hoses, electrical wires and bottles of chemicals…The soldiers disarmed the Iraqi jailers, moved the prisoners into the shade, released their handcuffs and administered first aid. Lt. Col. Daniel Hendrickson of Albany, Ore., the highest ranking American at the scene, radioed for instructions...Hendrickson's superior officers told him to return the prisoners to their abusers and immediately withdraw. It was June 29 -- Iraq's first official day as a sovereign country since the U.S.-led invasion.

This stuff is disturbing in and of itself. But then there's the reason all the men were being tortured in the first place: They were apparently detainees picked up in interim prime minister (and strongman) Iyad Allawi's much heralded crime sweep a few weeks ago. Let freedom reign!

Which puts a new light on this story

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_08_11_bestof.html#109227947613530772
The paper edition of this morning's Japan Times carried a front-page story asserting that in testimony before Congress, Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was urging Congress to pass a bill to provide US$300 million to fund "friendly militias" to go after terrorists…If true, we are seeing the continuing spiraling out of control of a policy of hiring "private" armies to do the dirty work that the US military is restrained from doing by the Geneva Convention and other US and international law. It is as if, having discovered that legal means of violence are insufficient, the administration is resorting to that old, "Let's find some godfathers who aren't tied down by legal considerations and can do stuff off the radar--plausibly deniable, too."

The devastation of U.S. moral authority, at home

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/release.html
The U.S. government, which has held Yaser Esam Hamdi incommunicado in a Navy brig for two years without charges, much of the time without a lawyer, indicated yesterday that it is nearing a deal that would free him altogether…The government is negotiating with Hamdi's lawyers about "terms and conditions acceptable to both parties that would allow Mr. Hamdi to be released from . . . custody," according to documents filed in federal court in Norfolk…Terms of the release are still being hammered out but, according to people familiar with the situation, are likely to include that Hamdi renounce his U.S. citizenship, move to Saudi Arabia and accept some travel restrictions, as well as some monitoring by Saudi officials. In addition, he may have to agree not to sue the federal government over whether his civil rights were violated....

Turning Sadr into a national hero

http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=1918

And the mysterious timing of Sistani’s trip out of Iraq, for "health reasons," just before the offensive against Najaf begins

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

Bush’s Saudi pals need to intervene yet again to stem the rise in oil prices (and what favors have they secured in return?)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/BUSINESS/08/11/saudi.oil.price/index.html

Rodney Alexander’s outrageous party-switch in LA-5: looks like it might backfire, and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving sleazebag

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/11/18244/5095
http://blog.dccc.org/mt/archives/000822.html
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_08_08_atrios_archive.html#109225732315675892
http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/8/11/165612/630

Porter Goss: I couldn’t get a job in the CIA today

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_08_08_atrios_archive.html#109226735458330274

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-intel12aug12,1,1219006.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, headed by Rep. Porter J. Goss, held fewer hearings on terrorism before the Sept. 11 attacks than other congressional panels concerned with the issue, according to an examination by the commission investigating the strikes…The finding raises questions about the level of attention that terrorism received from the committee under the leadership of the Florida Republican, whom President Bush nominated Tuesday as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Electoral news: Bush no longer using “we have turned the corner” line

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/12/11131/8656
Bush aides told CNN not to expect that line on the campaign trail anymore, saying it's not working.

In fact, very little seems to be working for Bush these days: Charlie Cook maps out the hurdles

http://nationaljournal.com/members/buzz/2004/races/081004.htm
"President Bush must have a change in the dynamics and the fundamentals of this race if he is to win a second term…The sluggishly recovering economy and renewed violence in Iraq don't seem likely to positively affect this race, but something needs to happen. It is extremely unlikely that President Bush will get much more than one-fourth of the undecided vote…This election is certainly not over, but for me, it will be a matter of watching for events or circumstances that will fundamentally change the existing equation — one that for now favors a challenger over an incumbent."

The Onion writes John Kerry’s stump speech: “I’m not George Bush”

http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4032
WICHITA, KS—Delivering the central speech of his 10-day "Solution For America" bus campaign tour Monday, Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry outlined his one-point plan for a better America: the removal of George W. Bush from the White House.

"If I am elected in November, no inner-city child will have to live in an America where George Bush is president," Kerry said, addressing a packed Maize High School auditorium. "No senior citizen will lie awake at night, worrying about whether George Bush is still the chief executive of this country. And no American—regardless of gender, regardless of class, regardless of race—will be represented by George Bush in the world community."

The Solution For America tour, which began in Boston, will end in Eugene, OR on Aug. 20. During the next week and a half, Kerry and vice-presidential hopeful John Edwards are expected to bring their message of a Bush-free country to several hundred thousand Americans.

In the speech, Kerry offered a solution for the nation's ailing education system.

"Schools do not have the resources they need to succeed," Kerry said. "One million students are dropping out of high school every year. John Kerry and John Edwards have a plan to ensure that all Americans can make the most of their God-given talents: Get George Bush out of the White House."

Kerry also spoke on the subject of national security.

"This country has embraced a new and dangerously ineffective disregard for the world," Kerry said. "In order to win the global war against terror, we must promote democracy, freedom, and opportunity around the world. My national-defense policy will be guided by one imperative: Don't be George Bush. As will my plans to create a strong economy, protect civil rights, develop a better healthcare system, and improve homeland security."

Joining Kerry at the podium, Edwards raised one issue not discussed by his running mate: the environment.

"Let's not forget one important point," Edwards said. "We need to set a new standard of environmental excellence for America by renewing our nation's promise of clean air, clean water, and a bountiful landscape for all. In the 21st century, we can have progress without pollution—as long as we have a Dick Cheney-free White House."

The new message is resonating with registered Democrats.

"John Kerry really spoke to my dream, my hope, and my aspiration for this nation," University of Kansas sophomore Jason Brandt said. "He sees the world as I do."

"With all the mess that's going on in the country—the deficits, the government's power-grab, the wars—it's time for a president who admits that there's a problem and has a plan to fix it," Brandt added. "A president who is not George W. Bush is exactly what we need—and Kerry fits the bill 100 percent."

Kerry's message resonated less strongly with one Lawrence, KS swing voter.

"Politicians make a lot of campaign promises," Lance Radda said. "Sure, this not-being-Bush policy sounds good now. But how can we be sure that Kerry will deliver on that promise once in office?"

Kerry addressed Radda's question.

"I promise you, here and now, that I will enact my one-point plan on the day I enter the Oval Office," Kerry said. "For the last three and a half years, we've had George W. Bush, and today I have this to say: We can do better!"

In his final words, Kerry changed the subject to attack Bush's record.

"During his term in office, George Bush has relentlessly continued to be president—despite the clear benefits to America his absence would bring to the lives of citizens everywhere," Kerry said. "My one-point plan for America highlights the sort of change that this country desperately needs. And my plan is something that George Bush will never, ever be able to accomplish."

Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman described Kerry's plan as a vicious, partisan attack.

"It's absolutely ridiculous that John Kerry is offering one solution to all of America's problems," Mehlman said. "Who's going to listen to logic like that? Anyone can see that Kerry is a Massachusetts liberal who will raise your taxes and open our borders to terrorist attacks. Vote Bush."


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 9:36 AM

 
MORE ON GOSS

If there is one thing we know about the Bush Co, operation, it is that it is driven by the rules of loyalty and insider back-scratching. Now it looks like the selection of Goss is yet another move to have "their guy" in charge of an ostensibly independent agency.

Goss also a Yalie (and, yes, another Skull and Bones guy)

http://www.cosmiciguana.com/archives/002516.html

Rewriting history, part #362: Partisan anti-Kerry comments by Goss pulled from Bush/Cheney web site after his nomination announced

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55050-2004Aug10.html

More on Goss’s history of Kerry-bashing

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/08/11/goss/?source=RSS
In comments made on the House floor, Goss criticized the Massachusetts senator for suggesting, in 1997, that the end of the Cold War might lead to reductions in U.S. intelligence spending…Many Republicans shared that view, of course. As the analysts at the Annenberg Public Policy Center pointed out in a recent Fact Check , leaders from both parties suggested that the collapse of the Soviet Union should lead to cuts in the intelligence budget. In 1996, the bi-partisan Aspin Commission acknowledged that the intelligence budgets would have to be cut in order to balance the federal budget, and that such cuts "may be possible without damaging the nation's security." The Commission's members included Paul Wolfowitz -- and Porter Goss…None of that stopped Goss's partisan attack on the House floor. "There is no doubt where the record is," Goss said in June. "The Democratic Party did not support the intelligence community."

Will Goss try to turn his position as CIA head into becoming the Intelligence Czar called for by the 9-11 Commission? (If so, you can forget about the “independence” of the position.)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-08-10-goss-analysis-usat_x.htm
Goss appears to be at odds with Bush and the 9/11 Commission over how to restructure intelligence. In June, Goss proposed making the CIA director the intelligence czar, with control over the CIA, responsibility for advising the president and budget authority over all 15 U.S. intelligence agencies. Critics dubbed his legislation the "CIA takeover bill." The 9/11 Commission said the three jobs are too much for one official.

Given his relationship with Bush and his views about empowering the CIA chief, it is unlikely that Goss would have said yes to the job only to have a more powerful intelligence official between himself and Bush. White House spokesman Scott McClellan did not rule out the possibility that Goss would eventually become the intelligence czar. That, too, could make him a short-timer at the CIA.

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 2:19 PM

 
TEAM PLAYERS

Porter Goss: nominated as next CIA chief

http://slate.msn.com/id/2105016/fr/rss/
Goss, from Florida, is the long-time head of the House Intel Committee and a former Agency spook...Goss is also what USA Today calls a "friend and close political ally of the president." The paper says he was offered the job during a private dinner with Bush last week. As everybody notes, Goss has served as Bush's surrogate attack dog. He criticized Kerry recently for the Democrat supposedly having voted for "devastating cuts" to the CIA's budget back in the 1990s. (None of the papers seem to wonder whether was Goss was recalling history correctly. For the record, he wasn't.)…Many Democrats—as well as the New York Times and Washington Post editorial pages—questioned the wisdom of hiring such a partisan figure for a position that ideally should be non-political…The various news analyses wonder why Bush nominated a CIA chief now, and why such a divisive one. After all, there might be a bruising nomination process and even if Goss survives he'll be a sort of lame duck until November. And then there's the fact that the intelligence hierarchy is in the midst of being reshuffled anyway, and it's not clear what role the CIA chief will have. Add it all up, says Slate's Fred Kaplan, and the announcement is less about providing leadership than offering the appearance of it…One "Republican political operative" told the Post that Bush went with Goss because "poll data showed Kerry had closed the gap with Bush on handling of terrorism." Goss had to be named "to show Bush was moving ahead."…The NYT 's Elisabeth Bumiller looks at the possibility that Bush is using the nomination as something of a trap: By offering such a political figure the president may be hoping the Dems oppose the nomination, at which point he can accuse them of being obstructionist on a vital national security matter. And if they don't, he gets his man.

News Links:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53253-2004Aug10.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/politics/10CND-INTEL.html?ex=1249876800&
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-081004goss_lat,1,465975.story?coll=la-home-headlines
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=1&u=/ap/20040810/ap_on_go_ot/bush_cia
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/11/politics/11assess.html?hp
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54947-2004Aug10.html?nav=rss_nation

Analysis:

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003470
In a general sense, putting a Republican politician -- albeit one with experience as an intelligence professional -- in charge hardly seems like part of a serious effort to depoliticize the use of intelligence. What's more, Goss has been in charge of intelligence community oversight during a period of some egregious abuses of the process and hasn't been much of a leader on the topic. He's avoided a lot of the partisan hackery of his Senate counterpart, but to some extent that's true simply because, unlike Pat Roberts, he didn't have his committee investigate the situation at all.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2104981/
If Porter Goss becomes the next CIA director (a big if, by the way), two predictions can be made with confidence. First, to the extent possible, he will return the agency's clandestine branch to its adventurous, gun-toting days of yore. Second, he will be ruthlessly loyal to George W. Bush.

And the really rough stuff:

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_08_11_bestof.html#109221802795394404
If it isn't too "divisive" maybe the Dems should be leaning on the FBI to ask Rep. Porter Goss (R-FL) what he was doing having breakfast on September 11, 2001 with [Mohammed] Atta's bagman. The last thing the American people need is for president Kerry to inherit a lame duck DCI who may have been in on the 9/11 "cover-up" from the git-go.

http://www.counterpunch.org/mcgovern07062004.html
There is, thankfully, a remnant of CIA professionals who still put objective analysis above political correctness and career advancement. Just when they thought there were no indignities left for them to suffer, they are shuddering again at press reports that Rep. Porter Goss (R-FL) may soon be their new boss…That possibility conjures up a painful flashback for those of us who served as CIA analysts when Richard Nixon was president…[We] were taken aback when swashbuckling James Schlesinger, who followed Richard Helms as CIA director, announced on arrival, "I am here to see that you guys don't screw Richard Nixon!" To underscore his point, Schlesinger told us he would be reporting directly to White House political adviser Bob Haldeman (Nixon's Karl Rove) and not to National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger…No doubt Goss would be more discreet in showing his hand, but his appointment as director would be the ultimate in politicization. He has long shown himself to be under the spell of Vice President Dick Cheney, and would likely report primarily to him and to White House political adviser Karl Rove rather than to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice…Goss would almost certainly follow lame-duck director George Tenet's practice of reading to the president in the morning and become an integral part of the "White House team." The team-membership phenomenon is particularly disquieting.

http://billmon.org/archives/001630.html
In other words, picking Porter Goss to be CIA director is roughly the same as nominating Dick Cheney's little finger - or so says former CIA analyst Ray McGovern…In an article for Counterpunch last month, McGovern took a hard look at Goss's record of obsequious service to his political masters, particularly in his handling of Congress's "investigation" into the events leading to 9/11 - a whitewash so obvious it ended up spurring, rather than quas