THINGS WE KNEW, AND NOW EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW

Start reprinting those campaign posters: GOP officially announces “A vote for us is a vote for torture”

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2004/09/legalizing_tort.html
The Republican leadership of Congress is attempting to legalize extraordinary rendition. "Extraordinary rendition" is the euphemism we use for sending terrorism suspects to countries that practice torture for interrogation. As one intelligence official described it in the Washington Post, "We don't kick the sh*t out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the sh*t out of them.”…As it stands now, "extraordinary rendition" is a clear violation of international law--specifically, the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Degrading and Inhuman Treatment. U.S. law is less clear. We signed and ratified the Convention Against Torture, but we ratified it with some reservations. They might create a loophole that allows us to send a prisoner to Egypt or Syria or Jordan if we get "assurances" that they will not torture a prisoner--even if these assurances are false and we know they are false.

Last month Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Congressman, introduced a bill that would clearly outlaw extraordinary rendition. But Markey only has 22 cosponsors, and now the House leadership is trying to legalize torture outsourcing--and hide it in the bill implementing the 9/11 Commission Report.

These are excerpts from a press release one of Markey's staffers just emailed me:

The provision Rep. Markey referred to is contained in Section 3032 and 3033 of H.R. 10, the "9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act of 2004," introduced by House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL). The provision would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to issue new regulations to exclude from the protection of the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, any suspected terrorist - thereby allowing them to be deported or transferred to a country that may engage in torture.

[Outraged commentary: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004792.php
http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/torture_/2004/09/yes_torture_is_a_partisan_issue.php
http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/09/voting_republican_this_year_voting_for_torture.html]

WH finally responds to AP subpoena on National Guard records, turns over yet ANOTHER newly discovered document (after claiming everything was released a long time ago): the long-sought Bush resignation letter

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0409300337sep30,1,736945.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
The new document was a copy of Bush's resignation in 1974 declaring he was leaving the Guard because of "inadequate time to fulfill possible future commitments."

[NB: Uh-huh. The rest of their “response” was a series of emailed denials. Will this crap withstand scrutiny? I hope not.]

Stunning series of reports on Pentagon spending, mismanagement

http://www.publicintegrity.org/pns/
To find the answers, the Center began in early 2004 to investigate the patterns of Defense Department contracting. Our prime source was the Pentagon's own procurement databases—public information that had been posted for years on an obscure Defense Department Web site.

The Center examined more than 2.2 million contract actions totaling $900 billion in authorized expenditures over the six-year period from fiscal year 1998 through fiscal 2003 (Oct. 1, 1997-Sept. 30, 2003). Most of the research was focused on the biggest contractors, those that won at least $100 million in prime contracts over the period studied. Some 737 prime contractors, mainly but not exclusively for-profit corporations, fit that criteria, along with several thousand of their subsidiaries and affiliates.

After nine months of research, the Center has found:

• Half of all the Defense Department's budget goes out the door of the Pentagon to private contractors…

• Only 40 percent of Pentagon contracts were conducted under what it terms "full and open competition." (That percentage drops to 36 percent if you deduct those "full and open" contracts that attracted only a single bidder)…

• Larger contractors were also more likely to win favorable terms on their contracts. One-third of the dollars awarded to the top 737 contractors came in cost-plus contracts that offer little incentive for keeping costs under control…

• While most of the top 737 Pentagon contractors were American corporations, nearly 100 were foreign-owned…

• Political influence, as measured through lobbying expenses and campaign contributions, was a major undertaking by many of the largest Pentagon contractors…Overall, the top contractors gave nearly $214 million in campaign contributions, two-thirds to Republicans.

• The story was much the same in lobbying expenditures, though the dollar amounts were far higher…

• The accuracy of the Defense Department's records—particularly regarding the corporate ownership of its largest contractors—leaves much to be desired…

Impending Plame, Franklin arrests put off until after the election

http://www.juancole.com/2004_09_01_juancole_archive.html#109652236719817825
[Juan Cole] The FBI could well be ready to move in the case. But I have been told that it has orders from the White House to back off until later this fall.

Federal judge blocks key portion of the Patriot Act

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59626-2004Sep29.html?nav=rss_nation
"This is a wholesale refutation of the administration's use of excessive secrecy and unbridled power under the Patriot Act," said Ann Beeson, an ACLU lawyer. "It's a very major ruling, in our opinion."

FINALLY! People start focusing on the consequences of the election for the Supreme Court

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008068.html

Scalia puts in his first audition speech for Chief Justice

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/09/29/scalia.harvard.ap/index.html
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he believes "abstract moralizing" has led the American judicial system into a quagmire, and that matters such as abortion and assisted suicide are "too fundamental" to be resolved by judges.

"What I am questioning is the propriety, indeed the sanity, of having value-laden decisions such as these made for the entire society...by judges," Scalia said..

[NB: Yeah, we don’t want judges making “value-laden decisions” – let’s just stick to picking Presidents.]

Karen Hughes tries to turn a perfectly legitimate Kerry remark into a ridiculous slander, revealing SO MUCH about the Bush Co outlook in the process

http://www.tnr.com/blog/campaignjournal?pid=2126
I also liked Karen Hughes's comment about the Kerry interview during a rare visit with the press aboard Air Force One today:

He was asked whether [the Iraq war] was worth it. He said, "It depends on what the outcome is." I guess that means if we win it was worth it, if we don't it wasn't. That's leadership, isn't it?

[NB: So, I guess that means “leadership” for them means sticking to your guns all the way into the face of defeat. But do they have to take the rest of us with them?]

And let there be no doubt about it: we ARE losing

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/losing_the_war.php
“There’s no obvious way to fix it. The best we can hope for is a semi-failed state hobbling along with terrorists and a succession of weak governments.”

“It’s getting worse. It just seems that there is a lot of pessimism flowing out of the theater now. There are things going on that are unbelievable to me. They have infiltrators conducting attacks in the Green Zone. That was not the case a year ago.”

“They keep telling us that Iraqi security forces are the exit strategy, but from what I hear from the ground is that they aren’t working. There’s a feeling that Iraqi security forces are in cahoots with the insurgents and the general public to get the occupiers out.”

And what pansy liberal defeatist said this?

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_09_29_bestof.html#109648269518803840
“And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth?…And the answer is not very damned many.”

[More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_26_digbysblog_archive.html#109649600703151509]

Well, we’ve been hearing for a while from these folks that “dissent is treason” – but who knew that they actually meant it literally?

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/29/military_justice/
An Army Reserve staff sergeant who last week wrote a critical analysis of the United States' prospects in Iraq now faces possible disciplinary action for disloyalty and insubordination. If charges are brought and the officer is found guilty, he could face 20 years in prison. It would be the first such disloyalty prosecution since the Vietnam War.

How the WH tries to spin “the worse things are getting in Iraq, the better sign it is”

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004193

First comes denial, then comes acceptance…

http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=2125
Put down that newspaper. You'll be interested to know that inside the Mayflower Hotel on Connecticut Avenue, the Iraq war is a smashing success. That's the view of a conference taking place today sponsored by the Committee on the Present Danger, a neoconservative think tank formed to defend the Bush Doctrine. Among the enemies imperiling the Bush Doctrine is reality, so Norman Podhoretz took to the lectern this morning to beat back that threat with every fiber of his being. "Things have gone not badly, not disastrously, but triumphantly in Iraq," Podhoretz insisted. "I believe Prime Minister Allawi when he says things are getting better." I'm not sure that Allawi believes that--his own security officials don't--but it certainly is soothing to hear.

Bush: “Taliban no longer in existence”

http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/mtarchive/003111.html

[Comment: http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/terrorism_and_its_control_/2004/09/rejoice.php]

[NB: Okay, now it’s time to interject something I’ve been wondering for weeks. The current analysis is that Bush is caught in a fantasy world of spin, out of touch with the facts, and so on. He doesn’t read the papers, ignores what “the filter” has to say, considers his own advisers more reliable sources of information. But here’s another explanation: it was well-known that Reagan’s advisers KEPT bad news from him, partly not to confuse him, partly not to interfere with the sunny, confident outlook which he projected so well. Do we have a President now who truly believes his lies, who is told to discount unfavorable reports as “just guesses” – if they make it through to him at all, or don’t get watered down before they make it to the Oval Office? We’ve had a number of stories about this sort of thing in recent weeks; it even fits the Abu Ghraib story (remember how upset he was that Rumsfeld hadn’t even told him there was a problem). What if this is a more general m.o.? Could he really BELIEVE the Taliban are gone, that the opposition in Iraq is just a few isolated dead-enders, etc? Is this what aides are telling him? How else could he say something so blatantly and obviously wrong? (People are comparing it to Ford's "there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe" comment.)]

This is SO sad

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/29/spirtual_war/index.html
On Sept. 13, Sgt. Ben Isenberg was riding through Taji, Iraq, when his Humvee struck a roadside bomb. He was killed…"This war is not about Iraqis and Americans, [or] oil," said Robert Isenberg, Ben's father. "This is a spiritual war, and the people who don't understand that, they just need to dig into their bible and read about it. It's predicted, it's predestined."…Isenberg's father also told NPR that criticism of the war and its costs bothered his son, "because Benjamin understood that this was a spiritual war, and he understands that our current serving president is a very devout Christian also. Ben understood the calling was to go because the president had the knowledge and understood what was going on, and it's far deeper than we as a people will ever really know. We don't get the information that the president gets."

[NB: Looks like the PRESIDENT doesn’t get the information the President gets, either]

“We don’t negotiate with terrorists” (well, we don’t, but our allies are starting to)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/29/20192/4656

Yet another attempt to revive the comatose “coalition of the willing” – with no better prospects than before

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/29/iraq_conference/index_np.html
Bogged down in the Iraq quagmire, the Bush administration is promoting a grand international conference to help it get unstuck.

On the ill-conceived Bush plan to secretly manipulate the Iraqi elections

http://www.juancole.com/2004_09_01_juancole_archive.html#109634909186321803

And how are those Afghan elections coming along?

http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=2127

Bonus items: Election resources

A debate primer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60722-2004Sep29.html

Ten tough questions

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/09/top_10_tough_questions_for_thursdays_debate.html

More on the “rules”

[The entire text: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-2004presidential-debate-agreement,1,2176829.acrobat?coll=la-home-headlines]

Tilting the expectations game against Kerry

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004188

A win for the good guys: Frank Luntz, GOP pollster and spinmeister, dropped by MSNBC as “impartial” poll commentator

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/29/203424/972

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_26.php#003529

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004194

Well, we KNOW this, but it’s nice to have it confirmed

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/29/184712/884
As the nation prepares to watch the presidential candidates debate foreign policy issues, a new PIPA-Knowledge Networks poll finds that Americans who plan to vote for President Bush have many incorrect assumptions about his foreign policy positions…The uncommitted also tend to misperceive Bush's positions, though to a smaller extent than Bush supporters…

Ohio Sect’y of State Blackwell seems to back down on foolish attempt to block voter registration, but sows the seeds of greater confusion in the process

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/29/12484/2965

[Now Colorado too: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004190]

International observers monitoring U.S. elections (remember when this was what you had to do with tin-pot third-world oligarchies?) -- and already the news is bad

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000698.html


***If you enjoy PBD and believe in what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can, especially leading up to the election. I persist in believing that this campaign will still be decided by people knowing the stakes of the choice between Kerry and Bush. I think those stakes are monumental.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 10:19 AM

 
CHANGING MINDS

Thank you Juan Cole! The simple question nobody is asking: what’s so bloody wrong about changing your mind? (When did this become “flip-flopping,” and is it really better to brag about NOT changing your mind when things go wrong?)

http://www.juancole.com/2004_09_01_juancole_archive.html#109643699174903863

Speaking of changing your mind: Blair distancing himself from Bush

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-britain-blair.html?ex=1254110400&

Don’t buy into the Bush myth of inevitability!

http://www.slate.com/id/2107259/
Sunday's Washington Post made me suspect that the Bush campaign really does think things are going poorly right now. Why? Because Republicans are starting to make preposterously overconfident predictions of a Bush landslide…It's well-known that Karl Rove believes that swing voters like to vote for the winner. Therefore, one of the central political strategies for Bush has been to create an "aura of inevitability" that, theoretically, will bring people to his side. If everyone believes you're a political juggernaut, the theory goes, then you will become a political juggernaut.

Latest CNN/Gallup poll shows 8% Bush margin – it was 13% two weeks ago

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/27/prez.poll/index.html

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=6345370

Why is this good news? Because in order to get this margin, Gallup had to increase even more outrageously their “projection” that more Republicans than Democrats are “likely voters” (inflated from a 7% to a 12% difference)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/28/151517/745

Let the Gallup-trashing begin!

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/29/34242/0527

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-09-28-gallup-defense_x.htm

The NIC report that predicted just what a mess Iraq would turn out to be

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/well_iraq_worked_right.php
Paul Pillar, the CIA’s Middle East officer at the National Intelligence Council…is telling people that the CIA provided “secret, unheeded warnings about going to war in Iraq,” and the “the president of the United States and the Central Intelligence Agency are at war with each other.”…The CIA told Bush that it would be a mess, and specifically that invading Iraq would lead to an increase in the power of “political Islam.”

[More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/28/politics/28intel.html?hp
http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak27.html]

“Growing pessimism” on Iraq

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58183-2004Sep28.html?nav=rss_nation

Good pre-debate analysis

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_26.php#003525
Paul Krugman today touches on a crucially important point about Thursday night's presidential debate. If 2000 was any indication -- and there's every reason to think it is -- the winner of the debate won't be determined during the 90 minute encounter itself but during the spin war that will follow it. And with the advantage the Republicans have on the cable nets, talk radio and chat TV shows, the odds are stacked in their favor.

(As Krugman alludes to, the initial public reactions to the first Bush/Gore debate had the then-veep coming out on top, if narrowly. It was only after several days of pundit churn that Bush became the winner. The Bush team won the post-debate debate.)

More than just these built-in advantages, though, Democrats, I think, have seldom really appreciated that there is such a thing as a post-debate debate. I don't mean that they don't know about putting out surrogates or trying to spin the results. Of course, they do. But in 2000 at least (a certainly in analogous situations in this cycle) the effort was very reactive and scattershot. And that inevitably leaves the Democrats trying to parry or deconstruct the ways that Republicans are trying to define what happened. In that way, they're fighting at best for a draw.

Republicans are already leaking hints and taunts about whether Kerry will sweat profusely under the lights, whether he's too tanned and other similar nonsense. But the antic nature of these taunts doesn't mean they won't be effective. They're meant to throw the other side off balance and, in a related manner, to provide grist for a catty and frivolous press corps.

So what's the Democrats' plan going into this debate? You can see what the other side is planning from visiting Drudge or listening to the GOP surrogates on the chat shows.

But what do the Dems have in mind?

It's easy to predict that there will be several exchanges in the debate where the president will describe the situation in Iraq in ways that are entirely belied by the reality of the situation. Perhaps he'll mention the situation in Fallujah where his intervention in the battle planning had such disastrous and feckless results. Will the pundits and talking heads be primed for those moments? Or only for Kerry's moments of over-fancy rhetoric?

Will the Dems be ready to hit on these issues and focus the post-debate debate on the president's recklessness, lack of a plan and inability to level with the public about what's happening in Iraq?

There are many other possible examples. But the point is that we have a pretty good idea what the president is going to say. And what he'll almost certainly say will open up a number of solid lines of attack. But if the Democrats don't hit the ground running with a plan in mind they'll be overwhelmed by the GOP spin machine -- no matter how many fibs the president tells or how many times he says up is down.

[More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/debate-prep.html]

16 questions Bush doesn’t want to hear

http://gadflyer.com/articles/index.php?ArticleID=220

Those debate “rules”

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/28/politics/campaign/28debate.html?ex=1254110400&en=aa79b1ee45bf01a7&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
Still, officials of the debate commission said they were agreeing primarily to those things Mr. Bush's aides had emphasized as especially important to them: a strict time limit on candidate responses, an electronic warning when candidates exceed their speaking time that can be seen and heard by viewers at home, and a prohibition against the candidates' directly posing questions to each other.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/09/29/networks_balk_at_debate_rules.html
Specifically, the networks object to provisions in the agreement that place limits on their cameras, including prohibitions on shots of one candidate while the other is answering questions.

Bush betrays National Guard AGAIN

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/28/192916/314
[Mark Goldberg] All full-time military personnel are eligible for the military's TRICARE health plan, as are reservists called up for active duty. After reservists are deactivated, however, they generally lose their TRICARE coverage following a short, transitional grace period. Having the option to buy into the military's the military's TRICARE coverage would be attractive to many reservists and their families. as it offers comprehensive policies at very low cost…In 2002, a General Accounting Office report found that as many as one-fifth of the nation's 1.2 million part-time soldiers lacked health insurance. This startled many lawmakers into action, and, in May 2003, Senators Tom Daschle and Lindsay Graham successfully pushed for an amendment to the Senate's version of the fiscal year 2004 Defense Authorization bill that would protect reservists from going uninsured by allowing them to buy into TRICARE when not on active duty…Though the "Graham-Daschle amendment" had overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate, the administration sought to scuttle the proposal as it moved to the House. That June, in a letter to Representative Duncan Hunter, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called the Senate's efforts to expand TRICARE a "troubling provision" because the amendment amounted to an unfunded entitlement that would drain resources from other, presumably more important Department of Defense activities.

Pre-emptive war, stop-loss orders, and the draft

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008047.html

LA Times calls Bush a “coward” (Consider the source, of course – but doesn’t it reflect something when this can be written in a serious editorial today? Would it have been written six months ago?)

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-kerry28sep28,1,684193.story
The suggestion that terrorists support Sen. John F. Kerry for president is ugly, but basically silly. The suggestion that Kerry supports the terrorists is flat-out disgusting. President Bush has allowed surrogates to spread the former idea, but he himself has helped to promote the latter. Last week, Bush declared that Kerry's criticism of him and his Iraq policy "can embolden an enemy" and called Kerry "destructive" to the war on terror.

Since election day 2000 and through his first term, Bush has talked a better game of democratic values than he has played. And he is not one for nuances in any event. But the point here is not subtle: The right to criticize the policies of those in power is not just one of democracy's fringe benefits; it is essential to making the democratic machinery work…Bush's own campaign strategy has put the events of 9/11 and their aftermath at the center of this election. The president asks to be reelected based on the claim that his response to that event has been a success. It would be convenient for him if any challenge to this notion were considered beyond the pale. Increasingly convenient, in fact, as the word "success" seems less and less applicable. But Bush's convenience is not what this election is about...

Kerry's position on Iraq is not a model of clarity and consistency. His critique of the Bush policy has the tang of opportunism. But he is more right than wrong, certainly more right than Bush, and in any event more within his rights to make the argument than Bush is in trying to suppress it…

Compared with Kerry, George W. Bush is a coward. This is not a reference to their respective activities during Vietnam. It refers to the current election campaign. Bush happily benefits from the slime his supporters are spreading but refuses to take responsibility for it or to call point-blank for it to stop. He got away with this when the prime mover was the shadowy Swift boats group. Will he get away with it?…The answer is yes: Based on recent experience, he probably will get away with it.

Bush’s attack on democracy

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1115
Our political system is starting to resemble the kind of banana republic authoritarianism we claim to despise. The only things missing are government-sponsored mural portraits of George W. Bush splashed on sides of buildings and state-run television.

Speaking of which: more on electronic voting

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/09/will_my_vote_count.html
I live in the ur-swing state. [Florida] I’d like my vote to count. I’ll be voting on an electronic voting machine with no paper trail. I don’t trust it. Not at all…The most amazing thing about this to me as a person clinging to an increasingly sorely tested belief in the rule of law, is that the plain, plain, plain meaning of the relevant Florida statute says that a machine with no backup records is illegal. Florida law demands the ability to do recounts in close elections.

And more on discouraging (nonmilitary) overseas voters

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/29/politics/campaign/29military.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=

The utter failure of the Bush North Korea policy

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004174

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001156.html

The utter failure of the Bush Medicare plan

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004175
The Bush administration not only passed a Medicare bill that was a handout to special interests; they stacked the deck in favor of PPOs in the vain hope that, by allowing the PPOs to (wrongly) restrict patient choice and bribing them to cover more seniors, the companies would have some chance of being more effective and efficient than Medicare. But even that didn't work…Here's the reality: Medicare needs some tweaking so it doesn't overwhelm the federal budget in a few decades, but it's in general a very good government program that works. The GOP doesn't want to believe government can ever be more efficacious than private industry, even when that "private" industry isn't really very private in the first place. (PPOs are basically big bureaucracies that waste lots of money on advertising, marketing, and executive salaries, which Medicare doesn't. That's why they can't beat Medicare.) Instead of simply admitting this and moving towards a policy solution that would work, the administration buries its head in the sand.

[More: http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/09/gao-report-on-medicare.html]

Who wrote Allawi’s speech?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55180-2004Sep27.html

Department of Mixed Feelings: Justice Dept subpoenas reporters’ phone records in Plame investigation. Is this becoming less about finding the guilty parties than about laying out a number of disturbing precedents for inquiries into future leaks (that is, the ones the Bush cartel DOESN’T approve)?

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000643638

Democrats’ chances in the Senate improving (think about it; this might not be such a bad outcome – Bush in the WH, dealing with the consequences of his own awful decisions, and the Senate holding his feet to the fire)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/29/24853/0934

Bonus item: Crawford, TX paper endorses Kerry (it endorsed Bush in 2000). And, we ask for the umpteenth time, what sort of play would this story be getting if it were about Kerry?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/28/125045/132

***If you enjoy PBD and believe in what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can, especially leading up to the election. I persist in believing that this campaign will still be decided by people knowing the stakes of the choice between Kerry and Bush. I think those stakes are monumental.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:15 AM

 
STALLING FOR TIME

Here is the current terrain, I think. The Bush people, with a big assist from the media, a pliant Congress, and the Justice dept, have managed to put off until after the election all the really bad news ahead.

What can we anticipate in the first six months after November 2, if Bush wins? Sending thousands of more troops to Iraq, and breaking more promises to the troops who are there; a major new offensive, with a sharp rise in US casualties, and miserable prospects for success; “elections” that must either be partial and illegitimate, or must be postponed, either way to outrage in Iraq. More withdrawals from the “coalition,” including a partial withdrawal from Britain. The recognition that the deficit is out of control, and a massive restructuring of domestic spending and social programs to accommodate it. Rampant oil prices, just in time for the winter heating season, that will strangle the economy and many household budgets. Health care costs that will continue to skyrocket, with more and more people uninsured. Breaking scandals, from Plame to Franklin, that indicate either a rogue foreign policy cabal and actual espionage, or stunning stupidity and gullibility within the Rumsfeld/Cheney nexus. Revelations from the Abu Ghraib trials that will require one or more commanders in the region to resign — and which may reopen the question of overt or implicit approval from the WH. And beyond that first window, as many as three openings on the Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice, to fill.

One of the prime questions that will drive this election is, will people be informed about the actual consequences of returning these people to power?

From a former CENTCOM military analyst

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/09/guess_whos_shrill_now.html
“If Bush is re-elected, there are only two possible outcomes in Iraq:
• Four years from now, America will have 5,000 dead servicemen and women and an untold number of dead Iraqis at a cost of about $1 trillion, yet still be no closer to success than we are right now, or
• The U.S. will be gone, and we will witness the birth of a violent breeding ground for Shiite terrorists posing a far greater threat to Americans than a contained Saddam.”

And more

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000683.html
“From a purely military standpoint, the war in Iraq is an unmitigated disaster. This administration failed to make even a cursory effort at adequately defining the political end state they sought to achieve by removing Saddam Hussein, making it impossible to precisely define long-term military success. That, in turn, makes it impossible to lay out a rational exit strategy for U.S. troops. Like Vietnam, the military is again being asked to clean up the detritus of a failed foreign policy. We are nose-deep in a protracted insurgency, an occupying Christian power in an oil-rich, Arab country. That country is not now and has never been a single nation. A single, unified, democratic Iraq comprised of Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis is a willfully ignorant illusion at best.”

Why the proposed elections in Iraq CAN’T succeed

http://www.antiwar.com/cole/?articleid=3647
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani continues to be concerned as to whether elections will be held in January in Iraq, and whether the outcome will reflect the Shi'ite majority in Iraq. He is worried that the system adopted, of nationwide party lists, favors a small set of parties, mainly expatriate. Since the six major parties listed include the two (Sunni) Kurdish parties and the largely Sunni Iraqi National Accord (primarily ex-Ba'athists) led by Iyad Allawi, as well as the mixed Iraqi National Congress, I think Sistani is afraid that the al-Da`wa and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq – the two main Shi'ite parties – could end up with a minority in parliament.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040928/asp/foreign/story_3813051.asp
Rebel Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr will not take part in elections scheduled for January as long as US forces remain in the country, an aide said today…“We as Sadr’s movement will not take part in the elections held under the shadow of occupation,” Sheikh Abdul Hadi al-Daraji said. “Sadr movement will not nominate any candidates,” he added.

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/09/that_was_quick.html
"The way things are going, the fact that the U.N. has not come forward with its support means we may have to settle for the spring," said a State Department official who declined to be named…The official indicated that initial timetables had called for thousands of United Nations election workers to be deployed around the country by this time, registering voters, setting up polling stations and training Iraqis to staff them…Friday, a U.N. spokesman in New York said just eight non-Iraqi staff members were in the country preparing for the balloting and that no significant buildup would begin until a military force assigned to protect election workers was in place.

http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=2113
Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani and the two largest Shia political parties. The newspaper of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Al Adala, editorializes that "postponement would weaken the government's credibility with the people." Al Bayan, published by Al Da'wa, ran an editorial four days ago headlined, "Everyone Wants Elections On Time." In short, postponement will mean enraging the Shia majority.

A nice pick-up from Mark Kleiman: if that Iraqi commander was a renegade, why was the U.S. arresting him? Isn’t this supposed to be the Iraqis’ jurisdiction now?

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/the_war_in_iraq_/2004/09/concerning_iraqi_sovereignty.php

Bush claims to the contrary, the number of trained Iraqi security forces is…actually…dropping (because of desertions and firings)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55070-2004Sep27.html

And, on that note, up to a third of reactivated US troops…aren’t…showing…up

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-09-27-reserves_x.htm

Rumsfeld vs the US military (fascinating)

http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=2118

Kerry learning: personal attacks work (the success of the “Fortunate Son” strategy)

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8660

No, there isn’t any danger of the Democrats becoming just like the Republicans in dirty tricks: no one else could do the things Rove has done (read this)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_26.php#003523

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/09/27/why_rove_wants_a_close_race.html

Is the GOP getting worried?

http://slate.msn.com/id/2107259/fr/rss/

In Florida and Ohio, they will clearly do anything to win

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52800-2004Sep26.html
[Jimmy Carter] “After the debacle in Florida four years ago, former president Gerald Ford and I were asked to lead a blue-ribbon commission to recommend changes in the American electoral process. After months of concerted effort by a dedicated and bipartisan group of experts, we presented unanimous recommendations to the president and Congress. The government responded with the Help America Vote Act of October 2002. Unfortunately, however, many of the act's key provisions have not been implemented because of inadequate funding or political disputes…The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are conducting elections that are internationally certified to be transparent, honest and fair…It is unconscionable to perpetuate fraudulent or biased electoral practices in any nation. It is especially objectionable among us Americans, who have prided ourselves on setting a global example for pure democracy. With reforms unlikely at this late stage of the election, perhaps the only recourse will be to focus maximum public scrutiny on the suspicious process in Florida.”

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/9/27/125755/309
Remember that story over the weekend on how Democrats are crushing Republicans in new voter registration in Florida and Ohio? Well, in a move that would make a Mississippi election board from the 1950's proud, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is attempting to block thousands of those new registrations because of paper stock.

Learning from the 2000 mess: a stunning account of judicial partisanship (and yes, it could happen all over again). Read this

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_26_digbysblog_archive.html#109632193732053023

You’ve heard all about 527’s, but how about 501(c)’s?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004161
For all the crap we’ve heard about 527s, the real stealth campaign is happening with 501(c) groups that are engaging in virtually the same electioneering with none of the disclosure requirements.

The British put it politely, but the facts are unquestionable: Bush is a serial liar

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=AGPY4CUYUOCLQCRBAELCFEY?type=topNews&storyID=6334619

Putting off more bad news

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/27/business/27regs.html?ex=1254024000&
Agencies Postpone Issuing New Rules Until After Election

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55301-2004Sep27.html?nav=rss_nation
Higher Costs, Less Care: Data Show Crisis In Health Insurance

A hot issue for Kerry: outsourcing of US jobs, and Bush tax breaks to encourage it – and now, just in time for the debates, this

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/27/15753/8437

Ditto: corporations using foreign havens to duck US taxes

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/27/business/worldbusiness/27tax.html?ex=1254024000&en=4248f1cbd7f3903c&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
America's biggest corporations are increasingly funneling profits earned in the United States to tax havens around the globe, depriving the United States Treasury of anywhere from $10 billion to $20 billion in lost tax revenue each year, according to a new study…The study, to be published today in the trade journal Tax Notes, says that United States multinational corporations shifted $75 billion in domestic profits last year to no-tax and low-tax foreign havens like Bermuda and Ireland.

Plame leak investigation: the suspicious disappearance of Robert Novak

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004783.php

The House Ethics Committee keeps looking for some way to avoid tagging DeLay

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004165

[Pelosi getting involved: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/27/14445/3885]

Bonus item: Friday morning’s post-debate headlines -- get them here and now

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_09_28_bestof.html#109634581992074260

More headline mischief

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004157
[AP]
• Saturday, September 25, 4:36 a.m.: "Bush Twists Kerry's Words on Iraq"
• Saturday, September 25, 12:53 p.m.: "Bush, Kerry Twisting Each Other's Words"
Same story, very different headlines.

And more (headlining the political moves, not the substance)

http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200440#857
On page one, the Post ran this headline:

"Election May Hinge on Debates; Bush, Kerry Bring Different Strengths"

Skip to page 3, however, and one finds this:

"Poverty Up as Welfare Enrollment Declines; Nation's Social Safety Net in Tatters As More People Lose Their Jobs"

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 9:29 AM

 
DON’T CONFUSE ME WITH THE FACTS

More Bush 101: Never admit, never apologize – Bush crows “Mission Accomplished,” and almost 1000 deaths later, he has no regrets about it

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=8&u=/nm/20040926/pl_nm/campaign_bush_mission_dc
When asked by Fox News if he still would have put on a flight suit to declare major combat operations in Iraq over, Bush replied, "Absolutely."

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/09/mission_reaccom.html
[Matt Yglesias] Truly the man is immune to self-doubt, introspection, and minor concepts like letting his thinking be influenced by reality or learning from experience. And things will only get worse if his mismanagement is ratified by the electorate…It dawns on me that someone really badly needs to ask Bush if he has any regrets about challenging the insurgents to "bring it on" and kill hundreds of additional US troops and significantly more Iraqi civilians. Talk about emboldening America's enemies. I'm sure the relatives of our dead soldiers really appreciate the president's armchair machismo.

http://olympics.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6335030
Kerry, arriving in Madison, Wisconsin for debate preparations, called the statement "unbelievable."…"I will never be a president who just says mission accomplished. I will get the mission accomplished," said the Massachusetts senator. "That's the difference."

http://americablog.blogspot.com/archives/2004_09_26_americablog_archive.html#109624082222832462
“The man may have just signed his political death warrant, IF the Dems pounce on this now, and I think they will. Kerry - the new Kerry - has been fast and furious, jumping quickly on every gaffe Bush has made over the past two weeks. But on this one, Bush may have just handed Kerry the keys to the White House. The Bush campaign has been quite adept at making Kerry squirm for his past support of the war resolution, but now it's Kerry's turn to put the screws to Bush. Does Bush still think that 150 deaths at the time he said Mission Accomplished, as compared to over 1,000 deaths today, still somehow marked the end of the war? Is he absolutely out of his mind?…And oh wouldn't it be juicy if FOX News helped him do it. His arrogance, his bravado, his stupidity, and his stubbornness is going to get us all killed.”

Powell: Things are getting worse in Iraq

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F86EE389-E5F6-458A-9517-392D2AFA90CA.htm
In a further twist to the confusion surrounding the future of Iraqi politics, US Secretary of State Colin Powell has cautioned that holding elections in January will prove difficult because of spiralling violence in the country…"Yes, it's getting worse," Powell told ABC Television on Sunday.

[The sad journey of Colin Powell: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/27/opinion/27herbert.html?hp]

Another devastating impartial assessment of the state of things over there

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004774.php

No real end game either

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/26/143253/401

Likely result: Declare victory and run

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-goals27sep27,1,2359615.story?coll=la-home-headlines
[B]ehind the unwavering public posture, there is evidence that the Bush administration has altered its approach. It has lowered its hopes for the type of democracy that can be achieved, changed course on its plans to privatize Iraq's economy and reordered its priorities by devoting more money to improving security as fast as possible.

Gone — at least for now — is the lofty ideal of Iraq serving as a free-market democratic model that would ignite the forces of change throughout the Middle East and lay the seeds of a settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said administration officials have told him privately that they have lowered their expectations. "They've definitely recalibrated their goals," he said. "One of them told me: 'When we went in there, I thought we would build American-style democracy. Hell, I'd be happy with Romanian-style democracy now.' "

"It doesn't mean you abandon" the Iraqis, Kolbe added. "It reflects what is realistic, what is doable." Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld echoed that sentiment Friday, when asked what it would take for the United States to declare victory and begin to withdraw.

"Any implication that that place has to be peaceful and perfect before we can reduce coalition and U.S. forces I think would obviously be unwise because it's never been peaceful and perfect and it isn't likely to be," he said. National security advisor Condoleezza Rice this month defined success in more modest terms than the administration used in the war's early stages. "Success will be an Iraqi government that has gone through the legitimacy process of being elected and an Iraqi government that can defend itself," she said.

Many experts believe the administration will be hard-pressed even to pull that off.

Chaotic security conditions in large parts of the country and delays in preparation are jeopardizing plans to hold national elections in January, according to administration officials and independent experts…Early last week, opinions within the administration appeared to be divided, with some privately suggesting that election day should slip into the spring while others argued for keeping to the current timetable, even if the balloting is incomplete. The administration now appears to be willing to risk holding an election marred by violence and, quite possibly, incomplete balloting to keep to its schedule.

Still spinning the “partial election” line

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=ah_AT.zsxEi8&refer=top_world_news
Secretary of State Colin Powell said Iraqi elections, scheduled for January, will go forward even if militants block some voters from casting ballots…Isolated attacks by insurgents on polling stations or other attempts to disrupt balloting wouldn't invalidate Iraq's first democratic election as long as the voting is held nationwide, Powell said on the ``Fox News Sunday'' program…”It has to be throughout the country,'' Powell said. “We don't need 100 percent turnout.''

[More: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.iraq27sep27001638,1,4226570.story?coll=bal-iraq-headlines]

[NB: This continual lowering of the threshold of what constitutes a “free and fair election” brings to mind the question, “Is an election that excludes a significant part of the voters, heavily tilted toward one political party, a free and fair election?” And then you realize, “Hey, these are the people running Florida.”]

US denies covert involvement in the election (I love it when the govt denies covert involvement: hey, if it’s COVERT, they ain’t gonna tell you about it anyway)

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6106293/
[Newsweek] The White House says it considered secretly backing pro-U.S. candidates in the upcoming Iraqi election, but decided against it even though the Bush administration suspects other nations are working to influence the voting.

But boy do they WANT to…

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/09/c0ooking_the_ir.html
[Time] U.S. officials tell TIME that the Bush team ran into trouble with [a] plan involving [the] elections--a secret 'finding' written several months ago proposing a covert CIA operation to aid candidates favored by Washington. A source says the idea was to help such candidates--whose opponents might be receiving covert backing from other countries, like Iran--but not necessarily to go so far as to rig the elections…But lawmakers from both parties raised questions about the idea when it was sent to Capitol Hill. In particular, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi "came unglued" when she learned about what a source described as a plan for "the cia to put an operation in place to affect the outcome of the elections."…A senior U.S. official hinted that, under pressure from the Hill, the Administration scaled back its original plans. "This was a tough call. We went back and forth on it in the U.S. government. We consulted the Hill on this question...Our embassy in Baghdad will run a number of overt programs to support the democratic electoral process," as the U.S. does elsewhere in the world."

[NB: I don’t believe for a second that they won’t move heaven and earth to get the outcome they want – hasn’t anyone learned ANYTHING about these people? For that matter, has anyone asked Bush, “What happens if our boy Allawi loses and an Islamist radical wins?”]

More on Bush Co’s ambivalent commitment to democracy (domestic edition)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/25/opinion/25sat1.html
President Bush and his surrogates are taking their re-election campaign into dangerous territory. Mr. Bush is running as the man best equipped to keep America safe from terrorists - that was to be expected. We did not, however, anticipate that those on the Bush team would dare to argue that a vote for John Kerry would be a vote for Al Qaeda. Yet that is the message they are delivering - with a repetition that makes it clear this is an organized effort to paint the Democratic candidate as a friend to terrorists…

This is despicable politics. It's not just polarizing - it also undermines the efforts of the Justice Department and the Central Intelligence Agency to combat terrorists in America. Every time a member of the Bush administration suggests that Islamic extremists want to stage an attack before the election to sway the results in November, it causes patriotic Americans who do not intend to vote for the president to wonder whether the entire antiterrorism effort has been kidnapped and turned into part of the Bush re-election campaign. The people running the government clearly regard keeping Mr. Bush in office as more important than maintaining a united front on the most important threat to the nation.

Mr. Bush has not disassociated himself from any of this, and in his own campaign speeches he makes an argument that is equally divisive and undemocratic. The president has claimed, over and over, that criticism of the way his administration has conducted the war in Iraq and news stories that suggest the war is not going well endanger American troops and give aid and comfort to the enemy…

The general instinct of Americans is to play fair. That is why, even though terrorists struck the United States during President Bush's watch, the Democrats have not run a campaign that blames him for allowing the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to be attacked. And while the war in Iraq has opened up large swaths of the country to terrorist groups for the first time, any effort by Mr. Kerry to describe the president as the man whom Osama bin Laden wants to keep in power would be instantly denounced by the Republicans as unpatriotic.

We think that anyone who attempts to portray sincere critics as dangerous to the safety of the nation is wrong. It reflects badly on the president's character that in this instance, he's putting his own ambition ahead of the national good.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/09/26/on_the_stump_the_art_of_distortion/
As he often does at campaign events, President Bush got his biggest rise out of the crowd in Bangor Thursday afternoon when he said he was simply paraphrasing Senator John F. Kerry's statements…"Incredibly, this week my opponent said he would prefer the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein to the situation in Iraq today," Bush said at a campaign rally at Bangor International Airport, drawing a round of boos.

There was just one problem: Kerry never said what Bush said he did…

Distorting an opponent's words and selectively using facts and figures is nothing new in politics…But Bush appears to be the worse offender this year, in terms of the number of misleading claims and the consistency of their appearance in his stump speech. A review of Bush's public statements in recent days reveals a number of areas where he is repeatedly using exaggerated claims and incomplete statistics, in an apparent attempt to fit his campaign themes.

And another Bush lie on Iraq

http://uggabugga.blogspot.com/2004/09/everything-is-good-remember-june-28.html
Remember June 28? Here is how PBS' News Hour reported what happened that day: (emp add)

The U.S.-led coalition in Iraq transferred sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government two days ahead of schedule, in an effort to avert possible insurgent attacks…The unexpected handover ceremony came at mid-morning Baghdad time, the middle of the night in the U.S. The event was convened hastily and secretly inside Baghdad's heavily guarded green zone.

Sounds grim, doesn't it? But here is what Bush had to say about it in today's radio address: (emp add)

We're making steady progress in implementing our five-step plan toward the goal we all want: completing the mission so that Iraq is stable and self-governing, and American troops can come home with the honor they have earned…The first step was achieved on June 28th, not only on time, but ahead of schedule, when the coalition transferred full sovereignty to a government of Iraqi citizens.

Senior commander of Iraqi National Guard turns out to be a turncoat (and do you think he’s the only one?)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/26/international/middleeast/26CND-IRAQ.html?ex=1253937600&
It raises questions about whether, in the haste to stand up a legitimate Iraqi force that now includes former senior Baath Party officials, the Americans have signed on officers with questionable loyalties and abilities.

The Army’s intractable dilemma on tours of duty

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/27/international/middleeast/27army.html?ex=1254024000&

And still the talk about future invasions of Iran and Syria won’t go away

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008023.html

More compassion: Bush takes back funds to pay for children’s health insurance (and breaks a promise in doing so)

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/09/lost-news-president-reneges-on-schip.html

On Bush’s stewardship of the environment

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/26/172330/692

Hanging in the balance of the election: the future of the Supreme Court (can we TALK about this, please?)

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008018.html

Bush’s greatest achievement

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer2/index.asp?ploc=t&refer=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/192327_williams26.html
During his first term, George W. Bush has inflicted more damage on the nation's people than any other president in the post-World War II era. Not only has the Bush administration failed, it has been far and away the most dangerous presidency in this period…No other administration has seen itself above the law or so disregarded the Constitution by attacking the venerable institutions created to uphold democracy. In addition, the Bush presidency pushed through its policies by employing a calculated lawlessness that featured both deception and secrecy. A couple of examples help illustrate the administration's use of subterfuge…

Good news: Dems are substantially out-registering GOP

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/09/26/democrats_lead_in_attracting_new_voters.html

You can help: ACT now

http://acthere.com/

A little bit of cathartic nastiness

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008028.html
It was, however, Bush's towering lack of intellect that defined him. "That (Bush) coasted on his family name was understandable," said Yale frat brother Tom Wilner. "Lots of guys do that. But Georgie, as we called him then, has absolutely no intellectual curiosity about anything. He wasn't interested in ideas or books or causes. He didn't travel; he didn't read the newspapers; he didn't watch the news ... How he got out of Yale without developing some interest in the world besides booze and sports stuns me."

Bonus item: The catch of the year -- a priceless Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that expresses Bush’s philosophy of everything

http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002574.html


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 9:24 AM

 
REALITY CHECK

First time I’ve used that cliché, but today it fits: people are starting to get the news about how bad things actually are in Iraq

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50259-2004Sep25?language=printer
“Less than four months before planned national elections in Iraq, attacks against U.S. troops, Iraqi security forces and private contractors number in the dozens each day and have spread to parts of the country that had been relatively peaceful, according to statistics compiled by a private security firm working for the U.S. government…Attacks over the past two weeks have killed more than 250 Iraqis and 29 U.S. military personnel, according to figures released by Iraq's Health Ministry and the Pentagon. A sampling of daily reports produced during that period by Kroll Security International for the U.S. Agency for International Development shows that such attacks typically number about 70 each day. In contrast, 40 to 50 hostile incidents occurred daily during the weeks preceding the handover of political authority to an interim Iraqi government on June 28, according to military officials.”

As Akron goes, so goes the country: “Untold Tragedy of Iraq”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/25/162518/096

Where Iraq “reconstruction” money is going (less than 30% actually reaches the Iraqi people)

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/09/reconstruction-funds-not-going-to-iraq.html

More on the reconstruction fiasco: a stunning new Harper’s expose

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008009.html
The great historical irony of the catastrophe unfolding in Iraq is that the shock-therapy reforms that were supposed to create an economic boom that would rebuild the country have instead fueled a resistance that ultimately made reconstruction impossible. Bremer’s reforms unleashed forces that the neocons neither predicted nor could hope to control, from armed insurrections inside factories to tens of thousands of unemployed young men arming themselves…These forces have transformed Year Zero in Iraq into the mirror opposite of what the neocons envisioned: not a corporate utopia but a ghoulish dystopia, where going to a simple business meeting can get you lynched, burned alive, or beheaded. These dangers are so great that in Iraq global capitalism has retreated, at least for now. For the neocons, this must be a shocking development: their ideological belief in greed turns out to be stronger than greed itself…When facts threaten true believers, they simply close their eyes and pray harder.

[The full story: http://www.harpers.org/]

Proof that these people have learned NOTHING from experience

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50260-2004Sep25.html?nav=rss_nation
The United States and Iraq are crafting a two-pronged plan to prepare for Iraq's first democratic election in January…

To address deteriorating security, the plan calls for U.S. forces to lead a campaign to clean out insurgents in three key provincial capitals and Fallujah, opening up the cities for Iraqi forces to move in and retain control to prepare for balloting, officials said…The goal is to use U.S. military muscle decisively but briefly, and then leave to avoid becoming targets or fueling further anti-U.S. sentiment, say U.S. and Iraqi officials. While the United States is confident it can win a military battle, the bigger challenge is creating an Iraqi government presence to prevent key areas from reverting into chaos -- a problem after a U.S. offensive in Fallujah last spring.

If you don’t tell us the bad news, then all the news must be good, right?

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?040927ta_talk_packer
[George Packer] Earlier this year, the United States Agency for International Development, or U.S.A.I.D., hired a team of independent experts to go to Iraq and evaluate the agency’s programs there The experts came back with a mixed review that included plenty of reason for worry: the reconstruction of Iraq was taking place in an ad-hoc fashion, without a consistent strategy without the meaningful participation or advice of Iraqis, within paralyzing security constraints and amid unrealistic claims of success. But something happened to the report on the way to publication. U.S.A.I.D. kept sending parts of it back for revision, draft after draft, weeding out criticism, until the agency finally approved version for internal use which one member of the team called “a whitewash” of his findings. Another expert said, “It’s so political, everything going on out there. They just didn’t want to hear any bad news.” Pointing out that some of the numbers posted on the agency’ Web site were overly optimistic, he concluded, “They like to make their sausage their way.”

This would be a minor footnote in the history of the Iraq war, if only the entire story didn’t read the same. President Bush has been making the sausage his way from the beginning, and his way is to politicize. He forced a congressional vote on the war just before the 2002 midterm elections. He trumpeted selective and misleading intelligence. He displayed intense devotion to classifying government documents, except when there was political advantage in declassifying them. He fired or sidelined government officials and military officers who told the American public what the Administration didn’t want it to hear. He released forecasts of the war’s cost that quickly became obsolete, and then he ignored the need for massive expenditures until a crucial half year in Iraq had been lost. His communications office in Baghdad issued frequently incredible accounts of the progress of the war and the reconstruction. He staffed the occupation with large numbers of political loyalists who turned out to be incompetent. According to Marine officers and American officials in Iraq, he ordered and then called off critical military operations in Falluja against the wishes of his commanders, with no apparent strategic plan. He made sure that blame for the abuses at Abu Ghraib settled almost entirely on the shoulders of low-ranking troops. And then, in the middle of the election campaign, he changed the subject.

No one can now doubt the effectiveness of the President’s political operation. Here’s one measure: between May and September, the number of Iraq stories that made page 1 of the Times and the Washington Post dropped by more than a third. During the same period, the percentage of Americans who support the President’s handling of the war increased. It’s the mark of a truly brilliant reëlection campaign that these trends at home are occurring against a background of ever-increasing violence and despair in Iraq. The latest reports from mainstream think tanks, such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies, show every indicator of progress moving in the wrong direction. In July, the National Intelligence Council issued a classified and quite gloomy analysis of Iraq which had no effect on the President’s rhetoric or on his policy. After a year and a half of improvising and muddling through, there seems to be no clear way forward and no good way out.

Meanwhile, the Al Qaeda threat is “growing”

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/09/al-qaeda-threat-changing-growing.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-qaeda26sep26,1,7252914.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage

Those Gitmo “military tribunals”? They ain’t working

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008014.html

Where Bush is taking the federal deficit (be afraid, be very very afraid)

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004-2_archives/000245.html

How they play it in Texas

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50258-2004Sep25.html?nav=rss_nation
“Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff and public relations consultant Michael Scanlon quietly worked with conservative religious activist Ralph Reed to help the state of Texas shut down an Indian tribe's casino in 2002, then the two quickly persuaded the tribe to pay $4.2 million to try to get Congress to reopen it.”

A case study of the Republican spin machine at work: the coordinated diffusion and replication of the “emboldening” virus

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/09/on_emboldening.html
My aunt mentioned last night that all of a sudden she was hearing the usually "plainspoken" George W. Bush say some kind of fancy word. "Embolden?" I asked.

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/lying_in_politics_/2004/09/concerning_emboldening.php
The word "embolden" isn't very obscure, but it's hardly a word in ordinary use. I, for one, don't have it in my writing or speaking vocabulary. Most politicians, consistent with their belief that swing voters are ignorant fools, try to keep their remarks at an eighth-grade reading level…So it's surprising to hear a candidate use the word "embolden." It's even more surprising to hear two candidates use the word in the same week.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004764.php
[W]ho gave the marching orders to use the obscure word "embolden" in Republican speeches? Enquiring minds want to know.

Another way to describe this attack: “dissent is treason”

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/09/iyad_allawi.html

Oooh, nasty. Allawi as Bush’s “Mini-Me”

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/26/opinion/26dowd.html?hp

How close the election really is

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-race26sep26,1,4905187.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage

Bush’s handlers preparing to complain about “unfair” debate rules

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/9/25/145429/883

Political spin is one thing, flat lies are another. Who will say so?

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/09/shocker_bush_li.html
[Bush] "Iraqi security forces are taking increasing responsibility for their country's security. Nearly 100,000 fully trained and equipped Iraqi soldiers, police officers, and other security personnel are working today. And that total will rise to 125,000 by the end of this year."

[Reuter’s] "Documents obtained by Reuters show that of the nearly 90,000 currently in the police force, only 8,169 have had the full eight-week academy training. And it will be July 2006 before the administration's new goal of 135,000 fully trained police is met."

[WP] “Instead of fielding 12,000 soldiers by June, as the U.S. occupation administrator, L. Paul Bremer, had promised a year earlier, there were about 4,000 soldiers. There are currently about 6,000 in the field.”

Bonus item: More on the postmodern press

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/09/balance_aka_who.html
[Tom Scocca] Yes, the meaning of stories depends on their context. Yes, neutrality and objectivity are shaky constructs; yes, to write about the failures of the Bush administration is in some sense to declare oneself in favor of a Kerry administration. Yes, yes—and?

Feeling temporarily impotent under the onslaught of the bloggers, the press has decided to pretend it’s unimportant.

Yet the pose of intellectual disengagement, of bemused neutrality, is a position just like any other position. And if it means waiting for Mr. Kerry to step to the fore, perhaps we’d be better off with a different pose—something pre-postmodern, maybe, like pretending to hunger for the truth.

One encouraging sign

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000679.html
[AP] President Bush opened several new scathing lines of attack against Democrat John Kerry, charges that twisted his rival's words on Iraq and made Kerry seem supportive of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein...He stated flatly that Kerry had said earlier in the week "he would prefer the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein to the situation in Iraq today." The line drew gasps of surprise from Bush's audience in a Racine, Wis., park. "I just strongly disagree," the president said…But Kerry never said that.

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:52 AM

 
THE EMPEROR ISN’T WEARING ANY CLOTHES

Can we say this in simple terms, please? Iraq is a disaster, and getting worse

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_19_digbysblog_archive.html#109606558219588947
[Charles Peters] Just before we went to war in Iraq, I wrote in this space, "This country has been conned by Karl Rove and the super-hawks. They have succeeded in changing the subject from Bush's failures and embarrassments, putting Iraq first on the national agenda for nearly six months at the expense of more important matters--like finding Osama bin Laden, securing peace between Israel and Palestine, drastically improving the FBI and CIA's ability to deal with terrorism, keeping nuclear weapons from being used by nations that already have them, including North Korea, and engineering economic recovery here at home. If we end up paying practically all the bill for Iraq and subsequent military occupation, that money won't be there for badly needed health and education programs … Once you consider these other higher priorities, the danger from Iraq isn't nearly imminent enough to justify war." I haven't changed my mind.

http://gadflyer.com/warandpiece/index.php?Week=200439#840
[U.K.] Iraq is becoming daily more chaotic and murderous, says Richard Beeston. DVDs of beheadings are selling in their thousands. Westerners are hated and live in constant fear Baghdad.

[DVDs!!! They love us]

Why they love us. US, war killing 1000 Iraqis a month, “most of them civilians”

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001145.html

If the Bush people want to trumpet the assessments of regional allies on how well their Iraq adventure is going, maybe they should also include these comments by Pakistan’s Musharraf

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_09_24_bestof.html#109607937031661444
Musharraf was less enthusiastic in his support for the U.S. war in Iraq, saying the world is less safe in the wake of the invasion..."I would say that it has ended up bringing more trouble to the world."

When is an election not an election? State Dept contradicts Rumsfeld’s ridiculous statement that 75% democracy is better than nothing

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/24/politics/24CND-POLI.html?ex=1253764800&en=641dbf168b6f37e3&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland

Allawi contradicts him too

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48680-2004Sep24.html

More on free and fair elections: neither Afghanistan nor Iraq will have outside observers (hmmm…I wonder why)

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000082.html

Kerry/Edwards assault on Iraq revealing fractures within Bush Co policies

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/24/172217/516

http://www.tnr.com/blog/campaignjournal?pid=2115

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/25/8036/24567

Press starting to pick up the “spin vs. reality” trope on Bush’s rosy-colored representations of Iraq?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47291-2004Sep24.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing

Kerry coming back strong?

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=pmm1GVgPziFuHIIASjXk9A%3D%3D

Edwards accomplishing a lot “under the radar”?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004151

A debate moment I would love to see

http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200439#837
At some point during the first debate next week, Bush will no doubt pull out his "he voted for the war, then voted against the funding" line. What if at that point Kerry turned to Bush and said, "Excuse me, Mr. President. When you asked us to give you the authorization to use force, you said you didn't want to use it - that the vote was, and I quote, "to keep the peace." You just admitted that you wanted war all along. That means you lied to me, you lied to the Congress, and you lied to the American people.

More pearls from Rumsfeld: Iraq no worse than any major American city, troops might leave before peace fully established

http://www.darrelplant.com/blog_item.php?ItemRef=120

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=721&e=1&u=/nm/20040924/wl_nm/iraq_usa_rumsfeld_dc

[NB: Here’s an aspect of the story no one is talking about. Why exactly are elections in JANUARY so important? Why not wait six months or more if it means a better and fairer election? Apart from the political dimensions – Bush said they would happen in January, so now they must or he loses face — something else is at work that doesn’t seem to be getting enough attention. The US troop rotations will reach a crisis point in the spring. I think Bush Co. want desperately to muddle through something that looks like an election, declare something like success in helping Iraq achieve democracy, then start pulling down troop numbers dramatically. Then the “freely elected government of Iraq” will appeal for international troop support, not the US]

Bush’s howler that we are just fighting a “handful” of resisters

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/the_resistance.php
The Federation of American Scientists has posted a very interesting article from Al Zawra, an Iraqi weekly published by the Iraqi Journalists Association, that provides an unprecedented (for me, at least) look at the size and shape of the resistance groups in Iraq. It’s an amazing account, if it’s accurate…First it cites the Iraqi National Islamic Resistance, founded in July 2003, the National Front for the Liberation of Iraq, founded in April 2003 (a coalition of 10 groups), the Iraqi Resistance Islamic Front, a Sunni organization, and then a bunch of smaller ones, with details on each…Then it lists the Baathist groups, including Al Awdah (The Return) and others, which are not Islamist, and describes Shiite groups, including Muqtada Al Sadr’s organization…And finally, it describes about a dozen kidnapping and terrorist organizations, including Zarqawi’s beheaders.

Who did that ridiculous survey (taken BEFORE the fiasco in Najaf) showing that Iraqis think their country is on the “right track”? I think you can guess

http://balta.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_balta_archive.html#109606687244148573

Predictable like clockwork, Bush’s coordinated attack machine trashes Kerry: how can you criticize our ally, Allawi (when he is telling the American people what a great job we are doing)?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_19.php#003520

Kerry blasts Bush for taking his eye off the ball in war on terror

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/25/politics/campaign/25kerry.html?ex=1253851200&
"Let me be as blunt and direct with the American people as I can be,'' the Democratic challenger said at Temple University. "The invasion of Iraq was a profound diversion from the battle against our greatest enemy - Al Qaeda - which killed more than 3,000 people on 9/11 and which still plots our destruction today. And there's just no question about it: the president's misjudgment, miscalculation and mismanagement of the war in Iraq all make the war on terror harder to win…"Iraq is now what it was not before the war - a haven for terrorists. George Bush made Saddam Hussein the priority. I would have made Osama bin Laden the priority. As president, I will finish the job in Iraq and refocus our energies on the real war on terror.''

[And by the way, “thanks for nothing” on the choice of photos]

[More: http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/09/24/osama/index.html?source=RSS]

Ten tips for John Kerry

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8646

Why the polls have been useless so far — and some interesting analysis of the “women’s vote”

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/24/polls/index.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_19_digbysblog_archive.html#109605509892122168

The artificial construction of the “security mom” voting bloc

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004153

Senate Democrats pull together a nice resource on Bush’s many abject failures

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/24/184019/061

http://democrats.senate.gov/

The milk of human kindness. USDA official admits manipulating milk prices in order to maximize votes from key midwestern states (amazing story)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/yahoo/chi-0409250110sep25,1,4458486.story

The oil of human kindness. Ditto

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48739-2004Sep24.html

Bush’s “indefensible” tax policies

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004767.php

Police state update. House GOP adds domestic police powers to intelligence agency

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na--intel25sep25,1,1442049.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Let’s see, Bill Burkett gives CBS falsified documents, lies to them about where he got them — refuses even now to say where they came from — and now wants to sue CBS for defamation. Gee, maybe he wasn’t such a reliable guy to depend on after all

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008006.html

Another repercussion of Killiangate: CBS now pulls another Bush story, won’t run it before the election -- and the principles of good journalism lose both ways

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004770.php
When CBS rushed the infamous Killian memo story to air two weeks ago, they bumped a story about the forged Niger documents to make room for it. Via Corrente, I just learned that CBS has released a statement saying it has now spiked the story entirely because it would be "inappropriate to air the report so close to the presidential election"…So not only was Dan Rather (with an assist from Bill Burkett) responsible for effectively killing the National Guard story for all time, but the resulting debacle has now convinced CBS that they shouldn't air any negative stories about George Bush for the next six weeks — even if they're true. That's some courageous journalism for you.

Great piece: on the Bush myth that all of the issues surrounding his NG service were already covered in the 2000 election

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/24/times_guard/index.html

A Democratic Senate? Yes, it could still happen: stunning news from Oklahoma

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/24/coburn/index.html

NO major nightly news report mentioned the indictment of three DeLay associates

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004146

Bonus item: what this election is all about (editorial cartoon)

http://www.msnbc.com/comics/editorial_content.asp?sFile=jd040924


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:12 AM

 
THE ENTIRE WHITMER FAMILY

The idea of Bush Co. rolling out Allawi (who is after all THEIR proxy and who has as many reasons to paint a rosy face on the Iraqi mess as they do) as somehow buttressing their own distortions puts me in mind of what Mark Twain said about the Book of Mormon

http://www.helpingmormons.org/twain.htm
The title-page reads as follows:

THE BOOK OF MORMON: AN ACCOUNT WRITTEN BY THE HAND OF MORMON, UPON PLATES TAKEN FROM THE PLATES OF NEPHI…

Next comes

THE TESTIMONY OF THREE WITNESSES.

Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom this work shall come, that we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record…
OLIVER COWDERY,
DAVID WHITMER,
MARTIN HARRIS.

Some people have to have a world of evidence before they can come anywhere in the neighborhood of believing anything; but for me, when a man tells me that he has "seen the engravings which are upon the plates," and not only that, but an angel was there at the time, and saw him see them, and probably took his receipt for it, I am very far on the road to conviction, no matter whether I ever heard of that man before or not, and even if I do not know the name of the angel, or his nationality either.

Next is this:

AND ALSO THE TESTIMONY OF EIGHT WITNESSES.

Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom this work shall come, that Joseph Smith, Jr., the translator of this work, has shown unto us the plates of which hath been spoken…
CHRISTIAN WHITMER,
JACOB WHITMER,
PETER WHITMER, JR.,
JOHN WHITMER,
HIRAM PAGE,
JOSEPH SMITH, SR.,
HYRUM SMITH,
SAMUEL H. SMITH.

And when I am far on the road to conviction, and eight men, be they grammatical or otherwise, come forward and tell me that they have seen the plates too; and not only seen those plates but "hefted" them, I am convinced. I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family had testified.

So, what did Allawi say?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-allawi24sep24,1,4534965.story?coll=la-home-headlines
As in other public appearances, Allawi's upbeat remarks Thursday echoed — both in tone and content — key themes of Bush's reelection campaign.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2107133/fr/rss/
The LAT also concludes on Page One that Allawi, frankly, is full of it: "VIOLENCE BELIES POSITIVE PICTURE." An early version of that headline had even sharper elbows: "IRAQ REALITY BELIES ALLAWI'S UPBEAT ASSESSMENT."

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/23/allawi/index.html
If we didn't understand before just how bad things are in Iraq, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi certainly convinced us with his performance in Washington on Thursday. Seeking to downplay reports of violence in his country, Allawi suggested that large portions of Iraq are happy and trouble-free. "So really," Allawi said, "if you care to look at Iraq properly, and go from Basra to Nasiriyah to Kut to Diyala to Najaf to Karbala to Diwaniya to Samaraa to Kirkuk to Sulaymaniyah to Dahuk to Arbil, there are no problems. It's safe, it's good. "

Oh, really?

We're not experts in Iraqi geography, but we're pretty good at Google. And a few searches Thursday showed either that Allawi is as out of touch as the American president, or that the situation in Iraq is so bad overall that a region with only the occasional roadside bombing or assassination attempt is now considered "safe" and "good."

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_19.php#003516
An amazing exchange from Jim Lehrer's interview this evening with Iyad Allawi, which opens and shuts the case on the latter's credibility about anything.

JIM LEHRER: What would you say to somebody in the United States who questions whether or not getting rid of Saddam Hussein was worth the cost of more than a thousand lives now and billions and billions of U.S. dollars?

PRIME MINISTER IYAD ALLAWI: Well, I assure you if Saddam was still there, terrorists will be hitting there again at Washington and New York, as they did in the murderous attack in September; they'll be hitting also on other places in Europe and the Middle East.

So, if we hadn't invaded Iraq we'd be experiencing repeated 9/11s, with similar events in Europe in the Middle East.

Is it necessary to say that, despite all the bad things Iraq's Baathist regime represented and did, there is no evidence (pace Laurie Mylroie) that it ever attempted, let alone succeeded in mounting, any sort of terrorist attack on the American mainland?

…Every so often you just have to sit back and marvel at the Twilight Zone we're living in at the moment…Here we have a US-installed foreign head of state, whose travel schedule is determined by the US State Department, visiting the US to buoy the president's election campaign and spouting demonstrable lies in order to support a retrospective rationale for war that the White House wants Americans to believe but lacks the gall to state explicitly.

[A reminder: Who is Allawi? http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_19_digbysblog_archive.html#109599676012578482]

What did Bush say?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/best-of-bush.html
The first part of the question was how come we haven't found Zarqawi? We're looking for him. He hides.

I saw a poll that said the right track/wrong track in Iraq was better than here in America. It was pretty darn strong. I mean, the people see a better future.

Talk to the leader. I agree, I'm not the expert on how the Iraqi people think, because I live in America where it's nice and safe and secure.

The Afghan national army is a part of the army.

By the way, it's the Afghan national army that went into Najaf and did the work there.

I've seen firsthand the tactics of these killers.

On that “right track/wrong track” joke. Let me rephrase it for him: the right track/wrong track polls are EVEN WORSE IN THIS COUNTRY THAN THEY ARE IN IRAQ

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/23/right_track/index.html
From the parenthetical "laughter" on the transcript, Bush apparently finds something to chuckle about here. But the situation in Iraq is no laughing matter. And does Bush really want to remind us that many Americans think he is taking us off a cliff?…But for the man who started this war to brush past the violent reality of life in Iraq and the grave concerns of Iraqi citizens with a flip remark about "right track/wrong track" polling is just bizarre and desperate. Or as Kerry spokesman Phil Singer said in response: "Did Bush really just say this?"

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000674.html
"I saw a poll that said the right track/wrong track in Iraq was better than here in America."

Followed by his trademark chortling shrug of the shoulders.

You know what, George? The rest of us don't find it all that frigging funny.

And this...

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004137
Apparently, the president not only doesn't read the newspapers, he also doesn't get briefed by his top military commanders. What else to make of this?

QUESTION: Why haven't U.S. forces been able to capture or kill al-Zarqawi, who's blamed for much of the violence? And what's your answer to General John Abizaid's statement that, "I think we will need more troops than we currently have"?

BUSH: If that's what he says -- he was in my office this morning, he didn't say that to me. But if he were to say that, I'd listen to him. Just like I've said all along that when our commanders say that they need support, they'll get support, because we're going to succeed in this mission…The first part of the question was how come we haven't found Zarqawi? We're looking for him. He hides. He's got an effective weapon and that is terror.

We can't find Abu al-Zarqawi because "he hides?" No wonder the president seems confused about whether or not he can win the war on terrorism. What was Bush expecting the terrorists to do -- turn themselves in? Besides, it's not as if Zarqawi's all that well hidden. He's in Falluja. We just can't get him because we don't control Falluja. And we don't control Falluja because Bush is manipulating the military strategy for political purposes. Besides that, we don't have enough troops. Which brings us to John Abizaid…You can find coverage of Abizaid's remarks in newspapers and television networks throughout America. It's even in Canada. Has Bush seriously not heard about it? If Abizaid will tell the press he needs more troops, why won't he tell his commander-in-chief? Does Bush plan to ask Abizaid about it?

Our President’s “mind” at work

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040923-8.html
[W]e haven't found Zarqawi. We're looking for him. He hides. He is -- he is -- he's got a effective weapon, and that is terror. I said yesterday that our military cannot be defeated by these thugs, that -- but what they do is behead Americans so they can get on the TV screens. And they're trying to shake our will and trying to shake the Iraqis' will. That's what they're trying to do.

And like all Americans, I'm disgusted by that kind of behavior. But I'm not going to yield. We're not going to abandon the Iraqi people. It's in our interests that we win this battle in the war on terror. See, I think that the Iraq theater is a part of the war on terror…

And I believe that if we wilt, or leave, America's security will be much worse off. I believe that if Iraq -- if we fail in Iraq, it's the beginning of a long struggle. We will not have done our duty to our children and our grandchildren. And so that's why I'm consistently telling the Iraqi citizens that we will not be intimidated…

It's tough work, everybody knows that. It's hard work. But we must not allow the actions of a few…

It's hard work in Iraq. Everybody knows that. We see it on our TV. My message is that -- is that we will stay the course and stand with these people so that they become free. It's in our national interest we do so. I believe this is a central part in the war on terror. I believe that when we succeed in Iraq, that America will be more secure. I also know that a free Iraq will send a clear message to the part of the world that is desperate for freedom.

It's hard work. The American people know that. But I believe it's necessary work. And I believe a leader must be consistent and clear and not change positions when times get tough. And the times have been hard -- these are hard times. But I understand that -- what mixed messages do. You can embolden an enemy by sending a mixed message…That's why I will continue to lead with clarity and in a resolute way, because I understand the stakes. These are high stakes. And we'll succeed…

[L]ook, what we're seeing on our TV screens are the acts of suicide bombers. They're the people who -- that are affecting the daily -- the nightly news. And they know its effect. I said that the enemy cannot defeat us militarily. What they can do is take acts of violence that try to discourage us…My point is, is that a few people, relative to the whole, are trying to stop the march of freedom.

It is tough work. Everybody in America knows that. And the fundamental question is, are we going to allow the tough work to cause us to retreat, to waver? And my answer to the American people, and the Iraqi people, and to the enemy, is that we will complete our mission. We will do our duty…

Let me -- let me say one other thing about why I'm optimistic we'll succeed. By the way, you can understand it's tough and still be optimistic. You can understand how hard it is and believe we'll succeed…

And the fundamental question is, do we -- is this: Do we have the will to stay? Do we have the will to put smart strategy in place? I've laid out the strategy; we're implementing the strategy. But really, do we have the will to complete the mission? And my message to the Iraqi people, and to the enemy, and to our troops in harm's way, and to our allies is: We'll complete the mission…

[T]his is a major moment in American history. These are historic times. And I view it as a great opportunity to help secure our country. As I said before, Iraq is a central part of the war on terror. And I believe it's important for us to succeed there because of that.

See, 9/11 changed everything. September the 11th meant that we had to deal with a person like Saddam Hussein. Of course, I was hoping it could be done diplomatically. But diplomacy failed. And so the last resort of a President is to use force. And we did. And now we're -- we're helping the Iraqis.

Analysis

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004763.php
Thursday's press conference was just scary. It's no longer clear if George Bush is merely a cynical, calculating politician — which would be bad enough — or if he actually believes all the happy talk about Iraq that his speechwriters produce for him. Increasingly, though, it seems like the latter: he genuinely doesn't have a clue about what's going on. What's more, his staff is keeping him in a sort of Nixonian bubble, afraid to tell him the truth and afraid to take any positive action for fear that it might affect the election…So things will just get worse, since no one is willing to admit the truth and no one is willing to propose serious action to keep things from deteriorating further — at least not until after November 2nd. But by then it will be too late. And when the Iraqi elections fail, what happens then?

Bush Warns That Insurgents May Plan Attacks Against U.S.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Iraq.html?ex=1253678400&

[NB: Okay, so let me get this straight. 9-11 happened on Bush’s watch, but it was Clinton’s fault. If another attack happens between now and the election, it’s Kerry’s fault. And if it happens after Bush is re-elected, well, there are just some things you can’t control, so it’s nobody’s fault. Am I missing something here?]

What did Rumsfeld say?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/more-guns-less-voting.html
[Bush] The fifth and most important step in our plan is to help Iraq conduct free, national elections no later than next January. An Iraqi electoral commission is now up and running and has already hired personnel and is making key decisions about election procedures...

And do you believe, given the situation on the ground and Fallujah and other northern cities in the Sunni triangle, that elections are possible in four months?

BUSH: I do, because the prime minister told me they are. He's interested in moving this country forward. And you heard his statement. And I believe him.

[Rumsfeld] Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday raised the possibility that Iraq could conduct only limited elections in January, excluding places where violence was considered too severe for people to go to polls.

"Let's say you tried to have an election and you could have it in three-quarters or four-fifths of the country. But in some places you couldn't because the violence was too great," Rumsfeld said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

"Well, so be it. Nothing's perfect in life, so you have an election that's not quite perfect. Is it better than not having an election? You bet," he said.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2107133/fr/rss/
Near the bottom of its Iraq wrap-up, the WSJ says "some U.S. officials are skeptical" that fair elections could be pulled off by January. One told the paper that it might be better to delay them until June.

[NB: Look, something needs to be said that isn’t being said. It isn’t just a matter of whether elections are or aren’t held in January (as if holding elections will solve the problems in Iraq). Elections that exclude 25% of the country aren’t “better than nothing.” Elections that return Allawi to power but are seen as rigged aren’t “better than nothing.” Elections that are boycotted by significant political groups, like Sadr’s (if he can’t get on the ballot) aren’t “better than nothing.” A phony election wouldn’t be the end of the problem – it is just the sort of thing that could trigger open civil war.]

[More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004760.php]

And, by the way, if elections were held today

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_09_23_bestof.html#109595742530471002
The Wahhabis and commies would win hands down…

What did Kerry say?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&e=1&u=/ap/20040923/ap_on_el_pr/kerry
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Thursday that Iraq's Ayad Allawi was sent before Congress to put the "best face" on a Bush administration policy that has gone wrong…Shortly after Allawi, the interim government's prime minister, gave a rosy portrayal of progress toward peace in Iraq, Kerry said the assessment contradicted Allawi's own statements as well as the reality on the ground.

"I think the prime minister is obviously contradicting his own statement of a few days ago, where he said the terrorists are pouring into the country," Kerry said. "The prime minister and the president are here obviously to put their best face on the policy, but the fact is that the CIA estimates, the reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story."...

"The United States and the Iraqis have retreated from whole areas of Iraq," Kerry told reporters outside a Columbus firehouse. "There are no-go zones in Iraq today. You can't hold an election in a no-go zone."

Kerry's remarks and the ad came one day after he told The Associated Press that Bush's statement that a "handful" of people were willing to kill to stop progress in Iraq was a blunder that showed he was avoiding reality…"George Bush retreated from Fallujah and other communities in Iraq which are now overrun with terrorists and threaten our troops," Kerry said in the brief interview Wednesday. "And even today, he blundered again saying there are only a handful of terrorists in Iraq. I think he's living in a make believe world."

What did Cheney say?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1521&ncid=696&e=4&u=/afp/20040923/pl_afp/us_vote_iraq_cheney
US Vice President Richard Cheney said he was appalled by what he described as the "lack of respect" shown by Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry to the interim leader of Iraq Iyad Allawi…"I must say I was appalled at the complete lack of respect Senator Kerry showed for this man of courage when he rushed to hold a press conference and attack the prime minister, a man America must stand beside to defeat the terrorists," Cheney told an audience in St. Joseph, Missouri…"John Kerry is trying to tear down all the good that has been accomplished, and his words are destructive to our effort in Iraq and in the global war on terror.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_19.php#003514
In other words, democracy in America is harmful to building democracy in Iraq.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45672-2004Sep23.html
Such accusations have been a component of American politics since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and surfaced in the modern era during the McCarthy communist hunt and the Vietnam War protests.

"Rhetoric this sharp and ugly is not by any means brand-new," said Jeff Shesol… "What we're seeing now isn't just offhand comments by outliers but clearly a decision by the Republican hierarchy to put this charge out there consistently."

Pollster Frank Luntz, who has advised Republicans on rhetoric, cautions that "statements like that can cause a backlash" against the accuser. "Candidates have to be careful of going over the line," he said.

…The White House and the Bush campaign said they would neither endorse nor disavow the remarks by Hastert, Armitage and others. "Those statements speak to the great concern many people have about John Kerry's consistent vacillation under political pressure on the most significant issues the nation faces with regard to the war on terror," Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said…White House press secretary Scott McClellan had no quarrel with the remarks. "They are expressing their opinion," he said.

The Kerry campaign, which previously branded Cheney's accusations "un-American," extended that complaint to Bush's remarks yesterday…"Not only is it un-American, it's un-democratic the way they attack your patriotism when you tell the truth about Iraq," Kerry campaign spokesman Chad Clanton said. "It's called an election, and people deserve an honest debate."

Responding to Hastert and Cheney's remarks, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said yesterday: "These despicable comments cross the line from partisan politics to shameless fear tactics. . . . Republicans should remember that the reason Osama bin Laden is still able to threaten the United States three years after the September 11th attacks is the utter failure of the Bush administration to catch him and destroy al Qaeda."

http://www.lnreview.co.uk/news/004257.php
The 2004 American presidential election is a terrifying spectacle. If – and God preserve us all from such an outcome – if President Bush should win, then we will have witnessed an astonishing and chilling hoodwinking of an entire nation.

In their quest to be re-elected, Bush and Cheney have left rationality far, far behind. They’ve boiled down their message into a single emotive appeal: that America should be afraid, very afraid, and the only person who can hold the fear at bay is President Bush.

Over and over, they are screaming this message at the electorate, be afraid, be afraid, be afraid, we’ll protect you, be afraid, we’ll protect you, and the horror is – the electorate might just be buying it…

More troops to be sent to Iraq…after the election, of course

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45683-2004Sep23.html?nav=rss_nation

[WSJ: 15,000 more http://slate.msn.com/id/2107133/fr/rss/]

Where will they come from? Recruiting down

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/09/23/national.guard.ap/index.html

Pentagon, under intense pressure, agrees to open up voting site to nonmilitary citizens overseas

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/23/overseas_part2/index.html

I know this is becoming the “I invented the Internet” of this campaign, so the fact of the matter no longer makes any difference, but Kerry’s vote to authorize Bush to go to war was perfectly clear in intent and consistency

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/archive/2004/09/23/KERRY.TMP
"Kerry voted for the Iraq war, opposed it, supported it and now opposes it again.''…Yet an examination of Kerry's words in more than 200 speeches and statements, comments during candidate forums and answers to reporters' questions does not support the accusation…As foreign policy emerged as a dominant issue in the Democratic primaries and later in the general election, Kerry clung to a nuanced, middle-of-the road -- yet largely consistent -- approach to Iraq. Over and over, Kerry enthusiastically supported a confrontation with Saddam Hussein even as he aggressively criticized Bush for the manner in which he did so.

The “inconsistency” was on the part of GW Bush

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_09_19_atrios_archive.html#109597241920261058
Let's consider Bush's recent rhetoric. His latest ad says "Kerry voted for the Iraq war."…When he asked Congress for the resolution…Bush claimed it was a vote for peace…At the time he signed the resolution, he claimed it was a vote for peace…And, even today, as the ad is running he says:

Of course, I was hoping it could be done diplomatically. But diplomacy failed. And so the last resort of a president is to use force. And we did.

He claimed then it was a vote for peace. He told Congress it was a vote for peace. He then says that the vote for peace that he asked John Kerry to make was actually a vote for war. The previous March he'd said, "Fuck Saddam, we're taking him out." So, he told people it was a vote for peace even though he'd decided it was a vote for war. Maybe war is peace. Who the hell knows anymore.

Do facts even matter any more? (pt 2) Leading economic indicators fall for the third straight month

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=a7Af_f_cXkW0&refer=home

Do facts even matter any more? (pt 3) State Department map of countries supporting or harboring Al Qaeda, from 2001. Guess which country is missing

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001140.html

Off the far right wing. This is so goofy, so wrongheaded, so cynical, that even in a world where people like DeLay, Rove, and Norquist set the Republican agenda, it is hard to believe. House GOP wants to prevent the Supreme Court from even considering a ruling on keeping the words “under God” (which were added, not original) in the Pledge of Allegiance

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/09/23/pledge/

[Analysis: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004141]

[More GOP attacks on judicial independence and the separation of powers: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43360-2004Sep22.html]

More gratuitous Bush Co. attacks on gays

http://www.advocate.com/new_news.asp?id=13782&sd=09/23/04

The Compassionate President (not)

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0920-13.htm

Off the other wing. Nader supporters: if this sounds good to you, then Ralph’s your guy

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000669.html
We need your generous donations ASAP to overcome the modern-day Huns and their rigged system of Jim Crow procedures. Keep our campaign accelerating against the two-party dictatorship that, tied to the corporate supremacists, is taking our country down.

OMG. Republicans gearing up (and raising money) for another recount fight

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/23/bush.recount.ap/index.html

Rove: I’m a genius

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040923-122118-6902r.htm

Bonus item: Why Republicans run better campaigns

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45792-2004Sep23.html
[E.J. Dionne] A very intelligent political reporter I know said the other night that Republicans simply run better campaigns than Democrats. If I were given a free pass to stretch the truth to the breaking point, I could run a pretty good campaign, too.


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 10:27 AM

 
GATHERING DARK CLOUDS

Military rotation schedules. Why is this important? Because simple math says that after the election Bush will either have to start pulling troops home, violate military rules, or start a draft to maintain troop levels

http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,Defensewatch_090403,00.html
Two recent developments - the Army's plan to "double up" short tours and the Pentagon's proposal to establish rotation schedules for Reserve and National Guard unit deployments -- confirm that the U.S. military is undermanned and over-missioned.

Already, the Army has 60 percent of its active-duty combat strength deployed in Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan. With those units on announced one-year tours, Army officials admit they have a problem in finding replacements.

The problem is especially acute in Iraq, where all or parts of three divisions are scheduled to return to their home bases next spring…

How is this turmoil affecting the average soldier?

As the rules now stand, a soldier is guaranteed a two-year stabilized assignment after completing a short tour. That means soldiers coming home from Iraq, Afghanistan and Korea would spend two years in stateside assignments before the Army could send them overseas again. However, for every soldier locked in to a two-year assignment, another soldier must also spend two years in another location, or two soldiers for one year each.

When the Army had unlimited manpower, short tours and guaranteed stabilized tours did not present a personnel problem. But with 130,000 soldiers in Iraq, 40,000 in Korea and 10,000 in Afghanistan, the Army faces the prospect that 73 percent of its active-duty personnel - 360,000 out of the active end-strength of 490,000 troops - will be "locked in" and therefore unable to deploy overseas.

Confronted by those grim numbers, Army officials had to change the short-tour rules.

USA Today on Aug. 26 revealed that Army planners "have concluded they will have no choice but to force thousands of troops to return to new overseas assignment after only a short time at home." The newspaper also said preliminary Pentagon estimates indicate as many as 25 percent of the soldiers now in Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan might have to serve consecutive tours.

For now, doubling up short tours will give the Army the manpower numbers it needs under present circumstances. But the service admits trained sergeants and company-level officers might simply leave the Army rather than complete consecutive short tours in hazardous locations. Those are the ranks and grades no military force can afford to lose if it intends to maintain unit cohesion and professionalism.

Coupled with possible back-to-back short tours, the Pentagon's rotation plan shows how manpower-short the active-duty military really is. It also underscores the services' dependence upon Reserve and National Guard personnel - who are suffering from similar deployment stresses.

Officials gamely promise that the rotation plan will bring stability to soldiers' lives. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs Thomas F. Hall said last week that under the new plan, "We'll be able to tell you as a Guardsman or Reservist ... that three years from now you need to do six months of duty in the Sinai."

But there are at least two problems with the rotation plan.

First, no one can predict where a soldier or military unit will be operating three years from now.

Second, the rotation plan will not produce Hall's promised "predictability." Personnel experts warn that instead it will spark an exodus of Guardsmen and Reservists from the military, simply because any part-time soldier facing a guaranteed mobilization and overseas deployment one year or six months every three years will come under tremendous pressure from his family and employer.

Hall claimed last week that future mobilizations will focus on the traditional "specialties" such as civil affairs, air traffic control, mortuary affairs and force protection. His statement sidestepped - or deliberately ignored - the Army's already announced plan sending two National Guard infantry brigades to Iraq.

Although the Pentagon argues that a rotation plan is necessary and the end-strength numbers do show the service is stretched tighter than a drum, the officials who concocted the rotation plan either do not understand the impact on morale from employer pressure and family disruption, or simply do not care.

Guardsmen and Reservists are not in this for the money. They agree to serve as a back-up force when the nation is in imminent danger, and few or none foresaw the kind of deployments forced by the war on terrorism.

Faced with too few soldiers and too many missions, what are the uniformed services to do?

The U.S. military is not a 19th-century European colonial force, not the hired army of the East India Co. What if United States decides to battle terrorists with force in the Sudan, Somalia or Yemen? What if United States decides to take out other terror states such as North Korea, Syria, Iran or Libya? Where will the forces come from for those possible undertakings?

If the United States intends to continue the war on terrorism, our national leaders - from the president on down - must make the hard choices. The possible options are not hard to find: The Bush administration could press Congress for a major increase in U.S. military end-strength; the Pentagon can explore a focused reactivation of the draft; or the Pentagon could devise a new personnel policy contracting out administrative and support functions to the civilian sector that would free up military personnel for reassignment and training in combat units.

Any choice that truly aims at alleviating the serious personnel shortfall will require a major increase in defense spending. Elected officials will worry that higher taxes and budget deficits will alienate voters from both political parties.

That's not the worst scenario: Continuing the status quo means setting up our men and women in uniform for a future conflict where insufficient live troops will mean a much higher number of casualties. Allowing that to happen is the truly unacceptable scenario.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/17/politics/17reserve.html
The chief of the Army Reserve warned on Thursday that at the current pace of operations in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, the Army faced a risk of running out of crucial specialists in the Reserves who can be involuntarily called up for active duty.

The remarks by the officer, Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, throw a spotlight on the military's existing mobilization authority, under which Reserve and National Guard personnel can be summoned to active duty for no more than a total of 24 months, unless they volunteer to extend their tours.

As military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq continue with no end in sight, General Helmly said he was increasingly concerned that a growing number of soldiers with critical specialties that are contained mainly in the reservist ranks will exhaust their two-year stints, making it increasingly difficult to fill the yearlong tours of duty that have become standard.

You want a youth vote turnout? Make Bush’s refusal to promise not to reinstitute the draft a front-page issue

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/09/22/kerry_says_bush_will_reinstate_the_draft.html

Iraq: “The worst counterinsurgency effort I have seen in 40 years”

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/09/worst_counterin.html

Legitimate elections in Iraq by January? Dream on

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/23/international/middleeast/23sistani.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/09/that_novak_thin.html
[A] democratic outcome for Iraq in the medium term is off the table. The question is how long will US forces continue to be engaged on Iyad Allawi's side in the Iraqi Civil War not whether or not we'll stay the course until we generate a democracy.

Soon after the January 20 Inauguration Day we're going to have some fraudulent elections in Iraq which will return a National Assembly composed of roughly the same elements as the present Interim Government -- i.e., Baathists who became dissilusioned with Saddam before the war, a couple of varieties of Shiite fundamentalist, the Kurdish parties, and a smattering of Communists. These folks will face, throughout 2005, the following dilemma. The longer US forces remain in Iraq the more dissilusioned the Iraqi populace will grow with their regime and the more support the armed opposition (i.e., the Sadr Movement and whatever we care to call the Sunni insurgency) will gain as the authentic voice of (Arab) Iraqi nationalism…

Bush’s UN speech: views differ

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41435-2004Sep22.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing
"We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace," Bush said.

Some people see irony there. Others don't.

Class warfare. Buried in the tax cut extension: an additional $13 billion in cuts for business, elimination of tax breaks for the poor

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/23/politics/23tax.html?hp

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43278-2004Sep22.html

John Edwards emerges from his secure underground location to give a great speech ripping Bush economic policies

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_19_digbysblog_archive.html#109590048448000134
"It's the most radical and dangerous economic agenda to hit our shores since socialism a century ago. Like socialism, it corrupts the very nature of our democracy and our free enterprise tradition. It is not a plan to grow the American economy. It is a plan to corrupt the American economy," he told an audience outside in Cleveland. "We don't know all of the details, but we know that people who inherit hundreds of millions will pay nothing; firemen and waitresses and working people will pay everything. And we know his plan will take away the most important incentive for the single most important form of ownership: it will eliminate entirely the tax deduction for home mortgage interest."

Bush campaign terrified over allowing unscripted voter questions during second (Missouri) debate

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/09/22/debate_commission_will_not_sign_agreement.html

And here’s why (priceless!)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ask22sep22,1,3787601.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
Softball questions they were not.

How can President Bush persuade the United Nations to help with Iraq, since he and Vice President Dick Cheney have "totally dissed" the world body?

Why is Bush "unwilling to acknowledge the mounting problems we [are] facing in Iraq?" Isn't he "unrealistically over-optimistic?"

Will the president "come clean about his missing years" in the National Guard? Has the White House ever purged documents from his military files?

Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, earned his pay Tuesday…Bartlett appeared on "Ask the White House," an occasional question-and-answer forum the president's staff runs on the official White House website…Bartlett's appearance featured a barrage of pointed questions from the likes of "Marilee from Denver" and "Josef from Tennessee," probably the toughest grilling that any administration official had encountered since "Ask the White House" was launched in April 2003.

The session ended after 12 questions, with Bartlett writing: "Sorry I need to run. I enjoyed taking your questions."

[Transcript: http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20040921.html]

Bush bending election rules, uses general GOP resources to evade campaign ad limits

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42461-2004Sep22.html

[Comment: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/23/02012/0154]

Good question: why have Kerry’s policy shifts been tagged as “flip-flopping” while Bush’s howling inconsistencies and reversals are not?

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/09/bush-flip-flopper.html

Bush’s double reverse high platform flip-flops (with a twist)

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=118263

http://www.democrats.org/specialreports/top10_flipflops/

http://wampum.wabanaki.net/archives/000804.html

Bush’s shameless, cynical, and wasteful prescription drug plan (enabled by a craven AARP), continues to rise in cost and does seniors no good whatsoever

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004118
Say what you want about the Bush administration's $400 billion $534 billion $576 billion (and counting) prescription drug scam, but with all that money getting tossed around, it shouldn't be too hard to find a senior citizen or two who's willing to speak up for it, right? Well, no.

The filthy mess that Tom DeLay has brought to contemporary politics

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004122
[Nancy Pelosi] “I will only say this about the Texas indictments. As you know, a great deal is at stake in these elections -- control of the House of Representatives, who will set the agenda for America’s future. By foul play, the Republicans interfered in that process of reapportionment, that the grand jury has spoken to. So people have to understand that that wasn’t just about a political violation, it undermined the principle of fair representation in our country. This has enormous ramifications. And you know why they did it? They did it because they could not win it playing fair, they always have to win by hook or crook. Without speaking to the actual indictments, but just to say what the impact of their illegal activities had on who serves in the congress of the United States, I say that that undermines democracy, and every Republican should be ashamed of it.”

[More: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/23/24124/2476
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_19.php#003505]

The countless scandals Congress should be investigating, but isn’t

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=130039

Bonus item: a clip of that Peter Jennings piece, mentioned yesterday

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/22/13201/8710


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 9:51 AM

 
SOMETIMES YOU JUST GOTTA LAUGH

One of these things is not like the other. Dan Rather and CBS get sold a bill of goods by Bill Burkett and, too quick to believe evidence that supported a thesis they were already committed to, passed on that false information to the American people. Now gales of outrage call for his resignation and tar-and-feathering. George Bush and Co. get sold a bill of goods by Ahmed Chalabi and, too quick to believe evidence that supported a thesis they were already committed to, passed on that false information to the American people. The difference? Rather has admitted he was wrong and apologized.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/21/rather_bush/index.html

How Burkett set up CBS

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004101

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004744.php

Oh, this is good. It may turn out that a GOP operative was behind the phony Burkett memos after all. What will the WH say about THAT?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/stoned.html
In response to false Republican accusations regarding the CBS documents, Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe issued this statement:

“In today’s New York Post, Roger Stone, who became associated with political ‘dirty tricks’ while working for Nixon, refused to deny that he was the source the CBS documents.

“Will Ed Gillespie or the White House admit today what they know about Mr. Stone’s relationship with these forged documents? Will they unequivocally rule out Mr. Stone’s involvement? Or for that matter, others with a known history of dirty tricks, such as Karl Rove or Ralph Reed?”

[LATER]

Facing questions about President Bush’s Guard Service and its own possible involvement with the disputed National Guard documents, the Republican National Committee has postponed a call scheduled to discuss the issue this afternoon.

And, in the last several hours, the Bush campaign has also cancelled scheduled appearances by Dan Bartlett on cable networks this evening. These cancellations came as the Bush operatives refused to appear live alongside Kerry campaign official Joe Lockhart.

“It’s clear that even the Bush campaign is having a problem defending the President’s National Guard service,” said Democratic National Committee Spokesman Howard Wolfson. “The Bush campaign has decided to once again duck the tough questions and avoid real debate. Given the President’s National Guard service, I don’t blame them for being camera shy.”

More on the Talented Mr. Stone

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_19_digbysblog_archive.html#109579136374502807

http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/03/09/15_recount.html

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0420/barrett.php

Glass houses: FOX News slams CBS for liberal bias

http://www.davidsirota.com/2004/09/fox-news-latest-hypocrisy.html

And is the WH attack on Dan Rather having a backlash effect? I didn’t see this, but one of my students said that, on ABC News, after running a typical Bush distortion of something Kerry (didn’t say), Peter Jennings then said “let’s listen to what Kerry actually did say.” This shouldn’t be remarkable, but it is – another sign that mainstream opinion is getting fed up with the Bush games and lies.

Kerry’s numbers surging after Iraq speech

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/09/rnc_internal_tracking_polls_show_big_kerry_bounce.html

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000661.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/21/polls/index.html

How NOT to make friends. Bush to UN: I was right and you were wrong

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/22/21737/6509
[NYT] We did not expect President Bush to come before the United Nations in the middle of his re-election campaign and acknowledge the serious mistakes his administration has made on Iraq. But that still left plenty of room for him to take advantage of this one last chance to appeal to an increasingly antagonistic world to help the Iraqis secure and rebuild their shattered nation and prepare for elections in just four months. Instead, Mr. Bush delivered an inexplicably defiant campaign speech in which he glossed over the current dire situation in Iraq for an audience acutely aware of the true state of affairs, and scolded them for refusing to endorse the American invasion in the first place.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/21/bush_aids/index.html
When President Bush referenced the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria during his speech at the U.N. today, he probably set many eyes to rolling worldwide -- including Kofi Annan's. "Because we believe in human dignity, America and many nations have established a global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria," Bush told the General Assembly. Actually, Annan proposed the creation of the Global Fund in 2001 and called on world leaders to pitch in $10 billion a year. The Fund now provides grants to 129 countries -- but its future is in jeopardy, thanks in large part to Bush…Bush has undermined the Fund's progress by proposing to cut U.S. contributions by 64 percent.

Bush trumpets democracy promotion: his record says otherwise

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8582

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/terrorism_and_its_control_/2004/09/drezner_on_bush_and_democracy_promotion.php

[Funny: http://www.davidsirota.com/2004/09/bush-dictators.html]

Annan responds

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fg-bush22sep22,1,186600.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Annan insisted that "every nation that proclaims the rule of law at home must respect it abroad." Although the secretary-general did not name the United States, to the scores of world leaders listening in the vaulted chamber, the target of his comments was obvious…"Those who seek to bestow legitimacy must themselves embody it," he said, "and those who invoke international law must themselves submit to it."

Kerry responds: Bush has no credibility

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/9722536.htm?1c
"After lecturing them, instead of leading them to understand how we are all together with a stake in the outcome of Iraq, I believe the president missed an opportunity of enormous importance for our nation and for the world," Kerry said. "He does not have the credibility to lead the world. And he did not and will not offer the leadership in order to do what we need to do to protect our troops, to be successful, and win the war on terror in an effective way."

More Bush 101: When the facts don’t fit your prejudices, question the facts

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_19.php#003502
Asked about the National Intelligence Estimate he received two months ago, which painted a bleak outlook for Iraq, the president said the CIA was "just guessing...The Iraqi citizens are defying the pessimistic predictions."

In one ear and out the other…Doesn't that tell you a lot about how we got to this juncture?

An anniversary present. Stop laughing!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_19.php#003504
"A year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush."

Richard Perle
AEI Keynote speech
September 22, 2003

But seriously, folks: the Iraqi civilian death toll is staggering

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/21/iraqi_casualties/index.html

And the cost in billions continues to skyrocket (Bush Co’s budget planning isn’t any better than the rest of their postwar planning)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-warcost22sep22,1,3521990.story?coll=la-home-headlines
A relentless insurgency in Iraq has prompted the Pentagon to begin spending money from a $25-billion emergency fund that Bush administration officials had once said would not be needed this fiscal year, officials said Tuesday…Unable to tap into regular 2005 funding until the Oct. 1 start of the new fiscal year, the Pentagon has already spent more than $2 billion from the emergency fund.

President Bush requested the emergency funds from Congress in May to pay for a war that is longer and more violent than he and his Pentagon strategists had predicted…

[S]aid Stanley E. Collender, a former House and Senate budget analyst…"The cost is much greater than expected. All of the early estimates were based on the idea that we'd get in and out quickly, and that hasn't happened."

Although Army and Marine officials warned Congress in February of a looming funding shortfall, administration officials at that time said they would not need additional money for Iraq and Afghanistan this year…In May, however, the administration sought the $25-billion emergency fund — calling it an "insurance policy" that probably would not be needed.

Overriding an administration request that the money be available beginning Oct. 1, Congress made the funds accessible immediately…The announcement follows the Bush administration's move early this month to seek congressional approval for diverting $3.3 billion earmarked for reconstruction of Iraq's infrastructure into programs focused mainly on establishing law and order by shoring up Iraqi security forces.

The disclosure that the continuing insurgency has forced the administration to turn to the emergency fund to cover spending on security poses a potential embarrassment…The administration has insisted on funding much of the war through emergency spending bills, a move that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) criticized in February, saying that it "deceives the American people about the size of the deficit and the debt that we are incurring."

The administration originally asked for $87 billion in emergency spending in 2003 for the fiscal year that will end next week, but a report by the congressional Government Accountability Office in July said the Pentagon would face a $12.3-billion shortfall in war expenses by the end of September.

A stunner: when you go to the WH website and click on the link to see the list of “coalition partners” in Iraq, you get…”error-404 file not found”

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/09/coalition_of_th.html

Why isn’t this front page news here?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1307980,00.html
The British Army is to start pulling troops out of Iraq next month despite the deteriorating security situation in much of the country, The Observer has learnt…The main British combat force in Iraq, about 5,000-strong, will be reduced by around a third by the end of October during a routine rotation of units.

John Ashcroft’s record: not a single post 9-11 terror conviction. Not one

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007969.html

Bush’s broken faith with military personnel leading to high rates of desertion, nonreporting for duty

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_09_22_bestof.html#109582716316973855

[Well, the example gets set at the top, doesn’t it?]

Air Force Times on Bush’s NG record

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/22/0126/48838
From most accounts, Bush appears to have received preferential treatment to get into the Air National Guard and avoid the draft after he graduated from Yale University in 1968. He was initially regarded as a good pilot, but his performance faded over his final two years in the Guard and he was suspended from flight status. He did not fly for the remaining 18 months he served in the Guard, though he was obligated to do so…And for significant chunks of time, Bush did not report for duty at all. His superiors took no action, and he was honorably discharged in 1973, six months before he should have been.

Pentagon BLOCKING access to voting site for (nonmilitary) Americans overseas

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/09/21/overseas_voting/index_np.html
On Monday, the International Herald Tribune reported that the Pentagon is restricting international access to the Web site for the Federal Voting Assistance Program, the official government agency that helps Americans living abroad register to vote in the November election. According to the IHT, Americans who connect to the Internet using one of several foreign Internet service providers have reported difficulty logging in to the voting-assistance site. The Pentagon confirmed that it is blocking traffic from these ISPs -- which provide Internet service in 25 countries -- but it declined to say why.

"This is a completely partisan thing," one Defense Department voting official stationed in Europe told Salon. The official, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of being fired from her position, is one of the many people in the department assigned to help both uniformed military personnel as well as American civilians register to vote. She described the Pentagon as extremely diligent in its efforts to register soldiers stationed overseas -- for instance, this official had been told by the department to personally meet with all of the soldiers in her unit in order to help them register. But the department has ignored its mandate to help overseas civilians who want to vote, the official said.

Congressional Democrats to launch their version of a “Contract With America”

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004104

DeLay associates get screwed, DeLay gets away (for now). Do I hear “plea bargain in exchange for testimony”?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/21/134131/273

Airlines forced to hand over passenger information to the govt

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Passenger-Screening.html?ex=1253505600&

Bonus item: John Kerry’s “Top Ten” list from David Letterman

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/09/21/top_10_bush_tax_proposals.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/21/green_day/index.html
Appearing on "The Late Show with David Letterman" Monday night, John Kerry [said] that during the upcoming debates, Bush will be sitting on Cheney's lap.


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:51 AM

 
THE TIPPING POINT?

This is the moment: Kerry finds his stride

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34964-2004Sep20.html
Sen. John F. Kerry on Monday accused President Bush of deception in taking the country to war in Iraq and historic miscalculations since the invasion ended, arguing that Saddam Hussein posed no imminent threat and that his removal has turned Iraq into a terrorist breeding ground that has left the United States even less secure…In his most comprehensive and stinging indictment of the administration, Kerry charged that by nearly every measure, from attacks on U.S. forces to the pace of reconstruction to the training of an Iraqi security force, conditions in Iraq are far worse than the president has acknowledged. Kerry called the November election a choice between staying the course with failed policies and a change in direction that he said is urgently needed to prevent disaster in Iraq.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/politics/trail/20CND-KERR.html?ex=1253419200&en=7c73d3ee7493e726&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
"Invading Iraq has created a crisis of historic proportions and, if we do not change course, there is the prospect of a war with no end in sight," Mr. Kerry told an audience at New York University…With Americans saying that terrorism and the war in Iraq are two of their most important concerns, Mr. Kerry tried to lay out the differences between his approach on Iraq and that of Mr. Bush. "At every critical juncture in Iraq, and in the war on terrorism, the president has made the wrong choice”

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-kerryiraq21sep21,1,3738220.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
Accusing President Bush of creating "a crisis of historic proportions" in Iraq, Sen. John F. Kerry on Monday said the ousting of dictator Saddam Hussein was not worth the chaos that has ensued…Kerry, offering his most sweeping and detailed attack on Bush's handling of Iraq, said the president had "failed to tell the truth" about his reasons for going to war and about its cost in troops and money. He termed the war a "profound diversion" from the fight against "our greatest enemy, Osama bin Laden," that had left Americans less secure…"In Iraq, this administration has consistently over-promised and under-performed," Kerry said. "This policy has been plagued by a lack of planning, an absence of candor, arrogance and outright incompetence. And the president has held no one accountable, including himself."

The full speech

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/09/20/kerry_speech/index.html

Analysis

http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=2096
John Kerry's Iraq speech at NYU this morning is easily the best thing to come out of his mouth during the campaign.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004075
Today in New York, John Kerry delivered the speech that, frankly, he should have given to a national audience at the Democratic convention. It hits all the right bases: Kerry's commitment to fighting al-Qaeda; criticism of the president's Iraq policy both before and after the war; the president's history of ignoring sound, forward-looking advice about how to fix Iraq until it was too late; the consistency of Kerry's vote on the use of force resolution with this critique (go back and read what he said at the time -- it's an enlightening way to cut through over a year's worth of accumulated b.s.).

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000657.html
“By one count, the President offered 23 different rationales for this war. If his purpose was to confuse and mislead the American people, he succeeded.”

Kerry needs to keep saying the line, until we're all sick of it. Then he needs to say it some more.

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/09/kerry-speech.html
He hits Bush on all of the facts. Unfortunately, he doesn't go the next step, the step that is the entirety of the GOP strategy: personalizing the message, moving it from questions of fact to questions of character…The speech is great…Unfortunately, it is not going to be particularly effective. Bush's blithe accusations of pessimism will work, undecideds won't bother to inform themselves, and partisans won't change their minds. Why? Because Kerry never linked it to Bush the person. I like "out of touch, irresponsible, and unconcerned," but somehow, Bush's serial incompetence, dishonesty, and malice needs to be tied to his character.

[More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/20/kerry_iraq/index.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36909-2004Sep20.html]

Bush advocates “retreat and defeat in the face of terror” (I think I read this right)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/flippity-floppity.html
"Forty-three days before the election," Bush said, "my opponent has now suddenly settled on a proposal for what to do next, and it's exactly what we're currently doing."…Although Bush said Kerry's Iraq proposals mirrored his own, his campaign put out a strongly worded - and contradictory - statement. "John Kerry's latest position on Iraq is to advocate retreat and defeat in the face of terror," said spokesman Steve Schmidt.

Press under-reports the utter lameness, dishonesty of the Bush Co. “response” to Kerry

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004080
George W. Bush has finally figured out that something's gone wrong in Iraq, and he's determined to stamp it out:

Mr. Bush, in a campaign appearance in Derry, N.H., later in the day, directly responded to Mr. Kerry's contentions that he was misleading people on Iraq, saying that criticism of the administration's policies was undermining the efforts of American troops in battle… "Mixed signals are the wrong signal to send to the enemy, the wrong signals to send to the people of Iraq, the wrong signals to send our allies and the wrong signals to send our troops in combat," the president said.

The New York Times seems to be working with a definition of "directly responded" that I'm not familiar with. Seems to me that the president responded to charges of dishonesty rather indirectly by claiming that anyone who raises questions about his honesty is betraying our troops and the Iraqi people…

Meanwhile, back in the real world the signals are pretty clear -- things are headed downhill…

[More: http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/09/shoddy.html
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_19.php#003501]

The real Bush plan for Iraq, summarized by Rumsfeld

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/20/163641/019
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld cast it a little differently this week, at a news conference in Missouri. Iraq is making progress, he said. "At some point the Iraqis will get tired of getting killed and we'll have enough of the Iraqi security forces that they can take over responsibility for governing that country," he said.

Or is THIS the plan (being floated through Bob Novak)?

http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak20.html
Inside the Bush administration policymaking apparatus, there is strong feeling that U.S. troops must leave Iraq next year. This determination is not predicated on success in implanting Iraqi democracy and internal stability. Rather, the officials are saying: Ready or not, here we go…This prospective policy is based on Iraq's national elections in late January, but not predicated on ending the insurgency or reaching a national political settlement. Getting out of Iraq would end the neoconservative dream of building democracy in the Arab world. The United States would be content having saved the world from Saddam Hussein's quest for weapons of mass destruction.

[This, of course, while they accuse Kerry of a “cut and run” policy]

Analysis:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_19.php#003496
Whether or not John Kerry has a clear plan for what to do in Iraq, it's quite clear that President Bush doesn't have any. The plan at the moment is simply to keep the troops there in order to keep from having to admit that the whole enterprise has gone south…I think this leak is simply an effort to give options to potential Bush supporters…For those with their hands over their eyes, there's the president's slogans on the hustings. For those who see that what the president is saying makes no sense but yet really prefer not to vote for John Kerry, there's this leak which tells them with a wink that the president realizes his policy has failed and will pull the plug very soon…The campaign will leave to individual voters which message suits their needs.

[More: http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=2097]

Bush’s vaunted “moral clarity” starting to turn into complete mush

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/09/uninformed-and-unwilling-to-learn.html
If you had a crazy uncle that made arguments like Bush's, would you listen to him?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004078
I caught the key sections of George W. Bush's response to John Kerry's speech where he defends his Iraq policy…Or, rather, it was a speech in which he outlined an Iraq policy that would have been perfectly defensible had it been what actually took place…

http://www.juancole.com/2004_09_01_juancole_archive.html#109575483888846455
I just heard President Bush taunt John Kerry for suggesting that the US was not safer because Saddam Hussein was deposed, and for saying that the US was in fact less safe because of the chaos in Iraq…Bush attempted to turn this statement around and suggest that Kerry was preferring dictatorship to democracy.

[Does ANYBODY who isn’t already a Bush True Believer buy into such nonsense? I heard this clip – the (hand-picked) audience booed and hissed on cue like a Jerry Springer crowd]

And more minefields ahead for Bush on Iraq…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35488-2004Sep20.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing

US diverting more money away from reconstruction, threatens water, power (and we wonder why they don’t love us?)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/21/international/middleeast/21rebuild.html?pagewanted=all&position

GOP losing faith

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004081
• Chuck Hagel on Face the Nation: "[T]o say, 'Well, we just must stay the course and any of you who are questioning are just hand-wringers,' is not very responsible. The fact is we're in trouble."
• Richard Lugar on This Week: "Well, this is incompetence in the administration."
• Lindsey Graham on Late Edition: "Well, the bottom line is it will get worse before it gets better. And I agree with Carl [Levin] that we've done a poor job of implementing and adjusting at times."
• John McCain on Fox News Sunday: "I'd like to see more of an overall plan articulated by the president. And also, by the way, again, congressional hearings are very good at getting answers to questions. And I think we'll be having at least one or two in the Senate Armed Services Committee."

GIs in Iraq losing faith too

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/09/dissing_bush_gi.html

Pentagon under-reporting US casualties in Iraq

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000071.html

A test case of the Bush plan for early elections in Iraq: in Afghanistan, under a much less dire set of conditions, complete chaos

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36002-2004Sep20.html

[This will be fun, when they HAVE to postpone them]

Building on their tremendous successes in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush Co. starts rattling its sabers over Iran

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/politics/20iran.html?ex=1253419200&

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004067

“Operation Iraqi Freedom” vs “Operation Desert Storm”

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_09_21_bestof.html#109576466110792093
If John Kerry wants to knock Bu$h down for a mandatory 8 count and get voters to buy into the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Powell “axis of incompetence” he needs to drive home the following comparison. It's the one that compares in costs and lives “Operation Desert Storm,” which was perceived by most of the Arab world as a success, and “Operation Iraqi Freedom” which is perceived by all of the Arab world, and most of the rest of the world as a failure. Here are the key talking points…

Reality check: most polls return to modest margins, with lots of bad news for Bush

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007939.html
President Bush’s ratings have slipped to 45 percent positive and 54 percent negative, the lowest ratings of his presidency, according to a new Harris Poll. These numbers compare to 50 percent positive, 49 percent negative in June and 48 percent positive, 51 percent negative in August. This downward trend no doubt helps to explain why the lead which the president enjoyed over Senator Kerry immediately after the Republican convention in New York – the so-called “convention bounce” – has now disappeared.

Ethics committee investigation on DeLay may still go forward

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/20/173633/160

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/09/20/delay_investigation/

FEC told to rewrite its campaign rules

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/21/politics/campaign/21donate.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position
A federal judge has ordered the Federal Election Commission to enact tougher restrictions on how millions of dollars are spent on campaigns, saying that its rules have undermined the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

Meanwhile, Honest John Ashcroft will assure the “fairness” of the vote (uh-huh!)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_19_digbysblog_archive.html#109572538885377337

Compare the “Kerry supporter makes three year old cry” fake photo and story last week with this one from Louisiana

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/20/122735/691
Vandals set fire to signs and wrote pro-President Bush messages on the front of Lafayette's Democratic Party Headquarters, the second time the office was hit by vandals.

Is GOP getting ducks lined up to challenge a Kerry victory in court?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_19_digbysblog_archive.html#109571157270510910

More adventures in open government

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000073.html
"NO ADMINISTRATION HAS DONE MORE TO CONCEAL" the workings of government from the people -- this from a new report just released from the minority staff of the House Government Reform Committee.

News for Naderites: Why it matters whether Democrats or Republicans win (thanks to Mike Weissman)

http://www.popcenter.umd.edu/conferences/rsf/papers/Bartels.pdf

Grover Norquist is a nut

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/greatest-generation-is-anti-american.html
When asked about if he thought Democratic Party was coming to an end…

"Yes, because in addition their demographic base is shrinking. Each year, 2 million people who fought in the Second World War and lived through the Great Depression die. This generation has been an exeception in American history, because it has defended anti-American policies. They voted for the creation of the welfare state and obligatory military service. They are the base of the Democratic Party. And they are dying. And, at the same time, all the time more Americans have stocks. That makes them defend the interests of business, because it is their own interest. Because of that, it's impossible to bring to the fore policies of social hate, of class warfare."

Never stop saying it: the Burkett fiasco aside, there are still serious unanswered questions about Bush’s NG service

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007939.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37081-2004Sep20.html
What Is Bush Hiding?

Evidence that Bush’s own NG documents have been altered (what? You didn’t see this on the front page?)

http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=301

In words of one syllable: Bush lied

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/09/bush_caught_in_blatant_lie_no_one_cares.html

Press AWOL

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/20/press_awol/index.html

Desperately trying to change the subject

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_19_digbysblog_archive.html#109572702912129622
Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie issued the following statement on CBS’s admission today that memos regarding the President’s National Guard service are not real…“Did Bill Burkett, Democrat activist and Kerry campaign supporter, who passed information to the DNC, work with Kerry campaign surrogate Max Cleland? Did Bill Burkett's talks with ‘senior’ Kerry campaign officials include discussions of the now discredited documents? Was the launch of the Democrat National Committee's Operation Fortunate Son designed with knowledge of the faked forged memos? Terry McAuliffe said yesterday that no one at the DNC or Kerry campaign, ‘had anything to do with the preparations of the documents,’ but what about the distribution or dissemination?…In an effort to regain the trust of the American people CBS should not only investigate the process that led to the use of these documents but they should identify immediately those engaged in possible criminal activity who attempted to use a news organization to affect the outcome of a Presidential election in its closing days.”

[If they prove a “connection” to Kerry half as strong as the connection between Bush and the Swift Boaters, I will eat my hat]

Bonus item: A directory of progressive blogs, sorted by state

http://www.reachm.com/amstreet/states-writes.htm

Bonus bonus item: A wonderful inside view of Fox’s “fair and balanced” convention coverage

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004064



- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:28 AM

 
WE’VE TURNED THE CORNER

Is there a sea change occurring in perceptions of Iraq?

Iraqi army: untrained

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/politics/20army.html?ex=1253419200&

Allies reluctant to commit to retraining assistance

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/9695092.htm?1c

Good news: McCain goes after Bush on Iraq

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/19/iraq.senators/index.html
McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on "Fox News Sunday" that it was "a serious mistake" not to have had enough troops in place "after the initial successes" and that the mistake had led to "very, very significant" difficulties.

Bad news: McCain goes after Bush for not being brutal enough

http://www.juancole.com/2004_09_01_juancole_archive.html#109565675932436819

Chuck Hagel: “we’re in deep trouble in Iraq”

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-na-allawi20sep20,1,5190319.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Bush’s increasingly implausible claims about progress in Iraq invite “Baghdad Bob” jokes

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000632753

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_09_19_bestof.html#109562278376938008

Joe Klein, the embodiment of mainstream “serious opinion,” targets Bush’s “fantasy”

http://www.time.com/time/election2004/columnist/klein/article/0,18471,699348,00.html
If the National Intelligence Estimate is accurate, we are facing a far more dangerous world than existed before the war. Many intelligence and military experts now believe that al-Qaeda has rebuilt its leadership structure and metastasized; that the U.S. military is overburdened and its leaders are likely to tell the next President that they lack the resources necessary to regain control in Iraq; that the U.S. government has lost the credibility to lead the world into action against future threats from, say, Iran or North Korea; that Iraq itself seems in danger of splitting into three chaotic regions, which—in the NIE's worst-case scenario—may lead to civil war…And so there is only one significant question left in this presidential election year: Can John Kerry hold George Bush accountable for this mess? My guess is, probably not. The Republicans, with a strong assist from Kerry, have successfully painted the Democrat as a flip-flopping incompetent when it comes to national security. It will be hard for Kerry to change that impression. In fact, he has only one chance remaining, in the presidential debates.

The establishment press

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32161-2004Sep18.html
Mr. Bush, who spent the week campaigning for reelection, has offered scant acknowledgment of the quandary he faces or of the worsening state of a mission that has dominated more than half of his first term. His description of Iraq is bland to the point of dishonesty: "Despite ongoing acts of violence," he repeated Friday, "that country has a strong prime minister, they've got a national council and they are going to have elections in January of 2005." Not only has Mr. Bush not said how, or whether, he intends to respond to the worsening situation; he doesn't really admit it exists…This duck-and-cover strategy may have its political advantages, but it is also deeply irresponsible and potentially dangerous. As conservative Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) put it last week, "the worst thing we can do is hold ourselves hostage to some grand illusion that we're winning. Right now, we are not winning. Things are getting worse."

And local papers too

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/iraq-week_19.html
What is inexcusable is the administration's continuing failure to confront the grim reality and remold policies to make the best of this sow's ear. The delay in gearing up to get the trainers, uniforms, weapons and money that Iraqi security forces need has meant that not a single Iraqi police officer is fully trained and street-ready. The Iraqi army was disbanded with nary a thought to the security vacuum this would create. Our NATO "allies" still are haggling over a skeleton force of 300 military trainers that have yet to arrive in Iraq. Scores of willing police recruits continue to die unnecessarily because of the failure to build secure barriers around recruitment centers.

Another good question

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/lost.html
[David Corn] The Bush campaign has succeeded in convincing the mainstream media that the key question is, what is Kerry's plan for Iraq? Not, say, what is Bush's plan for Iraq?…"I have two young daughters at home," I said to this Kerry aide. "If one takes a glass jar and throws it on the ground of their bedroom and smashes it into thousands of pieces, I don't point my finger at the other one and say, 'Okay, what's your plan for cleaning this up.'"

Watch Kerry’s response: if he doesn’t manage this right, he can’t win

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/09/19/kerrys_new_message.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-kerry20sep20,1,4622303.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=2090
IS KERRY ABOUT TO BLOW IT ON IRAQ?

Democrats go on the offensive

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-campaign20sep20,1,35954.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Speaking of offensive: former “Mr. Nice Guy” Denny Hastert joins the ranks of Republican SOB’s

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/19/hastert.remark/index.html
When a reporter asked Hastert if he thought al Qaeda would operate with more comfort if Kerry were elected, the speaker said, "That's my opinion, yes."

The pliant media responds

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/schneider.html
[CNN’s Bill Schneider] Well I can guarantee that they don't like George Bush. Do they think there's a difference? I think Osama bin laden - the al qaeda network - who I'm certain follow american politics. Look at the messages coming out on their tapes, they seem to follow politics very closely. They would very much like to defeat President Bush. But the question is could they pull of the same trick they could pull off in Spain? What Dennis Hastert says is they'd better not try that, it won't work here. My guess is he's right about that."

Juan Cole: Bin Laden doesn’t care who wins

http://www.juancole.com/2004_09_01_juancole_archive.html#109565983768232482

Here’s exactly what Dems need to say: if there is another terrorist attack before the election, it doesn’t mean that they want Kerry to win – it means that Bush has failed at the one thing he promised us after 9-11

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000656.html

A divider, not a uniter: income gap widens

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34235-2004Sep19.html?nav=rss_nation

Health care costs spin out of control

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-outlook20sep20,1,84270.column?coll=la-headlines-nation

W stands for Women (NOT!)

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/2004/09/why-not-to-vote-for-bush.php

“W Stands for Wimp”

http://wstandsforwimp.com/

Looks like we may have three debates after all

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/20/campaign.rdp/index.html

Police state update

Mother of dead serviceman confronts First Lady, is dragged off IN HANDCUFFS

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/19/opinion/19dowd.html?ex=1096564306
Aside from moms who are handcuffed at Bush events and the Jersey 9/11 moms who are supporting John Kerry after growing disillusioned with White House attempts to suppress the 9/11 investigation, the president is doing very well with women. The so-called security moms, who have replaced soccer moms as a desirable demographic, are now flocking to Mr. Bush over Mr. Kerry, believing he can better protect their kids from scary terrorists…In the new Times poll, 48 percent of women supported the president, compared with Mr. Kerry's 43 percent - a reversal from July, when Mr. Kerry had the women's vote 52 to 40 percent. This is an ominous sign for the Democrat, who lost his gender gap advantage after his listless summer and the G.O.P.'s convention swagger…How did the president who has caused so much insecurity in the world become the hero of security moms? He was, after all, in charge when Al Qaeda struck, and he was the one to send off Mrs. Niederer's son and other kids to die in a war sold on a false premise. And that conflict has, despite what Mr. Bush claims, spurred more acts of terror and been a recruiting bonanza for Osama bin Laden.

Hundreds of GOP convention protestors held illegally

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34245-2004Sep19.html?nav=rss_nation

While awaiting the Pentagon response to the AP FOIA request, a primer on the Bush NG story so far

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/20/bush_guard_records/index_np.html

Bonus item: the forgery debate is looking more and more like a loser for the good guys

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/politics/campaign/20guard.html?pagewanted=all&position=

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004731.php

Not that some people are ready to give up

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/archives/2004_09_19_dneiwert_archive.html#109561579200025548


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:35 AM

 
A VERY REAL OPENING

More on Bush’s plans for a major offensive in Iraq after the election

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/19/international/middleeast/19strategy.html?ex=1253332800&en=5cac09522ce92709&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland

Gee, Bush wouldn’t be letting electoral politics dictate military strategy, would he?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/military-call-up.html

[This is a GIFT, John Kerry. Don’t blow it]

More evidence that Iraq is the big issue ahead

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/19/63818/3271
Let me say again that this is an area that polls don't fully picture. At best, half the country thinks the war is a mistake, but the majority of the country is uneasy with what's going on, more so as they figure out what's going on by talking to relatives and friends over there (The National Guard is ubiquitous, and ~40% of the country knows someone serving there or someone who has served). They know we've been had, the question is what to do about it…Those debates are going to be crucial to answering the question, which is why Bush is going to have to have them. For once in his life, he's going to have to answer for his actions. Imagine that.

Britain reportedly pulling out troops from Iraq (Tony Blair's revenge?)

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000652.html

[“Coalition of Whoever is Left”]

More Bush 101: It isn’t about the facts, it’s about your intentions and feelings

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/18/bush.iraq/index.html
In a phone interview with a newspaper, President Bush played down a U.S. intelligence forecast painting a pessimistic picture for the future of Iraq, including the suggestion that civil war could erupt there…The National Intelligence Estimate was sent to the White House in July with a classified warning predicting that the best case for Iraq was "tenuous stability" and the worst case was civil war, a source confirmed to CNN…President Bush talked about the report [NOT!] in an interview published Saturday by The Union Leader of Manchester, New Hampshire.

"The Iraqis are defying the dire predictions of a lot of people by moving toward democracy," Bush told the paper…"I'm pleased with the progress," Bush said.

[By the way, reading the quotes from this "interview" it's pretty clear he had prepared notes in front of him -- the syntax is decidedly unBushian]

Sticking to the script: Allawi also in denial about conditions in Iraq

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32044-2004Sep18.html
On the eve of his first visit to the United States, Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, denied yesterday that the insurgency battling U.S.-led troops and Iraqi forces was gaining momentum or spreading, despite the escalating violence and death toll…"It's not getting stronger; it's getting more desperate. We are squeezing out the insurgency," he said in an interview to be aired today on ABC's "This Week." Allawi called the attacks, which now number in the dozens each day, the insurgents' "last stand, so they are putting a very severe fight on Iraq. We are winning."

“Last stand,” indeed: FOR ALLAWI

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/19/weekinreview/19burn.html?ex=1253246400&en=eeb075db6d4b73c6&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
Now, as he makes his first trip to the United States as America's chief partner in Iraq, Dr. Allawi finds himself at a tipping point…Twelve weeks after Americans transferred sovereignty to Iraqis, he is more endangered than ever. If Dr. Allawi was popular among moderate Iraqis in the first weeks after his interim government took over in June, it is plain now that his grace period has expired.

[Washington Post, New York Times. Night and day, isn’t it?]

Bush plans to peddle his “compassionate conservative” nonsense to the UN General Assembly (“I care!”)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/18/11713/9731

[They should boo him – I know they won’t, but comfort yourself with the mental image of it actually happening.]

How Bush has shamelessly cheated the Guard and Reserves, and the endless dark ironies that this NG dodger should be doing so

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_12_digbysblog_archive.html#109554356877368869

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31689-2004Sep18.html?nav=rss_nation

Bring me Henrietta Valderes!

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004726.php

And, as if you didn’t need any more surprises: not only did Karl Rove also use student deferments to avoid the draft — he managed to do it without meeting the Selective Service requirements

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007928.html

[The full story: http://www.sltrib.com/ci_2416757]

Excerpts from Sy Hersh’s new book - from the BRITISH press

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1303078,00.html
But the interrogations at Guantánamo were a bust. Very little useful intelligence had been gathered, while prisoners from around the world continued to flow into the base, and the facility constantly expanded. The CIA analyst had been sent there to find out what was going wrong…Some of his findings, he later confided to a former CIA colleague, were devastating.

"He came back convinced that we were committing war crimes in Guantánamo," the colleague told me. "Based on his sample, more than half the people there didn't belong there. He found people lying in their own faeces," including two captives, perhaps in their 80s, who were clearly suffering from dementia. "He thought what was going on was an outrage," the CIA colleague added. There was no rational system for determining who was important.

Two former administration officials who read the analyst's highly classified report told me that its message was grim. According to a former White House official, the analyst's disturbing conclusion was that "if we captured some people who weren't terrorists when we got them, they are now".

That autumn, the document rattled aimlessly around the upper reaches of the Bush administration until it got into the hands of General John A Gordon, the deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism, who reported directly to Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser and the president's confidante…He was deeply troubled and distressed by the report…

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, there had been much debate inside the administration about what was permissible in the treatment of prisoners and what was not. The most suggestive document, in terms of what was really going on inside military prisons and detention centres, was written in early August 2002 by Jay S Bybee, head of the justice department's office of legal counsel. "Certain acts may be cruel, inhuman, or degrading, but still not produce pain and suffering of the requisite intensity to fall within [a legal] proscription against torture," Bybee wrote to Alberto R Gonzales, the White House counsel. "We conclude that for an act to constitute torture, it must inflict pain that is difficult to endure. Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." (Bush later nominated Bybee to be a federal judge.)

"We face an enemy that targets innocent civilians," Gonzales, in turn, would tell journalists two years later, at the height of the furore over the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. "We face an enemy that lies in the shadows, an enemy that doesn't sign treaties."…Gonzales added that Bush bore no responsibility for the wrongdoing. "The president has not authorised, ordered or directed in any way any activity that would transgress the standards of the torture conventions or the torture statute, or other applicable laws," Gonzales said. In fact, a secret statement of the president's views, which he signed on February 7, 2002 contained a loophole that applied worldwide: "I determine that none of the provisions of Geneva apply to our conflict with al-Qaida in Afghanistan or elsewhere throughout the world," the president asserted.

John Gordon had to know what he was up against in seeking a high-level review of prison policies at Guantánamo, but he persevered. Finally, the former White House official recalled, "We got it up to Condi."…As the CIA analyst's report was making its way to Rice, in late 2002 there were a series of heated complaints about the interrogation tactics at Guantánamo from within the FBI, whose agents had been questioning detainees in Cuba since the prison opened. A few of the agents began telling their superiors what they had witnessed, which, they believed, had little to do with getting good information…"I was told," a senior intelligence official recalled, "that the military guards were slapping prisoners, stripping them, pouring cold water over them, and making them stand until they got hypothermia. The agents were outraged. It was wrong and also dysfunctional." The agents put their specific complaints in writing, the official told me, and they were relayed, in emails and phone calls, to officials at the department of defence, including William J Haynes II, the general counsel of the Pentagon. As far as day-to-day life for prisoners at Guantánamo was concerned, nothing came of it.

…The briefing for Condoleezza Rice about problems at Guantánamo took place in the autumn of 2002. It did not dwell on the question of torture or mistreatment. The main issue, the former White House official told me, was simply, "Are we getting any intelligence? What is the process for sorting these people?"

Rice agreed to call a high-level meeting in the White House situation room. Most significantly, she asked Secretary Rumsfeld to attend. Rumsfeld, who was by then publicly and privately encouraging his soldiers in the field to get tough with captured prisoners, duly showed up, but he had surprisingly little to say. One participant in the meeting recalled that at one point Rice asked Rumsfeld "what the issues were, and he said he hadn't looked into it". Rice urged Rumsfeld to do so, and added, "Let's get the story right." Rumsfeld seemed to be in agreement, and Gordon and his supporters left the meeting convinced, the former administration official told me, that the Pentagon was going to deal with the issue…Nothing changed.

…There was, obviously, a difference between the reality of prison life in Guantánamo and how it was depicted to the public in carefully stage-managed news conferences and statements released by the administration. American prison authorities have repeatedly assured the press and the public, for example, that the al-Qaida and Taliban detainees were provided with a minimum of three hours of recreation every week. For the tough cases, however, according to a Pentagon adviser familiar with detainee conditions in mid-2002, at recreation time some prisoners would be strapped into heavy jackets, similar to straitjackets, with their arms locked behind them and their legs straddled by straps. Goggles were placed over their eyes, and their heads were covered with a hood. The prisoner was then led at midday into what looked like a narrow fenced-in dog run - the adviser told me that there were photographs of the procedure - and given his hour of recreation. The restraints forced him to move, if he chose to move, on his knees, bent over at a 45-degree angle. Most prisoners just sat and suffered in the heat.

…The roughing up of prisoners was sometimes spur-of-the-moment, the former marine said: "A squad leader would say, 'Let's go - all the cameras on lunch break.'" One pastime was to put hoods on the prisoners and "drive them around the camp in a Humvee, making turns so they didn't know where they were. [...] I wasn't trying to get information. I was just having a little fun - playing mind control." When I asked a senior FBI official about the former marine's account, he told me that agents assigned to interrogation duties at Guantánamo had described similar activities to their superiors.

In November 2002, army Major General Geoffrey Miller had relieved Generals Dunlavey and Baccus, unifying the command at Guantánamo. Baccus was seen by the Pentagon as soft - too worried about the prisoners' well-being. In Senate hearings after Abu Ghraib, it became known that Miller was permitted to use legally questionable interrogation techniques at Guantánamo, which could include, with approval, sleep deprivation, exposure to extremes of cold and heat, and placing prisoners in "stress positions" for agonising lengths of time.

In May 2004, the New York Times reported that the FBI had instructed its agents to avoid being present at interrogation sessions with suspected al-Qaida members. The newspaper said the severe methods used to extract information would be prohibited in criminal cases, and therefore could compromise the agents in future legal proceedings against the suspects. "We don't believe in coercion," a senior FBI official subsequently told me. "Our goal is to get information and we try to gain the prisoners' trust. We have strong feelings about it." The FBI official added, "I thought Rumsfeld should have been fired long ago."

"They did it the wrong way," a Pentagon adviser on the war on terror told me, "and took a heavy-handed approach based on coercion, instead of persuasion - which actually has a much better track record. It's about rage and the need to strike back. It's evil, but it's also stupid. It's not torture but acts of kindness that lead to concessions. The persuasive approach takes longer but gets far better results."

There was, we now know, a fantastical quality to the earnest discussions inside the White House in 2002 about the good and bad of the interrogation process at Guantánamo. Rice and Rumsfeld knew what many others involved in the prisoner discussions did not - that sometime in late 2001 or early 2002, the president had signed a top-secret finding, as required by law, authorising the defence department to set up a specially recruited clandestine team of special forces operatives and others who would defy diplomatic niceties and international law and snatch - or assassinate, if necessary - identified "high-value" al-Qaida operatives anywhere in the world.

Equally secret interrogation centres would be set up in allied countries where harsh treatments were meted out, unconstrained by legal limits or public disclosure. The programme was hidden inside the defence department as an "unacknowledged" special-access programme (SAP), whose operational details were known only to a few in the Pentagon, the CIA and the White House.

The SAP owed its existence to Rumsfeld's desire to get the US special forces community into the business of what he called, in public and internal communications, "manhunts", and to his disdain for the Pentagon's senior generals. In the privacy of his office, Rumsfeld chafed over what he saw as the reluctance of the generals and admirals to act aggressively. Soon after September 11, he repeatedly made public his disdain for the Geneva convention. Complaints about the United States' treatment of prisoners, Rumsfeld said, in early 2002, amounted to "isolated pockets of international hyperventilation".

One of Rumsfeld's goals was bureaucratic: to give the civilian leadership in the Pentagon, and not the CIA, the lead in fighting terrorism. Throughout the existence of the SAP, which eventually came to Abu Ghraib prison, a former senior intelligence official told me, "There was a periodic briefing to the National Security Council [NSC] giving updates on results, but not on the methods." Did the White House ask about the process? The former officer said that he believed that they did, and that "they got the answers".

By the time of Rumsfeld's meeting with Rice, his SAP was in its third year of snatching or strong-arming suspected terrorists and questioning them in secret prison facilities in Singapore, Thailand and Pakistan, among other sites. The White House was fighting terror with terror.

A defense of “preventive detention” Wow

http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002531.html

Saddam’s prison life: a damn sight better than Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/19/international/middleeast/19saddam.html?hp

How the mainstream news media have failed us (repeatedly)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/19/65925/3237

[Think about it – where would we be right now without the Internet and blogosphere as a source for the information and analysis that isn’t making it onto CNN, etc? I’m not taking credit, because it all comes from others, but how many things have you learned about HERE for the first time?]

Of course, the right is using this medium too: more evidence that the WH played a role behind “Buckhead’s” suspiciously immediate, detailed, technical analysis of the Killian memos (and he ain’t talking)

http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002525.html

[Buckhead’s original posting, within a few hours of the CBS story – clearly he had access to copies in advance: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1210662/posts#47]

Who is Harry MacDougald?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-buckhead18sep18,1,1674359.story?coll=la-home-headlines

By the way, this MacDougald fellow is a very busy guy. Read on…

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_12_digbysblog_archive.html#109554612003710317

Interesting analysis of the impact of “exogenous events” on the campaign thus far (and some heavy second-guessing)

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000068.html

By the way, here is the actual text of Kerry’s speech voting for the presidential authorization bill on Iraq – no surprise that it has little relation to the representations of it by the Bush campaign

http://www.independentsforkerry.org/uploads/media/kerry-iraq.html
By beginning its public discourse with talk of invasion and regime change, the administration raised doubts about their bona fides on the most legitimate justification for war--that in the post-September 11 world the unrestrained threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein is unacceptable, and his refusal to allow U.N. inspectors to return was in blatant violation of the 1991 cease-fire agreement that left him in power. By casting about in an unfocused, undisciplined, overly public, internal debate for a rationale for war, the administration complicated their case, confused the American public, and compromised America's credibility in the eyes of the world community. By engaging in hasty war talk rather than focusing on the central issue of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the administration placed doubts in the minds of potential allies, particularly in the Middle East, where managing the Arab street is difficult at best.

[Right, this was all BEFORE the war. Pretty prescient, huh?]

Electronic voting: ready or not (NOT!)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/19/politics/campaign/19vote.html?ex=1253332800&

Bonus item: Florida’s election system becoming a complete clown circus

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/09/nader_case_goes_beyond_weird.html


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:00 AM

 
SAMPLING ERROR

Explaining the Gallup poll’s huge (55-42) advantage for Bush (among what they term “likely” voters – read on)

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/002806.html
[T]he Gallup Poll, despite its reputation, assumes that this November 40% of those turning out to vote will be Republicans, and only 33% will be Democrat. You read that correctly…

[More: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/17/04339/5885
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_12.php#003487]

A contrarian view

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/09/17/polls/
[Joe Conason] To listen to certain Democrats these days is to learn that the presidential election is all but over, apparently because John Kerry slipped behind George W. Bush in a few national polls last week. These sad doomsayers whine constantly that Kerry "isn't tough enough," when what they are really talking about are their own mental weaknesses. Much of the anger and determination displayed by liberals over the past year seems suddenly to have deflated into fear and resignation…At such moments, a once-important Democratic functionary inevitably pipes up to get his or her name in the newspaper by attacking the party's candidate or campaign. Even if this person happens to be a thoroughly discredited figure like Tony Coelho, a washout as Al Gore's campaign manager, his remarks get ink because "it's a story" when Democrats criticize each other. What would really be a story is a Republican behaving with the same lack of discipline endemic among Democrats just now.

The liberal tendency to assume the fetal position upon hearing any bad news not only creates a damaging psychological environment for those who indulge it, but also repels undecided and independent voters who are seeking strong, confident leadership. Nobody wants to join a team that obsesses more about losing than winning…And there is no reason to give up, regardless of any flaws in the Kerry-Edwards campaign or the Bush-Cheney convention "bounce." That bounce has fallen flat, returning the presidential race to a virtual dead heat, according to several new polls…

The new Harris Interactive/Wall Street Journal poll, completed on Sept. 13, shows Kerry with 48 percent, Bush with 47 percent and Ralph Nader with 2 percent. Those results were nearly identical to the last Harris poll, taken before the Republican Convention, when Kerry was ahead by 1 point…More than half of the respondents think Bush "doesn't deserve to be reelected [sic]."

The most recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press shows the Bush lead falling precipitously during the past week. Between Sept. 8 and Sept. 10, Bush was ahead of Kerry by 54 to 38 among "likely voters" -- but between Sept. 11 and Sept. 14, that gap diminished to Bush 47 versus Kerry 46.

Today, the Economist released a new YouGov poll, which employs online technology developed by a British survey firm, and found Bush ahead of Kerry by a single point, 47 to 46. To the magazine's editors this represents an "impressive" result for Bush because more than 56 percent of the voters polled by YouGov say they are "dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time."

Democracy Corps, run by James Carville and Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, completed a new poll of 1,003 voters on Sept. 14, which also showed Bush one point ahead, 49 to 48 percent. Greenberg's poll includes lots of data suggesting that voters want a new direction -- and that independents, in particular, are deeply dissatisfied with Bush.

The latest survey by Investor's Business Daily and the Christian Science Monitor, completed Sept. 12, actually shows Kerry ahead by two points among registered voters and tied with Bush among "likely" voters. (For a useful discussion of this distinction and why it may not be meaningful at this stage, consult Ruy Teixeira's Donkey Rising blog, which provides smart, professional and duly skeptical analysis of media polls.)

As Gallup polling director Frank Newport said last week when Bush was riding high on a post-convention wave, the presidential election remains in flux and unpredictable…"The general tendency is toward a closing of whatever gap exists on Labor Day. Certainly, the race is close enough at this point to suggest that while it is possible that George Bush may maintain his lead or expand it, it is also quite possible that John Kerry will gain and move into the lead himself."

…In the final weeks of the 2000 election, major polls showed Bush ahead of Al Gore by three to 13 points -- and then Gore won the popular vote tally by more than 500,000…

Aside from Newport's observation, there are other reasons for Bush to worry about voters souring permanently on him before Nov. 2. The most salient is the war in Iraq. A growing majority of people now understand that they were misled by the Bush administration, that the war is going poorly, and that the White House has no viable exit strategy. As public focus returns to the consequences of this administration's incompetence, John Kerry can still seize the opportunity to regain his lead -- if he dares.

[More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/17/polls/index.html]

WH releases new Bush NG documents – and it’s a blockbuster (not)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/17/bush.guard.records.ap/index.html
A packet of Texas Air National Guard records newly released Friday showed that the commanding officer of President Bush's basic training unit took a special interest in him as a trainee and wrote to his father to praise his son…Bush's father, then a congressman from Texas, said in reply to the commander, "That a major general in the Air Force would take interest in a brand new Air Force trainee made a big impression on me."…Bush went on to say that his son "will be a gung ho member" of the Air Force and that Air Force instructors had "helped awaken the very best instincts in my son."…

In addition to the letter from Bush's father, the latest documents contain news releases that the Texas Air National Guard sent to Houston newspapers in 1970 about young Bush, then a second lieutenant and new pilot…"George Bush is one member of the younger generation who doesn't get his kicks from pot or hashish or speed," the news release said. "Oh, he gets high, all right, but not from narcotics." [Fill in coke joke here]

[Analysis: http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_09_17_bestof.html#109546366581801941]

The Killian memos – more evidence points to Burkett as the source

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30043-2004Sep17.html

I’m sickened at heart by how this whole story has gotten shanghai’d by the CBS/Killian fiasco. But a renewed interest in Burkett’s story can’t be good news for Bush either - especially if the Pentagon response to the AP request next week is that they can't find certain missing documents

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/17/1348234
GREG PALAST: But Bush's military records are oddly incomplete. What happened to those papers? Lt. Col. Burkett was working in the air guard headquarters at Camp Mabry, talking with the General, when a telephone call came in from Governor Bush's people.

LT. COL. BILL BURKETT: They wanted to assemble all of the governor's files. They wanted to make sure there was nothing in there that would embarrass the governor. That's as accurate as I can put it.

GREG PALAST: And you heard that off the voicebox?

LT. COL. BILL BURKETT: Yes.

GREG PALAST: Yourself?

LT. COL. BILL BURKETT: Yes.

GREG PALAST: The call came in from this woman's office, Karen Hughes, Governor Bush's Chief of Staff.

GREG PALAST: Now, they wouldn't go along with a call from a politician and actually clean the files, would they?

LT. COL. BILL BURKETT: Yes.

GREG PALAST: They would?

LT. COL. BILL BURKETT: Yes.

GREG PALAST: Did they?

LT. COL. BILL BURKETT: Yes. There were several documents, and I saw that they had George W. Bush's name at the top of them. And this was a bin that was about to be shredded. A specific document that I do remember was a pay document. A second specific document that I remember was a retirement points document. That in fact might explain some tremendous gaps in the records. It makes no sense.

Of equal interest, the identity of “Buckhead,” the blogger who started the “forgery” counterattack

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cbs18sep18,1,1428308.story?coll=la-home-headlines

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_09_18_bestof.html#109548266241819201
“Buckhead," the blogger who posted a highly technical explanation of proportional spacing and type fonts within four hours of the initial CBS report turns out to be Harry W. MacDougald, an Atlanta lawyer with strong ties to conservative Republican causes who helped draft the petition urging the Arkansas Supreme Court to disbar President Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Buckhead says he's not talking to the press…

[More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_12_digbysblog_archive.html#109548210350043870]

The Optimism Update

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004053
While a new intelligence estimate offers a gloomy assessment of Iraq's future, President Bush talks instead about brighter days ahead under a new prime minister and the promise of free elections. "Freedom is on the march," he told a campaign rally Thursday…White House communications director Dan Bartlett accused Democrats of unfounded pessimism. "President Bush gets his briefings from commanders on the ground. He has reason for his optimism because of the enormous amount of progress we have made," Bartlett said.

As bad as Cheney: now Armitage weighs in, says terrorists are trying to help Kerry win

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/another-dickhead-of-democracy.html

Another November surprise for military guard and reserves: after the election YOU’RE GOING TO IRAQ

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/17/murtha/index.html

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1520&ncid=1520&e=4&u=/afp/20040916/pl_afp/iraq_us_military_reserves_040916184138
The war in Iraq has placed the all-volunteer US Army under unprecedented stress, raising concern about whether it will be able to continue to recruit and retain reservists in sufficient numbers, the general who heads the army reserve said…Lieutenant General James Helmly said the 205,000-strong US Army Reserves has so far met its recruitment and retention goals but it was uncertain whether that will hold next year amid the accumulating pressures of a long military engagement…"We have had the all-volunteer force for 30 years," he said. "It is an immensely strong, capable, robust force. But we have never placed it under the stresses that we're placing on it today, active and reserve."

[Someone ought to ask the President if he will promise NOT to renew the draft during his next term]

Florida Supreme Court puts Nader back on the ballot

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/18/politics/campaign/18elect.html?ex=1253246400&

[Sharp legal analysis, as usual, from Michael Froomkin: http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/09/hot_news_about_florida_ballot.html]

Following up on an earlier story: Pentagon admits censoring web sites from military personnel, particularly those documenting casualty statistics

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/09/pentagon_acknow.html

Another follow-up: Navy won’t reopen the question of Kerry’s service medals — why? — BECAUSE HE DESERVED THEM

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/09/navy_wont_investigate_kerry_medals.html

[This will be a front-page story, right?]

Bonus item: perhaps you saw this story and/or saw the photo (Drudge gave it big play)

http://rising-hegemon.blogspot.com/2004/09/bogus-assault-father-freeper-of-year.html
[The story]
A Republican family attended the [Kerry-Edwards] rally to show support for the Bush-Cheney ticket. Phil Parlock, a Barboursville resident and strong Republican, said his family was accosted by some Kerry supporters..."We do it peacefully and quietly to show respect. And, we don’t want to get kicked out of anything," Parlock said…With Parlock were sons Phil II, 21, and Alex, 11, and daughter Sophia, 3…Parlock said a Kerry supporter yanked a Bush-Cheney sign out of Sophia’s hands, making her cry…

[The truth: the “union stooge” was one of Parlock’s own sons, faking the scene for the cameras…AND, he’s done this sort of thing twice before. Read the whole shameful episode.]

Bonus bonus item: W. Va GOP accuses “liberals” of wanting to ban the Bible

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_12_digbysblog_archive.html#109546534619807364

[Don’t just get mad, get even: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_12.php#003488]

Triple bonus item: Conservative groups call for boycott of Procter and Gamble (Tide detergent, Crest toothpaste) for “supporting gay marriage”

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040917/ap_on_bi_ge/p_g_conservatives


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:17 AM

 
THE GROUND SHIFTS

Dems starting to hit the right chord: what Bush has trumpeted as his resolve and single-minded purpose in Iraq, they are calling a bullheaded unwillingness to admit mistakes and face facts; what he calls his “optimism,” they are calling his disconnect from reality — and it seems to be sticking

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/16/politics/campaign/16CND-KERR.html?ex=1253073600&en=f717138e77f3ae94&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
"We owe you the truth," Mr. Kerry said. "True leadership is about looking people in the eye and telling the truth — even when it's hard to hear."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/17/politics/campaign/17kerry.html?ex=1253160000&
Mr. Kerry's comments were in sharp contrast to the optimistic outlook on Iraq that Mr. Bush has been presenting on the campaign trail…"This country is headed toward democracy," Mr. Bush said at a Thursday morning campaign rally in St. Cloud, Minn., about five hours before Mr. Kerry made his remarks at the Guard conference. "There's a strong prime minister in place. They have a national council, and national elections are scheduled for January…”

[“A fantasy world of spin” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26553-2004Sep16.html]

[“Out of touch” http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000648.html]

[See the new DNC ad: “Guard” http://www.democrats.org/]

US death rate in Iraq INCREASING

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq17sep17,1,5355883.story?coll=la-headlines-world

[Iraqi civilians too
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/da769392-0751-11d9-9672-00000e2511c8,dwp_uuid=c1a5b968-e1ed-11d7-81c6-0820abe49a01.html]

Annan says what he really thinks

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/16/annan/index.html
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared explicitly for the first time Wednesday night that the U.S.-led war on Iraq was illegal. Annan said that the invasion was not sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council or in accordance with the U.N.'s founding charter…Annan also questioned whether it will be feasible on security grounds to go ahead with the first planned election in Iraq scheduled for January. "You cannot have credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now," he said.

Powell’s response

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_09_17_bestof.html#109540250886781230
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday expressed strong disapproval of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's description of the U.S.-led war in Iraq as illegal, saying the comment was "not a very useful statement to make at this point."

What? Apparently couldn't bring himself to declare Annan's statement false. All he could do was bitch that "What does it gain anyone? We should all be gathering around the idea of helping the Iraqis, not getting into these kinds of side issues."

Right. The nation is said to be in violation of international law, and it's just a "side issue." Really shows you where these folks are coming from, doesn't it.

Annan’s comments have ignited a “firestorm” in foreign capitals

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/17/international/europe/17nations.html?hp

US arms inspector: Iraq had no WMD’s

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&ncid=716&e=1&u=/ap/20040917/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_weapons

Worse than Viet Nam: three generals

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/17/3950/67772

You’ve heard about Bush’s “October surprise,” well, here’s his “November surprise”

General Hoare believes from the information he has received that "a decision has been made" to attack Fallujah "after the first Tuesday in November. That's the cynical part of it - after the election. The signs are all there."

GOP Senators slam Bush over war (you think something hasn’t shifted?)

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20040916/a_iraqsenate16.art.htm
Senators from both parties accused the Bush administration Wednesday of incompetence in its efforts to rebuild Iraq and said the United States could lose the war unless it improves security and gets more money into the Iraqi economy…Among those harshly criticizing the White House at a hearing were the two top Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: Chairman Richard Lugar of Indiana and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska…Of the $18.4 billion Congress approved last year for Iraqi reconstruction, only $1.1 billion has been spent because of violence and other problems. Hagel called that record “beyond pitiful and embarrassing; it is now in the zone of dangerous.”…Even Lugar, who is not usually given to strong rhetoric, said the failure to inject funds into the Iraqi economy quickly was “exasperating for anybody looking at this from any vantage point”

“Bush’s Lost Year” The full costs of the decision to focus on Iraq rather than address other, more immediate terror threats

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200410/fallows

Abusing our troops

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/support-troops.html
Soldiers from a Fort Carson combat unit say they have been issued an ultimatum - re-enlist for three more years or be transferred to other units expected to deploy to Iraq…Hundreds of soldiers from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team were presented with that message and a re-enlistment form in a series of assemblies last Thursday

Plame leak: narrowing in

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0409170195sep17,1,4996797.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
A federal district judge in Washington has ordered a reporter for The New York Times to testify before a grand jury investigating the disclosure of the identity of a covert CIA officer…In a decision dated Sept. 9 and released Thursday, Judge Thomas Hogan said reporter Judith Miller must describe any conversations she had with "a specified executive branch official" as "part of the ongoing investigation of the potentially illegal disclosure of the identity of CIA official Valerie Plame."

[More:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004709.php
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004716.php
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001132.html]

Polls, polls, polls: Latest measures show the race even or Kerry ahead…IF you are counting registered voters. Polls that count only “likely” voters tend to give Bush a significant margin — what does this tell you?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040916/ts_alt_afp/us_vote_poll

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html#polls

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000066.html

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=495

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-09-17-gallup-poll_x.htm

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/big-mo.html
[I]n any normal election year that would be the story framing the election. "Majority not happy with incumbent." But, for some reason it isn't. Odd…

Saudi Arabia’s experiment with “democracy” – sounds a lot like Florida

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004045
Elections will be held (after having been delayed), but only for municipal councils, and only for half the seats on the councils; the rest will be appointed by the monarchy. So even if anti-government groups were to win all of the seats, and even if the anti-government groups could then agree on a common agenda, the government would still retain total control. The upshot is that this will be a purely symbolic event…In other words, if anti-government candidates do too well, there'll be no more democracy.

Grover Norquist’s hilarious riff on electoral prospects in Ohio

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/16/132751/872
We HAVE to hold OHIO. We have an idiot, stupid, corrupt, dumb rotten Republican Governor in that State... who has been busy looting the state, raising taxes, lying to the gun owners…Ohio is the only state that in the nation that has lost jobs and isn't recovering because he's been beating the economy to death in the state. But he's not on the ballot, George Bush is on the state. It's not helpful, he should be taken out and horsewhipped.

[Audio: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/16/19278/0115]

The GOP’s “post-reason politics” (perfect!)

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/09/liberalism.html

1. Act as if there are no facts. There are simply things that people say or believe, and other things that other people say or believe.
2. Act as if there is no causation. There are simply things that people do and other things that happen. There is no connection.

House ethics panel will drop charges against DeLay — and for some inexplicable reason, committee Democrats go along (what, do they think this will make him be nicer to them?)

http://www.thehill.com/news/091604/ethics.aspx
The panel’s chairman and ranking member yesterday denied that any decision had been made, but the well-placed source said the outcome is no longer in doubt; what remains is for at least some of the panel’s five Democrats to agree formally…The lawmakers rejected reports that they disagree or have become deadlocked on how to proceed with the ethics complaint, which was filed in June by Rep. Chris Bell (D-Texas)…It is understood, however, that the committee is moving toward dismissing he complaint but that Mollohan needs more time to rally his fellow Democrats to line up behind an outcome favorable to DeLay.

OK, I’m just asking…what happens if Lt. Col. Bill Burkett comes forward and says “Yes, I reconstructed the Killian memos from memory and based on other records. But the reason I did it is because original records were destroyed in my presence — not a single substantive fact in these memos is false, and I believed those facts needed to be known.” How does that play out?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24635-2004Sep15.html

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/12/elec04.prez.bush.texas.records/

Meanwhile, judge orders Pentagon to fulfill AP’s FOIA request by next week

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apelection_story.asp?category=1131&slug=Bush%20Guard%20Records
A federal judge has ordered the Pentagon to find and make public by next week any unreleased files about President Bush's Vietnam-era Air National Guard service to resolve a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by The Associated Press…Pentagon officials told Baer they plan to have their search complete by Monday. Baer ordered the Pentagon to hand over the records to the AP by Sept. 24 and provide a written statement by Sept. 29 detailing the search for more records.

Bush’s ambiguous religiosity

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004048

[More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004714.php]

Competence vs political loyalty

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004046
The White House has refused to promote a key official at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) who has worked on healthcare problems confronting Iraq and Afghanistan because he contributed to the Democratic Party four years ago…Sources say HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson wants to name Zucker, 45, as one of his top deputy secretaries of health. But the White House has refused to approve the appointment

Gee, all the (hostile, dismissive) interview questions being posed to Kitty Kelley sound so…similar. How can that be?

http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2004/09/kitkat_club.php

Bonus item: GOP stormtrooper who kicked convention protestor while she was on the ground identified as an intern at the National Taxpayer Union Foundation — until his image was cropped out of their web site photo!

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/rnc-kicker-identified.html

http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2004/09/kicking_em_whil_1.shtml

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:02 AM

 
SO MANY VULNERABILITIES

Abu Ghraib: it started at the top

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17430
The delicate bureaucratic construction now holding the Abu Ghraib scandal firmly in check rests ultimately on President Bush's controversial decision, on February 7, 2002, to withhold protection of the Geneva Convention both from al-Qaeda and from Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. The decision rested on the argument, in the words of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez, that "the war against terrorism is a new kind of war," in fact, a "new paradigm [that] renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions..." In a prefiguring of later bureaucratic wars, lawyers in the State Department and many in the military services fought against this decision, arguing, prophetically, that it "would undermine the United States military culture, which is based on a strict adherence to the law of war."…For torture, this decision was Original Sin: it made legally possible the adoption of the various "enhanced interrogation techniques" that have been used at CIA secret prisons and at the US military's prison at Guantánamo Bay.

More unfavorable intelligence ignored (nice to see Bush and his buddies have learned from past mistakes)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/16/politics/16intel.html?ex=1252987200&
A classified National Intelligence Estimate prepared for President Bush in late July spells out a dark assessment of prospects for Iraq, government officials said Wednesday…The estimate outlines three possibilities for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst case being developments that could lead to civil war, the officials said. The most favorable outcome described is an Iraq whose stability would remain tenuous in political, economic and security terms…"There's a significant amount of pessimism," said one government official who has read the document…

As described by the officials, the pessimistic tone of the new estimate stands in contrast to recent statements by Bush administration officials, including comments on Wednesday by Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, who asserted that progress was being made.

Iraq: “The Gates of Hell”

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/gates_of_hell.php
[T]he resistance is growing, and…it has reached the point where efforts to kill it only make it stronger…

Plame breakthrough: somebody talked

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/16/35831/5441

Franklin probe also “moving forward”

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001127.html

Neo-cons compiling an “enemies list”

http://gadflyer.com/warandpiece/index.php?Week=200438#807
I wonder if the neocons will put Jehl on the 'enemies list' I am told they are creating of articles and reporters they don't like, or, I suppose, find threatening…There's something just fascistic about that sort of behavior of creating an enemies' list. Seriously fascistic. To try to target people who are trying to report the truth…The neocons call those reporting unfavorably on Iraq, on the FBI counterintelligence investigation of alleged espionage and who allegedly leaked US Iran intel to Chalabi, etc. McCarthyites. But who's really McCarthyite?…Let's be clear what is going on here. They are trying to intimidate people from reporting on an existing investigation.

Is Ashcroft about to be tossed overboard? (not until AFTER the election, of course)

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/_/2004/09/ashcroft_on_the_way_out.php
My source reports that the President is "very disappointed" with his Attorney General, and that the White House Counsel's office regards him as "a boob."

Will Bush face questioning in ANY unstructured situation before the election?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23336-2004Sep15.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing
And don't bother trying to ask the president a question -- unless of course you're part of a pre-screened audience at a campaign event…As far as I can tell, Bush hasn't actually answered a single question from a reporter since the several interviews he did in late August, just before the Republican National Convention. That's more than two weeks ago…At least twice in the past week, reporters have resorted to shouting questions, and he's ignored them…And of course Bush hasn't held anything remotely like a news conference since Aug. 23, when he took some questions on his Texas ranch.

From Bush: a breathtaking new kind of lie on the campaign trail (a “quote” from a “conversation” with John Kerry THAT NEVER HAPPENED)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/15/113012/277
Allen also calls attention to this utterly fantastical tale Bush told yesterday, while arguing that his audience would have to pay more taxes to fund Kerry's plans…"So I said to him the other day, well, how are you going to pay for them?" Bush said at the Ottawa County Fairgrounds in Holland, Mich. "And he said, 'That's easy -- just tax the rich.'"

DeLaying tactics

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/15/124018/312
In another show of the power of money in Washington, the House Ethics Committee resorted to an option that has never been used before that could, in effect, kill the ethics investigation into Tom DeLay’s illegal fundraising and his role in Texas redistricting. After nearly three months of reviewing the charges against DeLay, the Chair and Ranking Member of the House Ethics committee postponed today’s hearing and have decided to put before the committee the question of whether to proceed with the investigation. This unprecedented move could result in a deadlock among the ten member committee resulting in no further action in this Congress.

[More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004038]

Florida already a complete electoral mess

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/15/florida/index.html
A Miami Herald piece today shows how a Monday ruling by Jeb Bush's state elections officer Glenda Hood that put Ralph Nader on the ballot despite a judge's earlier ruling to the contrary has led to chaos and confusion among local supervisors about whether Nader is actually on the ballot -- as absentee ballots are being printed, some with Nader, some without…"In Okaloosa County, elections officials finalized their ballot Saturday and, after consulting with Hood's office, decided to leave Nader's name off. They worked through the night and got the ballot to the printer by Sunday, before Hood changed course…."On Tuesday, when the rest of the county was preparing for Hurricane Ivan, Supervisor of Elections Pat Hollarn was worrying about the absentee ballots…"She stuck by her decision to leave Nadar (sic) off, however. After reading the ruling and the lawsuit, she concluded: 'There is no justifiable reason' the third-party candidate should be on the ballot…

"In Duval County, with more than 2,000 requests for absentee ballots from overseas military personnel, local officials have decided to print two ballots, said Dick Carlberg, chief elections assistant…"The first ballot that goes out this week will include Nader's name and be considered temporary, he said. It will be followed by a second ballot with the names of the candidates after the court rules. If Nader is ruled off the ballot and a voter fails to send the second ballot back 'he'll lose his vote,' Carlberg said."

Leave it to Florida to find creative new ways to disenfranchise voters.

[NB: Here then we see another legacy of the wholesale Republican hijacking of the electoral process. By jobbing every aspect of primaries, convention dates, absentee voting, redistricting, campaign financing, FEC rules, digital voting machines, and even the ways in which votes get counted — all with a guise toward maximizing their electoral chances — they have left in tatters a basic principle essential to democracy: a set of fixed ground rules and procedures that apply to every vote, regardless of whom they might help or hurt. When every decision is made opportunistically ad hoc, and the rules keep changing, the essence of one person/one vote and every vote counting is compromised beyond repair. Not that this prospect concerns them: they’ve been clear from the beginning that the vestiges of true democracy — accountability, openness, responsiveness to public questioning, acceptance of protest and opposition — are mere nuisances to them.]

New ad campaign: Hold Them Accountable

http://www.holdthemaccountable2004.com/home.htm

Could the Killian memos be a Rove dirty trick? Not as unthinkable as you might imagine

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/09/con04385.html

But, this story suggests otherwise

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007898.html
…a Kinko’s in Abilene…

[More: http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=2075]

Are they hurting Bush anyway?

http://slate.msn.com/id/2106595/fr/rss/

Past lies/present lies

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_12.php#003474
From today's Nick Kristof column...

One fall day in 1973, when Mr. Bush was a new student at Harvard Business School, he was wearing a Guard jacket when he ran into one of his professors. The professor, Yoshi Tsurumi, says he asked Mr. Bush how he wangled a spot in the Guard…"He said his daddy had good friends who got him in despite the long waiting list," recalls Professor Tsurumi, who is now at Baruch College, part of the City University of New York. Professor Tsurumi says he next asked Mr. Bush how he could have already finished his National Guard commitment. "He said he'd gotten an early honorable discharge," Professor Tsurumi recalls. "I said, 'How did you manage that?'"…"He said, oh, his daddy had a good friend," Mr. Tsurumi said.

Jim Moore's description of Bush's 1994 Texas gubernatorial debate...

During the 1994 Texas gubernatorial race between Ann Richards and George W. Bush, I was a panelist on the only televised debate between the two candidates. The question I chose to ask Bush first was about the National Guard…"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."

You won’t believe this — yes, you will. WH to release MORE newly discovered NG documents

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007899.html

A litany of claims to have released “everything”

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_12_digbysblog_archive.html#109530750206952286
February 13, 2004

Russert: But you authorize the release of everything to settle this?

President Bush: Yes, absolutely. We did so in 2000, by the way.

April 28, 2004

MR. McCLELLAN: And it's been fully addressed, and all the records have been released, and the President fulfilled his duty and was proud to serve and be honorably discharged from the National Guard.

September 8, 2004

MR. McCLELLAN: They've assured us that all those records are out, and in fact, you have those records.

Kitty Kelley — the shorter version

http://slate.msn.com/id/2106773/fr/rss/

Bonus item: “Be careful what you ask for” — if the flag desecration amendment ever passes, THIS sort of thing will be a criminal act

http://www.patridiots.com/000875.html

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:49 AM

 
ABOVE QUESTIONING

The emerging campaign meme: it is disloyal even to oppose or question the Commander in Chief during a war

http://www.spinsanity.org/post.html?2004_09_12_archive.html#109521823337484452
[Zell] As I have said time and again, 9/11 changed everything. Everything, that is, except the national Democrats' shameful, manic obsession with bringing down a commander in chief. John Kerry has been wrong many times, but he's never been more wrong than in his failure to support our troops and our commander in chief in this war on terror

[Forbes] Have you ever seen liberals and the Left so hostile? And do you think they're a threat to America, or are they just making outrageous talk?…I think they're dangerous. In all my years I have never seen such venom in American politics. Even mainstream liberals are saying things and promoting policies that could rip our country apart and weaken our national security…At a time when the majority of Americans want to rally round the flag, defend our land and defeat our enemies, liberals seem to be promoting their delusions about America and President Bush that could weaken us and strengthen our enemies.

[Well, gee, maybe we should just cancel the election entirely…]

Waxman on Bush admin: an "unprecedented assault on the principle of open government"

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/14/waxman/index.html

More Bush 101: Never respond directly to charges (especially if they are true). Instead, simply act as if the whole matter didn’t exist — and make a point of doing so…The photo op matters more than the facts

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_09_14_bestof.html#109519730157185511

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20249-2004Sep14.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing
President Bush speaks today at noon Pacific time to the National Guard Association convention in Las Vegas, and it looks like it's going to be a speech with a lot of subtext…When young George W. Bush secured a National Guard post in 1968, it got him out of harm's way…Today's Guard is very much in harm's way. More than 225,000 guardsmen -- roughly half the force -- have been called to active duty since Sept. 11, 2001. They are heroically bearing a considerable portion of the burden of the war in Iraq…And while today's George W. Bush find himself facing many questions about his Guard service -- how he got in, whether he fulfilled his obligations -- when the president speaks in Las Vegas today, he's expected to stay out of harm's way on that whole issue, as well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/14/politics/campaign/14CND-BUSH.html?ex=1252900800&
President Bush told a conference of the National Guard Association today that he was "proud to be one of them."…Mr. Bush's comment at the conference in Las Vegas was his only reference to his time in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. Gaps in his service have become the subject of pointed questions in the campaign…"You've had many famous Americans in your ranks, including men named Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln and Truman," the president said. "Nineteen individuals have served both in the Guard and as presidents of the United States, and I'm proud to be one of them."…After sustained applause, Mr. Bush quickly turned away from the issue.

Did our nation’s chief law enforcement officer — that would be, John Ashcroft — break the law (repeatedly)?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004016

On the campaign trail, an endless trail of lies (not spin) about Kerry positions, confident that the media won’t call them on it

http://www.spinsanity.org/post.html?2004_09_12_archive.html#109509186197237874

http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=2071

http://www.electablog.com/2004/09/unfuzzy-math.html

More on Bush’s own 3 trillion dollar laundry list of promises at the convention

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18876-2004Sep13.html
The expansive agenda President Bush laid out at the Republican National Convention was missing a price tag, but administration figures show the total is likely to be well in excess of $3 trillion over a decade…A staple of Bush's stump speech is his claim that his Democratic challenger, John F. Kerry, has proposed $2 trillion in long-term spending, a figure the Massachusetts senator's campaign calls exaggerated. But the cost of the new tax breaks and spending outlined by Bush at the GOP convention far eclipses that of the Kerry plan.

Nobody’s home

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004027
SO WHO'S RUNNING THE COUNTRY?…It's been well over a month since George W. Bush spent a full day in the capital...I guess things change (although not that much) when your job is to keep your job.

Keeping us safe

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/politics/15cia.html
Three years after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency has fewer experienced case officers assigned to its headquarters unit dealing with Osama bin Laden than it did at the time of the attacks, despite repeated pleas from the unit's leaders for reinforcements, a senior C.I.A. officer with extensive counterterrorism experience has told Congress…The bin Laden unit is stretched so thin that it relies on inexperienced officers rotated in and out every 60 to 90 days, and they leave before they know enough to be able to perform any meaningful work…"There has been no systematic effort to groom Al Qaeda expertise" among C.I.A. officers since Sept. 11, 2001, according to the letter, written by Michael F. Scheuer, the former chief of the agency's bin Laden unit and the author of a best-selling book that is critical of the Bush administration's handling of the war on terror.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/14/opinion/14krugman.html?ex=1252900800&en=a4bbbd07618d0967&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
U.S. news organizations are under constant pressure to report good news from Iraq. In fact, as a Newsweek headline puts it, "It's worse than you think." Attacks on coalition forces are intensifying and getting more effective; no-go zones, which the military prefers to call "insurgent enclaves," are spreading - even in Baghdad. We're losing ground…And the losses aren't only in Iraq. Al Qaeda has regrouped. The invasion of Iraq, intended to demonstrate American power, has done just the opposite: nasty regimes around the world feel empowered now that our forces are bogged down. When a Times reporter asked Mr. Bush about North Korea's ongoing nuclear program, "he opened his palms and shrugged."…Yet many voters still believe that Mr. Bush is doing a good job protecting America.

Fighting for democracy (or at least the appearance of such)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21557-2004Sep14.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21853-2004Sep14.html

Bush: the simulacrum

http://www.sundayherald.com/44773

The outrage that is Porter Goss: HOW in the world, after all our recent experience with the politicization of intelligence operations, does Congress sit still for a Bush hack and partisan being put in charge of the CIA?

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/09/goss-extreme-makeover.html

Could the Killian memos be transcribed versions of legitimate originals?

http://boloboffin.blogspot.com/2004_09_12_boloboffin_archive.html#109521103764096182
1. Marian Carr Knox was Killian's secretary. She would have typed the memos.

2. The CBS memos are fake. The typefaces are wrong for what was in the office. There are stylistic differences in how Knox would type the memos. Terminology like "billets" and "administrative officer" are Army terms, not ANG terms.

3. The CBS memos reflect real documents that once existed. Knox remembers very vividly "when Bush was there and all the yak-yak that was going on about it." They accurately reflect Killian's viewpoint and memos that were in a "cover your back" file that Knox maintained for Killian. There may not have been a memo-for-memo connection, but there were real memos once.

So the story is: The memos are forged, but they're telling the truth.

The full story

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/politics/campaign/15guard.html?pagewanted=all&position
The secretary for the squadron commander purported to be the author of now-disputed memorandums questioning President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard said Tuesday that she never typed the documents and believed that they are fakes…But she also said they accurately reflect the thoughts of the commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, and other memorandums she typed for him about Mr. Bush. "The information in them is correct," the woman, Marian Carr Knox, now 86, said in an interview at her home here. "But I doubt,'' she said, pausing, "it's not anything that I wrote because there are terms in there that are not used by Guards, the format wasn't the way we did it. It looks like someone may have read the originals and put that together."

[More, if you philosophical types want to see this discussed in the context of “Gettier problems”: http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/09/oh_boy.html]

By the way, an inadvertently revealing comment from Laura Bush

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0409140180sep14,1,343503.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Campaigning for her husband, Laura Bush told Radio Iowa that "you know, they probably are altered and they probably are forgeries, and I think that's terrible, really."…Laura Bush, who rarely speaks out on controversial issues, did not give a reason for her belief.

[NB: Now, apart from the obvious: who cares what she thinks, is she a document expert, why does her weasly husband send her out to defend him, rather than respond to questions himself, there is this: THEY KNOW if the content of the memos is true or not. If they knew it wasn’t, they would use a stronger word than “probably.” Other judges may be unsure of whether the memos are legitimate or not, but if they’re really fakes, the Bush people would know it. This analysis is reinforced also by McClellan’s carefully parsed distancing from the memos without out-and-out denying them.]

Funny: Matt Drudge posts a new document meant to buttress Bush’s case, but it actually hurts it

http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/14/bush_service/index.html

And yet ANOTHER new document emerges

http://www.glcq.com/new_document.htm
A newly discovered document that was withheld by the White House when it released “all the records” shows that Bush promised to serve in the Air National Guard well beyond the termination of his six year Military Service Obligation. In this document, simply labeled “AGREEMENT”, Bush acknowledges that his training will require “the expenditure of extensive public funds” and in exchange for “undergraduate pilot training”, he agreed to serve for at least five years after the completion of that training…The source of this document was someone with unquestioned access to it, and there is no doubt regarding its authenticity. There is also no question that it has been withheld by the White House…In addition, the White House has repeatedly claimed that all documents in Bush’s files were released, and this document originated in those files…The legitimacy of the document is further buttressed by its being mentioned in at least one other document which was released by the White House.

[NB: Here is what we should be learning from all this, I think. Despite the desire to get even on the Swift Boat ads, and the infuriating irony that Bush, having done all that he could to avoid Viet Nam and then blowing off a big chunk of his NG duty, should hide now behind his “honorable discharge,” despite all that, the politically significant story lies elsewhere. Most people accepted a long time ago (1) that Bush is a child of privilege who pulled strings to get into the Guard, as many others did, and (2) that this frat boy with a drinking problem was less than responsible in fulfilling his obligations. These are wrong, perhaps even criminal (refusing a direct order to take a physical), but they don’t have leverage today — partly because the broad outlines of the story have been around for years and each new “revelation” that captures the attention of the blogosphere is just another ho-hum to most people (whereas the Swift Boat business WAS a revelation to most people). There is even a legitimate question, for Bush as for Kerry, whether youthful errors and misjudgments, however severe, are all that relevant to a candidate 30 years later. I think the focus here should be more on the lies TODAY, the refusal to address legitimate questions, the selective withholding and possible destruction of documents, the continual emergence of new documents after being promised they were all released. There is less ambiguity about all of that, a clearer record, and a closer connection to other things about the way this administration governs. I for one would like to hear Kerry come out and say “I’m not worried about Bush’s NG service. It was a long time ago and he didn’t do anything that a lot of other young men didn’t also do — but I will not accept the stream of lies coming from the administration about all of this, and their attempt to cover up something that could be clarified with a few straight words from the President himself.”]

Oh, hmmm…Nick Kristoff this morning says pretty much the same thing

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/opinion/15kris.html

Kitty Kelley (optional)

http://www.salon.com/books/int/2004/09/14/kelley/
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:03 AM

 
TURNING FAILURE INTO SUCCESS

When will public perceptions shift? Iraq is a disaster, and getting worse. The only two possible outcomes are civil war and fragmentation, or a repressive Islamist state. Better off without Hussein? Most Iraqis don’t think so today.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/13/151621/323
FUBAR: We're losing the country, one town at a time.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5973272/site/newsweek/
Newsweek: It’s Worse Than You Think

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/14/international/middleeast/14baghdad.html?hp
With four months to go before nationwide elections in Iraq, the insurgency has grown more brazen and sophisticated, prompting American commanders to begin a series of military operations to regain control over large sections of the country lost in recent months…But as the Americans and their allies raise the pressure on the insurgents, they are rapidly finding themselves in the classic dilemma faced by governments battling guerrilla movements: ease up, and the insurgency may grow; crack down, and risk losing the support of the population.

Increased use of air strikes in Iraq saves American lives but increases civilian casualties

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1152&slug=Iraq%20US%20Military
In Fallujah and other Iraqi cities not controlled by American forces, the military is turning increasingly to air power to target suspected insurgent hideouts. Although U.S. officials say the tactic is effective, it has raised Iraqi anger over civilian casualties.

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/09/the_vietnamizat.html
Airstrikes are just about the worst possible counterinsurgency weapons.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/time_to_leave_iraq.php
The Financial Times, no left-wing rag, says that tens of thousands of Iraqis are dead, and that the Anglo-American occupation should end:

An unknown number of mostly civilian Iraqis, certainly not less than 10,000 and possibly three times that number, have perished, and hundreds more are dying each week. After an invasion and occupation that promised them freedom, Iraqis have seen their security evaporate, their state smashed and their country fragment into a lawless archipelago ruled by militias, bandits and kidnappers.

The transitional political process, designed to lead to constituent assembly and general elections next year, has been undermined because the nervous U.S.-dominated occupation authority has insisted on hand-picking various permutations of interim Iraqi governors, mostly exiles or expatriates with no standing among their people. Whatever Iraqis thought about the Americans on their way in—and it was never what these émigré politicians told Washington they would be thinking—an overwhelming majority now views US forces as occupiers rather than liberators and wants them out.

The time has therefore come to consider whether a structured withdrawal of US and remaining allied troops, in tandem with a workable handover of security to Iraqi forces and a legitimate and inclusive political process, can chart a path out of the current chaos.

Bad is good: the return of the “flypaper” thesis

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_12.php#003466

How to make the bad even worse: try to hold elections that exclude Sunni regions

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19112-2004Sep13.html
After the creation of the interim Iraqi government in June, many hoped that the insurgency would die down. It hasn't. Today it appears more organized, entrenched and aggressive than ever.

Analysis

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_12.php#003465
Iraq remains ever-present, but as a rhetorical fixture, not a reality. Who's tougher; who's been consistent; who likes Saddam Hussein more, and so forth -- that's all there. The increasingly tenuous claim that Saddam Hussein had any relationship to Islamic terrorism -- that's there too.

But the actual Iraq war is nowhere to be found. Sunday was a disastrous day in Iraq, both for the Iraqis and for the American enterprise in Iraq…The American death rate has creeped up as the occupation has continued. And to anyone who has eyes to see it, the entire American venture in Iraq has become a disaster of truly monumental proportions…

…The claim that Iraq had any meaningful ties to al Qaida style terrorism was always a tissue of falsehood and zealotry. The mistaken belief that Iraq was reconstituting a WMD capacity (though the greatest confidence was on chemical and biological weapons) was a fairly widespread failure in the American intelligence community which the White House then immeasurably inflated to whip up war sentiment. And of course post-war Iraq has been a disaster by really every measure.

The number of Americans who've died in the country still pales in comparison to the numbers lost in Vietnam. But the rate of casualties and fatalities is increasing -- notwithstanding the nominal handover of sovereignty to a caretaker government. And the current policy basically projects the current blood-letting indefinitely into the future. In more basic military terms, the US is losing the war. We are rapidly ceding large parts of the country to control by insurgents. And even major areas like Baghdad seem to be slipping out of control -- as yesterday's upsurge of violence was intended to demonstrate, and to a great degree, did demonstrate.

…Iraq has quite simply become a disaster for the United States. And while people disagree over why this has happened, no thinking person can now fail to see that it has happened.

In the last two months, all of this has been pushed to the side of the election debate -- either by rhetorical tangles over 9/11 and terrorism, or attack politics centered on the two men's war records or lack thereof. That is the reason for the president's resurgence in the polls. It's really that simple…President Bush has been able to mobilize his manifest failure as a political asset, and the Kerry campaign has allowed him to do so.

More on Kerry’s inability to put Bush on the defensive over Iraq

http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=2065

Is Hussein EVER going to get a real trial?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004010

Powell (off the reservation again): Kerry would NOT be a disaster for security

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/bush/articles/2004/09/13/powell_targets_terror_comment_kerrys_response_would_be_robust/?rss_id=Boston.com%20/%20News%20/%20Politics
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday he believes Senator John F. Kerry would, if elected president, respond to terrorism "in a robust way," challenging a comment made last week by Vice President Dick Cheney…"There's no commander in chief, no president of the United States, who would not respond to terrorism.”

“Democracy” for Iraq and Afghanistan (supposedly) – but not for Saudi Arabia

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_09_14_bestof.html#109515955276505034

Courts, shmourts. Brother Jeb defies judge’s ruling, puts Nader on Florida ballot anyway — because, you know, there are the voting rights of all those Nader supporters that need to be protected

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/13/213110/825

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/09/and_how_do_i_teach_my_students_about_the_rule_of_law.html
How am I supposed to teach a class about the Rule of Law in the face of this? Bush v. Gore already made me decide it would be a long time before I taught Constitutional law again, but am I to be reduced to teaching Law and Film, where at least everyone agrees the representations are fictions?

Republicans in Congress, with so much extra spare time on their hands, fast-track flag-burning amendment — because that is what the people WANT, dammit!

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004681.php

Another area in which we can’t afford four more years of Bush: irreversible damage to the environment

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/14/politics/campaign/14enviro.html?ex=1252900800&en=233f242de48df725&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland

Missile defense test postponed (because it would have failed), but this is no reason not to deploy the system before the election, because we need a photo op to show how Bush is making us safer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18975-2004Sep13.html?nav=rss_nation

The media’s failure to read the 9-11 Commission report, and to report on how devastating it actually was

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/media-failure.html

The Killian “forgeries”: case closed

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_12_digbysblog_archive.html#109504397618948568


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:12 AM

 
MORAL AUTHORITY

(March 2003) Cheney: “We will be greeted as liberators”

http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/dpc-doc.cfm?doc_name=fs-108-2-211

(September 2004) “Please help me. I am dying, I am dying”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15899-2004Sep12.html
A U.S. military helicopter fired into a crowd of civilians who had surrounded a burning Army armored vehicle, killing 13 people, said Saad Amili, spokesman for the Health Ministry. A Palestinian journalist reporting from the scene for the Arab satellite network al-Arabiya was among those killed.

The U.S. military said it was trying to scatter looters who were attempting to make off with ammunition and pieces of the Bradley fighting vehicle, which had been hit by car bomb early this morning…But witnesses, including a Reuters cameraman who was filming the al-Arabiya journalist when he was shot, disputed that account and said the crowd had been peaceful, Reuters reported…In the video, which was shown on al-Arabiya throughout the day, the journalist, Mazin Tumaisi, 26, can be seen reporting a short distance from the burning armored vehicle. It is not clear what the people around it were doing. As the camera moved to the sky to capture the image of two low-flying black military helicopters swooping onto the scene, bullets rained down, hitting Tumaisi and the cameraman, Seif Fouad, who was seriously wounded. The camera lens was sprayed with droplets of blood and Tumaisi could be heard saying, "Please help me. I am dying. I am dying."

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2004%2F09%2F13%2Fwirq13.xml&site=5
A television journalist was shot dead as he made a live broadcast from Baghdad yesterday when United States helicopters fired on a crowd that had gathered round the burning wreckage of an American armoured vehicle...A Bradley fighting vehicle was damaged by an apparent car bomb. A total of five American soldiers were wounded in the explosion and during the operation to evacuate the crew…Later, a crowd of Iraqis gathered round the burning vehicle and some began dancing in celebration.

[More: http://www.juancole.com/2004_09_01_juancole_archive.html#109506038377115753]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/13/international/middleeast/13iraq.html?ex=1252728000&
American forces appear to be facing a guerrilla insurgency that is more sophisticated and more widespread than ever before. Last month, attacks on American forces reached their highest level since the war began, an average of 87 per day.

How the U.S totally screwed up in Fallujah, from one of those “blame America first”…Marine Corps generals

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16309-2004Sep12.html

More critiques from the military

http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200437#777
Military and political strategists agreed Monday that President Bush's re-election campaign has been executed with greater precision than the war in Iraq. "Judging from the initial misrepresentation of intelligence data and the ongoing crisis in Najaf, I assumed the president didn't know his ass from his elbow," said Col. Dale Henderson, a military advisor during the Reagan Administration. "But on the campaign trail, he's proven himself a master of long-term planning and unflinching determination"…Henderson said he regrets having characterized Bush's handling of the war as "incompetent," now that he knows the president's mind was simply otherwise occupied.

Our man Allawi

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20Living%20Dangerously
Intense violence in the heart of the Iraqi capital Sunday underscored the failure of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's U.S.-backed government to bring the security so many Iraqis yearn for.

"This government did not fulfill a single promise it made," eye doctor Hammam Ahmed said at his central Baghdad office. "Many innocent people are getting killed and Iraqi blood continues to be shed. If this goes on, the Iraqi people will at the end be the only losers."…

Tough talk has been a hallmark of Allawi's style since he took office…But Allawi's ability to deal with the security crisis faces numerous obstacles…He is only an interim, unelected leader without a base of popular support, and his short tenure is scheduled to end after January's general election…Allawi also was the choice of the U.S.-led occupation authorities, which created a perception among many Iraqis that he is a tool of the Americans…Further, Iraqi's nascent security forces have only modest capabilities, being under-trained and ill-equipped.

You read it here: Bush WILL bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, or allow Israel to do so as his proxy, in the second term

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=581763§ion=news

Proof (to me) of the legitimacy of the Killian memos: two other similar documents, totally trivial in content, also surface (unless one believes THEY were forged too)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_12_digbysblog_archive.html#109502718260317904

Remembering the real issues about Bush’s NG service

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/the_bush_awol_issue_/2004/09/killian_memosbush_tang_summary.php

More revelations to come

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1302932,00.html

Fascinating piece about how the “Killian forgery” meme got started, then propagated through the blogosphere

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_12_digbysblog_archive.html#109500329943774414

Powell repeats his complaint about the “sons of the powerful” who were able to use NG service or deferments to avoid Viet Nam (anyone in particular, Colin?)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-draft13sep13,1,4434873.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Iran-amok II: FUGOP reviews the state of play

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/09/iran-contra-ii-update-iii.html
The secretive Office of Special Plans and a related project are being investigated over how they obtained top-secret intelligence and whom they shared it with, according to four federal sources…"It involves the improper transfer of information," said one source briefed on the case. "A lot more is going to come out."

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/09/iran-contra-ii-update-iv.html
FBI agents have briefed top White House, Pentagon and State Department officials on the probe in recent days. Based on those briefings, officials said, the bureau appears to be looking into other controversies that have roiled the Bush administration, some of which also touch Feith's office…They include how the Iraqi National Congress, a former exile group backed by the Pentagon, allegedly received highly classified U.S. intelligence on Iran; the leaking of the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame to reporters; and the production of bogus documents suggesting that Iraq tried to buy uranium for nuclear weapons from the African country of Niger. Bush repeated the Niger claim in making the case for war against Iraq…"The whole ball of wax" was how one U.S. official privy to the briefings described the inquiry

Now, here is my own nightmare scenario. Revelations over the coming weeks damage Bush’s stature. Ongoing events in Iraq show what a failure his policies have been. Kerry wipes the floor with him during the debates. The public sentiment shifts, and on Election Day, exit polls show a decided Kerry victory. But when all the votes are tabulated, Bush is stunningly re-elected. How did it happen? Read on.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EARLY_VOTING?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=customwire.htm
In an election year when just a few thousand votes in a few states could decide the winner, the growing number of voters who cast ballots weeks before Election Day is transforming the landscape for political campaigns…Election officials say early voting is convenient but others say the trend is misguided - depriving voters of critically important information late in the campaign cycle, and undermining the nation of one of its few collective, democratic experiences.

"Early voting has become very critical," said Clint Reed, who coordinates the Republican Party's campaign in Arkansas, one of the states that has been targeted as a battleground…Basically a relaxed version of absentee voting and variously called convenience voting, unconditional voting, or no-excuse absentee voting, it drops requirements that people must be ill or out-of-town to vote early…

The trend has been steadily increasing. Somewhere between 15 percent and 20 percent of all voters nationwide cast their ballots early, and that number is expected to rise to 25 percent this year, according to Curtis Gans at the Washington-based Committee for the Study of the American Electorate.

…Another observer argued that the turn to early voting is likely to further erode the sense of citizenship throughout the country, and weaken people's obligation to pay attention to the election and make a thoughtful decision…"This is terrible," said Bruce Ackerman, a Yale University law professor…"The fact of the matter is, there is a lot of discussion in the last four weeks before an election. A lot more. A good citizen should expose themself to this conversation when it occurs and not opt out of it," he said. "We're going in the wrong way, on both soundbite democracy and the erosion of the only ritual we have left."

In other words, imagine 25% of the vote already locked in, now, when Bush’s popularity is peaking – including a heavily pro-Bush military vote. Then there is this…

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/09/12/absentee_ballot_fraud_worries_officials.html
"As both major political parties intensify their efforts to promote absentee balloting as a way to lock up votes in the presidential race, election officials say they are struggling to cope with an array of coercive tactics and fraudulent vote-gathering involving absentee ballots that have undermined local races across the country," the New York Times reports…"Some of those officials say they are worried that the brashness of the schemes and the extent to which critical swing states have allowed party operatives to involve themselves in absentee voting -- from handling ballot applications to helping voters fill out their ballots -- could taint the general election in November."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36781-2004Aug26.html
A plan to make the presidential battleground of Missouri the first state to allow military voters serving in combat zones such as Iraq to cast their absentee ballots via e-mail is renewing concerns about the security of online voting...Missouri Secretary of State Matt Blunt, a Republican running for governor, announced the plan Wednesday, saying that "simplifying the voting process for these heroes is the least we can do." The move surprised some computer security experts and voting watchdog groups, who said yesterday that the new rules could lead to Election Day fraud.

Under a deal with the Defense Department, Blunt's office said, Missouri voters serving in designated combat areas will have the option of filling out absentee ballots, scanning them into a computer file and e-mailing the scanned document back to the Defense Department. The department will fax the ballot to local Missouri election officials...

Service members who use the system will forfeit keeping their ballot secret; the Defense Department and county officials will know the candidates chosen...The state has not done an independent study of the new system's security, said Blunt spokesman Spence Jackson. "We trust the military," he said.

But Bruce Schneier, a computer security expert on the board of the National Committee for Voting Integrity, said that the public has a right to more details about how the system will work. How will independent observers ensure that the Defense Department does not "lose ballots?" he asked. "There's been no discussion, no audits, no information about how will it prevent phony votes or hacking. Missouri is setting itself up to be the next Florida."...Elliot M. Mincberg, legal director for the People for the American Way Foundation, said he is concerned service members will feel pressured by commanders and colleagues to give up their right to vote in secret. "We are going to look closely at this," he said.

Bush the coward

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040913fa_fact
“The real distinction of this Presidency is that, at its core, he is a very weak man. He projects himself as incredibly strong, but behind closed doors he is incapable of saying no to his biggest financial supporters and his coalition in the Oval Office. He’s been shockingly malleable to Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and the whole New American Century bunch. He was rolled in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. He was too weak to resist it.

“I’m not of the school that questions his intelligence,” Gore went on. “There are different kinds of intelligence, and it’s arrogant for a person with one kind of intelligence to question someone with another kind. He certainly is a master at some things, and he has a following. He seeks strength in simplicity. But, in today’s world, that’s often a problem. I don’t think that he’s weak intellectually. I think that he is incurious. It’s astonishing to me that he’d spend an hour with his incoming Secretary of the Treasury and not ask him a single question. But I think his weakness is a moral weakness. I think he is a bully, and, like all bullies, he’s a coward when confronted with a force that he’s fearful of. His reaction to the extravagant and unbelievably selfish wish list of the wealthy interest groups that put him in the White House is obsequious. The degree of obsequiousness that is involved in saying ‘yes, yes, yes, yes, yes’ to whatever these people want, no matter the damage and harm done to the nation as a whole—that can come only from genuine moral cowardice. I don’t see any other explanation for it, because it’s not a question of principle. The only common denominator is each of the groups has a lot of money that they’re willing to put in service to his political fortunes and their ferocious and unyielding pursuit of public policies that benefit them at the expense of the nation.”

http://gadflyer.com/articles/index.php?ArticleID=205
He's strong. He's resolute. He looks evildoers in the eye and doesn't blink. He's our national daddy, standing in the doorway with a righteous six-gun and a steely gaze, striking fear in the hearts of all who would do us harm. By god, George W. Bush is a real man.

Or is he? We certainly know that Bush wants us to believe he's a real man - in fact, there are few things he works harder at. Sometimes it seems as if the entire might of the United States government is being wielded for the purpose of creating photo ops where Bush can look manly. We saw plenty of examples at the Republican convention; the video introducing Bush, narrated with the profound vocal stylings of actor/politician Fred Thompson, begins this way: "How do you tell the story of a presidency? How do you tell the story so far? The story is, in part, but inescapably, the story of a man.”

Despite being billed as a "biography," the video told virtually nothing about what Bush has actually done in the last four years, let alone his life to that point; instead, it was mostly about Bush's September 11-related moments of theater. For the umpteenth time, we saw Bush vowing revenge through a bullhorn at Ground Zero; then Bush being photographed visiting soldiers in the hospital. The film ends with an extended retelling of Bush going to Yankee Stadium and throwing out the first ball at a World Series game not long after September 11, presented with swelling music and slow-motion, as though his ability to walk to the mound and throw the ball was some act of extraordinary heroism of which no mere mortal would have been capable.

And in his convention speech, Bush reemphasized his masculinity. "Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger," he said, "which in Texas is called walking." There's certainly a swagger in Bush's walk, but what is most notable about it is how affected it is. It's not about being strong, it's about looking strong.

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/08/bushs-management-style.html
Mike Allen and David Broder of the The Washington Post undertake an effort to tease out George W. Bush's managerial style. They must tease it out because people like Karen Hughes obviously lie about it, people like Dick Cheney fight to the death to prevent internal documents from becoming public, and people like Bob Woodward are so beholden to access that nary a discouraging word is heard.

Bush is invariably paralyzed when it comes to making hard decisions - what to do about Iran or North Korea - anything that requires weighing costs and benefits. He is willing to believe anyone who can give him a cost free solution to a difficult problem. The willingness of his advisers to offer ludicrous solutions to intractable problems is directly proportional to their ideological fervor. The cost free solutions can be as complex as they need to be to evade imposing any cost on a potential electoral demographic. Bush will stand by those cost-free solutions unless he perceives an electoral advantage to changing his position.

… My favorite quote:

Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans, Bush's best friend, said the president forces people to boil things down "to discipline the system so that people don't abuse the taxpayers' time of the president."

George W. Bush has spent almost a third of his presidency on vacation.

http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-nyhen123963332sep12,0,2326005.column?coll=ny-news-columnists
Welcome to the New Age of Political Censorship, where disagreeable speech isn't greeted the way the Founding Fathers hoped it would be - with more speech. Increasingly these days, it's met with angry shouts of "Silence," "Boycott" and "Shut up."

Brilliant: Bush’s phony posturing on “responsibility” (without ever taking any)

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/09/george-w-bush-on-responsibility.html

From Sy Hersh’s new book

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5961797/
There is so much about this presidency that we don’t know, and may never learn. Some of the most important questions are not even being asked. How did they do it? How did eight or nine neoconservatives who believed that a war in Iraq was the answer to international terrorism get their way? How did they redirect the government and rearrange long-standing American priorities and policies with so much ease? How did they overcome the bureaucracy, intimidate the press, mislead the Congress, and dominate the military? Is our democracy that fragile? I have tried, in this book, to describe some of the mechanisms used by the White House—the stovepiping of intelligence, the reliance on Ahmad Chalabi, the refusal to hear dissenting opinions, the difficulty of getting straight talk about military operations gone bad, and the inability—or unwillingness—of the President and his senior aides to distinguish between Muslims who supported terrorism and those who abhorred it. A complete understanding of these last few years will be a challenge for journalists, political scientists, and historians.

Many of the failings, however, were in plain sight. The Administration’s manipulation and distortion of the intelligence about Iraq’s ties to Al Qaeda and its national security threat to the United States was anything but a secret in Washington, as the pages of this book make clear. And yet the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, after a year-long investigation, published a report, in July 2004, stating that the critical mistakes were made not in the White House, but at the C.I.A., whose analysts essentially missed the story.

Bonus item: Nader supporters everywhere – this is your guy

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/09/12/nader_pledges_to_focus_on_battleground_states.html
"In what could become a worst-case scenario for Democrats, Ralph Nader announced plans to launch a spirited new phase to his independent candidacy in swing states," the Hartford Courant reports. Nader says "part of its purpose would be to retaliate against Democrats who had fought his candidacy."

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:24 AM

 
THE APPEARANCE OF COMPETENCE

New book: senior officials were warned early of prison torture

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/12/international/middleeast/12abuse.html?ex=1252641600
Mr. Hersh asserts that a Central Intelligence Agency analyst who visited the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in the late summer of 2002 filed a report of abuses there that drew the attention of Gen. John A. Gordon, a deputy to Condoleezza Rice, the White House national security adviser…But when General Gordon called the matter to her attention and she discussed it with other senior officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, no significant change resulted.

[DoD has their self-defending press release already typed up and ready for distribution: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000060.html]

New book: Colin Powell considers Bush neo-cons “f**king crazies”

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1302806,00.html

[He could save us all a lot of trouble by saying so for the record]

Failure everywhere you look: Iraqi forces not only useless in Fallujah — they often sided with the insurgents there

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/2004/09/ineffective-iraqi-force-in-fallouja.php

Failure everywhere you look: Iraqi “reconstruction” a complete mess

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-power12sep12,1,3433461.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage

Failure everywhere you look: North Korea reportedly tests nuclear explosion

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/12/1511/77465

Bush tries to overthrow the government of Venezuela, then forces new elections, then Chavez still wins (because the people WANT him), so what does Bush do now? Announce economic sanctions

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-us-venezuela,0,2471448,print.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

[Democracy can be such a nuisance sometimes]

RNC thoughtfully provided to New York City a property THEY OWNED as a site for holding convention protestors. Unfortunately, it was a toxic waste site

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/09/oooh_what_a_lawsuit_this_will_be.html
“Oooh What a Lawsuit This Will Be”

[More: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007859.html]

How the media (and blogosphere) has let itself be played by Bush allies over the Killian memo “forgeries”

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_09_05_digbysblog_archive.html#109493009480176680
This whole pushback by the right, from the blogosphere to the Wurlitzer to the Whitehouse, is absolutely masterful. And, it should give everyone pause if they think there is even a snowball's chance in hell that any member of the Bush administration will ever get justice for the crimes they have committed while in office. Clearly, the press and much of the public are so willing to be used that it is hopeless. This entire episode is nothing but a pathetic reminder of how easily they manipulate perceptions.

Bonus item: has “dirty politics” become a redundancy?

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/12/weekinreview/12brod.html?ex=1252641600&


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:19 AM

 
9-11 + 3

A moment of silence, and then on to this brilliant analysis by Juan Cole of where we stand three years into Bush’s “war on terror”

http://www.juancole.com/2004_09_01_juancole_archive.html#109487993311862124
Al-Qaeda has succeeded in several of its main goals. It had been trying to convince Muslims that the United States wanted to invade Muslim lands, humiliate Muslim men, and rape Muslim women. Most Muslims found this charge hard to accept. The Bush administration's Iraq invasion, along with the Abu Ghuraib prison torture scandal, was perceived by many Muslims to validate Bin Laden's wisdom and foresightedness.

After the Iraq War, Bin Laden is more popular than George W. Bush even in a significantly secular Muslim country such as Turkey. This is a bizarre finding, a weird turn of events. Turks didn't start out with such an attitude. It grew up in reaction against US policies.

It remains to be seen whether the US will be forced out of Iraq the way it was forced out of Iran in 1979. If so, as al-Zawahiri says, that will be a huge victory. A recent opinion poll did find that over 80 percent of Iraqis want an Islamic state. If Iraq goes Islamist, that will be the biggest victory the movement has had since the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan. An Islamist Iraq might well be able ultimately to form a joint state with Syria, starting the process of the formation of the Islamic superstate of which Bin Laden dreams.

More Bush 101: Create a perception of inevitability to your campaign. Swagger like a winner and act as if the election were already over. Demoralize your opponent’s supporters, and get the news media to start discounting everything that goes against you because “it won’t really affect the outcome anyway.” My friends, DO NOT BUY INTO THIS. Polls change, facts on the ground change. All of Bush’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities are still right there.

A little over a month ago, every pundit was saying Kerry had it all but wrapped up, the structural factors tilted in his direction, he had the Big Mo. Do you think the Bush campaign was whining and whinging “oh no, we’re gonna lose?” Well, we saw what they did. Get mad. Get even. Beat them because they deserve to lose, because we are right, and they are wrong, dangerously wrong.

“Unpanic!”

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/election_2004_/2004/09/unpanic_goddammit_unpanic.php
While you weren't looking, two new polls came out, one from Zogby and one from Democracy Corps, showing Kerry down two to three points among likely voters. Those results match the Fox News results released yesterday, and the Rasmussen numbers (today's three-day spread is up to 1.6 points)…Those aren't the only polls out there, but the narrative that Bush has suddenly surged into a big lead just isn't supported by the facts available right now. It is, however, capable of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy if Kerry gets Gored: typed as a bad campaigner so that his "failure" becomes the story…Would I rather be up than down? Sure. But this isn't a terrible place for the challenger to be a week after the incumbent's convention and after a month of pounding. Relax, and get to work.

Even some conservatives are expressing their doubts about Bush

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/09/10/conservatives/index_np.html

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#003994

Perceiving a backlash against the ugliness and arrogance of what he said, Cheney and his defenders try to “clarify” what he really meant in equating a vote for Kerry with a likely terror attack

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/10/cheney.kerry.ap/index.html

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/09/10/loc_cheney10.html

The Nation magazine clarifies what he meant too

http://www.davidsirota.com/
“Vote for Bush, or Die”

Democrats in Congress (remember them?) get aggressive…maybe

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#003995

CNN pretending Kitty Kelley doesn’t exist (because, you know, they are a Serious News Organization that is above gossip, sensationalism, and puff journalism)

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/230329p-197785c.html

More pictures of Republican a**holes physically abusing female protestors

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040909/480/pajl10109091829

Profile of Kerry’s daughters rising: Bush's daughters to be kept under wraps from here on out (and now everyone knows why)

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_09_10_bestof.html#109483436764153183

National Guard review

The only witness supporting Bush’s service in Alabama is a proven liar

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/2004/09/saloncom-news-in-same-league-as-fox.php

Bush pulled from flying F-102’s BEFORE refusing his physical

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BUSH_GUARD_FLIGHTS?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=customwire.htm

The White House said it cannot explain why Bush was using a training plane when he had risen to the rank of first lieutenant as a solo flyer of a fighter jet…

"He did his training and was honorably discharged," White House spokesman Trent Duffy said…

Force experts who examined the records at the request of AP said the logs could reflect anything from problems in Bush's flight performance to a shortage of available fighter jets…"Maybe he had a problem, but I wouldn't assume that. You can't tell," said retired Air Force Col. Leonard "Jack" Walls, a former flight instructor at an Alabama Air National Guard unit where Bush temporarily served…

For most of his National Guard career - more than 200 hours in the air - Bush flew solo in a one-seat F-102A fighter used to patrol the skies against any attacks from enemy aircraft…However, the logs show Bush flew nine times in T-33 training jets and two more times on a simulator in February and March 1972 - nearly twice as many times as he had flown in training vehicles in the prior 18 months in the Guard…Air Force experts said it is hard to know why Bush suddenly returned to flying the T-33…

The logs also show that Bush, who throughout his career usually landed his jet with a single pass, required two passes to land the F-102A fighter simulator March 12 and a regular fighter jet April 10, 1972. His last flight as an Air National Guard pilot came six days later.

[Hey, I can put two plus two together….]

What nerve! Bob Novak calls for CBS to identify their source for Killian documents

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/funny.html

Killian “forgeries” – upon further review, probably not

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/10/34914/1603

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/the_bush_awol_issue_/2004/09/no_kerning.php

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/09/forged_1.html

http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/003145.html
Let me save everyone a whole lot of time. They are genuine. How do I know? Because the internet is currently awash in wingnuts claiming the memos are fakes. Ergo, they are for real. Q.E.D…Some people may feel that I'm just being flip here. Is that so, some people? Tell me: how rich would you be right now if, every time something was posted on a right-wing message board, or every time Drudge had an exclusive, or any time Rush Limbaugh revealed a secret truth that the liberal media won't tell you, you called up your bookie and put down $20 even money on "bulls**t"? The correct answer is: "pretty f**king rich".

Blaming the messenger: Bush allies (including a newly refunded Swift Boats campaign) are pressing hard to make CBS and the documents the issue, even though the core questions they raise about Bush’s “service” stood before as unanswered questions, and still do

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/11/85456/6513

http://slate.msn.com/id/2106553/fr/rss/

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/10/forgery/index_np.html

And, on the Swift Boat issue: the sham about “no connection” now must be completely dropped

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/11/politics/campaign/11swift.html?ex=1252641600&

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9633633.htm
Thurlow said the vets were told some of what to say, with the caveat that they weren't expected to say anything they didn't believe…"I was told to say, `On the river that day, Kerry fled.' But `fled' connotes fear and I understood why Kerry left, then returned, so I didn't use that word," Thurlow said.

This is right on

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004672.php
In the Killian memo dated August 18, 1973, Killian says this:

Staudt has obviously pressured Hodges more about Bush....Harris gave me a message today from Grp regarding Bush's OETR and Staudt is pushing to sugar coat it.

Forget for a moment whether the memos are genuine or not and just ask this: did Walter Staudt pressure Bobby Hodges about Bush back in 1973? Both men are still alive, and when CBS read the memos to Hodges over the phone he agreed that "these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time."…But why ask Hodges about Killian's state of mind in 1973? Why not ask him instead if he himself got pressure from his superiors to go easy on Bush? It's a simple question, and Hodges ought to have a simple answer.

And there is this aspect of the story, which I hinted at yesterday: even if they ARE forgeries, who created them? Why assume it was a Bush opponent? Putting these into circulation essentially poisons all further inquiry into Bush’s NG record, puts the Dems and the media on the defensive, and diverts questions away from the underlying problem that Bush has never come clean about this period of his life. What – you think that’s not possible?

Iraq

Fiasco in Fallujah

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004673.php

US military blocks servicemen and women from web sites documenting casualty counts

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/09/pentagon_blocki.html

I know Bush Co. is all about blurring the distinction between Saddam and bin Laden, but this is ridiculous

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-rummy11sep11,1,2695369.story?coll=la-news-a_section
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld mixed up Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden with deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein twice in a speech Friday…Among other things, Rumsfeld talked about the world just before the Sept. 11 attacks, whose third anniversary is today. In Afghanistan, he told the National Press Club, "the leader of the opposition Northern Alliance, Masoud, lay dead, his murder ordered by Saddam Hussein, by Osama bin Laden, Taliban's co-conspirator."…Ahmed Shah Masoud, who opposed the ruling Taliban, was killed by suspected Al Qaeda operatives — not Hussein — two days before the Sept. 11 attacks…Later, Rumsfeld said, "Saddam Hussein, if he's alive, is spending a whale of a lot of time trying to not get caught. And we've not seen him on a video since 2001."…The moderator later asked Rumsfeld if he had meant Bin Laden, and the Defense secretary replied: "I did. I meant we haven't seen Osama bin Laden."

And this charming riff on the Abu Ghraib torture scandal – pure Rumsfeld, pure claptrap

"Has it been harmful to our country? Yes. Is it something that has to be corrected? Yes," he said. "Does it rank up there with chopping someone's head off on television? It doesn't. Was it done as a matter of policy? No."

Bonus item: If the Bush campaign was running against Jesus (this you gotta see)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/bush-vs-jesus.html


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 9:04 AM

 
GOVERNMENT BY LYING

I do not think that any U.S. administration in memory has used lying so consistently and shamelessly as a tool of governing. Politicians spin, they fudge the facts, and if need be they do lie with brazen self-assuredness. This is not news. But the Bush administration has repeatedly presented lies whole-cloth, planned lies, systematic lies, lies woven into the fabric of policies and the public justification of them. The deeper truth is that Bush himself is a product of lying — a largely manufactured entity whose public identity and popularity have been based from the very start on truths withheld and falsehoods repeated until they take on the status of common knowledge. As Paul Krugman points out, this is what the National Guard issue is all about.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/10/opinion/10krugman.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position

CIA refuses to release the number of “ghost” detainees in Iraq, even to Army investigators or authorized Congressional oversight committees

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Pentagon-Prison-Abuse.html?ex=1252468800
Army generals said Thursday at least two dozen unregistered ``ghost detainees'' may have been held at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, but they don't know the number for certain because the CIA did not cooperate with their investigation into abuses…Senators said the CIA's lack of cooperation was unacceptable and that they would press the agency to provide the Army with the documents it needs…

CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield declined to comment on the number of cases. He noted the agency's inspector general is reviewing the CIA's involvement in detention and interrogations in Iraq. ``We take these matters very seriously and are determined to examine thoroughly any allegations of abuse,'' he said…

Kern said that when the military permitted the CIA to bring detainees to Abu Ghraib, there was an expectation ``the agency would abide by our rules in our facilities, not create another set.''…``But somehow that didn't happen?'' McCain said…``That's correct, senator,'' Kern said.

Fay said the Army made several requests to the CIA station chief in Iraq for information about the detainees. After not receiving a response, Fay met with the CIA inspector general and explained what information he needed and why he needed it…``At that point I was informed that CIA was doing its own investigation,'' Fay said. ``And they said that they would not provide me with the information that I requested.''

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_09_09_bestof.html#109476190677056101
Do the words "thought police," "Cheka," "Schutzstaffel," "Gestapo," "Stasi"--spring uncomfortably to mind?…Folks, four more years of Bush/Cheney fearmongering and America will be a police state, a state where the power of the government, and especially the secret police, over security and justice is applied with virtually no procedural checks. Is that really what you want for yourself and your family?

National Guard inquiry now focusing in on the question of WHY Bush refused a direct order to undertake a physical. Looks like this will soon morph from a “National Guard blow-off” story into a “drug use while in the military story”

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/bush-refused-direct-order.html

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/02/06/drugs/index.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_05.php#003455
There are now two news organizations actively at work (and at least one of them is pretty far along) on a story about just why Bush was having those problems in the Guard in 1973. With that in mind, now my might be a good time to press a few more specific questions. At least one major news organization -- and I suspect others -- is working on a story that touches directly on why Bush might not have been willing to take that physical.

Was Bush arrested for drugs in 1972, then assigned community service in exchange for having it expunged from his record?

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/3671

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/10/18/cocaine/

The phony stories to explain it all away are getting almost laughable now

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/even-more-lies.html
[Bush Communications Director] Dan Bartlett told CBS "So he went to school. The Guard knew, at federal, state, and local level, where he was, what he was doing, and if they wanted him in an active duty capacity, they knew exactly where to find him." But, apparently, the Guard didn't know where he was…

http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/extra/archives/000824.html
It shows that on January 30, 1974, long after Bush had moved to Cambridge, a "Retirement Credit Summary" was mailed to Bush at the apartment where he'd once lived in Houston. Bush apparently didn't respond, because on March 7, 1974, the Air Reserve Personnel Center, or ARPC, Guard tried to send mail to Bush at a different Houston address -- an Longmont Ave. apartment that had belonged to his father in 1968 and had been listed in his initial application as an "emergency contact" address…A May 1 letter from ARPC is sent to an address at Harvard Business School, but with the wrong zip code…Concludes Lukasiak: "This address sequence, especially the inclusion of the ”Longmont” address, can only be explained if Bush was not responding to significant communications from the Air Force, and in fact was being treated as a 'non-locatee.'"

US News and World Report (hardly a left-wing rag): Bush “failed to fulfill his duty”

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/roane040908.htm

Another interesting aspect of the story: the continual claims by the WH that they have released “everything,” only to admit later that there is more. But don’t worry, now they really have released everything (uh-huh)

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/the_bush_awol_issue_/2004/09/1lt_bush_and_his_documents.php
During the 2000 election season, the Bush campaign claimed that George W. Bush had released all of his military records. That was false. Early this year, under pressure, the White House released another batch of records, claiming that it had now released all of Mr. Bush's military records. That, too, was false. Two days ago, under lawsuit from the AP, the White House released another batch of documents, claiming once again that all documents had now been released.

Don’t think this doesn’t worry them: now they’re altering the transcript of Scotty’s press briefings to “clarify” that there is no truth to the claims

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_05.php#003458

[The doctored transcript: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040909-2.html]

[More: http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/09/details.html]

A real hero of the National Guard controversy: Paul Lukasiak’s AWOL Project, which kept digging at this issue long after the mainstream media had pronounced it a dead topic. Well, it doesn’t seem very dead right now

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/09/bush_guard_duty/index.html

[The AWOL Project: http://www.glcq.com/]

Never let it be said that Bush is ashamed of his National Guard duty: he seems to think that the Guard could have done better in Vietnam – an astonishing slur against the 58,000 who died there (the sort of frat-boy cockiness we have all come to admire so much in him)

http://secure.mediaresearch.org/news/cyberalert/1999/cyb19990706.html#1
[1988] Connie Chung: "The problem, though, would be is if, indeed, he made several phone calls or some people made phone calls on his behalf to get him into the National Guard. I mean, did that happen to you? Were you..."
George W. Bush cut her off: "No. I don’t think so. But in those days, people were going into the service all different branches. And if you want to go into the National Guard, I guess sometimes people make calls. I don’t see anything wrong with, a matter of fact I’m glad he served his country. And serving in the National Guard is serving in the military. They probably should have called the National Guard up in those days. Maybe we’d have done better in Vietnam."

On the other hand, the Bushes have been perfectly willing to attack the National Guard service of OTHERS

http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df09092004.html
The White House is currently attacking those who raise questions about President Bush's National Guard record. They say the questions about Bush's failure to fulfill his commitment are "dirty politics."1 Yet a look at the record shows that it was President George H.W. Bush - and his top campaign strategist George W. Bush - who tried to smear the National Guard and military record of their opponents…As reported in the August 23, 1988 Los Angeles Times, then Vice President George H.W. Bush's campaign co-chairman John Sununu went on national television to impugn an opponent's dealings with the National Guard during Vietnam. Sununu specifically claimed Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-TX) had improperly helped get his son into the Texas National Guard during Vietnam. Bentsen's son served in the very same National Guard unit at the very same time as George W. Bush…

Well, no good deed goes unpunished. Yesterday I apologized for misquoting Dick Cheney’s scurrilous suggestion that if Kerry won the election, a terrorist attack would be more likely. The full context of the quote seemed to suggest a slightly different meaning. Turns out today that it wasn’t a misquote at all: the Cheney people HAD SIMPLY CHANGED THE TRANSCRIPT OF WHAT CHENEY ACTUALLY SAID, THEN LIED ABOUT IT

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#003975
Here's an administration spokesman explaining to the Washington Post why they altered the verbatim transcript of Dick Cheney's loathsome remarks to the effect that electing John Kerry will encourage future terrorist attacks:

…Cheney's White House spokesman, Kevin Kellems, issued a statement saying that the first official transcript "contained a typographical error" and was an "interim draft." "These types of corrections are not uncommon in the transcription of verbal statements," Kellems said. "The final transcript accurately reflects the statement as delivered, which is clear when watching video of the event."

This seems to be the exact opposite of the truth; the original transcript had Cheney saying what everyone reported him to say. The changed transcript has been scrubbed. Kevin Kellems is lying to the Post, and he knows that the Post knows he lying. That takes a lot of guts and a total lack of shame.

Bush 101: Accuse your opponent of what you yourself are actually guilty of (Dick Cheney edition)

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8481

WH tries to get NBC not to interview Kitty Kelley on “Today” or “Hardball” (not that they’re worried or anything)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/09/test.html

Turmoil in the Bush campaign (but let’s pretend it’s something else)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004664.php
A few days ago Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt told a group of young Republicans that reporters were "the scum of the earth."…Today, Holt has a new job. The Bush campaign has given him his walking papers and kicked him sideways to a job at the RNC.

http://www.gop.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=4640
News Releases
Terry Holt to Join RNC as Senior Advisor to the Chairman
Washington, DC—Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie today announced that Bush Cheney National Spokesman Terry Holt will join the staff of the Republican National Committee as Senior Advisor to the Chairman beginning this week…“I’m excited to have Terry joining our efforts here at the RNC as we make our final push to Election Day.”

Why Bush is ducking the debate in Missouri

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#003969
The debate in question is George W. Bush's least-favorite option: town-hall format, a set-up made (literally) for Bill Clinton in 1992. The Bush camp is queasy, it seems, over the possibility that someone, or multiple people, could hammer the President on questions he either can't, or won't, answer. (The campaign claims it has nothing to do with the format; instead they say the fear is audience members will pose as undecideds, i.e., they are worried about hecklers.)

More unbelievable chutzpah: Michael Rubin (AEI) calls investigation into DoD’s neo-con cabal and charges of espionage for Israel, an “anti-Semitic campaign”

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#003982

Follow-up on a previous story: the Navy has NOT decided to reopen the question of Kerry’s war medals (at least, not yet)

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/09/navy_has_not_yet_decided_on_kerry_medal_inquiry.html

GOP Senators call for the release of 27 pages of redacted material from the Senate Intelligence Committee report on Saudi government involvement with the 9-11 attack (from Center for American Progress email – no link)

Sen. Bob Graham (D), who was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2002, has published a new book asserting that "the Bush administration and FBI blocked a congressional investigation" into the relationship between the Saudi Arabian government and the 9/11 hijackers. Graham objected to the White House's decision to classify 27 pages of a congressional report that dealt with the relationship. While the Republican National Committee and Fox News anchor Brit Hume have attacked the Florida Senator, he is not the only one who wants the 27 pages released. Top Republicans do, too. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), who was the ranking Republican on the committee, said on 7/27/03 that "I think [the 27 pages are] classified for the wrong reason…My judgment is 95 percent of that information could be declassified, become uncensored, so the American people would know." Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), who is now chairman of the committee, said on 7/27/03 that "I was upset with the process, and I was upset with the amount of material that was redacted." Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) said on 7/31/03, "I think it's in the interest of this administration to have some of this opened up."

Bush’s repeated claims to have decimated “two-thirds” (or “three fourths” or whatever) of the Al Qaeda leadership is “meaningless” because they never knew the actual size of the leadership in the first place

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000617.html

Cheney continues to lie about Iraq-Al Qaeda link

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gop10sep10.story

U.S. bombing the hell out of Fallujah, denies hitting civilians, then admits that it did

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/10/international/middleeast/10battles.html

Rumsfeld: in denial about Iraq…

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001102.html
The defense secretary…declared of the insurgency in Iraq, "They're losing."…His assessment came on a day when the military death toll in Iraq reached 1,000 Americans since the invasion in May 2003…"I feel generally quite good about how things are going there," he said. "Needless to say, you can't feel good about it when you've lost over a thousand people."…

As Tom Schaller notes today at the Gadflyer:

The daily coalition casualty rate in Iraq during 2004 thus far is MORE THAN DOUBLE the daily coalition casualty rate in Iraq during 2003.

…meanwhile, in the same interview, Rumsfeld was quite clear about his wishes concerning Iran

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/rummy_targets_iran.php
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld charged yesterday that Iran is fueling the deadly insurgency in Iraq with money and fighters.

But…Mr. Rumsfeld acknowledged that the United States has limited options because other nations are "not willing" to join in pressuring Iran, which has shown behavior that Mr. Rumsfeld said is "not part of the civilized world."…Asked for details yesterday on Iranian meddling, Mr. Rumsfeld said, "They have put people in there. They have put money in there…"By 'they,' I'm not going to say which element of the government or whether it's even known to the government. But money has come in from Iran. People have come in from Iran. And it's a very difficult thing to stop," he said. "Iran is a country that is not part of the civilized world in terms of its behavior."

Asked whether Iran is funding Sheik al-Sadr, Mr. Rumsfeld said, "There's a lot of speculation to that effect."

[This misses the crucial part of the story, though: after the misadventure in Iraq and the Bush Co. habit of sticking their thumb in the eye of every ally who didn’t see things exactly their way, now that a new crisis has emerged they can’t get other countries to help them – even against a known bad-actor like Iran.]

More on the mismanagement of Iraq

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#003977
The Bush administration's recruitment of staff for the CPA is one of the great scandals of the American occupation, although it has so far received little attention from the press. Republican political connections counted for far more than professional competence, relevant international experience, or knowledge of Iraq. In May, The Washington Post ran an account of three young people recruited for service in the CPA by e-mail, without interviews, security clearances, or relevant experience. They ended up responsible for spending Iraq's budget; because they knew little about the country or about financial procedures, they did so slowly. The failure to spend money was of course the source of enormous frustration to jobless Iraqis and undoubtedly produced recruits for the insurgency. According to the Post, the threesome, who included the daughter of a prominent conservative activist, had never applied to go to Iraq and could not figure out how they were selected. Finally they realized that the one thing they had in common was that they had applied for jobs at the conservative Heritage Foundation, which had kept their resumes on file.

In some cases, the quest for political loyalists meant dismissing qualified professionals who had already been recruited. In the June 20 Chicago Tribune, the reporter Andy Zajac described how, in April of 2003, the Bush administration replaced the chief CPA health official, Dr. Frederick Burkle, a medical doctor with close working relationships with humanitarian organizations and long experience in conflict zones, with James Haveman, a political crony of Michigan's Republican former governor. Unlike Dr. Burkle, who for months had been planning the restoration of Iraq's health care system and who was ready to put a program in action as soon as Baghdad fell, Haveman did not arrive in Iraq until June 7, 2003. Although he had never worked in a post-conflict environment, Haveman strongly denied that he lacked international experience, apparently considering his travel to twenty-six foreign countries (as he told the Chicago Tribune) a relevant qualification.

The privatizing of Iraq's economy was handled at first by Thomas Foley, a top Bush fund-raiser, and then by Michael Fleisher, brother of President Bush's first press secretary. After explaining that he had got the job in Iraq through his brother Ari, he told the Chicago Tribune—without any apparent sense of irony—that the Americans were going to teach the Iraqis a new way of doing business. "The only paradigm they know is cronyism."

Still more trouble in Iraq: Kurds getting restive again

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#003983

Waking up to what everyone else knew months ago, Bush Co. finally condemns “genocide” in Sudan

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8364-2004Sep9.html

“What we are seeing is a disaster, a catastrophe,” but…

http://slate.msn.com/id/2106511/fr/rss/
As Powell put it, "No new action is dictated by this determination."

Bonus item: The debate over whether the Killian letters were forgeries

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/the_bush_awol_issue_/2004/09/forgery.php
Yes, it's possible…

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_05.php#003461
The White House is keeping mum but also, needless to say, happy to encourage and/or observe the feeding frenzy of questions about the authenticity of the documents…It is of course worth noting that the White House is the only player here with ready access to the president. If they had some confidence that the underlying claims contained in the documents were not valid, then presumably they would have more confidence in doubting the documents' authenticity.

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/09/forged.html
It seems to me, though, that the White House isn't disputing the authenticity of the documents. Indeed, Dan Bartlett engaged in a rather long discussion of them that was obviously premised on the notion that they are authentic. It's possible, of course, that the White House itself has been somehow blindsided by this and taken in by forgeries contrary to interest.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004668.php
The Washington Post reports that a "senior CBS official" named one of their sources as Killian's immediate superior, retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges. (I was told the same thing by my source.) The memos were read to Hodges over the phone and he confirmed that "these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time." And: "The senior CBS official said the network had talked to four typewriting and handwriting experts 'who put our concerns to rest' and confirmed the authenticity of Killian's signature."

However, CBS refused to say who their experts were, and Killian's widow scoffed at their story:

"I don't think there were any documents. He was not a paper person," she said, adding that she was "livid" at CBS. A CBS reporter contacted her briefly before Wednesday night's broadcasts, she said, but did not ask her to authenticate the records.

In other words, things are still up in the air. At this point, there are enough legitimate questions about these memos that I really think CBS is going to have to provide additional information if they want them to be taken seriously.

[It is going to be a damn shame if they do turn out to be forgeries, because they will discredit all further investigation into this issue…huh…hmmm…enough to make you wonder, isn’t it?

But ALL OF THIS MISSES THE POINT. The point is that Bush has never been questioned sufficiently about these matters, and those who have spoken on his behalf have thrown up ridiculous, implausible, and mutually contradictory explanations of the matter. Throw all the Killian documents aside and simply ask Bush: Why did you ignore a direct order to take a physical? Were you using cocaine during this period and were you arrested for drugs? Why else would you be performing community service in Houston? Will you authorize the Pentagon to release every scrap of paper they have pertaining to this issue?]

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:24 AM

 
BOO-YAH!

Yesterday: a day of really, really bad news for Bush

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5214-2004Sep8.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing

[Read on: today’s news is worse]

Before the 60 Minutes report: Kristof jumps in

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/08/opinion/08kristof.html?hp
I've steered clear until now of how Mr. Bush evaded service in Vietnam because I thought other issues were more important. But if Bush supporters attack John Kerry for his conduct after he volunteered for dangerous duty in Vietnam, it's only fair to scrutinize Mr. Bush's behavior.

It's not a pretty sight. Mr. Bush was saved from active duty, and perhaps Vietnam, only after the speaker of the Texas House intervened for him because of his family's influence.

Mr. Bush signed up in May 1968 for a six-year commitment, justifying the $1 million investment in training him as a pilot. But after less than two years, Mr. Bush abruptly stopped flying, didn't show up for his physical and asked to transfer to Alabama. He never again flew a military plane…

The sheer volume of missing documents, and missing recollections, strongly suggests to me that Mr. Bush blew off his Guard obligations. It's not fair to say Mr. Bush deserted. My sense is that he (like some others at the time) neglected his National Guard obligations, did the bare minimum to avoid serious trouble and was finally let off by commanders who considered him a headache but felt it wasn't worth the hassle to punish him.

"The record clearly and convincingly proves he did not fulfill the obligations he incurred when he enlisted in the Air National Guard," writes Gerald Lechliter, a retired Army colonel who has made the most meticulous examination I've seen of Mr. Bush's records (I've posted the full 32-page analysis here). Mr. Lechliter adds that Mr. Bush received unauthorized or fraudulent payments that breached National Guard rules, according to the documents that the White House itself released.

Then 60 Minutes breaks new info on Bush’s misperformance of National Guard duty. The key new disclosures: documents from Bush’s TANG squadron commander, showing (1) clear pressure from above to “sugar coat” his performance ratings of Bush, (2) that Bush wanted to “get out” of his obligations so he could go work on the election campaign in Alabama, and (3) that Bush was grounded NOT ONLY for failing to respond to a direct order to take a physical (which has never been adequately explained), but ALSO because his performance was “not up to military standards”

Bush keeps pointing to his “honorable discharge” as evidence that he fulfilled his duties adequately, but this was undoubtedly also the result of pressure from on high

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/08/cbsnews/index.html
On August 1, 1972, Col. Killian grounded Bush for failure to perform up to military standards and for failure to take his annual physical examination as ordered. A year after grounding Bush, Killian was asked to write another assessment of the young pilot. In this memo, an obviously exasperated Killian observes that he is being pressured by higher-ups to give Bush a positive evaluation, “to in effect, sugarcoat his review,” reported CBS. But Killian refused, writing, “I’m having trouble running interference and doing my job.”

[The memo continues…"The officer [then-Lt. Bush] has made no attempt to meet his training certification or flight physical."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/08/60II/main641984.shtml]

[On the refusal to take that physical:
http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_09_09_bestof.html#109470318472185971
This was around 1971, which you may recall from other reports, is about the time Junior Bush's drinking and coking were at their peak, so his reluctance to take a physical that included mandatory drug testing is hardly surprising.]

[On Alabama:
http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/_/2004/09/the_missing_performance_review.php
Now we see why 1LT Bush's performance review from 1973 records "unable to rate." The outfit he'd supposedly been reporting to in Alabama wouldn't say anything to the commander of his home unit in Texas, and that commander, standing up to pressure from his superiors, refused to (his words) "sugar-coat" matters. So he simply refused to rate…This is very strong evidence that Bush didn't actually report for duty in Alabama; otherwise, why wouldn't his superiors there fill out the paperwork to allow him to get a satisfactory Officer Efficiency Report?]

[The 60 Minutes transcript: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_05.php#003452]

Small lies

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_05.php#003450

Big lies

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/9/15832/63371

Kevin Drum sums it all up

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004656.php
This story is a perfect demonstration of the difference between the Swift Boat controversy and the National Guard controversy. Both are tales from long ago and both are related to Vietnam, but the documentary evidence in the two cases is like night and day. In the Swift Boat case, practically every new piece of documentary evidence indicates that Kerry's accusers are lying. Conversely, in the National Guard case, practically every new piece of documentary evidence provides additional confirmation that the charges against Bush are true.

In fact, these four memos are pretty close to a smoking gun, since it's now clear that (a) Bush was directly ordered to take a physical in 1972 and refused, and (b) he plainly failed to perform up to National Guard standards, but that (c) he was nonetheless saved from a failing evaluation thanks to high-level pressure.

So why did Bush refuse to take a physical that year? And why did he blow off drills for at least the next five months and possibly for a lot longer than that?

And finally, why did he get an honorable discharge anyway?

[The four memos, in full: http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004-2_archives/000145.html]

Something else these memos prove: the WH DOES HAVE MORE DOCUMENTS pertinent to the investigation that it hasn’t released, long after claiming to have released “everything”

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004658.php

WH apparently steeling itself to deny further FOIA requests (now that the AP has the precise list of five missing documents to go after)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004654.php
ABC's The Note has a cryptic reference today to "a strange transfer of FOIA authority to the White House."

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/the_bush_awol_issue_/2004/09/1lt_bush_and_his_documents.php
Yesterday, for reasons not publicly explained, the White House centralized authority over all responses to requests for Mr. Bush's military records. This seemed strange if all the records had already been released…The coverage in tomorrow's papers is pretty extensive, but the Post, the NY Times, and the AP stories all have one thing in common: they don't mention that disobeying a direct order is crime, and they don't recite the history of the cover-up.

[Just to repeat the point, the Bush folks are between a rock and a hard place, and another hard place. If they release any of these documents, they’re screwed. If they have them and say they don’t, that will come out. If they really don’t have them, the focus will shift to “who destroyed them, and when”?]

The Kitty Kelley book: revelations you haven’t heard yet!

http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/003137.html
Everybody is talking about Kitty Kelley's new book "The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty". The scandal-hungry press is already salivating over rumors that the book will reveal George W. Bush's use of cocaine through the 1980's, the true story of his time in the National Guard, and the shocking details of the illegal abortion he procured for an ex-girlfriend. But the press doesn't know the half of it! I have obtained an advance copy of the book, and will now share the even more shocking revelations contained within!

1. Iraq didn't have any WMD, or any significant ties to al Qaeda! The war has cost over $200 billion dollars, and Iraq's oil wealth has not paid for reconstruction! Also, Iraqis have not welcomed coalition troops with flowers and candy, and over 1,000 American troops have died, the country's falling apart in ethnic and nationalist violence, and the best excuse for this clusterf**k anyone can offer is some happy talk about painting schools and turning metaphorical corners!

2. George W. Bush is not a West Texas rancher whose simple heartland values and quiet inner strength have guided his climb to political and financial success! Actually, he was born into a wealthy Eastern establishment family, his grandfather was a US Congressman, and his father was a US Congressman, Director of the CIA, and Vice-President and President of the United States! George W. Bush went to Harvard and Yale, where he didn't work very hard; he was a spoiled rich wastrel until at least his 40th birthday; he summers in toney Kennebunkport, Maine; he has relied on his family's wealth and influence to get everything he got in life; and his Southern accent is totally phony!

3. The economy is not strong, and it's not getting stronger! In less than four years, George W. Bush has lost 2 million jobs, taken the United States from record budget surplus to record deficit, saddled the American taxpayer with hundreds of billions of dollars worth of federal boondoggles, and transferred the tax burden of the ultra rich to the poor and middle class! Indeed, his former chief economic advisor, Paul O'Neill, wrote a book which charged the President neither understood nor cared to understand anything about economics!

4. The reputation of the United States has been demolished over the last four years! We have alienated allies, embarrassed ourselves in front of the UN, and undermined the struggle for human rights around the world by holding secret prisoners, sending innocent people abroad to be tortured, and torturing prisoners to death in Iraq and Afghanistan!

5. George W. Bush is an idiot! Really! He can't form a coherent sentence, he shows no aptitude for or interest in any intellectual pursuit, and he routinely embarrasses himself and the country with his shocking displays of ignorance! He falls down constantly, and he almost died eating a pretzel!

6. George W. Bush is a horrible President! When given a daily briefing entitled "Bin Laden determined to attack in the United States", he took no action, went on vacation, and a few weeks later 3,000 people were dead! Then he failed to get the guy behind the attacks because he had to invade another country which had nothing to do with anything! Now, North Korea and Iran are well on their way to developing nuclear weapons, view us as an immediate threat to their survival, and we lack the diplomatic clout or ability to organize the world against them! Meanwhile, Bush's major concerns are gay people getting married, putting a man on Mars so we can say we did, and getting steroids out of sports! America is weaker, poorer, less safe, less respected, and less sane than it was before George W. Bush became President, it's pretty much all his fault, and he just isn't interested!

There's much, much more, but I think this should serve to whet your appetite. I, for one, can't wait to see the outcry in the media and the public when these shocking secrets are finally revealed. The outrage will be unbelievable!

Eric Alterman agrees with Dick Cheney

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/
They hit us once, in part, because our current leadership was asleep at the switch (and is covering it up). Now an apparently desperate, flailing Dick Cheney says,

It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice. Because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we’ll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States.

He’s right of course. There’s no question that Osama bin Laden would prefer a Bush victory to a Kerry victory. The man may be evil but he’s not crazy. Would Kerry have let him get away at Tora Bora? Would Kerry have launched an anti-American terrorist recruitment drive in Iraq? Would Kerry have alienated the entire world from the fight against Al Qaida and made bin Laden a more poplar figure in the Arab world than the president of the United States? (Saddam Hussein, too, by the way.) And would Kerry have starved homeland security to fight a counterproductive war, thereby ensuring the effectiveness of the next attack? But what I don’t understand is, why is Cheney admitting all this? Maybe I didn’t read the article as carefully as I should have but I’m sure the answer is in there somewhere.

In the interests of truth: apparently, given the full quote, Cheney’s comment wasn’t quite as outrageous as it appeared

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/09/the_law_enforce.html

Everyone's running with this:

Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States.

When what Cheney said was this:

Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind set if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war. I think that would be a terrible mistake for us.

Given the full quote it appears Cheney was saying that the risk of a Kerry win isn't that it would lead to a terrorist attack, but that if there was a terrorist attack, a president Kerry would treat it as a law enforcement matter…That's a less nasty charge but, if anything, it's a falser one.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies does a comprehensive review of US reconstruction efforts in Iraq: the conclusion?

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/09/csis_says_were_.html
The good news is that we've painted a lot of new schools since the summer of 2003. The bad news is that according to every single indicator CSIS used, things are getting worse in Iraq.

I think this is a massive outrage. More on the plans for a major offensive in Iraq, AFTER the U.S. elections. Supposedly the idea is to pave the way for elections there in January – which no one thinks is really possible, especially if they stall two more months before getting started. But never let it be said that this administration would put the well-being of Iraqis ahead of their own electoral prospects

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#003965
Michael Young gets in some good licks on the military's strange contention that they can retake four major cities in central Iraq between the U.S. elections in November and the Iraqi elections scheduled for January. The reality, though, is worse than Young thinks. For one thing, the Iraqi Election Commission, their UN advisers, and the NGO folks who are advising them simply can't do all the work they need to do in a week or two. They ought to be laying the groundwork for voting right now. But they aren't.

For another thing, realistically speaking, the insurgent forces who control these cities have broad support among the civilian population. Perhaps not majority support, but maybe even that. Either way, our adversaries will be more popular among the local than were the guys we fought in Najaf. Not only that, they'll be better trained: Some veterans of the old Iraqi Army and some international jihadists are in the mix there; it's not just a rag-tag bunch of out-of-town street kids. Under the circumstances, the military can beat the opposition, but we'd have to level the cities in the course of doing so. (As it is, we bomb them pretty regularly.) There's a logic to that, but it's not going to be very conducive to turning around and holding elections a week later.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2106454/fr/rss/
The Journal looks at the debate within the administration and Pentagon about how and when to try to regain control of the rebel-controlled cities. The Journal says everybody "acknowledges any offensive needs to start soon to ensure it can conclude well before the Iraqi national elections scheduled for January." But that doesn't mean it's going to happen: "U.S. officials also privately acknowledge that the White House is concerned about the political impact" of heavy fighting in the run-up to the presidential election. For now, the administration has "settled on the slower approach." The Journal says the decision is "deeply unpopular among many military commanders."

The WSJ hides the above on A15. Yesterday's NYT hinted at the delay, and…an editorial in today's Post slams it:

"The planned political transition, on which the chances for progress in Iraq depend, may well collapse if January's elections are derailed or discredited—and elections cannot be held in the principal towns of western Iraq as they now stand. Even worse is the prospect of a terrorist organization conceded a haven in a country that the United States invaded to preempt just such a threat. The administration was wrong to allow that enemy base; it can ill afford to grant it three more months of grace."

Bush tries it have it both ways on assault weapons ban

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/09/politics/09ban.html?ex=1252382400&en=b45efbf2df080474&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland

[What a legacy: fewer jobs, but more guns in people’s hands. Well, that makes some sort of sense, I guess]

Franklin to testify before a Grand Jury

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001101.html

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/344aa23c-0103-11d9-9d96-00000e2511c8.html
An FBI investigation into suspected security breaches involving Pentagon officials and Israel is unlikely to result in prosecution of senior figures following pressure from the White House, according to people familiar with the case…Sources familiar with the investigation said the White House and John Ashcroft, the US attorney-general, had intervened to apply the brakes. “The White House is leaning on the FBI. Some people in the FBI are very upset, they think Ashcroft is playing politics with this,” a former intelligence official said…Paul McNulty, the Virginia district attorney in charge of the probe, had been told to slow down, the sources said. Asked for comment, Mr McNulty's office would only say that the investigation was continuing.

Bonus item: Our first link ever to Rolling Stone: “The Curse of Dick Cheney”

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story?id=6450422&rnd=1094657918671&rnd=1094661464223&has-player=false


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:24 AM

 
HUBRIS

Why we can’t let these people win

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20040907_956.html
Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday warned Americans about voting for Democratic Sen. John Kerry, saying that if the nation makes the wrong choice on Election Day it faces the threat of another terrorist attack…"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States"…

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#003953
This is the campaign that they are running. It isn’t subtle, and it isn’t pretty, but it is plenty powerful. It is meant, at least in part, to be a show, a demonstration of power and audacity on the part of the incumbent and his campaign operation -- a veritable spectacular of smears, fear-mongering, and ferocious, unbridled attacks.

[Of course, this all raises the question of what they will say now if a terrorist attack occurs on THEIR watch…]

Keeping us safe: a review of the 9-11 Commission report

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17390
[Elizabeth Drew] In fact, the commission gives a devastating picture of the chaos within the Bush administration on the morning of the attacks, when the President famously remained in the Florida classroom for some five to seven minutes (according to the report) after learning of the second attack on the World Trade Center. But this is just one of several examples that morning of questionable judgment on the part of the President, as well as of the officials traveling with him, including his chief of staff, Andrew Card, and his political mentor, Karl Rove. Bush told the commission that he attributed the first crash, which he learned of before he entered the school classroom, to "pilot error," but this seems strange, since it is unlikely that a pilot would accidentally stray into a very tall, prominent building in a highly controlled air space on a clear autumn day. Subtly but damningly, the report makes it clear that after Bush left the classroom, "the focus was on the President's statement to the nation"—his "message"—rather than on taking charge of the nation's response to the attacks

The President didn't convene a meeting of his National Security Council until after all of the planes had crashed. And though the chain of command for military actions runs from the president to the secretary of defense, Bush didn't call Rumsfeld for nearly an hour after the second tower was hit, though more than a half-hour lapsed between the crash into the second tower in New York and the attack on the Pentagon. Moreover, despite the established chain of command, Bush in that call didn't discuss with Rumsfeld the authorization to shoot down planes. Astonishingly, according to information the commission received between the writing of the staff reports and the final report, the secretary of defense, upon learning of the two attacks in New York, simply returned to the work he had already been doing in his Pentagon office.

The White House, I was told, pressed for two things about these hours to be included in the final report. First, it wanted the commission to publish Bush's statement, as it did, that he remained in the classroom because he "felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening"—though the fact that a calamity had taken place wasn't exactly a secret. Second, the White House wanted the report to include Libby's description of Cheney's very quick decision—"in about the time it takes a batter to decide to swing"—that United Flight 93, which was believed to be headed toward Washington, should be shot down. Some commissioners found this description hardly flattering, but at the Republicans' insistence it remained in the final report.

1000, and counting…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2721-2004Sep7.html
The number of soldiers and Pentagon civilians who have died in Iraq topped the 1,000 mark yesterday, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld declared that the insurgency is likely to turn even more violent in coming months as the fledgling nation heads toward democratic elections.

US concedes that rebels now control much of Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/08/politics/08policy.html?ex=1252382400&

General Metz suggests that only three big cities really need to be included in upcoming elections (Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul)

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/09/06/violent_cities_could_be_omitted_general_says/

Iraq could end up in civil war

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=6145759

Even Bush’s modest promise to cut the deficit in half is unattainable, says CBO

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/07/national/07CND-DEFI.html?ex=1252296000&en=7d593fd1a2d739ce&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
President Bush is very unlikely to fulfill his promise of reducing the federal budget deficit by half within five years, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said today…In the last independent assessment of Mr. Bush's fiscal legacy before the elections, the Congressional agency said that if there were no change to existing law, the federal deficit would decline only modestly from a record of $422 billion in 2004 to about $312 billion in 2009…If Mr. Bush persuades Congress to make his tax cuts permanent, he will fall even farther short of his promise. The federal deficit could reach nearly $500 billion in 2009 and the federal debt could swell by $4.8 trillion over the next decade.

Bush’s new line: biggest deficit in history is “good news” because it is slightly less than their earlier horrific estimate

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Budget-Deficit.html?ex=1252296000&en=114536af222c5b66&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
The federal deficit will swell to a record $422 billion this election year but fall short of even more dire forecasts, Congress' top budget analysts projected Tuesday in a report that became instant fodder for both political parties.

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004-2_archives/000135.html
Halving the deficit in 5 years was a miserable, puny, girlie-man goal. Yet the Bush administration can't even meet this goal, according to the CBO's projections.

The worst part, however, is that the CBO's projections of the deficit are certainly far too low. The CBO estimate assumes:

• the tax cuts set to expire in 2005 are not renewed and do actually expire.
• there is no additional spending in Iraq or Afghanistan after 2005.
• The AMT is not reformed in any way, so that tens of millions of households must pay it by the end of the decade.

A more realistic estimate should add $100 to $200 bn to the budget deficit every year from now into the future.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/07/deficit/index.html
The Bush White House has long exhibited a penchant for Orwellian rhetoric, but its perversely cheerful reaction to recent gloomy economic news is remarkable even by its own standards. Last week, when the Labor Department reported that only 144,000 jobs were created in August -- far fewer than the 300,000 that the White House had earlier predicted -- administration officials appeared quite pleased by the news, concluding from the number that the economy is now moving "in the right direction." And they were happy once again today, when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office announced that the 2004 federal budget will hit a record $422 billion in deficits. Because the CBO's estimate is $56 billion lower than the prediction the agency made in March, a Bush campaign spokesman told reporters that the new data is "a sign of the economic growth that is a result of President Bush's leadership on tax relief."

Saying what everyone already knows: Bush will propose regressive change to flat tax system in second term

http://www.democrats.org/news/200408050009.html
"A flat-tax would do nothing but flatten the middle class. If the President is considering restructuring the tax code to benefit his wealthy friends, then he should be upfront with the American people right now. If this is the agenda he has waiting for us in a second term, I'm pretty sure we don't want to turn that corner."

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Check.asp?idArticle=4583&r=oimmh
OF ALL THE policy recommendations in the president's acceptance speech last week, none got more applause than his promise to revamp our antiquated and antigrowth IRS tax code. But even a mild cynic has to wonder whether this call for a "simpler, fairer, pro-growth tax code" was just a flirtation with voters. After all, every president since Jimmy Carter, who once called the American income tax system "a disgrace to the human race," has promised tax reform…There are signs that tax reform isn't just a passing fancy for Bush, however. He's clearly intrigued with the possibilities of making history here.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#003947
The Washington Post's venerable Mike Allen got into the game on the flat tax question on Sunday and found that, sure enough, the Bush Treasury Department is considering such a step -- details TBD after the election. It's impossible to overstate what a radical overhaul of the tax system such a thing would represent…The Post's Jonathan Weisman, who is writing some of the most important substantive stories about the campaigns you'll find anywhere, has a new piece up on the Web about the how Bush's new tax proposal will impact the already gigantic budget deficit. Even without a formal flat tax, Bush's proposed tax reforms are likely to drive the deficit to astonishing -- and unsustainable -- new levels

GAO (along with CBO) says crooked Medicare chief should repay part of his salary: HHS says “go shove it”

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/health/AP-Medicare-Costs.html?ex=1252296000&
The former Medicare administrator should repay his government salary because of his efforts to keep higher estimates of the cost of a prescription drug plan from Congress last year, congressional investigators said Tuesday…The recommendation from the Government Accountability Office reignited the controversy over passage of the Medicare overhaul and questions about whether the Bush administration intentionally concealed its own estimates of the cost -- $100 billion more than the $400 billion it acknowledged -- to win support from conservative Republicans.

The release of the report follows last week's announcement that Medicare premiums for non-hospital care will rise a record $11.60 a month next year, which administration officials said was partly attributable to provisions of the new law…

The Associated Press reported last year that Thomas Scully, the Medicare chief until December, threatened to fire chief Medicare actuary Richard Foster to prevent him from giving the information to lawmakers…Federal law prohibits a federal agency from paying the salary of an official who prevents another federal employee from communicating with Congress, GAO said.

``Because HHS was prohibited from paying Mr. Scully's salary after he barred Mr. Foster from communicating with Congress, HHS should consider such payments improper,'' GAO general counsel Anthony Gamboa wrote in a report to Democratic senators who requested it. ``Therefore, we recommend that HHS seek to recover these payments.''…

An earlier report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service also concluded that the administration was wrong to keep the information from Congress.

Scully, who now works for a law firm and investment bank, said GAO never interviewed him. Asked whether he would return any of his salary, Scully said, ``I'm not sure that's relevant. It's not up to GAO anyway.''…Pierce said HHS will not ask Scully to return his salary. ``We fundamentally disagree'' with GAO, he said…In a July report, the administration argued that no laws were broken. Scully ``has the final authority to determine the flow of information to Congress,'' the HHS inspector general's office said.

The administration has adamantly refused to release Foster's estimates, even since the law's enactment in December. House Democrats have sued for the documents in federal court. The Associated Press, which sought the same materials under the Freedom of Information Act, received 13 pages that had previously been made public…The administration withheld another 150 pages that HHS acknowledged are responsive to the AP's request.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#003954
What's more interesting than Scully's salary (I'm not exactly holding my breath until it's repaid) is the Bush administration's continuing war against the GAO…This administration is dedicated to the idea that congressional statutes intended to shine certain light on the workings of the executive branch are unconstitutional.

DON’T MISS the Barnes interview, Wednesday on 60 Minutes

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_05.php#003439
I'm told by several sources that the Barnes' interview is only a relatively small part of the package 60 Minutes is running. There's other stuff that CBS has -- newly discovered, or at least newly-revealed, documents that shed light on Bush's guard service or lack thereof.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_05.php#003443
The big news won't be how Bush got into the Guard but how he blew off his duties once he got there. Again, new documents -- stuff that is clear and straightforward and apparently puts beyond any debate or doubt that the now-President blew off the duties that he said, as recently as this year, that he fulfilled.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/bush/articles/2004/09/08/bush_fell_short_on_duty_at_guard/
But Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation, a Globe reexamination of the records shows: Twice during his Guard service -- first when he joined in May 1968, and again before he transferred out of his unit in mid-1973 to attend Harvard Business School -- Bush signed documents pledging to meet training commitments or face a punitive call-up to active duty…He didn't meet the commitments, or face the punishment, the records show. The 1973 document has been overlooked in news media accounts. The 1968 document has received scant notice…

Even retired Lieutenant Colonel Albert C. Lloyd Jr., a former Texas Air National Guard personnel chief who vouched for Bush at the White House's request in February, agreed that Bush walked away from his obligation to join a reserve unit in the Boston area when he moved to Cambridge in September 1973. By not joining a unit in Massachusetts, Lloyd said in an interview last month, Bush ''took a chance that he could be called up for active duty. But the war was winding down, and he probably knew that the Air Force was not enforcing the penalty."…But Lloyd said that singling out Bush for criticism is unfair. ''There were hundreds of guys like him who did the same thing," he said.

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007814.html
Additional National Guard Records of President Bush were revealed today as a result of the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit requesting same. They show a mediocre performance by Bush, but more significantly:

A six-month historical record of his 147th Fighter Interceptor Group, also turned over to the AP on Tuesday, shows some of the training Bush missed with his colleagues during that time. Significantly, it showed the unit joined a "24-hour active alert mission to safeguard against surprise attack" in the southern United State beginning on Oct. 6, 1972, a time when Bush did not report for duty, according to his pay records.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/09/07/texans_truth/index.html
"That was my unit. And I don't remember seeing you there," Lt. Colonel Robert Mintz (Ret.), who served in the 187th Tactical Squadron of the Alabama Air National Guard, says of Bush in the new 30-second spot titled "AWOL." Others who served in the 187th didn't recall Bush showing up to serve either, adds Mintz, noting that "it would be impossible to be unseen in a unit of that size."

Mintz, along with fellow Guardsmen and Gulf War veteran Paul Bishop, has spoken out before…According to the Flyer, Mintz was at one time a registered Republican, but in recent years cast votes in presidential elections for independent candidate Ross Perot and Democrat Al Gore. Bishop, who voted for Bush in 2000, told the Flyer in February that he "never saw hide nor hair of Mr. Bush" in Alabama in 1972.

"I think a commander-in-chief who sends his men off to war ought to be a veteran who has seen the sting of battle," Bishop said. "It bothered me that he wouldn't 'fess up and say, Okay, guys, I cut out when the rest of you did your time. He shouldn’t have tried to dance around the subject. I take great exception to that. I spent 39 years defending my country."

[More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/08/opinion/08kristof.html]

Bad news from Iraq? National Guard? Deficit? (etc) Must be time for a Tom Ridge terror alert

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_05.php#003440

Bush’s liaison with the Christian Right

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5915584/site/newsweek/
Goeglein, on the other hand, really is seen as one of the family by many of the faithful. At the Advent Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zionsville, Ind., where he spoke recently, he told the crowd how he begins each day with prayer and Bible study, and makes a point of nodding in silent thanks to those buried at Arlington National Cemetery as he drives by every morning on his way to work. He told how his faith and family come before any fancy job—even though he still can't quite believe the blessing of his work for such a president: "This president would be only half understood if he were not seen as a man of faith," Goeglein told the group. "It's amazing—and I do mean amazing—what God has wrought in George W. Bush." The questions that followed showed not only full support but even a certain protectiveness toward Bush: How does he feel about the unfair way he is covered in the liberal media? And how does he encourage the prayer lives of his staff? One woman said that on 9/11, she got down on her knees and thanked God there was a "good Christian" in the White House. Afterward, several people in the crowd agreed that Goeglein had struck them as someone with a lot in common with the president—and, for that matter, with them: "It's nice to know," one church member said, that there's someone in the White House like us."

Catholic church now says (reluctantly) that believers CAN vote for pro-choice candidates – gee, and after Bush Co. worked so hard to get them to say otherwise

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3534-2004Sep7.html?nav=rss_nation

Bush to drop out of one debate (the one hosted by a university, of course)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3586-2004Sep7.html

Log Cabin Republicans vote overwhelmingly not to endorse Bush

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/08/politics/campaign/08repubs.html

Assault rifle ban to lapse – Bush: “ho-hum”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3707-2004Sep7.html?nav=rss_nation

AIPAC says that investigation into Franklin espionage threatens US-Israel ties

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3677-2004Sep7.html?nav=rss_nation

[Now, THAT’S chutzpah]

Letter from Jimmy Carter to Zell Miller

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_05.php#003438
You seem to have forgotten that loyal Democrats elected you as mayor and as state senator. Loyal Democrats, including members of my family and me, elected you as lieutenant governor and as governor. It was a loyal Democrat, Lester Maddox, who assigned you to high positions in the state government when you were out of office. It was a loyal Democrat, Roy Barnes, who appointed you as U.S. Senator when you were out of office. By your historically unprecedented disloyalty, you have betrayed our trust…Everyone knows that you were chosen to speak at the Republican Convention because of your being a “Democrat,” and it’s quite possible that your rabid and mean-spirited speech damaged our party and paid the Republicans some transient dividends.

Perhaps more troublesome of all is seeing you adopt an established and very effective Republican campaign technique of destroying the character of opponents by wild and false allegations. The Bush campaign’s personal attacks on the character of John McCain in South Carolina in 2000 was a vivid example. The claim that war hero Max Cleland was a disloyal American and an ally of Osama bin Laden should have given you pause, but you have joined in this ploy by your bizarre claims that another war hero, John Kerry, would not defend the security of our nation except with spitballs. (This is the same man whom you described previously as “one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders -- and a good friend.")…

Zell, I have known you for forty-two years and have, in the past, respected you as a trustworthy political leader and a personal friend. But now, there are many of us loyal Democrats who feel uncomfortable in seeing that you have chosen the rich over the poor, unilateral preemptive war over a strong nation united with others for peace, lies and obfuscation over the truth, and the political technique of personal character assassination as a way to win elections or to garner a few moments of applause. These are not the characteristics of great Democrats whose legacy you and I have inherited.

Bonus item: Thank you, Mathew!

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000610.html
How to start your day with a positive attitude

1.) Create a "new folder" on your computer.

2.) Name it "George W. Bush"

3.) Send it to the trash

4.) Empty the trash

5.) Your computer will ask you: "Do you really want to get rid of George W. Bush?"

6.) Answer -- calmly -- "yes" and press the mouse button firmly.

Enjoy your day!!
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:27 AM

 
BEHIND THE VEIL

Truth and lies about Iraq

Bush plans major offensive…AFTER the election

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.battles06sep06,1,6337761.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines
A U.S. assault on one or more of Iraq's three main "no-go" areas - including Fallujah - is likely in the next four months as the Iraqi government prepares to expand its control before elections scheduled for January, the U.S. land forces commander said yesterday…The announcement by Army Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz came after a month in which attacks on U.S. forces averaged 87 a day - the highest level since President Bush declared an end to major combat May 1 last year.

Pilot who flew Bush onto aircraft carrier a casualty in Iraq (hey, when you get up over a thousand, it’s hard to keep them all straight)

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=12857435&BRD=1078&PAG=461&dept_id=151026&rfi=6

Graham book documents how planning and resource shifting started well before the public commitment to go to war

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.graham06sep06,1,6544679.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines
Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat, said that just months into the war in Afghanistan, Gen. Tommy Franks also told him that fighting terrorism in Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere should take priority over invading Iraq…Graham said Franks told him that he thought the United States knew less about the situation in Iraq than some European governments did, and that the Bush administration should ask them for advice.

The senator, who is retiring at year's end, said his conversation with the now-retired general came in February 2002…That month, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told a House committee that President Bush was considering "the most serious set of options one might imagine" to bring "regime change" in Iraq, including the possibility of doing it alone. At least one European leader, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, said a few days later that Bush had assured him "he harbors no attack plans."

"[Franks] laid out a very precise strategy for fighting the war on terror," Graham said…"First, we should win the war in Afghanistan. Second, move to Somalia, which as he described was almost anarchy but with a substantial number of al-Qaida cells; then to Yemen. And that we should be very careful about Iraq, because our intelligence was so weak that we didn't know what we were getting into," Graham said.

Kerry: “The wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/6/13362/92962

A new organization of Iraq and Afghan war veterans: Operation Truth

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/7/14226/83641
Operation Truth is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that seeks to educate the American public about the truth of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from the perspective of the soldiers who have experienced them first-hand.

As Bush keeps claiming that Kerry “voted for the war” (when what he did was vote to give Bush the authority to use war if all other avenues to get Saddam to disarm failed), something like this becomes imperative

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/the_war_in_iraq_/2004/09/what_kerry_should_say_about_iraq.php
Yes, I voted for the use-of-force resolution, and I'd do it again. The President of the United States said that the government of Iraq was developing biological and nuclear weapons and might attack us with them or give them to terrorists.

He asked for the authority to defend the country. I voted to give him that authority. No President should ever be left in the position of facing a serious threat and not being allowed to act on it.

As it turns out, Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and wasn't developing them. Therefore, there was no hurry about going to war.

We could have, and the President should have, waited to assemble a serious coalition, with real commitments by our allies to supply troops and money so that American soldiers and American taxpayers didn't have to bear the full brunt of the effort.

Even within the rushed war planning based on the wrong information about nuclear and biological weapons, we had plenty of time to do a real plan to win the peace, with the forces, resources, and direction necessary to overcome what was certain to be a difficult period after military victory had come, as we all knew it would. Such a plan was in fact prepared by experts on Iraq within the government, and the Bush Administration proceeded to ignore it, choosing instead to try to do the job on the cheap on the basis of a bunch of wishful thinking and reports from an exile known to be a con-man.

You can see the results in your morning newspaper. American soldiers have died for those mistakes. And the President keeps saying everything went fine.

I tell you, anyone can suffer a catastrophic defeat. It takes a real genius to manage a catastrophic victory.

I don't regret giving the President of the United States the power to defend this country. What I regret is having a President who flat-out didn't know how to do it.

Well, it's too late to change the decision. But it's not too late to change the President. To our troops in the field, and to our friends in Iraq, I say: Help is on the way.

Bush’s lies and misrepresentations about Iraq in his convention speech: chapter and verse

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/09/bush_on_iraq.html

Time magazine on further Bush war plans

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1101040913-692871,00.html
[A] leading Pentagon hawk recently hinted that the doctrine of pre-emptive war could soon apply to potential new targets. During a private Aug. 19 conference call with Capitol Hill aides from both parties, sources say, senior Pentagon policy official William Luti said there are at least five or six foreign countries with traits that "no responsible leader can allow." An outspoken proponent of the Iraq war, Luti had declared at an October 2002 conference that the U.S. has "the right to…hold accountable nations that harbor terrorists." In his recent call, Luti did not name the nations he had in mind but said they are led by dictators with weapons-of-mass-destruction programs and close ties to terrorists. His remarks suggest that the Administration is looking well beyond the current "axis of evil," which includes Iran, Iraq and North Korea; this might put countries like Syria in the spotlight. A Pentagon spokesman declined to release a transcript of the call, saying Luti was stating "well-established official policy," not advocating pre-emptive strikes…

Army to end “no-bid” contract with Halliburton (though they can re-bid for it) – talk about barn doors and runaway horses…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3633750.stm

Connecting the dots from the WH to Abu Ghraib (where’s the outrage?)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1331-2004Sep6.html
This year, when details were disclosed on the Bush administration's legal review of how the Geneva Conventions might apply to enemy combatants, White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales dismissed as "irrelevant" one of the most troubling documents to come to light. It was an August 2002 memo prepared by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that sought to explain what constituted illegal torture with regard to such prisoners under the Convention Against Torture. The memo asserted that only acts of "an extreme nature" (i.e., "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death") would constitute criminal violations under domestic and international law, and that acts that were merely cruel, inhuman or degrading might escape prosecution.

Late last month the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Detention Operations, chaired by former defense secretary James Schlesinger, released its report on allegations of prisoner abuse. The report states that an internal Defense Department working group set up in January 2003 "relied heavily on the OLC" in developing a list of 24 interrogation techniques that were subsequently approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on April 16, 2003, for use against al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. According to the Schlesinger report, these interrogation techniques later "migrated" to Iraq.

What exactly is missing from Bush’s National Guard records (could they ALL have been overlooked?)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=%2Fap%2F20040906%2Fap_on_el_pr%2Fbush_national_guard&cid=694&ncid=716
The five kinds of missing files are:

• A report from the Texas Air National Guard to Bush's local draft board certifying that Bush remained in good standing. The government has released copies of those DD Form 44 documents for Bush for 1971 and earlier years but not for 1972 or 1973. Records from Bush's draft board in Houston do not show his draft status changed after he joined the guard in 1968. The AP obtained the draft board records Aug. 27 under the Freedom of Information Act.

• Records of a required investigation into why Bush lost flight status. When Bush skipped his 1972 physical, regulations required his Texas commanders to "direct an investigation as to why the individual failed to accomplish the medical examination," according to the Air Force manual at the time. An investigative report was supposed to be forwarded "with the command recommendation" to Air Force officials "for final determination."…Bush's spokesmen have said he skipped the exam because he knew he would be doing desk duty in Alabama. But Bush was required to take the physical by the end of July 1972, more than a month before he won final approval to train in Alabama.

• A written acknowledgment from Bush that he had received the orders grounding him. His Texas commanders were ordered to have Bush sign such a document; but none has been released.

• Reports of formal counseling sessions Bush was required to have after missing more than three training sessions. Bush missed at least five months' worth of National Guard training in 1972. No documents have surfaced indicating Bush was counseled or had written authorization to skip that training or make it up later. Commanders did have broad discretion to allow guardsmen to make up for missed training sessions, said Weaver and Lawrence Korb, Pentagon personnel chief during the Reagan administration from 1981 to 1985…

• A signed statement from Bush acknowledging he could be called to active duty if he did not promptly transfer to another guard unit after leaving Texas. The statement was required as part of a Vietnam-era crackdown on no-show guardsmen. Bush was approved in September 1972 to train with the Alabama unit, more than four months after he left Texas.

There are two aspects to this story. One is, is the WH withholding materials they have? The other is, if they don’t have them, WHY AREN’T THEY THERE?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004638.php
This has been a major part of the National Guard story practically since the beginning. There are a large number of documents that should be in Bush's files that aren't, and Lt. Colonel Bill Burkett, who worked at the Austin headquarters of the Texas Air National Guard in the 1990s, has charged that Bush's files were "cleansed" by TANG officers after Bush was elected governor in 1994.

Iran-amok II: investigation narrowing in

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/politics/9595471.htm
The FBI is probing whether Pentagon officials shared secrets about Iran's weapons of mass destruction with Iraqi exiles, who then passed the intelligence back to Tehran, the New York Daily News has learned…Sources said Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi is suspected of giving Iran's mullahs secrets that were intercepted by U.S. code-breakers - a major intelligence breach…

Some of the U.S. defense officials who recently came under FBI scrutiny for possibly passing Iran intel to Chalabi or the Iraqi congress worked in an ad hoc unit run by Douglas Feith, the Pentagon's No. 3 official and policy chief…Feith himself "is certainly within the sphere of concern" but he "is not under investigation," added the government source.

Sources said a parallel FBI investigation dating to early 2001 is examining whether Israel also got Iranian WMD secrets kept at the Pentagon through the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful lobbying group. Israel and AIPAC deny the charge.

U.S. officials eyed in both national security cases are not necessarily the same people, said another government source.

"The information on Iran is the same in both matters," the second source said.

The sources cautioned against tying the two sets of inquiries, even though an overlapping spy case involves Larry Franklin, the Feith aide suspected of offering AIPAC a peak at President Bush's emerging Iran policy.

"A small universe of people had access to the Iran material," said the source.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., a confidant of Pentagon neoconservatives like Feith, on Sunday slammed FBI and CIA officials over leaks of the probe…"To have people who are supposed to be in charge of security out smearing people makes one worry about the protection of individual liberty and…individual innocence in this society…"

[More: http://www.juancole.com/2004_09_01_juancole_archive.html#109450810863249815]

And a mysteriously friendly NYT article

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/06/politics/06spy.html
So far, the Justice Department has not accused anyone of wrongdoing and no one has been arrested…"They have no case,'' said Michael Ledeen, a conservative scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a friend of Mr. Franklin. "If they have a case, why hasn't anybody been arrested or indicted?''

Analysis (also some good ancillary stuff on Richard Perle)

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000049.html
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_05.php#003435
http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_09_06_bestof.html#109452170961199744

Salem Chalabi (the nephew) sacked from job overseeing Saddam’s trial

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001098.html

Final words on the convention

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/election_2004_/2004/09/joe_klein_on_the_republican_convention.php
[Joe Klein] The Miller speech was the ugliest I've ever seen at a convention. It certainly trumped Pat Buchanan's 1992 "culture war" speech, in which the target was an abstract army of social liberals. This was a direct assault on the character and integrity of the Democratic nominee. And it followed a familiar G.O.P. attack pattern: like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Miller wasn't an official part of the Bush campaign. He claims to be a Democrat, and so, several Republicans told me, he was free to say anything he pleased…But Miller's speech wasn't the most disgraceful part of the G.O.P. show. That honor went to the Purple Heart Band-Aids ridiculing John Kerry's Vietnam wounds that were distributed by a past associate of Karl Rove's.

Fact-checking Bush’s speech (more)

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/_/2004/09/dan_froomkin_factchecks_the_bush_acceptance_speech.php
[A sample] George W. Bush, who told the conventioneers, "Anyone who wants more details on my agenda can find them online." Ever the wonks, we followed the directions to georgewbush.com, seeking the details of the crowd-pleasing promise in his speech to "lead a bipartisan effort to reform and simplify the federal tax code." Here's all we found: "President Bush will work with Congress to make the tax code simpler for taxpayers, encourage saving and investment, and improve the economy's ability to create jobs and raise wages."

It's a tiny lie, a silly little lie, but it really tells you all you need to know about the current resident at 1600 Penn. His contempt for the actual business of crafting and implementing policies is matched only by his contempt for the intelligence of the press and the voters.

Reading the polls: you can make the gap big or negligible, depending on who you include

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004641.php
[T]he latest Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll shows Bush with a 49%-48% lead over Kerry among registered voters.

And a good tip (from Michael Weissman): the Rasmussen Report

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/6/15433/61946

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/09/06/new_polls.html
“For those who need to know the answer before the explanation, the bottom line is that the President is ahead by 4 to 5 points at this time. That's a significant improvement over the past few weeks, but not a double digit lead.”

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000605.html
I think this is more than likely the highwater mark for Bush…For there are events conspiring to further dampen Bush's bounce. The horrific carbombing in Iraq, which killed 7 Marines today, is a major story in the back-to-the-grindstone news cycle. The bloody milestone of 1,000 US dead in Iraq will now almost certainly be reached this week. And this bad news comes just as John Kerry has found his voice again on the subject of the President's misguided foreign policy-- and hit upon the theme that will attract voters tired of this senseless bloodshed…But in the next four weeks, running up to the debates, e