MOVING THE GOAL POSTS

Iraq: which way is the arrow pointing?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/31/3510/0594
The U.S. military suffered at least 348 deaths in Iraq over the final four months of the year, more than in any other similar period since the invasion in March 2003.

The number of wounded surpassed 10,000, with more than a quarter injured in the last four months as direct combat, roadside bombs and suicide attacks escalated. When President Bush (news - web sites) declared May 1, 2003, that major combat operations were over, the number wounded stood at just 542.

The number of attacks on U.S. and allied troops grew from an estimated 1,400 attacks in September to 1,600 in October and 1,950 in November. A year earlier, the attacks numbered 649 in September, 896 in October and 864 in November.

The platform of the United Iraqi Alliance

http://www.juancole.com/2004/12/platform-of-united-iraqi-alliance.html
[Juan Cole] I'm not sure most Americans realize that the biggest and most important party coalition in Iraq, which will almost certainly form the next government, has explicitly stated in its platform that it wants a specific timetable announced for withdrawal of US troops from the country.

Flood victims: a lost chance to remake U.S. image with the Muslims of the South Pacific (if that was a priority, I suppose)

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/12/doesnt_the_us_w.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/30/image/index.html

But a chance to stick a thumb in the eye of the U.N. – now THAT’S a priority

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/30/lone/index.html

Could warnings have helped reduce the death toll?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/30/blame/index.html
The Washington Post reports that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, based in Vienna, surely would have picked up the earthquake "but it had no chance to alert governments in the region because its offices were closed for the holidays." In fact, the network doesn't even possess a communication system capable of channeling early warning signals to the region.

Giving Jeb a leg up for 2008?

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/009162.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37916-2004Dec30.html

Working Americans: “average” ain’t what it used to be

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37628-2004Dec30.html?nav=rss_nation

Clarence Thomas: a mistake that never stops coming back to remind us

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gifts31dec31,0,69310.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Alberto Gonzales: our next chance to make an irreparable error (and once he has the legitimacy of Justice, he’ll be tougher to block for the Supreme Court)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/30/1346/1697

On the eve of the Gonzales hearings, Bush Co. releases a new definition of “torture,” trying to undo the damage caused by AG’s earlier memos

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37687-2004Dec30.html?nav=rss_nation

On further review: those much-touted Defense Dept cuts don’t amount to much

http://slate.msn.com/id/2111611/fr/rss/

In Washington State, the election outcome is certified. Repubs still asking for a re-vote

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-washgov31dec31,1,4816627.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
Angry Republicans essentially had this response: certification, schmertification. . . Gregoire's opponent, former State Sen. Dino Rossi, vowed to continue to contest the outcome, and he and his supporters stepped up calls for an extraordinary solution: a new vote. . . The confusing and downright wacky nature of the race was highlighted Thursday when the candidates held dueling public events within a half-hour of each other. . . Rossi went first, producing parents holding a photograph of their son stationed in Fallouja, who they said received a ballot so late that he threw it out, thinking it would not be counted. Democrats disputed the assertion, but Rossi said it was evidence of an election so "muddied" and botched that a new vote was needed. . . "I wouldn't want to take office with this cloud overhead. I would want a revote," said Rossi, 45, who last month had called on Gregoire to concede when what he called the "more accurate" machine recount had put him ahead by 42 votes.

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_26.php#004313

Why the GOP won in 04 (it wasn’t because they had more money, but because they spent it smarter)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_26.php#004308

More on the “cultural values” debate (thanks to Josh Marshall for the link)

http://www.newdonkey.com/2004/12/lessons-learned-part-iii.html

Rep Harold Ford (D- TN) clarifies his stand on Social Security

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_26.php#004310

***If you enjoy PBD and support 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.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 9:45 AM

 
WHEN THE NUMBERS DON’T ADD UP

The structural deficit built into Bush’s economic plans

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000070.html

Social Security outperforms the stock market

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/12/social_security_outperforms_dow_jones_sometimes.html

AARP announces plans to oppose Bush privatization plan. This is very big news, of course. It appears that they learned from getting lied to and used on the Medicare Bill. Or, as we say down in Texas, “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on. . . don’t get fooled again”

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/politics/30retire.html?ex=1262062800&en=d7f5f4f48035df54&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

(Other major groups lining up against it too)

http://www.ourfuture.org/issues_and_campaigns/socialsecurity/dec_prconf.cfm

How current attrition rates spell doom for the Bush war effort

http://stirling-newberry.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/28/154152/18

One third of all victims of the tsunami were children (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/28/international/asia/28quake.html). So why is it that “Good Morning America” could only find a random sample of four white European children to profile? (thanks to Atrios for the link)

http://uggabugga.blogspot.com/2004/12/color-of-love-we-were-surprised-to-see.html

How to help

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/29/202425/20

And just to show that anything can be spun for partisan purposes, this conservative site claims that left blogs were more oblivious to the catastrophe than right blogs were (thanks to Crooked Timber for this link)

http://wizbangblog.com/archives/004640.php
Still I have to wonder. . . We are continually told how much more liberals care about their fellow man than conservatives, yet 60,000 people are presumed dead and many of the liberals hardly mention it. . .

A serious question: Why didn’t seismic observation posts around the Pacific do more to notify regional governments about the (inevitable) tsunamis? And where there were warnings, why weren’t they heeded?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/29/warning/index.html
As early as Saturday, instruments at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, registered signs that a "significant earthquake had occurred off the west coast of northern Sumatra," it admitted in a statement. On Tuesday, Charles McCreery, director of the center, told the Los Angeles Times, "We don't have contacts in our address book for anybody in that part of the world."

[NB: I want to know is, did they warn Diego Garcia but not other places? http://talkleft.com/new_archives/009133.html]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/
According to today’s The Asian Wall Street Journal, a seismologist in Canberra, Australia, recognized the tsunami threat, but says he was warned against sending out an alert as to the likely impact to the Indian Ocean nations, because an Australian official reminded him of ‘international diplomatic protocol.’. . . In West Sumatra, Indonesia, a local seismologist’s equipment went off so loudly Sunday morning that he thought workmen had begun repairs in an adjoining garage. He spent an hour trying to contact local authorities - and found no one in their offices. . . While Thai officials continued to insist the impact on tourism was never a factor in whether or not to issue a tsunami warning, one of the unnamed sources of the Bangkok paper disagreed. The individual, whom The Nation reported attended Sunday’s conference, was quoted as saying, "The very important factor in making the decision was that it's high (tourist) season and hotel rooms were nearly 100 percent full. If we issued a warning, which would have led to evacuation, (and if nothing happened), what would happen then?… We could go under, if (the tsunami) didn't come."

In the interests of fairness, I sniped at the Bushies yesterday for gratuitously snarking at Clinton in explaining why Bush didn’t come out sooner with expressions of sympathy and concern for the dead and missing from the tsunamis. It turns out that their snarkiness only came AFTER what they perceived as a Clinton snipe at them over not doing enough to help (this on top of the stinginess accusation had them a mite testy). Still, you know what? It did get Bush out on the podium fast enough

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/29/shaming_bush/index.html
Clinton's comments -- and the widely allegation by a U.N. official that Western countries were being "stingy" with disaster relief funds -- may have led the White House to take a more empathetic tack. At a meeting with the press, Bush announced that he'd made calls to the leaders of the worst-hit countries, and assured them that the United States' relief effort "is only the beginning of our help.". . . "This has been a terrible disaster," the President went on to say. "I mean, it's just beyond our comprehension to think about how many lives have been lost. I know that our fellow citizens are particularly troubled to learn that many of the deaths were young children, and we grieve for their families, their moms and dads who are just, you know, heartsick during this -- during these times."

Unfortunately, for the “actions speak louder than words” gang, his actions aren’t even matching his words

http://www.juancole.com/2004/12/bush-and-tsunami-transcript-of.html
Bush is an MBA, so he knows very well the difference between absolute numbers and per capita ones. Let's see, Australia offered US $27 million in aid for victims of the tsunami. Australia's population is about 20 million. Its gross domestic product is about $500 billion per year. Surely anyone can see that Australia's $27 million is far more per person than Bush's $35 million. Australia's works out to $1.35 per person. The US contribution as it now stands is about 9 cents per person. So, yes, the US is giving more in absolute terms. But on a per person basis, it is being far more stingy so far. And Australians are less wealthy than Americans, making on average US $25,000 per year per person, whereas Americans make $38,000 per year per person. So even if Australians and Americans were both giving $1.35 per person, the Australians would be making the bigger sacrifice. But they aren't both giving $1.35; the Bush administration is so far giving an American contribution of nine cents a person.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/opinion/30thu2.html
The American aid figure for the current disaster is now $35 million, and we applaud Mr. Bush's turnaround. But $35 million remains a miserly drop in the bucket, and is in keeping with the pitiful amount of the United States budget that we allocate for nonmilitary foreign aid. According to a poll, most Americans believe the United States spends 24 percent of its budget on aid to poor countries; it actually spends well under a quarter of 1 percent. . . Bush administration officials help create that perception gap. Fuming at the charge of stinginess, Mr. Powell pointed to disaster relief and said the United States "has given more aid in the last four years than any other nation or combination of nations in the world." But for development aid, America gave $16.2 billion in 2003; the European Union gave $37.1 billion. In 2002, those numbers were $13.2 billion for America, and $29.9 billion for Europe. . . Making things worse, we often pledge more money than we actually deliver. Victims of the earthquake in Bam, Iran, a year ago are still living in tents because aid, including ours, has not materialized in the amounts pledged. And back in 2002, Mr. Bush announced his Millennium Challenge account to give African countries development assistance of up to $5 billion a year, but the account has yet to disperse a single dollar.

More: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/009145.html

A lost opportunity to change our image in the Muslim world

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/29/135442/30

Impatience grows in the region

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/international/worldspecial4/30quake.html?ex=1262149200&en=5abaa878fe2b7bc3&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

Conservative heads explode (again) – thanks to Kos and Atrios for these links

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12282004/postopinion/opedcolumnists/37291.htm
[John Podhoeretz] “Support for the war inside the military stands at 60 percent, 25 percent higher than the latest Gallup measurement of the American people as a whole.”

[NB: Opposition to the war inside the military stands at 40%!]

“Job satisfaction in the military, the poll found, is a breathtaking 87 percent, and only a quarter of those polled say they want out.”

[NB: 25% of those in the military want out!]

“But what is not heartening is this sobering fact: We can locate the decline in support for the war effort almost entirely inside the Democratic Party.”

[NB: Tell that to McCain, Hagel, Kristol, Buchanan. . . ]

“This is not only a partisan divide. It's a cultural divide. As the year 2004 ends, the rank and file of the Democratic Party has turned decisively and profoundly against the military effort in Iraq. And there is reason to believe it won't be long before they turn on the military as well. . . Throughout the year, Democratic politicians have been trying to split the difference with the military — saying they support the troops while opposing the war. But that kind of sophistry won't stand.”

[NB: But of course this is precisely the issue. The two are not equivalent.]

“Democratic Party bottom-feeders. . . have already long since started spewing their bile at our soldiers, sailors and Marines.”

[NB: Name one.]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000743012
On the Thursday before Christmas, Al Neuharth, former Gannett bigwig and founder of USA Today, suggested in his weekly column for that newspaper that the U.S. should start bringing home our troops from Iraq “sooner rather than later.”. . . This hardly seemed like a radical, traitorous notion. For one thing, it appeared in an opinion column, and surely, in our country, every American has a right to his or her opinion? Secondly, it came at a time when, according to the latest Gallup poll, a majority of American believe it was a mistake to invade Iraq in the first place, and feel the war is not going well for us.

Just to give you an idea of what's out there, in the zeitgeist, here are a few [of the responses]. Sadly, they represent dozens of others in the same vein. . . One should keep in mind that Neuharth, besides his professional accomplishments, served his country in World War II as an infantryman in France, Germany and the Phillippines, and won a Bronze Star.

George Wyman: “Mr. Neuharth is simply UnAmerican.”

Jeffrey A. Norris: “Cowards and traitors like Al Neuharth want all the comforts they know and enjoy, without a sacrifice to buy it.”

Frank Butash, West Hartford, CT.: “Apparently it's easier to run with jackals than to stand up for your country when it needs support.”

Kenneth Genest: “They had two of these in World War 2. One was called Tokyo Rose and the other Axis Sally. Their job was to discourage the American soldiers. I see they have one now at USA Today.”

Dan Clawson, Fresno, CA.: "A disgrace to the men and women who serve. USA Today supporting the terrorist cause."

Jerry Martin, San Francisco, CA.: “Yet another self-defeating fool with a large bank account shoots himself in the foot. Their dissent equals treason.”

T. Conway: “What side did Mr. Neuharth fight for in WW II?”

Joe McBride, Fort Dodge, Iowa: “Mr. Neuharth, thanks to you and your ignorance the terrorists are probably booking their flights to the U.S. now!”

Craig Wood, Waianae, Hawaii: “Today's press undermines our troops and supports our enemies.”

Duggan Flanakin, Austin, Texas: “Neuharth should be tried for treason.“

Mel Gibbs: “The Patriot Act will put both of you (Neuharth and Mitchell) on trial for treason and convict and execute both of you as traitors for running these stories in a time of war and it should be done on TV for other communist traitors like you two to know we mean business. This is war and you should be put in prison NOW for talking like this.”

Forgetting Fallujah

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/12/c.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-fallouja30dec30,0,1542155.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Bush: armored vehicles won’t arrive until mid-summer

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1749

Navy SEALS sue AP over publishing torture photos

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/29/seals/index.html

The myth of “democratic revolution” in the Middle East

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/the_democratic_.html

Police state watch: expanding the definition of “terrorism” to prosecute other crimes

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_26_atrios_archive.html#110433415738294022

Lobbying costs increase almost 40%, break the BILLION dollar mark

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005392.php

GOP wants to make ethics inquiries harder to initiate (hmmm. . . . why would they do that?)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/politics/30delay.html?oref=login&hp&ex=1104382800&en=f6ab672655be80e2&ei=5094&partner=homepage

In North Carolina, e-voting machine “loses” 4500 votes (WITH NO PAPER RECORDS), necessitating a statewide re-vote.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/12/29/20851/382

Losing governor candidate in Washington State wants a re-vote too

http://www.kron4.com/Global/story.asp?S=2746044&nav=5D7lBwNh

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/30/05213/127

***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.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:26 AM

 
CLEARING BRUSH

70,000 dead and no end in sight. Meanwhile, back in Crawford, the President is clearin’ brush and doin’ other manly things. Can’t be bothered to make a public appearance and statement of condolence. Doesn’t he realize that the rest of the world thinks he doesn’t care about them? Or in fact. . . doesn’t. . . he. . . care. . . what. . .they. . .think?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32337-2004Dec28.html

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1744
Q Trent, I'm not questioning his -- the actual question is whether the people of Asia and those who are suffering from all of this, whether there would be any benefit from seeing and hearing from him directly. . .

MR. DUFFY: The President is continuing to think about the Inauguration and the State of the Union speech; he's clearing some brush this morning; I think he has some friends coming in either today or tomorrow that he enjoys hosting; he's doing some biking and exercising as he normally does, taking walks with the First Lady; and thinking about what he wants to accomplish in the second term.

Clearing brush: Reagan did it, therefore it is good (plus, it’s “hard work”)

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_1_54/ai_81775376

A gratuitous slap at Clinton (of all things)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_26.php#004306
Earlier yesterday, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said the president was confident he could monitor events effectively without returning to Washington or making public statements in Crawford, where he spent part of the day clearing brush and bicycling. Explaining the about-face, a White House official said: "The president wanted to be fully briefed on our efforts. He didn't want to make a symbolic statement about 'We feel your pain.' ". . . Many Bush aides believe Clinton was too quick to head for the cameras to hold forth on tragedies with his trademark empathy. "Actions speak louder than words," a top Bush aide said, describing the president's view of his appropriate role.

[NB: And why, exactly, does it have to be either/or? But this does show one thing, which is that drawing distinctions with Clinton wherever possible remains a passionate obsession with these people]

More: http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_12_29_bestof.html#110429479791195944
http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200453#1326

Damage control (no, not the damage caused by the tsunamis)

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/28/powell/index.html

Increasing the amount of US aid brings it roughly in line with what Bush’s inauguration will cost (not including security, which will be paid for by: you and me). This extravagance is starting to raise a stink – despite its cynically chosen “celebrate the military” theme, people are starting to ask whether an opulent self-congratulatory pig fest is really the best message in the midst of war (I am hearing things like “How many protective vests can be bought for $40 million, how many vehicles armored, etc?”). This could not go down well – especially in the shadows of this awful natural disaster

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_26_atrios_archive.html#110424299648812469

Mark your calendars: Gonzales confirmation hearings set for January 5

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/009137.html

[NB: And I’ll start the first “Alberto Gonzales Drinking Game”: take a sip every time he says “The advice I give the President must be kept confidential.” You’ll be plastered by lunch time]

Cheating our troops

Mental health care
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/009136.html

Financial security
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/29/business/29vets.html?ex=1262062800&en=d700b9599f555b3e&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland

Most Americans now think the war was a mistake

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000742492

Pat Buchanan adds to the chorus of disaffected conservatives

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/28/buchanan/index.html
Writing in his syndicated column this week, Pat Buchanan asked President Bush to tell the American public the “Unvarnished Truth” about the current situation in Iraq. For starters, Buchanan would like the President to tell us why we are really there. Referring to “One of the greatest bait-and switches in the history of warfare," Buchanan again reminds us of the now-discredited reasons Bush and his neocon advisers at the Pentagon used as a pretext to war with Iraq: WMDs, ties to 9/11 and al-Qaida. Since the initial invasion, we have suffered over 1,300 servicemen and women killed, over 10,000 wounded, and enormous setbacks to our prestige and national reputation as a result of prisoner abuse scandals. Our risk of suffering another terrorist attack is greater than ever. . . Buchanan has been critical of the Iraqi incursion for some time. But he uses some of his strongest language yet in urging Bush to abandon his neocon advisors and lose the spin control. And he's not alone. In the past week, several of our nation’s top military and civilian security officials have come out repeatedly against both the decision to invade Iraq and the Pentagon’s handling of the occupation. Even stalwart Bush supporter William Kristol has admonished Defense Secretary Rumsfeld for both his poor war planning and his handling of post-war Iraq. Rumsfeld’s exchange in Kuwait recently with the National Guard soldier over the continuing lack of armor for military vehicles seemed to even put some the last Republican diehards over the edge.

Iraq: civil war already

http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=2466

“Not all Muslim fundamentalists are the same”

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/varieties_of_sa.html

Iraq: another Vietnam (really!)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005391.php

The Bush game plan on Social Security

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_26.php#004303
The Globe gets it: "The run-up to President Bush's plan to deal with Social Security is looking a lot like the run-up to his plan to deal with Saddam Hussein." Read the rest.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2004/12/28/plan_for_social_security_relies_on_an_immediate_familiar_bush_strategy/

The Bush game plan on more tax cuts

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/12/28/bush_will_delay_tax_overhaul.html

The revolving door

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/12/28/the_revolving_door_swings_faster.html
[NYT] The connections and expertise gained from government service are so valued by industry that the temptation to stick around Washington and collect a big paycheck can be overwhelming. Some appointees come to view government service as an investment, counting on the eventual payoff.

Chair of House Ethics Committee who made the mistake of thinking his committee is supposed to DEFEND ETHICS, being booted out

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32307-2004Dec28?language=printer
The aides said a likely replacement is Rep. Lamar S. Smith, one of DeLay's fellow Texans, who held the job from 1999 to 2001. Smith wrote a check this year to DeLay's defense fund. . . Republicans are bracing for the possibility that DeLay, who is the chamber's second-ranking Republican and holds enormous sway over lawmakers, could be indicted by a Texas grand jury conducting a campaign finance investigation that the party contends is politically motivated. . . The effort by DeLay and his allies to preserve his leadership post, even if he faces criminal charges, is one of the most sensitive issues facing Republicans as the new Congress begins. If Hefley is replaced by Smith, it is another signal by House leaders that they will stand by DeLay. "It certainly seems they're circling the wagons," said a GOP staff member who declined to be identified.

[NB: This is an unbelievable outrage: putting a Texas crony who donated to DeLay's "defense fund" in charge of investigating him. If the Dems can't manage to make this a front-page scandal, they need to go back to Politics 101]

Democrats not backing down in filibuster fight

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-12-26-judges_x.htm

The DNC chair contest: viewed from the inside, and from the outside

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/28/20200/060

The ambiguous politics of Social Security (for some Democrats)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_26.php#004305

“Talking about abortion”

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1746

More heads roll at the CIA

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/29/national/29intel.html?oref=login&ex=1262062800&

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cia29dec29,1,5697315.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

CACI, implicated in prisoner abuse and torture, still bellying up to the trough

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/12/caci_calling.html

In Ohio (thanks to Megan Boler for some of these links)

Recount complete

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ohio29dec29,1,4778706.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Kerry gets busy

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/122804V.shtml
This afternoon, an attorney representing the Kerry/Edwards presidential campaign filed two important motions to preserve and augment evidence of alleged election fraud in the November election. . . The purpose of the motions is twofold: A) To preserve all ballots and voting machines pertaining to the Yost matter for investigation and analysis; and B) To make available for sworn deposition testimony a technician for Triad Systems, the company that produced and maintained many of the voting machines used in the Ohio election. The technician has been accused of tampering with the recount process in Hocking County, Ohio, though other counties are believed to have also been involved. Any officers of Triad Systems who have information pertaining to said tampering are likewise subject to subpoena for sworn deposition testimony.

News media, the institutions supposedly most responsible for open access to information and public accountability, deny access to election exit polling data

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/1044

In Washington State, GOP refuses to give up: and this is good, because it deprives them of any excuse for complaining about further challenges in Ohio

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/12/28/gop_weighs_legal_challenge_in_washington.html

Know your enemy

http://www.prwatch.org/node/3139
Grover [Norquist’s] dream is that the conservative revolution runs for another 12 years. “If we do our job right over the next four years, weakening the institutions of the left, reducing the cost of government, reforming the government so that it becomes less intrusive in such a way that we deserve and win the presidency in 2008, that would give us another eight years," he said.

[NB: This raises an important part of the Norquist/Rove strategy – permanently weakening or dismantling the remaining institutional sources of political opposition to the right-wing agenda. Unions? Fighting for their life. News media? Don’t make me laugh. Teachers’ organizations? Struggling in the face of standardized testing, accountability, and “choice” proposals to retain some level of professional independence. Higher education? That’s next. . . ]

Bonus item: The war on academic freedom (thanks to Tom Callister for some of these links)

http://www.battlebunny.org/archives/2004/08/the_right_wing.php
In case you haven't noticed, we're at war. I'm not referring to the war on terrorism. I'm referring to the no-holds-barred, scorched-earth war that extremist right-wing Republicans are waging to transform every aspect of our society so that it conforms to their ideology. In higher education, they've got academic freedom in their sights.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/12/28/academic.freedom.ap/index.html
At the University of North Carolina, three incoming freshmen sue over a reading assignment they say offends their Christian beliefs. . . In Colorado and Indiana, a national conservative group publicizes student allegations of left-wing bias by professors. Faculty get hate mail and are pictured in mock "wanted" posters; at least one college says a teacher received a death threat. . . And at Columbia University in New York, a documentary film alleging that teachers intimidate students who support Israel draws the attention of administrators. . . The three episodes differ in important ways, but all touch on an issue of growing prominence on college campuses. . . Traditionally, clashes over academic freedom have pitted politicians or administrators against instructors who wanted to express their opinions and teach as they saw fit. But increasingly, it is students who are invoking academic freedom, claiming biased professors are violating their right to a classroom free from indoctrination

***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.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:47 AM

 
INSPECTORS GENERAL

Let me start by saying briefly that I’m not ignoring the horrible earthquake and tsunami story: this morning 25,000 dead and counting. It is a catastrophe on an almost unimaginable scale. But aside from Bush offering token expressions of concern and assistance from the comfort of his Crawford ranch vacation (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=703&e=1&u=/ap/20041228/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush), it is outside the scope of my concerns here. On with the show. . .

Given an Inspector General’s duties to investigate fraud and misconduct, this has been a tough post in any Bush department – and over the first term, the holders of these posts have had to endure various indignities, ranging from being hidden, to being ignored, to being emasculated, to being fired for doing their job properly. You can write an entire history of the Bush administration around the misperformance or abuse of their IG’s. The latest story: the Homeland Security IG

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-12-27-homeland-usat_x.htm
Clark Kent Ervin, who served as the department's inspector general until earlier this month, said in an interview last week that airport security isn't tight enough and that little has been done to safeguard other forms of mass transit. Ervin said ports remain vulnerable to terrorists trying to smuggle weapons into the country. He added that immigration and customs investigators are hampered in their efforts to track down illegal immigrants because they often lack gas money for their cars. . . "There are still all these security gaps in the country that have yet to be closed," Ervin said. Meanwhile, he added, Homeland Security officials have wasted millions of dollars because of "chaotic and disorganized" accounting practices, lavish spending on social occasions and employee bonuses and a failure to require competitive bidding for some projects. . . Asked what's wrong with the department, he said, "It's difficult to figure out where to start.”. . . Ervin lost his job this month in mysterious fashion. Appointed by President Bush in December 2003 when Congress was out of session, Ervin was never confirmed by the Senate. Nor was he renominated by the White House this month when his "recess appointment" — which lasted until the congressional session ended — expired Dec. 8. . . A key senator won't say why. Elissa Davidson, spokeswoman for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, wouldn't comment on why Chairman Susan Collins, R-Maine, never held confirmation hearings for Ervin. "The decision not to renominate Clark Kent Ervin was purely a White House decision," she said.

Background on Ervin
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_05.php#004200
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=316582&page=1

Other IG misadventures

CIA
http://pbd.blogspot.com/2004_12_01_pbd_archive.html#110372746726976025

CPA
http://pbd.blogspot.com/2004_07_01_pbd_archive.html#109117847032461376

HHS
http://pbd.blogspot.com/2004_07_01_pbd_archive.html#108926861735193718

Justice
http://pbd.blogspot.com/2004_07_01_pbd_archive.html#109108992372073226

Defense
http://pbd.blogspot.com/2004_07_01_pbd_archive.html#108918167912756985
http://pbd.blogspot.com/2004_06_01_pbd_archive.html#108745481087260156

Bush approval drops under 50% (can we vote again, please?)

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/12/27/83338/919

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bushpolls28dec28,1,7019609.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
"The question is, what happened to the honeymoon?" asked Frank Newport, editor of the Gallup survey.

The travesty to come in Iraq

Largest Sunni party withdraws from the election

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/27/103325/44

http://www.juancole.com/2004/12/iraqi-islamic-party-withdraws-dispute.html

Bush Co. appeals to Sunnis not to boycott (yeah, that’ll work)

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041227/REPOSITORY/412270320/1013/NEWS03

Voter registration lower than expected

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/12/voter_registrat.html

Widespread fraud likely

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/force_and_fraud.html
[Financial Times] "The resulting process will be open to fraud in areas where the interim government is strong and to violence and intimidation where it is weak."

More on the 20% solution

http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=2465
The good news is that the Bush administration is recognizing, sotto voce, that the Iraqi political process faces a potentially fatal crisis of illegitimacy from the Sunni 20 percent of the population. The bad news is that it's proposing solutions, also sotto voce, that will aggravate that illegitimacy--namely, tampering with the vote in next month's election. . . This under-the-radar proposal has already been denounced by the head of Iraq's independent electoral commission as illegal. Which is hardly surprising: Most publics aren't too keen on having foreign powers swing their elections.

Bush proposal already rejected by Iraq Electoral Commission (that’s the problem with that damn “sovereignty” business – they keep doing what you don’t want them to do)

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1227/dailyUpdate.html

Leading groups call for theocracy

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/10508314.htm

Meanwhile, Bush Co. whistles in the dark

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/27/international/27cnd-diplo.html?oref=login&ex=1261890000&
The Bush administration called again today for wide participation in the Iraqi elections of Jan. 30, and it expressed cautious optimism that security would be strong enough to assure valid results. . . "We want as broad a participation as possible," said Trent Duffy, the deputy White House spokesman. . .

[NB: Something tells me that whatever results occur will be deemed “valid” – how about you?]

Question: what do Osama Bin Laden, Vladimir Putin, and George Bush have in common? (All guilty of over-reaching in trying to stage manage the outcome of another country’s elections.)

http://www.juancole.com/2004/12/bin-laden-votes-in-iraq-and-shoots.html

Mark Kleiman makes the case that Bush is BAD for national security

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/terrorism_and_its_control_/2004/12/hot_nukes_extreme_measures_and_gwb.php

The future of Al Qaeda

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000246.html

CIA resisting ACLU FOIA suit for information on prisoner abuse, torture

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/12/27/cia_resists_request_for_abuse_data?mode=PF
"CIA . . . asserts that it is not able to confirm or deny whether it has any records relating to its purported involvement in these specific activities related to the treatment, death, or rendition of detainees in US custody because to do so would tend to reveal classified information and intelligence sources and methods that are protected from disclosure," the agency said in a court filing Oct. 15.

If giving people the chance to enhance retirement earnings were the point of Social Security “reform” (and not the actual purpose, which is to find a sugar-coated way to cut benefits) – the govt could easily establish a universal 401K style plan

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_26_atrios_archive.html#110415745991867309

Another problem with “Social Insecurity”: living too long

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/social_insecurity_/2004/12/social_insecurity_the_annuity_problem.php

Bush’s death penalty record as governor of Texas: worse than you remember (and still very revealing of his “character”). But the real story here is Alberto Gonzales (thanks to Alan Wallach for the link)

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17670
George W. Bush during his six years as governor of Texas presided over 152 executions, more than any other governor in the recent history of the United States. Bush has said: "I take every death penalty case seriously and review each case carefully. . . Each case is major because each case is life or death." In his A Charge to Keep (1999), he wrote, "For every death penalty case, [legal counsel] brief[s] me thoroughly, reviews the arguments made by the prosecution and the defense, raises any doubts or problems or questions." Bush called this a "fail-safe" method for ensuring "due process" and certainty of guilt. . . He might have succeeded in bequeathing to history this image of himself as a scrupulously fair-minded governor if the journalist Alan Berlow had not used the Public Information Act to gain access to fifty-seven confidential death penalty memos that Bush's legal counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, whom President Bush has recently nominated to be attorney general of the United States, presented to him, usually on the very day of execution. The reports Gonzales presented could not be more cursory. . .

“Gay marriage” – keeping the issue alive

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1739

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/12/27/gaymarriage.congress.ap/index.html

In Ohio: focus turns to Blackwell, and he can’t stand the light (NOW we’re getting somewhere. . . )

Blackwell attempts to block order requiring him to give deposition
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=364360&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/12/delay_delay_dont_recount_the_votes.html
[Michael Froomkin] Is there any way to understand this sort of tactic as anything other than an attempt to prevent an honest recount?

Blackwell implicated directly in voter suppression
http://www.votecobb.org/

Other officials dodging subpoenas too
http://freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/1046

Conyers condemns “cheat sheets”
http://rawstory.rawprint.com/1204/conyers_triad_122304.php

GOP wants to review 900,000 voting records in Washington State!

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-briefs28.2dec28,1,1182160.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

“Politics is war by other means” – something the GOP understands

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-women27dec27,1,296906.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

The battle to come over filibusters, and what’s at stake

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=18294
[Arianna Huffington] One small problem: That's not the way the Founding Fathers designed things. They had these funny notions about three separate but equal branches of government, free and open debate, and the value of checks and balances to ward off the overreaching for power by those in the majority. They built an entire system of government to counteract the abuse that inevitably goes with overreaching. . . Yet that is precisely what the plan to do away with judicial filibusters is: an out-and-out power grab by the president and his Congressional accomplices. An underhanded scheme to kneecap the Constitution and take away the only weapon vanquished Democrats are left with to defend against Bush's "ten-gallon-hat" juggernaut. . . It would be impossible to overstate the importance of this battle. It is nothing less than a fight for the soul of our democracy -- for what kind of country we want to live in.

The routine business of GOP corruption

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_26.php#004301

Latest fights over the DNC chair

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/12/26/213528/41

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/12/27/212927/68

In defense of corporal punishment (as opposed to imprisonment). A strange argument, but then, can we really call our prison system more humane?

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/the_policy_init.html

Was United flight #93 (the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9-11) shot down?

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42112

Popular action alert: Spoiling Bush’s inauguration party

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1738

Bonus item: California secedes! (thanks to A.G. Rud for the link)

http://luminousmandamus.typepad.com/luminous_mandamus/2004/12/californias_sec.html

Extra bonus item: Conservatives’ heads explode!

http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2004/12/27/tomo/index1.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.***


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:35 AM

 
MORAL COURAGE

Bush Co. finally works its way around to the view of Juan Cole and others on a “quota system” for Sunnis in the new Iraqi govt – but this is just minimizing damage from an electoral process that marginalized Sunnis in the first place, and may not even succeed at that

http://www.juancole.com/2004/12/how-to-save-iraqi-elections-reprint.html
[Juan Cole] This sort of quota is regrettable, but it is the only solution to the crisis. It should not form a precedent, but rather should be done as an emergency measure just this once. Once the parliament meets to craft a constitution, it is important that it create an upper house that somehow over-represents the Sunni Arabs and Kurds, so as to prevent a tyranny of the Shiite majority.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005382.php
[Kevin Drum] It's the same story over and over and over again, isn't it? By the time the Bushies finally figure something out, it's too late to do anything about it. At this point, if they let the Shiites win all the seats it's a disaster, but if they arbitrarily take away some of their seats and award them to the Sunnis instead, that's a disaster too. . . A year ago there were plenty of good proposals that could have avoided the worst of this fiasco. The best of them made use of geographical precincts, like an American congressional election. Under a system like that, there would have been plenty of predominantly Sunni precincts that would have elected Sunni representatives regardless of whether or not turnout was low. It wouldn't have been perfect, but it almost certainly would have been better than the kludge we're ending up with. . . Watching these guys in action is truly a remarkable thing.

[Shinseki was right: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-shinseki26dec26,1,4614303.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions]

And they are STILL talking about suspending or delaying voting in certain parts of the country (thanks to Best of the Blogs for this link)

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11790950%255E1702,00.html

Failure and denial

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-outlook27dec27,1,3824409.column?coll=la-headlines-nation
[Ron Brownstein] Bush's presidency marks the first time the U.S. has significantly cut taxes while at war. Since the federal budget is already in deficit, that means we are effectively passing the bill for this war onto our children through an increased national debt. . . The war's political consequences are unfolding in a comparable spirit of buck passing. Wars always surprise their planners. But even setting aside the debate over whether the threat from Saddam Hussein merited the invasion of Iraq, it's clear this war has been complicated by an unusual concentration of mistakes and misjudgments. . . The weapons of mass destruction that provided the central justification for the invasion have never been found, and by the best calculation of the CIA, no longer existed. Foreign countries the Bush administration assumed would fall into line after the U.S. moved against Iraq instead refused to provide meaningful help. And after a brilliant campaign against the conventional Iraqi military, the Pentagon has appeared to be blindsided by the persistence and ferocity of the unconventional resistance that followed the fall of Baghdad. . . In June 2003, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld dismissed the Iraqi insurgency as mere "pockets of dead-enders." Eighteen months later, U.S. soldiers and Iraqi citizens are still dying in large numbers at the hands of those "dead-enders." And the failure to fully plan for the insurgency is still being felt in what many experts consider shortages of combat troops and appropriate supplies (such as armored vehicles). . . Yet the only senior administration official who faced any consequences over the Iraq war has been the most prominent skeptic, outgoing Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who was politely but firmly shown the door after Bush's reelection. . . Bush this month awarded the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to three architects of the war: former CIA Director George J. Tenet, retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks and L. Paul Bremer III, the former top civilian administrator in Iraq. . . Bush promoted Condoleezza Rice, his national security advisor, to replace Powell. And the president has unwaveringly defended Rumsfeld, even amid calls from Republicans and conservative activists for his resignation.

Bob Herbert: Master of Outrage

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/27/opinion/27herbert.html?oref=login&oref=login&hp
[Bob Herbert] The world is not a video game, although it must seem like it at times to the hubristic, hermetically sealed powerbrokers in Washington who manipulate the forces that affect the lives of so many millions of people in every region of the planet. That kind of power calls for humility, not arrogance, and should be wielded wisely, not thoughtlessly and impulsively. . . This latest overreach by Mr. Rumsfeld is a sign that the administration, like a hardheaded adolescent, has learned little or nothing from the tragic consequences of its wrongheaded policies.

Even conservatives are losing faith

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/12/26/133238/41
[American Conservative] As alarming as the neoconservatism of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, Danielle Pletka, and John Bolton is, more alarming is the spirit that has spread in its wake--a kind of neoconservativism without a graduate degree. . . You see it on certain blogs and hear it in the rants of some of the most widely listened to right-wing talk-radio hosts. If the Arabs don't want to be democratic, we should nuke them. We have no choice but to nuke them for our own safety. It's a vulgarized neoconservatism --no one from the American Enterprise Institute speaks like this (in public). But this talk is around in the heartland and growing, and it is wind in the sails of the new administration.

More on the jet used to ferry prisoners to countries who outsource torture for us

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27826-2004Dec26?language=printer
As the outlines of the rendition system have been revealed, criticism of the practice has grown. Human rights groups are working on legal challenges to renditions, said Morton Sklar, executive director of the World Organization for Human Rights USA, because one of their purposes is to transfer captives to countries that use harsh interrogation methods outlawed in the United States. That, he said, is prohibited by the U.N. Convention on Torture.

Where they are being sent, and what happens to them there (thanks to Talk Left for the link)

http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/04/torture.htm

Rumsfeld’s change of heart (uh-huh, right, tell us another one)

http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=2464

And for the daily dose of heavy irony, a message for The Donald from a Joint Chiefs of Staff document entitled “Joint Warfare of the Armed Forces of the United States” (thanks to Christopher Wren for the link)

http://www.apc.au.af.mil/pubs/jp1.pdf
“Moral courage is also essential in military operations. This includes the willingness to stand up for what one believes to be right even if that stand is unpopular or contrary to conventional wisdom. Other aspects of moral courage involve risk taking and tenacity: making bold decisions in the face of uncertainty, accepting full responsibility for the outcome, and holding to the chosen course despite challenges or difficulties. Competence is an essential foundation for moral courage. Competence separates the professional from the foolhardy. Military power must be wielded in an unimpeachable moral fashion, with respect for human rights and adherence to the Geneva Conventions. This morality should not be a matter of legality, but of conscience. Moral behavior is essential for gaining and maintaining the positive worldwide reputation of American fighting men and women as well as the confidence and support of the American people, a basic source of American military strength.”

The A.Q. Khan network, which Bush keeps flagging as a success of U.S. policy against “nuc-u-lar” proliferation. . . isn’t

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/26/international/asia/26nuke.html?ei=5094&en=18c481dad4bd841b&hp=&ex=1104123600&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1104097778-86U41Nog5aV+QETSDU2fPw&pagewanted=all&position=

Analysis: http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/12/whs_proliferati.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001518.html
[Laura Rozen] In many experts' opinion, Pakistan and its nuclear program and ties to Islamist extremists pose a greater immediate threat to US national security than Iran and its nuclear program. But you hear the Bush administration say almost nothing about this ally of convenience. That behind the scenes the Bush administration hasn't insisted on debriefing Khan shows how unserious these officials are about countering nuclear proliferation or letting nuclear weapons get into the hands of terrorists. Short sighted doesn't begin to describe the inadequacy of the Bush administration's approach, which appears to be 90% ideology and public relations and 10% substance.

Here’s how bad it’s gotten: corporate execs are more thoughtful and concerned about the public welfare than the govt agencies supposed to oversee them

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-oe-rost26dec26,1,5557120.story?coll=la-sunday-commentary
I'm a drug company executive who has spent 20 years marketing pharmaceuticals. And I'm troubled. I'm most troubled by the fact that we stick it to the people who can afford it the least.

Michael Kinsley, as he does well, dismantles the Social Security proposal with words of one syllable

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26064-2004Dec25?language=printer
My argument, as condensed as possible, defines success as bringing in more money than the current system does. More money is necessary either to reduce the gap between projected benefits and revenue or to make retirees better off. Supporters variously promise both of these benefits. . . More money can come from only two places: increased economic growth and other people. Increased growth can come only from higher private investment or smarter private investment. . . Privatization would deflect some money from the Social Security trust fund into private investment, but the government would have to borrow an equal amount to replace it. As for investment decisions, the only change caused by privatization would be a new role for millions of small, naive investors. There is no credible theory that this would improve the overall wisdom of capital investment decisions.

Comment: http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000062.html

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000061.html

Still not convinced that the Bush proposal is a shell game? Max Speaks (thanks to Brad DeLong for the link)

http://maxspeak.org/mt/archives/001013.html

More advice for Harold Ford (D-TN)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_26_atrios_archive.html#110407318765300768
Look, this is our issue. This is one we should be confident about winning -- perhaps not the legislative battle, but the '06 election. Democrats shouldn't be running scared from this, they should be salivating at the prospect of being handed a gift on a silver platter. They just need to be a bit smart.

Ohio updates (thanks to Megan Boler for some of these links)

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/1018
[Bush tallies set as “default” option on machines]

http://freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/1037
[An incredible litany of crimes and screw-ups to suppress votes]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/122404X.shtml
[Vote machine “technician” caught on video]

http://www.villagevoice.cm/issues/0451/perlstein.php
[If we had a Karl Rove. . . ]

http://www.breakfornews.com/articles/KerryPreparingGroundsToUnconcede.htm
[Kerry to get aggressive in Ohio (finally)?]

Bonus item: 2004 not a banner year for media performance (thanks to Doug Kellner for the link)

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar%2FLayout%2FArticle_Type1&c=Article&cid=1103842212752

***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.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:20 AM

 
THE DECLINE OF DEMOCRACY, AT HOME AND ABROAD

A few questions about the new Bush proposal on Iraq, guaranteeing government spots to the Sunni minority: (1) If it’s such a good idea for Iraq, why not adopt the same policy here (thanks to Joyce Atkinson for that insight); (2) will it decrease or increase frictions in that country, given that the Sunnis are generally boycotting the elections; (3) in what ways is this compatible with the much-proclaimed achievement of “democracy”; and (4) if we granted “full sovereignty” to Iraq months ago, what are we doing trying to dictate the shape of their government? (OK, I know the answer to the last question)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/26/international/middleeast/26diplo.html?ex=1261803600&en=fa421c48e6b2dba5&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_19_atrios_archive.html#110399975494866995

Could it be that Bush Co. is preparing to use the Mosul attack as an excuse for invading Syria?

http://tomcoburnisabigfatjerk.blogspot.com/2004/12/please-spread-word.html

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1103776324314

Rumsfeld, Bush, et al. persist in thinking this is just a matter of “will” and persistence. But their failures – THEIR failures – set this operation on the wrong course from the very beginning. And there are good reasons to doubt that it isn’t recoverable now, no matter what they do

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24891-2004Dec24.html?nav=rss_nation

More: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/25/194558/48

Rumsfeld lets something slip

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23801-2004Dec23.html?nav=rss_nation
"When it looks bleak, when one worries about how it's going to come out, when one reads and hears the naysayers and the doubters who say it can't be done, and that we're in a quagmire here," Rumsfeld said, "the fact is there have always been people throughout every conflict in the history of the world who said it couldn't be done."

[NB: It looks bleak, huh?]

Powell told Bush Co. more troops were needed in Iraq (but did they listen?)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23381-2004Dec23.html

Biggest budget supplemental ever: $80 billion. Still paying and paying for the war that was supposed to pay for itself

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041224/pl_afp/iraqusmilitarybudget&cid=1521&ncid=1473

What is the progressive stance on Iraq today: pull out immediately, or stay and help with real reconstruction? A mini-debate

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005370.php

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/the_war_in_iraq_/2004/12/if_its_in_or_out_in_iraq_why_not_in.php

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005133

The generally awful coverage of Iraq in the major media, and what to do about it (thanks to Juan Cole for the link)

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/05/the-ireland.php

New allegations of detainee torture, abuse

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25962-2004Dec25.html?nav=rss_nation

Internal Air Force critic of Bush detainee policies shown the door

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/23/fiscus/index.html

“Dissent is Not Disloyal” – sad that the argument still needs to be made, but apparently it does

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/oped/chi-0412240265dec24,1,556390.story?coll=chi-newsopinioncommentary-hed

How the world views Bush

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/009117.html

The total failure of Bush policy in Venezuela, a potential major oil partner: having done all that they could to unseat duly elected (leftist) President Chavez, and failing, they now have to sit back and watch China move in

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_12_26_bestof.html#110405996983379513

The DECLINE of democracy around the world

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/democracy_readi.html

Bush 101: Never pass up an opportunity to polarize, when you could accommodate

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/009106.html
This didn't take long. President Bush has resubmitted 20 rejected extremists for federal judgeships. Among them: Alabama Attorney General William Pryor; Priscilla Owen; Richard Allen Griffin, David W. McKeague; Henry Saad; Janice Rogers Brown and William G. Myers III.

[NB: and a fine list of candidates it is]

http://slate.msn.com/id/2111414/fr/rss/
Democrats said they were unhappy with the renominations, as did Republican Sen. Arlen Specter. "It has been my hope that we might be able to approach this whole issue with some cooler perspective," he told the NYT. "I would have preferred to have some time in the 109th Congress to improve the climate to avoid judicial gridlock and future filibusters." As the NYT highlights, among the nominees is Pentagon Counsel William Haynes IV, who helped pen some of the torture memos.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/24/politics/24judges.html?hp&ex=1103950800&en=a46de22520735ade&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Anti-abortion groups expecting payback

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-abortion26dec26,1,7961223.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Bush’s Brutal Budget

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-budget26dec26,1,3773771.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage

“The Education President”: already underfunded programs to get even bigger cuts – and watch what happens to NCLB, the jewel in his crown of education reform

http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200452#1311

The Republican Party: a pattern of unprecedented corruption

http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2004/12/was_the_republi.html

Starting ‘em young: Breeding the next generation of lying, thieving, scum

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26026-2004Dec25.html

The Roemer candidacy for DNC chair: what it portends (once again, Anybody But Dean)

http://wilsonhellie.typepad.com/for_the_record/2004/12/its_not_your_pa.html

More on the Dems’ internal debate over abortion policies

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/24/politics/24abortion.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005374.php

The fight to come over Social Security

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_26.php#004300
[WSJ] The president has yet to lay out specific ideas for changing the entitlement program; he and his aides are focused first on selling the idea of change. "For a while, I think it's important for me to continue to work with members of both parties to explain the problem," he said in a Monday news conference.

[Josh Marshall] This would suggest that we're now in the lying and fear-mongering phase of the campaign, which would be followed of course by a later phase in which a specific policy remedy is brought forward, nominally meant to address the fake problem.

For my Tennessee friends, defending Social Security vs. the chance to take Frist’s seat

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_19.php#004294

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_19.php#004297

Is this a workable trope for the future: The REAL Pro-family Party?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005134

Looking ahead: the next fight over reapportionment

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/12/25/234957/73

A consensus emerges on Ohio voting: a travesty (the question remains, what to do about it?)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/24/national/24vote.html?oref=login&ex=1261630800&

The fight goes on (thanks to Megan Boler for some of these links)

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/nation/10487723.htm
Claiming Ohio's 2004 election results were more troubling than
Florida's four years ago, the Rev. Jesse Jackson on Thursday said
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry called it quits too soon.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/12/25/221715/36

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/23/ohio/index.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.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 9:47 AM

 
STOCKING STUFFERS

“Happy Holidays” everyone – and I mean that in the most secular humanist, nonsectarian way possible. PBD will take off Christmas Day and return on December 26

In honor of the season let’s start off with something lighter for a change: Molly Ivins’ holiday greetings

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=18287

As my friend Jim Levin says, who knew that “Happy Holidays” would ever become a political statement? Here is the first intelligent thing I have read on the issue

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_19_atrios_archive.html#110382100036677637
The "holiday season" is that period from Thanksgiving until New Years. If we count Thanksgiving, which we should given the ever-lengthening advertising campaign which seems to define the season, that includes 3 federal holidays, one of which falls on December 25. Now, some people may like wishing others a "Merry Christmas" over a 40 or so day period which encompasses the "holiday season," and good for them, but I personally like wishing people a "Merry Christmas" on or about the actual day.

Ugh: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_19.php#004288
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005375.php

You see, Jim, it’s all the fault of the Jews. . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_19_atrios_archive.html#110385247577126790

This will be fun: on or about April 1 (no joke), the Social Security Trustees will have to report on the solvency of the fund – and because the economic numbers will be better than the low-ball estimates that drive Bush’s “crisis” rhetoric, they will have to announce that the date of “insolvency” needs to be pushed even further back into the future

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_19_atrios_archive.html#110381652236148067

Or, not: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005373.php

A social security primer: there IS a trust fund

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000040.html

Or you can Google “there is no trust fund” and find numerous deceptive sites like this one

http://www.socialsecuritychoice.org/updates/McLachlan-0403.html

The real sources of Bush’s fiscal mess (it ain’t Social Security)

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000038.html

More trouble for Bush

http://www.alternet.org/story/20817/
[David Corn] Recent events have once again proved the truism that it's easy to run for office, it's hard to govern – especially when you're an arrogant fellow pursuing bad policies. For George W. Bush, knocking off John Kerry was a swagger on the beach compared to dealing with the real stuff. All Bush had to do was lie about Kerry, deride him, make promises he can't keep, talk tough, and mount an under-the-radar effort to motivate millions of fundamentalist Christian voters who (for some reason) obsess over gay marriage. That's nada compared to, say, winning the war in Iraq. . . Once the election dust settled, the Bush gang looked like country-bumpkin first-termers.

[NB: With apologies to all you country-bumpkins out there!]

Iraq: the depth of our difficulties there is beginning to become apparent to more and more people. Things are getting WORSE, not BETTER

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/12/23/bad_us_strategy/index.html?source=RSS

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_12_23_bestof.html#110380889200999456
[Evelyn Keyes] [I]f the Democrats can’t see the opportunity in providing a clear alternative to the Bush Administration’s burgeoning disaster in Iraq now, then when?. . . At the risk of dropping to the level of cynicism that imbues the actions of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, the Dems at this moment could be basking in the breezes blowing from the ill wind in Baghdad. Those siroccos instead seem to be felt more by the “so-called moderate” Republicans, McCain, Hagel, etc. Where is Kerry? Where is our new leader in the Senate, Harry-what’s-his-name? Where is Mrs. Clinton? So what if they voted for the war resolution, does anyone in this country remember that? Why should they care?

More: http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/2004/12/saloncom-news-suicide-mission-mess.php

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/23/opinion/23dowd.html?oref=login&hp=&pagewanted=print&position

Even Bush supporters are already starting to have doubts

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000036.html

“We will be welcomed as liberators”

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1731

STILL fighting in Fallujah (when will the dimwits who like prematurely “declaring victory” realize that this is not the way counterinsurgency fights work?)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=716&e=3&u=/ap/20041224/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
On Thursday, U.S. Marines fought with insurgents in Fallujah as warplanes and tanks bombarded guerrilla positions in the heaviest fighting there in weeks. . . At least three Marines were killed in combat in Fallujah on Thursday, underlining the tenuous security situation as the United States and its Iraqi allies try to bring quiet before national elections Jan. 30.

Our real intelligence crisis (and how Bush has made it worse)

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/12/the_antithesis_.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23204-2004Dec23.html?nav=rss_nation

Looking forward: the Gonzales confirmation hearings

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1729

In Washington State, a reward for persistence

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/12/23/wash.gov/index.html
Democrat Christine Gregoire finished 130 votes ahead in the roller-coaster Washington governor's race after results of a hand recount including disputed ballots were released Thursday by King County. . . But Chris Vance, the GOP state chairman, had already vowed: "This battle is not over. . . We believe Dino Rossi is the legitimate governor-elect of the state of Washington," Vance said in a statement. "We will continue fighting to protect his election.". . . Vance said the GOP would ask Reed, a fellow Republican, to delay final certification "until we know every legitimate vote has been counted."

[NB: Funny, that’s not what they were saying a week ago]

Bush, Man of the Year (a contrary view)

http://wsws.org/articles/2004/dec2004/bush-d23.shtml

Bonus items: Media Matters’ Top Ten Outrageous Statements of the Year

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412230005
• Rush Limbaugh on the Abu Ghraib photos: "I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of need to blow some steam off?"
• Ann Coulter: "[Senator John] Kerry will improve the economy in the emergency services and body bag industry."
• Tony Blankley called philanthropist George Soros "a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust."
• Michael Savage: "When you hear 'human rights,' think gays. ... [T]hink only one thing: someone who wants to rape your son."
• Oliver North: "Every terrorist out there is hoping John Kerry is the next president of the United States."
• Pat Robertson on gays and lesbians: "[S]elf-absorbed hedonists ... that want to impose their particular sexuality on the rest of America."
• Pat Buchanan: "[H]omosexuality is an affliction, like alcoholism."
• Bill O'Reilly to Jewish caller: "[I]f you are really offended, you gotta go to Israel."
• Bill Cunningham (Clear Channel radio host who appeared as a guest on The Sean Hannity Show): The election is over because "Elizabeth Edwards has now sung."
• Jerry Falwell: "And we're going to invite PETA [to "wild game night"] as our special guest, P-E-T-A -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. We want you to come, we're going to give you a top seat there, so you can sit there and suffer. This is one of my special groups, another one's the ACLU, another is the NOW -- the National Order of Witches [sic]. We've got -- I've got a lot of special groups."

[NB: Now, someone will say “why are all these right-wingers – isn’t this a sign of more liberal media bias?” And the answer is, you couldn’t find ten similar statements by liberal commentators – they don’t talk this way. Ten Mistakes, sure, Ten Cheap Shots, sure: but you don’t find people from the left being given authorized media podiums (media podia?) from which to spew this kind of hateful venom]

Bill O’Reilly gets his own Top Ten list

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412230006

Coal in the stocking for Fox News. . .

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412230015

. . . and for “The Point”

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412230010

***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.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:40 AM

 
HAPPY HOLIDAYS

I hope this installment is a remedy for those post-election blues. Looking objectively, Bush is in deep water right now. The victorious “Intelligence Bill,” intended to be Bush’s triumphant response to 9-11, proved to be a headache and an embarrassment. His staff departures and replacements give little confidence that the second term team will be as effective as his first, and he has lost the most popular member of his crew (Powell), with a very dubious replacement (Rice). Kerik: no comment necessary. Gonzales: you watch. He is having a hell of a time even GETTING people to accept some of these posts, and his choices are limited. Torture stories are back in the news, and the facts seem worse than ever. Iraq is looking worse, not better, and the elections will solve nothing. Troop losses because of poor equipment or bad security, at this stage of the war, are outrages that will not be received well. The Social Security fight right now looks like a loser – and a loss with even bigger repercussions down the road.

Let’s start with a little teaser of what’s ahead in Iraq. It raised eyebrows the other day when Bush said the Iraqi army was nowhere near ready to assume security duties (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6737149/). This was, of course, after crowing during the campaign that Iraq had 100,000 fully trained troops, with 25,000 more coming by Christmas (http://www.time.com/time/election2004/article/0,18471,703924,00.html) -- well, that wasn’t true and we knew that at the time. But why shift so suddenly now to the most dire of assessments? Because, having hinted during the campaign that after Iraqi elections, U.S. troops could start coming home in significant numbers, Bush is clearly laying the groundwork for the necessity of keeping them there a lot longer

http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=2463
[Spencer Ackerman] Take Chalabi first. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed. . . he attempts to forecast how the Alliance will treat the U.S. occupation once it takes power after the January 30 election:

The first task of the newly elected provisional parliament must be to reach agreement with the U.S. to determine the status of their forces in Iraq and agree [to] a timetable for a phased withdrawal. This is a very important task in addressing the security situation. By having a clearly defined legal status in Iraq, U.S. and Coalition forces remove any legitimacy of terrorist attacks against them. Nonetheless, there is no desire among the majority of Iraqis, including those on the United Iraqi Alliance list, to call for a sudden and irresponsible withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.

Now, surely this bizarre analysis has its origins in Chalabi's need to straddle between Grand Ayatollah Sistani and Paul Wolfowitz--that is, pledging to want the U.S. out while cooing that in its heart of hearts the Alliance really, really likes America. But let's take it seriously.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005370.php
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said today that "significant numbers" of U.S. troops would continue fighting in Iraq for at least another year. . . "I think that certainly we're going to be there through '05 in significant numbers," Powell told reporters. "I don't know what those numbers will be."

[Kevin Drum] Powell is obviously lowballing: 10 to 15 years sounds about right to me. After all, NATO continues to keep 20,000 peacekeeping troops in Kosovo, nearly half the number we started with five years ago. What's more, even that reduced number amounts to about one soldier per 100 people, a higher troop concentration than we've ever had in Iraq.

Unfortunately for Bush, the elections could be just the start of new problems

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005114
[Richard Stevenson] For a year, the administration has suggested that Iraq would move closer to stability as it reached one milestone after another: the capture of Saddam Hussein; the handover of sovereignty and the appointment of an interim government; the deployment of Iraqi security forces; the military campaign to expel the insurgents from strongholds like Falluja; and the first round of elections next month. . . Yet most of those milestones have passed with little discernible improvement in the security situation. Now some analysts are concerned that the elections could make the political situation in Iraq even more unstable by producing an outcome in which the Sunni minority feels so marginalized by the Shiite majority that it fuels not just further violence against Americans and Iraqis working with them but also more intense sectarian strife or even civil war.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/the_times_v_the_journal.php
[Bob Dreyfuss] Now, it's true that Chalabi and the neocons don't want an Iranian-style theocracy. They believe that they will get a Shiite-dominated regime in Iraq that will be nonreligious. Not only that, they believe that such a regime in Baghdad will pull Iran into the American orbit. But that is a dangerous illusion.

Elections in Iraq to be monitored by international observers. . . based in Jordan

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/23/politics/23elect.html

General Myers accidentally reveals the truth

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_19.php#004284
"This attack [in Mosul], of course, is the responsibility of insurgents, the same insurgents who attacked on 9/11, the same type of insurgents who attacked in Beirut, the same insurgents who -- type of insurgents who attacked the Cole, Khobar Towers, and the list goes on. . . "

Before the election in November, I like many others said that one of the few consolations of seeing Bush win would be to get a chance to see him deal with the horrible consequences of his decisions, rather than see poor John Kerry have to work within the straightjacket of options left to him domestically and in Iraq. Well, let’s keep that perspective in mind. Having falsely raised expectations that after the elections everything will be great in Iraq and our troops can start coming home, what will people say when it becomes clear that the objective remains as far away as ever? At what point will the forbearance of people who have lost faith with the war, but who "support the troops," finally give out? Let’s recap the narrative:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/22/114038/29
[Kos] Nevermind the innocent Iraqis who have been "liberated" to death. And while we scream about Saddam's torture chambers, we create new ones of our own. . . So thousands die, for a war built on false justifications, managed poorly, with underequipped, undermanned, and under-armored forces. And to add insult to injury, we've had to pay for this mess, to the tune of $200 billion. . . So who sent our troops into Iraq on false pretenses? Who sent them in unarmored? Who refused to provide enough troops to stabilize the country effectively? Who taunted the Iraqi opposition with "bring 'em on"? Who approved the American-branded torture chambers? Who has rewarded the secretary of defense who has negligently ignored the armor shortage in Iraq? And who keeps them there as they continue to die?

http://www.shrillblog.com/
Deteriorating conditions in Iraq are a consequence of "the arrogance and incompetency of the civilian leadership at the Pentagon," Sen. Chuck Hagel said Monday Increasing violence and instability spring from "the accumulation of a series of bad judgments," the Nebraska Republican said.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005367.php
[Kevin Drum] What's more, there are no WMDs, no al-Qaeda camps, and no democracy. But there is a continuing insurgency, frequent terror attacks, the same old Islamic infighting, American soldiers getting killed and wounded by the thousands, and no real hope that it's going to get any better — even though the administration keeps suggesting that the next operation will settle things down for sure. At this point, though, the only operation left is the January election, and when the attacks keep coming even after the elections are over — as they surely will — American disgust with the whole war effort will undoubtedly jump up again. . . Conservatives seem to think that Americans like wars. They don't. They like winning wars. As it becomes ever clearer that Bush doesn't have a winning strategy in Iraq, support continues to drop. It's pretty easy to understand.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_19.php#004286
[Josh Marshall] In any case, I think what has happened is that the end of the campaign season has departisanized the war -- at least to a measurable extent -- and folks who were emotionally and intellectually committed to reelecting the president (just as there were people on the other side with similar commitments) are now freer to see the situation in Iraq a bit more on its own terms.

Victory! Iraqi govt tells people they can go back into Fallujah now; but the Association of Muslim Scholars says “Fallujah is completely destroyed and sabotaged. It has become uninhabitable with no water, electricity or wastewater facilities. . . The rotten smell of the dead is widespread and smokes of internationally banned weapons cover its sky.”

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1721

What did we win in Fallujah? DID we win in Fallujah?

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1718

More trouble ahead with Iran

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/12/22/pollack/index.html?source=RSS

Everything you think you know about Al Qaeda is (mostly) wrong: quite an eye-opener, from someone who seems to know what he’s talking about (thanks to Matt Yglesias for the link)

http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20041101.middleeast.sageman.understandingterrornetworks.html

Bush plans an all-out, campaign-style PR offensive on behalf of his Social Security plan – and the harder he tries to get it, (1) the more reasons we should suspect his motives, (2) the higher the stakes for defeating it, and (3) the greater the political gain in doing so

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1717&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
"This is about winning, and Bush can't afford to lose."

Good news: current support for his proposal is even weaker than first measured

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_19.php#004285
[J]ust under 25% of respondents support Bush's plan once they know the costs and an overwhelming 69% oppose it.

Many in GOP wary of the issue (as they should be): the stakes of losing could drag the whole party down

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/22/13141/727

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=512&ncid=703&e=2&u=/ap/20041222/ap_on_go_co/social_security_politics

A strategy for the Democrats, and the opportunities this debate presents them

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005118

On the other hand, squishy Democrats could still blow this opportunity

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005119

Bush’s sudden vulnerability

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/22/iraq2/index.html
"As he prepares to take the oath of office a second time and to focus more of his energy on a far-reaching domestic agenda," writes Richard Stevenson in today's Times, "he is at risk of finding his presidency so consumed by Iraq for at least the next year that he could have trouble pressing ahead with big initiatives like the overhauling of Social Security."

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/22/politics/22assess.html?oref=login&ex=1261458000&

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scheer21dec21,1,5037346.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

More on how Rumsfeld’s cut-rate battle theory has worked: the U.S. is. . . out. . . of. . . bullets (no, this is NOT a joke)

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/001163.html

Dick Durbin (D – Illinois) asks Bush to pardon six reservists charged with a felony for scavenging needed equipment for their mission (maybe they were looking for armor plating. . . or BULLETS)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0412220367dec22,1,6578822.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

Wait, it gets even worse: look at what else the soldiers don’t have enough of

http://www.juancole.com/2004/12/going-to-war-with-clothing-we-have.html

Rumsfeld defends himself: “I care” (hey Don, it ain’t what you SAY, it’s what you DO)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20681-2004Dec22.html?nav=rss_nation

The new FBI torture memos: how is it the ACLU thought of an FOIA request to get them before any “news” organization did? A very good question

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/12/aclus_recluse_i.html

What the memos show: torture practices were not an “aberration” after all

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/12/22/guantanamo_torture/index.html?source=RSS

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/12/the_administration_treats_torture_as_the_new_normal.html

[NB: The frequent excuse given in this case is that if you understood the sort of people we were dealing with you wouldn't be bothered by torture: "These people don't have moral values - they don't believe in human rights, therefore they don't have any - etc." What this argument fails to appreciate is that the reason we don't condone torture isn't because of what it does to THEM, but because of what it does to US. And the callousness of the excuses given reveals exactly what the effect of such coarsening is on our moral sensibility.

I had a long exchange with my uncle, a retired Army Colonel, and he asked me - as advocates do - would I approve torture if there was a bomb in a building...only one person knew where it was.. time was running out....etc. I’m sure you’ve heard, and considered, similar ”ticking bomb” questions. It is hard to know what any of us would actually do in such a situation, but certainly this raises a debatable moral issue. But what we have seen in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo is the tip over the slippery slope once torture is condoned as a matter of routine practice. It was done casually, cruelly, with sadism and a certain amount of pleasure. And the dehumanization of the victim is nothing but a way of rationalizing that pleasure.]

Washington Post: “War Crimes”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20986-2004Dec22.html
Since the publication of photographs of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in the spring the administration's whitewashers -- led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- have contended that the crimes were carried out by a few low-ranking reservists, that they were limited to the night shift during a few chaotic months at Abu Ghraib in 2003, that they were unrelated to the interrogation of prisoners and that no torture occurred at the Guantanamo Bay prison where hundreds of terrorism suspects are held. The new documents establish beyond any doubt that every part of this cover story is false. . . Though they represent only part of the record that lies in government files, the documents show that the abuse of prisoners was already occurring at Guantanamo in 2002 and continued in Iraq even after the outcry over the Abu Ghraib photographs. . . The Bush administration refused to release these records to the human rights groups under the Freedom of Information Act until it was ordered to do so by a judge. Now it has responded to their publication with bland promises by spokesmen that any wrongdoing will be investigated. The record of the past few months suggests that the administration will neither hold any senior official accountable nor change the policies that have produced this shameful record. Congress, too, has abdicated its responsibility under its Republican leadership: It has been nearly four months since the last hearing on prisoner abuse.

More on the decline of American power and prestige in Europe

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000035.html
[WSJ] "America failed its exam as a superpower," says Lech Walesa, the former Solidarity trade-union leader who became Poland's first post-Communist president. "They are a military and economic superpower but not morally or politically anymore. This is a tragedy for us." Mr. Walesa laments what he sees as America's squandered leadership because he thinks the EU isn't ready for prime time.... [C]an Europe offer itself and the wider world a vision to match, and perhaps one day even supplant, America's role as "leader of the free world"?

Where things stand in Ohio (thanks to Doug Kellner for some of the links)

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0451/perlstein.php

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/22/143719/67

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/1015

Jerry Falwell: “we are winning the Christmas war.” What – you didn’t realize it WAS a war? Well, it is to them

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412220004

Bill Moyers: “The Delusional is No Longer Marginal” (thanks to Megan Boler for the link)

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

A video clip from Bush’s latest press conference – why does he suddenly break off mid-sentence to mumble something into his chest? Doesn’t he realize that as long as he keeps using a wire, people are going to keep watching for this sort of thing? (thanks to Atrios for the link)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/archives/2004_12_01_americablog_archive.html#110374451616630999

Gregoire wins in Washington, GOP loses battle to block counting of legitimate votes. Their next tack? Let’s start counting illegitimate ones!

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/22/194352/36

One good Republican (what’s sad is how unusual his comments seem)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/23/national/23gov.html?pagewanted=2&ex=1261544400&oref=login
Caught in the middle of the fight was the secretary of state, Sam Reed, a Republican who went through his own recount in his re-election in 2000. . . Mr. Reed's office sided with the Democrats and argued before the Supreme Court that the King County ballots should be reviewed, irking other members of his party. . . Mr. Reed, who is expected to certify the results soon, said he fully expected them to be contested. . . He added, "Election administrators often say, 'I don't care who wins, as long as someone wins.' "

[NB: Well, HONEST ones do. Too bad Harris and Blackwell didn’t follow this principle]

The last word on Kerik, I suppose, until he publishes his memoirs for a hefty seven-figure fee (I hear he has some very close connections with the NY publishing scene)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20173-2004Dec22.html?nav=rss_nation

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/261625p-224000c.html

Bonus item: GOP Congressional staffer caught stealing a plasma tv from the office! This is the party that wants to lecture us on moral piety?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/22/105538/46

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- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:02 AM

 
DOUBLE-BIND

Today I am very, very angry. It’s not just that things are going to hell and no one in this administration wants to take responsibility for the consequences of their foolish policies at home and abroad. It’s that their way of responding to news of these catastrophes suggests that, while it’s terrible that bad things happen, their very occurrence REINFORCES why those policies were right in the first place! That is beyond cynical – it produces a kind of mass schizophrenia. People are increasingly angry and frightened by these events, but are continually told that any alternative course of action would be worse: “you really don’t have any choice, just trust us until things start getting better.” This is all captured perfectly in the fact that Americans widely disagree with and distrust Bush, but somehow (apparently) agreed to keep him in office. This is Gregory Bateson’s “double-bind” pathology on a national scale (http://www.23nlpeople.com/double_bind.htm)

A scene of bloody carnage: 18 of 24 dead are Americans

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6741964/

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/international/middleeast/21cnd-iraq.html?oref=login&ex=1261371600&

http://slate.msn.com/id/2111327/fr/rss/
It's not clear what caused the explosion. The Wall Street Journal cites military officials saying it was a rocket. But a militant Web site claimed responsibility and asserted it was a suicide operation. The base has thousands of people on it, including foreign contractors and Iraqi security forces. And even if it was a rocket or mortar, the attack could have been aided by insiders. As USA Today notices, the commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq said a few weeks ago that insurgents "probably know about when meal time are and [when] there is a concentration of people. The rest of the day, folks are scattered.". . . The Richmond Times-Dispatch's Jeremy Redmon, who was there during the explosion, writes that the mess hall itself has been targeted "more than 30 times this year."

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/12/22/iraq.main/index.html
CNN personnel who have visited Camp Marez said the dining area is a tent-like facility with no hardened protection -- and that soldiers had specifically raised concerns that they could be targeted by insurgents at meal time. . . One had told CNN it was only a matter of time before there was an attack on the mess hall. . . "There is a level of vulnerability when you go in there, and you don't feel like there's a hard roof over your head," said Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, an officer at Camp Marez. . . Bill Nemitz, a reporter with the Press-Herald newspaper of Portland, Maine, who was embedded at the base, said the new facility is made of concrete and was originally set to be completed by Christmas, but construction had slowed and the building is not near completion. . . Nemitz said the base's chief medical officer in April expressed concern about the mess hall being targeted and was charged with drawing up a "mass casualty" plan

[NB: Well, nice of them to have planned for the contingency of casualties in the event of just such an attack. WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE?]

Could it happen again elsewhere? You bet it could (thanks to Juan Cole for the link)

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002127178_samara22.html

Bush finds words worthy of the moment

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1708
"Any time of the year it's a time of sorrow and sadness when we lose a loss of life."

And Scotty too

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1704
MR. McCLELLAN: . . . There are some provinces where there are security challenges that remain because the terrorists recognize what a significant blow it will be when Iraq is a democratic, free and peaceful state. It will be a major blow to the ambitions of the terrorists. It is critical to our efforts to win the war on terrorism. That's why they're desperately seeking to derail the transition and attacking our forces, attacking the Iraqi people, attacking innocent civilians. They will be defeated. We have seen progress made to bring to justice those who are the enemies of freedom, and we will continue to pursue them.

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1703
White House spokesman Scott McClellan, responding to a question as to how Iraqis will be able to go to some 9,000 polling places on Jan. 30 if U.S. troops can't secure their own bases from attacks, said there was “security and peace'' in 15 of 18 provinces in Iraq.

[NB: See guys, you just aren’t LOOKING at it right!]

Timed with a stopwatch: something terrible happens in Iraq, worthy of outrage, and GOP hatchetmen are instantly on the airwaves, reminding everyone that questioning policy in a time of war is treason

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005112
“What worries me is that we are aiding and abetting the enemy," DeLay told Lt. Col. Oliver North, who was filling in on Sean Hannity's ABC Radio network broadcast. . . Without naming names, DeLay pointed the finger at "all these naysayers" who he said "constantly criticize and call everything a mistake.". . . The repeated attacks on Rumsfeld are only emboldening terrorists and their allies, the Texas conservative said. . . DeLay complained that "most of those who are criticizing [Rumsfeld], starting with the national media, never wanted us in the war to begin with. And then you have a lot of these Democrats who voted against the war. They're the appeasers. . ."

Iraq is not Afghanistan: what kind of elections are they thinking will be possible under these conditions?

http://www.juancole.com/2004/12/mosul-attack-leaves-22-dead-51-wounded.html
[Juan Cole] This sort of incident underlines what I have been saying about the difficulty of holding elections on January 30. It is not that I endorse postponing them, since I do not believe the security situation will improve any time soon and I think the US has to make the majority Shiite community happy. But I can only imagine that if the guerrillas can do this sort of thing to a US military base, they can do it to polling stations. If that happens, turnout could be low, bringing into question the legitimacy of the process. And since the elected parliament is actually a constitutional assembly, if it is elected on a low turnout, the constitution it drafts may not be seen as legitimate, either.

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/election_securi.html
[Matt Yglesias] If someone could explain to me why there's so much more emphasis being placed in the public discussion on the physical security of the Iraqi polling places than on the basic integrity of the voting and vote-counting process, I'd really like to hear it. It'll be tragic, of course, if lots of people get killed on Election Day, but lots of people get killed in Iraq with depressing frequency in Iraq. One additional slaughter more or less doesn't fundamentally change anything. A massive post-election dispute between Allawi and the United Iraqi List about who cheated whom when, on the other hand, could be totally catastrophic and lead to the disintegration of the whole enterprise. I would worry a lot more about that last point.

U.S. troops inadequate in numbers, Iraqi troops untrained: who will provide security for the upcoming elections? Read this, you WON’T believe it

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005109

On the day of his inauguration, Bush may be the most unpopular incoming President ever (some “mandate”)

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/12/21/unpopular/index.html?source=RSS
Republicans like to brag about the sweeping mandate that President Bush received on Election Day. But as he prepares for his second term, Bush approaches Inauguration Day with historically weak job-approval ratings, according to a series of new opinion polls. Unless there's a dramatic turnaround in public sentiment between now and Jan. 20, Bush will be sworn in to office with the lowest job-approval rating -- barely 50 percent -- of any president in the last 80 years, or since modern-day presidential polling began. . . "It's striking how weak he is right now," says presidential historian Richard Shenkman, editor of George Mason University's History News Network.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/21/12013/566
Karl Rove got screwed by Time Magazine. He deserved that Man of the Year award after selling this lemon to the American people.

A nice term for it: “buyer’s remorse”

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/21/approval/index.html

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1696

Torture and abuse: could it get any uglier?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17883-2004Dec21.html?nav=rss_nation
The Bush administration is facing a wave of new allegations that the abuse of foreign detainees in U.S. military custody was more widespread, varied and grave in the past three years than the Defense Department has long maintained.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=5&u=/latimests/20041221/ts_latimes/fbiagentscomplainedofprisonerabuserecordssay
One FBI report said a Guantanamo Bay detainee in May 2002 was spat upon and then beaten when he tried to protect himself. At one point, soldiers apparently were "beating him and grabbed his head and beat it into the cell floor," knocking him unconscious, the report said. . . Another agent reported in August that while in Cuba he often saw detainees chained hand and foot in a fetal position on the floor, "with no chair, food or water.”. . . "Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left for 18 to 24 hours or more," the agent wrote. . . Sometimes, he reported, the room was chilled to where a "barefooted detainee was shaking with cold.". . . Other times, he said, the air-conditioning was turned off and the temperature in the unventilated room rose to well over 100 degrees. . . He said one detainee "was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night.". . . The FBI documents also included a report of a prisoner in Cuba whose legs were injured and who said he had lied about being a terrorist out of fear that the U.S. military would otherwise have his legs amputated.

Here would be a useful inaugural project for one of those Democratic investigatory committees: the Abu Ghraib Cover-Up

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-abuse22dec22,1,4111765.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
Internal Army investigations into the suspicious deaths of several Iraqi detainees were cut short when authorities lost records, failed to conduct autopsies and contaminated evidence, according to government documents made public Tuesday amid mounting questions over prisoner abuses by the U.S. military.

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/12/buried_in_the_l.html
There was an "attempt cover up the abuses." That's the NYT paraphrasing an agent's comments in the FBI memo. The Times mentions it in passing and doesn't return.

Remenber: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5092776/site/newsweek/

What they can learn from Henry Waxman: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005108

Here is the FBI memo that alludes to a Bush Executive Order on aggressive interrogation techniques

http://www.newsisfree.com/iclick/i,65616241,5879,f/

Time for John Warner’s Armed Services committee to reopen its investigation? Don’t hold your breath

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0727-12.htm
[July 27] A week ago, John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was satisfied that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was keeping his promise to leave no stone unturned to investigate the atrocities of Abu Ghraib prison. . . The Defense Department has consistently tried to stymie Warner's investigation. It "misplaced" thousands of pages from Major General Antonio Taguba's report on Abu Ghraib, the only credible military account so far. It stalled the completion of a pivotal look at army intelligence by two other army generals. And it ignored Senate demands for the Red Cross reports on American military prisons for months. . . Warner has admirably resisted pressure from the White House and Republican leaders in Congress to stop his investigation. But he is showing signs of losing appetite for the fight. Warner held only one hearing in the last month. We've always been skeptical that the Defense Department can investigate itself credibly, and now it's obvious that it plans to stick to the "few bad apples" excuse.

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/12/dept_of_black_i.html
[Scott McClellan] said the Defense Department was investigating "a number of allegations that have been made," and added: "We expect them to get to the bottom of it.". . . Number of independent or wideranging torture investigations: zero.

Remember: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58765-2004May26?language=printer

Holden over at First Draft does another great job with Scotty’s press briefing

On Bush and torture
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1705
Q Was the President aware of the FBI charges of abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo by the Defense Department?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, first of all, I think what you're referring to is some of the reports about some memos that have been publicly released now. And some of this information dates back to previous periods of time. . .

Q Scott, if I could go back to the FBI memos for a moment. Were the concerns of the FBI, as communicated to the Director and other officials there, from its agents who have been at Guantanamo Bay ever shared with any officials at the White House?

MR. McCLELLAN: That's a broad question. I mean, I can go check specifics if you want to bring it to my attention; I can see what else I can get for you. We're aware --

Q The FBI agents are saying people in Guantanamo, military officials are, one, posing as FBI agents, and two, doing things to prisoners that we are not allowed to do, which they considered abuses.

MR. McCLELLAN: Generally speaking, we are aware of the allegations of abuse that are being made available in some of the documents that have been released. . .

Q Well, the question would be whether the White House knew that the FBI was concerned that there were abuses and that its name was being invoked in perpetrating those abuses. . .

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, there's a lot of documents that have been released. I'd have to check into specific instances and let you know on that. . .

Q Well, would you just state for the record whether the President had ever signed any sort of order dealing with interrogation?

MR. McCLELLAN: There is no executive order relating to interrogation techniques. When it comes to military detainees and interrogation methods, those are determinations made by the Department of Defense.

[NB: I read this as meaning, there WAS an Executive Order, but one that did not detail specific techniques (and wouldn’t, if you think about it – that’s not what Executive Orders are for)]

On the attack in Mosul
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1704
Q Scott, just about all of us in this room are old enough to remember what happened in 1983, with the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, and what that one incident did to American resolve regarding that mission. I'm just wondering if the President believes -- and I realize the Mosul thing is quite different, the circumstances are quite different, but it's been widely reported -- I'm wondering if the President worries that the American people are going to continue to be accepting of the consequences of this invasion ad infinitum or at some point --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, first of all, there -- a free and peaceful and democratic Iraq is going to emerge. It's going to be an Iraq that is run by the Iraqi people, as they choose to run that country. And we've made that very clear. The President will continue to talk to the American people about the challenges that remain. As he talked about yesterday, there are still some tough challenges going forward. But he will also talk to them about the importance of the mission we are working to complete in Iraq.

Good news on Social Security: so far, people ain’t buying all the “crisis” talk. Let’s see what a few more weeks of stump speeches and relentless media repetition accomplishes

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005365.php
The number of people who think we have a Social Security "crisis" is down considerably, and the number of people who think it has "minor problems" — which is probably the most accurate choice here — is up.

More poll numbers: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_19.php#004277

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/12/21/7316/9018
"The crisis is now. You may not feel it, your constituents may not be overwhelming you with letters demanding a fix, but the crisis is now." Bush

The first task then, is for Bush to convince Congress that there is a crisis, and expect the media to go right along with Bush on this, as this is one they've a vested interest in:

Richard D. Parsons, chief executive officer of Time Warner Inc. and co-chairman of a Social Security reform commission appointed by Bush, said the government needed to begin making the same transition as corporations that had begun replacing traditional defined-benefit pension plans with newer defined-contribution 401(k) accounts.

"We have to gradually move from a system that is on a pay-as-you-go basis ... to a system that is on a fund-as-you-go basis," Parsons said. "This is exactly what's happened in the business world."

Bush says crisis and CNN jumps. . . And here it is again, in Dick Armey's Tis the Season for Social Security Reform, well-funded talking points in action:

"America is rapidly approaching a retirement security crisis... The solution is obvious... Social Security reform becomes more difficult the longer we wait... the Cato Institute found..."

The first thing then, is to get Congress to debate the crisis, because once that is accepted, the solution becomes Bush's.

Crisis/no crisis?

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8976
There is No Social-Security Crisis
Let’s say that again: There is no Social Security crisis.
[Matthew Yglesias] Until very recently, I believed, as most of my generation still does, that Social Security was facing a crisis. Thanks to a declining birthrate and increasing longevity, at some point during my lifetime the program was going to go bankrupt and people my age were going to wind up with nothing after a lifetime of payroll taxes. I was -- and the bulk of young people still are -- the victim of a massive fraud, perpetrated by Social Security abolition advocates and unfortunately re-enforced from time to time by liberals seeking an argument against Republican tax cuts. This fraud, which is ongoing and in which a lazy media has been complicit, is crucial to understanding the politics of Social Security. . .

Social Security is healthy and successful. There is no crisis. The president and the Republicans in Congress are trying to scare the American people in order to destroy the most successful program in American history -- a program that presidents from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Harry Truman to Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton have been committed to preserving.

George W. Bush wants to break Social Security's bipartisan promise to the American people, and now he's making up stories to try to persuade voters to go along with it. These scare stories are based on a pessimistic assessment of the country's potential for future economic growth, an assessment the president does not embrace in any other context. Nor is it an assessment that he should embrace. Instead, we should be working to ensure robust future growth by improving America's health care, education system, and basic infrastructure while devising policies that make it easier for couples to have and raise children and remaining open to immigration from the rest of the world.

But even if the president's pessimism about America's potential proves warranted, his scare stories are not. As this chart clearly demonstrates, even if we do absolutely nothing to change the system or prevent economic growth from slowing, Social Security checks will never stop flowing, and benefit levels will always be higher than what today's retirees enjoy. The Social Security pessimists have been proven wrong again and again in the past, and even under their "doomsday" scenario, the system can continue to exist in its present form while still providing a decent benefit to all.

Young people, though supposedly immune to the liberal message on retirement security, are, in fact, going to be the biggest victims of the Bush plan. The president proposes to offer us a guaranteed cut in benefits and $2 trillion in debt, plus the possible burden of supporting our parents if the stock market underperforms, in order to forestall the mere possibility that benefit growth may have to be curtailed sometime in the 2040s. This is, when stated clearly, a horrible deal for Generation Y, and liberals need to have some confidence in our ability to make our case.

Advocates of eliminating Social Security argue that this is wrong and that the program holds no "real assets" instead of "mere IOUs." These IOUs, however, are U.S. Treasury bonds, considered far and wide to be the safest investment in the world. In times of grave national crisis, from the Revolutionary War to World War II, the federal government has financed its activities be issuing these bonds -- and they've always been repaid.

The president has chosen to finance a series of tax cuts for people earning more than $100,000 a year by selling these bonds to the central banks of China and Japan, and to Social Security. Now he says that he doesn't want to pay back what he's borrowed from my generation's retirement fund. That's just wrong. Worse, what kind of message does it send to the Chinese and others that Bush plans to offer an additional $2 trillion in bonds when the U.S. government takes the position that these are just IOUs that don't need to be repaid?

Faced with current projections, the responsible thing to do is to close the massive hole in the government's non-Social Security budget while thinking of ways to prevent the dramatic slowdown in economic growth that forms the basis of the president's doomsday scenario. Instead, Bush wants to tell scary stories to young people in the hope that we'll panic and abandon our support for the most successful, and most fiscally sound, program our government runs today.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_19.php#004276
"Long range changes need to be made" to Social Security to insure benefits can be paid. Did you know that? And with the baby boom generation about to double the number of seniors "changes will need to be made to Social Security" to keep the program solvent. And "most experts agree the sooner those changes are made the less they are going to cost." Did you know that? Or how about the fact that "some people mistakenly think there’s a special account" with their funds in it?. . . Just some of helpful facts you can learn about Social Security when you listen to the "on hold" recording while waiting to speak with someone at the Social Security administration.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005106
Looking through the latest Washington Post poll, I'm starting to think that the political challenge of taking on Bush's Social Security elimination "plan" may not be quite the uphill battle some of us have been assuming. The public disapproves of Bush's handling of Social Security by a 38-53 margin, which comes in the context of generally widespread skepticism about George W. Bush's domestic policies

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005104
This isn't an either/or choice -- liberals need to simultaneously appeal to individual self-interest (Bush's favored tactic of finding examples of "ordinary people" to illustrate his point would work nicely here) with efforts to reframe the conversation from "how do we solve to crisis?" to "should we abolish a healthy and successful program and replace it with something less generous?"

The kind of handy, plain-spoken analogy that can do a lot of good at a time like this

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005111
"Social Security is like a car with a flat tire," said Peter Orszag, an economist at the liberal Brookings Institution and adviser in the Clinton White House. "There is a problem. We need to fix the flat tire. But we don't need to replace the car."

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005101
[Garance Franke-Ruta] Josh Marshall's rhetorical contribution, that this is an effort to "phase out Social Security," strikes me as being on the right track. I happen to be partial to the "if it's confusing, it must be bad" argument, which honors the average, kind of out-of-it voter's inability to wrap their mind around actuarial tables and the distinctions between trust funds and general funds and how rates of productivity growth and GDP impact the program. Mike Tomasky's suggestion that this be addressed in simple, easy-to-understand television ads is also good, as is all of this back and forth.

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8977
[Michael Tomasky] I say some smart political consultant should just do exactly what the Republicans did. Do up some ads with another, similarly likeable couple. Heck, just call them Harry and Louise. No -- Louis and Harriet, to make a joke. And Louis and Harriet need to be sitting around worrying not about some crisis, not about the legacy of the New Deal, but only about how this will affect them.

Initial ammunition for the script was provided by a New York Times article by Edmund L. Andrews that ran on December 14 under the headline, “Most GOP Plans to Remake Social Security Involve Deep Cuts to Tomorrow’s Retirees.” In that piece, Andrews described how the future Social Security shortfall can only be filled, no matter what proponents of privatization do or don’t say, by future benefit cuts -- which are at the very heart of the proposed change from pegging benefits to wages to pegging them to inflation (wages typically rise faster than inflation).

According to the article, under current law, a middle-income worker retiring in 2065 would be entitled to a Social Security benefit of 40 percent of his or her wages just before retirement. But under the proposed change, that worker’s benefit would decrease to 22 percent of his or her wages -- a 40-percent decrease.

This, to opponents of privatization, should be manna from heaven. And so, to our commercial. Louis and Harriet are a young married couple, around 32 or so. They’re sitting in their kitchen. Harriet bounces a newborn on her lap, while a toddler plays on the floor before her. Louis is contentedly reading the paper, as men since Ward Cleaver have been wont to do. It’s a modest kitchen -- Kenmore, not Sub-Zero -- but neat and houseproud.

Louis: “Gee, Harriet, it says here that this Social Security privatization is going to have to result in benefit cuts for future retirees.”

Harriet: “Really, Louis? But I though the president said we’d be able to make more.”

Louis: “Well, that isn’t what it says here. And some of the fellas at work have said, too” [Personal validation is crucial, because we all know we can’t trust the media.] “that privatizing won’t really fix what’s wrong. There’ll still be a shortfall, and that will have to be made up through cuts to future retirees.”

Harriet: “Like what kind of cuts?”

Louis: “Well, it doesn’t say here, but Bill down at the office -- and remember, he’s in accounting -- says he figures as much as 40 percent down the road. I figured it out. For me, that might mean going from about $40,000 to about $24,000.”

Harriet (pauses as a pensive look crosses her face): “Gosh, Louis. So if that’s what’s going to happen to people like us, I wonder who’s really making out here?” [A subtle class-warfare fillip, playing nicely into everyone’s presumption that the Republicans are out to help the rich.]

The dramatic music swells, the narrator says something to drive the point home, the screen goes dark. Fight over.

Potential Democratic defectors to keep an eye on

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_19.php#004279

http://www.davidsirota.com/2004/12/dems-gopers-to-watch-on-ss.html

Something too little discussed in this country (and too little cared about) is how the rest of the world sees us and our policies: with anger and resentment and a fair amount of fear – now, little by little, the arrogance and insularity of Bush’s America is starting to hurt us

http://www.cookpolitical.com/column/2004/121404.php
[Charlie Cook] As Europeans' shock over President Bush's re-election begins to ebb, it is being replaced by a fervent effort to seek clues from ongoing Cabinet changes that will indicate how the next four years might differ from the last. . . The news that popular Secretary of State Colin Powell is leaving while Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is viewed far less favorably, is staying has caused considerable dismay. . . The truth, of course, is that most Europeans have disliked, and possibly loathed, George W. Bush from first sight. . . [W]hat most Europeans know about Texas, they learned from re-runs of the television show "Dallas," which did not exactly put the Lone Star State's best foot forward. Bush's renown swagger and studied anti-intellectualism seemed to feed the stereotype. If Europeans tend to put intellectuals on a pedestal, Americans are inclined to believe that intellectuals are a group of smart people who lack common sense.

[I]t has not helped Bush that Texas ranks first in the nation in the number of death penalty executions. Europeans are consumed by this country's use of the death penalty, which they think is barbaric and amounts to state-sanctioned murder. American foreign policy experts are always struck with how conversations with Europeans on American politics seem to invariably turn to the death penalty, rarely a major topic in the U.S. . .

Toss in Washington's thumbs down on the Kyoto environmental protocol and reluctance to embrace the International Court of Justice, and you really have a combustible mixture.

In two trips to Europe before the 2000 election, I discovered that the typical member of the European elite (business leaders, parliamentarians, journalists, academics or denizens of think tanks) interpreted the election this way: "George W. Bush is an arrogant cowboy. Americans will never elect an arrogant cowboy president, therefore Al Gore is going to win."

Today, Europeans view America's problems in Iraq with a mix of schadenfreude (taking pleasure in the misery of others) and concern that the world's leading superpower is being weakened, and not knowing the implications of this change. All of this is what fuels the belief among many Europeans that the European Union is an important counterweight to the United States. They have seen that the judgment of current, past and future U.S. governments is fallible, and that a collective balance of western countries on their side of the Atlantic could moderate some future excesses on ours.

The fact that President Bush was re-elected this year was a rude awakening for many European Bush-bashers. . . For the last year, many European governments seemed to have the idea that all they had to do was wait until Bush lost his re-election bid. Now that a second Bush term is a reality, they must figure out how to "manage" this relationship. The process is made more difficult by having constituents who are at best increasingly skeptical of American power, and dealing with a White House that they perceive to project the attitude that it does not care what the world thinks.

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000019.html
[Tim Dunlop] Last night I had an interesting conversation with a friend who works on Capitol Hill. He was recently part of a Congressional delegation that went to India. The delegation was mainly Republicans. They spoke to a lot of Indian government people and the message from them was very clear, and in a nutshell it was this: "We don't much care about America." He said they were very polite but almost indifferent. Maybe matter-of-fact is a better description. The conversation went something like this: “We consider ourselves as in competition with China for leadership in the new century. That's our focus and frankly, you have made it very difficult for us to deal with you. We find your approach to international affairs ridiculous. The invasion of Iraq was insane. You've encouraged the very things you say you were trying to fix - terrorism and instability. Your attitude to Iran is ridiculous. You need to engage with Iran. We are. We are bemused by your hypocrisy. You lecture the world about dealing with dictators and you deal with Pakistan.”

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005363.php
[Kevin Drum] It's easy to get Chicken Little-ish about this kind of stuff, but these statistics about the decline of foreigners applying for graduate studies at U.S. universities are kind of scary. . . I suspect that a lot of Americans have no idea just how dependent we are on foreigners to fill our graduate schools, especially in technical areas. Without Indian immigrants, for example, Silicon Valley would practically be a ghost town and the dotcom boom would have been stillborn. The biotech industry would be devastated. Engineering schools would be depopulated.

And so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the U.S. is once again trying to bully the U.N. (under threat of withholding financial support) to suppress a report critical of the U.S. and Israel (thanks to Craig Murphy for the link)

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/10452499.htm
The lead writer of a U.N. report on freedom and governance in the Arab world said yesterday that the United States was threatening to cut off funds to a U.N. agency if the United Nations released it. . . Nader Fergani, the Egyptian social scientist who has worked on the last three Arab Human Development Reports, said defying the United States could cost the U.N. Development Program about $100 million a year.

U.S. officials have denied trying to delay or suppress the report, originally due to have come out in October. But U.N. officials said parts were being rewritten after the United States and some Arab governments asked for changes. . . Washington is unhappy, Fergani said, with sections in the report on the U.S. occupation of Iraq and activities of its ally Israel in the Palestinian territories. . . He said yesterday that many U.S. actions were in contradiction to its rhetorical commitment to freedom. . .

He said the United States had initially asked for changes to the 2004 report, which concentrates on freedom and good governance in the Arab world. . . "But now they are trying to suppress it completely," he added.

U.S.’s declining “moral authority”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/21/191157/34

More on moral authority: we’re compassionate conservatives, but we ARE conservatives (and by the way, Merry Friggin’ Christmas)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/22/politics/22aid.html?ex=1261458000&en=0085d3b27189a657&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
In one of the first signs of the effects of the ever tightening federal budget, in the past two months the Bush administration has reduced its contributions to global food aid programs aimed at helping millions of people climb out of poverty.

Yes, it definitely appears that Larry Franklin, the member of the Feith/Wolfowitz cabal who allegedly leaked classified information that eventually reached Iran (remember that story?), worked a deal, flipped, and is now part of the AIPAC sting operation. Nice deal: because we’re a lot more concerned about other countries working espionage in our country than we are about administration officials who are breaking the law

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_19.php#004275

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/sting.html

http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?strwebhead=FBI+waited+to+move+on+AIPAC&intcategoryid=5
Franklin had been under increased scrutiny since disclosure of a secret meeting in December 2001 with former Iranian spy and arms merchant Manucher Ghorbanifar that some in the Washington establishment claimed was unauthorized. Ghorbanifar was on a CIA “burn list” of individuals who could not be contacted, according to informed intelligence community sources. . . Franklin didn’t know it, but the FBI’s counterintelligence division was monitoring his May 2004 phone conversation with the CBS reporters, including Ciralsky. . . In the conversation with CBS, Franklin’s remarks reportedly revealed sensitive intelligence intercepts, potentially compromising sources and methods of intelligence gathering, according to some sources aware of the call. . . Friends and colleagues describe Franklin as a dedicated public servant deeply concerned about growing Iranian influence in Iraq. . . “He ran off at the mouth, and hated the intelligence community for what he saw as recklessness,” one colleague said. “He was willing to take matters into his own hands for what he saw as the good of the nation.”

Great analysis by Laura Rozen: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001514.html

Meanwhile, the DoD keeps acting like the State Dept (let’s see, they’ve taken over intelligence, they’ve take over diplomacy and nation-building – hell, let’s just given them education, health care, the environment, and economic policy too)

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001516.html

But seriously folks, more from the NYT, via Laura Rozen, on the unrepentant expansion of DoD intelligence activities and what it will get us: a “train wreck”

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001515.html

The CIA Inspector General’s report on 9-11. I haven’t forgotten about this, nor should anyone

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/102104Y.shtml
[October 20] The ranking members of the House Intelligence Committee have asked the CIA to turn over an internal report on whether agency employees should be held accountable for intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks, congressional officials said Tuesday. . . The CIA has not responded to the request, raising concerns among some Democrats in Congress that the report is being withheld to avoid embarrassment for the Bush administration. . . The report was drafted in response to a demand from Congress nearly two years ago for the CIA to conduct an internal inquiry into the performance of agency personnel before the attacks. The agency was asked "to determine whether and to what extent personnel at all levels should be held accountable" for intelligence breakdowns cataloged in a joint congressional investigation of Sept. 11. . . No agency employee has been fired or faced other disciplinary measures in connection with Sept. 11 inquiries, a fact that has frustrated critics of the CIA and relatives of those who were killed in the attacks.

A U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday that the document had not been provided to Congress because it was not complete. "The report is just a draft," the official said. "It's not yet finished, and the matter is still under review." The official declined to elaborate. . . But congressional officials voiced skepticism and said that mounting frustration with the agency had prompted the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), and the ranking Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman of Venice, to send a letter to the CIA two weeks ago directing the agency to deliver the report.

The existence of the letter was first reported Tuesday in the Los Angeles Times in an opinion column by Robert Scheer. The column quoted Harman as saying, "We believe that the CIA has been told not to distribute the report. We are very concerned.". . . Congressional officials said they were told that the CIA inspector general's office had completed the report in the summer, but that it would not be turned over because of a request by then-acting CIA Director John E. McLaughlin for additional information on the report's contents.

"The concern here is that this [delay] has gone from days to weeks to months," a senior congressional aide said on condition of anonymity. "We're concerned that the work of the inspector general not be altered or censored or in any way precluded from coming over here."

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1004/102804c1.htm
[October 28] Key staff members of the 9/11 Commission left an internal CIA review of intelligence failures leading up to the attacks out its final report, the former executive director of the commission said Thursday. . . The staffers made an agreement with the CIA's inspector general to not cite the internal investigation in the commission's final report, which was issued in July, Philip Zelikow told Government Executive. Zelikow led the 9/11 Commission staff until the body ended its work in August. . .

The 9/11 commission's final report did not identify any failures of specific government officials, but rather concluded that governmentwide and institutional failures, especially within the intelligence community, laid the groundwork for the attacks. . . Zelikow said commission staff members interviewed officials working on the CIA investigation and reviewed material from the investigation. According to Zelikow, however, the investigation was not cited in the commission's final report because CIA personnel who were interviewed and named in the review were never told the information they provided would end up in the final 9/11 report.

http://www.infowars.net/Pages/Nov_04/021104_CIA_911.html
[November 2] The director of central intelligence has asked the C.I.A.'s inspector general to modify a draft report on the Sept. 11 attacks to avoid drawing conclusions about whether individual C.I.A. officers should be held accountable for any failures, Congressional and intelligence officials said Monday. The request by Porter J. Goss, the intelligence chief, would affect an 800-page report that is the result of nearly two years of work. . . Mr. Helgerson's draft report is widely understood to identify officers and officials who should be considered for discipline because of breakdowns in the collection, analysis and distribution of intelligence before the attacks.

The draft report was completed in July, but it has not yet been shared with the individuals named in the document. That step has been delayed for the last 90 days to allow time for Mr. Goss, who took office in September, and his predecessor, John E. McLaughlin, to review the document. In recent weeks, members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, have complained to Mr. Goss about the delay. . .

As the C.I.A.'s inspector general, Mr. Helgerson is an independent internal investigator, subject to presidential appointment and Senate confirmation. According to Congressional and intelligence officials, Mr. Goss wants to limit the report to findings of fact, deferring judgments about who should be held accountable to a separate inquiry by an internal C.I.A. panel known as an Accountability Review Board, which is typically composed of senior agency managers. . . An intelligence official said that Mr. Goss had requested only that Mr. Helgerson "consider" making changes in the "formatting and presentation" of the draft report as he believed appropriate. "Ultimately, it is the call of I.G. to decide how to proceed,'' the intelligence official said.

[NB: now almost two months later and not a peep since]

Thanks for clearing that up

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/21/193313/66
Quick question, is the following quote 1) a Bush Administration press release, or 2) a supposedly neutral AP wire story?

President Bush's campaign to make the tax code simpler, fairer and more pro-growth is likely to involve incremental changes to the current system rather than a sweeping effort to scrap the venerable income tax for a radically new approach, such as a national sales tax.

Another day, another outrage: politicizing supposedly “expert panels”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_19.php#004278

Well, it’s good to know that a little bit of plagiarism need not be an impediment to career advancement in journalism

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/20/224445

Why wasn’t Bush’s impact on the Supreme Court a bigger issue during the campaign? Well, for starters, two thirds of the public can’t name a single one of the current justices – not one

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/21/court/index.html

Speaking of the Supreme Court, things are looking good in the Washington State governor’s race (though it will be interesting to see how many arguments the GOP can come up with for not counting legitimate votes)

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/12/21/122744/19

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/21/181754/08
The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday morning at 9:30 a.m. PT whether 500+ ballots incorrectly rejected can be included in the recount. Optimist Washington Dems think that regardless of the morning hearing, unless some shocking new information comes to light, the court is ready to rule in Gregoire's favor upholding the radical notion that a valid ballot should be, er, valid. . . Gregoire will be at the state Supreme Court and hold a press conference immediately following the results. If the court allows those ballots, Gregoire has all but won the election. If they don't, then it'll be a nail biter to the end as King County completes its recount and reports on Thursday.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_19.php#004280
Wow! From the AP: "The head of the state Democratic Party said late Tuesday that recount results from King County give Democrat Christine Gregoire an eight-vote victory in the closest governor’s race in state history."

[NB: That’s not counting the 700-odd ballots that have never been counted, which are likely to break even more strongly in her favor. GOP plans a court challenge (duh!): http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=716&e=4&u=/ap/20041222/ap_on_re_us/governor_recount]

In Ohio (speaking of not counting all the legitimate votes) things are slogging along. Thanks goodness for John Conyers, our lonely hero

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/12/21/conyers/index.html?source=RSS

http://rawstory.rawprint.com/1204/conyers_exit_polls_1221.php

Freedom of religion for us, but not for you (oh, yeah, and “Happy Holidays” to you too)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_19_atrios_archive.html#110365810675304871
Hours after residents, local officials and clergy gathered at Veteran's Park to attend a rally against the recent vandalism to a Hanukkah menorah, the menorah was vandalized again. . . Eight of the nine bulbs were ripped out of the menorah, which sits next to a Christmas tree and a nativity scene, and one was left hanging out of its socket. . .

Bonus item: How many times did you hear about the “planted” question at the Rumsfeld meeting with the troops? And how many times did you hear this?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412210007
The American soldier who asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about the lack of armored vehicles in Iraq told TIME magazine that he formulated the question himself, yet nationally syndicated conservative radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Michael Reagan continued their attempts to discredit the question by suggesting that a reporter planted it. Rumsfeld has faced significant criticism for his response to the question, which was posed at a December 8 "town hall" meeting in Kuwait. . . In an interview (dated December 20 but first posted online December 19 and to appear in the December 27 print issue) with National Guard Specialist Thomas "Jerry" Wilson, billed as the soldier's first public account of the incident, TIME magazine noted Wilson's claim that he "came up with the pointed question himself."

***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.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:33 AM

 
HALF-COURT PRESS

ACLU uncovers possible evidence that torture and abuse against prisoners in Iraq were a direct result of a Bush Executive Order (thanks to Atrios for the link)

http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17216&c=206
A document released for the first time today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. Also released by the ACLU today are a slew of other records including a December 2003 FBI e-mail that characterizes methods used by the Defense Department as "torture" and a June 2004 "Urgent Report" to the Director of the FBI that raises concerns that abuse of detainees is being covered up. . . The two-page e-mail. . . states that the President directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The ACLU is urging the White House to confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists.

Rumsfeld implicated too

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1692
"We did advise each supervisor that went to GTMO [Guantanamo] to stay in line with Bureau policy and not deviate from that ... I went to GTMO ... We had also met with Generals Dunlevy & Miller explaining our position (Law Enforcement Techniques) vs. DoD [Department of Defense]. Both agreed the Bureau has their way of doing business and DoD has their marching orders from the SecDef [Secretary of Defense]. Although the two techniques [of interrogation] differed drastically, both Generals believed they had a job to accomplish.". . . The e-mail goes on to recall how, during the questioning of one prisoner, the Pentagon interrogators wanted to "pursue expeditiously their methods" to "get more out of him ... We were given a so-called deadline to use our traditional methods."

But wait for the punch line: THIS was the New York Times headline on the story

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/politics/21abuse.html?ex=1261285200&en=c1f6199e3fdeb963&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
New F.B.I. Memos Describe Abuses of Iraq Inmates
. . . Beyond providing new details about the nature and extent of abuses, if not the exact times or places, the newly disclosed documents are the latest to show that such activities were known to a wide circle of government officials.

[NB: and that’s ALL it says about higher-ups]

Washington Post mentions Rummy, not Bush
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14936-2004Dec20.html

LA Times gets it right
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-abuse21dec21,1,3653011.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Commentary
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005357.php
We're really setting a good example in the war of civilizations, aren't we? I mean, are these guys trying to help Osama's recruiting efforts, or what?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001511.html
It is not at all inconceivable that some day not too many years off Rumsfeld and Bush will face arrest if they travel abroad for command responsibility for war crimes, like Pinochet.

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/bush_to_the_hag.html
Laura Rozen looks at the latest developments on the torture front and remarks that it "is not at all inconceivable that some day not too many years off Rumsfeld and Bush will face arrest if they travel abroad for command responsibility for war crimes, like Pinochet." Indeed, not only is it conceivable, I think in some ways it has to be regarded as expected at this point. . . The really interesting thing about the spate of stories we've seen over the past two weeks isn't so much that widespread torture was taking place (we knew that already) but that large swathes of the security and intelligence establishment issued various protests. It's testament both to the basic integrity of most of America's security professionals and to the utter moral depravity of the people in the Bush-Gonzalez-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Feith-Cambone chain that this happened. In a decent world, Al Gonzalez would face some rough questions about all this at his confirmation hearings, but I don't think we live in that world.

On the Social Security issue, let me start with a simple question and thought experiment: Does anyone believe for an instant that Bush would make the top domestic priority of his new term the preservation and expansion of a major entitlement program? Why would he do that? Our discussion today starts, as they usually do, with the daily lies

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_19.php#004270
Administration Social Security lies round-up from yesterday's shows, from the AP

Both Card and Snow, who appeared on "Fox News Sunday," said Social Security is beyond repair as it now stands. They said details of a plan to overhaul it remain to be worked out. . . Asked whether Bush's ideas would remove guarantees of Social Security benefits to younger workers, Card said: "Under no one's plan will younger workers receive benefits they've been promised because the Social Security system doesn't have the financial underpinning, the foundation to support the expectations of social security 75 years from now, 50 years from now."

[Josh Marshall] Straight-up lies, disinformation. I was going to say just like Iraq, but it's far more brazen since our knowledge in this case is much more certain. . . Perhaps next there can be some effort to get the media to provide some check on demonstrably false statements made by administration spokespeople.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005096
[Matt Yglesias] I thought it would be instructive to compare the Social Security Administration's economic forecasts on which the alleged "crisis" is based to the administration's own growth forecasts. The SSA says that "the average annual growth in real GDP is projected to be 2.9 percent over the short-range projection period (2004-13), a slower rate than the 3.3 percent average observed over the historical 40-year period (1962-2002)." Meanwhile the White House's Council of Economic Advisors has recently released its own economic forecasts (PDF) for the years 2004-10, concluding that we'll see an average of 3.4 percent growth for that seven-year period.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/business/21lobby.html?ex=1261285200&en=dba6ac3ca19c89bc&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
As President Bush prepares to disclose the details of his plan to funnel hundreds of billions of dollars of future Social Security funds into privately held investment accounts, Wall Street has begun a muted lobbying campaign. . . So far, the chief executives of most financial firms have refused to take a public stand in support of private accounts, wary of being seen as too eager to embrace a potential new revenue stream. . . There are signs, however, that the industry is becoming a little more aggressive in pushing for private accounts, through a loose assemblage of trade associations, business coalitions and conservative research centers. These groups have lately begun trying to raise money from business interests and to marshal support on Capitol Hill, while also seeking to deflect criticism that Wall Street is behind the move simply to reap rich rewards for administering the accounts.

E-riposte on Social Security myth vs reality

http://www.eriposte.com/policy/socialsecurity.htm

I agree with the analyses below. This is a fight the Dems can win, and must win. If they comply with a dismantling of Social Security, they have abandoned the one thing that differentiates them from the Repubs – a commitment to government’s role in securing the general welfare. And if their leadership can’t enforce party discipline on this, then they really have lost the ability to act like a deserving majority party again

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005084
The Democrats will not return to power on the Hill until there is a major change in the underlying political dynamic in this country, a fact which the relative smallness of the GOP majority (by historical standards) tends to obscure. And the only way to effect a major change in the underlying political dynamics is to bet the table -- to really change the order of business. In part, this will likely have to involve a genuine reform agenda, one which requires Democrats to take risks and exercise some self-discipline. (For instance, denying themselves absurd pork-barrel projects, even if hurts some members, the better to make the deficit an albatross around the free-spending GOP Congress' neck.) But winning will also require of the Democratic minority a willingness to suffer tactical defeats in the service of strategic victory. A good example here is, as Josh Marshall has been pointing out, a willingness to sacrifice Democratic members who waver on Social Security abolition, even to work for their defeat if they defect in the coming months and years. Why? Because "[m]aking the elimination of Social Security a strictly Republican gambit raises the political stakes dramatically. Many Republicans will be far more cautious without bipartisan cover. Democrats must deny them even the thinnest of fig leaves. Making it a strictly Republican affair will also provide valuable clarity in the coming election, rather than the muddled picture created by Democratic defections on the 2001 tax bill." Indeed, in the long run it's probably better for the Democrats to lose a few members in 2006 than to allow the GOP that fig leaf.

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_19.php#004272

Let me put this in stronger terms. Played properly, this is the Health Care issue that gave the Repubs momentum to take over Congress in 1994. The Dems can not only defeat the Bush proposal – they can, with any measure of political acumen, portray it as a broken promise by the Federal govt, as a budget-busting sop to the financial services industry, as a betrayal of the very principles on which Social Security is founded. They need to fight this on every front and link it to the larger question of what the GOP has done while in power. If they do this, they can leverage themselves back into the majority – if they don’t, then they don’t deserve to be

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005089
[Garance Franke-Ruta] The trust fund, as set up by Ronald Reagan to ensure Social Security's viability, was created with excess payroll tax revenue, derived primarily from working- and middle-class Americans. The general fund to which the money was lent and which bears the obligation of repaying the debt is financed mainly through income taxes, which fall primarily on the wealthy. The reason the general fund is currently projected to be unable to make good on these payments is that the president has drastically scaled back taxes on the wealthy. Now he'd like to pay for those tax cuts by having the general fund default on its debt to the trust fund. It's not a question of whether "taxpayers" will pay, but a question of which taxpayers will pay.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005088
[Matt Yglesias] I got an email today from a reader containing the talking points the Democratic leadership is developing on Social Security. Fortunately, it does contain the crucial line, "Social Security faces challenges, but is not in crisis -- the Trust Fund is projected to remain solvent until 2052." Unfortunately, this point comes fifth in the list when it should be first. The president, at his still-ongoing press conference, was refreshingly candid about his strategy for Social Security abolition: He won't be outlining any specific proposal; instead he's going to simply tour the country talking up the purported crisis, singing the praises of private accounts and pressuring Congress to "do something." Then, once Congress starts producing a bill, he'll start negotiating. . . This is a losing game for Democrats to play. Once the terms of the debate become "how do we solve the crisis?" then the constellation of forces inside the Beltway leads naturally to the conclusion that we solve it on Bush's terms. Even a bad bill will look good compared to passivity in the face of the program's alleged bankruptcy. So while Democrats probably will need some kind of alternative reform agenda to put forward, they shouldn't lose sight of the need to fight and win this first debate: Is there a crisis? The fact is that there is not. Not only is the trust fund solvent until 2052, this long-off insolvency is based on unduly pessimistic forecasts of future productivity growth and immigration. Pressure should be on the administration to do something about the very real crisis in the general fund caused by Bush's tax cuts, and the very real crisis in rising health care costs caused in part by the administration's ludicrous prescription drug bill.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005100
[Garance Franke-Ruta] While everyone's talking about Social Security reform, it might be a good moment for the Democrats to reach out to a constituency they'd like to make headway with, whose votes have been critical in the past, and with whom they are on increasingly shaky ground: mothers. Social Security as it currently exists doesn't do much for stay-at-home moms. The Older Women's League has been talking about this for years. But it really hits home when you talk to someone in her mid-60s, as I did recently, who's looking at a monthly Social Security check of $300 per month because she spent her prime working years raising kids. No one can live on that. . . Stay-at home moms who devote their working lives to child-rearing get screwed under the current system. How is adding more complications to the system in the form of private accounts going to help them? That strikes me as a question worth asking -- and not least because this group is becoming part of the GOP base.

Nancy Pelosi: no crisis

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005095

BUT. . . another take on the “no crisis” strategy

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005081
[Garance Franke-Ruta] I seriously doubt that asserting that there is no Social Security crisis will work as a Democratic strategy at this late date, even though it's largely true. It simply won't sound credible. . . The need for Social Security reform is not a Republican rhetorical set-up the Democrats now need to counter-frame. It has been the dominant bipartisan national narrative for more than a decade and I don't think that's the kind of thing that gets successfully reframed during a four- to six-month legislative battle with a powerful president whose party controls both houses of Congress. Just look at the USA Today headline on Thursday: "Bush: It's Time to Fix Social Security." The narrative frame here is already set.

Saying there is no problem with Social Security just allows the Republicans to once again paint the Democrats as the behind-the-times defenders of the status-quo while the Republicans go ahead and take action to fix something that people have been arguing about fixing for decades. Denial will allow the Republicans, once again, to claim the mantle of being the party of political reform. "But he's lying!" may be a common Democratic complaint about the president, but it's not a rhetorical or political strategy. Nor, as we saw on Nov. 2, is it a particularly effective charge. . .

The Dems need to come up with an alternative to Bush's plan that can be framed as change and as solving the Social Security problems that they too have been yammering about for more than a decade. . . All they need to do is what the GOP did on the Clinton heathcare plan -- which is make the GOP plan permanently associated in the public mind with every one of the negative thoughts people already have about this topic: that it's complicated, it's confusing, it's boring, it's intimidating, it's anxiety-provoking -- and if Bush gets his way, you're going to have to deal with it every year for the rest of your life. . . Bush's Social Security plan will replace something that's simple and works well with a system that's as complicated and confusing as doing your own taxes. And who wants to deal with that for the rest of their life? Besides. . . America already has the best public-private retirement system in the world. Social Security is the public part, and if you want private accounts, well, that's what 401(k)s and IRAs are for.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005358.php
[Kevin Drum] For the broad public you also need emotional and political arguments. Is it possible to make them?. . . I think it is. Although the first step is to convince opinion makers that the facts have changed in the past decade, the second step is to construct a more, um, practical campaign. It would include arguments like this:

1. Politicians lie all the time, and now they're lying about Social Security being in trouble. What is it they're really after?

2. Wall Street tycoons are being cagey about this, but the truth is that they can't wait to get their hands on your retirement money. Management fees is what this is really all about, isn't it?

3. Today your retirement benefits are guaranteed. With private accounts you're taking on a big risk. What happens if you turn 65 right after a stock market crash?

4. Take a look at Chile. Take a look at Argentina. They tried private accounts and look how their retirees are doing.

You get the idea. Facts and figures work on some people, but populist arguments are how you win the ground war. The question is, who's going to take on the job of getting down and dirty with this stuff?

Great site: track where your legislators stand on Social Security (thanks to Cookie for the link)

http://tomcoburnisabigfatjerk.blogspot.com/2004/12/save-social-security.html

http://savesocialsecurity.blogspot.com/

Iraq: a failure. As in Vietnam, we’ve already lost and just haven’t realized it yet

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/20/112320/27
It's Bush war. Those are Bush's dead. Bush's crippled. Bush's widows, and Bush's fatherless and motherless children.

More: http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1684

The spin from Iraq: Sunni bombers are trying to foment civil war

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/12/20/iraq_civil_war/index.html?source=RSS

The reality: civil war has already begun

http://www.juancole.com/2004/12/funerals-for-67-dead-draw-thousands.html

The big threat now isn’t that elections will happen (under chaotic conditions) – this has clearly been decided, come hell or high water: but watch out for massive fraud

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005093
The biggest genuinely open question in my mind concerns the prospects for fraud. Having raised warning signs about this for weeks before Afghanistan's presidential election only to see things go smoothly, Bush's critics seem shy about making the point this time around. It's important to see that these are very different circumstances. There was fraud in Afghanistan -- a lot of it -- but it didn't undermine the legitimacy of Hamid Karzai's election because he was clearly the most popular figure in the race, so the fraud didn't make a difference. Iraq, by contrast, is holding a parliamentary election featuring proportional representation, and it's unlikely that any list will secure an outright majority. That means the ultimate result is much more sensitive to fraud. What's more, the incumbent leader, Iyad Allawi, is expected to lose power to the United Iraqi List, which creates incentives for fraud and could lay the groundwork for a post-election dispute. . . Election monitoring, meanwhile, will be scant-to-nonexistent. Beyond outright fraud, you've got party-affiliated militias operating in many cities that will potentially use force or the threat of force to influence the outcome. If all the major contenders accept the results as legitimate then, irrespective of whatever problems may arise, things will likely be okay (by Iraqi standards) and the new government will keep on fighting the insurgents. But if the UIL decides it's been cheated out of its fair share of power, or Allawi decides he's being forced out by an Iranian-orchestrated conspiracy, then things could rapidly deteriorate.

Interesting note of despair from one of the Iraqi brothers who write the popular blog “Iraq the Model” (a site praised by Bush). He won’t be praising it any more

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001509.html
“This is the last time I write in this blog and I just want to say, goodbye. It's not an easy thing to do for me, but I know I should do it. I haven't told my brothers with my decision, as they are not here yet, but it won't change anything and I just can't keep doing this anymore. . . My stand regarding America has never changed. I still love America and feel grateful to all those who helped us get our freedom and are still helping us establishing democracy in our country. But it's the act of some Americans that made me feel I'm on the wrong side here. I will expose these people in public very soon and I won't lack the mean to do this, but I won't do it here as this is not my blog.”

Iraq planning started just days after 9-11

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6732484/site/newsweek/MSNBC.com

The Bush press conference. I heard part of it on the radio and noticed two things: Bush was definitely slurring his words (not drunk, I assume, but sounding more tired and aged and even more inarticulate than usual). And the questions were uniformly AWFUL

Bad news: one of the best of the WH corps, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, is being transferred out http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/12/20/post_shuffles_white_house_coverage.html)

(1) Visual aids
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1683

(2) Overall stumbles and miscues
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1686
“We're nearing the end of a year where -- of substantial progress at home at here abroad -- and abroad.”

(3) On the politics of Social Security – on how he intends to “condition” the press
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_12_19_digbysblog_archive.html#110357013872377364
But Social Security, as well, is a big item. . . Now, the temptation is going to be, by well-meaning people such as yourself and others here, as we run up to the issue, to get me to negotiate with myself in public. To say, you know, "What's this mean, Mr. President? What's that mean?"

I'm not going to do that. I don't get to write the law. . . I'll propose a solution at the appropriate time. . . But the law will be written in the halls of Congress. And I will negotiate with them, with the members of Congress. And they will want me to start playing my hand. "Will you accept this? Will you not accept that? Why don't you do this hard thing? Why don't you do that?". . .

And so, I just want to try to condition you. I'm not doing a very good job, because the other day in the Oval, when the press pool came in, I was asked about this -- the -- a series of questions -- a question on Social Security with these different aspects to it. And I said, "I'm not going to negotiate with myself. And I will negotiate at the appropriate time with the law writers.". . .

Don't bother to ask me. Or you can ask me. I shouldn't -- I can't tell you what to ask. It's not the holiday spirit.

[NB: And no more follow-ups allowed, the press’s only tool to probe “responses” in order to get “answers”]

Q Can I ask a follow up?

THE PRESIDENT: No. (Laughter.) Otherwise, it will make everybody else jealous, and I don't want that to happen.

[Laughter!]

. . .

QUESTION: Mr. President, on that point, there is already a lot of opposition to the idea of personal accounts, some of it fairly entrenched among the Democrats. I wonder what your strategy is to try to convince them to your view. . . And specifically, they say that personal accounts would destroy Social Security. You argue they would help save the system. Can you explain how?

BUSH: I will try to explain how without negotiating with myself. It's a very tricky way to get me to play my cards. I understand that. . .

[Scotty’s follow-up briefing explains further
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1682
Q So the President says that he will not prejudge any solution, but then he rules out a tax increase. Isn't that prejudging a solution?

MR. McCLELLAN: Actually, that's one of the principles that the President outlined. . . There are a lot of members of Congress who are committed to strengthening Social Security for future generations. And the President wants to work closely with them in a bipartisan way to get this done in his second term. . . There are, obviously, different ideas, but the President believes there are some important principles that ought to guide us as we move forward. And that was one of them, as well as, no change for retirees or those at or near retirement.

Q So that's a principle, not a prejudgment.]

Analysis of Bush’s non-responsive answers on Social Security
http://slate.msn.com/id/2111256/fr/rss/
[Timothy Noah] Until now, Bush has seemed either too dumb or too stubborn to recognize that Social Security privatization will necessitate either hitting up taxpayers or reducing Social Security benefits. But watching Bush in today's press conference, I realized that there was another possibility: Bush is simply too cynical to acknowledge practical realities of which he is well aware. Maybe he figures that accommodating those realities simply isn't his job. Maybe he's thinking: Let Congress get the blame for insisting that two plus two equals four!. . . When Bush says someone is trying to get him to "negotiate with myself in public," which he says a lot, it has always been my understanding that he means he doesn't have to consider an argument with which he doesn't agree. Now, though, I suspect that, at least in this case, he means something more. He's saying that he doesn't have to consider reality. It isn't his job to do "this hard thing." That's somebody else's job—in this instance, Congress: "I don't get to write the law.". . . What "I" get to do, as president, is make promises that I know perfectly well can never be kept, and then to make Congress break those promises for me. I don't have to change "the principles I believe in" because I know more responsible people in the government will violate them and take the blame.

(4) On the transition to Iraqi sovereignty and self-defense
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/politics/20cnd-prexy.html?oref=login&ex=1261285200&
"We're under no illusions," Mr. Bush said at a White House news conference. Some individual Iraqi units are ready to provide security, he said, but there are not enough of them to make up a cohesive fighting force. Mr. Bush declined to speculate on how long United States troops will have to remain in Iraq.

(5) On his refusal/inability to learn from his own mistakes
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1685

(6) The many moods of George Bush
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005090

The whole thing
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/12/20041220-3.html

Post-press conference analyses

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_19.php#004274
[Sam Rosenfeld] The president got a tad petulant when fielding questions on Social Security. His emphatic response to any and all queries about his position on the subject was an indignant, righteous refusal to answer: “You’re not going to get me to negotiate with myself,” he repeatedly told the perplexed reporters. “I know what you’re trying to get me to do. You’re trying to get me to answer ‘Why this,’ ‘why that,’ to take positions -- don’t bother to ask me.” Rather than merely dodge the questions, Bush seemed intent on staking out an explicit, principled position in favor of dodging the question.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2111245/fr/rss/
[Chris Suellentrop] What is the purpose of a presidential press conference? Is it to allow reporters to ask the president questions? Or is it to get the president to answer them? Dodging the question is one of the most important (and most-used) weapons in a politician's arsenal, of course. . . But President Bush, as he demonstrated during Monday's question-and-not-answer session with the White House press corps, has dispensed with that old trick. Instead, Bush, having invited reporters to ask him questions on live television, repeatedly told reporters that their questions would be better directed at someone else.

How long will U.S. troops be in Iraq? Ask Gens. Abizaid and Casey. What's the broad framework for Social Security reform? Ask Congress. Has the Iraq war improved the prospects for peace in the Middle East? Go ask the Palestinians. Every time he was confronted with a difficult question, Bush answered, Go ask someone else. You expect a press secretary or a Cabinet officer, to say, "I'll get back to you," or "That's above my pay grade," or "You'd have to ask the president." Well, now the president has been asked. And he told us to ask you.

"Well again, I will repeat, don't bother to ask me," Bush said in response to a question about what "tough measures" might need to be taken to establish private Social Security accounts. "Oh, you can ask me. I shouldn't—I can't tell you what to ask, it's not the holiday spirit." But I'm not going to answer, so don't waste your time. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14748-2004Dec20.html
[Dana Milbank] President Bush, an old F-102 pilot, showed at yesterday's news conference that he has not forgotten his evasive maneuvers.

As he fielded questions on everything from Iranian nukes to presidential personnel, the often blunt and plainspoken president employed the full range of artful dodges.

Qualifications for a director of national intelligence? "I'm going to find somebody who knows something about intelligence," Bush disclosed.

Timeline for Iraq? "We'd like to achieve our objective as quickly as possible."

Vladimir Putin's turn toward autocracy? "If we disagree with decisions, we can do so in a friendly and positive way."

When the subject turned to Social Security, the president made clear that questions about his views on the subject were strictly out of bounds -- as when CNN's John King asked why Bush wasn't talking about "tough measures" such as raising the retirement age or cutting benefits.

"Now the temptation is going to be, by well-meaning people such as yourself, John, and others here as we run up to the issue, to get me to negotiate with myself in public," Bush said. Saying he was trying to "condition" reporters, he added: "I'm not going to negotiate with myself and I will negotiate at the appropriate time with the law writers, and so thank you for trying."

When another questioner asked Bush to make his case for personal Social Security accounts, a wary Bush sought to suppress the negotiator within. "Yeah, I will try to explain how without negotiating with myself," he began.

The resourceful Edwin Chen of the Los Angeles Times pointed out that Bush had already negotiated with himself by ruling out benefit cuts for retirees and near-retirees, then asked Bush to define "near-retired."

The president saw through this plea for self-negotiation. "Yeah, well, that's going to fall in the negotiating-with-myself category," he said. . .

When the inevitable question came about the doomed nomination of Bernard B. Kerik to be homeland security secretary, Bush deftly avoided any mention of Kerik's various personal problems and any hint that the White House's vetting process had failed.

"And so the lessons learned is: Continue to vet, and ask good questions," he said. Only the chuckle and shrug of the shoulders accompanying those words suggested there might be more to the story.

An uncharacteristic political misread by Kos: thinks far-right conservatives will cause trouble for Bush in his second term. I think the more accurate read is more Brer-Rabbit-and-the-briar-patch – they are useful as proxies pulling legislation in a direction Bush is perfectly happy to see it go, but they are taking the lead, not him. This is precisely what happened with the Intelligence Bill – and watch it happen with Social Security

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/20/122554/36

Rumsfeld should resign: a brief for the prosecution

http://www.juancole.com/2004/12/poll-shows-american-public-wising-up.html

Rumsfeld on VERY thin ice

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/20/rumsfeld/index.html

“Like having it signed by a monkey”

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/12/20/rummy/index.html?source=RSS

Tom Feeney (R – FL): keeping a very, very low profile these days. Hasn’t even come out with a denial, as far as I can tell

http://www.seminolechronicle.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/12/16/41c2fdb042ea1

Democrats rethinking their approach on the abortion issue

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/20/abortion/index.html

Arson fires in Maryland initially attributed to “eco-terrorists.” The actual cause? Read on

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/national/20arson.html?ex=1261198800&en=febc49947741036f&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
Initially, there was speculation the fires had been set by environmental extremists, because some environmental groups had complained that the houses threatened a nearby bog. But no evidence has been found to support that theory, the police said.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_19_atrios_archive.html#110354991358313297
Racial animosity and revenge are among the possible motives in the arson fires in a subdivision in southern Maryland on Dec. 6, a spokesman for federal investigators said Sunday. . . Four men have been charged with arson in the fires, which destroyed 10 houses and partly burned 16 others, causing $10 million in damage. . . A federal law enforcement official speaking on the condition of anonymity said two of the four men in custody made racial statements to investigators during questioning. The men are white, and many of the families moving into the development are black.

Hypocrite's Corner

Giuliani running away from Kerik as fast as he can

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/12/20/giuliani_distances_himself_from_kerik.html

Just one little problem there. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/20/13258/974

Bonus item: George Bush, “Happy Holidays” (ho, ho, ho). Thanks to Atrios for the link

http://www.itaffectsyou.org/blog/index.php?p=241

How Fox News saved Christmas

http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2004/12/20/tomo/index1.html

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/12/16/grinch/

***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.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:18 AM

 
MESSAGE DISCIPLINE

Visions of the month to come in Iraq: and then elections?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/19/173320/99
Car bombs tore through a Najaf funeral procession and Karbala's main bus station Sunday, killing at least 60 people and wounding more than 120 in the two Shiite holy cities. In Baghdad, gunmen launched a bold ambush, executing three election officials, in their campaign to disrupt next month's parliamentary ballot. The deadly strikes highlighted the apparent ability of the insurgents to launch attacks almost at will, despite confident assessments by U.S. military commanders that they had regained the initiative after last month's campaign against militants in Fallujah.

[Kos] Security for campaigning and the January 30 election seems an impossible problem. Andy Card seem to have been off the mark when he said this morning the insurgents could not strike everywhere. These two attacks in the Shia portion of Iraq seem to dispel the notion that the violence is limited to the Sunni triangle.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11450-2004Dec19.html

Emblematic of what’s wrong with the press today. Andrew Card says on George Stephanopoulos, “We’ve won the war” in Iraq. Now, the only considered response to such a claim should be gales of sarcastic laughter. Instead, of course, it is treated seriously and respectfully, and so another Big Lie gets thrown into circulation. Looks like Bush Co is setting up to declare victory and run as soon as the “elections” are over

http://forums.go.com/abcnews/thread?threadID=107797

Here’s a simple reply to comments like Card’s: THAT’S NOT TRUE, AND YOU KNOW THAT’S NOT TRUE

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/10443261.htm
The CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department have warned President Bush that the United States and its Iraqi allies aren't winning the battle against Iraqi insurgents who are trying to derail the country's Jan. 30 elections, according to administration officials.

Weird. Suddenly this automatic signature business is being represented as the final straw for Rumsfeld, even though (a) Bush does the same thing and (b) this story has been in circulation since Thanksgiving (http://pbd.blogspot.com/2004_11_01_pbd_archive.html#110130426333718640). This is the man who presided over Abu Ghraib, but THIS is the final straw for people? I guess it shows, once again, that personal character failings are treated much more harshly than macro policy failures

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/12/19/214329/15

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/009066.html

http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200451#1299

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-rumsfeld20dec20,1,2709133.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

DoD will restart mandatory anthrax inoculations for troops, despite evidence that the vaccine causes more problems than it prevents

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000241.html

Further taking advantage of our loyal troops

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/national/20riley.html?hp&ex=1103605200&en=1607d8fff5d84984&ei=5094&partner=homepage
No one is feeling normal anymore at Fort Riley and other bases across the country, where military life is undergoing a radical change. They are stoic here, and many point out, as Sergeant Garcia does, that they signed up for this. . . Still, in decades past, troops had gotten used to a predictable rhythm to their deployments. Even during Desert Storm and Vietnam, most soldiers could expect to take just one trip into harm's way. . . But with the military stretched thin in Iraq and in Afghanistan, some soldiers and marines are being sent to war zones repeatedly, for longer stretches in some cases, and with far less time at home between deployments than they say they have ever experienced before. . . Here in Kansas, the base and the small towns nearby have begun to resemble an enormous machine in an endless cycle: bringing soldiers home with late-night celebrations in gymnasiums and screaming roadside banners, and then sending them off again. . .

What we’ve made. Bin Laden refashioning self as international statesman, with wider appeal than ever before

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/weekinreview/19vann.html?oref=login&ex=1261198800&

The awful job the SCLM (so-called-liberal-media) has been doing in covering the Social Security debate. Not a matter of bias or slant, but a matter of continually getting things FACTUALLY WRONG. Atrios asks, Why?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_19_atrios_archive.html#110347681501802040

The new semantic game for covering over the deficit-busting amount of Social Security transition costs: “implicit” debt and “explicit” debt

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-outlook20dec20,1,613131.column?coll=la-headlines-nation

Take a deep breath, and then dive into these links if you want a technical analysis of growth projections affecting long-term Social Security viability. I can’t tell you if this right, but it comes from good sources. It turns out (as repeatedly noted here), that Bush’s crisis scenario is based on extremely pessimistic predictions

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000004.html

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000005.html

Meanwhile, over on the Medicare and Medicaid side of the budget, a total meltdown is on the horizon (but it’s Social Security that’s in “crisis”)

http://slate.msn.com/id/2111240/fr/rss/
The Wall Street Journal and LAT both mention a GAO report stating that, including the prescription drug benefit, Medicare may cost some, um, $27 trillion dollars over the next 75 years, more than seven times the estimated cost of Social Security over that period. Meanwhile, the NYT reports that the administration is looking for ways to cut growth in federal spending on Medicaid, the health insurance program for poor people.

Here’s something I do understand: analyzing the politics of the fight ahead, resisting Bush’s phony and disingenuous calls for bipartisanship (“We’ll work with anyone who agrees with us”), and the need for Democratic party discipline and unity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/politics/19memo.html?ex=1261198800&en=058273d432c49006&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
Nearly everyone agrees that it will be hard, perhaps impossible, for President Bush to overhaul Social Security without bipartisan support. . . But the parties have not been this far apart ideologically on Capitol Hill for decades, some analysts say. And many Democrats assert that the last four years under Mr. Bush have only deepened the division and mistrust. . . Democratic leaders are careful to say they are willing to engage in bipartisan discussions about the problems facing Social Security, with "no preconditions on either side," as Representative Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House, put it last week. The president himself said Thursday that he understood that "I have a responsibility to reach out to members of both political parties and I will meet that responsibility.". . . But leading Democrats say Mr. Bush is beginning his Social Security drive with some unacceptable preconditions. Indeed, Democratic leaders dispute the Republicans' central assertions: that the problems facing Social Security constitute a crisis, and that diverting payroll taxes to private investment accounts is the way to solve it. Social Security trustees have estimated that without changes, the system will start running short of money to pay full benefits in 38 years.

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/the_importance_.html
In addition to shoring up support among the young, the most important question facing Social Security advocates is whether or not we can maintain a united front in the congress. Technically speaking, Bush can push this through without a single Democratic vote even in the Senate by abusing the budget reconciliation process. There's always some chance, however, that the GOP Senate caucus won't stand for that (just as Senator Byrd blocked a similar effort by the Clinton administration to do health care as a reconciliation item) so it's worth being prepared. More to the point, however, a lot of Republican Senators and House members aren't too excited about this plan. It's not so much a question of conservatives versus moderates, as it is a question of people who happen to have a bug in their pants about Social Security versus those who are nervous about the political risks here and who have other agendas they'd like to advance. The only really feasible way to put a stop to this is to make sure that the nervous nellies stay very nervous. Key to that is making sure that unlike with, say, the Medicare bill, they can't drape their vote in even the merest veneer of bipartisanship. . . I'm told that the most likely culprit for a stab-in-the-back is Joe Lieberman. It seems to me that the Democratic leadership, as well as progressive constituency groups, need to make it clear to Senator Lieberman that Connecticut is not the sort of state where the national party needs to take a certain degree of apostasy for granted.

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_19_atrios_archive.html#110347230215442813

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/more_unity.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_19_atrios_archive.html#110351321735891106
The social security issue comes down to this: The Democrats should be able not only to beat the Republicans on this, but also to beat them over the heads with it. It needs to be the cornerstone of the identity of the Democratic party. . . Without debating the wisdom of any of these things, I want to point out that the Democrats have been running from or are in the process of running from their core positions on: gay rights, gun control, welfare, trade policy, affirmative action, reproductive rights, church/state separation, public education, progressive taxation, etc... etc... etc...

Unfortunately, cracks already emerging on the Democratic side

http://www.davidsirota.com/2004/12/cause-for-concern.html

http://www.davidsirota.com/2004/12/dem-supports-privatization-others.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_19.php#004267

What the GOP really wants: to dismantle a program they’ve been fighting for 70 years

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/12/19/193327/26

How the GOP does bipartisanship (bend over)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_12_19_digbysblog_archive.html#110351587136273966

Bush Co uses all branches of govt, even ostensibly independent agencies, to advance their ideological agenda: I think they call this “message discipline”

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_19_atrios_archive.html#110350082831007138
The Social Security Administration is rejecting marriage documents issued for heterosexual couples in five communities that performed weddings for gay couples earlier this year. . . The agency is rejecting all marriage certificates issued in New Paltz, N.Y., Asbury Park, N.J., Multnomah County, Ore., and Sandoval County, N.M., during the brief periods when those localities recognized gay marriages.

So now we learn a bit more about why John McCain stabbed his buddy John Kerry in the back by supporting a candidate you KNEW he personally found repugnant – because playing foil to Bush situated him better for 2008

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/12/19/maverick_mccain_returns.html

The fight over Christmas: the thin edge of the wedge of a theocratic offensive

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12388-2004Dec19.html?nav=rss_nation
"The pendulum has swung completely," said Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at the nonprofit First Amendment Center in Arlington. "There's a push-back by many conservative Christians, perhaps emboldened by the recent election and by the increasing presence of evangelical Christianity in the public arena. They're saying the secularization of our society and public schools has gone too far and become hostility to their religion."

Michael Kinsley discovers the power of blogging

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9270-2004Dec17.html
Last week, to vent my frustration, I sent an e-mail to some economists and privatizing buffs. . . As an afterthought, I sent copies to a couple of blogs (kausfiles.comand andrewsulllivan.com). What happened next was unnerving.

A few days later, most of the big shots hadn't replied. But overnight I had dozens of responses from the blogosphere. They're still pouring in. And that's just direct e-mail to me. Within hours, there were discussions going on in a dozen blogs, all hyperlinking to one another like rabbits.

Just so I don't sound too naive: I am familiar with the blog phenomenon, and I worked at a Web site for eight years. Some of my best friends are bloggers. Still, it's different when you purposely drop an idea into this bubbling cauldron and watch the reaction. What floored me was not just the volume and speed of the feedback but its seriousness and sophistication. . . Most interesting, though, is how the Web enables people who are scattered physically around the globe, who share an interest in a topic as naturally uninteresting as the economic theory behind Social Security privatization, to find one another and enjoy a gabfest. Webheads like to call this phenomenon "community."

Where George gets it from

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/12/19/quote_of_the_day.html
"We showed her what she could do with that silver foot, where she could stick that now."
-- Barbara Bush, quoted by Time magazine, on former Texas Gov. Ann Richards.

Bonus item: Atrios tracks the genealogy of a meme

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_19_atrios_archive.html#110350312972978984
Answer: Local News --> Free Republic --> Drudge --> Talk Radio --> Some Wingnut Congressperson/State Legislator --> Fox News --> Lou Dobbs/Scarborough/etc... --> Another round on local news --> CNN --> mainstream print media. [order can vary slightly].

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005350.php
Question: A few days ago Bill O'Reilly was yammering on about how he was sticking up for Christmas but nobody else was. Why doesn't Peter Jennings stick for Christmas, he asked, why doesn't Dan Rather stick up for Christmas....and....and....well, that's about it. I didn't have any idea what he was talking about, so I shrugged my shoulders and went about my business. . . But now a week has passed, and I think I get it. It's all about "Merry Christmas," isn't it? I've now read at least a dozen assorted articles and op-eds about the horror — the horror! — of "Happy Holidays" being used as a seasonal greeting instead of "Merry Christmas.". . . I guess I'm used to the bizarre persecution complex of the American Christian right. No, what I want to know is this: how do they spread these memes so damn fast?

I mean, liberals are just barely starting to get a smidgen of attention for the proposition that Social Security isn't really in serious trouble — a meme that has the advantage of actually being true — while the "Happy Holidays" vs. "Merry Christmas" meme has exploded onto front pages around the country (and the world!) in a matter of days.

Don't believe me? A quick Nexis search shows that in just this weekend alone the MC vs. HH issue has been written up in the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Herald, the Akron Beacon Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, the London Telegraph, the Tallahassee Democrat, the Arizona Republic, Newsday, the Winnipeg Sun, the Christian Science Monitor, CNN, and the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. And that's not counting letters to the editors, jokes, or stuff I missed. . . How do they do it? How do they get everyone to pay attention to this nonsense?

***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.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:13 AM

 
OUR OWN WORST ENEMY

Someday someone outside of the DC spin zone is going to write a history of the Iraq war, and what they will say is that it was, beyond the initial surprisingly easy sweep through Baghdad, a relentless series of awful decisions, poor planning, and cut-rate corner-cutting. We’ve used temporary and partly trained troops to supplement a lack of able bodies, extended tours to the point of open mutinies, and – worst of all – underspent for supplies and equipment that would have protected our troops. Mark Shields has more

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9249-2004Dec17.html
Because of the incompetence or indifference of this nation's civilian leadership of the war, Americans in Iraq are living with an increased risk of death. . . All the official transcripts of White House signing ceremonies for every defense spending bill, all the presidential proclamations for Veterans Day and every prepared statement by the secretary of defense before a congressional committee include the same stock phrase. U.S. troops are invariably referred to as "the best trained, best equipped" ever. Best equipped? To call today's American troops in Iraq the "best equipped" is more than an exaggeration; it is bilge, baloney and cruel.

What a mess we’ve made

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=594312

This tells you A LOT. Having blocked or watered down all the Intelligence Bill provisions that would have ended DoD control over their independent intelligence agency, in order to create a single unified command, they now triumphantly announce a major EXPANSION of their intelligence efforts. . . and guess who is in charge?

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000240.html
Boykin, who is Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, is "drawing up a plan that would give the military a more prominent role in intelligence-collection operations that have traditionally been the province of the Central Intelligence Agency, including missions aimed at terrorist groups and those involved in weapons proliferation."

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/politics/19military.html?oref=login&ex=1261198800&

Defense budget receiving closer scrutiny

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pentagon19dec19,1,3958928.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
The Pentagon budget cuts will not affect spending on the war in Iraq and operations in Afghanistan, which are paid through separate emergency allocations. . . The Pentagon is preparing a supplemental war budget for 2005 that officials said could total $80 billion, up from $66 billion the previous year. . . If the Pentagon's emergency supplemental budget for 2005 is approved, Congress could end up authorizing nearly $500 billion for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year.

Remember the chaplain/”traitor” story at Guantanamo that made such a big splash? Like so many stories, once it had its intended impact of suggesting a nefarious Muslim conspiracy to subvert our military effort, the story got forgotten and dropped. Read the whole fascinating story of the investigation, where it led, and what it actually produced

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/politics/19gitmo.html?pagewanted=1
Captain Yee, 36, a West Point graduate from Springfield, N.J., was held for 76 days in solitary confinement, charged with six criminal counts of mishandling classified information and suspected of leading a ring of subversive Muslim servicemen. He was found guilty only of noncriminal charges of adultery and downloading Internet pornography. That conviction was set aside in April, and his punishment was waived. . .

"Lots of the guards saw us as some sort of sympathizers with the detainees," Airman Al Halabi recalled in one of several interviews. "We heard it many times: 'detainee-lovers,' or 'sympathizers.' They called us 'sand niggers.' ". . . "I did disagree with what was going on," he said. "These people had been there forever and were blocked from the legal system. This country stands for justice and human rights, and there we were at Guantánamo doing none of that."

The conflicts between Muslim and non-Muslim servicemen and the suspicions of improper relationships with the detainees by Muslim chaplains had taken root at Guantánamo well before Captain Yee arrived there in November 2002, officials said. . . "Every one of the chaplains was accused of something while I was there," said Brig. Gen. Rick Baccus, a former military police commander at the base, dismissing the suspicions as unfounded. . . "They were always under suspicion by the interrogators, because they were interacting with the detainees and giving them Korans," General Baccus said in an interview. "The M.P.'s suspected them all the time, too. They just didn't like the chaplains going around talking to the detainees.". . .

According to three officials familiar with the inquiry, it turned up no evidence of any wrongdoing by the chaplain. Rather, they said, the case reflected the depth of suspicion among the guards and the need for a clearer understanding of the chaplains' role in dealing with the detainees. . . According to investigators and prosecutors, some of the primary accusations against Captain Yee echoed those that had been made earlier against Lieutenant Saiful Islam: that he spent an inordinate amount of time speaking with the detainees, took frequent notes during those conversations and seemed to some guards overly sympathetic with the prisoners' plight. . .

Lt. Col. Bryan T. Wheeler [said] "If people want to have a prayer group, that's great. If, on the other hand, you have people complaining about the treatment people are receiving, there are ways to do that. Subverting the mission is not the way to do it."

More on the secret prison-within-a-prison at Guantanamo

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/18/10368/724

What is happening to this country?

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/009056.html
The good news: 48 percent of Americans still believe in the fundamental principles of freedom and tolerance upon which the nation was founded. The sad and frightening news: 44 percent do not. . . Memo to the 44 percent: you live in the United States of America, not the Christian States of America. The same freedoms that you enjoy, including the right to practice your religion without governmental interference, apply to others as well. Deal with it.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_digbysblog_archive.html#110339365369273247
The survey also examined the relation of religion to perceptions of Islam and Islamic countries and found the more religious a person described themselves, the more negative their views on Islam. . . The amount of attention paid to TV news also had a bearing on how strongly a respondent favored restrictions. . .

"We need to explore why these two very important channels of discourse [religion and tv news] may nurture fear rather than understanding," Shanahan said.

Shanahan said researchers expected the correlation with party affiliation. . . In each of the four instances, Republicans favored restrictions by an almost 2-to-1 margin over Democrats and Independents.

When conservatives hate liberalism, they are hating America

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_digbysblog_archive.html#110340002954193763

Bush Co cuts back their estimate of 2005 job creation. Is this just underbidding so that they can crow later that the figures “vastly exceed expectations”? Or do they know something about the future economy that they don’t want to share with the rest of us?

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-2_archives/000040.html

More on the new bearishness of Bush Co economic forecasts

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/assumptions_ass.html

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/why_now.html

Why the Social Security “crisis” chorus is going to be hard to defeat

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_digbysblog_archive.html#110339147161738006
One of my commenters makes the point that the belief that there is a social security crisis will not be easily dismissed and that's probably true. Kevin Drum points out that Democrats, too, have found it useful over the years to say that there was a looming crisis. I suspect that they never imagined that the Republicans would be so audacious as to run up huge deficits and then turn around and lobby for privatization with no intention of paying for transition costs. As we know, this isn't your father's GOP.

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/get_nothing.html
[From a blog-comment] “[S]ome of us don't want to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars over our working lifetimes to rich old people only to get nothing back when we retire. The most likely scenario under Yglesias' "Do Nothing Plan" is that our generation will work our whole lives, and then means-tested out of any benefits when we retire - and also that medicare won't be there because the brilliant new medical advances of the future will cost too much.”

This will be a war

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-dems19dec19,1,6749379.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
The early skirmishing underscores a troubling political reality for Bush: He is facing huge obstacles to winning Democratic support for an initiative that most analysts believe will collapse if the solution is not bipartisan. . . "Bush keeps doing things that are not particularly helpful for getting bipartisan support," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a watchdog group that supports overhauling Social Security.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004266
It seems most advocates of phasing out Social Security let out a squeal worthy of Deliverance when you insist they own up to naming their plan for what it does: namely, end Social Security. Yes, I know, many of them only want to 'partially' end the program. But anybody with the fiscal roadmap in front of them and a decent handle on policy geography can see that the 'partial' pretty quickly leads to the total.

[NB: This piece by Josh Marshall raises another issue that made a light bulb turn on for me. He poses the question of whether the proceeds of private accounts would be taxable (under current law, they would). Why is this important? Because another spinoff of turning everyone into mini-capitalists would be a huge bump in popular support for ending taxes on capital gains – a major goal of the plutocrats, and one they could never get passed otherwise. More evil genius – and why Bush is pressing this issue before he takes on “tax reform”]

Bush’s “instincts”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004264
Bush and Kerik bonded at some very basic level when Bush toured ground zero just after 9/11 -- something that seems both very believable and very human. Kerik embodied traits, says the article, that Bush instinctively admires -- toughness, a clear sense of right and wrong, being down to earth rather than a phony or an elitist. The headline of the article says "In Kerik, Bush Saw Values Crucial to Post-9/11 World.”. . . Bush's admiration grew as Kerik first accepted the summons to go to Baghdad to run the Interior Ministry and then campaign aggressively for his reelection. . . It was on the basis of his instincts about Kerik, much more than Rudy's prodding, that prompted Bush to nominate him to run DHS.

It's a great example -- almost a morality play -- of one of the key flaws in the president's leadership. He gets clear first impressions and makes judgments based on instinct. And then there's almost no follow-up, no challenging instinct with the harsh light of facts. And certainly no accountability. More often than the not, or course, the instinct turns out to just be wrong. As with Iraq, and Putin's soul and now Kerik.

A brief Bush bio from May, 2000 (ah, if only we had paid attention)

http://www.makethemaccountable.com/articles/A_Philosophy_With_Roots_in_Conservative_Texas_Soil.htm

Arnebeck refiles suit in Ohio

http://suburbanguerrilla.blogspot.com/2004/12/if-at-first-you-dont-succeedcliff.html
Voters who said problems with voting machines Nov. 2 indicated fraud refiled a request with the Ohio Supreme Court on Friday to overturn the presidential results. . .The 40 voters cite reports of machine errors, double-counting of some ballots and a shortage of voting machines in predominantly minority precincts as reasons to throw out the election results.

Bonus item: Laura Bush’s annual Christmas letter (thanks to A.G. Rud for the link)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-355-1404807,00.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.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:24 AM

 
LOOKING INTO THE FUTURE

The latest trick for inflating the phony Social Security “crisis”: rather than talk about the time, forty years hence, when there may be a shortfall of revenues to pay out full benefits, Bush and his proxies are now hyping 2018 – closer in time and hence more urgent-seeming – as the date of “insolvency.” But all that means is that, given current projections, 2018 is when net payouts exceed net income: there will still be plenty left to pay off recipients for 25 more years after that

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412170012

“There is no crisis”

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005075
[Matt Yglesias] I'm not sure the older liberals who run the show quite understand how overwhelmingly important it is to keep the "there is no crisis" message front and center in the Social Security debate. Most of the young people I know -- including myself until very recently -- have been taken in by a decades-long effort on behalf of privatizers into believing that Social Security is in "crisis," and that if we do nothing the system will "go bankrupt" before we retire, meaning that the system will somehow collapse and we won't get any benefits. . . If you approach the issue from inside that frame, then no amount of cavailing about benefit cuts or "risky" stock market transactions is going to get you anywhere. A smaller benefits package and a stock portfolio that may or may not pay off looks like a really good deal compared to a bankrupt pension plan that gives you nothing. Once you understand that even if we do nothing whatsoever to fix Social Security and the Trustees' overly pessimistic predictions come true, the system will still have enough money to pay my generation more in real terms then current retirees get, everything looks different.

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005345.php
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_digbysblog_archive.html#110333885317211138

Or, to spin all this in a more positive way: “Social Security is healthy and successful” – if we do nothing at all, future benefits will still be higher than benefits today

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/pro_or_con.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/12/17/152055/97

Great question: why is Bush so bearish on America’s future?

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/bearish_on_amer.html

The disingenuousness of the Bush “economic summit” cheering section

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004257
[NYT] Introduced as a "single mom" from Iowa, Sandra Jaques was cool and confident as she praised President Bush's plan to partly replace Social Security with private savings accounts. . . "I have a daughter at home. Her name is Wynter," said Ms. Jaques, sitting a few feet from President Bush at the White House economic conference on Thursday. "I want to make sure that she has Social Security when she retires as well.”. . .

But Ms. Jaques is not any random single mother. She is the Iowa state director of a conservative advocacy group, FreedomWorks, whose founders are Jack F. Kemp, the former vice-presidential nominee, and Dick Armey, the former House Republican leader. . . Ms. Jaques also spent much of the past two years as a spokeswoman in Iowa for a group called For Our Grandchildren, which is mounting a nationwide campaign for private savings accounts. . .

Mr. Bush chimed in a moment later. "One of my visions of personal savings accounts is that Sandy will be able to pass her account on to Wynter as part of Wynter's capacity to retire as well.". . .

This leads to some closer scrutiny on the “private savings accounts” idea

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005078
Now if Sandy happens to die before retirement, this is quite true. But if Sandy makes it to retirement age, she's going to be faced with a problem under the Social Security abolition system. Let's say the market continues to grow nicely between now and then (in which case there would have been no need to change anything in the first place) so Sandy has a decent-sized nest egg. The problem is that Sandy doesn't know how long she's going to live, and if she lives a long time (as people increasingly do nowadays) may wind up outliving her investment. . . Abolition advocates say Sandy can solve this problem by buying an annuity from an insurance company. This is a sort of reverse life insurance that lets you hedge against longevity by converting your lump sum of savings into a guaranteed monthly benefit (just like today's Social Security). But if Sandy does this she won't have anything to pass on to Wynter after all, though Wynter will spend her working life paying taxes to repay the $2 trillion (plus interest) that Bush borrowed in order to finance the transition.

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_atrios_archive.html#110330828753485086

An underexposed dimension of forcing everyone into stock ownership via Social Security accounts (like Roths, 401Ks, etc): Turning everyone into mini-capitalists with an interest in the markets. This is a GREAT point. Imagine that future policies get represented as “this is a pro-growth policy (eg, corporate tax cuts) – and if you DON’T support it, your retirement fund will tank.” Evil genius

http://wilsonhellie.typepad.com/for_the_record/2004/12/in_addition_to_.html

Bush economic advisor Martin Feldstein: so consistently wrong about so many things, so much of the time

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005343.php
[Jonathan Chait] "Imagine if one man had designed the Titanic and the Hindenburg, and then was put in charge of the space program."

More:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-chait17dec17,1,1171854.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-2_archives/000038.html

Early frost: you saw this coming, didn’t you?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/12/17/bush.spending.ap/index.html
President Bush appears ready to propose freezing or even slightly cutting overall domestic spending. . . Targeted would be all annually approved programs except for defense and domestic security.

Handy chart on Cabinet moves and vacancies. I’ll say one thing, the overall impression is of a drop-off in talent and experience

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/17/195942/70

Rumsfeld will start personally signing the letters to families of soldiers killed in Iraq (it’s about time – now, what about his boss?)

http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/003563.html

Scotty gets a bit testy over Rumsfeld criticisms: but behind the scenes. . .

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1674

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004262
QUESTION: Just getting back to the earlier topic about Secretary Rumsfeld. Last night Bill Kristol, of the Weekly Standard, was telling everyone within earshot, the White House really is encouraging him in writing these editorials, and wants the Secretary of Defense --

MR. McCLELLAN: I was within earshot; I didn't hear him say that.

QUESTION: I did. I'm sure you've heard him say things like that. What's your reaction to it?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know what he's referring to. The President believes that Secretary Rumsfeld is the right person for the challenges that we face going forward in the war on terrorism. And he remains firmly supportive of the actions that he has taken to win the war on terrorism and to defeat those who seek to do harm to America.

QUESTION: So there's no question whatsoever he'll stay on as Secretary?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think the President made that very clear recently when we said that he had -- the President asked him to continue serving, and he's pleased that Secretary Rumsfeld agreed to continue serving. These are very challenging times that we face as new threats have emerged in the 21st century. And Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a great job leading the Department of Defense forward to confront the threats that we face and to transform the military so that we're better prepared to confront the threats of the future.

More on the drop-off in National Guard enlistment: no surprise, really

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1663

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/17/guard/index.html
An Army recruiter from Brooklyn has an idea about why the Reserves aren't luring lines of ready recruits these days: "People have the misconception that everyone goes to war and gets killed," he said. Well, can you blame them?

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1666
Throughout the 12-year Vietnam War, for example, fewer than 100 Guard troops were killed, compared with the 145 who have died in less than two years in Iraq

What is Bush going to say if (when) a pro-Iranian govt takes over in Iraq: this is what our war for freedom and democracy was all about?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6395-2004Dec16.html
[David Ignatius] Iran is about to hit the jackpot in Iraq. . .

[Welcome to our side, David: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005074]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/17/opinion/17herbert.html?oref=login
[Bob Herbert] The White House seems to have slipped the bonds of simple denial and escaped into the disturbing realm of utter delusion. . . By anyone's standards, terrible things are happening in Iraq, and no amount of self-congratulation in Washington can take the edge off the horror being endured by American troops or the unrelenting agony of the Iraqi people. The disconnect between the White House's fantasyland and the world of war in Iraq could hardly have been illustrated more starkly than by a pair of front-page articles in The New York Times on Dec. 10.

The war against AIPAC: will it have any backlash against the neo-cons?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001500.html

Lest you have any doubt that when Christian evangelicals complain about the lack of religious life in the public sphere, they mean THEIR religion, and ONLY THEIR religion

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-season18dec18,1,169299.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

What Boykin, Bush, and Bin Laden all teach us: religious fundamentalisms, East or West, are all tapping into the same primal fears and hatreds

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_digbysblog_archive.html#110334772666747441

O’Reilly really sticks his foot in it this time

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412170005
In response to reports that actor and comedian Chevy Chase called President Bush a "dumb f---" while co-hosting a December 14 People For the American Way awards ceremony in Washington, DC, FOX News host Bill O'Reilly asserted on the December 16 O'Reilly Factor that "you don't see this kind of thing on the right." He added: "You don’t see prominent conservatives cursing out Democratic members of Congress, for example."

Ahem: http://video.msnbc.com/id/5289848/

The gender gap in blogging

http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/003017.html

Bonus item: Your future is in his hands

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1673

***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.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:46 AM

 
THE ECHO CHAMBER

CNN complies with Bush’s phony “summit” by giving them commercial free air time (without analysis, commentary, or contrasting points of view)

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/12/great_moments_i.html

A time for hard-headed, serious, grown-up, honest assessment, right?

http://slate.msn.com/id/2111173/fr/rss/
[Tim Noah] I'm not particularly surprised that, at today's session on the budget deficit, nobody suggested that taxes be raised. Republicans always oppose raising taxes. It did surprise me, however, that even a staged conversation about the deficit could take place without anyone proposing a specific budget cut. . . Conservatives in general, and the Bush administration in particular, favor budget cuts. . . Bush doesn't like to cut spending; he likes to say he likes to cut spending. In truth, Bush spends just as freely as a Democratic president would, if not more. The only significant difference is that Bush is bleeding domestic programs in order to increase spending on the military and homeland defense. Bush's hypocrisy about government spending is so naked that a whole new ideology, "big government conservatism," had to be invented in order to explain it away.

The deficit is currently estimated at $422 billion for 2004. Amazingly, the White House economic conferees managed to conduct an entire pseudoscholarly discussion about the deficit today without stating, in dollar terms, its size. Instead, White House Budget Director Josh Bolton referred to its being a mere 3.6 percent of the gross domestic product, as compared to a more dire, earlier estimate that it would be 4.5 percent of the GDP. This is like being a weatherman during a blizzard and never once having to say the word "snow."

The scope of exaggeration and lying (duly noted and recycled by the stenographers in the press) becomes truly breathtaking

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/12/the_greeks_had_a_name_for_it.html
“The crisis is now,” Bush warned in his closing speech.

[NB: No, not the crisis of a growing Federal deficit. Not the crisis of an exploding trade deficit. Not the crisis of a plummeting dollar and the increased fragility of foreign investment to prop it up. Not the crisis of stagnant job growth or the loss of health coverage and retirement benefits to people across the country. Not the crisis in Medicare or Medicaid. The “crisis” of a hypothetical – and highly debatable - shortfall in Social Security payouts 40 years in the future. Michael Froomkin calls this “demagoguery.” I call it flat-out lying and deception]

More: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-econ17dec17,1,3800251.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

More useless press “analysis”

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005070
“some analysts said [more tax cuts] could deepen the budget deficit”

Who cares about the deficit anyway?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005340.php

The audacity of the lies keeps growing: Bush now predicts that a huge bulge in the already-growing deficit would HELP nervous financial markets! Well, they might as well just keep saying whatever comes into their heads. The mainstream press clearly isn’t going to call them on it

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/17/politics/17econ.html?oref=login&ex=1260939600&
Mr. Bush, his aides and some participants in the conference suggested that addressing the long-term financial pressures on Social Security would give new confidence to the financial markets by showing the government to be confronting one of its biggest economic problems, the imbalance between the benefits it has promised to future retirees and the revenue that Social Security, set up as it is now, can be counted on to generate to money for those benefits. . . Their basic argument was that borrowing as much as $2 trillion in the short run would be a bargain, because it would help create a new system that would take care of the more than $10 trillion in benefits payments over the next 75 years that the government has not provided for. . . Mr. Bush cast dealing with the long-term problems of Social Security as part of a broader fiscal policy approach under which he would also meet his promise of cutting the budget deficit in half over five years.

The president has not fully explained how he would sharply reduce the deficit while also absorbing the costs of his Social Security program, pursuing new tax cuts and paying for the war in Iraq.

[NB: There you have it. This is the extent of exposure they are willing to give the jaw-dropping incoherence of his claims]

And the summit rationales offered for Social Security privatization were hilarious, since they generally either proved no such thing, or in some cases even proved the opposite. But the conclusion, of course, was never really in question

http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=2458
Probably the best way to summarize this morning's White House Economic Conference panel on Social Security reform is: "blah, blah, blah--private accounts!" I don't mean that in the usual way, wherein "blah, blah, blah" stands for a bunch of boring technical reasons why private accounts are a good idea--though there was a little of that. I mean it in the slightly more literal way, wherein "blah, blah, blah" is a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with the case for private accounts--or, worse, a bunch of stuff that seemed like an argument against private accounts--but which would nonetheless be followed by something like, "Which is why we need private accounts."

The track record of other experiments in Social Security privatization – not that previous experience and evidence is relevant to the current debate, of course

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/17/opinion/17krugman.html?oref=login

David Wessel poses four excellent questions that any proposed “reform” of Social Security must answer in order to be taken seriously. Brad DeLong adds a fifth

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-2_archives/000022.html
Does the plan for Social Security increase national saving?. . .
Does the plan plausibly match projected tax receipts to promised Social Security benefits over a long time? . . .
Who wins? Who loses?. . .
Can the proposal for Social Security get through Congress? . . .

But there is a fifth question that David Wessel should have told people to ask: Daniel Davies's question:

Can anyone. . . give me one single example of something with the following three characteristics: (1) It is a policy initiative of the current Bush administration. (2) It was significant enough in scale that I'd have heard of it (at a pinch, that I should have heard of it). (3)It wasn't in some important way completely f***** up during the execution?

As one former CEA staffer said to me: "Think of the farm bill. Think of the Medicare drug benefit. Think of the steel tariff. Now expand that to the size of Social Security. . . "

The mainstream media is not off to a great start in getting the basic facts on Social Security straight: this CBS chart, for example, suggests that there will be ZERO money for benefits in 2042. No one predicts that – there would be, at worst, about 70-75% coverage, and the difference could be made up by taxes or temporary deficit spending at the time, until the demographic imbalance shifts, as it will. And that’s the very worst-case scenario

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412160014

Fighting back, step one: THERE IS NO CRISIS

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_atrios_archive.html#110324224840406299

Step two: THEY WANT TO DESTROY SOCIAL SECURITY

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_digbysblog_archive.html#110316296280193366
They voted against it in 1935 and they have been trying to figure out a way to get rid of it ever since. The Republicans do not believe that we should have a safety net for old people. They never have. . . Don't get bogged down in details, just repeat, repeat, repeat. They do not believe that the government should provide all Americans with a small guaranteed income when they are unable to work due to old age or debilitating illness. They never have. The Republicans want to destroy social security.

Step three: THIS PROPOSAL WILL EXPLODE THE DEFICIT BEYOND WHAT CAN EVER BE REBALANCED, DESPITE BUSH’S PROMISE TO CUT IT IN HALF

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/16/223311/59

The opposition starts to stake out its territory

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-econ17dec17,1,3800251.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
"The fight against privatizing Social Security will be the fight of our lives," said George Kourpias, president of the Alliance for Retired Americans, one of several groups that said they were not invited to present their views at the White House conference. "Privatization will destroy Social Security."

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005067

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005069

Why Bush will fail

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005068
Bush's as-yet unreleased Social Security privatization plan will divide the Republican Congress and be unpopular with the public at large. So why do so many people consider it a done deal?

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8944
Yet this could also be the comeback battle in which Democrats recover both their souls and their political energy. They could hand George W. Bush a rare, humiliating defeat that breaks his winning streak and exposes Republican divisions.

Here’s an important part of government’s safety net that IS in jeopardy, and if Bush is so concerned about helping retirees, he can start working on this one right now

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-2_archives/000024.html

$4 billion in secret Iraq funding (most of it paid to U.S. companies) simply taken off the books: another unaccountable government subsidy to friendly firms

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_12_17_bestof.html#110328286513290360

Yesterday we broached the question of whether the Bush-Allawi axis would trump up some reason to throw the election into doubt or ignore it to stay in power. I doubted it, and I still doubt it: but curious straws are in the wind

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/12/not-true.html
U.S. intelligence sources tell NBC News that 1 million Iranians have already poured across the border to register to vote in Iraq. And Iran is spending as much as $100 million to elect its favored slate of candidates in Iraq — and may have thousands of spies in Iraq. . . "They're putting money into Iraq," says Danielle Pletka, an Iraq expert at the American Enterprise Institute. "They're promoting candidates. They're sponsoring terrorist groups that are pressuring people in Iraq. They're doing everything they can."

Juan Cole assays competing electoral strengths in the upcoming Iraq vote

http://www.juancole.com/2004/12/secular-majority-in-iraq-unlikely.html

Bob Dreyfuss gives an even darker interpretation

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

Iraqi resistance becoming MORE effective, not less

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/12/16/iraqi_insurgents/index.html?source=RSS
The U.S. military has in the past dismissed the fighters as "anti-Iraqi forces" and "terrorists." Several U.S. commanders announced that the back of the insurgency had been broken by the assault on Fallujah. . .However, Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, deputy chief of the U.S. Central Command, told Reuters Wednesday that the insurgency "is becoming more effective. They may use doorbells today to blow things up. They may use remote controls from toys to morrow. And as we adapt, they adapt."

Secret CIA prison-within-a-prison in Guantanamo. The main facility wasn’t brutal and dehumanizing enough, I guess, so they had to hide an even worse one inside it

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5918-2004Dec16.html?nav=rss_nation
CIA detainees, by contrast, are held under separate rules and far greater secrecy. Under a presidential directive and authorities approved by administration lawyers, the CIA is allowed to capture and hold certain classes of suspects without accounting for them in any public way and without revealing the rules for their treatment.

More: http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/12/cia_has_secret_prison_at_guantnamo.html

Second prize: TWO weeks with Rumsfeld in Munich

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1658

A growing list of diverse GOP notables turns up the heat on Rumsfeld: who would have guessed that after departures and changes in nearly every other Cabinet area, he and his cabal would all still have jobs? Well, that appears about to change

http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2004/12/15/news/rumsfeld.html

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/009042.html

Trent Lott too: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004247

The tipping point?
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001495.html

Read this article, and imagine you didn’t know which publication ran it: NY Times? Washington Post? New Republic?

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/035oaizf.asp

National Guard enlistments plummet (gee, I wonder why)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/17/politics/17reserves.html?ex=1261026000&en=e03cade6900206d0&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland

Gonzales nomination in trouble? The end of this article says that the Dems are marshaling their efforts to block judicial nominations, and don’t see this as a political winner (especially because Gonzales is Hispanic). But I ask you: either he was the architect of the biggest subversion of human rights this country has seen in 50 years, or he was too craven to stand up to others in the administration with that agenda, which he implemented. The prison abuse and torture regime is one of the worst things this country has done in my lifetime. The Dems don’t get to revote on Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. any more. But they do get a vote on this. Does Gonzales really deserve the chance to bring his “unique” understanding of human rights into the chief law enforcement office in the land? And – one last consideration – given his consistent pliability to Bush interests over the years, what do you think this will do to current and future Justice Dept investigations into Bush administration malfeasance (Plame, Halliburton, et al.)? Remember that Goss’s almost first act as CIA head was to shelve an unfavorable Inspector General’s report, which everyone now seems to have forgotten – that’s nothing compared to what Gonzales, Bush’s buddy and legal advisor for many years, will bury once he gets in control

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/16/kerik_gonzales/index.html
[T]he New York Times reports today that "several former high-ranking military lawyers say they are discussing ways to oppose President Bush's nomination of Alberto R. Gonzales to be attorney general, asserting that Mr. Gonzales's supervision of legal memorandums that appeared to sanction harsh treatment of detainees, even torture, showed unsound legal judgment."

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/16/politics/16jag.html?oref=login

But. . . GREAT NEWS: Wall Street Journal editorial argues (unconvincingly) that whoever outed Valerie Plame did not break the law. Why is this great news? Just ask yourself: why is this editorial being written now?

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/valerie_plame_/2004/12/wishful_thinking_from_the_right_on_valerie_plame.php

How Kerik earned his nomination for head of DHS

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412160008
[NYT] A homeland security secretary should be above politics and respectful of civil liberties. But when he stumped for President Bush this year, Mr. Kerik engaged in fearmongering. He told The New York Daily News that he was worried about another terrorist attack and that "if you put Senator Kerry in the White House, I think you are going to see that happen." And he was quoted in Newsday as saying this about opponents of the Iraq war: "Political criticism is our enemies' best friend."

And a couple more scandals that were hidden under his bed

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004252
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004246

The revolving door: so blatant and mercenary it’s hardly even news any more

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/203931_lobby16.html
Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., a principal author of the new Medicare drug law, will become president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the chief lobby for brand-name drug companies, the trade group said yesterday. . . Drug makers said that the job was not a reward for Tauzin's work on the Medicare bill, which followed the industry's specifications in many respects. . . Tauzin and White refused to discuss Tauzin's new salary, except to say it was comparable to the pay at other large trade associations. People at other trade groups said they believed that Tauzin was receiving $2 million a year or more. . . Rep. Pete Stark of California, the senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, said: "As a member of Congress, Billy negotiated a large payout to the pharmaceutical industry by the federal government. He's now about to receive one of the largest salaries ever paid to any advocate by an industry."

More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005057
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=100480#2

In Washington state, where a recount may put the GOP candidate behind – a sudden call to just revote the whole thing

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/12/17/in_washington_revote_may_be_needed.html

[But not in Ohio, where the evidence of voting misconduct, snafus, and disenfranchisement was much more dramatic and widespread: huh-uh, no way!]

The Ohio vote fraud battle, however it turns out, may just be the start of a much bigger fight

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/16/count/index.html

IF they can get their damn legal filings drafted properly (yeesh!)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ohio17dec17,1,3271372.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Tom DeLay’s uncomfortable future

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005064

Theocracy on the march: let’s just BAN the separation of church and state

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/epaper/2004/12/16/a21a_webster_1216.html

A new face in our media crit section: Lou Dobbs (this will make my wife happy). He claims that “Happy Holidays” EXCLUDES Christmas, whereas in fact it INCLUDES non-Christian holidays in the season’s greetings – can someone please explain to him what the terms “inclusion and exclusion” mean?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412160013

The changing political landscape. The South may or may not be out of reach for the national Dems right now, but the West is in play

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/16/131515/52

And, interestingly, it may be environmental issues that give the Dems leverage there

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/001148.html

Hypocrites’ Corner (I think this is going to have to become a regular feature)

Bill O’Reilly gets a nice little letter from David Brock, of Media Matters

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412160011
Mr. O'Reilly, you have repeatedly and personally attacked me, Media Matters for America, and my fine staff, calling us "vile," "despicable," and "weasels," and comparing us to the Ku Klux Klan, Castro, Mao, and the Nazis. And you have refused my repeated requests to appear on your broadcast.

You once offered your viewers your definition of the word "coward." On the January 5, 2004, O'Reilly Factor, you declared: "If you attack someone publicly, as these men did to me, you have an obligation to face the person you are smearing. If you don't, you are a coward."

Well, Mr. O'Reilly, you have attacked me publicly on numerous occasions, and you refuse to face me. You, sir, are a coward -- by your own definition of the term. You are "hiding under your desk" (to paraphrase your August 26, 2003, claim about a "coward" who declined to appear on your show) rather than allowing me on your program to discuss your insults. You are "gutless," to borrow the phrase you used on January 10, 2003, and February 8, 2001, to describe people who would not appear on your program.

Zell Miller to deliver Conservative PAC “Courage Under Fire” award to Swift Boat Vets for their great service to our nation (thanks to Best of the Blogs for this link)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&e=2&u=/ap/20041216/ap_on_go_co/miller_swift_boat
"The swift boat veterans performed an invaluable service to America," Miller said in a statement. "These veterans took a lot of undeserved criticism for daring to speak the truth."

Roy Hoffmann, the retired Navy rear admiral who founded the Swift Boat group, said he didn't know much about Miller but was pleased with the honor. The real goal, he said, was to ensure that Kerry didn't become commander in chief. . . "We achieved our goal," Hoffmann said. "That was our primary concern, and we are pleased someone recognized the effort — or at least the impact — we had on the election."

[“We achieved our goal.” No further comment necessary.]

Two great clips from Scotty’s press gaggle. The first teaches an important semantic lesson

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1659
Q How can the President have an economic conference without having any labor representation? How is that possible?

MR. McCLELLAN: There was a broad cross section of people at this conference from various --

Q Are there any labor leaders there?

MR. McCLELLAN: -- from various sectors of the economy. We have worked closely with some groups who are committed to building upon the progress we've made to strengthening our economy, and to creating jobs. And the President --

Q Why weren't any labor leaders invited to this conference?

MR. McCLELLAN: Okay, let me move on because you're not letting me respond.

Q Do you have an answer for that?

Q It's a good question.

MR. McCLELLAN: If you want to ask, I'll respond, because she's not letting me respond. But I'll come back to you if you want to let me respond later. . . Go ahead.

Q Okay, respond right now.

MR. McCLELLAN: The conference represents a broad cross section of individuals from various sectors of the economy. These individuals put forward a number of good ideas. . .

Q Do you realize what you've said, and that you have not --

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm going to keep moving. I'll come back to you if I can.

Q You have not touched a major sector of this society in terms of the economy.

MR. McCLELLAN: I'll come back to you if I have more time. Go ahead. This isn't a debate.

[NB: Notice that Scotty always says "respond" to your question - not ANSWER your question. Hence his habit of totally disengaged replies (like those to Helen Thomas's labor question), which simply juxtaposes to any question that gets asked the talking point of the day. Hence "response," not "answer." Cute, huh? And being pressed to answer the damn question? That means turning this minuet into a “debate”]

Second great clip

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1659
First, a couple of teasers relating to the administration's inability to balance a budget that Little Scottie simply cannot answer.

Q Back on Social Security. You talked about younger workers, and talked about how the President doesn't want to pass problems on to future generations, but you've also said the White House supports borrowing what is likely to be a trillion dollars or more -- as you put it up-front financing. . . Why isn't borrowing a trillion dollars passing something on to younger workers in the next generation?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, Terry, first of all, when we've talked about the transition financing, you have to keep it at -- keep in mind that right now, the cost of doing nothing is more than $10 trillion. That's the cost of Social Security's guarantee to America's workers and the cost of permanently fixing it. . . So we've talked about moving some of the cost forward for the transition financing and significantly bringing it down. . .

Q But shouldn't those younger workers also know -- shouldn't you tell them honestly that the borrowing is something they're going to have to pay for. . .

Finally, the coup de grâce, demonstrating that the press corps really does understand that this is a manufactured crisis.

Q Right now your statement is that Social Security goes insolvent, as you put it, in 38 years.

MR. McCLELLAN: The Social Security trustees state that it goes insolvent in 2042. I think in 2018 is when the cost, the taxes are exceeding -- the benefits are not going to be being paid at the full amount that they're --

Q Ten years ago, the same Social Security trustees said that the system would go insolvent in 35 years. So here we are, 10 years on, and they've actually moved it forward three years. Why is the system in crisis?

MR. McCLELLAN: Because I just pointed out the cost of doing nothing. The cost of doing nothing is significant. That's why we need to solve it now. . .

Bonus item: challanged spelling

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_atrios_archive.html#110324151326815540

[And not so good at math, neither]

***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.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:34 AM

 
DOLLARS AND NON-SENSE

Bush’s great economic summit: nothing but window dressing

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/12/economy-summit.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/15/economic/index.html
If we say it ain't broke, we don't have to fix it
With the dollar plummeting and American trade and budget deficits both at record levels, you would think the president's economic conference might be a somber affair populated by men and women in dark suits. But shortly after Bush's much-publicized conference opened on Wednesday, it was clear that the economists and businessmen in attendance didn't think there was much about the economy -- or the president's economic plan -- that could stand improving. . . The overall impression was "an economy with blue skies, happy workers and prosperity for all, just around the corner," The AP's Tom Raum writes. "Moderators and participants alike sang praises to [Bush's] first-term accomplishments and second-term agenda. His proposals -- many still being formulated -- were hailed as the remedy for what still needs to be fixed."

David Brooks gets off a good one

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/opinion/14brooks.html?oref=login&adxnnl=1&oref=login&adxnnlx=1103125805-N4p/XI1sYXTZhWtzEby0tA
It’s important to understand that this week's summit (unofficial title: Why President Bush Is Right About Everything) may not feature the widest possible range of views. This is true of all presidential policy summits. That's in part because the staff members who organize these things are rightfully terrified that something newsworthy might happen, and have taken precautions.

Look, you can be smart, and snide – or you can be stupid, and humble. Neither is very good. But the worst of all is to be stupid and snide. Apart from all the policy disasters and political dangers this president represents, for all the things I deeply disagree with him about, the fact is that at base I simply find him a snotty, arrogant little man

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004238
George W. Bush, international economist: "There's a trade deficit. That's easy to resolve: People can buy more United States products if they're worried about the trade deficit."

More deep thinking from Bush

http://slate.msn.com/id/2111142/fr/rss/
The Los Angeles Times leads with lip-service: President Bush said he supports a strong dollar. "Comments about a strong dollar are kind of like saying, 'I'm all for education, motherhood and apple pie,' " said one financial analyst. "It's pretty much meaningless." That seems to be a consensus; in fact the analysts cited agreed with their colleague who said, Bush "would prefer a weaker dollar, but he can't come out and say it." Well, whatever: "BUSH PLEDGES STRONGER DOLLAR."

Other successes of the Bush fiscal philosophy

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-2_archives/000017.html
The government’s budget was $412.6 billion in the red in the fiscal year that ended on September 30th. Budget deficits, as Mr Mankiw has pointed out, “are a mechanism whereby one generation of taxpayers passes the buck for its spending on to future generations”. That is why they are so insidious economically, and so attractive politically. . . According to William Gale and Peter Orszag of the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, America’s budget deficits are likely to average about 3.5% of GDP for the remainder of the decade. As the government continues to gobble up America’s scanty savings, it will crowd out the investment on which America’s prosperity depends. By 2014, reckon Messrs Gale and Orszag, the deficits will have reduced America’s wealth by roughly 20-30% of GDP.

One of the basic stories about the neo-con failures in Iraq (WMD, we will be greeted as liberators, Chalabi as statesman, and on and on) is their willful persistence in lying to themselves and then believing their own lies – or, more precisely, when you only have a handful of people talking with each other and reinforcing the idea that they are brilliant and visionary and everybody else is wrong, facts have a hard time breaking through the wall of mutual delusion. Now we have the latest silly fantasy, which is that the Shiite leadership about to assume control in Iraq will not take the country in an Islamist, pro-Iranian direction. They really think these are THEIR GUYS, and not shrewd operators with their own independent agenda. And, as with all the other chapters in this sad, pathetic tragedy, we will only find out how utterly wrong they were when it is too late to do anything about it

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

Or. . . . No. Don’t tell me. Could it really be, is it actually possible, that Bush and Allawi have a plan to walk off with the election after all? Matt Yglesias thinks so, but I have a hard time believing it – there will be riots in the streets if the Sistani slate isn’t elected

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005054

The Swift Boat Veterans, who performed such a valuable service for the American people by reminding us of what a traitorous America-hating coward the decorated and wounded-in-action Vietnam veteran John Kerry was, now take on their next crusade for “truth”

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/15/corsi/index.html
"The world cannot tolerate the potential that these mad mullahs would have a deliverable nuclear weapon, even one, secretly developed," Corsi said in a recent interview. "They might just launch on Tel Aviv. The moment the world intelligence community becomes convinced that could happen, either the U.S. alone or the U.S. plus Israel or Israel alone will seriously contemplate a preemptive strike, and I'd be in favor of it. . . Islam is like a virus -- it affects the mind -- maybe even better as an analogy -- it is a cancer that destroys the body it infects. A throwback, Medieval, anti-modern, anti-science, anti-knowledge doctrine. Then too, Islam is a peaceful religion only so long as the women are beaten, the boys buggered, and the infidels killed. Worthless. No doctor would hesitate to eliminate cancer cells from the body."

Another anti-missile system test fails; and when you know how hard they try to rig it to make each test “successful,” the fact of failure is all the more appalling. But like everything else in this administration failure is never failure, and bad results are never a reason for changing course

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/15/11186/596
An attempt to launch an interceptor missile as part of the U.S. missile defence shield failed early Wednesday in the first test of the system in nearly two years. . . The Missile Defense Agency said the ground-based interceptor automatically shutdown "due to an unknown anomaly" shortly before it was to be launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean. . . The missile defence shield was meant to be in operation by the end of 2004. . . In earlier tests, missile interceptors had a record of five-for-eight in hitting target missiles. . . Wednesday's test had been put of several times because of bad weather, and a malfunction of a recovery vessel not directly related to the equipment being tested, The Associated Press reported.

[Kos] Note, that five out of eight record was achieved only because the target missile did not have 1) decoys (which are employed by intercontinental ballistic missiles, and 2) the targets had a homing beacon on them. . . So here's the deal -- the missile defense system works sometimes, so long as the target has a big radar signal the interceptor can track, and as long as we have perfect weather in Alaska.

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005331.php

Kerik disclosures continue: mob links?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004244

Financial shenanigans?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004242

Nanny story NOT TRUE?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004243
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004241
So now it seems like this whole "nanny" story wasn't just an excuse, but quite probably a lie -- one which Kerik and the White House have been pushing for days.

Not much more to say about the Kerik fiasco but this: will it bring down Alberto Gonzales, who headed up the vetting process? I assume this will be asked during the confirmation hearings, and I can only imagine three possible answers, each worse than the next: (1) We didn’t find out about most of these bad things in his past until after he was announced as a nominee; (2) We did find out about them but didn’t think they were very serious; or (3) We knew about them and thought they were serious, but the President insisted on going ahead with the nomination anyway. Hmmm. . . which poison would you choose?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/15/bernie/index.html
"'Throughout the process,' [a] Republican close to the administration said, 'everyone at the White House knew that Mr. Bush liked Mr. Kerik, placing him in the special category of 'this guy's our guy.''". . . "Mr. Bush admired Mr. Kerik for his service as New York City's police commissioner on Sept. 11, 2001, for his willingness to try to train the police force in Iraq and for campaigning tirelessly for the president's re-election," the Times notes. And so while White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales went through the motions of grilling Kerik on his past, he never double-checked Kerik's answers. . . That our next Attorney General could be lax is worrisome, if not surprising. After all, Gonzales has gone out of his way in the past to tell the White House what it wants to hear -- say, for example, that those "quaint" Geneva Conventions won't get in the way of Guantanamo.

“Our guy.” How did Bush come to develop such a fixation on Kerik in the first place?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/15/kerik/index.html
"Kerik exuded too much quiet authority and dramatic effect, trying a shade too hard to convey that he knew things he couldn't speak of and was working from the deep inside, privy to secrets that he carried locked inside the bank vault of his barrel chest. I could see how this tough-guy shtick -- which obviously wasn't entirely shtick, but a tough streak that had been refined into an urban lawman persona -- would impress fake swaggarts like, well, George Bush, who likes to play dress-up as a range hand and fighter pilot. . . "

Pentagon threatens allies who cooperate in U.S. war crime lawsuits

http://www.juancole.com/2004/12/pentagon-threatens-germany-over.html
The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Berlin's Republican Lawyers' Association has filed suit in Germany against Donald Rumsfeld on behalf of 4 Iraqis who allege they were mistreated by American troops. A number of other high-ranking US officials are also named. . . What is interesting about the Pentagon reaction to this suit is how frantic the Department of Defense seems. Although spokesman Larry DiRita dismissed it as "frivolous," he threatened Germany with dire consequences if the suit goes forward. DiRita said,

'"Generally speaking, as is true anywhere, if these kinds of lawsuits take place with American servicemen in the cross-hairs, you bet it's something we take seriously . . . I think every government in the world, particularly a NATO ally, understands the potential effect on relations with the United States if these kinds of frivolous lawsuits were ever to see the light of day." '

More: http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/12/yeah_wtf_was_di.html

Nothing to hide? Doesn’t sound like it

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005043

Iraq prisoner abuse/torture: no accountability

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/15/torture/index.html
The soldiers' behavior is despicable and deserves punishment to the full extent of the law. But what about the top brass at the Pentagon who knew of the tactics being used and presumably did nothing to stop them -- even after the torture at Abu Ghraib prison was revealed to the world? Also from the Times:

"The documents previously released by the civil liberties union show that two Defense Department intelligence officials reported observing brutal treatment of Iraqi insurgents captured in Baghdad last June, several weeks after disclosures of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison created a worldwide uproar. The memorandum, written by the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency to a senior Pentagon official, said that when the two members of his agency objected to the treatment, they were threatened and told to keep quiet by other military interrogators."

So the chain of command in the Bush administration is a one-way proposition through and through: Responsibility for disaster never makes its way up, while the White House's culture of punishing dissent appears to have no trouble trickling on down. As far as we know, to date nobody higher than the level of military grunt has been held responsible for the awful acts of abuse.

Many of our troops returning with serious mental health problems

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/16/national/16stress.html?oref=login&ex=1260939600&

U.S. is finally informing some Guantanamo prisoners of their right to a hearing on incarceration (the key word in this story is SOME: by previous court ruling it’s a right that ALL of them have – but only certain ones are being allowed to exercise it. Why?)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3234-2004Dec15.html?nav=rss_nation

Retired General “Stormin” Norman Schwarzkopf lights into “the greatest Sect’y of Defense ever”

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005329.php
“I was angry by the words of the secretary of defense when he laid it all on the Army, as if he, as the secretary of defense, didn’t have anything to do with the Army and the Army was over there doing it themselves, screwing up.”

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/09/iraq.abuse.main.int/

Rumsfeld, Myers told about need for armor seven months ago

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412160003
"We're trying to get them [armored Humvees] to you as fast as we can. We understand the difference they can make, and for that matter we're shipping some armor over as well."

Hmmm. . . seven months ago and it’s still a problem. But today the Pentagon announced that all vehicles will be properly armored by June. I guess when you humiliate the Sect’y of Defense in public, things can get done pretty darn fast

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002121182_iraqdig16.html

Inadequate armor for military vehicles: the lighter side

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005327.php

Appointing John Bolton to be Rice's Deputy Sect’y of State “would destroy State Department credibility” (thanks to David Meyer for the link)

http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2004/04.97%20John%20Bolton%20the%20one.htm

Doug Feith, a name that seems to crop up in the midst of every Bush Middle East policy misadventure, and one frequently mentioned here, is at it again

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001493.html

Who will become the new czar of a unified Intelligence agency (DNI)? House members were so sure it was going to be Porter Goss, they put in a provision saying he (and only he) would be exempt from Senate confirmation if appointed to the post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3146-2004Dec15.html?nav=rss_nation

Dept of Justice asked to investigate the leak of secret satellite funding buried in the Intelligence Bill (yeah, get to that will you, as soon as you wrap up the Plame investigation, which started in SEPTEMBER 2003, and still has produced nothing in over a year, even though a dozen people running around the White House know exactly who did the leaking in that case)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/12/15/spybudget.mystery.ap/index.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3128-2004Dec15.html?nav=rss_nation

Ohio vote fraud coverage getting ridiculous

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64737-2004Dec14?language=printer
Electoral problems prevented many thousands of Ohioans from voting on Nov. 2. In Columbus, bipartisan estimates say that 5,000 to 15,000 frustrated voters turned away without casting ballots. It is unlikely that such "lost" voters would have changed the election result -- Ohio tipped to President Bush by a 118,000-vote margin. . . But similar problems occurred across the state and fueled protest marches and demands for a recount. The foul-ups appeared particularly acute in Democratic-leaning districts. . .

[NB: This kind of story burns me up! First of all, every story of a few thousand stolen votes here or a few thousand lost votes there is always qualified by “well, a few thousand votes wouldn’t have made a difference anyway.” But at some cumulative point, all these stories together point in a very definite direction: this was 5-15,000 IN ONE COUNTY (there are 88 counties in Ohio). Second, if thousands of people were unfairly denied the right to exercise one of the most fundamental rights in a democracy, that is an outrage to be investigated “whether it would have made any difference in the outcome or not.” And third, when the trend is overwhelmingly to disenfranchise voters from one political party, then you clearly have a coordinated effort by officials of the other party: which is a criminal act. So please, stop telling me “it won’t make any difference to the outcome,” as if that excused everything or makes the calls for investigation ridiculous]

Recount moves forward, civil suit now includes actual vote tampering, and not just voter suppression, as a complaint (thanks to Megan Boler for some of these links)

http://rawstory.com/exclusives/kerry_ohio_suit_1215.php

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ohio16dec16,1,2812618.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

http://www.wanttoknow.info/votingproblems
“Who Counts Your Vote?”

Popular action alert

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1646
Rep. John Conyers is trying to get one million emails demanding that the entire House Judiciary Committee hold full hearings on the 2004 election. . . All you have to do is send an email demanding a full investigation. You need as well to get everyone you know to send an email. Remember, Conyers is trying to get at least one million. . . email should be sent here.

Can Democrats ever do well in the South again? (the answer: maybe)

http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=2456

Amy Sullivan on why the Democrats need to change their message on abortion

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005330.php
Kerry "told the group [EMILY’s List] they needed new ways to make people understand they didn't like abortion. Democrats also needed to welcome more pro-life candidates into the party, he said.". . . Kerry is right. And before you start spamming me with hate mail, listen up. No one is suggesting that the Democratic Party change its platform or abandon the pro-choice cause or become, as one congresswoman mischaracterized Kerry's advice, "fake Republicans." That would be stupid and, even worse, wrong. . . But it's long past time for the Democratic Party to realize that they continue to lose voters who aren't one-issue abortion voters but who feel unwelcome in the party because of their beliefs. Rhetoric that verges on being pro-abortion rankles even pro-choice Democrats like me.

Atrios on why they don’t

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_atrios_archive.html#110315223858085211

Bush “explains” his policies on Social Security

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1653

More on the phony Social Security “crisis”

http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200451#1285

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005050

New code words for benefit CUTS: the true agenda of “reform”

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005334.php

[NB: as we’ve been discussing for days, don’t buy the argument that cuts in some form are “necessary” because of the baby boom and future revenue shortfalls – the payroll tax, if it were truly set aside in Al Gore’s “lockbox,” would be sufficient to fund the program for as far into the future as the eye can see. The only problem with Social Security is that each year the surplus income is being spent on OTHER THINGS to prevent the deficit looking even worse than it is: both Republicans and Democrats have played this game. If Social Security were truly a reserve fund, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation: and no, it’s not too late to change that practice if we truly want to make the program self-sustaining. The price would be admitting how badly out of balance the Federal budget really is, and how utterly foolhardy massive tax cuts were]

The echo chamber does its part

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412150007

On differential pay for public school teachers: an interesting discussion

http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/003002.html
[Harry Brighouse] Teachers are normally compensated according to three indicators: years of service, numbers of university credits earned, and the wealth of their district’s tax base. This means teachers who are better, or in shortage subjects, or work in schools for which it is more difficult to recruit teachers, are not paid more. Gym teachers get paid the same as Math teachers, despite the fact that it is much more difficult to recruit qualified Math teachers; inner city teachers get paid less than suburban teachers even though it is more difficult to recruit to inner city schools. . .

So, to put my cards on the table, I’m completely in favour of paying Math teachers more than Gym teachers, and English teachers more than Guidance Counsellors (not only because I’m married to one, either). I’m also strongly in favour of paying inner city schoolteachers more than suburban teachers. But I am very sceptical, not on principled but on practical grounds, of proposals for paying better teachers more than worse teachers. Here’s why:

There are three ways of deciding who the better teachers are. The first is by using objective indicators like numbers of college credits. This is already built into the salary schedule and is, I think, less-than-ideal: it provides a nice income for Ed Schools, but teachers can take academically questionable courses, and get bare passes. . . The second way is the increasingly popular ‘value-added’ method (which Kerry, for example, implied in his education platform). The idea is that teachers will be judged better if their students improve more than the students of other teachers, over time. This is, in principle, a great idea, and in practice an incredibly bad idea. . . My favourite method of evaluating teachers is by having principals make actual judgements about quality. The principals would know something about what made a teacher a good teacher, and would visit classrooms, and observe teachers, and promote good teachers but not bad ones….Well, you can already see the problems with this one.

Evangelical Christians want to put the Christ back in Christmas

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/009036.html

Judge embroiders Ten Commandments in gold on his ROBE

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_12_16_bestof.html#110317755384405652

Michael Moore: Right now, go to your window, stick your head out and yell, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it any more!” (thanks to A.G. Rud for the link)

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=174

Bush’s inauguration: don’t be surprised to see him appearing in epaulettes with a pistol on his hip (okay, not really. . . I hope)

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005052

Hypocrites’ corner

Norm Coleman (R – Minn), one of the genuinely disgusting opportunists in a party that has become a magnet for the “say anything” personality type, switches his attention from tar-and-feathering Kofi Annan for the oil-for-food scandal that happened under his watch, to making excuses for Don Rumsfeld for the scandals that have occurred under HIS watch

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004240

Ouch!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004239
More on Gerald "No Gay Books in my Library!" Allen's visit to the White House. . . One possibility, of course, is that Allen was invited to the White House because Lynne Cheney wanted to see if she could get an exemption for Sisters, the lesbian romance novel she wrote in 1981.

Mark Hyman: why is everybody picking on poor old me?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005046
"I'm a little amused that in a 160-hour programming week [of news on Sinclair stations], anybody would be concerned with my comments, which run one or two minutes long on a daily basis for a total of 10 to 15 minutes a week," Hyman, a vice president at Sinclair, said in a telephone interview yesterday.”

[Nick Confessore] So it's a "what, little old me?" defense, eh? Well, Hyman's broadcast is so insignificant and inconsequential, why do they bother running it? Does no one watch the editorial? If so, why does Sinclair waste shareholder value by forcing party-line propaganda down the throats of its affiliates? For that matter, if the editorials are such a tiny and marginal portion of Sinclair's broadcast hours, one imagines it would be a simple matter to take up a second tiny portion of those hours with an accompanying editorial from the left. No?

Bonus item: From Alan Beck, by way of A.G. Rud

"The Democrats' mistake was in thinking that a disastrous war and national bankruptcy would be of concern to the electorate. . . The Republicans correctly saw that the chief concern of the electorate was to keep gay couples from having an abortion."

Double bonus item

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_atrios_archive.html#110313619446426752
Quote of the Day
Bernard Kerik is one scandal away from winning the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Triple bonus item: oh color-coded terror alerts, we’re gonna miss ya

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1652

***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.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:19 AM

 
AWARDS EARNED AND UNEARNED

PBD nominated for a Koufax Award!

http://wampum.wabanaki.net/archives/001502.html

Loyalty over competence: Bush’s three Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients: L. Paul Bremer III, Tommy R. Franks, and George J. Tenet

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/12/20041202-17.html

[NB: This isn’t recognition, it’s payback. No one knows more than these three about the intelligence screwups that led to the war, and the terrible planning (or non-planning) that went into the post-war transition. A few choice words from any of these guys could bring down the administration - literally]

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/14/medal/index.html
Bush said that Bremer "worked day and night, in difficult, dangerous conditions" and that he "will be remembered for his superb work in laying the foundations of a new democracy in the Middle East.". . . Um, yeah. While Bremer no doubt toiled under grueling conditions, we're not so sure that "superb work" is what we'll remember about the guy whose strategy of de-Baathification included the disastrous disbanding of the entire Iraqi military, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of unemployed, disgruntled Iraqi men wandering off into the countryside with their weapons in tow.

As for Tenet, with a broken U.S. intelligence system and a White House that would only take one answer for an answer, he may have had a next-to-impossible job. But he was certainly no slam dunk either.

And you have to appreciate the way Bush chose to honor his leading general from the Iraq war. "At a recent high school reunion, Tommy's old principal told the general, 'You weren't the bright bulb in the socket,'" Bush said, alluding to General Franks' early indifference as a student. "To which the general replied, 'Ain't this a great country?'"

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/politics/14cnd-meda.html?oref=login&ex=1260766800&

How Scotty explains it: http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1645
Q So they may have made mistakes, these winners of the Medals of Freedom, but now is not the day to talk about it -- is that what you're saying?

Here’s the truth: privatization itself has NOTHING to do with saving Social Security in the long run. That proposal derives from a different impulse entirely: outsourcing govt programs to the private sector wherever and whenever possible. The only thing that really addresses the long-term stability of the program is some kind of restructuring of the payment formula, cutting benefits, or raising the retirement age. What path to take, and whether the matter even needs to be addressed right now, is open to debate. But what is becoming more and more clear is that privatizing Social Security actually has nothing to do with the needed “reforms”

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-2_archives/000008.html

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005034
[T]he Social Security trust fund is not there for people to just play around with or finance irresponsible deficit spending with. Those dollars are a promise to the people who paid their payroll taxes -- a promise that their elders will be taken care of in retirement, and that they themselves will be supported when they reach old age. In other words, those dollars are spoken for. If your party cuts taxes, ups spending, runs the government into red ink, and borrows from the Social Security trust fund to keep things afloat -- then your party is responsible for getting money back into that lockbox. It's as simple as that.

Mark Kleiman gets it

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/microeconomics_and_policy_analysis_/2004/12/yes_todd_zywicki_is_missing_something.php
But restoring fiscal sanity is against contemporary Republican principles, so instead Bush proposes to welsch, cutting the amount the federal government would otherwise pay to today's workers when they retire. The "private account" scam is just a smokescreen to hide a benefit cut.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-econ15dec15,1,2882743.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
But some analysts say they believe the administration also views personal accounts as politically necessary to persuade younger workers to swallow a substantial reduction in promised future benefits. The prospect of greater control and higher returns provided by private accounts might seem like an acceptable trade-off, in this view. . . "It's a bribe to get the real reform, which is cutting future benefits to levels they can manage," said Lehman Brothers' Harris. "What they're doing is making a bargain with the baby boomers. The privatization is a sugar-coating to get the broader reform passed."

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004236
[Josh Marshall] As Paul Krugman, Kevin Drum and many others have been making clear in recent days, the entirety of the president's argument is based on a series of well-constructed lies. The president's advisors were never more truthful than they were when they compared the coming round of disinformation and fear-mongering to their public campaign in support of the Iraq war in 2002. . . The Social Security "crisis" is manufactured; there is no crisis. To the extent there are long-term financing problems, the president's plan will gravely worsen them. The problem we face isn't over Social Security, which continues to run up huge surpluses (just as it was intended to under the early-80s reform), but that our non-Social Security budget continues to run massive structural deficits. Or rather, it has returned to running massive structural deficits after getting into the black in the late 1990s through the combined exertions of a Democratic president and a Republican congress. Social Security isn't the problem, but rather George W. Bush's reckless fiscal policy. . . In any case, as I say, the whole thing is lies. This isn't about the program's problems but about its success. That's why the president and his allies want to phase it out. It's not about financing but about ideology. . .

So, a few points on strategy. [Read on. . . ]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004237
[Michael Kinsley] My contention: Social Security privatization is not just unlikely to succeed, for various reasons that are subject to discussion. It is mathematically certain to fail. Discussion is pointless. . . The usual case against privatization is that (1) millions of inexperienced investors may end up worse off, and (2) stocks don't necessarily do better than bonds over the long-run, as proponents assume. But privatization won't work for a better reason: it can't possibly work, even in theory. The logic is not very complicated.

1. To "work," privatization must generate more money for retirees than current arrangements. This bonus is supposed to be extra money in retirees' pockets and/or it is supposed to make up for a reduction in promised benefits, thus helping to close the looming revenue gap.

2. Where does this bonus come from? There are only two possibilities: from greater economic growth, or from other people.

3. Greater economic growth requires either more capital to invest, or smarter investment of the same amount of capital. Privatization will not lead to either of these. . .

4. If the economy doesn't produce more than it otherwise would, the Social Security privatization bonus must come from other investors, in the form of a lower return. . . This is in fact the implicit assumption behind the notion of putting Social Security money into stocks, instead of government bonds, because stocks have a better long-term return. The bonus will come from those saps who sell the stocks and buy the bonds. . . The money newly available for private investment will bid up the price of (and thus lower the return on) stocks, while the government will need to raise the interest on bonds in order to attract replacement money.

5. If the privatization bonus cannot come from the existing economy, and cannot come from growth, it cannot exist. And therefore, privatization cannot work.

Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, “everyone's favorite Southern Republican,” calls out the President on phony Social Security numbers

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/12/graham-opposes-borrowing-to-pay-for.html

Why the term “bankruptcy” is totally inappropriate to the matter

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005038
There are two points to be made here. One is that the non–Social Security budget deficit is a much more pressing concern than is Social Security's projected financial shortfall, which may not even arise depending on how things go in the future. The other is that government programs -- and, indeed, whole governments -- don't go "bankrupt" when expenditures exceed revenues. If promised benefits do wind up exceeding payroll tax receipts at some point in the future, the government can just run a deficit for a year or two while the politicians of that era decide what to do. If it happens, it'll be a problem -- just as today's budget deficit is a problem -- but hardly a bankruptcy or a crisis or a reason to believe, as so many young people do, that Social Security "won't be there" in the future unless we essentially eliminate it with a radical restructuring.

A real fix for Social Security, if that’s what is wanted

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/social_insecurity_/2004/12/for_a_lockbox.php

And of all the entitlement programs, Social Security is hardly the one most at risk fiscally

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005321.php

Medicare and Medicaid: death by a thousand cuts

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63325-2004Dec14.html?nav=rss_nation
[F]acing yet another year of double-digit increases in retiree health costs, many employers are passing more of the [Medicare drug insurance program] expenses to their retired employees, the survey of 333 large companies showed.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/11728465p-12616596c.html
Medicaid, the nation's health care program for the poor, appears headed for the chopping block in 2005 as President Bush and Congress look for ways to cut the federal budget deficit.

Oh, the pomp and circumstance: Bush’s two day “summit” nothing but an orchestrated coming out party for already-formulated policy, with a hand-picked cheering section

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63479-2004Dec14.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing
“Independent analysts said it appeared the conference was designed to provide a highly visible forum for the administration to make the case for its existing initiatives, rather than an attempt to develop new policy proposals for a second term."

"But on the eve of the invitation-only affair, business leaders are already grumbling that Mr. Bush may be glossing over what really ails the U.S. economy -- most notably, government's deteriorating finances."

One example of the Great Minds being brought in to debate high-stakes policy

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004232

More bad news for the dollar: trade imbalance explodes (thanks to Atrios for the link)

http://briefing.com/Silver/Calendars/EconomicCalendar.htm

Kerik: “What didn't they know, and why didn't they know it?”

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/14/kerik/index.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_atrios_archive.html#110308930118495141
[O]ne presidential adviser pointed out that Kerik "brings 9/11 symbolism into the Cabinet."

How right he was:

An apartment in Battery Park City that former Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik secured for his personal use after Sept. 11 was originally donated for the use of weary police and rescue workers who were helping at ground zero, according to a real estate executive who has been briefed about the apartment. . . After the cleanup had settled into a routine that fall, the executive said, Mr. Kerik, who was still police commissioner, asked to rent the two-bedroom apartment for his own use. During his use of the apartment, Mr. Kerik and Judith Regan engaged in an extramarital affair there. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004233
Another piece in the Times, by Charles Bagli, gives further details. It seems that once the 9/11 clean-up settled into a routine in the late fall of 2001, Kerik asked Anthony Bergamo, "a well-connected vice chairman of the Milstein family real estate company and a police buff," if he could rent the apartment for his own use. . . "Mr. Kerik paid for use of the apartment," the article goes on to say, "but the amount was not clear. Many apartments that were available in Battery Park City after the attack on the trade center were rented at well below market rates for months afterward."

How did this massive screw-up happen? Let’s start with the single point of origin

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004235
[T]he nub was President Bush. He liked Kerik. He thought he was a tough guy. And he wanted to appoint him to the job. And he didn't really want to hear any objections.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/15/politics/15home.html?oref=login&ex=1260853200&
The story of Mr. Kerik's nomination is one of how a normally careful White House faltered because of Mr. Bush's personal enthusiasm for Mr. Kerik, a desire by the administration to quickly fill a critical national security job and an apparent lack of candor from Mr. Kerik himself. . . A Republican close to the White House who has participated in background reviews of presidential nominees said the fault lay both with Mr. Kerik and with "whoever's job it was to check him out."

[Uhh, and that would be. . . ?]

A major problem, law enforcement officials said, was that the White House did not have the benefit of any F.B.I. investigation into Mr. Kerik's past. . . Mr. Bush announced Mr. Kerik's nomination before the F.B.I. had begun the full field investigation required of all cabinet nominees. The officials said such an investigation would have readily uncovered the problems that doomed Mr. Kerik's nomination.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64738-2004Dec14.html
President Bush hoped to limit the political damage from the nomination of Bernard B. Kerik by cutting him loose as soon as he confessed he had not paid taxes for a Mexican nanny who apparently had been in the country illegally. Instead, questions about Bush's judgment have escalated because of a cascade of damaging details about Kerik's business and personal lives that White House vetters either missed or ignored. . . A few days of digging by news organizations have revealed that Bush had planned to entrust one of the most sensitive jobs in his Cabinet, secretary of homeland security, to a man who had failed to report lavish gifts he received as a New York City official, had declared personal bankruptcy and was the subject of an arrest warrant in a civil case involving unpaid condominium fees. . . Republicans on Capitol Hill and in the lobbying community, accustomed to a White House that resists any whiff of sleaziness, were left wondering whether it was more astounding that Kerik allowed himself to be considered or that Bush disregarded a forest of red flags and nominated him anyway.

An exhausted staffer who has been closely involved in the matter from the beginning called it "a case of hubris on both sides.". . . Marshall Wittman, a former Republican who is now a senior fellow at the Democratic Leadership Council, called this the first instance of the overreaching that officials in both parties had expected after Bush won reelection and claimed a broad mandate. . . "When you believe you are invulnerable, you will always take a step too far, and this was it," Wittman said.

Next Homeland Security head: Let’s see: Kerik, three wives; Allbaugh, up to his chin in the Iraq warbucks trough; Lieberman, too Democratic; Hutchinson, too savvy about the pitfalls of the job; gee, I guess that just leaves. . .

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/12/bernies_possibl.html

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/12/14/whitehouse.lieberman/index.html

Oh, my: Homeland Security, leaderless and directionless; CIA, crumbling from within; well, thank god the FBI is still functioning. . .

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/14/terrorism/index.html
"All four members of the top management team announced by Director Robert S. Mueller III shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks have left their jobs -- as have their successors. Some other officials have had three or even four jobs since the attacks. Since Sept. 11, five people have held the bureau's top counter-terrorism job. Five others filled the top computer job within a 24-month period. And more than 1,000 other senior FBI agents and officials are eligible for retirement, boding a further exodus of employees who form the agency's backbone. In figures provided recently to Congress, the FBI estimated that the number of top managers below the senior executive rank would decline by 16% -- about 70 people -- in the next year alone.". . . A further confidence booster: The bureau's office of strategic planning has been without a director for months.

Bush’s new head of Civil Rights commission thinks discrimination is an “exaggerated” problem (and calls affirmative action “the big lie”). Gee, why not just ELIMINATE the Civil Rights commission, and end the hypocrisy?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/14/civil/index.html

What the war in Iraq will reap for us

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/15/international/middleeast/15iran.html?ex=1260766800&en=79197cc82015a1bf&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
On a list of 228 candidates submitted by a powerful Shiite-led political alliance to Iraq's electoral commission last week, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's name was entered as No. 1. . . Mr. Hakim may emerge as the country's most powerful political figure. . . Mr. Hakim, in his early 50's, is a pre-eminent example of a class of Iraqi Shiite leaders with close ties to Iran's ruling ayatollahs. He spent nearly a quarter of a century in exile in Iran. His political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was founded in Tehran, and its military wing fought alongside Iranian troops during the Iran-Iraq war. American intelligence officials say he had close ties with Iran's secret services. . . For the United States, and for Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which have Sunni Muslim majorities, the prospect of Mr. Hakim and his associates coming to power raises in stark form the brooding issue of Iran's future influence in Iraq.

Doug Feith: military action against Iran can’t be ruled out

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1102752565828

John Bolton: ditto

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

William Kristol drops a load on Don Rumsfeld (fun)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A132-2004Dec14.html

More horrific reports of prisoner abuse/torture, and still NO ONE has been held accountable for the climate of tolerance (indeed, tacit encouragement) that gave rise to it all

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=8&u=/nm/20041214/ts_nm/iraq_abuse_dc

Social problems can’t be solved by throwing money at them, but military problems. . .

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/14/costs/index.html

More on the Victor Bout story from yesterday: this is an even bigger deal than I realized

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005030
But here's the real question: When did anyone in charge become aware that one branch of the U.S. government was lining the pockets of a guy whom another branch of the U.S. government was trying to nail?

Ready or not (not!) Allawi announces war crime trials to begin next week

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/14/133049/78

[Reportedly, to be followed directly by his own announcement of candidacy for the elections today or tomorrow]

Iraqi insurgent propaganda video – crude, but not dumb

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/12/iraqi_insurgent.html

Bush Co. exaggerated the North Korea threat, just as they exaggerated the Iraq threat

http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/003552.html

The war over judicial appointments: a lot more is at stake than just abortion and prayer in schools

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005039
Much, much more attention needs to be paid by progressives to the “Constitution-in-exile” movement, which looks to return the country to the pre-New Deal jurisprudence that had completely hampered activist federal government.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/opinion/14tue4.html?oref=login&ex=buzzflash

Everyone knows about school boards being pressed on creationism vs evolution in science textbooks, but you won’t find a more blatant case than this one (thanks to Kevin Drum for the link)

http://www.chriscmooney.com/blog.asp?Id=1456

We all know that parts of the country are provincial, bigoted, and hostile to minorities. But how far will this govt go in pandering to the yee-haw vote (or does that even need to be asked)?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004231
[Meet] Gerald Allen, the Alabama state legislator who introduced a bill to ban funds for any books "that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle." If the bill passed, Allen said, "novels with gay protagonists and college textbooks that suggest homosexuality is natural would have to be removed from library shelves and destroyed.". . . According to an interview Allen gave to The Guardian, just a few days after word of his proposed legislation hit the news, President Bush invited him up to the White House.

Ohio vote fraud: new details emerge each passing day (thanks to Megan Boler for some of these links)

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/985

http://what-we-know.blogspot.com/2004/12/wheels-are-coming-off-in-ohio.html
[A] representative of Triad Systems came to an Ohio Board of Elections office last Friday to "see if they had any questions". He quickly moved to the back room where the Triad vote tabulator was located. Before you can say "Vote fraud" he had "found" a battery problem with the machine and proceeded to take it apart, swapping out parts and who knows what else. . . The Triad rep. then asked which county would be selected in the upcoming 3% recount. When he was told, he went back in to do something else to the tabulator. . . He then told them that since the hand recount had to match the machine count exactly, and that it would be hard for them to memorize the number sequence needed to get the machine to give them that number, that they should post these series of numbers on the wall where they would not be noticed by observers. The counters could then report these numbers NO MATTER WHAT THEY ACTUALLY COUNTED IN THE BALLOT. This would then "match" what the precinct reported exactly.

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/12/followup_to_voterigging_program_item.html
Looks as if it’s time to promote Wayne Masden’s story about a Republican-commissioned program that changes votes out of the tinfoil category, as it seems to be breaking into the major media. . .

Arnebeck’s Alliance for Democracy lawsuit finally filed, and it may actually have a chance

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/14/151628/87

More: http://wilsonhellie.typepad.com/for_the_record/2004/12/what_happened_t.html

Popular action alert 1: Rush Limbaugh utters a four-letter profanity on air (one of the bad ones) – don’t let just the reactionaries complain about obscenities, hold him accountable

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_atrios_archive.html#110305730452212714

Popular action alert 2: try to get Fahrenheit 9-11 a People’s Choice Award (thanks to Mary Atkinson for the link)

http://www.pcavote.com/voting/film/f01.shtml

Popular action alert 3: more on the new Sinclair protest (thanks to David Noreen for the link)

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-sinclair14dec14,0,1765019.story?coll=la-home-politics

Bonus item: Write Your Own Caption Here

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1643

***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.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:44 AM

 
ECHOES OF THE PAST

Despite WH disavowals in June of Albert Gonzales’s torture memos, those policies STILL REMAIN IN EFFECT

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/12/precluding_tort.html
[WSJ] Drafts have been circulating since July at several agencies, including the CIA, Pentagon and State Department. Recent versions, the senior Justice official said, have examined "what is torture, what does it mean, what are useful sources for interpreting the statutory language, but it won't go into the president's ability to order torture if he wanted to.". . . Several officials said they doubt a revised Justice Department opinion ever will emerge. "There's a lot of water between now and then," an administration official said. Some officials don't want to commit a definitive policy to paper, while others see no need to bring up the subject since congressional and public interest in it is flagging, people familiar with the discussions say. . . "The question is: Why do people have to write opinions about how far you can go?" said one official.

“Mission accomplished” in Fallujah? Not yet.

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1628

Interesting military analysis of why Rumsfeld’s excuse – that “front-line” troops have adequate armored vehicles, and it’s only the supply and support crews safely behind the front lines who lack them – doesn’t hold water

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/opinion/12carter.html?oref=login

Neo-cons turn on Allawi (could it really be that they think Chalabi will be resuscitated by these elections?)

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/allawis_fall.html

http://www.aei.org/news/newsID.21070/news_detail.asp

Chalabi is # 10 on the Sistani list: http://www.cfr.org/background/iraq_election_politics.php

What happens after the Sistani slate wins? Could be VERY interesting, given the U.S. commitment to establishing permanent bases in Iraq

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005313.php
The Shiite slate is clearly going to win the January elections, and as Spencer points out, there's only one plank in the UIA platform that its leaders consider important enough to discuss publicly: a desire to get U.S. troops out of Iraq. . . At the same time, democracy promoting neocons. . . don't want U.S. troops to leave. . . Sometime next year this will come to a head. Do we leave Iraq if a democratically elected government asks us to? Or do we stick around in order to eventually bring the rest of the Middle East to heel? Stay tuned.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0930/p17s02-cogn.html
If a new Iraq government should agree to let American forces stay on, how many bases will the US request?. . . One, as the United States Army currently maintains in Honduras? Six, the number of installations it lists in the Netherlands. Or maybe 12?. . . The Pentagon isn't saying. . . But a dozen is the number of so-called "enduring bases" located by John Pike, director of GlobalSecurities.org. His military affairs website gives their names. They include, for example, Camp Victory at the Baghdad airfield and Camp Renegade in Kirkuk. The Chicago Tribune last March said US engineers are constructing 14 "enduring bases," but Mr. Pike hasn't located two of them. . . It all suggests a planned indefinite stay on Iraqi soil that will cost US taxpayers for years to come.

Iran

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/war_on_iran.php
[UPI] The U.S. Defense Department reportedly held simulations to determine the effectiveness of an attack on Iran, the Middle East Newsline reported Sunday. . . The Atlantic Monthly revealed the Pentagon held simulations of a U.S. military strike on Iranian bases and nuclear facilities. The war games also included a ground invasion.

Saddam started planning for the insurgency in 2002: why didn’t we?

http://www.electablog.com/2004/12/confirming-obvious.html

Here’s how bad prisoner abuse in Iraq became

http://slate.msn.com/id/2111015/fr/rss/
A piece inside the NYT says the CIA was concerned enough—in a CYA kind of way—about soldiers' mistreatment of Iraqi detainees, that it memo-ed agents, "If the military employed any type of techniques beyond questions and answers, we should not participate and should not be present."

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/politics/14intel.html

Army murderer receives a “reprimand”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62089-2004Dec13.html?nav=rss_nation

Our guy in Iraq

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001486.html
Not only has notorious "Merchant of Death" blood-diamonds trafficker Victor Bout been flying ammunition into Iraq under US government contract. It's been flying it in for Kellogg, Brown & Root, the subsidiary of Dick Cheney's Halliburton. Not once or twice or a dozen times: 142 times.

McCain: “no confidence” in Sect’y of Defense Rumsfeld (but he does have confidence in the guy who just re-appointed him?) What game is McCain playing?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&e=2&u=/ap/20041213/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/mccain_interview

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_12_13_bestof.html#110298607255248135
The Most Exasperating Politician in America. . . John McCain is at it again. Which is it, John? Critic? Apologist? Visionary? Sycophant? Nuts? We're getting whiplash trying to make sense out of your positions on just about everything. I figure you're about two flip-flops away from becoming irrelevant.

More: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000233.html

From the memory bin: a selection of “Rumsfeld’s Rules” (thanks to Atrios for the link)

http://www.opinionjournal.com/wsj/?id=85000505
[January 2001]
• Learn to say "I don't know." If used when appropriate, it will be often.
• If you foul up, tell the president and correct it fast. Delay only compounds mistakes.
• It is easier to get into something than to get out of it.
• Don't divide the world into "them" and "us." Avoid infatuation with or resentment of the press, the Congress, rivals, or opponents. Accept them as facts. They have their jobs and you have yours.
• You and the White House staff must be and be seen to be above suspicion. Set the right example.
• You will launch many projects but have time to finish only a few. So think, plan, develop, launch and tap good people to be responsible. Give them authority and hold them accountable. Trying to do too much yourself creates a bottleneck.
• Don't allow people to be excluded from a meeting or denied an opportunity to express their views because their views differ from the president's views, the views of person who calls the meeting, or your views. The staff system must have integrity and discipline.
• Many people around the president have sizeable egos before entering government, some with good reason. Their new positions will do little to moderate their egos.
• Don't do or say things you would not like to see on the front page of the Washington Post.
• In politics, every day is filled with numerous opportunities for serious error. Enjoy it.
• Avoid public spats. When a department argues with other government agencies in the press, it reduces the president's options.
• Establish good relations between the departments of Defense and State, the National Security Council, CIA and the Office of Management and Budget.
• Beware of the argument that "this is a period for investment; improvements will come in the out years." The tension between the short term and long term can be constructive, but there is no long term without a short term.
• The way to do well is to do well.
• "No plan survives contact with the enemy."
• "The most important things in life you cannot see--civility, justice, courage, peace.”
• "The art of listening is indispensable for the right use of the mind.”
• "First law of holes: If you get in one, stop digging."
• Simply because a problem is shown to exist doesn't necessarily follow that there is a solution.
• "If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough."--Mario Andretti, racecar driver
• Be able to resign. It will improve your value to the president and do wonders for your performance.

Investigations into Kerik open up new questions about Giuliani too

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_atrios_archive.html#110295058830622294

Kerik’s “love den” (if you care about this sort of thing)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004218
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004223

Bigamy?!?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004229

A really intriguing question: Who is this “nanny”? Where is she? Is the whole story just a fabrication?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004230
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004226

And the laugh fest of the day: poor Scotty, forced once again to defend the indefensible (worth reading the whole pathetic performance, here is just a sample)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004219
“In terms -- I'm not going to -- I think out of respect for individuals involved in the vetting process, I'm not going to go into any specific issues relating to nominations. But there -- we have a thorough vetting process that candidates go through before the President makes an announcement that he intends to nominate someone. That vetting process continues after the announcement is made that the President intends to nominate an individual.”

[NB: read that last line again. What it means, almost certainly, is that in this case the vetting process wasn’t complete when they announced Kerik’s nomination, and some of the things that came out later – not just the nanny – were a surprise to them]

Did Scotty lie?

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1635
The White House said yesterday that its check into Mr. Kerik's past had actually been more extensive than officials had indicated earlier. Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said that the review had gone on for weeks before Mr. Bush nominated Mr. Kerik. On Sunday, a senior administration official said the review had taken only a week.

Bush 101: the most important thing now is not to dwell on what went wrong, but to MOVE FORWARD

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1631

Well, sorry, but let’s dwell a little bit longer, shall we? A nice summary of how the Kerik nomination went wrong, and an interesting dimension of the problem, which may explain why they rushed his name forward: apparently, no one else wants the job (well, that’s no surprise when you see how they trashed Tom Ridge immediately after his resignation, a loyal footsoldier if there ever was one, compliantly ringing his security alarm bell whenever Karl Rove needed to distract or frighten the American people). Would YOU want this job? The instant a terrorist attack occurs, it will be you, not G.W. Bush, who will be thrown to the dogs.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/13/kerik/index.html
Apparently, no one wants the job. "The White House is scrambling to find a Homeland Security secretary with management experience and national stature to fill the void after Bernard Kerik abruptly withdrew his nomination. But few qualified contenders want the job, according to administration insiders, senior Republicans and top officials inside the Department of Homeland Security.”

The next appointee? If it’s Joe Allbaugh, old time Texas pal, expect to hear a lot more about a company called “New Bridge Strategies” – a subject that won’t bear close scrutiny

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004227

The Blame Game

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60955-2004Dec13.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/nyregion/14kerik.html?oref=login&ex=1260766800&

More details on the secret $10 billion satellite program hidden in the Intelligence Bill

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/12/spy-satellite.html

Ohio election appeals move forward

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/12/13/ohio.electoralcollege.ap/index.html

Clint Curtis, who claims to have been hired to write e-vote hacking software, testifies to the Conyers hearings in Ohio: a needlessly breathless account, but if it is even partly true, there is a real story here

http://bradblogtoo.blogspot.com/2004/12/breaking-curtis-testifying-under-oath.html

More evidence emerging. . .

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/12/much_smoke_in_ohio_but_is_there_a_fire.html

http://wilsonhellie.typepad.com/for_the_record/2004/12/no_more_years.html

From the great state of Washington, a word of advice for Ohio: never give up, never stop fighting

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-briefs14.1dec14,1,5708734.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
The election director in Seattle's King County said that 561 absentee ballots were mistakenly rejected in the heavily Democratic stronghold — enough to swing the close governor's race to Democrat Christine Gregoire.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/12/13/165917/54
Wow! It still isn't certain, but things suddenly look pretty good for Gregoire. Thankfully Democrats never quit in Washington, and the hand recount went forward. Otherwise, this issue might be moot.

FEC found Bush-Cheney 04 in violation of election laws, but did nothing about it

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_atrios_archive.html#110297497789929684

By the way, a GREAT idea (for once) coming from the Dems: to establish a federal hearing process (sans subpoena power) to investigate issues the Republican-controlled committees won’t look into. (Credit Conyers, by the way, with test-marketing this idea in Ohio.) I only wish they had started doing it last year!

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005023

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_digbysblog_archive.html#110300854395593391

How the Dems should (and shouldn’t) fight back against the elimination of judicial filibusters

http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200451#1278

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/12/13/151653/31

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/12/filibuster-update.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/12/13/nuclear/index.html

How credulous media coverage enables Bush’s framing of the nonexistent Social Security “crisis”

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412100012
And on CNN's December 9 edition of Live From..., anchor Kyra Phillips teased a segment on Social Security by stating falsely that "[i]t's trillions of dollars in the red," asking: "What else can be done to save Social Security? President Bush talks about it."

Mark Kleiman, in response to my post yesterday about “Social Risk,” suggests that a better slogan for the fight ahead is “Social Insecurity.” I agree with him

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/social_insecurity_/2004/12/the_bush_social_insecurity_plan.php

Defeating Bush’s Social Security proposal: a primer

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_digbysblog_archive.html#110295975447565668

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005317.php

Here’s how bad it has gotten: Tom DeLay (!) is emerging as a voice of reason in the GOP debate over this proposal (still, it’s a good sign – he can see an electoral mine field if there ever was one)

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005025

Other Repubs moving VERY gingerly on this issue

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005_archives/000081.html

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005027

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/a_thousand_time.html

In case you have wondered what goes on in the WH “think-tank” (yes, they have one), you won’t be surprised to hear: not much thinking

http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=2451
Wehner was asked whether he finds it ironic or is infuriated that Bush is stereotyped, fairly or not, as a president who is not interested in ideas and is not intellectually curious. "I'm not," he said, "because in the end, the truth wills out. . . You can't judge those things in real time," Wehner said. "You have to wait and let history make its judgment--and reality take hold. . . I think he's on the right side of history and is on the right side of the important debates of our time, and he's comfortable in that."

On God and the law

http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002987.html
As Brian notes (via Kevin Drum), there are some people who think that

[Clarence] Thomas is one of the few jurists today, conservative or otherwise, who understands and defends the principle that our rights come not from government but from a “creator” and “the laws of nature and of nature’s God,” as our Declaration of Independence says, and that the purpose and power of government should therefore be limited to protecting our natural, God-given rights.

[read on. . . ]

Poor Treasury Sect’y Snow. After conspicuously dangling him over the cliff’s edge of firing, while interviewing and offering his job to at least one other person, Bush reverses course and keeps him on. . . for now. Snow swallows whatever pride he has left and agrees to stay on. But the whispers already start that he’s not long for the job – now THAT’s loyalty for you.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/12/13/snow_job.html

Meet Mark Hyman, the syndicated conservative hack whose “commentaries” run on all Sinclair network affiliates

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412140002

National protest planned: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_atrios_archive.html#110302774384488491

I haven’t dumped on Rush for a while, but this outrage deserves a mention

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412100007
“The answer to this is they're just livid -- the press, the leftists in this country are just upset that there are not enough deaths to get people outraged and protesting in the streets against the war. They're mad that these doctors are saving lives. They want deaths! They've been counting deaths up to 1,000, they hoped that would get Bush out of office. They still want Bush out of office; make no mistake about it. They still want Bush discredited and it's all part of coming back in '06 and '08, and so there are too many lives being saved over there. . . There aren't enough deaths so people aren't gonna be mad!. . . Remember one of the things I warned you about the Democrats? Bad news for America is good news for them; good news for America, bad news for them. They've doubled their bets. It's gotten to the point now where the more deaths in Iraq the better for them, they think. The more lives saved in Iraq, the bigger the problem for them."

A close second: Missouri State Representative Cynthia Davis

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005026
“It's like when the hijackers took over those four planes on Sept. 11 and took people to a place where they didn't want to go. I think a lot of people feel that liberals have taken our country somewhere we don't want to go. I think a lot more people realize this is our country and we're going to take it back.”

Bonus item: Victim mentality

http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2004/12/13/tomo/index1.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.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:17 AM

 
FROM SOCIAL “SECURITY” TO SOCIAL “RISK”

How’s that Social Security “reform” looking to you now?

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/12/12/social_security_benefit_cuts_eyed/
President Bush, who has promised that his plan to allow private investment accounts in Social Security would give workers a ''better rate of return," is seriously mulling a companion effort that could cut future promised retirement benefits for millions of workers by 6 percent, even when potential gains from private accounts are included, analysts said. . . The White House plans to portray Social Security as facing a potential $10 trillion shortfall in reserve funds for future decades that may require significant sacrifice from taxpayers.

[NB: But not the kind of “sacrifice” that calls for taxes to make the program solvent — the kind of sacrifice that leaves retired people clipping coupons. And wait, it gets worse: they still aren’t saying what will happen if those private accounts DON’T earn at the (rosily) predicted rate.]

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005_archives/000067.html
[NYT] Of all the arguments being made to replace part of Social Security with private retirement accounts, few are more seductive and more misleading than the prospect of earning higher returns. . . Under the current system, investment returns from Social Security are "abysmal," Mr. Bush said in one recent speech, because the trust fund is allowed to hold only low-yielding Treasury bonds. . . According to the Social Security Administration, Treasury bonds can be expected to yield a real annual rate of return of about 3 percent. Equities, by contrast, can be expected to earn 6.5 percent. . . That assumption is crucial to arguments that personal accounts can reduce Social Security's long-term shortfall - which the government estimates to be at least $3.5 trillion. Most of the proposals to overhaul Social Security call for steep reductions in future benefits that would be offset by the higher returns people would presumably earn on their investments. . . "The entire argument is absurd," said William C. Dudley, chief United States economist at Goldman Sachs. "These returns weren't free. You are getting these returns precisely because you are taking on risk."

What this means is a fundamental shift to increasing risk for citizens: the risk of sudden unemployment, the risk of unexpected health care costs (without guaranteed coverage), the risk of uncertain retirement income. Do people have a tolerance for such risk? (Of course, this is on top of all the other risks people have to tolerate in a post-9/11 world.) Have we become the Risk Society? Will this be Bush’s great legacy?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005309.php

How will the media treat the drum-beat of a phony Social Security “crisis” coming out of every mouth in this administration -- and their carefully choreographed proxies in the echo chamber? Has the press learned ANYTHING about how this administration works (WMD and Saddam’s “imminent” threat being Exhibit A)?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_atrios_archive.html#110287917551470441
As we wade deeper into this social security mess, it's going to be important to pay attention to how much the media buys the Bush administration's fabulous new argument that borrowing a couple of trillion dollars isn't actually borrowing a trillion dollars.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005308.php
[Kevin Drum] It's a small story below the fold in the LA Times, but hey! — it's a start:

"Social Security is not in crisis, and the financial challenges facing the system are manageable," said Rep. Robert T. Matsui of Sacramento, the senior Democrat on the House Social Security subcommittee. . . Many Democrats accuse Republicans of intentionally making Social Security's future look bleaker than it is so that they can more easily sell their privatization proposals. The Republican agenda, they say, is more ideological than financial: the promotion of Bush's "ownership society."

Imagine that. Social Security might not be in crisis after all. May this meme spread joyously across the land.

Kevin Drum says, well, “it’s a start.” I am less sanguine. If the best the media can do is to come up with “Many Democrats accuse. . .” then Bush will have his way. We need credible, non-ideological sources who say (a) the Bush numbers are ridiculous and (b) the real intent here is not to reform Social Security, not to preserve it, but in the long run to END it. AARP’s stance will be crucial, but given the way they caved on Medicare I’m not holding my breath.

Benj Hellie digs up a prescient 2000 article from Jonathan Chait that laid out the road map, detailing the underlying agenda driving the entire Social Security plan (in the immortal words of Grover Norquist, to “get government down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub”)

http://wilsonhellie.typepad.com/for_the_record/2004/12/told_you_so.html
[Jonathan Chait] Bush's approach to these economic issues places him at the far end of the Republican right. . . His tax cut and Social Security privatization are designed to bankrupt and delegitimize government. Bush's rationale for cutting taxes is that the government is projected to run a large budget surplus. But the government also has a large debt and an even larger set of unfunded obligations that will come due when the baby-boom generation retires. When fully phased in, Bush's tax cut would consume the available budget surplus, paralyzing the federal government in exactly the same way Ronald Reagan's tax cut paralyzed it. . .

Bush's Social Security plan would compound the problem. In the context of Social Security, the word "reform" has, in the past, meant a technical fix to keep the system solvent. But Bush has something else in mind. His idea is not to reform Social Security but to transform it into something completely different. . . If successful, privatizing Social Security would be the most dramatic change in the relationship between the individual and the government since the New Deal.

Financing privatization would have a fiscal effect similar to that of Bush's tax cut. Right now, Social Security is mainly a "pay as you go" system. That means today's retirees are being supported by today's workers. But if you want today's workers to put some of their tax dollars into their own accounts, then you have to figure out a different way to pay for today's retirees. Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, a Bush adviser, has proposed borrowing $3 trillion over the next decade to cover this "transition" cost. That, of course, would make it difficult for the government to do almost anything else in the meantime.

But the true radicalism of Bush's Social Security proposal isn't even its potential to block all spending for a decade; it's the plan's longer-term effect. Conservatives understand that Social Security, as the most popular federal program, provides an enduring connection between the average citizen and the national government. Once this link is severed, conservatives believe, voters will cease to vest in the government any responsibility for protecting them from the hazards of the marketplace and will acquiesce in the dismantling of the entire welfare state. . .

Social Security “doomsday” predictions not new

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005312.php
[Kevin Drum] But anyone who's been listening to the Social Security doom mongers for a while knows that there's a problem with this prediction. . . [I]t turns out that back in 1994 the Social Security trustees were predicting that doomsday was. . . 35 years away.

That's right: even though ten years have passed, doomsday is now farther away than it was in 1994. As every year goes by, the doomsday schedule moves out another year too. Why? Because the doomsday predictions are extremely sensitive to the economic assumptions behind them, and if those assumptions are off by a little bit, so are the predictions.

The spinning of the Kerik fiasco continues. Because Alberto Gonzales (Attorney General nominee) did the vetting -- and a fine job he did indeed! -- everyone is scrambling to dump the blame squarely on Kerik’s shoulders

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57960-2004Dec11.html
White House officials yesterday blamed Bernard B. Kerik for repeatedly failing to disclose potential legal problems to administration lawyers vetting his nomination to be homeland security secretary, as President Bush prepared to quickly name a replacement and try to put the controversy over the former New York police commissioner's background behind him.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_atrios_archive.html#110286327185921485
But hey, Keriks NEVER TOLD Bush the truth, and as we know, in this White House if you don't TELL the president something, then the president has no obligation to want to, or try to, find out the truth. . . The funny thing is that how did so many outside non-profits like CREW, and newspapers across the country, and bloggers/online reporters like John Byrne at RawStory get the inside scoop on Kerik all within a week? Yet the White House didn't have a clue, and had no way of getting a clue about Kerik? They didn't even do an FBI background check on the guy? They couldn't wait a week to do the same investigation everyone else did on the guy? Isn't homeland security worth that kind of due diligence from the White House?

http://slate.msn.com/id/2110971/fr/rss/
Both Kerik and the White House maintain that it was the nanny that sank the nomination. But the NYT quotes an anonymous Democratic Senate staff member saying that "multiple media organizations were pursuing multiple stories," about Kerik's checkered past. What else was there? For one thing, Sunday's New York Daily News reports that, during his job as a police official, Kerik allegedly accepted thousands of dollars in cash and gifts—including "a bejeweled Tiffany badge"—from a friend who worked for a city contractor with possible mob ties.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004209
Yep, just a problem with the nanny. . .

[Newsday] In the 48 hours before his withdrawal as nominee for the nation's top security post, Bernard Kerik and his lawyer scrambled to keep damaging assertions about his past out of the public spotlight. . . On Thursday, the day before he took his name from contention, Kerik, 49, was forced to testify in a civil lawsuit about an alleged affair with a subordinate.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004211
[O]ne of Kerik's long-time financial "benefactors" during his late-1990s rise through the New York police and corrections bureaucracy, Lawrence Ray, was later indicted in a "a $40 million, mob-run, pump-and-dump stock swindle.". . . Then there's the story that celebrity book publisher Judith Regan had to hire a personal bodyguard when Kerik started 'hounding' her after their relationship went sour. . .

Newsweek also adds another detail on why this whole debacle didn't come out of nowhere. . .

"[S]ome administration officials acknowledge that the president's predilections work against a careful review. Bush hates leaks and enjoys popping surprise announcements on the press. He liked the idea of Kerik—the self-made tough guy—and he dismissed as gossip or press carping newspaper stories about Kerik's bending the rules."

So let's see. The president liked the image of Kerik. And once he got fixed on the idea that it was a crackerjack idea to put him at DHS, he dismissed all the stories about Kerik's recklessness and scofflawry as just so much whinning from the nattering nabobs of negativism. . . The emphasis on secrecy also seemed to help keep the prez from getting any disquieting information. And Al Gonzales, who ran the vetting process on Kerik, was either too sloppy or too much of a yes-man to bring any of this stuff to the president's attention.

And, today, this

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004217
[Josh Marshall] White House officials, including Scott McClellan seem to make quite clear that they were aware of all the issues now being discussed about Bernard Kerik's background. And that it was only the alleged nanny problem, which they had no way of discovering absent Kerik's volunteering the information, that came as a surprise. And that it was that alone that sank his nomination.

Now, clearly the White House is trying to walk back the quickly congealing sense that they were sloppy and impulsive in selecting someone to run the department that covers the issue that President Bush has made the defining issue of his presidency. . . But look what that means.

They seem to be stipulating to their knowing about and being untroubled by a) Kerik's long-standing ties to an allegedly mobbed-up Jersey construction company. . . b) that Riker's Island prison became a hotbed of political corruption and cronyism on his watch, c) that he is accused by nine employees of the hospital he worked at providing security in Saudi Arabia of using his policing powers to pursue the personal agenda of his immediate boss, d) that a warrant for his arrest (albeit in a civil case) was issued in New Jersey as recently as six years ago, e) that as recently as last week he was forced to testify in a civil suit in a case covering the period in which he was New York City correction commissioner, in which the plaintiff, "former deputy warden Eric DeRavin III contends Kerik kept him from getting promoted because he had reprimanded the woman [Kerik was allegedly having an affair with], Correction Officer Jeanette Pinero," or f) his rapid and unexplained departure from Baghdad.

None of this stuff gave the White House or Al Gonzales second thoughts?. . . As Regis would say, is that your final answer?

[NB: Imagine, I say for the hundredth time, that Clinton had made such a bone-headed selection as an inexperienced incoming President (uh, wait, he did, and we all know what happened to him). But for this experienced and savvy team that prides itself above all on smooth operations and rigorous personnel selections, to have made this kind of goof. . . well it makes you wonder. Will the bloom ever come off the rose for this crew? Will the media trope ever change to: “Hey, when you look at it, they’ve screwed up almost every major thing they’ve laid their hands upon, broken every promise, and repeatedly made bold, cocky predictions that turned out to be wrong. Maybe they aren’t so impervious after all.” Will Kerik be the embarrassment that brings them down to earth?]

More reaction to that unexpected question for Rumsfeld from soldiers risking their lives in Iraq: a True Patriot speaks

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_atrios_archive.html#110287549480751686
[Joe M. Richardson] "The duped soldier should be put at the very front of the action, no armor. The cooperating sergeant's career should be over and maybe become MIA. Pitts and all his cronies should be executed as traitors. We are fighting a war, the debate is over, you’re either for us or against us, there is no middle ground. I say start executing the leftists in our country, soon."

Perhaps Mr. Richardson thinks we should execute Sen. Chuck Hagel (R - Neb) as well

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_atrios_archive.html#110289283480208315
HAGEL: Well, the secretary of defense reports to the president of the United States. I've had my differences with this secretary of defense, and I have been very clear on it. . . I don't like the way he has done some things. I think they have been irresponsible. I don't like the way we went into Iraq. We didn't go into Iraq with enough troops. He's dismissed his general officers. He's dismissed all outside influence. He's dismissed outside counsel and advice. And he's dismissed a lot of inside counsel and advice from men and women who have been in military uniforms for 25 and 30 years. . . One of the reasons we've got this problem, Wolf, in my opinion, is that we were unprepared for what we were going to face, what we are facing, in a post-Saddam Iraq. And this is just one more manifestation of the problem. . .

BLITZER: But very briefly to you, Senator Hagel, were you disappointed that the president asked Rumsfeld to stay on?

HAGEL: The president's decision is his decision. He will live with that decision. He'll have to defend that decision. And that's all I want to say about it.

Hey, how’s that war on terror going? (part 241) If you stop looking for Bin Laden, then you can’t be accused of trying and failing to find him. Brilliant!

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/12/233527/34
As a result of the restrictions, American military and intelligence personnel in Afghanistan are no longer really hunting for Mr. bin Laden, an intelligence official said. They are trying to provide stability for Afghanistan's new government while battling a local Taliban insurgency and a scattering of Qaeda fighters.

In Afghanistan, will the Taliban (the Al Qaeda sponsors we went in there to unseat) be brought back into the government?

http://english.people.com.cn/200110/22/eng20011022_82920.html
[October 2001] Tajik and Russian Presidents Emomali Rakhmonov and Vladimir Putin and deposed Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani said on Monday Taliban are a destabilizing force in Afghanistan and should be barred from its future government.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/FI10Ag01.html
[September 2003] The participation of "good" Taliban in government was agreed in principle by the US and Pakistan in mid-2003, leading to the first contact with the Taliban, and finally the inception of the Jaishul Muslim by Akber Agha in September of that year.

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/12/operation-lightning-freedom.html
[December 2004] Afghanistan's radical Islamic group, the Taliban, has been thrown into turmoil over an offer of reconciliation from President Hamid Karzai, the commander of U.S.-led forces in the country said on Thursday. . . "We see indications that there are arguments even among the leadership about whether it's time to accept reconciliation with the Afghan government."

In Iraq, all hell breaks loose – but we’re winning, goddamn it!

http://www.juancole.com/2004/12/7-marines-killed-in-anbar-huge.html
Sunni Arab guerrillas killed 7 US troops on Sunday in separate incidents in al-Anbar province. . . Guerrillas detonated a powerful car bomb at a checkpoint at the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad, where government offices and the US embassy are barricaded in. Early reports spoke of 13 dead and 15 injured, but the Arabic satellite television network from Lebanon, LBC, estimated the wounded at at least 45. . . The US continued to drop bombs on Fallujah on Sunday, according to AP. . .

National Guard troops in Iraq are more poorly equipped and trained, one third more likely to be killed than regular troops (thanks to Eric Umansky for the link)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-12-13-guard-deaths_x.htm
Some of the most dangerous missions, including driving convoys and guarding bases and other facilities, frequently are assigned to Guard and reserve troops.

70-year old Colonel recalled for duty (thanks to Josh Marshall for the link)

http://www.marionstar.com/news/stories/20041211/localnews/1731211.html
Dr. John Caulfield thought it had to be a mistake when the Army asked him to return to active duty. After all, he's 70 years old and had already retired - twice. He left the Army in 1980 and private practice two years ago. . . "My first reaction was disbelief," Caulfield said. "It never occurred to me that they would call a 70-year-old."

In fact, he was so sure it was an error that he ignored the postcards and telephone messages asking if he would be willing to volunteer for active duty to "backfill" somewhere on the East Coast, Europe or Hawaii. That would be OK, he thought. It would release active duty oral surgeons from those areas to go to combat zones in Iraq or Afghanistan.

But then the orders came for him to go to Afghanistan.

Emergency funding suddenly budgeted to repair and replace inadequate equipment (gee, why now?)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_atrios_archive.html#110291254304505185
Twenty-one months after U.S. forces entered Iraq, the Defense Department is only now coming to terms with the equipment shortages caused by the prolonged fighting there. The Pentagon has prepared an unprecedented emergency spending plan totaling nearly $100 billion -- as much as $30 billion more than expected as recently as October -- say senior defense officials and congressional budget aides. About $14 billion of that would go to repairing, replacing and upgrading an increasingly frayed arsenal.

[Atrios] And, yes my trolls, it's perfectly consistent to criticize the failure of this administration to properly supply the troops for an unnecessary war, and to also criticize them for the cost of this unnecessary, and increasingly catastrophic, war.

Pentagon wants to expand disinformation program (but only “abroad” – as if that distinction means anything)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/13/politics/13info.html?oref=login&ex=1260680400&
The Pentagon is engaged in bitter, high-level debate over how far it can and should go in managing or manipulating information to influence opinion abroad. . . Such missions, if approved, could take the deceptive techniques endorsed for use on the battlefield to confuse an adversary and adopt them for covert propaganda campaigns aimed at neutral and even allied nations.

Critics of the proposals say such deceptive missions could shatter the Pentagon's credibility, leaving the American public and a world audience skeptical of anything the Defense Department and military say - a repeat of the credibility gap that roiled America during the Vietnam War.

The efforts under consideration risk blurring the traditional lines between public affairs programs in the Pentagon and military branches - whose charters call for giving truthful information to the media and the public - and the world of combat information campaigns or psychological operations.

The question is whether the Pentagon and military should undertake an official program that uses disinformation to shape perceptions abroad. But in a modern world wired by satellite television and the Internet, any misleading information and falsehoods could easily be repeated by American news outlets. . .

No trial for Hussein any time in the foreseeable future

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SADDAM_A_YEAR_LATER?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
In the year since he was captured and hustled away to a secret location, Saddam Hussein has taken up gardening, undergone a hernia operation and written poetry that one visitor describes as "rubbishy.". . . Few Iraqi lawyers are willing to represent Saddam, while prosecutors fear challenging him. The same goes for the judges overseeing the case, slowing its work. . . "At various points in time they have had a number of judges who have since withdrawn," said Hania Mufti, a spokeswoman for New York-based Human Rights Watch who has followed the case. "So that's been a practical problem on the ground."

Interesting question: now that the election is over, and progressives are no longer in the awkward position of trying to support Kerry’s “responsible” position on Iraq (we shouldn’t have gone in, but now that we’re there we have to stay), where do we go from here? Call for an immediate withdrawal of all troops now? Muddle through the vote, then get out? Go back to the UN? What about Afghanistan?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/12/174630/26

Our next “catastrophic success”?

Iran?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/politics/12nuke.html
The Bush administration has talked about the possibility of going to the United Nations to seek sanctions against Iran if a recent accord with the Europeans falls apart, as a similar agreement did last year. But the Iranians themselves are aware of the whispers about military strikes. . .

Syria?
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001483.html

Ohio vote fraud watch: I know this isn’t as sexy and exciting as waiting for the Scott Peterson sentence (Breaking News Update #872: jury still deliberating), but while America sleeps, bad things are going on in Ohio. Nevertheless, the national media has already decided this is a wingnut story, and they’re just not interested

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x145282
On Friday December 10, two certified volunteers for the Ohio Recount team assigned to Greene County were in process recording voting information from minority precincts in Greene County, and were stopped mid-count by a surprise order from Secretary of State Blackwell’s office. The Director Board of Elections stated that “all voter records for the state of Ohio were “locked-down,” and now they are “not considered public records.”. . . By late Saturday night, however, this story had taken even a wackier turn. The records taken from Quinn and Roberson's hands on Friday stood in an unlocked Board of Elections office Saturday morning, apparently overnight. Several observers arrived Saturday morning, noticing cars in the parking lot, and looked for officials in the office, but found nobody in the unlocked building. Law enforcement and media contacts had been alerted and were at the site before County officials arrived. Deputy Director of Elections Lynn McCoy arrived later and stated that all election records were still "locked down" and remained unavailable to the public…after having spent the night unsecured in an unlocked building on the eve of a recount. . . So there’s that. But then there’s this. On election night, Warren County Ohio commissioners ordered a complete security lockdown at the County Administration Building, citing a terrorism threat. No one has offered a clear explanation for why the lockdown happened. The lockdown was done upon the recommendation of Frank Young, the county's emergency services director, who said he got information from an FBI agent. According to one source, the county was ranked 10 on a 1-to-10 threat scale. Young refused to identify the agent he said gave him the warning, and the FBI said they never issued any such warning, nor did they have any reason to suspect a specific threat against Warren County. Nobody but the officials in Warren County felt the need to lock all the doors, refuse to let the press or other observers in to witness the vote counting, and generally treat the county building as if it were the Pentagon itself.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0412/S00154.htm
A careful review of the absentee vote in one Ohio county revealed that many more absentee votes were cast than there were absentee voters identified. . . “When there are more votes than voters, there is a big problem” stated Dr. Werner Lange, author of this study which would have been completed weeks earlier if Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, co-chair of the Ohio Bush-Cheney campaign, had not unlawfully ordered all 88 boards of elections to prevent public inspection of poll books until after certification of the vote. . . The absentee vote inflation rate for these five communities averages 5.5 fraudulent voters per precinct. If this pattern of inflated absentee votes holds for all of Ohio’s 11,366 precincts, then there were some 62,513 absentee votes in Ohio up for grabs in the last election. Who grabbed them and how they did so should be the subject of an immediate congressional investigation.

Looks like the Senate GOP is preparing to “go nuclear” over judicial filibusters

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59877-2004Dec12.html
Republicans say that Democrats have abused the filibuster by blocking 10 of the president's 229 judicial nominees in his first term -- although confirmation of Bush nominees exceeds in most cases the first-term experience of presidents dating to Ronald Reagan. Describing the filibusters as intolerable, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has hinted he may resort to an unusual parliamentary maneuver, dubbed the "nuclear option," to thwart such filibusters. . . "One way or another, the filibuster of judicial nominees must end," he said in a speech to the Federalist Society last month, labeling the use of filibusters against judicial nominees a "formula for tyranny by the minority."

So far, at least, Democrats are refusing to forgo filibusters and say they will fight any effort by Frist to act unilaterally to end them for judicial nominations. They warn that it could poison the well for bipartisan cooperation on other issues in the upcoming Congress. . . "If they, for whatever reason, decide to do this, it's not only wrong, they will rue the day they did it, because we will do whatever we can do to strike back," incoming Senate Democratic leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) said last week. "I know procedures around here. And I know that there will still be Senate business conducted. But I will, for lack of a better word, screw things up."

The outrageous level of compensation for corporate officials – how do we make this into an issue?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005302.php
A full ten percent of corporate earnings go to the top five people in the company. The. Top. Five.

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/what_is_to_be_d.html
Everyone complains about excessive executive compensation, but what do we do about it?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005310.php
As Matt says, although tax and accounting issues are worth looking at, the real cause of runaway CEO compensation is widespread corruption in the corporate governance sphere. CEO salaries are essentially set by other CEOs and a small coterie of "compensation consultants," all of whom are motivated to set each other's salaries as high as possible so that in turn their own salaries will — someday — be set even higher. How many other employees have a sweet deal like that?

So how do they get away with it? First, by convincing everyone that this is a reasonable statement: "If we want a good CEO, we have to pay above the average." Simple arithmetic tells you that as long as everyone believes this, executive salaries will spiral upward endlessly. . . Second, by making it hard to figure out how much their executives are paid in the first place. Stock options, perks, lucrative pension plans, and so forth are hard to value, and thus prevent overpaid CEOs from seeming overpaid until it's too late. . . And third, by putting up roadblocks that make it difficult for dissident shareholders to complain about all this. In most companies, shares are so widely dispersed that very few people have a strong enough interest in this stuff to make a fuss. And when someone does manage to make a fuss, most corporations have rules that make it all but impossible to gather enough votes to make a difference.

Flush with national success, theocrats move their battle to the state level

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/13/national/13states.html?ex=1260680400&en=71a5e0650fa4e0d4&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland

Bonus item: How the GOP plays the game

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1616
The Republican Party, to beat John Kerry, settled on a line of attack. And they settled on it totally and completely. So no matter who went on television, no matter when they got there, no matter