BULLET POINTS

Bush unveils his “Strategy for Victory” in Iraq – yet another stage in the p.r. battle that has little to do with changing our prospects in Iraq, and everything to do with trying to change perceptions at home

The plan: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/Iraq%20National%20Strategy%2011-30-05.pdf

The coverage:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/30/international/30military.html
As President Bush lays out on Wednesday a more detailed strategy that he says will achieve victory in Iraq, administration officials are pressing yet another effort to prepare the Iraqis to secure their country with less reliance on American forces.

American military officials in Iraq said Tuesday that they had requested $3.9 billion for next year to help train and equip Iraqi troops, build new police stations and outfit Iraqi soldiers with new uniforms. . . . That amount would be part of a larger spending request to Congress for the overall war effort and is on top of the $10.6 billion that lawmakers have already approved to rebuild Iraq's security forces.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?N2EE25E3C
The administration is under pressure to convince increasingly skeptical Americans that the president's strategy for Iraq is headed in the right direction. . .

The p.r. spin:
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/victory-deconstructed.html
[Think Progress] After two-and-a-half years and 2,110 U.S. fatalities, the Bush administration finally released a “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq” (NSVI). The problem is, it’s not a new strategy for success in Iraq, it’s a public relations document. The strategy describes what has transpired in Iraq to date as a resounding success and stubbornly refuses to establish any standards for accountability. It dismisses serious problems such as the dramatic increase in bombings as “metrics that the terrorists and insurgents want the world to use.” Americans understand it’s time for a new course in Iraq. Unfortunately, this document is little more than an extended justification for a President “determined to stay his course.”

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_27_digbysblog_archive.html#113330292314260485
[WP] In shaping their message, White House officials have drawn on the work of Duke University political scientists Peter D. Feaver and Christopher F. Gelpi, who have examined public opinion on Iraq and previous conflicts. Feaver, who served on the staff of the National Security Council in the early years of the Clinton administration, joined the Bush NSC staff about a month ago as special adviser for strategic planning and institutional reform.

Feaver and Gelpi categorized people on the basis of two questions: "Was the decision to go to war in Iraq right or wrong?" and "Can the United States ultimately win?" In their analysis, the key issue now is how people feel about the prospect of winning. They concluded that many of the questions asked in public opinion polls -- such as whether going to war was worth it and whether casualties are at an unacceptable level -- are far less relevant now in gauging public tolerance or patience for the road ahead than the question of whether people believe the war is winnable.

"The most important single factor in determining public support for a war is the perception that the mission will succeed," Gelpi said in an interview yesterday.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/11/index.html#008465
The new National Security Council report on Iraq is really the season's best beach foreign-policy read. Wildly optimistic, proudly Manichean, and fully bulletpointed, it's exactly the report you would've expected to read three years ago, which may explain why the word "terror" (or its variants) appears more than 100 times in the 35 page document, 10 times on the first page, and five times in the first five sentences. Think they're trying to tell us something?

More: http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/30/deconstructing-iraq-strategy/

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001124.html

The p.r. spin overseas:
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_27_atrios_archive.html#113332685676507986
[LAT] As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.

The articles, written by U.S. military "information operations" troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. . The stories trumpet the work of U.S. and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents, and tout U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country.

The jokes:
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/29/national-strategy/
[Judd] Shouldn’t we have had a “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq” before the war started?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/11/index.html#008467
[WP] The new report says the U.S. strategy is working in Iraq, but victory will take time and many challenges remain. It also outlined how the United States defines victory in Iraq, why it is vital to U.S. interests, who the enemy is and how the strategy is being implemented.

[Ezra Klein] So the new strategy is that the old strategy is working. Finally, a plan for success.

http://billmon.org/archives/002346.html
[Billmon] A Strategy for Victory
• Use lots of bullet points
• Failure is not an option
• If it moves, bomb it
• Death squads
• Phased withdrawal
• Use more bullet points.

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4701
[Holden] I just don't see any plan here.

No "we will do x, y, and z." No milestones, benchmarks, or requirements. Just the same old fuzzy wishes without any details about how those wishes will be acheived.

And talk about repetitive -- 13,328 words that could easily be cut down to 100. Rumsfeld tried to ban the words "insurgent" and "insurgency" yesterday, but Chimpy's New and Improved Plan uses both 21 times. "Victory" pops up 27 times, but saying the word over and over again won't make it happen. Still, "Victory" can't hold a candle to "Build" or "Building" (57 appearances).

The New and Improved Plan adds two new words to the English language: "Rejectionists" (13 appearances) and "Saddamists" (8 appearances). Surprisingly, "stay" and "staying" appear just three times, and "course" appears just once (in a Condi quote). "Troops" appears only twice, "Torture" not at all.

http://tbogg.blogspot.com/2005/11/groundhog-day-someone-take-wheel.html
“Groundhog Day” [just go read it all]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/30/85433/808
On May 2, 2003, President George W. Bush was flown onto an aircraft carrier which was moved further out to sea to make for better pictures and said: “[M]y fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. . .” [read on!]

Scotty reappears!

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4691
Q Are we going to be shocked by anything in it? I mean, the President has outlined the strategy before, right?

MR. McCLELLAN: What's that?

Q Are we going -

MR. McCLELLAN: I think one purpose of providing this document is so that the American people can have a clear sense of our strategy for success in Iraq, and so that they can see how we look at the enemy, the nature of the enemy that we're facing and they can see how we define success in Iraq and how we are going about achieving victory in Iraq. And that's an important thing for the American people to be able to look at and understand.

[Holden] I'll take that as a "no".

The point: as far as I can tell, this document serves little purpose now, except as something that can be pointed back to in a few months as laying out the criteria which, at that time, will be proclaimed as the evidence of success that justifies a significant troop withdrawal. People seem surprised that Bush didn’t announce that now: I think the point is to set the basis for him to do so later (I’ve been predicting, in his January State of the Union address)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/victory-plan-is-out.html
[Reuters] Lack of a troop withdrawal timetable does not mean the U.S. stance will remain static, the White House said. "We expect, but cannot guarantee, that our force posture will change over the next year, as the political process advances and Iraqi security forces grow and gain experience," the document said.

Two who agree with me: http://www.slate.com/id/2131125/

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007661.php

Two who disagree with me: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_27_atrios_archive.html#113336505366080260

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/11/index.html#008466

I almost led with this story today. It is a stunner

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007663.php
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post reports on a recent exchange between Donald Rumsfeld and General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The subject was torture:

When UPI's Pam Hess asked about torture by Iraqi authorities, Rumsfeld replied that "obviously, the United States does not have a responsibility" other than to voice disapproval.

But Pace had a different view. "It is the absolute responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene, to stop it," the general said.

Rumsfeld interjected: "I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it's to report it."

But Pace meant what he said. "If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it," he said, firmly.

[Kevin Drum] This is why Abu Ghraib happened: because of people like Rumsfeld, who insisted on cutting corners, using clever circumlocutions in place of plain language, and refusing to take a firm stand on doing the right thing. Pace is having none of it, and good for him. . . The military may not always live up to its ideals, but at least they insist on having some. Rumsfeld should have been fired long ago for not understanding this.

More: http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/30/11448/218

The Rumsfeld manure spreader shifts into overdrive: the Iraqi troops are making amazing progress (again!)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_27_atrios_archive.html#113332865706296658
Rumsfeld said this today:

Consider the progress of the Iraqi security forces over the past year. In August 2004, five Iraqi army battalions were effectively in the fight. Today the number is 95. . . In July 2004, there were no ready operational Iraqi army divisions or brigade headquarters. Today there are at least seven operational divisions and 31 operational brigade headquarters. . . In July of 2004 there were no ready special police commando, public order or mechanized police battalions under the Ministry of Interior. Today there are 28 such battalions conducting operations. . . And last year there were about 96,000 fully trained and equipped Iraqi security forces. And today there are over 212,000 trained and equipped security forces.

Strange, really. In October 2003 Big Don said:

In less than six months, we've gone from zero Iraqis providing security to their country -- you don't have that chart, there it is -- to close to 100,000 Iraqis currently under arms. . . Indeed, the progress has been so swift that Iraq is already the second largest of the security forces in the coalition. It will not be long before they will be the largest and outnumber the U.S. forces. And it shouldn't be too long thereafter that they will outnumber all coalition forces combined.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/29/224215/45

More Rumspeak: http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4693

This is our Commander in Chief

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_27_atrios_archive.html#113330406153191950
These are serious times in which we live, and it requires serious, experienced people to deal with the problems that we're confronted with. And the biggest problem we got is we're still at war. I wish I could report to you we weren't at war, but there's an enemy that still lurks that wants to do harm to the United States of America. And they want to do us harm because we stand squarely for freedom and democracy and we're not going to change. You see, they can't stand the fact -- (applause) -- they can't stand the fact that we allow people to worship freely, or to speak their mind in the public square, or to print articles the way they want to print them in America. They have a different view of the world. They've got this vision of darkness that stifles dissent and stifles the freedoms that many of us take for granted. . . You know, I just recently came off a trip to the Far East. . . And it struck me that I was in a region of the world where there -- where wars had started.

More Bushspeak: http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4692
Q Is there going to be investigating the allegations that there are U.S.-run terrorist detention centers abroad? Don't the American people deserve an accounting of why these places exist and what's being done there?

THE PRESIDENT: The United States of America does not torture. And that's important for people around the world to understand.

Bubble Boy

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/11/29/BL2005112900634.html
[Dan Froomkin] What does it say about the president of the United States that he won't go anywhere near ordinary citizens any more? And that he'll only speak to captive audiences?

President Bush's safety zone these days doesn't appear to extend very far beyond military bases, other federal installations and Republican fundraisers.

Tomorrow, Bush gives a speech on the war on terror -- at the United States Naval Academy. Then he attends a reception for Republican party donors.

Today, he visits a U.S. Border Patrol office, then attends a Republican fundraising lunch.

Yesterday, he spoke at an Air Force base and a Republican fundraiser.

Before leaving the country on his recent trip to Asia, Bush made one last speech -- at an Air Force base in Alaska. A few days before that, he spoke at an Army depot in Pennsylvania. When he delivered a speech on Nov. 1 about bird flu, it was to an audience of National Institutes of Health employees.

The best chance ordinary citizens have had in ages to be anywhere near the president comes Thursday at 5 p.m., when the Bushes participate in the Pageant of Peace tree lighting ceremony on the Ellipse. But it won't exactly be a policy speech -- and anyway, tickets to that event were distributed three weeks ago.

When was the last time that Bush spoke in a forum open to citizens who are representative of the diverse array of views in the country? Certainly not since last October's presidential debates, and not often before then, either.

The White House advance team has long been sensitive to the potency of imagery in presidential events, going to great lengths to stage dramatic backdrops for Bush's appearances. In particular, they have used uniformed, on-duty military audiences many times before to underscore his case for war.

During last year's campaign, White House advance teams began screening audiences at Bush events to insure that only supporters were allowed in. After the election, that policy gave way to a new, "invitation only" approach, in which tickets to so-called public events were distributed largely by Republican and business groups. Now Bush is in phase three, where almost everyone he appears before is either on the federal payroll or a Republican donor.

I've written a lot about Bush's bubble before. In particular, I've wondered if Bush suffers from being so sheltered from dissent, and I've raised the question of whether taxpayers should be funding presidential events to which the public is never welcome.

Why is this happening? Is it related to the widespread public dissatisfaction with his policies, particularly in Iraq? Is Bush reluctant to appear before an audience that might not clap at his applause lines? Is he afraid of dissent? Are his aides shielding him against his will? Is it just a matter of stagecraft, to avoid any incident that might lure the media off message?

We don't know, of course, because no one has actually asked the White House to explain. . .

Hand-picked audiences who love to hear Bush speak

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4702






Larry Sabato offers Bush a five-point plan for recovering his failed Presidency, which I don’t mind reproducing as helpful advice (since there’s no chance Bush will do any of them)

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/11/29/a_plan_for_bushs_recovery.html
• Accept Reality on Iraq. . .
• Take Credit for the Economy. . .
• Retool. . .
• Re-staff. . .
• Admit One Big Error. . .


Bush’s plan to stack the federal bench

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/11/30/09/34/stacking-the-deck/
A little-noticed provision in the massive House budget bill would fulfill the longtime goal of conservatives to split the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, creating a new 12th circuit appellate court and allowing President Bush to name a slate of new federal judges. . .

Where the leading Dems for 2008 stand on Iraq “exit strategies”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/29/121322/46

More proof that Samuel Alito has it in for abortion rights

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/30/AR2005113000723.html

Shunned. The GOP just wants everyone to know that Randy Cunningham is a really bad guy that none of them ever had anything to do with, and whose personal corruption says nothing about how deep their party has had its snout in every source of graft available since the day they took power

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/30/national/30indict.html
Concerned that the stain of former Representative Randy Cunningham's admission that he took bribes and evaded taxes could damage the party's prospects, President Bush and other Republican leaders issued strong denunciations of Mr. Cunningham's actions on Tuesday.

With several investigations focusing on top Republican officials and growing public unease over the war in Iraq and economic policy at home, party leaders moved to distance themselves and their party from Mr. Cunningham's felony plea. . .

http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020806memoryhole.html
[August 2002] "There is an old adage," said House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.). "To the victor goes the spoils."

“Nice tries”: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_27_digbysblog_archive.html#113330990853636452

Cunningham and the CIA: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003168.html

Viveca Novak’s testimony helps Rove. Uh-huh, sure: (a) This report comes via his legal team. (b) She’s a personal friend of his chief lawyer

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/viveca-novaks-testimony-supposed-to.html

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_27_digbysblog_archive.html#113328983444375172

Whispers about Bob Woodward, Colin Powell, and Dick Cheney

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007657.php

Bonus item: Al Franken

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/29/8059/9638
"You can't count on them to give you straight information. You can't count on them to tell us straight why we're going to war. You can't count on them to tell us what's happening over there.

You can't count on them to do their homework. To keep track of our money. You can't count on them to punish war profiteers. You can't count on them to protect our troops.

You can't rely on them for much of anything. Armor. Veterans' benefits. You can't count on them for the true story of how Jessica Lynch was captured, or how Pat Tillman died. Even for how the "Mission Accomplished" sign went up on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln. They actually lied about that.

You can't count on them to count terrorist attacks. You can't count on them to count civilian victims. You can't count on them to listen to military commanders and send in enough troops, or to not lie about the commanders asking them to send more troops, or to listen to Colin Powell and not torture people, or to not lie about whether the torture policies started at the top.

You can't trust them to care. About Iraqis. About Americans.

You can't trust them to do the work of actually signing killed-in-action letters. You can't trust them not to lie about not signing killed-in-action letters.

You can't count on them to acknowledge any mistakes whatsoever. You can't trust them not to lie when confronted with those mistakes.

You can't trust them not to believe their own propaganda.

You can't trust them. Period."

***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 @ 1:04 PM

 
PLEA BARGAINS

Is Karl Rove in trouble again?

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Testimony_from_Roves_former_assistant_may_1128.html
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will present evidence to a second grand jury this week in his two year-old investigation into the outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson that could lead to a criminal indictment being handed up against Karl Rove, President Bush’s deputy chief of staff, attorneys close to the investigation say. . .

The attorneys say that Rove’s former personal assistant, Susan B. Ralston -- who was also a special assistant to President Bush -- testified in August about why Cooper’s call to Rove was not logged. Ralston said it occurred because Cooper had phoned in through the White House switchboard and was then transferred to Rove’s office as opposed to calling Rove’s office directly. . . . But those close to the probe tell RAW STORY that Fitzgerald obtained documentary evidence showing that other unrelated calls transferred to Rove’s office by the switchboard were logged. He then called Ralston back to testify.

Earlier this month, attorneys say Fitzgerald received additional testimony from Ralston -- who said that Rove instructed her not to log a phone call Rove had with Cooper about Plame in July 2003. . . If true, this is perhaps the most significant evidence Fitzgerald has obtained suggesting Rove deliberately sought to mislead investigators. . .

Those close to the investigation say Fitzgerald will present evidence to the grand jury later this week obtained from other witnesses who were interviewed by the Special Prosecutor or testified, showing that Rove made misleading statements to Justice Department and FBI investigators in an attempt to cover-up his role in the leak when he was first interviewed about it in October 2003. . . Two things are clear, the sources said: either Rove will agree to enter into a plea deal with Fitzgerald or he will be charged with a crime, but he will not be exonerated for the role he played in the leak.

If Rove does agree to a plea, Fitzgerald is not expected to discuss any aspect of his probe into the President’s senior adviser because Rove may be called to testify as a prosecution witness against I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby was indicted last month on five counts of lying to investigators, perjury and obstruction of justice related to his role in the leak.

More: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013248.html

And what was that Viveca Novak testimony all about?

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013242.html
Fitzgerald is interested in Luskin and Novak's conversations from May, 2004 forward. What happened in May, 2004? On May 21, 2004 Matt Cooper was subpoenaed. . .

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/11/i-call-partial-mulligan.html
First, and all credit goes to Jeralyn on this one, it is highly possible that something Luskin said to Viveca Novak (and that was pubished with attribution to Luskin in Time, who gave a lot of on the record interviews) may call into question any perjury defense based on recantation that Rove may be trying to raise.

In order to stop a charge of perjury, a defendant may "recant" (or retract and correct) a statement made to the grand jury which was false. In order for a recantation defense to apply, however, the information (1) cannot have substantially affected the proceeding and (2) it cannot have become clear to the defendant that the lie has been or will soon be exposed. (The DoJ has fantastic information on how USAttys evaluate perjury cases and defenses.)

Which leads me to something that Tom McGuire brought up. What if Fitz is after information that may have been passed from Viveca Novak to Luskin and on to his client? If this information gave Rove a heads up that Cooper might soon spill the beans about their conversation, he might want to get ahead of that and make the offer to Fitz to go before the grand jury again to recant prior testimony.

It sure would explain the rush to testify under oath -- again -- but if Rove knew that something harmful was going to be said to his position prior to testifying, he no longer has a recantation defense.

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2359
[Swopa] So even one of the Post's sources seems skeptical that Viv is much more than an innocent bystander whose name Luskin threw at Fitzgerald at the last second just to keep Karl Rove from making the first official Bushite perp walk. I suspect their doubts are well-founded.

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007653.php

Here’s all you need to know, as far as I’m concerned

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/28/AR2005112801683.html
It could not be learned what Luskin and Novak, who are friends, discussed that could help prove Rove did nothing illegal in the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters and the subsequent investigation of it.

Tom DeLay's eager to resume the reins of power. . .

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/11/28/delay_seeks_to_retake_position.html
Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) "is positioning himself to immediately reassume the post of House Majority Leader if a Texas judge dismisses allegations that DeLay violated state campaign finance laws back in 2002," Roll Call reports.

. . . except for one teeny little problem

http://www.slingshot.org/2005/11/28/anti-delay-sentiment-growing-in-house-gop-conference/
[A]n anti-DeLay faction in the Conference appears to be growing, however, with some senior Republicans privately estimating their ranks at around 60 lawmakers. These Members have not yet united around any one alternative candidate, and many are not enamored with Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who has been handling both the Majority Leader and Whip roles since DeLay stepped down. . .

Duke Cunningham (R-CA) admits massive corruption, quits

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/29/national/29indict.html
Representative Randy Cunningham, a Republican from San Diego, resigned from Congress on Monday, hours after pleading guilty to taking at least $2.4 million in bribes to help friends and campaign contributors win military contracts.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_27.php#007121
I was just looking through the list of Duke Cunningham's offenses in the article (sub.req.) on the Roll Call website. And it's breath-taking. . . The stuff we knew about, the boats and house purchases, were really only the tip of the iceberg. . .

How’d he do it?

http://www.slate.com/id/2131179
[Eric Umansky] The papers don't really explain what happened to the Pentagon contracts Cunningham rigged. And TP sees only a WP editorial raising a related issue: How exactly does the appropriations system work—or not work—given that one congressman seems to have the power to shovel money to specific contractors, crooked or not? (Cunningham's shenanigans were made all the easier by the fact that, as USAT recently reminded, the contracts were part of the military's classified, "black budget.")

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003162.html

His resignation letter (Tom DeLay, take notes)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/28/18125/168
The truth is -- I broke the law, concealed my conduct, and disgraced my high office. I know that I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation, my worldly possessions, and most importantly, the trust of my friends and family. . . I am now almost 65 years old and, as I enter the twilight of my life, I intend to use the remaining time that God grants me to make amends. . . The first step in that journey is to admit fault and apologize. The next step is to face the consequences of my actions like a man. Today, I have taken the first step and, with God's grace, I will soon take the second.

Well, it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_27_digbysblog_archive.html#113327957498289001
[Digby] The Duke-stir has been a prick for years. He said that the liberal leaders of congress should be lined up and shot. He calls for the death penalty for drug dealers and then cries at his son's sentencing hearing for possession of 400 lbs of marijuana and asks for mercy because his son has a good heart. Here's how the conservative San Diego Tribune editorial board described him back in 1998. . .

But that’s not the Big Story: the news is, part of his plea deal is cooperating -- and other Republicans (including everyone’s favorite vote-counter, Katherine Harris) are in the cross-hairs

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_27.php#007125

And the White House too!

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/28/cunningham-white-house/

The Abramoff story keeps spreading into the Bush admin as well as Republican congressmen

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aSn4ZmlPPIpw&refer

The Washington Post has been the site of some of the worst examples of on the one hand/on the other hand reporting, but this takes the cake. Republicans are entangled in multiple webs of scandals, both GOP congressional leaders are under inquiry, and half the White House is running around getting lawyers – but, you know, the Democrats are just as bad!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_27.php#007126
[From a reader] A reasonable person could read this Jeffrey Birnbaum article in the Washington Post and mistake it for an RNC press release. Among the article's assertions:

Corruption affects both parties, not just Republicans

Occasional prosecutions actually illustrate how clean Congress is on the whole

The public distrusts both parties, not just Republicans (this point is made twice in the article)

The public distrusts incumbents in general, not just Republicans

Voters don't care about party affiliations of officials charged with corruption, especially in cases they've heard of (I'm not kidding)

Voters have a general, theoretical dislike of "too much money in politics" rather than a specific dislike of specific (mainly Republican) corrupt politicians

"Happens all the time," "nothing new," and "goes in cycles" are both trotted out as well William Jefferson, William Jefferson, William Jefferson.

Even the headline reads like it was carefully focus-grouped by Frank Luntz: "A Growing Wariness About Money in Politics"

Larry Wilkerson lifts the lid on the Bush gang’s prewar lies

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001121.html
Former State Department Chief of Staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson continues to hammer the White House over torture and detainee abuse revelations -- but is also suggesting that as he learns more from various sources, his original views that the White House was not involved in duplicity regarding Iraq WMD intelligence is evolving. . . In a very important BBC interview this morning, Wilkerson speculated that the White House did cherry-pick and try to manufacture intelligence estimates that matched its biases.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?Y53115D3C
Wilkerson blamed Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and like-minded aides. He said Cheney must have sincerely believed that Iraq could be a spawning ground for new terror assaults, because "otherwise I have to declare him a moron, an idiot or a nefarious bastard." [read it all!]

More: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=19929

Woodward had three sources telling him AT THE TIME that prewar intelligence was being cooked, but he never followed up on the story

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/112805.html

He deserves this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/bob-woodward-the-dumb-bl_b_11363.html

Colin Powell blasts White House for its attacks on Murtha

http://www.seeingtheforest.com/archives/2005/11/breaking_powell.htm
An angry former Secretary of State Colin Powell is blasting the Bush White House for attacking Rep. Jack Murtha, who undermined troop morale and encouraged al Qaida last week with his call for an immediate U.S. pullout from Iraq.

"To attack him the way he was attacked, accusing him of being a Michael Moore, was disgraceful and was not worthy," a Powell told the New York Post's Deborah Orin, who described him as "livid."

"Jack Murtha is great friend of mine," Powell declared. "He's a great patriot.

Iraq=Vietnam

http://blogs.salon.com/0000014/2005/11/29.html#a948

More: http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3260927
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, flubbed Monday and referred to Iraq as Vietnam while commenting on Fox News against an immediate troop withdrawal. . .

Our bastards

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/29/71615/553
[NYT] As the American military pushes the largely Shiite Iraqi security services into a larger role in combating the insurgency, evidence has begun to mount suggesting that the Iraqi forces are carrying out executions in predominantly Sunni neighborhoods. Hundreds of accounts of killings and abductions have emerged in recent weeks. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2131179
[Eric Umansky] The LAT and NYT both—finally—front the rise of what appear to be Shiite death squads operating as part of Iraqi government forces. The LAT says U.S. military advisers now agree that the term "death squads" is apt. "There are such groups operating—yes, this is correct," said the inspector general for Iraq's Interior Ministry. There has been evidence mounting for months that government-affiliated units have been executing Sunnis, but there's been little coverage and plenty of official denial. (TP suspects the lack of coverage has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the media's tendency to stick with what's hot. Until the other week the conduct of Iraqi forces didn't qualify.)

One human rights group told the NYT that 700 Sunni civilians have been killed or disappeared over the last four months. "There is no question that bodies are turning up," said an investigator for the group. "Quite a few have been handcuffed and shot in the back of the head. The stories are pretty much consistent across the board, both in the manner that the men are being abducted and in who they say is taking them." Knight Ridder has a similar story, with sources talking about more secret jails where detainees are tortured.

As for who is in the death squads, the LAT says Shiite militia have "infiltrated Iraq's police force." It's an interesting choice of words since as the story itself later explains, the militia haven't "infiltrated," they've been recruited. In fact, the LAT quotes one U.S. officer as saying the militia-cum-police unit behind the recently discovered torture center reports directly to the head of the Interior Ministry. (TP flagged that possibility the other week.)

Referring to two different Shiite militia groups, one U.S. officer told the LAT, "The Mahdi Army's got the Iraqi police and Badr's got the commandos. Everybody's got their own death squads." The officer added that "up to 90 percent" of the 35,000 police in one part of Baghdad have some connection to the Mahdi army, which is firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr's posse. And yes, the LAT has the more detailed story and is today's must read.

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003167.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007654.php

Sy Hersh’s big story about the future of Bush’s Iraq policy is posted and on the web now

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/051205fa_fact

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/11/28/BL2005112800846.html

Bush tries to make sense on immigration reform, fails

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013250.html

How bad was CAP, the Princeton group Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito belonged too? Worse than you know. He MUST answer for this affiliation

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2005/11/alito_and_cap.html
[Hilzoy] CAP was not about opposing affirmative action. It supported quotas that favored white men. CAP was about opposing the presence of women and minorities at Princeton. Period. Moreover, its tactics were despicable. In retrospect, it was one of the first instances of what has now become a familiar pattern: an extremely well-funded organization dedicated to spreading lies about some opponent in an effort to force that opponent to change course through the sheer volume of vitriol and harassment that a lot of money can buy. Samuel Alito pointed with pride to his membership in CAP in 1985.

Where is Scott McClellan?

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/28/wheres-scottie/

Bonus item: Have you seen “Minority Report”?

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/11/29/06/04/department-of-pre-crime/
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended the unlimited detention of suspected terrorists saying, in an interview published on Tuesday, that it benefitted the United States and the entire world.

“You can’t allow somebody to commit the crime before you detain them, because if they commit the crime, thousands of innocent people die,” she told the USA Today daily.

***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 @ 5:17 PM

 
CUT AND RUN

This could become another Abu Ghraib, or worse – it shows what happens when you try to run a war with private sector mercenaries

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/27/wirq27.xml
A "trophy" video appearing to show security guards in Baghdad randomly shooting Iraqi civilians has sparked two investigations after it was posted on the internet, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal. . . The video has sparked concern that private security companies, which are not subject to any form of regulation either in Britain or in Iraq, could be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent Iraqis.

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/27/172747/10

Video: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/11/27.html#a6076

You’d better sit down. This story could give you vertigo. The White House is claiming now that Democratic proposals, like Murtha’s, to begin troop withdrawals in six months show that THE DEMOCRATS HAVE FINALLY COME AROUND TO BUSH’S OWN VIEW

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/bush-says-democrats-have-embraced.html
[AFP] The White House for the first time has claimed possession of an Iraq withdrawal plan, arguing that a troop pullout blueprint unveiled this past week by a Democratic senator was "remarkably similar" to its own. . .

The statement late Saturday by White House spokesman Scott McClellan came in response to a commentary published in The Washington Post by Joseph Biden, the top Democrat of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in which he said US forces will begin leaving Iraq next year "in large numbers.". . .

Even though Bush has never publicly issued his own withdrawal plan and criticized calls for an early exit, the White House said many of the ideas expressed by the senator were its own.

[John Aravosis] And I guess we're supposed to forget the fact that Bush and Cheney pilloried Democrats for embracing a withdrawal plan only a week ago. . . Time for the media to ask Bush what changed in the last week that suddenly makes a withdrawal acceptable?

Keep in mind that “withdrawal” is an indefinite term (thanks to Ann Lopez for the link)

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11144.htm
The US Air Force’s senior officer, Gen. John Jumper, stated US warplanes would remain in Iraq to fight resistance forces and protect the American-installed regime "more or less indefinitely." . . . Gen. Jumper let the cat out of the bag. While President George Bush hints at eventual troop withdrawals, the Pentagon is busy building four major, permanent air bases in Iraq that will require heavy infantry protection.

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/27/16340/139
Sy Hersh appeared on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer today and discussed his new New Yorker article "Up in the Air," which provides a little more details about the Bush administration's withdrawal proposal. During the interview, Mr. Hersh said that the Bush administration will probably withdraw US troops from the ground next year, but that won't mean that will be the beginning of the end of the war. . .

HERSH: Well, you know, what I was writing about in The New Yorker this week is our plan is to pull out American troops if we start to do that. And I think the president probably will next year. But the war is not going to slow down. We're going to increase the pace of air operations. There's going to be more bombing in direct support of Iraqi units now.

BLITZER: Let me read to you what you write in The New Yorker magazine, the article entitled "Up in the Air." "A key element of the drawdown plans, not mentioned in the President's public statements, is that the departing American troops will be replaced by American airpower. Quick, deadly strikes by U.S. warplanes are seen as a way to improve dramatically the combat capability of even the weakest Iraqi combat units.". . . [much, much more]

More: http://www.juancole.com/2005/11/us-air-power-to-replace-infantry-in.html

I’ve been suggesting that Bush wants to spring his big withdrawal announcement after the Iraqi elections, in his January State of the Union speech – and that HE wants to be the one to announce it, not seeming to be responding to pressure. It will be interesting to see if he can wait that long

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-usiraq28nov28,1,5534102.story
Amid declining public support for the war in Iraq, two prominent Republican senators urged President Bush on Sunday to be more forthcoming about the increasingly costly and uncertain effort to defeat the insurgency and establish a self-sufficient democracy.

"We want to hear from the administration," said Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. "We want more co-option of the Congress by the administration so that we're on the same wavelength.". . . Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Bush should provide a detailed status report to the American public.

Should the Democrats press the issue and offer an explicit withdrawal plan in the next month or so, pre-empting Bush’s Big Announcement? I say “yes”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/28/0152/5390

House GOP realizes that they made a huge mistake in attacking Murtha and his withdrawal proposal as cowardly, treasonous, and disloyal to the troops (now that the White House is preparing its own withdrawal plan) – so, of course they are trying to rewrite the record

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/28/politics/28hastert.html
Representative J. Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, is taking issue with a political appeal sent out by Senator John Kerry, saying the senator falsely accused him of labeling Representative John P. Murtha a coward. . .

"Dennis Hastert - the speaker of the House who never served - accused Jack Murtha of being a coward," Mr. Kerry said as he listed Republican attacks on Mr. Murtha.

Ms. Backus said that comment was based on news reports and the general tone of an initial statement released by the office of Mr. Hastert, Republican of Illinois. It said that America "must not cower" in fighting the war on terror and that Mr. Murtha and other Democrats "want us to wave the white flag of surrender."

[Hastert spokesman] Bonjean noted that Mr. Hastert did not use the term directly about Mr. Murtha and expressed his strong respect for the Democratic lawmaker while simultaneously differing on Iraq policy. In his blog, Mr. Hastert wrote last week: "I need everyone to understand that I have known Congressman Murtha a long time. He's a good man."

Republicans are also breaking ranks over Bush torture policies

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003146.html

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/25/AR2005112501552_pf.html

More from the Sy Hersh report, on Bush’s scary state of mind

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/27/16340/139
BLITZER: In this new article you have in The New Yorker, you also write this about the president: " 'The president is more determined than ever to stay the course,' the former defense official said. 'He doesn't feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage, "People may suffer and die, but the Church advances." ' He said that the president had become more detached, leaving more issues to Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney. 'They keep him in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway,' the former defense official said."

HERSH: Suffice to say this, that this president in private, at Camp David with his friends, the people that I'm sure call him George, is very serene about the war. He's upbeat. He thinks that he's going to be judged, maybe not in five years or ten years, maybe in 20 years. He's committed to the course. He believes in democracy.

HERSH: He believes that he's doing the right thing, and he's not going to stop until he gets -- either until he's out of office, or he falls apart, or he wins.

BLITZER: But this has become, your suggesting, a religious thing for him?

HERSH: Some people think it is. Other people think he's absolutely committed, as I say, to the idea of democracy. He's been sold on this notion.

He's a utopian, you could say, in a world where maybe he doesn't have all the facts and all the information he needs and isn't able to change.

I'll tell you, the people that talk to me now are essentially frightened because they're not sure how you get to this guy.

We have generals that do not like -- anymore -- they're worried about speaking truth to power. You know that. I mean that's -- Murtha in fact, John Murtha, the congressman from Pennsylvania, which most people don't know, has tremendous contacts with the senior generals of the armies. He's a ranking old war horse in Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. The generals know him and like him. His message to the White House was much more worrisome than maybe to the average person in the public. They know that generals are privately telling him things that they're not saying to them.

And if you're a general and you have a disagreement with this war, you cannot get that message into the White House. And that gets people unnerved.

BLITZER: Here's what you write. You write, "Current and former military and intelligence officials have told me that the president remains convinced that it is his personal mission to bring democracy to Iraq, and that he is impervious to political pressure, even from fellow Republicans. They also say that he disparages any information that conflicts with his view of how the war is proceeding."

Those are incredibly strong words, that the president basically doesn't want to hear alternative analysis of what is going on.

HERSH: You know, Wolf, there is people I've been talking to -- I've been a critic of the war very early in the New Yorker, and there were people talking to me in the last few months that have talked to me for four years that are suddenly saying something much more alarming.

They're beginning to talk about some of the things the president said to him about his feelings about manifest destiny, about a higher calling that he was talking about three, four years ago.

I don't want to sound like I'm off the wall here. But the issue is, is this president going to be capable of responding to reality? Is he going to be able -- is he going to be capable if he going to get a bad assessment, is he going to accept it as a bad assessment or is he simply going to see it as something else that is just a little bit in the way as he marches on in his crusade that may not be judged for 10 or 20 years.

He talks about being judged in 20 years to his friends. And so it's a little alarming because that means that my and my colleagues in the press corps, we can't get to him maybe with our views. You and you can't get to him maybe with your interviews.

How do you get to a guy to convince him that perhaps he's not going the right way?

Jack Murtha certainly didn't do it. As I wrote, they were enraged at Murtha in the White House. . .

I'm talking about sort of a crisis of management. That you have a management that's seen by some of the people closely involved as not being able to function in terms of getting information it doesn't want to receive. . .

http://nydailynews.com/front/story/369436p-314247c.html
Embattled White House aides have begun to believe President Bush must take the reins personally if his evaporating agenda and credibility are to be salvaged.

"We're just plodding along," admitted a senior Bush aide from deep within the West Wing bunker. "It's up to the President to turn things around now."

Even as his poll numbers tank, however, Bush is described by aides as still determined to stay the course. He resists advice from Republicans who fear disaster in next year's congressional elections, and rejects criticism from a media establishment he disdains.

"The President has always been willing to make changes," the senior aide said, "but not because someone in this town tells him to - NEVER!"

For the moment, Bush has dismissed discreetly offered advice from friends and loyalists to fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and bring back longtime confidant Karen Hughes from the State Department to shore up his personal White House staff.

"He thinks that would be an admission he's screwed up, and he can't bring himself to do that," a former senior staffer lamented.

So aides have circled the wagons as Bush's woes mount, partly hoping they can sell the President on a December blitz of media interviews to help turn the tide.

"The staff basically still has an unyielding belief in the wisdom of what they're doing," a close Bush confidant said. "They're talking to people who could help them, but they're not listening."

Two sources said Bush has not only lost some confidence in his top aides, as the Daily News has previously reported, but is furious with a stream of leaks about the mood within the West Wing.

"He's asking [friends] for opinions on who he can trust and who he can't," one knowledgeable source said. . .

A card-carrying member of the Washington GOP establishment with close ties to the White House recently encountered several senior presidential aides at a dinner and came away shaking his head at their "no problems here" mentality.

"There is just no introspection there at all," he said in exasperation. "It is everybody else's fault - the press, gutless Republicans on the Hill. They're still in denial."

“Bush-Cheney rage” http://www.topplebush.com/oped2348.shtml

No one quite knows what it means yet, but a second reporter from Time magazine is coming in to give testimony on the Plame scandal. It ain’t over, folks

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/28/politics/28leak.html
The reporter, Viveca Novak, who has written about the leak investigation, has been asked to testify by the special counsel in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, about her conversations with Robert D. Luskin, a lawyer for Mr. Rove, the magazine said.

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/11/woodwards_sourc.html
[Tom Maguire] What Fitzgerald hopes to get from her that he can't get directly from Luskin is a mystery to me. And why the reporter agreed to cooperate is a puzzle - is Luskin suspected of some crime? Did he lie to Fitzgerald but tell the truth to a reporter?. . . If Luskin is not suspected of a crime, why does he not retain the normal source confidentiality privileges? Did Luskin waive them for some reason? Were all of his interviews completely on the record? Or has TIME simply thrown in the towel and decided not to oppose this prosecutor?

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003149.html

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2354

Bush's Next Big Issue to try to distract attention from the war and Plame: immigration

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_27_digbysblog_archive.html#113313960450304342

[NB: How can Bush balance the red-meat xenophobia much of his base wants with forgiveness for undocumented workers, which many corporations and many Latino supporters want?]

John Bolton is busily breaking up pottery at the UN, as he was hired to do: but he is also alienating close allies, like Britain

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001115.html

Bush’s economic brain trust is empty

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/business/yourmoney/27view.html
IT'S no secret that hurricanes and wars have swamped the economic agenda that George W. Bush planned for his second term. In the commotion, however, one fact has gone largely unnoticed: much of Washington's expert economic team has disappeared.

The chairmanship of the Council of Economic Advisers will soon be vacant, and two spots on the Federal Reserve Board that were recently filled by academic economists already are. There is no assistant secretary of the Treasury for tax policy, and the director's chair at the Congressional Budget Office, currently occupied by Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin, will soon be empty, too.

The White House and Congress need as many as five academic economists of high caliber, and it's not obvious where they will come from. The Republican Party may be facing something of a shallow bench.

"Bush's reputation in at least the academic community is about as low as you can imagine," said William A. Niskanen, who was a member of the council during President Ronald Reagan's first term. . .

Bonus item: Fox News, network of hacks

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/27/wallace-never-linked/
[Chris Wallace, “newsman”] “[T]hat specific quote there where you say he couldn’t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, he wasn’t saying that they were linked at all. He was saying one was as bad as the other, and when he said in that same answer something about that Saddam Hussein would like to use a terrorist network, he wasn’t saying that they would like to use al Qaeda. So you’re making a link there that the President never made.”

***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 @ 6:39 AM

 
THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA

(with kudos to Philip Roth, who saw it coming)

http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/catalog/titledetail.cfm?titleNumber=696111

Awful, but I can’t say it’s much of a surprise. The Defense Dept, far from limiting its independent intelligence operations (which served us so well in the lead-up to the war), and despite recommendations that they be merged under coordinated administration with the CIA, continues to spread. . . this time, into domestic surveillance!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/26/AR2005112600857.html
The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies, adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic security activities in the post-9/11 world. . . The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction. . .

http://www.usndemvet.com/blog/archives/002974.html
We are supposed to have civilian oversight of military activities unless I misunderstood 9th grade civics. So now the 1600 Crew has succeeded in bringing us one step closer to Grampaw Prescott's carefully supported, chosen government, Nazi Germany. We have laws like Posse Comitatus for a reason, and here we're getting a circumvention by the military being it's own self-propelled judge, jury and executioner against American Citizens. . .

More police state activities (and no, that term doesn’t seem hyperbolic any longer)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/national/nationalspecial3/27enemy.html
When Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales announced last week that Jose Padilla would be transferred to the federal justice system from military detention, he said almost nothing about the standards the administration used in deciding whether to charge terrorism suspects like Mr. Padilla with crimes or to hold them in military facilities as enemy combatants. . . The upshot of that approach, underscored by the decision in Mr. Padilla's case, is that no one outside the administration knows just how the determination is made whether to handle a terror suspect as an enemy combatant or as a common criminal, to hold him indefinitely without charges in a military facility or to charge him in court. . . Indeed, citing the need to combat terrorism, the administration has argued, with varying degrees of success, that judges should have essentially no role in reviewing its decisions. . .

Spreading freedom and democracy abroad as well. . .

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1651789,00.html
Human rights abuses in Iraq are now as bad as they were under Saddam Hussein and are even in danger of eclipsing his record, according to the country's first Prime Minister after the fall of Saddam's regime. . . 'People are doing the same as [in] Saddam's time and worse,' Ayad Allawi told The Observer. 'It is an appropriate comparison. People are remembering the days of Saddam. These were the precise reasons that we fought Saddam and now we are seeing the same things.'

In a damning and wide-ranging indictment of Iraq's escalating human rights catastrophe, Allawi accused fellow Shias in the government of being responsible for death squads and secret torture centres. The brutality of elements in the new security forces rivals that of Saddam's secret police, he said. . .

His comments come as a blow to those hoping that Iraq was moving towards normalisation under the new government. In a speech on Wednesday, Bush is expected to hail the improved readiness of Iraqi troops, which he has identified as the key condition for withdrawing US forces. . .

He added that he now had so little faith in the rule of law that he had instructed his own bodyguards to fire on any police car that attempted to approach his headquarters without prior notice, following the implication of police units in many of the abuses.

Meanwhile. . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007642.php
[WP] The leader of Iraq's most powerful political party has called on the United States to let Iraqi fighters take a more aggressive role against insurgents, saying his country will only be able to defeat the insurgency when the United States lets Iraqis get tough.

. . . Hakim gave few details of what getting tough would entail, other than making clear it would require more weapons, with more firepower, than the United States is currently supplying.

. . . In Iraq, "there are plans to confront terrorists, approved by security agencies, but the Americans reject that," Hakim said. "Because of that mistaken policy, we have lost a lot. One of the victims was my brother Mohammad Bakir, because of American policies."

"For instance, the ministries of Interior and Defense want to carry out some operations to clean out some areas" in Baghdad and around the country, including volatile Anbar province, in the west, he said.

Done deal: the U.S. is pulling out troops, the only question is when it gets announced (see yesterday’s PBD)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-withdraw26nov26,0,7710697,full.story

http://www.juancole.com/2005/11/rubaie-us-will-withdraw-completely.html

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003143.html

In order to pull out, they will have to proclaim the “readiness” of the Iraqi troops. Is there any reason to believe that?

http://jabbs.blogspot.com/2005/11/bush-administration-preparing-to-tout.html

False choices

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051123/cheneys_false_choices.php

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/13257342.htm
[Carl Hiaasen] Getting a war lecture from Dick Cheney is like getting dating advice from Michael Jackson. . .

On bombing Al-Jazeera

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/bush-and-al-jazeera-insane-story.html
Looks like the Bush wanting to bomb al-Jazeera story isn't going away. . .

Truly depressing

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/26/AR2005112600360.html
Four U.S. soldiers face disciplinary action for burning the bodies of two Taliban rebels _ a videotaped incident that sparked outrage in Afghanistan _ but they will not be prosecuted because their actions were motivated by hygienic concerns, the military said Saturday.

TV footage recorded Oct. 1 in a violent part of southern Afghanistan showed American soldiers setting fire to the bodies and then boasting about the act on loudspeakers to taunt insurgents suspected to be hiding in a nearby village.

Islam bans cremation, and the video images were compared to photographs of U.S. troops abusing prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. Afghanistan's government condemned the desecration. Muslim clerics warned of a violent anti-American backlash, though there have been no protests so far.

American commanders immediately launched an inquiry and vowed that anyone found guilty would be severely punished, fearing the incident could undermine public support for the war against a stubborn insurgency four years after U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban.

The U.S.-led coalition's operational commander, Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya, said two junior officers who ordered the bodies burned would be reprimanded for showing a lack of cultural and religious understanding, but that the men had been unaware at the time of doing anything wrong.

Kamiya also said two noncommissioned officers would be reprimanded for using the burning of the bodies to taunt the rebels. The two men also would face nonjudicial punishments, which could include a loss of pay or demotion in rank.

"Our investigation found there was no intent to desecrate the remains but only to dispose of them for hygienic reasons," Kamiya said. He added that the broadcasts about the burned remains, while "designed to incite fleeing Taliban to fight," violated military policy.

Here is a serious, fair, and careful analysis of the accusation that the Bush gang actively misled the country (a.k.a. LIED) to get us into the war. Let any Bush defender answer this. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2130884/

Concerned

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/politics/politicsspecial1/27alito.html
In the fall of 1985, Concerned Alumni of Princeton was entering a crisis. . . The group's members at the time included Samuel A. Alito Jr., now President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court, although there is no evidence that he played an active or prominent role.

The group had been founded in 1972, the year that Judge Alito graduated, by alumni upset that Princeton had recently begun admitting women. It published a magazine, Prospect, which persistently accused the administration of taking a permissive approach to student life, of promoting birth control and paying for abortions, and of diluting the explicitly Christian character of the school.

As Princeton admitted a growing number of minority students, Concerned Alumni charged repeatedly that the administration was lowering admission standards, undermining the university's distinctive traditions and admitting too few children of alumni. . .

Those records and others at Mudd Library at Princeton give no indication that Judge Alito, who sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, was among the group's major donors. He was not an active leader of the group, and two of his classmates who were involved and Mr. Rusher said they did not remember his playing a role.

But in an application for a promotion in the Reagan administration in the fall of 1985, Judge Alito was asked to provide information about his "philosophical commitment" to administration policies and listed his membership in Concerned Alumni.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/even-frist-condemned-alitos-narrow.html
[Michael in NY] The latest on Alito: that far-right college group he belonged to -- Concerned Alumni of Princeton -- was condemned by none other than Senator Bill Frist way back in 1975 for presenting a "distorted, narrow and hostile view" of Princeton. In 1985, when Alito championed his ties to the group, it was sputtering to a halt, with even its own members calling the group's stances possibly racist and certainly antiquated and embarrassing.

Naturally, Alito's allies now say we shouldn't read anything into his membership in a group that even Frist thought was divisive and backwards, a group that championed a "more traditional undergraduate population," ie, a whiter one with more alumni and fewer minorities. Is there anything about Alito he hasn't distanced himself from?

Growing links between Abramoff’s Republican ties and the SunCruz murder (yes, really!)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/13260001.htm
When U.S. Rep. Bob Ney assailed the owner of SunCruz Casinos in 2000, it seemed puzzling that an Ohio lawmaker would go out of his way to attack a South Florida businessman who was trying to sell his floating gaming empire.

It turns out, according to federal investigators, Ney publicly called SunCruz founder Konstantinos ''Gus'' Boulis a ''bad apple'' in exchange for the company's new owners contributing $10,000 -- in his name -- to a national campaign fund to help elect Republicans to Congress.

The latest disclosure is another South Florida link in a long-running Washington scandal that revolves around the influence-peddling of powerful lobbyists who collected tens of millions of dollars from their clients and also led investors to buy Dania Beach-based SunCruz Casinos.

Law enforcement sources say that just weeks after the controversial sale to Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his business partner Adam Kidan in September 2000, the two men took $10,000 from their gambling business and donated the money to the National Republican Congressional Committee on Ney's behalf. . .

SunCruz's contribution to the National Republican Congressional Committee in November 2000 was made seven months after Ney had condemned the company's founder, Boulis, in the Congressional Record just as he was trying to sell his fleet of ships to resolve a legal dispute with the Justice Department.

He was forced to sell because he was not a U.S. citizen when he acquired his fleet. . . Just six days after the donation, Ney praised the new SunCruz co-owner Kidan in the same Congressional Record as a businessman with a ``renowned reputation for honesty and integrity.''. . .

Ney agreed to place his critical remarks of Boulis in the Congressional Record in March 2000 after Scanlon asked Ney's chief of staff, Neil Volz, to do the favor. Scanlon and Volz were close friends on Capitol Hill.

After the SunCruz sale in fall 2000, Scanlon wrote e-mails to both Abramoff and Kidan, seeking and obtaining their approval to contribute the $10,000 to the GOP's campaign committee on Ney's behalf, according to one law enforcement source. Scanlon, who did public relations work for SunCruz, also corresponded with Ney's staff about the Nov. 1, 2000 political contribution.

Scanlon and his lobbying partner Abramoff would go on to rake in as much as $80 million from their work with Indian tribal clients that owned casinos -- none from Florida. Those fees drew the scrutiny of the House Ethics Committee, Senate Indian Affairs Committee and the Justice Department.

Then, in August of this year, a South Florida federal grand jury indicted Abramoff and Kidan on charges of defrauding lenders of $60 million in the SunCruz sale. Both men have pleaded not guilty and are set to go to trial in Miami federal court in January. . .

In his plea agreement, Scanlon agreed to help federal authorities in Washington and Miami.

He admitted to helping Abramoff and Kidan buy SunCruz by persuading Ney to insert comments into the Congressional Record that were ''calculated to pressure the then-owner to sell on terms favorable'' to the buyers. . .

Boulis, the entrepreneur known for launching the Miami Subs chain, was slain in a mob-style hit on Feb. 6, 2001. Four months later, SunCruz sank into bankruptcy under the new ownership led by Abramoff and Kidan.

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_27.php#007111

If it can happen to Tony Blair. . .

http://www.politics.co.uk/party-politics/labour-party/poll-finds-blairs-popularity-at-new-low-$15099468.htm
A YouGov poll for the Daily Telegraph finds that while 73 per cent of voters believed the prime minister could be trusted in October 1997, this has now fallen to 25 per cent. . .

http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20051123-052153-2622r
This will not be a happy Thanksgiving for President George Bush, but he need just look across the Atlantic to know it could be worse. His only reliable ally, Britain's Tony Blair, now seems to be facing the full-scale parliamentary inquiry into the Iraq war -- its justification, conduct and aftermath -- that Bush has been able to avoid. . .

The decline of the news media – and the reasons for it. A great two-parter from Michael Massing in NYRB

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18516

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18555

Is Bob Woodward actively helping the WH’s Plame defense?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_20_digbysblog_archive.html#113304926346230293

More on who leaked to Woodward: the case for and against Armitage

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2351

Bonus item: there is no end to their pettiness

http://www.pandagon.net/archives/2005/11/republicans_in.html
ON May 26, Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, sponsored a resolution congratulating Carrie Underwood for winning the "American Idol" television program.

Last Friday, Senators Jon Corzine and Frank Lautenberg, Democrats of New Jersey, sponsored a resolution congratulating Bruce Springsteen on the 30th anniversary of his album "Born to Run."

Guess which resolution got shot down by the party in power?

***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 @ 8:09 AM

 
PRETZEL LOGIC

Why Cheney’s dishonest and hate-filled attacks on war critics don’t make sense as a defense of the Bush policy – even if you took them at face value

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/24/AR2005112400477.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_20.php#007108
[Josh Marshall] We've just witnessed a ferocious two weeks of attacks over the future direction of our policy in Iraq. And in that brawl, the White House and its surrogates have launched all manner of attacks against those who would 'cut and run' before 'our job is finshed' in Iraq,

Now comes this article in Saturday's Los Angeles Times which reports that said turbo-testicular worthies have reviewed the situation and -- surprise, surprise! -- our job appears to be almost done. . .

Again, it’s all about WHO gets to announce the troop withdrawal plan – here’s my guess that Bush is holding it for his State of the Union speech in January

http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/11/everything_is_g.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_20_atrios_archive.html#113301086954110385

Alito’s explanations for his ethical lapses are worse than the offenses themselves

http://makeashorterlink.com/?E2272283C
Judge Samuel Alito has said he did not break a federal ethics law when he ruled in a case involving the company that handles his mutual fund investments. . . Alito and the White House have offered several explanations: that a computer glitch allowed the disqualification issue to slip through undetected, that Alito's 1990 pledge to stay out of Vanguard appeals only applied to his initial service, and that the promise was "unduly restrictive."

"The explanation causes greater concern than the problem," said Stephen Gillers, a professor specializing in legal ethics at New York University's School of Law. "It would have all gone away if Judge Alito had said, `This was an oversight.' People can forgive oversights. We all have them."

Doug Kendall, executive director of the Community Rights Counsel, a public interest law firm, said the response was "inconsistent and somewhat incoherent.". . . "His explanation has made it an issue that will continue through the (Senate) hearings," said Kendall.

Judges who have even one share of stock in a company are not allowed to rule in cases involving that company. Because of that, recusals are common at the high court.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/alito-has-problems-with-ethics-as-in.html
[Joe in D.C.] Alito told the Senate under oath that he WOULD NOT rule in cases involving Vanguard. . . Alito heard a case involving Vanguard anyway. Then, he was indignant when challenged. . . Bottom line: Scalito told the Senate one thing, then did the opposite. He can't be trusted.

How the New York Times helped Bush and his gang sell the war in Iraq

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001570350

Padilla and other Small Potatoes

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003140.html

Abramoff scandal continues to spread. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/25/AR2005112501423_pf.html
The Justice Department's wide-ranging investigation of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff has entered a highly active phase as prosecutors are beginning to move on evidence pointing to possible corruption in Congress and executive branch agencies, lawyers involved in the case said.

Prosecutors have already told one lawmaker, Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), and his former chief of staff that they are preparing a possible bribery case against them, according to two sources knowledgeable about the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The 35 to 40 investigators and prosecutors on the Abramoff case are focused on at least half a dozen members of Congress, lawyers and others close to the probe said. . .

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-doolittle26nov26,1,7674992.story

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007638.php

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/25/12929/770

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/corruption_in_washington_/2005/11/lowering_the_threshold_of_bribery.php

. . . including murder?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_20.php#007105

Print the Bush/Al Jazeera memos! (Thanks to Atrios for the link)

http://www.boris-johnson.com/archives/2005/11/bush_and_al-jaz.html

More on the use of white phosphorus

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/25/2336/1984

(Former) Bush supporters losing faith

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/26/politics/26voices.html

U.S. using Patriot Act to selectively block foreign scholars?

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1123/p02s01-uspo.html

Another way for the WH to suppress access to information

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_20_atrios_archive.html#113298272859796683

Ann Coulter, rotten to the very core

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/yet-another-reason-to-loathe-ann.html
“It is simply a fact that Democrats like Murtha are encouraging the Iraqi insurgents when they say the war is going badly and it’s time to bring the troops home…[T]hey long to see U.S. troops shot, humiliated, and driven from the field of battle. They fill the airwaves with treason…These people are not only traitors, they are gutless traitors.”

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/25/18832/652

The fraud that is No Child Left Behind. Wouldn’t you know that an education policy proposed by George Bush would result in standards being LOWERED?

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/education_policy_/2005/11/defining_mastery_down.php

Bonus item: No, NOT Photoshopped

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/26/21439/283

***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 @ 7:33 AM

 
FOREGONE CONCLUSIONS

Must. . . change. . . perceptions. . . of the war. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/with-no-sign-of-progress-in-iraq-bush.html
The White House War Room is in full operational mode. Not the War Room to deal with the war. No, the War Room to deal with the spin about the war. . . The Washington Post takes a look at Bush's upcoming campaign. . .

The European Commission wants answers on those secret CIA detention centers in Eastern Europe

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/european-union-asking-about-those-cia.html

Qatar doesn’t think Bush’s “joke” about bombing the Al-Jazeera offices there is very funny

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/92fad322-5c58-11da-af92-0000779e2340.html

Appalling: Padilla gets his right to a trial, but. . .

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10184957/site/newsweek
The Bush administration, determined not to yield any ground on the constitutional issues in the case of Jose Padilla, has indicated it may still hold the accused “enemy combatant” indefinitely—even if he is acquitted. . .

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003135.html

“White Phosphorus Round-Up”

http://www.juancole.com/2005/11/white-phosphorus-round-up-george.html

Is Dick Cheney becoming a political liability for Bush?

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.cheney25nov25,1,471707.story

Boo effin’ hoo: Karl Rove’s mounting legal fees

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013225.html

When does “business as usual” in fundraising and lobbying become quid-pro-quo graft? No one knows the line any longer

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/25/politics/25memo.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_20.php#007101

“Dysfunctional democracy”

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=19922

Brownie finds a new way to peddle on his FEMA connections and experience

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/24/222759/01

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_20.php#007102

More from David Noreen on when the decision was made to go to war in Iraq

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1154473,00.html
George Bush set the US on the path to war in Iraq with a formal order signed in February 2002, more than a year before the invasion, according to a book published yesterday. . . On February 16 2002, Bush signed a secret national security council directive establishing the goals and objectives for going to war with Iraq. . .

The paradox of John McCain

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20051212&s=berman

Bill Richardson, potential Democratic candidate for 2008, now will have to answer charges that he lied about having been drafted in 1996 by the Kansas City Athletics (baseball). It’s a stupid mistake, but it will be blown out of all proportion because, well, you know, lying about war isn’t a very serious issue for some people, but lying about BASEBALL. . .

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013224.html

No matter what happens, stick to the script! Aren’t these (ostensibly) news people?

http://www.slate.com/id/2131107
[Eric Umansky] The NYT fronts two people injured after an M&Ms balloon at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade was buffeted by a gust of wind and knocked over part of a light pole.

The Times points out that when the M&Ms balloons went wild, parade broadcaster NBC was quick on its toes. In the words of a spokeswoman, "We rolled with some previously recorded footage," namely the M&Ms balloons from last year. And then the crack team covering the parade—Katie Couric, Matt Lauer, and Al Roker—continued their witty repartee, without mentioning the incident. "Will these classic candymen get out of this delicious dilemma?" said Roker, referring not to accident but to the original balloon concept in which one M&M was trying to save the other. "Hard to say," Roker continued, "but when it comes to sweetness, Yellow and Red continue to melt your heart, but not in your hand."

Bonus item: some things to be thankful for (not that I agree with all of these)

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/24/112719/49

***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 @ 8:03 AM

 
THANKS FOR NOTHING

We would be thankful if the Bush gang really intended to bring the troops home – but it seems more valuable to them to be continually HINTING that they will bring the troops home, while savaging anyone else who suggests that they do so

Condi: sings the lyrics but doesn’t know the music

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2346
"I suspect that the American forces are not going to be needed in the numbers that they are there for all that much longer because Iraqis are continuing to make progress in function, not just in numbers but in their capabilities to do certain functions like, for instance, holding a highway between the airport and the center of the city, something that our forces were doing just a short time ago, they're now doing."

[Swopa] Uhh, Condi? That road from the Baghdad airport is about five or six miles long. And it took more than two years to make it even remotely safe.

Meanwhile, Iraq comprises a total of 171,599 square miles. The guerrilla stronghold of Anbar province covers about 30,000 square miles. Do the math to figure out how long it will take to hand over all of that to Iraqi forces under the current so-called strategy.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_20_atrios_archive.html#113276279954736189
[Atrios] I know lots of people think the Republican Cut&Run shuffle (which is entirely different from any cutting and running suggested by Democrats in ways which are clear if you live in Wingnuttia) is inevitable. I don't. I think they'll continue to make noises about future withdrawals, but there won't be an actual serious withdrawal. Bush has said the terrorists want us to leave so we have to say. Leaving=losing. We'll be in Iraq at roughly current levels until the day he finally goes back to Crawford for good (well, at least until that campaign prop is sold).

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/11/24/0338/6483

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/another-day-another-troop-withdrawal.html

Don’t think for a second that the new WH line that dissent and criticism are legitimate means that they actually will TOLERATE dissent and criticism

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/11/22/BL2005112201025.html
[Dan Froomkin] Cheney yesterday took point in the massive PR blitz aimed at salvaging the administration's reputation. He lashed out at the suggestion that "brave Americans were sent into battle for a deliberate falsehood," calling it "revisionism of the most corrupt and shameless variety" and saying that "it has no place anywhere in American politics.". . . Rather than substantively address any of the allegations against the administration, however, Cheney used a handful of straw-man arguments and dubious assertions to make his point. And he took no questions.

[NB: Yes, Dick, it IS awful to imagine that "brave Americans were sent into battle for a deliberate falsehood." Awful indeed]

Lies, lies, lies

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_20_atrios_archive.html#113277275765617585

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007632.php

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001105.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003133.html

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13242995.htm

A little dose of truth

http://www.ostroyreport.blogspot.com/#112305A
The war in Iraq has caused the death of 2100 U.S. soldiers and has maimed or wounded another 20,000. The financial cost has topped $400 billion, and our standing in the world has taken a huge blow since the invasion in March 2003.

How much of a monster is Dick Cheney, actually?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2005/11/24/cheney/
[Sid Blumenthal] For his entire career, he sought untrammeled power. The Bush presidency and 9/11 finally gave it to him -- and he's not about to give it up. . . The hallmark of the Dick Cheney administration is its illegitimacy. Its essential method is bypassing established lines of authority; its goal is the concentration of unaccountable presidential power. . .

“All the troops they needed”

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/11/index.html#008424
[Matt Yglesias] I can't say I'm shocked -- or even the least bit surprised -- to learn that the Bush administration's repeated, years-long insistence that "commanders on the ground" in Iraq were happy with force levels turns out to be a lie. . .

[NB: Anybody who EVER believed that howler has no idea of how the military works]

The Padilla cover-up

http://www.slate.com/id/2131103
[Eric Umansky] Citing unnamed current and former government officials, the NYT says on Page One that the administration backed down from more serious charges against Jose Padilla because the case relied on the suspect testimony of two al-Qaida suspects who are secretly being held by the U.S. and who gave their testimony while being tortured. An internal CIA report concluded that one of the men had talked while being subjected to what the Times calls "excessive use" of waterboarding.

http://www.slate.com/id/2100543/
[Phillip Carter, May 2004] There are plenty of good reasons to avoid using torture in interrogations. It's an immoral and barbaric practice condemned by most Western nations and theological traditions, for starters. International human rights law and U.S. criminal law both outlaw it. And as if that's not enough, there is serious doubt as to whether torture even produces reliable intelligence, as Mark Bowden explains in the October 2003 issue of the Atlantic Monthly.

Add this additional reason to the list: Any information gained through torture will almost certainly be excluded from court in any criminal prosecution of the tortured defendant. And, to make matters worse for federal prosecutors, the use of torture to obtain statements may make those statements (and any evidence gathered as a result of those statements) inadmissible in the trials of other defendants as well. Thus, the net effect of torture is to undermine the entire federal law enforcement effort to put terrorists behind bars. With each alleged terrorist we torture, we most likely preclude the possibility of a criminal trial for him, and for any of the confederates he may incriminate.

Anonymous sources run amok

http://www.slate.com/id/2131023

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001103.html

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/valerie_plame_/2005/11/a_new_deep_throat.php
[Mark Kleiman] If, in fact, neither Dana Priest nor Mike Allen was subpoenaed before the Plame grand jury, that creates a strong inference that the prosecutor already knew whatever they could have told him. In particular, the prosecutor must know the identity of their source for the 2 x 6 assertion (that two senior administration officials had told six reporters about Plame's identity) and that source must have told the prosecutor substantially what he or she told Priest and Allen.

[NB: This is the person Swopa speculated yesterday was Colin Powell]

So the whole “Bush wanted to bomb Al-Jazeera” story is a bunch of nonsense, is it? Then why is everyone acting so guilty?

http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/worldopinionroundup/2005/11/mirror_gagged.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1887815,00.html

http://www.juancole.com/2005/11/bush-as-press-assassin-baathist-in.html

Because, you know, the Bush people wouldn’t call an allegation “totally ridiculous” if there was anything to it. . .

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2348
[Scott McClellan, Sept 2003] Q On the Robert Novak-Joseph Wilson situation, Novak reported earlier this year -- quoting -- "anonymous government sources" telling him that Wilson's wife was a CIA operative. Now, this is apparently a federal offense, to burn the cover of a CIA operative. Wilson now believes that the person who did this was Karl Rove. He's quoted from a speech last month as saying, "At the end of the day, it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs." Did Karl Rove tell that --

MR. McCLELLAN: I haven't heard that. That's just totally ridiculous. But we've already addressed this issue. If I could find out who anonymous people were, I would. I just said, it's totally ridiculous.

Q But did Karl Rove do it?

MR. McCLELLAN: I said, it's totally ridiculous.

How badly will the Abramoff scandal entangle Republicans in Congress? (The web is growing)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_20.php#007090

One guy in BIG trouble for sure http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/11/index.html#008429

“Fascinating” (it is)

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/11/23/13/27/fascinating/
[Susan Madrak] Blogger Mike Petrelis made a FOIA request of the Pentagon, asking for a log of all FOIA requests made by the media in the past five years.

Apparently our journalist heroes are singularly lacking in curiousity. . .

Bonus item: Fox explains the “inaccuracies” that made them refuse to run an ad critical of Alito (sometimes the excuse is sillier than the crime)

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2005/11/why_fox_nixed_a.html
Fox News told IndependentCourt.org that it would not run the ad because it uses the words "ruling" and "voted" in reference to a dissenting opinion issued by Alito as a federal circuit judge.

***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 @ 8:13 AM

 
INVITED TO LEAVE

Well, we’ve finally managed to unify the three factions in Iraq, on one issue at least. The people we are supposedly in there to save and protect have made it clear what THEY think is in their best interests – they don’t want us there any more

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5431131,00.html
Leaders of Iraq's sharply divided Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis called Monday for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces in the country. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/iraqi-leaders-adopt-murtha-proposal.html
[John Aravosis] This is an extremely bizarre and rather earth-shattering story. . . There's really no other way to read this. They want us out and it's clear that we're not listening. They've likely told the Bush administration privately, and now they're going public. This is incredibly embarrassing for Bush. And it's very troubling for all of us.

I mean they REALLY don’t want us there

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/when-is-cheney-going-to-call-iraqi.html
[WP] In Egypt, the final communique's attempt to define terrorism omitted any reference to attacks against U.S. or Iraqi forces. Delegates from across the political and religious spectrum said the omission was intentional. They spoke anonymously, saying they feared retribution.

"Though resistance is a legitimate right for all people, terrorism does not represent resistance. Therefore, we condemn terrorism and acts of violence, killing and kidnapping targeting Iraqi citizens and humanitarian, civil, government institutions, national resources and houses of worships," the document said.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z46C1143C
[Terry] I've been trying to point out to many people over the past week that I'm not a "cut and run" guy, but a guy who wants this job done as soon as possible and, yes, with mechanisms left in place to come to Iraqis' aid when need be. . . But screw that. It's time to go. . . Iraq's leaders just painted a bullseye on the backs of American soldiers and said they're fair game.

A trip down memory lane

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/powell-and-bremmer-and-joint-chiefs.html
[WP, May 2004] Secretary of State Colin Powell emphatically said yesterday that if the incoming Iraqi interim government ordered the departure of foreign troops after June 30, they would pack up without protest, but emphasized he doubted such a request would be made. . .

And 63% of Americans agree with them

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_20_atrios_archive.html#113269867548646073

“Cutting and running”?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/22/AR2005112202086.html
Barring any major surprises in Iraq, the Pentagon tentatively plans to reduce the number of U.S. forces there early next year by as many as three combat brigades, from 18 now, but to keep at least one brigade "on call" in Kuwait in case more troops are needed quickly, several senior military officers said. . . Pentagon authorities also have set a series of "decision points" during 2006 to consider further force cuts that, under a "moderately optimistic" scenario, would drop the total number of troops from more than 150,000 now to fewer than 100,000, including 10 combat brigades, by the end of the year, the officers said.

[NB: But John Murtha is a “coward”]

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/bush-blinks-pentagon-proposes.html
[John Aravosis] I'm sorry, but I thought telegraphing our moves in advance only emboldened the terrorists. Now the terrorists know to wait until next fall, when we have fewer troops, to then launch their attacks. Not to mention, the article goes on about how this isn't a political move, it's being done based on the military need. Uh huh. Less than 24 hours after the Iraqi government told us to get the hell out and, by the way, they're now saying our soldiers are legitimate targets. . .

Here’s the simple truth: they have to pull down numbers, and they don’t really have any choice

http://www.slate.com/id/2130794/
[Fred Kaplan] Korb and Katulis begin with the same premises that Murtha does: that the U.S. military presence in Iraq is inflaming the insurgency, uniting nationalists with Islamo-fundamentalists, and bolstering America's terrorist enemies worldwide; that the Iraqi government is using U.S. troops as a crutch; that maintaining 140,000 troops for another year will destroy the U.S. Army; and that, therefore, on several grounds, it is best for all that we get out. . . They call for a phased, two-year plan, drawing the troops down to 80,000 by the end of next year and dispensing with most of the rest by the end of 2007

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1132819,00.html
According to two sources with knowledge of the meeting, the Army and Marine officers were blunt. In contrast to the Pentagon's stock answer that there are enough troops on the ground in Iraq, the commanders said that they not only needed more manpower but also had repeatedly asked for it. Indeed, military sources told TIME that as recently as August 2005, a senior military official requested more troops but got turned down flat.

There are about 160,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq, a number U.S. commanders in the region plan to maintain at least through the Iraqi national assembly elections on Dec. 15. But the battalion commanders, according to sources close to last week's meeting, said that because there are not enough troops, they have to "leapfrog" around Iraq to keep insurgents from returning to towns that have been cleared out. The officers also stressed that the lack of manpower--rather than of protective armor or signal jammers--posed one of the biggest obstacles in dealing with roadside bombs,

More: http://www.topplebush.com/oped2334.shtml

How many more smoking guns do we need to prove that Bush and his people lied?

http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1122nj1.htm
[Murray Waas] Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda. . .

One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group. Saddam viewed Al Qaeda as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime. At one point, analysts believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks of Al Qaeda with Iraqi nationals or even Iraqi intelligence operatives to learn more about its inner workings, according to records and sources.

The September 21, 2001, briefing was prepared at the request of the president, who was eager in the days following the terrorist attacks to learn all that he could about any possible connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. . .

The Senate Intelligence Committee has asked the White House for the CIA assessment, the PDB of September 21, 2001, and dozens of other PDBs as part of the committee's ongoing investigation into whether the Bush administration misrepresented intelligence information in the run-up to war with Iraq. The Bush administration has refused to turn over these documents.

Indeed, the existence of the September 21 PDB was not disclosed to the Intelligence Committee until the summer of 2004, according to congressional sources. Both Republicans and Democrats requested then that it be turned over. The administration has refused to provide it, even on a classified basis, and won't say anything more about it other than to acknowledge that it exists.

Condi Rice isn’t as good at jaw-dropping, shameless lies as Cheney and Rumsfeld, but you can see she’s working at it

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_20_atrios_archive.html#113271626905710041
[Atrios] Rice on CNN to John King, just now, responding to King pointing out that Democrats didn't have the same intelligence as the White House. It's her shiny new talking point. She grinned triumphantly as she said it:

They had the intelligence that made the case that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his biological and chemical weapons and was at least on the way to reconstituting the nuclear weapons.

Right, they had the intelligence that made the case, but not the intelligence which pointed out that that intelligence was full of shit.

Clever

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/22/18823/759
[Cheney] Some of the most irresponsible comments have come from politicians who actually voted in favor of authorizing the use of force against Saddam Hussein. These are elected officials who had access to the intelligence materials. . . And they were free to reach their own judgments based upon the evidence.

[Mark Schmitt] Without getting into the details of exactly who had what information when, what makes that sentence so jarring is that the fundamental philosophy of Bush and Cheney -- and to a lesser degree their predecessors in the White House -- is that members of Congress, in their view, should absolutely not be "free to reach their own judgments" on matters of foreign policy and national security.

Loyal reader David Noreen offers an answer to the question I posed on Monday: when was the decision to go to war in Iraq actually made?

http://www.guerrillanews.com/articles/article.php?id=761
Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography. . . “He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade. . . if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it.”

More indications that the Kurds are ready to split off at a moment’s notice if civil war breaks out between the Sunnis and Shiites

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2338

My colleague Jan Pieterse claims that the Bush plan has always been to INCREASE instability in Iraq -- they WANT to play the three factions off against each other. This story supports his thesis

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10662

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/23/international/middleeast/23elect.html

British tabloid claims that Bush wanted to bomb the Al Jazeera television station in Qatar, Blair talked him out of it, and there’s a memo to prove it

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/22/131432/79

The Bush Co. response

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/22/AR2005112201784.html
"We are not interested in dignifying something so outlandish and inconceivable with a response," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told the Associated Press in an e-mail.

OK, except. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/22/AR2005112201784.html
One source is quoted as saying Bush's alleged remark concerning the network's headquarters in Qatar was "humorous, not serious," while the other said, "Bush was deadly serious."

http://crookedtimber.org/2005/11/23/bombing-journalists-2/
There is also the small matter of the fact that the civil servants who leaked the transcript of the Bush—Blair conversation are facing prosecution for doing so and that the Daily Mirror has been subjected to pressure . It is hard to see how someone could “leak” or could be prosecuted for leaking a document if it was other than genuine.

[NB: So, DID he say it, whether he was serious or not?]

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_20.php#007088

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007626.php

“Outlandish and inconceivable”

http://www.juancole.com/2005/11/bush-as-press-assassinbaathist-in.html
The US military bombed the Kabul offices of Aljazeera in mid-November, 2001. . .

The US military hit the Aljazeerah offices in Baghdad on the 9th of April, 2004. . .

As predicted, John Bolton tells the U.N. that it is expendable

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/22/AR2005112201752.html

Pure speculation, but what delicious speculation

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2339
[Swopa] Last night, Steve Clemons took a look back at the Washington Post's famed "1 x 2 x 6" counter-leak about the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson by columnist Robert Novak ("a senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife"). . . Clemons notes that whoever this anonymous senior administration official (SAO) was, he contradicts the Bob Woodward-endorsed notion that the leaks to journalists were merely gossip: "Clearly, the source for Dana Priest and Mike Allen knew that the information on Plame was secret -- and was angry about its promulgation."

I think that's exactly right -- and since I've theorized in detail about how the calls to reporters happened, this seems like a good excuse to continue the story with how those calls led to the Post's counter-leak from the angry SAO. . .

[NB: Swopa then proceeds to offer a very convincing case that the angry SAO is Colin Powell. . .]

Another great tidbit in the Murray Waas article, cited above

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/22/23541/082
The Plame affair was not so much a reflection of any personal animus toward Wilson or Plame, says one former senior administration official who knows most of the principals involved, but rather the direct result of long-standing antipathy toward the CIA by Cheney, Libby, and others involved. They viewed Wilson's outspoken criticism of the Bush administration as an indirect attack by the spy agency.

Those grievances were also perhaps illustrated by comments that Vice President Cheney himself wrote on one of Feith's reports detailing purported evidence of links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. In barely legible handwriting, Cheney wrote in the margin of the report:

"This is very good indeed … Encouraging … Not like the crap we are all so used to getting out of CIA.". . .

[NB: Regular readers know that I have been harping on the under-examined Feith operation for years: if you are looking for Ground Zero on where "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy,” this is it]

No WMD?

http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/11/a_reminder_abou.html
[From a reader] All this talk about whether the administration lied to us, forgets a major point. (And one that you should criticize the major papers for not addressing.) No one could have known for sure if Saddam had WMD's. THAT'S why the world asked for weapons inspectors. Bush didn't let the inspectors finish. WHY! That should be the big, talked about question. The question should not be whether they lied, but what they didn't do to find the truth. They stopped the inspections. Amazing really. This was remarkable then, and it's equally remarkable now that no one talks about it.

Cheney logic

http://crookedtimber.org/2005/11/22/cheneys-question/
“Would the United States and other free nations be better off or worse off with (Abu Musab al-) Zarqawi, (Osama) bin Laden and (Ayman al-) Zawahiri in control of Iraq?” he asked. “Would be we safer or less safe with Iraq ruled by men intent on the destruction of our country?”

[Chris Bertram] Let me get this straight. At time t you advocate a policy involving the invasion and occupation of Iraq on multiple grounds, none of which include the forestalling of an Al Qaeda seizure of power in Iraq (since such an eventuality is risibly improbable). At time t+n , as a direct consequence of that brilliant policy, the only options are (a) its continuation or (b) an Al Qaeda takeover of Iraq. Genius. No wonder that man got re-elected.

More: http://www.ostroyreport.blogspot.com/#112205

More indications that Libby will adopt a scorched earth defense strategy

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013205.html

The Padilla indictment: what it DOESN’T say

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013201.html
The Government has indicted Jose Padilla. He's charged with conspiracy to kill and maim people overseas. The indictment does not allege Padilla was planning attacks in the U.S.

http://www.slate.com/id/2131007
As for the charges themselves against Padilla, Gonzales said, "The indictment alleges that Padilla traveled overseas to train as a terrorist with the intention of fighting in violent jihad. Those trained as terrorists engage in acts of physical violence such as murder, maiming, kidnapping and hostage-taking against innocent civilians." And that's about as much detail as the government gave. There were no specific plots mentioned

http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/11/understanding_t.html
Notice how the indictment doesn't happen to mention that dirty bomb allegations, which were so flimsy gov't officials backed away from them minutes after after then-AG Ashcroft pimped them.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13237905.htm
The decision to indict José Padilla on criminal charges and drop a three-year effort to hold him as an enemy combatant is the latest example of how the Bush administration short-circuits legal challenges to its expansive use of wartime powers, legal experts said Tuesday. . . In the Padilla case, the administration wanted to prevent a showdown in the U.S. Supreme Court over whether the president can hold a U.S. citizen indefinitely as an enemy combatant.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/23/national/nationalspecial3/23legal.html
Four years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the government has yet to settle on a consistent strategy for holding and punishing people it says are terrorists. Its efforts remain a work in progress, notable for false starts and a reluctance to have the executive branch's broadest claims tested in the courts.

Last year, three Supreme Court decisions turned back the administration's boldest positions. Government lawyers do not seem eager to give the justices a vehicle for elaboration, at least not one that involves Jose Padilla, an American citizen captured on American soil.

Mr. Padilla's lawyers filed an appeal in the Supreme Court last month, asking a fundamental question: "Does the president have the power to seize American citizens in civilian settings on American soil and subject them to indefinite military detention without criminal charge or trial?"

The administration says there is no need to answer that question just now. . .

[NB: Yeah, wait til they have Alito on there instead of O’Connor]

More: http://www.discourse.net/archives/2005/11/padilla_indicted_a_bittersweet_moment_for_the_rule_of_law_updated.html

Schmidt DID lie (thanks to John Aravosis for the link)

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051122/NEWS01/511220352
"There was no discussion of him personally being a coward or about any person being a coward," Bubp said. "My message to the folks in Washington, D.C., and to all the Congress people up there, is to stay the course. We cannot leave Iraq or cut and run - any terminology that you want to use."

But in true Republican fashion, she now claims that SHE is the victim

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_20.php#007089

Making Rumsfeld the issue in 2006

http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/11/21/195132/35

Woo-hoo! Michael Scanlon is spilling the beans

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/lobbyist_tribes
A former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay who pleaded guilty in a federal bribery probe involving members of Congress has been cooperating with prosecutors since July. . . "There have been a lot of conversations" between Scanlon and federal prosecutors over the past five months, Scanlon attorney Plato Cacheris said Monday night. "He had a lot to say."

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007615.php

In Texas, DeLay wants a quick trial, so he can run for Majority Leader again (but he won’t get one)

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013204.html

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2005/11/trouble_in_tx22.html

Now, this I love: Tom DeLay, who never misses a chance to grab money with both hands, is now using his newfound infamy to RAISE MORE MONEY. He has a “defense fund” web site, but here is the kicker (which no one seems to have caught yet). On the page where you can contribute, there are different levels of funding. The top level says “$5000, Maximum Annual Contribution”

http://makeashorterlink.com/?D2FB3143C

[NB: ANNUAL contribution??!!??]

The 2000 Supreme Court decision that gave the election to Bush: Scalia says it was all Gore’s fault

http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/58101.htm
Speaking at the Time Warner Center last night, Scalia said: "The election was dragged into the courts by the Gore people. We did not go looking for trouble."

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007619.php

And another lying Supreme Court judge

http://www.slingshot.org/2005/11/22/impeach-thomas/
[David Meyer] Matt Stoller has called for the impeachment of Clarence Thomas, based on lies he told the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding Roe v. Wade. That’s not the biggest lie he told the Senate Judiciary Committee. In reviewing the transcript of Thomas’ hearing, I found eight statements where he defended the concept of stare decisis, judicial respect for precedent. . . Was he lying? Justice Scalia certainly seems to think so:

Scalia told Foskett that Thomas “doesn’t believe in stare decisis, period.”. . .

Alito is using the same tactic. He “respects precedent,” wink-wink, nudge-nudge — he would never overrule a decision on which many people rely, on which institutions and expectations have been based for a generation. Is there any reason to believe Alito when Thomas has already burned us so badly?

Fox refuses to run an ad critical of Alito. Aren’t there FCC rules about this?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007621.php

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2005/11/foxblocked_anti.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_20_digbysblog_archive.html#113269685960098699

Woodward picks Mr. Softball, Larry King, for his deceptive and evasive account of how he received the leak and why he came forward when he did. Woodward’s no fool: he wanted to avoid questioning like this. . .

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/memo-to-woodward-endless_b_11097.html

Theocracy watch (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://blogs.knoxnews.com/knx/silence/archives/2005/11/youre_either_wi.shtml
Evangelical Christian pastor Jerry Falwell has a message for Americans when it comes to celebrating Christmas this year: You're either with us, or you're against us. . . Falwell has put the power of his 24,000-member congregation behind the "Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign," an effort led by the conservative legal organization Liberty Counsel. The group promises to file suit against anyone who spreads what it sees as misinformation about how Christmas can be celebrated in schools and public spaces. . . The 8,000 members of the Christian Educators Association International will be the campaign's "eyes and ears" in the nation's public schools.

More: http://www.ceai.org/

Useful Idiot

http://mediamatters.org/items/200511220011
On the November 21 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, host Rush Limbaugh asserted that Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA) -- who on November 17 called for the immediate redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq -- is "just the useful idiot of the moment.". . . Limbaugh added that people "portray [Murtha] as a former hawk," and asked: "What kind of serious hawk calls for withdrawals like this?" Limbaugh then added: "I don't think he ever has been a hawk. . . in his career. . . as a congressman."

Bonus item: We’re all blue now

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/23/13222/916



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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 @ 7:02 AM

 
“WHAT I MEANT TO SAY WAS. . . “

Dick Cheney repeats his speech defending prewar lies, in almost verbatim terms from the other day (sans tuxedo) – he makes a token effort to say that criticizing the administration isn’t treason (thanks Dick), but then reverts to the same old implications that it is

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/21/AR2005112100276.html
Referring to similar comments he made in a speech last week, Cheney sought to draw a distinction between legitimate debate and what he has called "dishonest" and "reprehensible" charges. . .

Cheney said in his speech today that he does not believe it is "wrong to criticize the war on terror or any aspect thereof" and that he enjoys "energetic debate on issues facing our country.". . . However, Cheney said: "What is not legitimate and what I will again say is dishonest and reprehensible is the suggestion by some U.S. senators that the president of the United States or any member of his administration purposely misled the American people on prewar intelligence.”. . .

"One might also argue that untruthful charges against the commander in chief have an insidious effect on the war effort itself," Cheney said. . .

[NB: So it is perfectly legitimate to criticize us on any grounds except those on which we actually DESERVE criticism]

Hey, Dick. If you want people to stop calling you and Bush liars, STOP TELLING LIES

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/hey-msm-when-do-you-plan-on-asking.html

Video: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/11/21.html#a5997

[NB: It’s a very simple point, and I don’t want to give these guys helpful advice, but most people have already decided that Bush and his gang lied to get us into the war. And attacking the people who point this out does NOTHING to re-establish their own credibility.]

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/21/AR2005112101375.html
[Dana Milbank] Vice President Cheney protested yesterday that he had been misunderstood when he said last week that critics of the White House over Iraq were "dishonest and reprehensible.". . . What he meant to say, he explained to his former colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute, was that those who question the White House's use of prewar intelligence were not only "dishonest and reprehensible" but also "corrupt and shameless.". . .

If Cheney still has friends in Washington, they are to be found at the AEI, with which his wife, Lynne, is still affiliated. Norm Ornstein and the other AEI fellows in the first two rows led a standing ovation for Cheney when he entered. . . In his 19-minute speech -- aides made clear there was not even the possibility of him taking questions -- he doled out the bare necessity of thanks, then stuck closely to his written text, stealing only quick glances at his largely silent audience.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/21/AR2005112100970.html
[Eugene Robinson] Last week the party line was that attacking the war was somehow beyond the pale. The president quickly endorsed Vice President Cheney's snarling sound bite -- that it was "dishonest and reprehensible" to suggest that anyone cooked the prewar intelligence on Iraq. . . In a speech yesterday, he swallowed his castor oil: "I do not believe it is wrong to criticize the war on terror or any aspect thereof," he said, going on to describe Murtha as "a good man, a Marine, a patriot." He then repeated his "dishonest and reprehensible" line to describe those who would impugn the administration's honesty, and went on to give the same muddled rationale for U.S. Iraq policy that we've heard in the past. The fact is that the White House is losing the public debate over Iraq -- and it's not hard to understand why. . .

The administration is losing the public debate because of its many missteps and failures, but also because of its insistence on conflating the war in Iraq with the larger "war on terror." Does anyone understand what "war on terror" means? The country was attacked by a murderous association of Islamic fundamentalists led by Osama bin Laden. Last we heard, he was still alive and well, probably in some cave in northwestern Pakistan. That's a long way from Iraq.

The president says that Iraq is a test of our nation's resolve, that anything less than victory will confirm the enemy's view that America lacks the stomach for a fight. But "stay the course" doesn't play as a strategy when the course seems to lead nowhere. What is victory in Iraq? When will we know we've won? When the simmering, low-level civil war we've ignited sparks into full flame and somebody takes over the country? When a new government in Baghdad declares its eternal brotherhood and friendship with Tehran?

The mess that George Bush and Co. have created in Iraq doesn't have an unmessy solution. Murtha's plan -- just get out -- isn't really attractive, but at least it's a plan. The saying goes that when you're in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging.

http://blogs.salon.com/0000014/2005/11/21.html#a936
[Scott Rosenberg] If you paid attention to what Murtha actually proposed last week (this Slate piece by Fred Kaplan offers a good recap) you know that he didn't say, "Let's get out now" -- he said, essentially "Let's get out within six months, moving our troops to a position outside of Iraq, from which they can continue to strike and to influence events without being sitting ducks for suicide bombers.". . . That might or might not be a smart plan, but it is at least a plan. The central complaint that most Democrats and an increasing number of Republicans have with the administration is that there's no plan in sight. . .

Brian Leiter completely dismantles the intellectual dishonesty of the current Bush/Cheney line of excuses (and tosses in a nice plug for PBD along the way – thanks Brian!)

http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2005/11/goebbels_had_no.html

Cheney’s falsehoods would be hard to stomach under any circumstances, but they are especially galling because the story of deception and media manipulation to sell the war has been copiously documented

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001098.html
[T]he Bush administration hired John Rendon to do "what needed to be done" to get America positioned to invade Iraq.

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/17/rendon-group/
[T]he administration’s use of al-Haideri’s lies to justify the Iraq war were “the product of a clandestine operation. . . that had been set up and funded by the CIA and the Pentagon for the express purpose of selling a war.”

More: http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/11/timeline_of_pre.html

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/8798997?rnd=1132579210593

Are we back to he said/she said coverage of these lies?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_20.php#007083
[WP] Cheney repeated assertions -- disputed by some senators -- that members of Congress had access to the same intelligence that was provided to Bush about the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction under the rule of Saddam Hussein.

[Josh Marshall] Disputed by 'some senators'?. . . Please. Try disputed by the Post itself little more than a week ago. . . [T]he claim that members of Congress had access to the same intelligence the president did is just demonstrably false. . . Why create a he said/she said, when the facts on the table are not in dispute?

Bad days for Cheney (and I must tell you, I can’t work up a smidgen of sympathy for him)

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/11/21/white_house_denies_bushcheney_rift.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003131.html

What Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush’s calls for “nothing less than victory” in Iraq never tell us

http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/11/21/13959/789

“Amazing”

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001525269
At a press conference with reporters along for his trip to China, President Bush found several questions relating to the current debate back in the States over the Iraq pullout plan pushed by Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.). . . Among other things, he said "the progress in Iraq is amazing" and rejected Murtha's complaint about Vice President Cheney, who received five deferments during the Vietnam war, questioning the "backbone" of Iraq war critics who had served in battle. "I don't think the Vice President's service is relevant in this debate," Bush said.

The rationale for “staying the course” takes a head-spinning turn (thanks to Athenae for the link)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/21/71012/484
“Back in 2002, we mocked and ridiculed anti-war critics who warned that our invasion of Iraq would spawn chaos and anarchy in that country, would allow Al Qaeda to operate freely, would trigger dangerous regional instability among Iraq's neighbors, and would unleash vicious sectarian tensions and lead to endless, violent civil wars.

As it turns out, the war critics were right about this and we were wrong. Even though we were snidely dismissive of these concerns before the war, this is exactly what our invasion has spawned. Just as they predicted - and just as we vehemently denied would occur - Iraq is a mess, a dangerous and unpredictable disaster.

For these reasons, we cannot leave Iraq any time soon and, instead, have to re-double our occupation and resign ourselves to being in Iraq for a long, long time.”

[Glenn Greenwald] In other words, the pro-war Right, amazingly, is now telling us: "what is happening in Iraq now is exactly what anti-war critics said would occur if we invaded and what we vehemently insisted would never happen, and as a result, you have to keep following our pro-war path because, given the utterly heinous mess we made in Iraq, we cannot possibly leave now."

Iraqi leaders call for early withdrawal of U.S. troops – NOW what does the Bush gang say?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aDLgOBgqARvw&refer=top_world_news

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/international/middleeast/22arab.htm

“The 9-11 Era is Now Over”

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=10647

Porter Goss defends the “unique” interrogation methods of the CIA

http://makeashorterlink.com/?N2CE2123C
[Reuters] "This agency does not do torture. Torture does not work," Goss said in an interview with USA Today. . . "We use lawful capabilities to collect vital information and we do it in a variety of unique and innovative ways, all of which are legal and none of which are torture," Goss told the newspaper.

For example?

http://crookedtimber.org/2005/11/21/not-torture/
4. Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.
5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.
6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner’s face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

Old Guard CIA agents come out against torture

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_20_digbysblog_archive.html#113260251820960071
"One of my main objections to torture is what it does to the guys who actually inflict the torture. It does bad things. I have talked to a bunch of people who had been tortured who, when they talked to me, would tell me things they had not told their torturers, and I would ask, 'Why didn't you tell that to the guys who were torturing you?' They said that their torturers got so involved that they didn't even bother to ask questions." Ultimately, he said -- echoing Gerber's comments -- "torture becomes an end unto itself.". . .

According to a 30-year CIA veteran currently working for the agency on contract, there is, in fact, some precedent showing that the "gloves-off" approach works -- but it was hotly debated at the time by those who knew about it, and shouldn't be emulated today. "I have been privy to some of what's going on now, but when I saw the Post story, I said to myself, 'The agency deserves every bad thing that's going to happen to it if it is doing this again,'" he said. "In the early 1980s, we did something like this in Lebanon. . . . But here's the important thing: When orders were given for that operation to stand down, some of the people involved wouldn't. . .”

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003127.html

More on the use of white phosphorus as a weapon

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/21/112055/88

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/21/phosphorus-chemical/
[Nico] To downplay the political impact of revelations that U.S. forces used deadly white phosphorus rounds against Iraqi insurgents in Falluja last year, Pentagon officials have insisted that phosphorus munitions are legal since they aren’t technically “chemical weapons.”

The media have helped them. For instance, the New York Times ran a piece today on the phosphorus controversy. On at least three occasions, the Times emphasizes that the phosphorus rounds are “incendiary munitions” that have been “incorrectly called chemical weapons.”

But the distinction is a minor one, and arguably political in nature. A formerly classified 1995 Pentagon intelligence document titled “Possible Use of Phosphorous Chemical” describes the use of white phosphorus by Saddam Hussein on Kurdish fighters:

IRAQ HAS POSSIBLY EMPLOYED PHOSPHOROUS CHEMICAL WEAPONS AGAINST THE KURDISH POPULATION IN AREAS ALONG THE IRAQI-TURKISH-IRANIAN BORDERS.

I know it is a shock to the Republicans to discover that there are a lot of DEMOCRATS serving in the military, and some of them are coming back to run for office. So, how do their patriotic, pro-military GOP opponents try to leverage their service against them (cf. Kerry, Cleland, Hackett)? Thanks to Atrios for the link

http://youngphillypolitics.com/node/419
"I think Mr. Lang's been out of town too long. . .”

Swift Boat II. The good ol’ Marine buddy that Jean Schmidt was quoting to label Murtha a “coward”? Just a plain-speaking jarhead speaking his mind? Think again

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/11/index.html#008406
Max Blumenthal performs the service of telling us just who this Marine constituent of Schmidt's is: surprise, surprise, a seasoned right-wing activist and operative.

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/who-is-mean-jeans-marine_b_10993.html

Oh, by the way. . .

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4665
Rep. Jean Schmidt's Maiden (first) Speech on the House Floor, September 6, 2005:

“This House has much work to do. On that we can all agree. We will not always agree on the details of that work. Honorable people can certainly agree to disagree. However, here today I accept a second oath. I pledge to walk in the shoes of my colleagues and refrain from name-calling or the questioning of character. . .”

Then in her second speech on the floor she called John Murtha a coward.

http://www.bluegrassreport.org/bluegrass_politics/2005/11/is_mean_jean_sc.html
Aside from offending a good chunk of America this weekend by calling Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA), a 37-year veteran of the Marine Corps, a coward, a quick glance at Rep. Jean Schmidt's (R-OH) campaign website seems to show that she may be violating House ethics rules regarding improper campaign activity. . .

And today we find out that Schmidt lied

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/politics/22murtha.html
A colonel in the Marine reserves has taken issue with how his views were represented in a Republican attack last week on Representative Murtha. . . [A] spokeswoman for the colonel, Danny R. Bubp, said Ms. Schmidt had misconstrued their conversation.

While Mr. Bubp, a Republican member of the Ohio House of Representatives, opposes a quick withdrawal for forces, "he did not mention Congressman Murtha by name nor did he mean to disparage Congressman Murtha," said Karen Tabor, his spokeswoman. "He feels as though the words that Congresswoman Schmidt chose did not represent their conversation."

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_20.php#007081

How the Murtha debate might help pass the anti-torture amendment

http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/11/how_the_murtha_.html

Now, one thing that has been very well-circulated over the past several days is that Libby’s lawyer (falsely) claimed that Bob Woodward’s announcement undermined Patrick Fitzgerald’s credibility because Fitzgerald supposedly said that Libby was “the first” leaker (and the leak to Woodward was well before that) -- ergo Fitzgerald is sloppy or ill-informed. But as EVERYONE has pointed out, Fitzgerald was actually quite careful to say that Libby was the first KNOWN leaker – only people trying to carry Libby’s or the Bush gang’s water would overlook that crucial difference

http://mediamatters.org/items/200511170011

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051205/delavega

Well, here’s Bob Woodward last night on Larry King:

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_20_atrios_archive.html#113262547961989774
“Then, the day of the indictment, I read the charges against Libby and looked at the press conference by the special counsel. And he said: The first disclosure of all of this was on June 23, 2003, by Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff, to "New York Times" reporter Judy Miller.”

[NB: Because this crucial element of the story has been recounted copiously in the press over the past week, how could Woodward be persisting in the mistake? He’s not stupid. He certainly understands the significance of the difference. The only other possibility is that he is, indeed, trying to carry Libby’s or the Bush gang’s water]

Transcript: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/duncanblack/booby.htm

How bad does Woodward come out of this looking?

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/21/tonight-on-larry-king-woodwards-disingenous-attempt-to-rehabilitate-himself/
[Faiz] There’s an easy explanation for why Fitzgerald didn’t know about this vital piece of information – because Woodward intentionally sought to keep it from him. The only person known to have had information regarding Woodward’s knowledge about Plame was Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus. And Woodward specifically told Pincus not to reveal that information to anyone. . .

First, Woodward told a fellow colleague about his information on Plame but instructed him not to share; then, he failed to disclose this information to his editors at the Post in order to — in his words — avoid a subpoena; then, he criticized Fitzgerald’s investigation; and finally, after failing to disclose his knowledge and realizing Fitzgerald was not aware of it, he sniffed a great story and went into “aggressive reporting mode.”

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2336
[Swopa] This "incredibly aggressive reporting mode" appears to have consisted of picking up a phone and calling his source. (Whoa, someone call the fire department, 'cause Bob's on fire! Stand back, I think he might be picking up a pen!!). . . But what's even stranger about this anecdote is that it contradicts what the Bobster just told Time magazine late last week:

In the final weeks before the grand jury indicted vice presidential aide I. Lewis ("Scooter") Libby on Oct. 28 for perjury and obstruction of justice, Woodward says he was asked by [Washington Post editor Leonard] Downie to help report on the status of the probe. In the course of his reporting, Woodward says, "I learned something more" about the disclosure of Plame's identity, which prompted him to admit to Downie for the first time that he had been told of Plame’s CIA job by a senior administration official in mid-June 2003.

According to Downie, this admission happened on Monday, October 24th. . . So, did Bob run to the phone booth and change into his SuperReporter tights and cape only after Libby was indicted, or was it a week or more beforehand? And is his shifting story covering up something he'd rather keep hidden? I hope we can find out.

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007613.php

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/this-is-guy-who-brought-down-nixon.html

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001526095

Live-blogging the interview: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/larry-king-live-blogging-bob-woodward.html

Why it’s bad news if it turns out that Dick Armitage was Woodward’s source

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2332

Persistent rumors that someone inside the Bush cartel is helping Fitzgerald’s investigation

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001099.html

Will the charges against Tom DeLay get thrown out by his new judge?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/11/21/will_delay_charges_be_thrown_out.html

Or will they be replaced by FEDERAL charges?

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/54766a12-5aeb-11da-8628-0000779e2340.html

Scanlon pleads

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007080.php
[Josh Marshall] Today must have been a very bad day for a handful of members of Congress, numerous current and former Hill staffers and others as yet unnamed. . . That's because today Michael Scanlon, Jack Abramoff's partner in much of the Indian gambling-congressional cash-n-carry hijinks you've been hearing about, pled guilty to bribe a congressman and other public officials. He agreed to pay back $19 million to Indian tribes he and Abramoff defrauded. He was also sentenced to 51 to 63 months in federal prison. . . However, that sentence was immediately suspended. And it will be reduced if Scanlon continues to cooperate with federal prosecutors.

The first thing to note is the political and legal fate of Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH). A few days ago a fellow blogger sent me a post in which he incorrectly stated that Ney was not running for reelection. I pointed out the error -- he'd confused him with retiring Ohio Rep. Mike Oxley (R). But I told him not to feel bad since he was right. Ney is retiring too; he just doesn't know it yet. . .

The little things that get buried in bigger bills: Repubs now want private companies and individuals to be able to buy up federal lands

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/politics/20land.html
[L]awyers who have parsed its language say the real beneficiaries could be real estate developers, whose business has become a more potent economic engine in the West than mining.

“Denver Three” suing over their ejection from a Bush town hall meeting -- by a WH staffer posing illegally as a Secret Service agent (now maybe we’ll find out who he is)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/aclu-sues-over-white-house-banning.html

Is Scott McClellan already being phased out?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/briefings/
Nov. 20, 2005
Press Briefing by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the President's Visit to China
Nov. 19, 2005
Press Briefing on the President's Visit to China by Mike Green, Special Assistant to the President for NSA and Faryar Shirzad, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy NSA for International Economic Affairs
Nov. 19, 2005
Press Briefing by Mike Green, Special Assistant to the President for NSA and Faryar Shirzad, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy NSA for International Economic Affairs
Nov. 18, 2005
Press Briefing with National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley on APEC Summit Meetings
Nov. 17, 2005
Press Briefing with Faryar Shirzad, Deputy NSA for International Economic Affairs, and Mike Green, Senior Director NSC for Asian Affairs, on the APEC Leaders Meetings and the President's Bilateral Meetings
Nov. 16, 2005
Press Briefing with Mr. Michael Green, Senior Director at the National Security Council for Asian Affairs, on the President's Bilateral with Prime Minister Koizumi
Nov. 16, 2005
Press Gaggle by Mike Green, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Faryar Shirzad, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs
Nov. 14, 2005
Press Briefing by National Security Advisor Steve Hadley
Nov. 10, 2005
Press Briefing by National Security Advisor Steve Hadley
Nov. 9, 2005
Press Briefing by Scott McClellan

[NB: Notice that his only public pronouncement recently was being shoved out to peddle the execrable John Murtha/Michael Moore garbage: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/17/20512/975]

Great point from Josh Marshall

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_20.php#007078
How many of the stories coming out now under the very broad heading of botched or manipulated intelligence could have been reported and written at more or less any time over the last two years? I suspect the answer is, the great majority of them. . . They're getting written now because the president's poor poll numbers make him a readier target.

I know I'm not saying anything most of you don't know. And better late than never, of course. But all working reporters and editors should consider what that says about the profession.

“Off Center”

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/11/index.html#008403

Bonus item: Okay, okay, THIRD worst President ever!

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/001669.html

***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 @ 6:35 AM

 
GOOD COP/BAD COP

Here is a serious question: exactly when, how, and by whom was the decision made to go to war in Iraq in the first place?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/rummy-says-bush-never-asked-his.html
"I didn't advocate invasion, I wasn't asked." - Rumsfeld on THIS WEEK, this morning.

Now keep in mind, Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State, says he wasn't asked either.

If true, that means George Bush went to war in Iraq without asking the opinion of the Secretary of Defense of the Secretary of State. Who did he get his advice from, anyone? Are they telling us the president of the United States, who had no foreign policy experience whatsoever, had never visited another country in his life (give or take one or two I believe), made a decision to go to war in Iraq without asking the advice of his top advisers on the issue?

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/24/timep.saddam.tm/
"F___ Saddam. we're taking him out." Those were the words of President George W. Bush, who had poked his head into the office of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. . . It was March 2002, and Rice was meeting with three U.S. Senators, discussing how to deal with Iraq through the United Nations, or perhaps in a coalition with America's Middle East allies. Bush wasn't interested. He waved his hand dismissively, recalls a participant, and neatly summed up his Iraq policy in that short phrase.

Bob Graham, former Senator from Florida, dismantles the woefully inadequate National Intelligence Estimate, the selective version of prewar intelligence the Bush gang deigned to share with Congress

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/18/AR2005111802397.html
In the past week President Bush has twice attacked Democrats for being hypocrites on the Iraq war. "[M]ore than 100 Democrats in the House and Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power," he said. . . The president's attacks are outrageous. Yes, more than 100 Democrats voted to authorize him to take the nation to war. Most of them, though, like their Republican colleagues, did so in the legitimate belief that the president and his administration were truthful in their statements that Saddam Hussein was a gathering menace -- that if Hussein was not disarmed, the smoking gun would become a mushroom cloud. . .

As chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, and the run-up to the Iraq war, I probably had as much access to the intelligence on which the war was predicated as any other member of Congress. . . I, too, presumed the president was being truthful -- until a series of events undercut that confidence.

In February 2002, after a briefing on the status of the war in Afghanistan, the commanding officer, Gen. Tommy Franks, told me the war was being compromised as specialized personnel and equipment were being shifted from Afghanistan to prepare for the war in Iraq -- a war more than a year away. Even at this early date, the White House was signaling that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was of such urgency that it had priority over the crushing of al Qaeda. . .

At a meeting of the Senate intelligence committee on Sept. 5, 2002, CIA Director George Tenet was asked what the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) provided as the rationale for a preemptive war in Iraq. An NIE is the product of the entire intelligence community, and its most comprehensive assessment. I was stunned when Tenet said that no NIE had been requested by the White House and none had been prepared. Invoking our rarely used senatorial authority, I directed the completion of an NIE.

Tenet objected, saying that his people were too committed to other assignments to analyze Saddam Hussein's capabilities and will to use chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons. We insisted, and three weeks later the community produced a classified NIE. . . There were troubling aspects to this 90-page document. While slanted toward the conclusion that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction stored or produced at 550 sites, it contained vigorous dissents on key parts of the information, especially by the departments of State and Energy. Particular skepticism was raised about aluminum tubes that were offered as evidence Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program. As to Hussein's will to use whatever weapons he might have, the estimate indicated he would not do so unless he was first attacked.

Under questioning, Tenet added that the information in the NIE had not been independently verified by an operative responsible to the United States. In fact, no such person was inside Iraq. Most of the alleged intelligence came from Iraqi exiles or third countries, all of which had an interest in the United States' removing Hussein, by force if necessary.

The American people needed to know these reservations, and I requested that an unclassified, public version of the NIE be prepared. On Oct. 4, Tenet presented a 25-page document titled "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs." It represented an unqualified case that Hussein possessed them, avoided a discussion of whether he had the will to use them and omitted the dissenting opinions contained in the classified version. . .

More: http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/20/95014/004

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/20/20552/212

How bad are the devastating Curveball disclosures for the Bush gang’s attempts to defend their case for war? If anyone were actually paying attention to this story, Bush would be in serious trouble

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2005/11/curveball-saga-gets-still-worse-mein.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_20.php#007072

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007601.php

Whatever you think of Murtha’s proposal, you can’t accuse him of just playing politics with this issue. Listen to him on Meet the Press

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/11/20.html#a5978

Murtha has the people on his side

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/9916

Murtha succeeds in stimulating a real debate about the state of war in Iraq, and what we can reasonably expect to come of it (nothing good). It is looking more and more likely that a protracted insurgency, a devolution into civil war between the Sunnis and Shias (if we aren’t there already), and a demand for partition and autonomy by the Kurds (who provide most of the capable soldiers Iraq has) are inevitable whether we stay or not. So the only honest question is: what then?

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/28432/

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_20_atrios_archive.html#113254434941173914

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/20/212447/58

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/20/214929/57

It could take at least two more years for the Iraqi army to become capable

http://www.juancole.com/2005/11/iraqi-army-not-ready-for-at-least-two.html

What will constitute “victory” in Iraq? How will we know?

http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/11/20/113026/36

One thing you know you won’t get from Donald Rumsfeld is an honest acknowledgment of the problems over there. The Master of Double Talk was all over the Sunday shows, but here is his most delusional interview, with Wolf Blitzer

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0511/20/le.01.html

SO typical. Disastrous policy errors? Blame others, treat it as a PR issue

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10118733/site/newsweek/
Murtha had known he would set off an explosion. He did. His arrival on the House floor was greeted with cheers from fellow Democrats, by dagger glances from Republicans. A near riot ensued. . . By a vote of 403-3, the House ultimately rejected a bowdlerized version of Murtha's resolution, which the GOP had crafted (without Murtha's permission) to sound as cravenly antiwar as possible. Seeing the obvious trap, virtually every Democrat, including Murtha, voted against it.

As Congress fled the capital for Thanksgiving, and Bush made his way back from a trip to Asia, White House aides were studying the political videotapes to see where they had lost control of events. Among those at fault, they decided, was GOP Sen. Bill Frist. . . But White House aides concede that they, too, were at fault for having assumed that Bush was personally unassailable and that events—and explanations of them—would take care of themselves. A war-room defense was "something we did well during the campaign," said Nicolle Wallace, Bush's communications director. "Maybe incorrectly, we had hoped or presumed that wouldn't be necessary after the election."

It is. The war room now is back, staffed with many of the same people who ran it in 2004, led by the Boy Genius himself, Karl Rove. To answer the charges that Bush "deliberately misled" the country on WMD, the White House is arguing that most Democrats—and most U.N. officials and European intelligence agencies—thought Saddam had WMD, too. . . But it's unclear how calling Democrats hypocrites will help revive Bush's personal reputation. Rather than undermine Bush's foes, the strategy seems unlikely to do more than remind voters of the undeniable fact that the WMD simply weren't there. And to make their case at all, White House strategists have been forced to use a tactic they studiously avoided in the campaign: deploying Bush himself as the attack dog. "Having the president engaged in the argument is not the first choice," says Sen. John Cornyn, a Texan who is close to Bush and Rove. But the president pressed ahead.

Cheney plays the heavy

http://www.slate.com/id/2130605/fr/rss/
[John Dickerson] Welcome back, Mr. Vice President—you're always good for the headlines. What was striking about Cheney's assault was that while denying critics' charges of manipulation and dishonesty involving prewar intelligence, he resorted to exactly the tactics that inspired the criticism. As he did with the prewar intelligence, Cheney told no outright lies, but he exaggerated the case, picked only evidence he liked, and ignored the caveats. Here's how he did it. . .

Who put Jean Schmidt up to it?

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/lying_in_politics_/2005/11/hat_trick.php

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/national/20ohio.html

Bush backs off his people’s McCarthyite tactics (and his own)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a4vylu.clx7g&refer=us
President George W. Bush sought to tone down the debate in the U.S. over the Iraq war, saying strong opinions on both sides were a sign of the issue's importance to the country. . . “People should feel comfortable about expressing their opinions about Iraq,'' Bush said today at a news conference in Beijing. “I heard somebody say, ‘well so-and-so is not patriotic because they disagree with my position.' I totally reject that thought.''. . .

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said last week that Murtha was aligning himself with extremists within his party. Vice President Dick Cheney, before Murtha made his proposal, accused administration critics on Nov. 16 of using the war to “play for political advantage.'' The president himself called some of his Democratic opponents “irresponsible.'' Today Bush said the critics “have every right to voice their dissent.''. . .

What Bush said

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007603.php
[Kevin Drum] At this risk of sounding ungracious, isn't it a little late in the game for Bush to express tolerance for dissent?

After all, only a week ago it was the president who said criticisms from Democrats "send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will." It was also his White House that issued a formal statement in response to Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), comparing him to Michael Moore -- for the Bush gang, a serious insult -- and suggesting that Murtha's position purports to "surrender to the terrorists." And it was the Vice President who offered similar rhetoric, lashing out at "a few opportunists" he believes are undermining the troops.

Indeed, at a press conference in Korea last week, a reporter told Bush that Dick Cheney called it "reprehensible" for critics to question how the administration took the country to war, while Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) said it's patriotic to ask those kinds of questions. Asked who he thinks is right, Bush said, "The Vice President."

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0511/18/ltm.02.html
JAMES RUBIN, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE: Good morning to you.

MILES O'BRIEN: It sure looks like -- -it kind of looks like civil war to me. What do you think?

RUBIN: Well, I'm not been one who wanted to say that Iraq was destined to have civil war fighting between the Sunnis and the Shiites. . . But what's really changed in the last week is these reports that the Shiite government has allowed some militias to run around and pick up Sunnis, to imprison them secretly and possibly even to torture them I think has done real, real damage to months and months of effort by the administration and others to try to get the Sunnis back in the political game. So with today's attacks, I think the specter of civil war looms ever larger for Iraq . . .

MILES O'BRIEN: All right. Let's factor in Congressman John Murtha's comments. Jack Murtha is a well-respected Democratic hawk. A man who served in two wars. A former Marine colonel. Said to really reflect, in many cases, the real feelings of military leadership. Not what they say publicly, necessarily. . .

RUBIN: Well, that's exactly right. I think the last time I was in Washington, I got the sense that at the colonel and one star general level, the military was beginning to consider how to escape this morass, rather than a year ago or two years ago they thought they could still win it. I think there is a feeling now that, among many, that it's unwinnable. . .

MILES O'BRIEN: Well, I don't think many people would suggest the president is in a mode to withdrawal early. But what about the notion when John Murtha says, let's leave now? Republicans say that, hey, that's like sending up the white flag.

RUBIN: Well, we've been there for two and a half years now and the idea that any time somebody disagrees with the president, they're accused of being either a coward or a surrender or a Neville Chamberlain or aiding and abetting the enemy. That's what's happened over the last week. . . On Veterans Day, President Bush said, if you disagree with him, if you make your arguments against the war or for withdrawal, that you're aiding and abetting the enemy. He said this on Veterans Day. It was a very unusual time to use rhetoric that I personally remember from the 2004 campaign, used by Republicans against Democrats. The campaign is over, Mr. President. It's time to just debate the issues and not accuse your critics of being wimps or unpatriotic or somehow aiding and abetting the enemy. . .

Washington Post vs. Washington Post

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/20/14110/011
[November 14] What Lieberman doesn't say is that many Democrats would view [loss of support for the Iraq Debacle] as an advantage. Their focus on 2002 is a way to further undercut President Bush, and Bush's war, without taking the risk of offering an alternative strategy -- to satisfy their withdraw-now constituents without being accountable for a withdraw-now position. . . Many of them understand that dwindling public support could force the United States into a self-defeating position, and that defeat in Iraq would be disastrous for the United States . . . [b]ut the taste of political blood as Bush weakens, combined with their embarrassment at having supported the war in the first place, seems to override that understanding.

[November 20] A SERIOUS congressional debate about Iraq is essential at a time when public support for the mission is falling and the danger of failure seems great. Aggressive challenges to the Bush administration's military and political strategy -- even calls for an immediate withdrawal of troops, such as that made by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) on Thursday -- must be part of that democratic discussion. Yet what we've mainly seen during the past two weeks is a shameful exercise in demagoguery and name-calling.

More on the Rendon Group

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_20_digbysblog_archive.html#113254956677343847

Ouch!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/20/AR2005112000827.html
Bush's Asia Trip Meets Low Expectations

Porter Goss praises the CIA’s “unique” methods

http://makeashorterlink.com/?F23A1613C

Captain Torture

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/20/torture/index.html
A former top State Department official said Sunday that Vice President Dick Cheney provided the "philosophical guidance" and "flexibility" that led to the torture of detainees in U.S. facilities.

Retired U.S. Army Col. Larry Wilkerson, who served as former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff, told CNN that the practice of torture may be continuing in U.S.-run facilities.

"There's no question in my mind that we did. There's no question in my mind that we may be still doing it," Wilkerson said on CNN's "Late Edition."

"There's no question in my mind where the philosophical guidance and the flexibility in order to do so originated -- in the vice president of the United States' office," he said. "His implementer in this case was [Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld and the Defense Department."

More on the Armitage/Hadley sweepstakes: get your wagers in soon

Armitage: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_20_digbysblog_archive.html#113251424617433366

Hadley: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1880016,00.html

More: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/11/20/woodwards_source_was_hadley.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007600.php

Could RICE be drawn into this mess?

http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z1C35313C

Did Rove know that Woodward had received a leak from someone and then force his hand into going public? (If so, how did Rove find out about it?)

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2005/11/cuckoo_clock.html#more

The White House says they won’t comment at all on the Plame investigation (except when they want to)

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/18/administration-commmenting

The spreading Abramoff scandal really has the Republicans worried – and with good reason

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/politics/20lobby.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/11/20/135557/29

Ohio Repubs try to shut down critical web site (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051119/NEWS01/511190330

World travelers

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_20_atrios_archive.html#113255102759349648

Bonus item: President Doofus

Photos: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_20_atrios_archive.html#113251453922701697

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_20_atrios_archive.html#113251242450015302

Video: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4454738.stm

No exit: http://billmon.org/archives/002341.html

***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 @ 6:37 AM

 
LOSS OF FAITH

Enjoy (thanks to Digby for the link)

http://www.slate.com/id/2130356/
[Bruce Reed] Back in August, when George W. Bush crossed the Mendoza Line with a disapproval rating in the Gallup Poll of 56 percent, he still had four men left to pass for the title of most unpopular president in modern history: Jimmy Carter (59 percent), George H. W. Bush (60 percent) Richard Nixon (66 percent), and Harry Truman (67 percent). I predicted that the way things were going, he could speed past Carter and Bush 41 "within the next month."

I was wrong—it took the president two months. This week's Gallup puts his disapproval at 60 percent, which means father and son share third place on the all-time list. . . It's an awesome achievement for one family to produce two of the four most unpopular presidents in modern times. If there were a Mount Rushmore for rejection, the Bushes would have half the place to themselves.

Revisiting “Curveball”: the smoking gun that the Bush gang knowingly used bogus intelligence to make the case for war

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-curveball20nov20,1,4140621.story

On actually getting Congress “the same information” that Bush had in making Iraq war decisions

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003116.html

The U.S. knew about Iraq’s torture chambers

http://billmon.org/archives/002340.html

A must-read from Atrios: why the fact that torture often gets you false information actually helps explain why it IS being used (and a very clever title: “It’s Not a Bug, It’s a Feature”)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_atrios_archive.html#113243236507389465

My sources suggest that John Murtha was almost certainly speaking on behalf of generals who are unwilling or unable to come out against the war publicly themselves – which puts a new spin on why he was savaged so badly for speaking out

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051117/ap_on_go_co/congress_iraq

No end game: why “stay until the job is done” is an applause line, not a policy

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007067

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/19/19417/422

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/_/2005/11/lies_versus_incompetence.php

Here is the simple fact: the Bush gang has ALREADY decided to begin at least token withdrawals soon, because they have to draw down numbers significantly before the elections a year from now. But they want this to be their Big Announcement, not an apparent response to pressure from Congress, and certainly not in response to demands from the Democrats. That makes all the talk about “cutting and running,” “betraying the troops,” etc. a complete distraction from the issue – and explains why the bill proposed by the Republicans HAD TO say “immediate withdrawal” (because a proposal to begin withdrawals within six months, which is closer to what Murtha was proposing, would have PASSED)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/19/10536/828

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/11/19/bush_rejects_iraq_withdrawl_pentagon_plans_one.html

When Congress comes back: Total war

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/politics/20cong.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/18/AR2005111802896.html

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10118733/site/newsweek/

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/11/19/iraq_takes_center_stage_for_2006.html

Why “fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them here,” while it sounds good, is actually an empty and dishonest excuse (thanks to Matt Youngblood for raising the issue)

http://clublefty.blogspot.com/2005/08/fighting-them-over-there.html

http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=1068

http://floridablues.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/11/fighting_them_o.html

The growing loss of faith in Bush Iraq policies by Republican wise men (thanks to David Prochaska for the link)

http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/projo_20051118_18landa.1b93ac53.html

“Iraq is Terri Schiavo”

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/iraq-is-terri-schiavo.html
[John Aravosis] Already dead, living on borrowed time, but the Republicans refuse to accept the inevitable. Yes, you can prolong the patient's life for decades. But at what cost, and for what real benefit?

The decline in Congressional oversight

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/20/congress_reduces_its_oversight_role

The best government money can buy

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-051118ashcroft-story,1,1889270.story
Less than a month after Oracle Corp. hired former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's lobbying firm, the Justice Department notified Oracle that an antitrust inquiry into its proposed $5.8 billion acquisition of a rival database software firm had been dropped.

The decision, announced Tuesday by the department, was no doubt welcome news for Ashcroft's budding lobbying and consulting career that began last May, just three months after he ended a tumultuous tenure as the nation's top law enforcement officer.

The Justice Department said the case was decided on its merits. . .

DOJ begins investigation into Halliburton’s war profiteering

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/19/international/middleeast/19contractor.html

How Bush policies are helping China expand its power

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/bush-duped-by-china-again.html

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpuno204519561nov20,0,158634.story

http://usinfo.state.gov/eap/Archive/2005/Jan/11-238754.html

http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2005/04/chinas-real-weapon.html

Armitage, Hadley, Armitage, Hadley. . . who is the unnamed source?

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013180.html

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013175.html

“Woodward’s Disgrace”

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2005/11/19/woodward/

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/bob-woodwards-firecrack_b_10894.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007597.php

The Washington Post ducks the issues

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/washington-post-ombudsman-lets.html

The New York Times does something good

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/19/21497/388
After an internal committee on credibility came up with more recommendations early this year, Bill Keller, the executive editor, further tightened the guidelines for the use of anonymous sources in June. The most notable change, at least for me: Readers are to be told why The Times believes a source is entitled to anonymity - a switch from the previous practice of stating why the source asked for it.

The rise of right wing media and the decline of independent news (thanks to Elaine Nissen for the link)

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18516

More (from David Noreen) http://tinyurl.com/c8khw

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003117.html

Recapturing Congress: 14 House races to watch

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/19/122947/13

Reframing, branding, and marketing: what the Dems still need to learn

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007068.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007069

The progressive church being investigated by the IRS for political activities (when the Bush gang is ACTIVELY ENCOURAGING AND FUNDING conservative churches to do the same) fights back hard

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/18/AR2005111802501.html

Bonus item: a new game to play at home – “Six Degrees of Karl Rove”

http://rockthrower.blogs.com/rockthrower/2005/11/is_karl_rove_th.html

***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 @ 7:51 AM

 
IT IS WHAT IT IS

Interesting. Yesterday the NYT listed Stephen Hadley as one of the offices issuing flat denials that they were Woodward’s source (despite a Raw Story article naming him). Well, it turns out that Hadley’s “denial” wasn’t, really

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/18/hadley-coy/
Q Were you the administration official who talked with Bob Woodward about the identity of a CIA operative?

MR. HADLEY: I have seen press reports that — and only press reports — that Bob Woodward has talked about, I guess, three sources from the administration that he had. I’ve also seen press reports from White House officials saying that I am not one of his sources.

The AP adds:

Leaving the room, Hadley was asked if his answer amounted to a yes or a no. ‘’It is what it is,'’ he said.

It has NEVER been explained why Rove contacted Hadley (Rice’s Deputy National Security Advisor at the time) immediately after leaking Plame’s name to Matt Cooper

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050717-121150-3026r.htm

More evidence that it was Hadley

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013165.html

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Sources_who_identified_Hadley_as_Woodwards_1118.html

Or, some other possibilities

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003106.html
[Reuters] Woodward's sworn deposition sparked renewed speculation about who first leaked Plame's identity, and sent Bush administration officials scrambling to deny involvement.

A lawyer in the case said Woodward's source had not previously testified before a grand jury.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman would not answer directly whether Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was Woodward's source. . .

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003100.html
[Laura Rozen] It changes by the day, but now I'm thinking it was [Powell’s Deputy Sect’y of State Richard] Armitage. We know he had opportunity. . .

CNN helpfully suggests that we may never know Woodward’s source (I think they’re wrong about that – I think we will know, and soon)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/18/woodward.source/index.html

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013165.html
[Jeralyn Merritt] The New York Times reports that the Washington Post editor Leonard Downie, Jr. has said if one of the paper's other reporters figures out who Bob Woodward's source is, the paper might publish it. Also, Woodward is still pushing the source for a full release. It sounds like the source will have a choice of "out yourself" or "get outed."

Fascinating: why Woodward’s source decided to come forward

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1132544,00.html
In his press conference announcing Libby’s indictment, Fitzgerald noted that, "Mr. Libby was the first official known to have told a reporter when he talked to Judith Miller in June of 2003 about Valerie Wilson." Woodward realized, given that the indictment stated Libby disclosed the information to New York Times reporter Miller on June 23, that Libby was not the first official to talk about Wilson's wife to a reporter. Woodward himself had received the information earlier.

According to Woodward, that triggered a call to his source. "I said it was clear to me that the source had told me [about Wilson's wife] in mid-June," says Woodward, "and this person could check his or her records and see that it was mid-June. My source said he or she had no alternative but to go to the prosecutor. I said, 'If you do, am I released?'", referring to the confidentiality agreement between the two. The source said yes, but only for purposes of discussing it with Fitzgerald, not for publication.

Woodward said he had tried twice before, once in 2004 and once earlier this year, to persuade the source to remove the confidentiality restriction, but with no success.

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007592.php

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007593.php

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_digbysblog_archive.html#113235783178434398

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/bob-woodwards-firecrack_b_10894.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003111.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003115.html

Who’s funding Libby’s defense?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/19/politics/19libby.html

Fitzgerald’s not finished

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/18/hadley-coy/
[WSJ] The White House now must brace itself for the possibility that Mr. Fitzgerald’s probe, far from winding down, may have just gotten a second wind. Prosecutors deposed Mr. Woodward in anticipation of presenting that evidence to a new grand jury, according to a person familiar with the situation.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/18/AR2005111800958.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/politics/18cnd-leak.html

[NB: Just to remind, you don’t involve a grand jury unless you are seriously contemplating filing charges – we’re ‘way past the investigative fact-gathering stage]

Some Fitzgerald documents will be released to the public (oh boy, more work for me!)

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003103.html

If the news media won’t investigate Plame properly, he will

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10625
The press -- and Fitzgerald -- has mostly focused on whether a criminal act occurred when one or more of these officials passed the info to reporters. But Lechliter argues that a perhaps more important question is this: Have the above officials violated federal rules by privately sharing classified information with each other? Lechliter argues, compellingly, that there’s little doubt that the above officials had no “need-to-know” this information. Therefore, he continues, one or more of them may have violated the executive order simply by passing the information on to a colleague without a “need-to-know” it. . . . “Clearance does not entitle a government employee to access to all [classified] information, but only to that material necessary to perform his or her valid government function,” Lechliter writes. “I cannot conceive of any plausible reason,” he continues, for these senior officials to “have a need to know the status of Mrs. Wilson.”

A disturbing trend, to be sure: another judge (non-Plame) pressures a reporter to give up the names of confidential sources

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/17/AR2005111701567.html

Republicans propose a silly and dishonest resolution calling for “immediate withdrawal from Iraq” for no other purpose than to force Dems to vote against it. They seem to think that this is some kind of repudiation of John Murtha’s comments. Two little problems: (1) almost no Congressional Democrats actually believe in IMMEDIATE withdrawal; (2) that wasn’t at all what Murtha was proposing

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/19/national/19military.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-usiraq19nov19,1,5403030.story

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Congress-Iraq.html

“Unraveled” http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/house-unraveled-tonight.html

“A new low” http://blogs.salon.com/0000014/2005/11/18.html#a934

“Shut up and clap louder” http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/18/181052/44

“Smear stunt fails” http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/18/214917/81

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007066

Here was the low point of the evening’s festivities

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Congress-Iraq.html
At one point in the emotional debate, Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, told of a phone call she received from a Marine colonel. . . ''He asked me to send Congress a message -- stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message -- that cowards cut and run, Marines never do,'' Schmidt said. Murtha is a 37-year Marine veteran and ranking Democrat on the defense appropriations subcommittee. . . Democrats booed and shouted her down -- causing the House to come to a standstill.

Don’t miss the video: http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/18/schmidt-shame/


A “career ending speech” http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/11/18/schmidt_makes_potentially_career_ending_speech.html

Schmidt “withdraws” the comments: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/18/184555/64

[NB: The key question is, Who put her up to this? Or does a freshman Congresswoman come up with something like this on her own?]

What Murtha actually proposed, and what the Republicans cobbled together for their sham vote

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/18/163220/03

http://www.juancole.com/2005/11/straw-man-resolution-in-congress.html

A great Murtha story

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/_/2005/11/no_purple_hearts_for_friendly_fire.php
Several times a year, Murtha travels to Iraq to assess the war on the ground, and sometimes he just calls up generals to get firsthand accounts.

His voice cracked and tears filled his eyes as he related stories of one of his visits to wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

One man, he said, was blinded and lost both his hands but had been denied a Purple Heart because friendly fire caused his injuries.

"I met with the commandant. I said, 'If you don't give him a Purple Heart, I'll give him one of mine.' And they gave him a Purple Heart," said Murtha, who has two.

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003102.html

Republicans now threaten an ETHICS investigation of Murtha (could it be any more transparent?)

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/1_1/breakingnews/11329-1.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007594.php

Thugs: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_digbysblog_archive.html#113236876347570047

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/11/con05441.html

Oh, by the way: in other news. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/18/234249/47
The top U.S. commander in Iraq has submitted a plan to the Pentagon for withdrawing troops in Iraq. . . Gen. George Casey submitted the plan to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It includes numerous options and recommends that brigades -- usually made up of about 2,000 soldiers each -- begin pulling out of Iraq early next year. . .

[NB: Another “cut and run” traitor to the troops!]

The “Pro-military Administration” is destroying the military – and when John Murtha says it, you know it’s true

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/national/18recruit.html
The military is falling far behind in its effort to recruit and re-enlist soldiers for some of the most vital combat positions in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new government report.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/cnn-army-recalling-18000-body-armor.html
Army recalling 18,000 body armor vests

Is Bush going to leave the tough call of withdrawing troops to the next administration?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/ws-no-new-taxes-for-iraq.html

Lame Duck Quacking

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/politics/18cnd-spend.html
In Setback for Bush, Congress Fails to Pass His Proposals

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/11/index.html#008384

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4666

Patriot Act renewal stymied

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/19/patriot_act_extension_shelved/

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-patriot19nov19,1,2775864.story

I like this idea. The Repubs love to propose new constitutional amendments willy-nilly (like flag-burning) for the crassest of political reasons – and often with little intention of ever actually seeing them pass. But such proposals are highly effective for fund-raising, organizing, and motivating activists. So here’s a serious proposal for the Dems: propose an explicit Privacy Amendment, now. Don’t leave it up to the Supreme Court – and get the Repubs on record for voting against it

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/18/1264/8324

I suppose this is what they mean when they say Bush is in “campaign mode” – your poll numbers are down, your policies are increasingly unpopular, so what do you do? Try to increase the negatives for your opponent

Or, to put this in more colorful terms, when you’re a moral midget, you need to cut off everyone else’s legs. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/bushrnc-running-attack-ads-against.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/11/18/BL2005111801539.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007055
[Josh Marshall] Some of the White House jabs against their critics these days are so fatuous and simple-minded that it's hard not to step back every so often and wonder if they're even serious.

One of the silliest goes like this. We invaded because Iraq was "a threat". And all the Democrats agree that Iraq was "a threat". And, heck, here's this quote from Bill Clinton saying that Saddam was "a threat". So clearly everyone agreed with the president. So what's the problem?

Perhaps it seems like I'm oversimplifying the argument. But I really must plead its inherently moronic nature. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/19/33312/448
[Reuters] Fighting a decline in public support for the Iraq war and his own leadership, U.S. President George W. Bush and Republican allies have chosen to court his political base with a campaign-style offensive against Democrats.

The Republican National Committee on Friday unveiled a new television advertisement accusing Senate Democrats of dishonesty for turning against a war they originally supported, although polls show the broad U.S. public following a similar track from support to disillusionment.

It was the latest volley in an offensive Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney launched last week to attack war critics as unpatriotic and hypocritical.

[Hunter] The following is merely a small, niggling detail, but it struck me as one of those minor moments that could presage something bigger. . . On Countdown tonight, Newsweek's Howard Fineman was tapped with commenting on the Republican attack on Murtha, which has now devolved into Republicans asserting they will launch an ethics probe of Murtha in explicit retaliation for his stance on the Iraq War. . . Fineman was somewhere between somber and simmering, from the first moment of the interview to the last. Professional, yes, but the raw darkness of the mood was striking. . .

Fineman was remarkably blunt in his assertions that the "ethics" and other attacks on Murtha are being orchestrated by Karl Rove -- by name -- and the White House, which intends to hit Murtha with everything "necessary". He stated directly that the White House sees everything as a political operation. He was blunt in Murtha's record and leadership position in the war, and in attributing to Murtha the behind-the-scenes voices of many top Pentagon voices who are unhappy with both the state of the war effort and with Rumsfeld's planning in the specific. . . In short, he made it perfectly, bitterly clear that the White House itself sees Murtha as a tremendous threat, considers itself at war with Murtha, and that Rove -- again, by name -- intends to hit him with everything at the administration's disposal.

And without betraying any secrets of the Washington press corps, I'd have to say that Fineman, for one, met the airways today genuinely either angry or disgusted with the effort. . . The press isn't having fun anymore.

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003112.html

Big, big news: Abramoff associate (and former DeLay aide) Michael Scanlon pleads, agrees to testify

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007062

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007063

DeLay still fundraising furiously (get it while you can, Bug Man)

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/11/18/delays_fundraising_continues.html

Chevron exec reiterates claim that no one from his company met with Cheney’s energy task force (though the others did). Will the Senate bring these guys back to testify and put them under oath?

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/13205982.htm

Calling a spade a spade: Georgia’s RACIST new voter law

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007590.php

More: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/1105/18natvra.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/16/AR2005111602504.html

Well, I guess we can say once and for all that Fox News HAS become the official government “news” network

http://mediamatters.org/items/200511180007

Credit where it’s due: Charles Krauthammer doesn’t get much praise from me, but he does an excellent job of slamming the intellectual hypocrisy known as “intelligent design”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/17/AR2005111701304.html

As does the Vatican! (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.ksat.com/technology/5356705/detail.html
The Vatican's chief astronomer said Friday that Intelligent Design Theory isn't science and doesn't belong in science classrooms, the latest high-ranking Roman Catholic official to enter the evolution debate in the United States. . . "Intelligent design isn't science even though it pretends to be," the ANSA news agency quoted Coyne as saying on the sidelines of a conference in Florence. "If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science."

By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask: why doesn’t anyone point out that “intelligent design” is INCOMPATIBLE with biblical creationism? Yet the advocates of creationism seem to be supporting ID as an alternative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design

Though I suppose that expecting consistency from people who think these are serious theories in the first place is asking too much

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_digbysblog_archive.html#113237532329983404

How the “morning after pill” got buried by the FDA – and why it may never see the light of day

http://www.alternet.org/story/28364/

Bonus item: off the wagon?

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4672



***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 @ 7:56 AM

 
ON THE RECORD

Is there a position for this guy in the Bush administration?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/11/17/iraq.detainees/index.html
Iraq's interior minister has defended a government facility that was found to be holding dozens of prisoners, including some showing signs of torture, saying it held "the most criminal terrorists.". . . "Nobody was beheaded or killed," a defiant Bayan Jabr told a news conference Thursday, saying that only seven of 170 detainees showed marks of torture.

http://csmweb2.emcweb.com/2005/1117/p12s01-woiq.html
The revelation of torture of detainees at a secret interrogation center in Baghdad is likely to prove the tip of the iceberg if investigations are widened to look at the overall practices of Iraq's security services, human rights advocates and some Iraqi politicians say.

More: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-11-17-iraq_x.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/17/international/middleeast/17cnd-Iraq.html

Hmmmm. . . torture chain goes right to the top. Sound familiar?

http://www.slate.com/id/2130649
[Eric Umansky] Earlier this week, the NYT quoted a source saying the units in charge of the center [reported] directly to the interior minister. And indeed, as the papers have mentioned in passing, the minister is a "former" top member of the same Shiite militia that now makes up those units. . . Also, the papers play up the U.S. embassy saying, "We have made clear to the Iraqi government there must not be militia or sectarian control or direction of Iraqi Security Forces, facilities or ministries." Which is very nice and very misleading. The reality seems to be that the U.S. long ago acceded to such control.

Oh, the ironies!

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/the_war_in_iraq_/2005/11/the_iraq_torture_story.php

Former CIA Director: yes, the US is torturing, and Cheney’s right in the middle of it

http://www.itv.com/news/index_1447362.html

What they’re doing

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2005/11/the_barbarians_manning_the_gates.html

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2005/11/requiem.html

Appalling. First, the military says they only used white phosphorus for battlefield illumination, not as a weapon. Then within days they admit that yes, they had used it as a weapon, but only against troops, not civilians. Now. . .

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2321

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/us-denies-using-white-phoshorus-on.html

[NB: Well, so we aren’t burning up civilians INTENTIONALLY. Great]

Democratic Congressman John Murtha, conservative, hawkish, comes out four-square against this pointless war, and what it has done to our military, our national decency, and our international credibility

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/11/index.html#008379
“The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public is way ahead of us. The United States and coalition troops have done all they can in Iraq, but it is time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We can not continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interest of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf Region. . . “

More: http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/18/34833/012

So of course he gets attacked in the most hateful, dishonest terms possible

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051117-7.html
Congressman Murtha is a respected veteran and politician who has a record of supporting a strong America. So it is baffling that he is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party. The eve of an historic democratic election in Iraq is not the time to surrender to the terrorists. After seeing his statement, we remain baffled -- nowhere does he explain how retreating from Iraq makes America safer.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/17/murtha.iraq/

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/17/222020/93

But Murtha’s comments do have one unintended benefit: they get Bush and the Repubs on record that they want to have troops over there a long, long time

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/bush-gop-congressional-leaders-say-we.html
[John Aravosis] The White House and the Congressional Republican leadership have responded to Rep. Murtha, loud and clear. They say we are STAYING in Iraq. We are going to keep our 160,000 troops there, we are going to keep watching them die every single day, we are going to keep fueling the flames of anti-American hatred, and we are going to keep doing all we can to help Al Qaeda increase its recruitment and training so that they can kill more Americans in the future.

The reponse was clear. The Republicans will NOT pull out of this war, they will keep fighting and fighting and fighting no matter WHAT the facts on the ground.

You like Iraq, you think we're winning, you want to send YOUR children over there? Then vote Republican.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/17/AR2005111701305.html
[E.J. Dionne] This will be remembered as the week when President Bush lost control over the Iraq war debate. His administration has perhaps six months to get things right. If the situation in Iraq fails to improve significantly, public pressure for withdrawal will become irresistible. . . There was a political thunderclap across the capital yesterday when Rep. John Murtha -- Marine veteran, defense specialist, longtime hawk and traditional supporter of presidential prerogatives in foreign policy -- called for pulling American troops out of Iraq. . .

A contrary view: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2322

Murtha on Cheney

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007054
"I like guys who've never been there that criticize us who've been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done."

[NB: Hey, tough guy – meet a REAL tough guy]

Cheney: what a miserable human being

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/nl/newsletter2.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=917053
"And the suggestion that's been made by some U. S. senators that the President of the United States or any member of this Administration purposely misled the American people on pre-war intelligence is one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city."
-- Vice President Dick Cheney, 11/16/05

VERSUS

"In a July 2003 report, a CIA review panel found that agency analysts were subjected to 'steady and heavy' requests from administration officials for evidence of links between Iraq and al-Qaida, which created 'significant pressure on the Intelligence Community to find evidence that supported a connection.'"
-- Knight-Ridder, 11/17/05

CHENEY SAID IT WAS AN 'ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY' IRAQ WAS DEVELOPING NUCLEAR WEAPONS: On September 8, 2002, Cheney said, "[I]t is now public that, in fact, he has been seeking to acquire, and we have been able to intercept and prevent him from acquiring through this particular channel, the kinds of [aluminum] tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge. ... We do know, with absolute certainty, that [Saddam Hussein] is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon." Cheney "was referring to the aluminum tubes." At the time, "[t]he Department of Energy, the Nation’s foremost nuclear weapons experts, and the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, did not believe the aluminum tubes were for centrifuges to make nuclear weapons." After the invasion, months of inspections "found no evidence of hidden centrifuges or a revived nuclear weapons program."

CHENEY SAID IT WAS 'PRETTY WELL CONFIRMED' THAT IRAQI INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS MET WITH A 9/11 HIJACKER: On December 9, 2001, Vice President Cheney said it was "pretty well confirmed, that [one of the 9/11 hijackers, Mohammed Atta] did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack." The CIA has stated publicly that it didn't have "any credible information" that the meeting took place. The bi-partisan 9/11 Commission concluded the meeting did not occur. Even after the 9/11 Commission issued their findings, Cheney refused to back away from his statements. In June 2004, he stated that "we just don't know" whether the meeting took place.

CHENEY SAID THAT IRAQ TRAINED AL-QAEDA TERRORISTS: On December 2, 2002, Vice President Cheney claimed that Saddam Huissen's regime "has had high-level contacts with al Qaeda going back a decade and has provided training to al Qaeda terrorists." It wasn't true and the administration knew it. According to the New York Times the information came from a detainee "identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons." A February 2002 document by the Defense Intelligence Agency said that the detainee Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, ''was intentionally misleading the debriefers.''

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003092.html

Did Bush’s own advisors lie to him?

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/17/173326/24

WH trying very hard to push back against an accusation that has already been proven beyond doubt

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051115-1.html

Selling the war: literally

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/11/17/13/04/hackery/
“We lost control of the context,” Rendon warned. “That has to be fixed for the next war.”

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003095.html

Fitzgerald to present evidence to a new grand jury (yes!)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/17/215947/54

Lots of people deny that they’re Woodward’s source: Cheney, Hadley, Feith

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013158.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007586.php

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003097.html

[NB: I predict we will know the answer to this question within a matter of days]

(By the way, the Feith investigation opens – but it’s the Pentagon Inspector General, so expect nothing but a lot of stalling to help delay the “Phase Two” report on Iraq war lies)

http://makeashorterlink.com/?L2AA12E2C

The Post takes a lot of heat, just as the Times did, for excusing and tolerating actions by a “star” reporter that would have gotten anyone else fired on the spot

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001524052

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlDC/newspapers/a_leaky_post_newsroom_28379.asp#more

More: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013159.html

Damn, I was going to post this, but Digby got it first

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_atrios_archive.html#113215106485642460
[CNN] KING: Are reporters -- and when "Time" magazine turned over the papers, their editor said, "we're not above the law." When it comes down it to, this is what the law said, we comply. Are you above the law?

WOODWARD: No. Clearly, we're not above the law. But frequently, people disobey the law. And when you do so, you have to be willing to accept the consequences. And in this case, the consequences, I guess, are a four-month jail sentence, and Judy Miller's willing to do that, to stand on this principle of trust. You know, I...

KING: You said you would have done it, too?

WOODWARD: I would have done it, too. And in fact, you know, maybe I shouldn't say this, but I will ...

KING: Go ahead.

WOODWARD: ... because it came to mind. If the judge would permit it, I would go serve some of her jail time, because I think the principle is that important, and it should be underscored. It's not a casual idea that we have confidential sources. It is absolutely vital. And I'll bet there are all kinds of reporters out there, if we could divvy up this four-month jail sentence -- I suspect the judge would not permit that, but if he would, I'll be first in line. It's that important to our business.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/16/AR2005111601286.html
"I'm in the habit of keeping secrets. . . I didn't want anything out there that was going to get me subpoenaed."

Digby: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_digbysblog_archive.html#113227311632287125

A few good questions for Woodward

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/15-questions-for-bob-wood_b_10821.html

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013157.html

http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/17/224757/80
[Matt Yglesias] Who told Bob Woodward that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA? The speculation continues. I have this crazy idea. What if there were a major newspaper located in the nation's capital? What if this newspaper employed, among other people, probably the most famous reporter in the country? What if this reporter knew the answer to the question? Wouldn't it be great if he told us all, the reading public, in an article written in his newspaper? Why wouldn't he do a thing like that?

Officially, he needs to protect his source's confidentiality. But this whole situation arose because the source came forward and identified himself to Patrick Fitzgerald. And Woodward's already testified about it. So confidentiality would seem to be off the table. So why doesn't Woodward write the article?

Ooooh, Bobby doesn’t LIKE being asked tough questions

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_digbysblog_archive.html#113228557436783955

Woodward, the Ultimate Washington Insider

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_atrios_archive.html#113225080331369418

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/
[Eric Alterman] The thing about Bob Woodward is that he long ago ceased to be a journalist. I’ve pointed out in the past that in bragging in the prefaces of his two books about the war that he received copies of classified notes from NSC meetings, and having the contents of those meetings leaked to him by participants, Woodward is participating in the commission of exactly the kinds of crimes Mr. Fitzgerald is now investigating. Nobody thought to investigate Woodward because he was so obviously acting as the chosen Bush administration vehicle for getting this information out the way it wanted to see it. . . In any case, Woodward acted as a quasi-official propaganda minister, whose practices were above the law. Now we know he no longer even thinks of himself as a journalist, nor believes he has any professional or moral obligation to his employer or profession, much less to informing the public of the truth. No wonder he is the most “successful” journalist in the profession, and really, how depressing.

No, we aren’t going to let this lie take root: Woodward’s disclosures do NOTHING to get Libby off the hook for his blatant and repeated perjury

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007585.php
[Kevin Drum] Fitzgerald didn't indict Libby for being the first person to tell a reporter about Plame. In fact, he didn't indict Libby for leaking Plame's status at all. He was indicted for lying about how he found out about Plame. Libby testified to the grand jury that Tim Russert had told him about Plame in July, when in fact he found out about her in June from CIA and State Department sources.

I don't blame Libby's lawyer for trying to throw up some smoke over this. That's his job. But the facts in the indictment are pretty straightforward, and I don't really understand why anyone not connected with Libby is falling for the smokescreen. It's pretty thin stuff.

More: http://mediamatters.org/items/200511170011

Will the Senators bring the lying oil execs back for more testimony (under oath, this time)?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007050

Sorry (ha, ha, ha) – having trouble – can’t stop (ho, ho, ho) laughing – Frist investment scandal EXPANDING

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/17/national/17frist.html

DeLay scandal could eventually embroil his successor, Roy Blunt, too

http://www.slingshot.org/2005/11/17/delay-investigation-expanding-to-blunt/

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/17/politics/17delay.html

http://rockthrower.blogs.com/rockthrower/2005/11/abramoff_to_fed.html

The Tomlinson/Rove connection

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003094.html

More: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aHe_046cYvC4&refer=top_world_news

Dems may filibuster Patriot Act II

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/national/18patriot.html

Are Republicans getting squeamish about the actual prospects of overturning Roe?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003093.html

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/16/AR2005111602088.html

Bush’s collapse in REPUBLICAN support

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/11/17/bush_losing_his_base.html

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1151AP_Bush_Iraq_Analysis.html

Good news for the Dems in 2006

http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/11/17/135443/11

Bonus item: Dubya, the Movie

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2005/11/dubya_the_movie.html

Extra bonus: I hope this doesn’t offend anyone

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013156.html

***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 @ 6:56 AM

 
BOB’S BOMBSHELL

Who was Woodward’s source?

Dick Cheney? http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/11/et_tu_mr_cheney.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007579.php

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/11/16/BL2005111601183.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns
ABC News's The Note reports that "a senior Administration official, speaking to ABC News' Jessica Yellin, 'laughed' at the suggestion that Cheney was Woodward's source."

David Wurmser? http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013135.html

Fred Fleitz? http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/11/bobby-has-secret.html

Stephen Hadley! http://rawstory.com/news/2005/National_Security_Adviser_was_Woodwards_source_1116.html

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/006039.php
[Steve Soto] There are so many ways that this revelation is lethal for the Bush White House.

If Hadley came forward to tell Fitzgerald that he was releasing Woodward from any pledge of confidentiality, what and who prompted Hadley to do this? Did Scooter or Cheney force Hadley’s hand, knowing that Libby wasn’t the first to talk with reporters about Plame’s identity? Remember that just before the Libby indictment, there were stories that Hadley assumed he would be indicted.

Nothing in Woodward’s story changes the fact that Scooter allegedly lied to the FBI and grand jury, but it does give Libby a chance to plea to something lesser now if he is motivated to do so. And please, spare me the line that Woodward only knew from Hadley that she was an analyst working on WMDs, because the guy who wrote “Veil” would also know from this that she would be working on the Directorate of Operations side of the Agency, in other words, the NOC side.

If Hadley was in fact the first administration official to talk to a member of the media about Plame’s identity, and knowingly revealing that she was a possible covert operative due to her assignment in the Directorate of Operations, how plausible is it that his boss at the time didn’t know about this either. You know, his boss, the current Secretary of State?

And which is worse for Bush: the fact that he knowingly promoted two people to senior positions in the government (Secretary of State and NSA) who may have been involved in this, and lying about his knowledge of this all this time to the American people in advance of a presidential election, or not knowing any of this was going on right underneath his nose for the last two years. And tell me again why, if Bush did know this, did he let both Condi and Hadley keep their security clearances, to this day?

This definitely pulls the whole thing inside the Oval Office, and “high crimes and misdemeanors” is back in the lexicon. The president's current NSA talked to a reporter about the identity of a critic's wife, who happened to work at the Agency on WMDs, and we are supposed to believe that Condi, our current Secretary of State and the NSA at the time kept this information from Bush?

More: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013142.html

Strange doings: the Post argues, unconvincingly, that the Woodward disclosure helps Libby

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/16/AR2005111602147.html

No it doesn’t!

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-leak17nov17,1,1960673.story

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9665308/#051116a

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/16/14442/211

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/17/54259/511

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007043

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/washington-post-conveniently-twists.html

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013147.html

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/16/134437/95

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/11/17/06/09/ahem-6/

Here’s what it does show: a conspiracy

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/growing-signs-of-criminal-conspiracy.html
[John Aravosis] I'm sorry, but we now have Karl, Scooter, and a third senior official all just "happening" to be telling numerous journalists that Amb. Wilson's wife is a CIA agent, yet we're to believe that this is NOT part of a coordinated conspiracy to spread that info? It was all just random chance that official after official kept leaking the info to the media's top players - NYT, Wash Post, NBC, TIME, etc. We're to believe it was simply "random chance", or an innocent slip of the tongue, as I believe Bob Woodward called it, that 3 senior officials all happened to "slip" in talking to the top media outlets in the nation. Now, mind you, the top officials apparently didn't slip when talking to the Topeka Times or the Billings Gazette (or any other small-bit newspaper), they only "slipped" when talking to the biggest news outlets that could broadcast this "gaffe" worldwide.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007576.php
[Kevin Drum] We now know the names of at least five reporters who were told by administration officials that "Joe Wilson's wife" worked at the CIA:

1 Bob Woodward ("In mid-June 2003 [an administration official] told me Wilson's wife worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction as a WMD analyst.")

2 Judith Miller ("On the afternoon of June 23, 2003...Mr. Libby raised the subject of Mr. Wilson's wife for the first time. I told Mr. Fitzgerald that I believed this was the first time I had been told that Mr. Wilson's wife might work for the C.I.A.")

3 Matt Cooper ("I told the grand jurors that I was curious about Wilson when I called Karl Rove on Friday, July 11....As for Wilson's wife, I told the grand jury I was certain that Rove never used her name....Rove did, however, clearly indicate that she worked at the "agency"....I have a distinct memory of Rove ending the call by saying, 'I've already said too much.'")

4 Walter Pincus ("On July 12, 2003, an administration official...veered off the precise matter we were discussing and told me that [Joe Wilson's trip to Niger] was set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction.")

5 Robert Novak (July 14, 2003: "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report.")

And we know there were at least four administration officials involved in leaking this information:

1 Scooter Libby

2 Karl Rove

3 Bob Woodward's "senior administration official"

4 Robert Novak's original source

(It's possible that #3 and #4 are the same person, but I suspect they're not. Woodward's source mentioned only "Joe Wilson's wife" while Novak's source actually gave him the name "Valerie Plame."). . .

So: Just a coincidental series of offhand remarks about the exact same information — all off the record — or a calculated campaign to leak Plame's status? You make the call.

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2311
[Swopa] The more relevant question is, why is all this coming out now? Remember that just before Fitzmas Day on Oct. 28th, there were reports that Libby and Karl Rove's defenders were whining about other leakers and asking why their heroes were facing indictment if these unnamed others weren't. Also, in a CNN Oct. 27th excerpt that Atrios flagged last night, a White House source was hinting to Newsweek's Michael Isikoff (a known favorite for Rove-friendly leaks) that Woodward knew more than he was telling.

Which leads to a guess that others have already made -- somehow, Woodward's source was revealed by Karl Rove's Hail Mary pass to avoid indictment at the last second. But who did Rove stab in the back to save himself? Given that Fitzgerald didn't know about Woodward until now, it has to be someone who didn't testify previously ... or, someone who did testify but didn't tell the whole truth.

The contradiction of Rove exposing another Plame leaker is that it actually strengthens the case that a conscious conspiracy existed to reveal the identity of a CIA agent to the press. But to a desperate Rove, maybe the value of undermining a witness who had testified against him was worth it.

Remember when Bob Woodward was a hero of brave investigative journalism and speaking truth to power? No more, baby

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/16/AR2005111601286.html
"I'm in the habit of keeping secrets. . . I didn't want anything out there that was going to get me subpoenaed."

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2311
[Joe Wilson, August 2005] [T]he great irony in all of this is that, of course, Woodward was hanging around the White House and dealing with the most senior officials of our government for several years while he was writing his two books . . . I think the question for Woodward once all is said and done is, "You were sniffing around there. You were talking to all of these people on a daily basis. You were basically taking their dictation, and you didn't sniff out a story? You didn't sniff out a story that might actually be rather important."

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001088.html
[Steven Clemons] But here is some of the more disturbing context for Woodward's revelations. The Post reports that Woodward never mentioned this high level contact of his and involvement in the Plame outing to Washington Post Managing Editor Leonard Downie until a month ago. . .

But the MOST OUTRAGEOUS statement by Bob Woodward follows, and I credit the Washington Post for exposing this man's vanity and idiocy. The Post reports that Woodward pooh-poohed the Fitzgerald investigation into the Valerie Plame/CIA case -- even though he had vital information that was relevant to the investigation all along -- and knew it. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/15/23578/866
[CNN] WOODWARD: . . .Now there are a couple of things that I think are true. First of all this began not as somebody launching a smear campaign that it actually -- when the story comes out I'm quite confident we're going to find out that it started kind of as gossip, as chatter

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_atrios_archive.html#113216645029297324
[Atrios] [Woodward’s] story just doesn't make any sense. Why would you grant confidentiality to something which is "almost gossip" and told to you in an "offhand manner." What ethical issue prevented you from telling the world that an administration source had given you that information as you could do so without revealing the identity of the source?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_atrios_archive.html#113215921197992541
[CNN] WOODWARD: No, no. And this is not even a firecracker, but it's true. They did a damage assessment within the CIA, looking at what this did that Joe Wilson's wife was outed. And turned out it was quite minimal damage. They did not have to pull anyone out undercover abroad. They didn't have to resettle anyone. There was no physical danger to anyone and there was just some embarrassment.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_atrios_archive.html#113215106485642460
[CNN] KING: Are reporters -- and when "Time" magazine turned over the papers, their editor said, "we're not above the law." When it comes down it to, this is what the law said, we comply. Are you above the law?

WOODWARD: No. Clearly, we're not above the law. But frequently, people disobey the law. And when you do so, you have to be willing to accept the consequences. And in this case, the consequences, I guess, are a four-month jail sentence, and Judy Miller's willing to do that, to stand on this principle of trust. You know, I...

KING: You said you would have done it, too?

WOODWARD: I would have done it, too. And in fact, you know, maybe I shouldn't say this, but I will ...

KING: Go ahead.

WOODWARD: ... because it came to mind. If the judge would permit it, I would go serve some of her jail time, because I think the principle is that important, and it should be underscored. It's not a casual idea that we have confidential sources. It is absolutely vital. And I'll bet there are all kinds of reporters out there, if we could divvy up this four-month jail sentence -- I suspect the judge would not permit that, but if he would, I'll be first in line. It's that important to our business.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_atrios_archive.html#113215093263582546
[CNN] BOB WOODWARD: I -- I think it's inconclusive at this point. You obviously can't tell, but I think. . . it's kind of a case study about the importance of confidential sources.

And Carl points out in Watergate, like anyone covering this CIA story or any story in Washington, you have many, many sources. And you need to have relationships of trust so they can feel they're safe and protected. This investigation that's been going on for two years is just running like a chain saw right through the lifeline that reporters have to sources who will tell you the truth, what's really going on. . .

And that because what it is -- it's undermining the core function in journalism. . . You have to be able to call people. . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_atrios_archive.html#113215082495418527
[Hardball] WOODWARD: And that case, when I think it is all told, there is going to be nothing to it. And it is a shame. And the special prosecutor in that case, his behavior, in my view, has been disgraceful. . .

MATTHEWS: Well, was this, then, a crime? We`re talking about a crime.

WOODWARD: I don`t think there`s any crime.

MATTHEWS: There is a crime on the books now. Just so we know what -- there is a statute that punishes someone who gives away the undercover identity of an FBI agent. . .

WOODWARD: And so, it turned out she was an operative. This is an accident. I think the judge in the case also should have found some way to balance. . .

WOODWARD: . . . But you know what we need here? Common sense.

MATTHEWS: Would you testify?. . .

WOODWARD: I don`t -- I don`t know.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_atrios_archive.html#113215073561535427
[Fresh Air] Mr. WOODWARD: Well, it's not a classic whistle-blower, and the issues don't really involve national security or people's lives or jeopardy, or I think in the end, we will find there's not really corruption here. It is such a complex case with players on issues that are not the kind of, you know, `We're publishing the truth so the public can learn that a president is a criminal,' for instance.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_atrios_archive.html#113215021701389788
[Chris Matthews] Ms. BROWN: Well I think Andrea hit the nail on the head, meaning that everyone on the inside, with the exception of Armitage, was a Cheney guy. . . Scooter Libby, his chief of staff, who is--also has a long history with many of the other people who have been advising the president. And it--there's an ongoing investigation into who leaked Wilson's wife's name, an undercover CIA agent, to reporters and made it public. And his is pointing the finger at Scooter Libby in his book.

Mr. WOODWARD: Does--does he have any evidence, though? Or is this just a guess, surmised?

Ms. BROWN: It is—he. . .

Mr. WOODWARD: I wish it was Scooter Libby.

Ms. BROWN: . . . he says--he's very careful in the wording, for legal reasons. . .

MATTHEWS: You're saying you think he's saying that.

Ms. BROWN: But he says he believes, based on everyone he's talked to and all the sleuthing that has been done, but in terms of saying, 'Here is hard evidence,' no.

Mr. WOODWARD: So the answer is no evidence.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007031
[Josh Marshall] Woodward had no obligation to discuss this publicly and in most respects probably no right. But he has been an aggressive critic of the investigation itself, challenging the premise that there was any underlying wrongdoing in this case. By becoming a partisan in the context of the leak case without revealing that he was at the center of it, really a party to it, he wasn't being honest with his audience. . . Now, his antipathy toward the investigation seems much easier to understand.

More: http://mediamatters.org/items/200511160013

Bob Woodward and the death of reporting

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/16/141416/18
Back in 1996, Joan Didion wrote a tour de force for the New York Review of Books analyzing Bob Woodward's methods. After reading six of Woodward's books, she highlighted the "disinclination of Mr. Woodward to exert cognitive energy on what he is told.". . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_atrios_archive.html#113218147714977523
[Atrios] Woodward's source apparently came forward and told the prosecutor about their conversation. Yet Woodward still says that he is under a confidentiality agreement and needs special permission to reveal what he knows. . . Woody no longer has to worry about crawling up on that cross with Saint Judy. His source spilled the beans to the law. Whatever jeopardy he would be in by revealing his name (and certainly the contents of the conversation) legally or professionally, no longer applies. This means that nothing other than perhaps public embarrassment or some sort of backroom deal between Woodward and the Bush administration are at stake. That is not good enough. There is no reason for Woodward not to report this story.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_digbysblog_archive.html#113217925089054994
[Digby] It's my fervent belief that when the government is spinning the press, whether it's Ken Starr selectively leaking like a sieve or Scooter and his grubby little friends smearing Joe Wilson, it is the duty of journalists to report what they are doing. If their ever so valuable sources dry up because of that, then all the better. The sources are using them for a political agenda, not to get important information out to the public. These are not whistleblowers --- they are flaks and what they are doing is fundamentally dishonest. . .

This crap about protecting anonymous sources is simply cover for the fact that these people are protecting their access to official lies. . . Protecting sources in Washington apparently means not only protecting their identities, it's also means not revealing information they impart. I have to ask then --- what's the f-cking point?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_atrios_archive.html#113218387092702838
[Atrios] So, the "sanctity of these source relationships" means they tell you things you promise not to reveal to your readers?

More: http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002488.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_digbysblog_archive.html#113219824727256647

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_digbysblog_archive.html#113217925089054994

http://www.juancole.com/2005/11/woodward-and-insider-trading-bob.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/woodward-from-watergate-_b_10773.html

http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2005/11/woodward_is_woo.html

One inadvertent consequence of this Plame business will be that several major reporters and news organizations come out of it looking pretty bad

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_atrios_archive.html#113216702219962587
[E&P] Walter Pincus, the longtime Washington Post reporter and one of several journalists who testified in the Valerie Plame case, said he believed as far back as 2003 that Bob Woodward had some involvement in the case but he did not pursue the information because Woodward asked him not to. . . "He asked me to keep him out of the reporting and I agreed to do that," Pincus said today.

http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=10654
PAUL LUKASIAK: Despite all the attention being paid to ethics questions regarding Bob Woodward's involvement in the Plame matter, his statement disclosing his testimony raises other significant journalistic ethics issues. Apparently, Woodward is in the habit of "pre-clearing" his questions for upper-level government officials with subordinates.

Woodward says: "I also testified that I had a conversation with a third person on June 23, 2003. The person was I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and we talked on the phone. I told him I was sending to him an 18-page list of questions I wanted to ask Vice President Cheney."

It is certainly understandable that a reporter would be willing to disclose the general subject matter he wants to talk to a public official about. But sending a detailed list of specific questions you "want to ask" turns journalism into little more than political theatrics masquerading as reporting.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007032
[From a reader] I agree that under normal circumstances, Woodward would have had no obligation to reveal this info to the public. But the actual circumstances in this case are different. Woodward was about to publish (or had just published) a book purporting to give an accurate picture of the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. The fact that Woodward kept all of this secret under these circumstances just destroys his integrity as a journalist.

Woodward gives a strong impression that the CIA should bear a great deal, if not most, of the blame for the Iraq invasion in his oft repeated interview quoting George Tennet as saying “Slam Dunk” on the issue of WMDs in Iraq. The revelation about Woodward’s secret knowledge destroys Woodward’s credibility in my view because Woodward never did anything to correct the information in his book. The independent CIA investigation of the Iraq/Niger yellowcake story and Tennet’s repeated refusal to sanction the accuracy of the yellowcake story just doesn’t fit with the “Slam Dunk” picture. Now we know that Woodward had early inside information of the smear campaign against Wilson (and possibly the CIA). A credible journalist wouldn’t have kept this information concealed when the information tends to undercut information in the journalist’s just published book.

Woodward apologizes. . .to his editor (but not to the rest of us?)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/politics/16cnd-woodward.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/16/AR2005111601286.html

(He’s not even telling the truth about that!)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/bob-woodwards-explanation-of-why-he.html

The WH’s revenge against reporters

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2310
[Swopa] The broad warning here is that anyone who helps Fitzgerald's investigation will face a no-hold-barred personal counterattack that will use anything the Bushites can find to damage him or her.

That's the way these thugs operate. As I wrote before about Libby's infamous letter to Judith Miller, the point of saying that aspens "turn in clusters, because their roots connect them" was probably intended to hint that if Libby went down, he'd do his worst to bring Miller and any other betrayers down with him.

Tonight, the New York Times plays catch-up reports a very similar story:

Lawyers for I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former White House official indicted on perjury charges, plan to seek testimony from journalists beyond those cited in the indictment and will probably challenge government agreements limiting their grand jury testimony, people involved in the case said Tuesday.

"That's clearly going to be part of the strategy -- to get access to all the relevant records and determine what did the media really know," said a lawyer close to the defense who spoke on condition of anonymity.

. . . Defense lawyers plan to seek notes not only from the three reporters cited in the indictment -- Tim Russert of NBC News, Matt Cooper of Time Magazine and Judith Miller, formerly of The New York Times -- but also from other journalists who have been tied to the case.

Chief among those is Robert D. Novak, who first disclosed in a column in July 2003 that Valerie Plame worked for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Dick Cheney – not just a liar, an appalling, shameless liar

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/dick-cheney-who-outright-lied-to.html

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Cheney_says_claim_Bush_misled_one_1116.html

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13185357.htm

How Bush’s attacks on Democrats who once supported him on the war (but changed their minds when they found out he was LYING) will eventually hurt Republicans

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/bush-attack-on-dems-over-iraq.html
[AP] President Bush's efforts to paint Democrats as hypocrites for criticizing the Iraq war after they once warned that Saddam Hussein was a grave threat could backfire on Republicans.

Polls show marked declines in support for the war, notably among moderate Republicans, especially Republican women, and independents - voting blocs that the GOP needs to woo or keep in their camp.

If Bush castigates Democrats for changing their minds on the war, he might wind up alienating Republicans who have done so, too.

Uh, yep, this sounds like a lie to me

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/16/93216/017
Toward the end of the hearing, Lautenberg asked the five executives: "Did your company or any representatives of your companies participate in Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001?" When there was no response, Lautenberg added: "The meeting . . . "

"No," said Raymond [Exxon].

"No," said Chevron Chairman David J. O'Reilly.

"We did not, no," Mulva said [Conoco].

"To be honest, I don't know," said BP America chief executive Ross Pillari, who came to the job in August 2001. "I wasn't here then."

"But your company was here," Lautenberg replied.

"Yes," Pillari said.

Shell Oil president John Hofmeister, who has held his job since earlier this year, answered last. "Not to my knowledge," he said.

http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/16/14526/277
[Matt Yglesias] Lying to congress is a crime, though that particular law hasn't been much enforced since Bush took office. But the executives didn't commit perjury because they weren't under oath and "committee Democrats had protested the decision by Commerce Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) not to swear in the executives" which suggests some kind of foreknowledge on Stevens' part. This is more a scandal for the oil companies than for the administration, but it will surely increase pressure to open up those task force files, and I'd give pretty good odds that Cheney's covering something up with that particular secrecy crusade.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/11/index.html#008359
UPDATE: This just in from Maria Cantwell's office:

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) will lead Senate Democrats TODAY in demanding that oil company executives return to Congress and testify under oath in light of ongoing concerns of gas price-gouging by oil companies at the expense of hard-working American families. They will also call on the Justice Department to investigate into the alleged false statements made at a joint Senate Energy and Commerce Committee Hearing last week.

More: http://www.slingshot.org/2005/11/16/oil-execs-lie-about-cheney-energy-task-force/

Just routine. . .

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003084.html
[Laura Rozen] The Center for Public Integrity has published a new report asserting that Cheney and his office "unilaterally exempt themselves from long-standing travel disclosure rules followed by the rest of the executive branch." . .

The despicable performance of the FDA in rejecting “Plan B,” the morning after pill

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/15/12259/744
A congressional audit released Monday cited "unusual" steps in the FDA's initial rejection of over-the-counter emergency contraception, including conflicting accounts of whether top officials made the decision even before scientists finished reviewing the evidence. . .

[Magorn] Well I know this comes as a terrible surprise to you all. It barely seems possible that political ideology was able to trump science, especially in this administration. Its not like There is Video of an FDA appointee bragging about killing Plan B on white House orders. . . [see link]

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2005/11/fda_rejects_pla.html
In December 2003, an FDA advisory committee ruled 23-4 to make Plan B available over the counter.

Within days of the committee's vote, however, Dr. Janet Woodcock, the F.D.A.'s acting deputy commissioner of operations, and Dr. Steven Galson, acting director of its drug center, told four top staff members that the application would be rejected, even though the agency's scientific review of the application had yet to be completed, the staff members told Congressional investigators. That review was completed in April.

This was just one of the many unusual things the GAO noticed about the FDA's handling of Plan B's OTC application:

Top agency officials were deeply involved in the decision, which was "very, very rare," a top F.D.A. review official told investigators. The officials' decision to ignore the recommendation of an independent advisory committee as well as the agency's own scientific review staff was unprecedented, the report found. And a top official's "novel" rationale for rejecting the application contradicted past agency practices, it concluded.

Here's another odd thing. Nobody knows what part Scott McClellan's brother played in all this while he was FDA commissioner:

. . . Congressional investigators had been unable to uncover the role in the Plan B decision played by the former agency commissioner, Dr. Mark B. McClellan, because agency officials told investigators that all of his e-mail messages and written correspondence on the subject had been deleted or thrown out. The Democrats charged that these acts contravened federal records laws.

They said it couldn’t go under 40%, then they said it couldn’t go under 35%

http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z15E31C2C
[WSJ] 34%!

How low can you go?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/11/index.html#008356
The estimable Charlie Cook makes the point that George W. Bush's presidency has entered unprecedented territory:

At this point in their second terms, the Gallup poll showed President Eisenhower with a 58 percent approval rating, President Reagan was at 65 percent and President Clinton at 61 percent. President Nixon, shadowed by Watergate disclosures that would eventually force him to resign, was at 31 percent.

Indeed, in the entirety of their second terms, Eisenhower never dropped below 48 percent, Reagan never got below 43 percent and Clinton never dipped below 54 percent in Gallup polling. Clearly, we don't have much experience with second-term presidents facing these kinds of numbers. There is no textbook telling someone in the position Bush finds himself in how to battle back and find success pushing his legislative agenda on Capitol Hill.

Bonus item: “Bush Was Right”

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001091.html

***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 @ 7:13 AM

 
THINGS FALL APART (PART 2)

Wow: out of nowhere, Bob Woodward discloses that a “senior official” was shopping Plame’s name to him long before Novak’s column

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501857.html
Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed.

In a more than two-hour deposition, Woodward told Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald that the official casually told him in mid-June 2003 that Plame worked as a CIA analyst on weapons of mass destruction, and that he did not believe the information to be classified or sensitive, according to a statement Woodward released yesterday.

[NB: Terrible writing here: which “he” does this refer to? It’s a crucial point]

Fitzgerald interviewed Woodward about the previously undisclosed conversation after the official alerted the prosecutor to it on Nov. 3 -- one week after Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was indicted in the investigation.

Citing a confidentiality agreement in which the source freed Woodward to testify but would not allow him to discuss their conversations publicly, Woodward and Post editors refused to disclose the official's name or provide crucial details about the testimony. . .

[NB: So now, Woodward becomes the Post’s Judith Miller]

Woodward said he also testified that he met with Libby on June 27, 2003, and discussed Iraq policy as part of his research for a book on President Bush's march to war. He said he does not believe Libby said anything about Plame. . .

Woodward's testimony appears to change key elements in the chronology Fitzgerald laid out in his investigation and announced when indicting Libby three weeks ago. It would make the unnamed official -- not Libby -- the first government employee to disclose Plame's CIA employment to a reporter. . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007573.php
[Kevin Drum] So who is this mysterious Mr. X that blabbed to Woodward? We don't know. It's not Libby, and Karl Rove's spokesman says it's not Rove. . .

Why did he do that? Because Mr. X fessed up to Fitzgerald about the conversation a couple of weeks ago, and Fitzgerald subsequently asked Woodward to testify about it. . . And why did Mr. X suddenly confess? No one knows. . .

I can't begin to make sense of this. The only thing that's clear is that Mr. X must have had some reason to suddenly come clean, and that reason must have had something to do with Fitzgerald's ongoing investigation. Perhaps Mr. X is a cooperating witness, or perhaps he's someone who started to feel some heat and decided to come forward because he got scared. Who knows?

But what this does tell us is that the Plame investigation is alive and well and continuing to make progress. Fasten your seatbelts. . .

Who? http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013135.html
[Jeralyn Merritt] My bet: Woodward's source is the State Department or CIA official mentioned in Paragraph 6 or 7 (and 33)of the Indictment against Libby. If it's the State Department official, it could be David Wurmser, John Hannah or Fred Fleitz. David Wurmser seems to me to be the most likely. . .

Questions: Is Woodward's source the same as Novak's source or Pincus's source?. . . Most importantly, it sounds like the source already has his deal in place with Fitzgerald, and I would bet it's for immunity.

More: http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/11/bobby-has-secret.html

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/11/mr-run-amok.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/16/14442/211

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/bob-woodward-also-received-leak-of.html
[John Aravosis] Woodward's apparently ethical lapse [needs] some explaining. . . Bob Woodward is becoming our next Judith Miller. His repeated rants in defense of this administration, and against the special prosecutor, certainly take on a very interesting edge considering Mr. Woodward didn't bother disclosing that he was quite involved in this story, and was hardly the impartial observer his silence suggested he was. Not to mention, he knew all along that HE TOO had received the leak, suggesting that a clear pattern of multiple leaks was developing, yet he still went on TV and said that all of these repeated leaks were just a slip of the tongue?

Woodward, who is preparing a third book on the Bush administration, has called Fitzgerald "a junkyard-dog prosecutor" who turns over every rock looking for evidence. The night before Fitzgerald announced Libby's indictment, Woodward said he did not see evidence of criminal intent or of a substantial crime behind the leak.

"When the story comes out, I'm quite confident we're going to find out that it started kind of as gossip, as chatter," he told CNN's Larry King.

Woodward also said in interviews this summer and fall that the damage done by Plame's name being revealed in the media was "quite minimal."

"When I think all of the facts come out in this case, it's going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great," he told National Public Radio this summer.

More on Woodward’s lies: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_atrios_archive.html#113211741586112412

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007024

Pentagon admits that troops DID use white phosphorus agents as a weapon, not only to illuminate battlefields. This after denying the fact just a week ago

http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive_Index/Illegal_Weapons_in_Fallujah.html
[Nov 9] Phosphorus shells are not outlawed. U.S. forces have used them very sparingly in Fallujah, for illumination purposes. They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4440664.stm
[Nov 16] US troops used white phosphorus as a weapon in last year's offensive in the Iraqi city of Falluja, the US has said. . . "It was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants," spokesman Lt Col Barry Venable told the BBC - though not against civilians, he said.

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/us-caught-lying-admits-to-using.html

Yesterday was the deadline for the Senate Intel committee’s bipartisan subcommittee to lay out a time line for when they would finally get around to completing and releasing their long-overdue report on Iraq war lies. Well, not with a bang, but a whimper. . .

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/15/phase-ii-stonewall/
At this time, we are unable to provide an estimated completion date of the Phase II investigation given the substantial amount of work that remains to be done. . . [read on!]

Meanwhile, Josh Marshall has his minions collecting story after story detailing the who, what, and when of each prewar lie. Here is a sampler

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007026

Bush, rather bizarrely, ratchets up his attacks against Dems and others who BELIEVED him and SUPPORTED his decision to go to war

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush15nov15,1,5363961.story

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/14/AR2005111401018.html
[E.J. Dionne] Mr. President, it won't work this time. . .

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/opinion/15tue1.html

Chuck Hagel (R-NE) sometimes does stand up for the right thing

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_atrios_archive.html#113211052172500295
[WP] Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) strongly criticized yesterday the White House's new line of attack against critics of its Iraq policy, saying that "the Bush administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and should not be demonized for disagreeing with them.". . . "To question your government is not unpatriotic -- to not question your government is unpatriotic," Hagel said. . .

And then there is this subtle dimension to Bush’s current slams against those who voted WITH HIM in 2002

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007018
[From a reader] Another point that seems to be missed is that you can only call the 2002 vote a "vote for war" if you assumed that Bush was lying about how he was going to use the authorization (to pressure Saddam to get him to disarm) and that he had already decide to take out Saddam. That is obviously a fair assumption now but could senator have fairly assumed that in 2002? Is Bush saying that senator should have assumed he was lying when they voted?

Pushing the point further. . .

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/11/index.html#008344
[Tom Oliphant] In this blizzard of disinformation, though, the unique nature of Bush and his top advisers is conveniently overlooked. Everyone else in the world with the possible exception of Tony Blair recognizes the corollary to the now-accepted wisdom that Iraq possessed no unconventional weapons and posed no threat to the United States worthy of adjectives like grave, imminent, or even serious. . . The corollary would be that knowing then what is known now, an essentially unilateral invasion of Iraq under conditions of haste and waste in March of 2003 would have been ill-advised in the extreme. Virtually alone in the world, Bush has proclaimed for months that he would have invaded Iraq even if he had known it posed no threat.

[Matt Yglesias] This is a kind of strange point of agreement between the president and his critics. We're saying Bush was committed to the invade-Iraq policy, never mind the evidence, and that this attitude led him to dramatically overstate the threat in a variety of ways. Bush, in essence, concedes the point that, for him, evidence regarding the scope and imminence of the threat was besides the point.

On the politics of the latest Senate Iraq vote

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501525.html
For the past three years, President Bush has set the course on U.S. policy in Iraq, and Republicans in Congress -- and many Democrats, too -- have dutifully followed his lead. Yesterday the Senate, responding to growing public frustration with the administration's war policy, signaled that those days are coming to an end. . .

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007014

Is Bush losing it? (seriously)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/very-disturbing-story-about-bushs.html
[Washington Times] President Bush feels betrayed by several of his most senior aides and advisors and has severely restricted access to the Oval Office, administration sources say. The president's reclusiveness in the face of relentless public scrutiny of the U.S.-led war in Iraq and White House leaks regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame has become so extreme that Mr. Bush has also reduced contact with his father, former President George H.W. Bush, administration sources said on the condition of anonymity.

[Drudge] The sources said Mr. Bush maintains daily contact with only four people: first lady Laura Bush, his mother, Barbara Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes. The sources also say that Mr. Bush has stopped talking with his father, except on family occasions.

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007572.php

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/11/15/BL2005111500695.html

Is Rumsfeld trying to back off from responsibility for the war? Are you kidding me? (thanks to AmericaBlog for the link)

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001950.html
For there comes a point when even the secretary of defense must realize that "it's not your decision or even your recommendation," Rumsfeld reflected with Woodward. By which he meant the Iraq war wasn't Don Rumsfeld's decision or recommendation. . . As if to underline the point, Rumsfeld also told Woodward that he couldn't recall a moment, in all the months of planning for the war, when Bush asked whether his defense secretary favored the invasion. Nor did Rumsfeld ever volunteer his opinion.


Oil execs, allowed to testify by GOP without going under oath – now we know why. It’s time (long past time) to drag Mr. Cheney out of his secure underground location and before a press conference to answer questions about this, Plame, Iraq war lies, and a few other matters

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501842.html
A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress.

The document, obtained this week by The Washington Post, shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated.

In a joint hearing last week of the Senate Energy and Commerce committees, the chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips said their firms did not participate in the 2001 task force. The president of Shell Oil said his company did not participate "to my knowledge," and the chief of BP America Inc. said he did not know.

Chevron was not named in the White House document, but the Government Accountability Office has found that Chevron was one of several companies that "gave detailed energy policy recommendations" to the task force. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/wash-post-oil-execs-lied-to-congress.html
[John Aravosis] No wonder they wouldn't testify under oath. . . And Cheney's office knew all week that the oil CEOs lied to Congress, and said nothing about it to anyone.

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007025

Their kind of guy. This is how Alito explains away his 1985 memo stating that he “believes very strongly. . . that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion”

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/politics/politicsspecial1/15cnd-confirm.html
Samuel A. Alito Jr., President Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court, said today that his written views against abortion rights 20 years ago were the responses of "an advocate seeking a job."

[NB: So, what does this mean? That he was LYING at the time about what he believed, to get a job? Or that he really does believe this “very strongly” and is lying about it now? Is there a third alternative?]

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/scalito-to-feinstein-lets-just-forget.html

Iraq’s torture chambers – and why we’re only learning about them now

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/international/middleeast/16iraq.html
Iraq's government said Tuesday that it had ordered an urgent investigation of allegations that many of the 173 detainees American troops discovered over the weekend in the basement of an Interior Ministry building in a Baghdad suburb had been tortured by their Iraqi captors. A senior Iraqi official who visited the detainees said two appeared paralyzed and others had some of the skin peeled off their bodies by their abusers. . . Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari held a hurriedly organized news conference to announce the official inquiry. . .

[NB: Torture? Inside our own Interior Ministry? Shocking. We’ll get right on it!]

http://www.slate.com/id/2130487/
[Eric Umansky] As the LAT emphasizes, Iraq's prime minister said there will be an investigation pronto into the Interior Ministry dungeon. But the head of the Interior Ministry, who is the former head of a Shiite militia, said the "allegations" were just Sunni propaganda.

Most of those found were Sunni while the forces at the building were apparently affiliated with a Shiite militia. As the LAT noted, a U.S. general promised to check "hit every single" ministry building, looking for abused prisoners.

There are "allegedly" bad headlines in the torture stories. For example, the Post: "TORTURE ALLEGED AFTER U.S.-LED RAID UNCOVERS IRAQI-RUN PRISON." As NYT notes, "An Interior Ministry statement said flatly that torture had occurred." So what's it take to move something from an allegation to an apparent fact?

One final point on the torture coverage: The papers mention that there have long been "rumors" about torture by the new Iraqi government. What there has also been is scant coverage of the torture that's been documented. Human Rights Watch released a report early this year titled "Torture and Ill-treatment of Detainees in Iraqi Custody." Judging from a quickie Nexis search, of the majors only the WP gave it more than wire copy.

Cheerful news on the economic front

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-14-fiscal-hurricane-cover_x.htm
The comptroller general of the United States is explaining over eggs how the nation's finances are going to hell. . . "We face a demographic tsunami" that "will never recede," David Walker tells a group of reporters. He runs through a long list of fiscal challenges, led by the imminent retirement of the baby boomers, whose promised Medicare and Social Security benefits will swamp the federal budget in coming decades. . .

To hear Walker, the nation's top auditor, tell it, the United States can be likened to Rome before the fall of the empire. Its financial condition is "worse than advertised," he says. It has a "broken business model." It faces deficits in its budget, its balance of payments, its savings — and its leadership. . .

Scott McClellan’s shattered credibility

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4642
[Helen Thomas] Presidential press secretary Scott McClellan says he can be trusted. . . But I don't think he should take a poll in the White House press room. . .

He may be gone soon:http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4647

Ken Tomlinson: what a crook

http://nytimes.com/2005/11/15/business/media/16cnd-broadcast.html
Investigators at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting concluded today that its former chairman repeatedly broke federal law and its own regulations in a campaign to combat what he saw as liberal bias. . . A scathing report by the corporation's inspector general described a dysfunctional organization that violated the Public Broadcasting Act, which created the corporation and was written to insulate programming decisions from politics.

Bonus item: How to become a Republican (thanks to A.G. Rud for the link)

http://www.thefrown.com/frowners/becomerepublican.swf

***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 @ 7:04 AM

 
FLAILING WILDLY

The Bush gang’s defenses and excuses don’t even make sense any more, so they revert to what they always do: try to make everyone else look even worse than they are themselves

Promises, promises

http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/afx/2005/11/13/afx2333455.html
During a trip to Panama earlier this month, President George W. Bush said that Americans 'do not torture.'. . . But appearing on CNN's 'Late Edition' program, Hadley elaborated on the policy, making clear the White House could envisage circumstances, in which the broad pledge not to torture might not apply.

And here’s the clincher

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_digbysblog_archive.html#113199610289038819
[Digby] It's not just that torture doesn't work generally, which it doesn't. And it's not just that torture is morally repugnant and stains all who are involved with it. It does. The most amazingly thing about this (Commie) torture regime is that it's specifically designed to extract false confessions for propaganda purposes. Dear gawd, can they really be so incompetent that they didn't understand the difference between creating propaganda and gaining intelligence?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003073.html
[Laura Rozen] When our own side turns into monsters, we've already lost. You don't need the body count of Vietnam or the Balkan wars to see the signs. When the Red Army is the guide for interrogations, you've lost. You've ceded everything. American denial is no different than Serbian denial. Enough. We *are* going to need our war crimes process here at home. The normal justice system just isn't equiped to deal with what we're only now beginning to be able to recognize has been not the odd exception, but the rule, the outgrowth of policy. Who really has command responsibility for such a pattern of behavior?

Fascinating: outgoing SC Justice Sandra Day O’Connor drops some hints about where she stands on torture

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003069.html
[Nelson Report] O’Connor posed to the Cadets of West Point a series of rhetorical admonitions: “What law governs the detention and interrogation of terrorist suspects? And how are you to know what standards apply?” The fault lies not with US courts, she said, but with the Bush Administration, and to these future officers she asked, “What does your duty demand? It is hard enough to answer the first two questions, but harder still when the nation’s elected leaders are silent about the last. . .”

Our Founding Fathers of Baghdad

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=16876
[Michael Reagan] Sure, we keep tweaking it to make it better, but this constitutional republic works. If it didn’t we wouldn’t be here enjoying the blessings of freedom won for us more than 225 years ago by our courageous Founding Fathers. . . Someday, the people in Iraq will look back on those they will remember as their Founding Fathers. . .

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/11/14/iraq.main/index.html
The U.S. Army discovered scores of detainees in poor health at a building run by the Iraqi Interior Ministry. . . Iraqi police went further, telling CNN that many detainees in the Baghdad building "had obviously endured torture" and were "detained in poor health conditions.". . . The Iraqi Interior Ministry could not be reached for response.

"Bush’s third campaign"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/11/14/BL2005111400831.html
[Dan Froomkin] President Bush on Friday launched his third presidential campaign -- this one to salvage his reputation, and what's left of his second term. . . His goal this time is not to win an election; it's to gain back the public trust. . .

[NB: So, how does he do that? ATTACK THE DEMOCRATS]

"Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs," Bush said. . . "[M]ore than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate -- who had access to the same intelligence -- voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power," he noted. . . And, he concluded: "The stakes in the global war on terror are too high, and the national interest is too important, for politicians to throw out false charges. (Applause.) These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will."

[NB: Yep, I’m trusting him more and more already]

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007011

The latest Bush attack

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007009
[From a reader] I've obviously missed something. When did it become appropriate for the Commander-in-Chief to go onto a military installation before a military crowd and denounce the opposition party? I cannot remember a time in my 21-year career when anything remotely like this happened. Is it just me or are we embarked on something very dark and dangerous for our democracy?

Flailing wildly. Here’s the latest (c/o that buffoon Bill Bennett): the real leaks of prewar information came from Jay Rockefeller, who was saying in 2002 that he thought Bush had already made up his mind to go to war – and since Bush HAD already made up his mind to go to war, this was a serious disclosure. (As Matt points out, do the Repubs REALLY want to make an issue of this?)

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/11/index.html#008339

Stephen Hadley, Mr. Invisible of the first Bush term, is front and center now on defending prewar lies. Why he may not be the best person for the job

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007008

[NB: Of course, what choice do they have? Everyone else (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice) would be worse!]

The truly pathetic WH attempt to discredit the Washington Post article debunking Bush war lies. Read and compare

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/11/AR2005111101832.html

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051113.html

Josh dismantles more lies: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051114-1.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007005

It’s just so easy. . .

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Rediscovered_testimony_given_by_CIA_director_1114.html
President George W. Bush’s attempt Friday to silence critics who say his administration manipulated prewar intelligence on Iraq is undercut by congressional testimony given in February 2001 by former CIA Director George Tenet, who said that Iraq posed no immediate threat to the United States or other countries in the Middle East, RAW STORY has found. . .

More (and more) http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/11/wmd_and_the_fac.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007562.php

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/14/224550/85

The really dumb thing about the continued WH stonewalling on their prewar lies is that we already have the record in hand – there isn’t any ambiguity about it (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/248055_firstperson14.html
[R]ead "Iraq On The Record: The Bush Administration's Public Statements On Iraq," prepared by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform -- Minority Staff Special Investigations Division, March 16, 2004.

This 36-page report goes into great detail about outright false and deceptive public statements by Bush (55 misleading statements), Vice President Dick Cheney (51), former Secretary of State Colin Powell (50), former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (29) and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (52) on the subject. These 237 misleading statements were made in a variety of forums (53 interviews, 40 speeches, 26 news conferences and briefings, four written statements and articles and two appearances before Congress) beginning at least a year before the war began, and their frequency peaked at key decision-making points.

Here are a few excerpts. . .

The Report: http://democrats.reform.house.gov/IraqOnTheRecord/

And this is their STRONGEST argument!

http://www.slate.com/id/2130295
President George W. Bush has suddenly shifted rhetoric on the war in Iraq. Until recently, the administration's line was basically, "Everything we are saying and doing is right." It was a line that held him in good stead, especially with his base, which admired his constancy above all else. Now, though, as his policies are failing and even his base has begun to abandon him, a new line is being trotted out: "Yes, we were wrong about some things, but everybody else was wrong, too, so get over it.". . .

“I didn’t mislead – you misfollowed”

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_atrios_archive.html#113203399969298227

The Man at the Top

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007002
[Josh Marshall] And I do think DS is on to something when he notes the president's lack of seriousness about factual information and his indifference to critically evaluating evidence or challenging his own assumptions. The president's laziness, hubris and unwillingness to hold himself or anyone else accountable for anything will prove to have been at the heart of all of this.



The New Bipartisanship: the Dems develop a REAL exit strategy for Iraq – then the Repubs steal it and claim it for their own

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/politics/15cong.html
In a sign of increasing unease among Congressional Republicans over the war in Iraq, the Senate is to consider on Tuesday a Republican proposal. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/15/13538/466

http://nitpicker.blogspot.com/2005/11/remember-call-for-democratic-plan.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003070.html

Who will be the first to say it? Condi Rice is a really bad Secretary of State

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_digbysblog_archive.html#113197530844499942

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4632

Why the detainees in Guantanamo need external legal review

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/11/14/16/48/habeas-corpus/
[WP] Adel is innocent. I don’t mean he claims to be. I mean the military says so. It held a secret tribunal and ruled that he is not al Qaeda, not Taliban, not a terrorist. The whole thing was a mistake: The Pentagon paid $5,000 to a bounty hunter, and it got taken.

The military people reached this conclusion, and they wrote it down on a memo, and then they classified the memo and Adel went from the hearing room back to his prison cell. He is a prisoner today, eight months later. . .

So why is Lindsey Graham (R-SC) trying to take it away from them?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_digbysblog_archive.html#113201341341307720
I just spent the last hour reading this series of posts on Obsidion Wings about the reprehensible Lindsey Graham amendment to limit habeas corpus. I feel sick. . .

More: http://www.thepoorman.net/2005/11/15/a-boy-named-lindsey/

UPDATE: Dems block it (maybe)

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/politics/13167396.htm

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007563.php

During the Clarence Thomas hearings, I always thought the whole Anita Hill narrative missed the point: that Thomas lied during the hearings. He lied when he said that he had never discussed the issue of Roe vs. Wade. End of case, period. Pack up and go home. You can’t have judges who lie in their professional capacity. Now we have Samuel Alito: he promised (under oath) that he would recuse himself in cases involving companies he had a financial connection with. Twice he failed to do so; and rather than admit what he did, he waffled that he wasn’t legally or ethically required to make the promise in the first place – which of course has nothing to do with the fact that he DID make the promise, and violated it.

But now we have something even worse. Alito has been hinting all around town that maybe he would leave the precedent of Roe in place

http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/08/AR2005110801938.html
Alito Signals Reluctance to Overturn Roe v. Wade

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/08/alito.ap/
Senators: Alito has 'respect' for Roe

But apparently here’s what he REALLY thinks

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/14/politics/politicsspecial1/14cnd-alito.html
Mr. Alito, who was 35 in November 1985. . . said he had been honored to serve as assistant to the solicitor general "and to help to advance legal positions in which I personally believe very strongly."

"I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion," Mr. Alito, who is now a federal appeals court judge, wrote.

[NB: He deserves the right to a hearing, but I will be very interested to hear Mr. Alito answer the question of whether he still “believes very strongly. . . that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion”]

More: http://www.slingshot.org/2005/11/14/alito-cover-up/

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007564.php

How does the Bush gang defend Alito? By attacking Ruth Bader Ginsburg!

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/5832.html

On Plame: did Rove give up Libby and Cheney to protect himself?

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013114.html

More: http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/11/did-rover-roll-over.html

Bush’s involvement: http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/13/more-clues-about-bush-involvement-in-cia-leak/

Man, these are REALLY bad numbers

http://www.dccc.org/stakeholder/archives/003891.html
[USAT] Fewer than one in 10 adults say they would prefer a congressional candidate who is a Republican and who agrees with Bush on most major issues, according to a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday. Even among Republicans, seven of 10 are most likely to back a candidate who has at least some disagreements with the president.

[CNN] "A 53% majority say they trust what Bush says less than they trusted previous presidents while they were in office. In a specific comparison with President Clinton, those surveyed by 48%-36% say they trust Bush less."

More numbers

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#007004
CNN/USA Today/Gallup 11/11-13/05
37

Newsweek 11/10-11/05
36

FOX/Opinion Dynamics RV 11/8-9/05
36

AP-Ipsos * 11/7-9/05
37

NBC/Wall Street Journal 11/4-7/05
38

Pew 11/3-6/05
36

AP-Ipsos * 10/31 - 11/2/05
37

ABC/Washington Post 10/30 - 11/2/05
39

CBS 10/30 - 11/1/05
35

[NB: Then there’s Power-Line, quoted a couple of days ago: “Rasmussen shows President Bush climbing from his low point in October, to a current approval rating of 46%. That's his best this month.”]

So, how do progressives turn Bush’s bottom-scraping popularity into real political leverage?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_digbysblog_archive.html#113197723122820348
[The Agonist] The President is a liar. The Democrats did not have the same intelligence as the White House did.

And that's all any Democrat has to say. Don't try to explain it. Don't let the Republicans misdirect you into the details or distract you in any way. Just keep hammering the same line over and over and over because the public already knows it's true: The President is misleading the American people. The Democrats did not have the same intelligence as the White House did.

Rinse and repeat all the way to 2006.

[Digby] Again, establishing a fact is not the same as persuading others to accept that fact. The fact - the president is a liar - has long been established. Now, how do you get others to accept it? Say it: The president is a liar. Say it again: The president is a liar. And when someone demands proof, you repeat: The president is a liar. . . Now, suppose they say, "But you've shown me no proof. That's just your opinion. Prove it." Now what? You say, "The president is liar."

More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2301

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/11/14/an_opening_for_democrats.html

More incompetence: even after the fiasco last year, even after the bird flu warnings, there will STILL be flu vaccine shortages this year

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/11/index.html#008337

How the FDA is trying to bury the “morning after pill,” despite their own rules and procedures

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/14/business/15drugcnd.html

http://www.slingshot.org/2005/11/14/gao-report-on-fda-treatment-of-plan-b/
[David Meyer] FDA’s regulatory approval process has been corrupted beyond recognition. Plan B is the tip of the iceberg; this GAO report should provide a strong incentive for an outside investigation of the handling of other drugs.

In the ongoing struggle between bloggers and the established media over credibility, the many failings of bloggers get plenty of criticism. But what about the other side? (Thanks to Atrios for the link)

http://nitpicker.blogspot.com/2005/11/david-carr-embarrasses-himself.html

Bonus item

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/11/14/10/13/20-amazing-facts-about-voting-in-the-us/
20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the U.S.

***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 @ 6:28 AM

 
PANTS ON FIRE

“We don’t torture”. . . well, maybe we do

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_atrios_archive.html#113191465399606405
CIA interrogators apparently tried to cover up the death of an Iraqi 'ghost detainee' who died while being interrogated at Abu Ghraib prison, Time magazine reported today. . .

http://www.pandagon.net/archives/2005/11/latest_from_bus.html
[AFP] [A] top White House official refused to unequivocally rule out the use of torture, arguing the US administration was duty-bound to protect Americans from terrorist attack. . . The comment, by US national security adviser Stephen Hadley, came amid heated national debate about whether the CIA and other US intelligence agencies should be authorized to use what is being referred to as "enhanced interrogation techniques" to extract from terror suspects information that may help prevent future assaults. . .



More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003060.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003059.html

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/13/153949/81

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2005/11/maybe.html


The secret horrors of Guantanamo

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013110.html

More: http://www.denverpost.com/perspective/ci_3203612

Physicians, psychiatrists refuse to assist in Guantanamo, on grounds of medical ethics

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/national/13gitmo.html
Dr. Steven S. Sharfstein, the president of the American Psychiatric Association, who went on the trip, said that the group's members' assembly voted unanimously on Saturday to recommend a strict code against participation in some of the activities described in news reports. Dr. Sharfstein said that the recommendation was certain to be adopted by the association's board next month, making it official policy. . .

I don’t usually link to subscription-only resources, but if you get a copy of the latest Atlantic, don’t miss Jim Fallows’ devastating account of how badly the Bush gang screwed up the Iraqi armed forces, how difficult they have made it to reconstitute them, and how far they remain from being able to operate autonomously. This account of foolishness in the immediate post-war period, the lack of planning, the refusal to listen to anyone who was telling them differently, is truly astounding even if you think you know the basic outlines of their screw-ups

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200512/iraq-army

The lies that took us to war: evidence continues to mount, as the Bush gang’s denials sound more and more desperate and shrill

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/005999.php

Stephen Hadley repeats the mantra: yes, many of the claims we made to justify the war in Iraq were not true – but because we DIDN’T KNOW they weren’t true, they weren’t “lies.” (Except for one thing: in many cases they DID KNOW)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/now-white-house-is-lying-about-lying.html

More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051114/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq

Ahem. . . LIES!

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007556.php

http://www.juancole.com/2005/11/bush-administration-lie-about-iraq.html

On Meet the Press, an extraordinary litany of lies from Ken Mehlman on this and other topics – and that’s saying something, even for him

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#006992

Transcript: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9967566/

Karl Rove’s history of lying under oath (no, this isn’t the first time)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_digbysblog_archive.html#113192024980981354

Scooter Libby’s just not as good at it

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2298

Richard Shelby, in case we’ve forgotten, is “cleared” by a Senate committee of accusations that he leaked classified information (and then lied about it). Just thought you’d like to know that the Republicans are REALLY serious about putting a stop to this sort of thing

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013108.html

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_digbysblog_archive.html#113194440336738913

The problem with Alito: it’s more than abortion

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/14/politics/politicsspecial1/14alito.html

Another Republican (John Cornyn, TX) drawn into the Abramoff web of scandal

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_06.php#006991

Ouch! New Jersey loser blames Bush

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_13.php#006993

As Blair goes. . .

http://wilsonhellie.typepad.com/for_the_record/2005/11/blairs_going_do.html

War-gaming China (no, it’s not likely, but what a thought -- in the hands of these people)

http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2005/11/14/tensions_stir_ahead_of_bushs_china_visit/

Is Bush drinking again? Questionable sources, to be sure, but watch the video and see what you think

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/national-enquirer-says-bush-is.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_13_atrios_archive.html#113190790590627751

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/is-bush-drunk.html

Video: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/11/13.html#a5842

The New McCarthyism

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/13/232614/41

Bonus item: a vocabulary lesson (thanks to Atrios for the link)

http://www.aintnobaddude.com/2005_11_01_aintnobaddude_archive.html#113193874651203437
[Brian Linse] 1. The definition of patriotism is:

A. Love of country and willingness to sacrifice for it.
B. Extreme nationalism characterized especially by a belligerent foreign policy.
C. Heh.

2. The definition of jingoism is:

A. Love of country and willingness to sacrifice for it.
B. Extreme nationalism characterized especially by a belligerent foreign policy.
C. Indeed.

Answers: 1=A, 2=B

I really wish that the blowhards on the Blog Right would just embrace their inner jingoist and at least engage in an honest round of name-calling. I'd be proud to be accused of "un-jingoism".

***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 @ 5:49 AM

 
WALKING WOUNDED

Every time Bush repeats that “we did not lie to get the US into the Iraq war,” three things happen. First, the vast majority of people who already know he DID lie lose even more respect for him. Second, it gives the Democrats another opportunity to review the undeniable record of lies and exaggerations. Third, it raises the stakes against the NEXT revelation, whether it comes from the Senate Intel committee or from some other leak, of new disclosures documenting Bush lies (the genesis of the forged Niger documents, for example). “In for a penny, in for a pound” is not a good political strategy.

Most of the news coverage on Bush’s latest lying and hateful Iraq speech gave him the benefit of the doubt: Bush says opponents are rewriting history, Dems deny the charges, blah, blah, blah. The Washington Post did run an excellent fact-check piece (remember when this was part of the media’s responsibility?) But Knight-Ridder comes through too

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_atrios_archive.html#113181651758858565
[K-R] Before the war, the President and his aides contended Hussein was concealing nuclear, biological and chemical warfare programs in violation of a U.N. ban. None have ever been found.

Hussein, they said, was in league with al-Qaeda and had to be toppled before he could give banned weapons to terrorists.

The administration relied in part on a seriously flawed, hastily written October 2002 U.S. intelligence assessment, which concluded that Hussein was hiding an illegal nuclear-weapons program and stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons.

But the administration's assertions about Iraq's ties to al-Qaeda were not supported by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Or, you can just settle in for a satisfying round of Josh Marshall analysis. Enjoy the whole thing

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_06.php#006989
What a sorry, sorry, unfortunate president -- caught in his lies, his half-truths, his reckless disregard ... caught with, well ... caught with time. Time has finally caught up to him. And now he doesn't have the popularity to beat back all the people trying to call him to account. He could; but now he can't. So he's caught. And his best play is to accuse his critics of rewriting history, of playing fast and loose with the truth -- a sad, pathetic man.

Chronicling the full measure of the Bush administration's mendacity with regards to the war is a difficult task -- not because of a dearth of evidence for it but because of its so many layers, all its multidimensionality. It's almost like one of those Russian egg novelties in which each layer opened layer reveals another layer beneath it. Hard as it may be, in the interests of getting Mr. Bush past the phases of denial and anger, let's just hit on some of the main themes. . .

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003051.html
[Laura Rozen] Thinking about this a bit more, it occurs to me, isn't the last thing the Bush administration can afford more of now is the appearance of a cover up of how it used pre-war intelligence? From a sheer politics point of view, isn't Bush just going to look more and more dishonest and unethical to voters? More like Cheney? Won't it just feed the very real and measurable public sentiment that they've got something they're anxious to hide? They can maneuver all they want to continue to stall and obstruct Phase II, but when the public doesn't trust them or their proxies in Congress, don't they in a real political sense all lose? I'm no political strategist, but it seems to me the message for the Democrats gets easier and easier: Cover up. Sham investigation. Dragging their feet. . .

This is an easy thing to do, but it’s important to put on the record, every time Bush and his allies whine that it’s disloyal and treasonous to question a Commander in Chief during wartime

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/12/94838/771

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/12/104818/97

John Edwards lays down a challenge – and shows why Bush’s lame effort to buttress his own disingenuous case for war by saying, “the Democrats voted for it too” will prove a foolish political error

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/11/AR2005111101623_pf.html
I was wrong.

Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told -- and what many of us believed and argued -- was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda.

It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002. I take responsibility for that mistake. It has been hard to say these words because those who didn't make a mistake -- the men and women of our armed forces and their families -- have performed heroically and paid a dear price.

The world desperately needs moral leadership from America, and the foundation for moral leadership is telling the truth.

While we can't change the past, we need to accept responsibility, because a key part of restoring America's moral leadership is acknowledging when we've made mistakes or been proven wrong -- and showing that we have the creativity and guts to make it right.

The argument for going to war with Iraq was based on intelligence that we now know was inaccurate. The information the American people were hearing from the president -- and that I was being given by our intelligence community -- wasn't the whole story. Had I known this at the time, I never would have voted for this war.

George Bush won't accept responsibility for his mistakes. Along with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, he has made horrible mistakes at almost every step: failed diplomacy; not going in with enough troops; not giving our forces the equipment they need; not having a plan for peace. . .

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/john-edwards-in-sundays-wash-post-i.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007551.php

The Torture President

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20051112/1041927.asp
[Leonard Pitts] Well, I guess that settles that.

"We do not torture," President Bush said on Monday. Never mind all those torture pictures from Abu Ghraib. Never mind all those torture stories from Guantanamo Bay. Never mind the 2002 Justice Department memo that sought to justify torture. Never mind reports of U.S. officials sending detainees to other countries for torture. Never mind Dick Cheney lobbying to exempt the CIA from rules prohibiting torture.

"We do not torture," said the president. And that's that, right? I mean, if you can't believe the Bush administration, who can you believe? No torture. Period, end of sentence.

But . . . What does it say to you that the claim even has to be made?. . .

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003053.html
[Frank Rich] So when you watch the president stand there with a straight face and say, "We do not torture" - a full year and a half after the first photos from Abu Ghraib - you have to wonder how we arrived at this ludicrous moment. The answer is not complicated. When people in power get away with telling bigger and bigger lies, they naturally think they can keep getting away with it. And for a long time, Mr. Bush and his cronies did. Not anymore. . .

The Wall Street Journal openly defends torture

http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110007542

The new standard for judging Bush policies: “Not as bad as Hussein”

http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2005_11_06_dish_archive.html#113182037101247761

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003054.html
[Laura Rozen] I wish I had 100 WSJ subscriptions to cancel. Appalling and history's scum. I will never post another WSJ story here. Ever. . . Can we get the WSJ advertisers to sign off on the next batch of Abu Ghraib photos to be released? Maybe there are particular techniques they'd like to weigh in on? Yes on humiliating and degrading, no on organ failure? Yes on child rape and using guard dogs on detainees, no on holding the chain of command responsible? Yes on gulags in Eastern Europe? I'd like to hear the advertisers weigh in on what they think seems reasonable and how they'd like to be associated with the forthcoming releases.

Newsweek drops a load on GWB (and Cheney)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10013594/site/newsweek/
President George W. Bush is sinking deeper and deeper into political trouble, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll. Only 36 percent of Americans approve of the job he is doing as president, and an astounding 68 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction of the country—the highest in Bush’s presidency. But that’s not the worst of it for the 43rd president of the United States, a leader who rode comfortably to reelection just a year ago. Half of all Americans now believe he’s not “honest and ethical.”. . . The president can take some solace in the fact that 42 percent of Americans believe he is honest and ethical. Only 29 percent believe that Vice President Dick Cheney is. And more than a quarter of Republicans, 26 percent, believe the vice president is not honest and ethical.

As noted a few days ago, news coverage loves to look for indications that Bush’s steadily dropping poll numbers on credibility, competence, and corruption are “bouncing back” (when they’re not)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_atrios_archive.html#113180512772248292
[Atrios] Clinton never had a serious ratings slump because of the Lewinsky scandal. According to Gallup his lowest post-Monica revelation job approval rating was a shocking 57%. . .

Meanwhile, over in the alternative universe of Power-Line. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/12/222828/28
[John Hinderaker] Rasmussen shows President Bush climbing from his low point in October, to a current approval rating of 46%. That's his best this month. . . If it's for real, it's good news; 46% isn't great, but it's well out of the sub-40% danger territory. . .

[NB: This from the man who wrote, “It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.”]

Let’s see, Bush’s Latin American conference, a disaster. Now Condi Rice’s Middle East trip, a disaster. Next up: the simple challenges of Asia

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vplat124509459nov12,0,7709067.story
For a president who, in his first campaign, bragged about his empathy with Latin America and touted his ability to speak Spanish, George W. Bush has paid scant attention to the continent's southern cone. So it's hardly surprising that he got a cold shoulder from virtually every Latin American leader he met at last weekend's Summit of the Americas in Argentina. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/international/middleeast/13rice.html
A meeting of Muslim nations initiated by the Bush administration ended in discord on Saturday. . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_digbysblog_archive.html#113186394593484639

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20051110-1520-bush-asia.html
White House lowers expectations for Bush trip to Asia

The Bush gang is trying to warn the international community about IRAN’S nuclear program, but they’re having trouble getting people to believe them. Wonder why?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/international/middleeast/13nukes.html

A case against impeaching Bush, on the grounds that it’s politically more advantageous to keep him in office, wounded and unpopular – and that the alternatives are worse

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/12/142933/14

More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2296

Did Libby lie to protect Cheney (do bears sleep in the woods?)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/12/AR2005111201085_pf.html
To critics, the timing suggests an attempt to obscure Cheney's role, and possibly his legal culpability. The vice president is shown by the indictment to be aware of and interested in Plame and her CIA status long before her cover was blown. Even some White House aides privately wonder whether Libby was seeking to protect Cheney from political embarrassment. One of them noted with resignation, "Obviously, the indictment speaks for itself.". . .

[NB: Since it is increasingly apparent that Libby’s trial will take a very long time before adjudication, will the press continue to accept the combination of his lawyers’ dragging it out (perhaps even beyond the end of the Bush presidency) and the WH line that they won’t answer questions about ANYTHING related to Plame while the case is being heard? Or will pressure grow on Cheney to publicly answer simple questions about his own role? Stay tuned]

NYT to Dems: pick a fight over Alito

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/opinion/13sun1.html

Bush dismantling the Civil Rights division

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/12/AR2005111201200.html

The case against Tom DeLay, in his own words

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/10/AR2005111002401_pf.html

More: http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2005/11/the_case_agains.html

Meet David Addington (Cheney’s new Chief of Staff)

http://makeashorterlink.com/?J2CA5262C

Mitt Romney, who some see as Presidential fodder in 2008, makes his debut in PBD, laughing at a KKK joke

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/12/61515/089

In the interests of accuracy, questions are being raised about the white phosphorus story in Iraq

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2295

More: http://ancapistan.typepad.com/unfairwitness/2005/11/the_white_phosp.html

Bonus item: Perfect, just perfect

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/12/234934/47


***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 @ 6:47 AM

 
THE LAST REFUGE OF SCOUNDRELS

Bush “fights back” against accusations of Iraq war lies, and what a vintage performance it is: Lie some more, accuse others of doing precisely what you yourself have done, labor mightily to change the subject, and imply that anyone who is questioning YOU is undermining the war effort and harming our brave troops. Sound familiar?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/11/international/middleeast/11cnd-bush.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/12/politics/12bush.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/11/AR2005111100916.html

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/12/president_steps_up_attack_on_war_critics/

[Bush] "While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decisions or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began"

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_atrios_archive.html#113173232739509158
[Bush, 10/1/2002] Of course, I haven't made up my mind we're going to war with Iraq.

[Bush, two days after the Iraq War Resolution] But I am very firm in my desire to make sure that Saddam is disarmed. Hopefully, we can do this peacefully. The use of the military is my last choice, is my last desire.

[McClellan, 11/2/2002] This is about disarmament and this is a final opportunity for Saddam Hussein to disarm. If he chooses not to do so peacefully, then the United States is prepared to act, with our friends, to do so by force. And we will do so forcefully and swiftly and decisively, as the President has outlined. But the President continues to seek a peaceful resolution. War is a last resort.

[Bush, 11/7/2002] But some people won't like it if he ends with a nuclear weapon and uses it. We have an obligation to lead. And I intend to assume that obligation to make the world more peaceful. . . Terry, listen, there's risk in all action we take. But the risk of inaction is not a choice, as far as I'm concerned. The inaction creates more risk than doing our duty to make the world more peaceful. And obviously, I weighed all the consequences about all the differences. Hopefully, we can do this peacefully -- don't get me wrong. And if the world were to collectively come together to do so, and to put pressure on Saddam Hussein and convince him to disarm, there's a chance he may decide to do that. . . And war is not my first choice, don't -- it's my last choice. But nevertheless, it is a -- it is an option in order to make the world a more peaceful place.

[Atrios] The IWR gave him the authority. It was not a vote to "remove Saddam Hussein from power" as Bush made clear at the time.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_atrios_archive.html#113174384124590424
[John Kerry] "As the President made clear earlier this week, “Approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable.'' It means “America speaks with one voice.''

Let me be clear, the vote I will give to the President is for one reason and one reason only: To disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, if we cannot accomplish that objective through new, tough weapons inspections in joint concert with our allies.

In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments he has made to the American people in recent days--to work with the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out.

If we do wind up going to war with Iraq, it is imperative that we do so with others in the international community, unless there is a showing of a grave, imminent--and I emphasize “imminent''--threat to this country which requires the President to respond in a way that protects our immediate national security needs."

More: http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/11/171429/99

[Bush] "The stakes in the global war on terror are too high, and the national interest is too important for politicians to throw out false charges," he said. "These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them."

http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/11/rejoiner.html
[Eric Umansky] This has to go down as one of the more disgusting lines by a president. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2130270
After Sen. Kennedy criticized the speech, Scott McClellan told reporters that it was "regrettable that Senator Kennedy has found more time to say negative things about President Bush than he ever did about Saddam Hussein."

[NB: Didn't Bush JUST say, "it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decisions or the conduct of the war"?]

[Bush] "Some Democrats and antiwar critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war," he said. "These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs.”

Senate Intel Committee:

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/11/what-the-senate-intel-commitee-found-bush-admin-manipulated-case-for-war/
As has been previously documented by ThinkProgress and others, the answer to whether there was political pressure was left to phase II of the investigation and was not addressed in the report.

What the Senate Intelligence Committee did report, however, is that there was plenty of evidence demonstrating that the intelligence assessments made by intel officials WERE changed.

The Los Angeles Times (7/10/04) reported, “[I]n the unclassified version of the NIE — the so-called white paper cited by the Bush administration in making its case for war — those carefully qualified conclusions [in the classified version] were turned into blunt assertions of fact.”

Here’s what the Senate Intelligence Committee reported about the administration’s use of intelligence:

The intelligence community’s elimination of the caveats from the unclassified white paper misrepresented their judgments to the public, which did not have access to the classified National Intelligence Estimate containing the more carefully worded assessments.

Essentially, the Bush administration took the intelligence that was presented to them in the classified NIE and twisted it to present a stronger case for war in the public version of the NIE.

Silberman-Robb Commission:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_10_30.php#006933
Bill Kristol, 11/04/2005: "After all, the bipartisan Silberman-Robb commission found no evidence of political manufacture and manipulation of intelligence."

Silberman-Robb Commission Report, 3/31/05: "[W]e were not authorized to investigate how policymakers used the intelligence assessments they received from the Intelligence Community. Accordingly, while we interviewed a host of current and former policymakers during the course of our investigation, the purpose of those interviews was to learn about how the Intelligence Community reached and communicated its judgments about Iraq's weapons programs--not to review how policymakers subsequently used that information."

More: http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/005990.php

http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank?pid=3462

[Bush] "That's why more then a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power."

http://agonist.org/story/2005/11/11/124728/48
The President is misleading the American people. The Democrats did not have the same intelligence as the White House did.

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/11/iraq-intel/
Nevermind that much of the intelligence offered to the public and to Congress was inaccurate and misleading, or that according to the Downing Street memo and other documents, such intelligence was likely intentionally “fixed.” It is simply not true to state that Congress received the “same intelligence” as the White House. . .

http://mediamatters.org/items/200511110012
[T]he NIE "key judgments" had included a lengthy dissent on behalf of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) regarding the claim that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program. Further, the Post's characterization of the NIE as simply "provided to Bush" ignored the fact that the document was produced only after Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee requested it in September 2002. In fact, the White House reportedly objected to the production of such an assessment at the time.

http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/11/131029/55
On October 1, 2002, Tenet produced a declassified NIE. But Graham and Durbin were outraged to find that it omitted the qualifications and countervailing evidence that had characterized the classified version and played up the claims that strengthened the administration's case for war.

More: http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/11/18726/657

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/11/142131/48

The Washington Post does a fine job of reviewing the lies

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/11/AR2005111101832.html
Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. . .

[T]he commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions. . .

But the only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions. And Judge Laurence H. Silberman, chairman of Bush's commission on weapons of mass destruction, said in releasing his report on March 31, 2005: "Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by policymakers, and all of us were agreed that that was not part of our inquiry."

Or “meta-lies” http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/military_meritocracy_/2005/11/secondorder_lying.php

Hear an echo?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_atrios_archive.html#113174952383103398
We all joke about Bush giving the same speech over and over, but he really is giving almost the identical speech over and over: http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/002012.html

(PS: It ain’t working any more)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/is-bushrove-strategy-to-divide-america.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/11/134838/82

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_digbysblog_archive.html#113172153625634967

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/more-bad-news-for-republicans-national.html

It’s not worth spending much time on, but Bush allies, the right-wing blogosphere, and talk radio -- all sensing that Bush is rapidly losing his last chance to regain any credibility at all -- have trumpeted this speech, this rehash of old lies and tired demagoguery, as the Turning Point, the refutation of all questions against the war and prewar intelligence. Of course, the layers of intellectual dishonesty they need to peel back to get to this conclusion are too numerous, and tedious, to dissect. But here are a few examples

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007543.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/11/204014/09

Meanwhile, back in the reality-based community. . .

http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2005/11/twilight_for_bu.html

Well, it’s Veterans Day, and so you can expect just this sort of performance from Bush. But there was a little bit of other news on that day

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/10/iraq.intel/
A January 2003 CIA report raised doubts about a claim that al Qaeda sent operatives to Iraq to acquire chemical and biological weapons -- assertions that were repeated later by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations in making the case for the invasion of Iraq.

CNN on Thursday obtained a CIA document that outlined the history of the claim, which originated in 2002 with a captured al Qaeda operative who recanted two years later. . . The CIA report appears to support a recently declassified document that revealed the Defense Intelligence Agency thought in February 2002 that the source, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, was lying to interrogators. . .

http://www.forward.com/main/printer-friendly.php?id=6876
A former top official in the Bush administration is suggesting that a White House memo outlining the need for hundreds of thousands of troops for the Iraq invasion was kept from the president. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to then-secretary of state Colin Powell during President Bush's first term, said in a November 7 speech that the National Security Council had prepared a pre-war memo recommending that hundreds of thousands of troops and other security personnel were needed. . . Wilkerson, a retired U.S. army colonel, said he believed that then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice or her deputy, Stephen Hadley, had blocked the memo, but he acknowledged that he had no clear evidence. In the end, about 135,000 U.S. troops were sent - a decision that critics said has hurt America's ability to defeat the insurgency in Iraq and has led to increased American casualties. In July 2003, USA Today reported the existence of the NSC memo, which examined the level of troops in peacekeeping operations and concluded that some 500,000 troops would need to be deployed to Iraq. USA Today raised doubts as to whether the president saw the memo. However, Wilkerson's assertion seemed to take the matter a step further, suggesting that aides who supported the war intentionally kept the president in the dark.

Stephen Hadley, who some seemed to think was one of the relative good guys in this gang, joins the Liars Club

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_atrios_archive.html#113174082911133773

More: http://mediamatters.org/items/200511110012

Rove 101: when you are pushed to the wall and fighting for your life, make a point of speaking and acting as if you are mightily on top of the world

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2287

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013078.html

But Rove still might be charged by Fitzgerald

http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1112nj_waas.htm
If Libby strikes a plea bargain, he would likely agree as part of any deal to provide information to prosecutors that had some bearing on Rove and other Bush administration officials, according to attorneys involved in the case. Even if no plea bargain occurs, a federal grand jury could compel Libby to testify about others under a grant of immunity. If he still refused to testify, Libby could then be jailed for civil contempt, or charged anew with criminal contempt or obstruction of justice.

More: http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/11/rover-goes-long.html

More on the disclosure that Italian intelligence was involved with the forged Niger documents: an active cover-up

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_06.php#006988

What’s the matter with these people?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/12/national/nationalspecial3/12detain.html
Democrats who had voted previously to prohibit abusive treatment of detainees in American custody provided the margin of victory on Thursday for a Republican-backed measure that would deny prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the right to challenge their detention in federal courts.

Four of the five Democrats who supported the provision to strip detainees at Guantánamo of the legal tool the Supreme Court gave them to appeal their incarcerations said on Friday that they drew the line at allowing the prisoners unfettered access to United States courts to challenge the underlying rationale for their detention. The Senate approved the measure, an amendment to a military budget bill, 49 to 42.

"A foreign national who is captured and determined to be an enemy combatant in the world war on terrorism has no more right to a habeas corpus appeal to our courts than did a captured soldier of the Axis powers during World War II," Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, said in a statement.

Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, said. . . "I don't think giving enemy combatants access to the federal court system is a precedent we want to set," Mr. Conrad said. . . Spokesmen for two other Senate Democrats who voted for the measure, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, made similar statements. "He thinks they should stay in the military tribunal system, and if that system is broken, we should fix it, not move them out of it," said David DiMartino, a spokesman for Senator Nelson.

Looks like DeLay screwed himself

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007541.php
As you'll recall, in Texas it's illegal for corporations to contribute money to election campaigns. . . The million-dollar question, though, is whether DeLay himself knew about and approved of this plan. . . Apparently, DeLay himself made the admission during a conversation with Earle. . . . it turns out that DeLay's admission is the only evidence Earle has against him. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Let me give a little prediction about the coming 2006 elections. The Republicans will want it to be all about this – the timing is being set in place

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/11/11/11/47/protecting-marriage-2/
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommitee on the Constitution (official website) approved a proposed constitutional amendment, the Marriage Protection Amendment, in a 5-4 vote Wednesday. The amendment, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, will now go before the full judiciary committee and is expected to come up for a vote in the U.S. Senate next year. U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) (official website), chair of the (U.S. Senate) Judiciary Committee, voted in favor of allowing the amendment to proceed, and said that although he opposes the amendment it shouldn’t “be bottled up” in committee.

Army “meets” recruiting goal (but only after slashing it)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/army-meets-recruitment-goal-after.html

Theocracy watch

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/11/AR2005111101650.html
A private missionary group has assigned a pair of full-time Christian ministers to the U.S. Air Force Academy, where they are training cadets to evangelize among their peers, according to a confidential letter to supporters.

The letter makes clear that the organized evangelization effort has continued this year despite an outcry over alleged proselytizing at the academy that has prompted a Pentagon investigation, congressional hearings, a civil lawsuit and new Air Force guidelines on religion.

"Praise God that we have been allowed access by the Academy into the cadet areas to minister among the cadets. We have recently been given an unused classroom to meet with cadets at any time during the day," the husband-and-wife team of Darren and Gina Lindblom said in the Oct. 11 letter to their donors.

Bonus item: Make your own church sign!

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2289

***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 @ 6:28 AM

 
SCANDALS EVERYWHERE

Alito (Scalito? Scandalito?) is making excuses like crazy, but the simple fact is that after making a promise under oath to recuse himself in cases where he had a financial interest, he failed to do so – twice

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/09/AR2005110902073.html
In letters and private meetings this week, several Democratic senators asked Alito for fuller explanations of why he ruled, as a federal appellate judge, on cases regarding Vanguard and Smith Barney Inc. after promising to recuse himself from those cases. . .

Alito has said that a court computer system failed to remind him to step aside in the Vanguard case. . .

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/10/specter_urges_alito_to_avoid_possible_controversy/
"To my knowledge, I have not ruled in a case for which I had a legal or ethical obligation to recuse myself during my 15 years on the federal bench," Alito wrote. . . While he had vowed to disqualify himself from cases involving certain firms, Alito wrote he later concluded "there was not a legal or ethical obligation under the applicable rules ... to recuse myself from every case involving the companies I listed."

[NB: Nevertheless, he promised to do so]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/10/AR2005111002188.html
Alito, trying to quell conflict-of-interest issues raised by liberal opponents, said he had been "unduly restrictive" in promising in 1990 to recuse himself in cases involving Vanguard Group Inc. and Smith Barney Inc. . .

[NB: “Well, your honor, I did lie and break my promise, but that is because I shouldn’t have made the promise in the first place. . .”

“Guilty! Next!”]

Arlen Specter “concerned” http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/specter-concerned-that-alitos-lies-to.html

“A window into his character” http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_atrios_archive.html#113168428232517973

“Voluntary” recusal? http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_atrios_archive.html#113166505800672627

Perjury? http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/media-missing-point-on-scooterlito.html

A serious problem? http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/_/2005/11/is_alitos_word_his_junk_bond.php

Republican meltdown. Hey, really being the responsible governing party (instead of just sponsoring a series of tax cut and pork giveaways) is hard work

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/11/politics/11cong.html
Facing defeat, House Republican leaders on Thursday abruptly called off a vote on a contentious budget-cutting bill in a striking display of the discord and political anxiety running through the party's ranks. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/10/AR2005111001333.html
House Republican leaders were forced to abruptly pull their $54 billion budget-cutting bill off the House floor yesterday, amid growing dissension in Republican ranks over spending priorities, taxes, oil exploration and the reach of government.

A battle between House Republican conservatives and moderates over energy policy and federal anti-poverty and education programs left GOP leaders without enough votes to pass a budget measure they had framed as one of the most important pieces of legislation in years. Across the Capitol, a moderate GOP revolt in the Senate Finance Committee forced Republicans to postpone action on a bill to extend some of President Bush's most contentious tax cuts.

The twin setbacks added to growing signs that the Republican Party's typically lock-step discipline is cracking under the weight of Bush's plummeting approval ratings, Tuesday's electoral defeats and the increasing discontent of the American electorate. After five years of remarkable unity under Bush's gaze, divisions between Republican moderates and conservatives are threatening to paralyze the party.

"The fractures were always there. The difference was the White House was always able to hold them in line because of perceived power," said Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster. "After Tuesday's election, it's 'Why are we following these guys? They're taking us off the cliff.' "

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/hill-gopers-are-cracking-up.html
A paralyzed GOP is one of the best things that can happen to our country.

More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/11/index.html#008323

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/10/17118/364

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_06.php#006981

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2286

“Phase Two” of investigation into Iraq war lies moves forward (and may take some interesting twists)

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2282

More stalling from Pat Roberts (will he try to drag this one past NEXT year’s elections too?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003038.html
[Laura Rozen] Phase II report not to be completed until next year, the Post reports. So perhaps it can be a gift for Veterans' Day 2006. Forgive me if my recollection is incorrect, but wasn't Senate Intelligence committee chair Pat Roberts saying after Reid shut the Senate down last week to demand a status report on Phase II that the move was a "political stunt" since everybody knew that the report would be ready as soon as this week?

Josh Marshall’s series on the origins of the forged Niger documents (Part III)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_06.php#006975

Frist: leaks are worse than breaking laws and torture. Are you KIDDING me?

http://makeashorterlink.com/?F6883242C
[AP] Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says he is more concerned about the leak of information regarding secret CIA detention centers than activity in the prisons themselves. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/11/frist-says-leaks-pose-greater-threat.html
[John Aravosis] Oh no, he's not talking about Scooter Libby and Karl Rove. He still thinks their national security leaks are a-okay. Remember, in those cases the only thing that matters is whether Rove or Scooter have "technically" broken the law or not.

In this case, Frist is talking about the presumed leak that led to the Washington Post writing about the US running secret gulag prison camps in Eastern Europe at former Soviet prisons.

According to Frist, the fact that this "secret" was leaked is far more important to national security than whether the US is violating international human rights conventions by running the camps. . .

Ahem!

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2283
[The Hill] A leak suspected to have come from the office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) complicated, confused and nearly derailed a joint effort by Senate and House Republican leaders to seek an investigation of the unauthorized release of classified information. . .

[Fox News] Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said through a spokesman that the Senate won't investigate the CIA leak. . .

Trent Lott backs off claim that leak came from a Republican

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_atrios_archive.html#113163291630484248

DeLay was ready to cut a plea deal (even though he is “totally innocent,” of course)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/10/AR2005111002401.html

More on white phosphorus use in Iraq

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/10/131319/08

Oh those Senators. Everyone likes to get all irate and sanctimonious about abuses of prisoner rights – but then they go ahead and make it easier

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/11/politics/11detain.html
The Senate voted Thursday to strip captured "enemy combatants" at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, of the principal legal tool given to them last year by the Supreme Court when it allowed them to challenge their detentions in United States courts.

The vote, 49 to 42, on an amendment to a military budget bill by Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, comes at a time of intense debate over the government's treatment of prisoners in American custody worldwide, and just days after the Senate passed a measure by Senator John McCain banning abusive treatment of them.

If approved in its current form by both the Senate and the House, which has not yet considered the measure but where passage is considered likely, the law would nullify a June 2004 Supreme Court opinion that detainees at Guantánamo Bay had a right to challenge their detentions in court. . .

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003037.html

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001083.html

Still, the amendment banning torture moves inexorably forward. Will Bush really veto it? I doubt it – but they might represent it as Congressional restrictions on the Executive’s discretion to conduct war, and we all know what they think about that (they also could let it pass, but then just ignore it or cancel its applicability via a secret Executive order)

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20051110072509990023
[USAT] As the House prepares to take up a proposed ban on abusive treatment of terrorism suspects, the Republican-led Congress appears headed toward a collision with President Bush. . .

Judith Miller: now it all starts to come out. . .

http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/11/another_judy_en.html
[WP] Adam Clymer, retired political correspondent for the Times, recalls an episode during the 1988 presidential campaign, when Miller was deputy Washington bureau chief.

Then the political editor based in New York, Clymer was awakened just after midnight one morning by a call from Miller, he says. She was demanding that a story about Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis be pulled from the paper.

The story was too soft, she complained -- and said Lee Atwater, the political strategist for Vice President George H.W. Bush, believed it was soft as well. Clymer said he was stunned to realize that Atwater apparently had either seen the story or been told about it before publication. . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_atrios_archive.html#113163211311246082
When she was the deputy Washington bureau chief she was taking stories about the Democratic candidate and showing them to the opposition before they were published. . .

What’s up with Arthur Sulzberger? He thinks Miller’s misdeeds “pale in comparison” with Jayson Blair’s?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_06.php#006984

Christopher Hitchens is a pompous fraud

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_06.php#006973

Rev. Pat Robertson is a psycho

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_digbysblog_archive.html#113165893992229298
On today’s 700 Club, Rev. Pat Robertson took the opportunity to strongly rebuke voters in Dover, PA who removed from office school board members who supported teaching faith-based “intelligent design”. . .

“I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover. If there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city. And don’t wonder why He hasn’t helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I’m not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that’s the case, don’t ask for His help because he might not be there.”

[NB: Just what kind of God does Robertson believe in?]

“Bring out the whackos”

http://rockthrower.blogs.com/rockthrower/2005/11/scanlon_abramof.html

FEMA no longer paying Brownie

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-briefs10.2nov10,1,7878382.story

Bush wants a crony in charge at Amtrak too (thanks to Ron Goodenow for the link)

http://www.trainweb.org/crocon/amtrak.html

Bonus item: still stings like a bee

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_atrios_archive.html#113164067217369878


***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 @ 7:47 AM

 
FLUSH THEM OUT

Today I am sickened and angry (again). I haven’t felt like this since Abu Ghraib. How long can the same people peddle the same lies about the same brutal policies, before the American people cry “enough!” All the accusations we used against Hussein -- that he tortured people, that he used chemical weapons, that he made terror a tool of official policy -- are now true of our own government as well.

When will a fraction of the sanctimonous outrage reserved for a blow job in the Oval Office be expressed about the fact that Bush and his people have shamed our nation in the judgment of all civilized people? When will an international court officially charge them with war crimes?

Phosphorus weapons (designed to “illuminate battlefields”) used against troops

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/9/164137/436
"WP [i.e., white phosphorus rounds] proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out."

More: http://wilsonhellie.typepad.com/for_the_record/2005/11/us_napalms_iraq.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/9/174518/797

CIA was warned by their own Inspector General in 2004 that their interrogation techniques constituted torture. Response? Get Dick Cheney to try to exempt you from the rules!

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/09/politics/09detain.html

Read this!

“The list of 10 techniques, including feigned drowning, was secretly drawn up in early 2002 by a team that included senior C.I.A. officials who solicited recommendations from foreign governments and from agency psychologists, the officials said. They said officials from the Justice Department and the National Security Council, which is part of the White House, were involved in the process.”

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_atrios_archive.html#113154545115332776

And, of course, Porter Goss buried the report until after the election (as he was appointed to do)

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4610

A couple of days ago, the Defense Dept issued a new set of interrogation rules to (supposedly) limit the kind of abuses we have been seeing (the CIA is another matter). But today we find out that Rumsfeld can still secretly authorize exceptions to them!

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/08/news/abuse.php
The Pentagon has approved a new policy directive governing interrogations as part of an effort to tighten controls over the questioning of terror suspects and other prisoners by American soldiers

http://makeashorterlink.com/?J47A2122C
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld can authorize exceptions to a new Defense Department policy on military interrogations that bars torture and calls for "humane" treatment of detainees, a spokesman said.

Impeachment

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_11_06.php#006966
[Nelson Report] ‘Torture is prohibited by law throughout the United States. It is categorically denounced as a matter of policy and as a tool of state authority. Every act constituting torture under the Convention constitutes a criminal offense under the law of the United States. No official of the government, federal, state or local, civilian or military, is authorized to commit or to instruct anyone else to commit torture. Nor may any official condone or tolerate torture in any form. No exceptional circumstances may be invoked as a justification of torture. US law contains no provision permitting otherwise prohibited acts of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment to be employed on grounds of exigent circumstances (for example, during a ‘state of public emergency’) or on orders from a superior officer or public authority, and the protective mechanisms of an independent judiciary are not subject to suspension.’ (Report of the United States to the UN Committee against Torture, October 15, 1999, UN Doc. CAT/C/28/Add.5, February 9, 2000, para. 6.). . .

Hummm. . . sounds like a pretty solid case for an impeachment proceeding, were there anything resembling either a sense or shame, or national ethics, in the Leadership of the House of Representatives and Senate. . .

The first link between Abramoff and Bush himself. Oh man, oh man, this is going to be a wild time

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/10/politics/10lobby.html
The lobbyist Jack Abramoff asked for $9 million in 2003 from the president of a West African nation to arrange a meeting with President Bush and directed his fees to a Maryland company now under federal scrutiny. . . White House and State Department officials described Mr. Bush's meeting with President Bongo, whose government is regularly accused by the United States of human rights abuses, as routine. The officials said they knew of no involvement by Mr. Abramoff in the arrangements. Officials at Gabon's embassy in Washington did not respond to written questions. . .

In a draft agreement with Gabon dated Aug. 7, 2003, Mr. Abramoff and his associates asked that $9 million in lobbying fees be paid through wire transfers . . . The agreement promised a "public relations effort related to promoting Gabon and securing a visit for President Bongo with the president of the United States.". . . "Without advance resources, I have been cautiously working to obtain a visit for the president to Washington to see President Bush," Mr. Abramoff wrote.

Chalabi, the bad penny of neo-con policy, being rehabilitated (again). Well, the original plan was to install him as the head of Iraq, and now after many wheels have turned, they’re back to the original plan – despite his numerous lies and betrayals and possible espionage against US interests, the Bush gang is hedging their bets, just in case he does emerge from the December elections (what’s the old saying? “He’s an S.O.B., but he’s OUR S.O.B.”). He gets quality time with Cheney, Rice, and Hadley

http://www.slate.com/id/2129927

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2275

http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/9/165711/209

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003035.html

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4612
''It's more important to look to the future than to the past,'' Chalabi said.

Fitzgerald’s not done: will question another witness

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013057.html

“Cheney on trial”

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2005/11/10/cheney_trial/

More: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9938956/site/newsweek/

Which Republican leaked the Eastern Europe torture prison story?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003033.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_atrios_archive.html#113157392872740665

Suddenly, the Republican leadership says this isn’t such a big deal any more, no hurry to investigate

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_atrios_archive.html#113159754021978199

Did Honest John just tell a Very Big Lie?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_atrios_archive.html#113156988828767604

Another hero bites the dust

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/11/09/14/01/yes-man/
[Raw Story] During this conversation, Biden reiterated much of what he had said during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s hearing on the evidence as presented by Powell deputy Richard Armitage. According to sources, Biden expressed his concerns to Powell about the reliability of the evidence, and encouraged the Secretary to speak only about intelligence that he was sure of.

“Mr. Secretary, tell them what you know,” Biden said, according to those familiar with the conversation.

“…When we are both out of office for two years, I will tell you what is going on here,” they say Powell replied.

Pat Roberts wants to investigate Doug Feith’s rogue operation in the Defense Dept. Now, if I thought this was serious, I would fully support it: no one yet has delved sufficiently into that nest of vipers. But of course Roberts doesn’t mean it: (a) it’s a stalling tactic to put off still further the release of the long-overdue Iraq lies report; (b) if he were serious, he wouldn’t ask the totally useless Defense Dept Inspector General to conduct the inquiry. As regular readers of PBD are aware, it’s impossible to count the myriad scandals and screw-ups that have been swallowed up by the black hole that is the DOD IG office

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003029.html

Overview of the Niger uranium forgeries story (if you’re trying to get up to speed on The Next Big Scandal about to assail the Bush gang)

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/11/09/italy/

GOP trying (once again) to strain credulity by explaining how Bush didn’t really lie about WMD and Iraq (shhh! Don’t tell them that trying to do this ONLY MAKES IT WORSE)

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/11/index.html#008302

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/11/09/white_house_plans_to_hit_back_on_iraq.html

The other shoe drops: Judith Miller is O-U-T at the N-Y-T

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_atrios_archive.html#113156930772183721

More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2276

Whoa! Repubs call in oil execs to testify before committee, but WON’T require them to be under oath

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/9/121726/573

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2269

More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051109/ap_on_go_co/congress_oil

Election day review

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_11_06_digbysblog_archive.html#113153544967252717

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/11/09/what_it_all_means.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/9/134318/397

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9981813/site/newsweek/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051109/pl_nm/election_usa_dc
"It really is a disaster for Bush”

How the GOP is trying to minimize the disaster

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2005/11/get_yer_gop_tal.html#more

Poor Scotty

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4613
Q You're not in denial here? I mean, the President has got his lowest job approval ratings in his presidency. Do you not acknowledge that that's not, as Secretary Rumsfeld would say, not exactly helpful to Republicans?

MR. McCLELLAN: We have a proud record of accomplishment and a positive agenda for the future. And we look forward to continuing to talk about it. . . [more!]

Just in case you didn’t believe me, here’s why we have the Internet: WH tries to erase hist