WHO NEEDS AN INSPECTOR GENERAL?

Situation normal . . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8902.html
[NYT] The American military has not properly tracked hundreds of thousands of weapons intended for Iraqi security forces and has failed to provide spare parts, maintenance personnel or even repair manuals for most of the weapons given to the Iraqis, a federal report released Sunday has concluded. . . The American military did not even take the elementary step of recording the serial numbers of nearly half a million weapons provided to Iraqis, the inspector general found, making it impossible to track or identify any that might be in the wrong hands.

Exactly where untracked weapons could end up — and whether some have been used against American soldiers — were not examined in the report, although black-market arms dealers thrive on the streets of Baghdad, and official Iraq Army and police uniforms can easily be purchased as well, presumably because government shipments are intercepted or otherwise corrupted. . . .

[Steve Benen] Wait, it gets worse. . .

There's some irony, I suppose, in the fact that we went to Iraq to find Saddam's weapons that weren't there, and ended up losing track of our own weapons that were there.

Outrageous, right? How do you think they will solve this problem?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061028/ap_on_go_ot/iraq_contracts
The Halliburton subsidiary that provides food, shelter and other logistics to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan exploited federal regulations to hide details on its contract performance, according to a report released Friday.

The special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction found that Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown & Root Services routinely marked all information it gave to the government as proprietary, whether it was or not. . . . By marking all information proprietary — including such normally releasable data as labor rates — the company abused federal regulations, the report says.

In effect, Kellogg, Brown & Root turned the regulations "into a mechanism to prevent the government from releasing normally transparent information, thus potentially hindering competition and oversight." . . .

Hmm . . . but couldn’t they come up with an even BETTER solution?

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2006/10/30/22346/397
[Fox News] The special IG [Inspector General] office, which since 2004 has kept watch over how U.S. taxpayers' funds are being spent rebuilding Iraq, is scheduled to close at the end of fiscal year 2007, next Sept. 30. Its expiration has prompted concerns that new and continuing investigations into waste, fraud and abuse by Iraqis and American contractors will recede into the shadows of the federal bureaucracy. . .

THEN, after you eliminate any oversight on Iraq spending, dump even more money in

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/31/62317/752
Reuters - Iraq needs around $100 billion over the next four to five years to rebuild its shattered infrastructure, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said on Tuesday. . . .[read on]

Did you know?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061031/pl_afp/usiraqmilitaryforces_061031001643
With the US death toll in Iraq passing 100 this month and mid-term elections just days away, the Pentagon said the US force in Iraq has grown to 150,000 troops, the biggest it has been since January. . .

And those “well trained” Iraqi security forces?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/30/AR2006103001323.html
"How can we expect ordinary Iraqis to trust the police when we don't even trust them not to kill our own men?" asked Capt. Alexander Shaw, head of the police transition team of the 372nd Military Police Battalion. . . "To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure we're ever going to have police here that are free of the militia influence."

The top U.S. military commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., predicted last week that Iraqi security forces would be able to take control of the country in 12 to 18 months. But several days spent with American units training the Iraqi police illustrated why those soldiers on the ground believe it may take decades longer than Casey's assessment.

Seventy percent of the Iraqi police force has been infiltrated by militias, primarily the Mahdi Army, according to Shaw and other military police trainers. Police officers are too terrified to patrol enormous swaths of the capital. And while there are some good cops, many have been assassinated or are considering quitting the force.

"None of the Iraqi police are working to make their country better," said Brig. Gen. Salah al-Ani, chief of police for the western half of Baghdad. "They're working for the militias or to put money in their pocket." . . .

The Iraqi police are not the only ones who feel unsafe. The American soldiers and civilians who train the Iraqis are constantly on guard against the possibility that the police might turn against them. Even in the police headquarters for all of western Baghdad, one of the safest police buildings in the capital, the training team will not remove their body armor or helmets. An armed soldier is assigned to protect each trainer.

"I wouldn't let half of them feed my dog," 1st Lt. Floyd D. Estes Jr., a former head of the police transition team, said of the Iraqi police. "I just don't trust them." . . .

Well, we knew it was coming: Bush says, if you vote Democratic, the terrorists will win

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/30/AR2006103000530.html

Cheney has a simpler line: It’s the elections themselves that are the problem. (Should we cancel them? Thanks to Josh Marshall for the link)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N30402444.htm
[Reuters] Vice President Dick Cheney said on Monday insurgents had stepped up attacks in Iraq to try to sway next week's U.S. elections and they were constantly surfing the Web to keep tabs on American public opinion. . .

Worse to come. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_29.php#010676

Hmmmm. . . does Bush really want to equate the accuracy of his predictions over these two matters?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/30/washington/30cnd-bush.html
President Bush campaigned in a crucial House district in Georgia today, telling a friendly audience that he foresees victory in Iraq eventually and victory over the Democrats next week. . .

Is Cheney getting ready for Democratic subpoenas? Shredding company makes a big pickup from his compound (thanks to Atrios for the link)

http://www.wonkette.com/politics/dick-cheney/shreddin-with-dick-211028.php

Haw, haw, haw (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.crosswalk.com/news/1442653.html
Sen. George Allen of Virginia is running the worst campaign in the country, political insiders said in a poll released Saturday by the National Journal. . .

Allen has suffered "numerous self-inflicted wounds," one Republican respondent said. "This onetime presidential wannabe has ushered himself off the national stage, and he will be lucky to win re-election."

A Democratic respondent said the race "should never have been in play. But Allen's ineptness and, frankly, stupidity, as well as the campaign's inability to dig itself out of the mess the candidate makes has been a textbook case of how not to run." . . .

[NB: Of course, he’ll still probably win]

Or, maybe not

http://www.dscc.org/news/roundup/20061030_bar/index.htm
With George Allen refusing to explain why multiple warrants were issued for his arrest, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee today asked the Virginia State Bar to release Allen’s bar application. Allen would have had to explain the warrants on the application and its contents could be the only document shedding light on his arrests. . . .

More trouble for Jim Gibbons (R-NV)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/district-attorney-re-opens.html
[AP] The district attorney said Monday that authorities have reopened their investigation into a cocktail waitress' claim that a Republican congressman running for governor assaulted her in a parking garage after a night of drinking. . .

[Joe] This case has had many twists and turns. The latest involves the appearance of previously missing surveillance tapes. . . .

The tapes: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001898.php

Even the safe Republicans are acting crazy

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_29.php#010675
U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-5th, is refusing to tape a debate with her opponent, Democrat Roger Sharpe, on Wednesday unless reporters are barred from the broadcast studio. . .

Is this the deal that silenced the Ethics Committee report? Denny Hastert to step down?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061030/ap_on_el_ho/house_gop_future

Are these people even CAPABLE of running an honest campaign?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001901.php
[Paul Kiel] Well, I think we have our answer as to who is behind the Progressive Policy Council, the phony group behind a mailer that's gone out to an untold number of Pennsylvania voters in an apparent attempt to sour liberal voters on Democrat Bob Casey.

Records with the Virginia State Corporation Commission show that the group's charter was filed by a man named Jason Torchinsky of Holtzman Vogel. And who is he? . . .

More on push polls: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001903.php

http://www.slate.com/id/2152529/fr/rss/

Gee, Mark, it’s not even Halloween yet and you’re already freakin’ me out

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/election_2006_/2006/10/scenario.php
[Mark Kleiman] The Democrats hold the New Jersey Senate seat, and carry Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Missouri, and Virginia . . . Lieberman keeps his commitment to caucus with the Democrats . . . . The Iraq Study Group reports, says Iraq is a mess, mistakes have been made, and a new strategy is needed. . . . Rumsfeld resigns. . . . Bush appoints Lieberman to Defense. . . [Connecticut Governor] Rell appoints a Republican to take Lieberman's seat. . .

I think this is really, really dumb – what’s the point of electing a black Senator if in the process you also give the Republicans control?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/30/AR2006103001057.html

Why is Rove so confident? (revisited)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_29.php#010664
[Josh Marshall] All sorts of articles have been written over the last week or so with one question: Why is Karl Rove so confident? What does he know that the Dems and the pundit-predictors don't?

The answer is really, really simple: nothing. There's not anything he knows. In fact, he's not even confident. It's a bluff.

There are ten different reasons to know this. But the most compelling and sufficient one is to look at his history. . . [read on]

A compromise solution on the Florida ballot to replace Mark Foley

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20061028/pl_cq_politics/fla16voterswillbeinformedoffoleysballotreplacement

All polls, all the time

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/30/194846/44
[Chris Bowers] Just look at these amazing House polls . . .

More: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/10/30/sixty_new_house_polls.html

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/#block-views-breaking_polls

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/cook-report-there-is-no-ebb-in-wave.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_29.php#010671
[Charlie Cook] With the election just eight days away, there are no signs that this wave is abating. Barring a dramatic event, we are looking at the prospect of GOP losses in the House of at least 20 to 35 seats, possibly more, and at least four in the Senate, with five or six most likely. . . .

Hmmm. . . why is the U.S. government suddenly worried about the security of e-voting machines? (thanks to David N. for the link)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/15869919.htm
Federal officials are investigating whether Smartmatic, owner of Oakland, Calif.-based Sequoia Voting Systems, is secretly controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. . . Concerns about Smartmatic are keen on the eve of the Nov. 7 election, given fears that someone with unauthorized access to the electronic system could create electoral chaos. Some critics believe that if the Venezuelan government is involved, Smartmatic could be a ''Trojan horse'' designed to advance Chavez's anti-American agenda. . .

[NB: The irony of all this is that if they are so worried that a rogue govt could mess with our electoral system, then they clearly aren't as confident about the security of voting machines as they've been claiming to be. Which is more likely -- that Hugo Chavez could gain access to hack into voting machines, or that some domestic group or individuals could?]

Why has CNN picked up the vile “Democrat Party” mislocution favored by the Right?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_29.php#010668

Here come the sex police (thanks to Daniel Politi for the link)

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20061031/1a_bottomstrip31x_dom.art.htm
The federal government's “no sex without marriage” message isn't just for kids anymore.

Now the government is targeting unmarried adults up to age 29 as part of its abstinence-only programs. . . The government says the change is a clarification. But critics say it's a clear signal of a more directed policy targeting the sexual behavior of adults.

“They've stepped over the line of common sense,” said James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, a Washington, D.C.-based group that supports sex education. “To be preaching abstinence when 90% of people are having sex is in essence to lose touch with reality. It's an ideological campaign. It has nothing to do with public health.”. . . .

Bonus item: Boo!

http://billmon.org/archives/002908.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 @ 6:21 AM

 
HOPING FOR VICTORY, PREPARING FOR DEFEAT

If Iraq really was truly independent, they wouldn’t let themselves be used for a stunt like timing the Hussein verdict for maximum impact on U.S. elections

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/iraqis-to-announce-saddam-verdict-2.html
[John Aravosis] The Iraqi government should immediately demand that the verdict be postponed . . . This is simply outrageous that the Iraqi government is conspiring with the Bush administration in order to influence the US elections. It's also rather ironic that the US puppet Prime Minister in Iraq Nouri al-Maliki spent the past week visiting his masters in Washington, DC, all the while proclaiming that he was a real boy and not a wooden toy, and now we find out that he's doing George Bush's bidding . . .

Maybe they won’t (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?rep=2&aid=332225
The Chief Prosecutor at the court trying ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity said on Sunday that the verdict, due in seven days, could be delayed again by up to two weeks. . .

Even the media can’t ignore that things are going to hell in Iraq (fourth worst month for U.S. deaths since the war started – with two days to go). But look at what’s happening in Afghanistan

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/29/64656/530

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/29/74340/460

“The computer ate it”

http://billmon.org/archives/002902.html
[Billmon] This reads like something from the script of “Abbott and Costello Join the Army” . . .

Everyone is linking to this editorial by respected military journalist Joe Galloway

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/galloway/15855717.htm
The president says that there'll be tough fighting to come, which is hardly news to a military that's already suffered more than 2,800 killed and 22,000 wounded; a military so ground down that it won't be able to man the next annual deployments without once again reaching out and activating thousands of Army National Guard and Reserve troops that have maxed out their active duty availability.

Oh yes. One other bit of news: the White House that says nothing is too good for our troops has turned its back on a plea by Army leaders for a $25 billion increase in its 2008 budget so it can carry out the missions the administration has assigned to it.

The White House Office of Management and Budget rejected Army chief Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker's extraordinary plea by for the additional funds to pay for repairing and replacing thousands of worn out and blown up tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and Humvees.

Instead of the $25 billion that Schoomaker says the Army needs just to keep doing what it's been doing with spit, adhesive tape and baling wire for the last five years, the Pentagon says the Army can have $7 billion. . .

This unseemly circus and its clowns in Congress can't go away fast enough and with enough dishonor and disgrace to suit the circumstances. Their place in America's history is secure: They will go down as the worst administration and the worst Congress we've ever had. Period.

They deserve to lose both the House and the Senate on Nov. 7, and the White House in 2008. They bullied their way into a war that they thought would be a slam-dunk and then so bungled things that the only superpower left in the world has been humbled and hobbled in a world that they've made more dangerous for us.

Thanks, guys. You've done a heckuva job. We won't forget it.

The man in charge

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/29/coverstory.tm/index.html
[Time] Bush has lived by the political philosophy that when the crowd is against you, you just strut more boldly across the stage. That's why he held a news conference a few days ago to hug his war policy even tighter. It is there that he argued staying the course means "constantly changing tactics to meet the situation on the ground," and that benchmarks (good) aren't the same as timetables (bad).

But it was as if no one was listening. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki declared that he wouldn't abide by either one if it was imposed by Washington, and Bush's top general in Iraq, George W. Casey, broke ranks to suggest he was thinking about asking for more troops.

That was just about the last thing any Republican wanted to hear with less than two weeks to go before an election. Within 24 hours, therefore, Casey was pulled back on message with a statement in which his office said he had given the "wrong impression." . . .[read on]

How stupid do they think we are?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/28/AR2006102801052.html
"October has been very busy from a standpoint of operations on the ground and certainly back here in Washington," White House counselor Dan Bartlett said.

With Iraq again dominating the national dialogue right before key midterm elections, "there's an expectation in the air that after the election, the partisanship and the politically charged environment will dissipate somewhat and people can start looking for ways to work together on this issue," Bartlett said. . .

[NB: What evidence, what evidence at all, is there to suggest that the Bush gang has EVER been interested in a bipartisan approach to anything, let alone war and security? Their only interest is in getting people to approve their approach, without question. Democrats who disagree with them are slammed as disloyal, or worse. Even as they are starting to enact Democratic proposals (give the Iraqis a deadline to start assuming responsibility for themselves; redeploy troops out of combat areas – the Murtha agenda), they are ramping up their attacks on Democrats in the lead-up to November 7. Why the hell should anyone reward them for this by playing “forgive and forget” later on?]

From reader Paul B.

I strongly object to the term "waterboarding." Its usage makes the practice sound like something college students might do on Spring Break, instead of what it is: torture.

[NB: Good point. From now on I will call it “simulated drowning.”]

The kind of people they are (appetizer)

http://sideshow.me.uk/soct06.htm#10291428
[Avedon Carol] I just watched Bill Scher and Jonah Goldberg debating liberalism, and it's always illuminating to see conservatarians trying again to justify imposing their will on others in the name of stopping liberals from imposing their will on others. . . [read on]

The kind of people they are (grand feast – don’t miss this one)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116214156174959914
[Paul Burgess] WHEN I WAS speechwriting at the White House, one rule was enforced without exception. The president would not be given drafts that lowered him or The Office by responding to the articulations of hatred that drove so many of his critics.

This rule was especially relevant to remarks that concerned the central topic of our times, Iraq. Having left the White House more than a year ago, I conclude that the immunizing effect of that rule must have expired, because I now find that I am infected with a hatred for the very quarter that inspired the rule--the deranged, lying left.

I never used to feel hatred for people such as Cindy Sheehan, Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, or other pop-culture notables who, for example, sing the praises of Central American dictators while calling President Bush the greatest terrorist on earth. I do now. . . [read on!]

Michael Steele’s (R-MD) push-polling

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_29.php#010649
"Do you favor carrying out medical experiments on unborn babies?"

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_29.php#010652
A TPM reader in Virginia says that the George Allen campaign is using a a similar question in its push-poll calls: "Do you favor carrying out medical experiments on a dead fetus?"

Even Curt Weldon’s (R-PA) hometown paper endorses his opponent

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005093.html

As always, the Republicans move quickly to accuse others of doing the things they are doing themselves

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/vote_fraud_/2006/10/voter_fraud_fraud.php
[Mark Kleiman] Election time is coming, so the right blogosphere is, as usual, all a-twitter about "voter fraud," which in their parlance always means voting by those ineligible to vote, not depriving those who are eligible of the right to vote as in Florida in 2000 or Ohio this year, or misrecording or miscounting of votes in badly designed (or deliberately misdesigned) high-tech voting systems.

The latest version of this fan-dance comes from Jonathan Adler at the Volokh Conspiracy, and has been gleefully linked to by Glenn Reynolds. It seems that the Poughkeepsie Journal has found 77,000 dead people on the voter rolls in New York State, of whom 2600 may have voted. Moreover, "Democrats are more successful at voting after death than Republicans, by a margin of four-to-one, largely because so many dead people seem to vote in Democrat-dominated New York City."

Note first that the operative phrase is "may have." The newspaper report clearly concedes a point that the blog posts ignore: in fact the reporter detected not a single instance of actual voter fraud. . .

Another porn donor to the “values” Republican party

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/gop-porn-scandal-widens-in-addition-to.html

Google-bombing the Republicans: it works!

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/28/1965/5731

Latest poll updates

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/29/92522/378

The GOTV battle will determine the war

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/30/23919/487

The Republicans are already starting to “frame” a likely Democratic victory. As you might guess, it doesn’t involve shaking hands and saying “good fight, now let’s work together”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8900.html

Karl Rove: the Dems may win (but I’m still a genius)

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2006/10/29/233340/24

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3517

Steve Clemons gets giddy

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001715.php
Pelosi should not hold back. A public spotlight must be focused on those who took this nation in to the Iraq War -- and in particular, hearings along the lines of those that Harry Truman called in the Senate in 1940 to expose war profiteers should be quickly assembled and legal investigations of the structural corruption behind this war launched. . . . If the House becomes the primary driver of investigations into the abuses, corruption, and duplicity that took this nation into a war that has undermined American status and security in the world, then the spotlight on the many scandals to roll forward will actually bring over Republicans. . .

We are going to see the implosion of the Bush presidency I think -- and just like Watergate -- there needs to be space for the William Cohen types and Howard Baker types of this Congress to join in a collaborative spirit with Democrats to save this country. . .

Joe Lieberman’s (R?-CT) pas de deux with himself: for the war, but against the war; will caucus with the Dems if he wins, but might not. . .

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-senate1029.artoct29,0,2138628.story

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2006/10/29/184223/12

Heh: Bob Schieffer (CBS) calls Ken Mehlman’s excuse for backing a racist ad in Tennessee, “lame.” Mehlman says, we didn’t support it (but we paid for it), we’re glad they pulled it (but it was “fair”), I don’t think it was racist (but my response to it was the same as Harold Ford’s “from a race perspective”)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/cbss-bob-schieffer-calls-gop-head-ken.html

Wolf Blitzer shows some teeth

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116215078937197701
[CNN] Blitzer:...In this most recent interview, she [Lynne Cheney] knew we would be speaking about politics. That was reaffirmed to her staff only hours before the interview. As a former co-host of Crossfire during the 1990s, she knows her way around the media. She was never shy about sparring with Democratic strategist and co-host.

[Digby] Lynn Cheney has a schtick and it's the "offended Republican mom responds with righteous indignation." . . . [read on]

More: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/29/blitzer-cheney/

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116198090163194386

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/more-fall-out-from-lynne-cheney-losing.html
[John Aravosis] I'd also add, as an aside, that Cheney had the audacity to ask Wolf "do you want us to win?" the war in Iraq. A comment I find extremely troubling from a national political figure in a democracy. CNN's job isn't to help the US, or anybody else, win or lose. Their job is to report the news. Aside from reporting a story that they know, or suspect, will cause massive damage to US national security, it is not the media's job in a democracy to further some governmental agenda. Mrs. Cheney knows that, but she, like so many others now leading the Republican party, don't really believe in democracy. So it's no wonder she wants to know whose team the press is on since in her sick little world freedom is always partisan. . .

A sea change ahead

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/30/32741/880
[ABC] The number of people who go online for political news is rising, with more than one-third saying they check the Internet for such information.

This group is more likely to be younger, better educated and male than the population in general, an Associated Press-AOL News poll found.

While 35 percent say they check the Internet for political updates about campaigns and candidates, that number grows to 43 percent of likely voters and they tend to be more liberal than conservative. . . [read on]

Bonus item: Michael J. Fox versus Rush Limbaugh – no contest

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/29/171858/98
[DarkSyde] Here, Fox responds to Rush Limbaugh who said in part "When you start telling them that there's a cure . . .You are creating a false hope scenario. And that is cruel."

[ABC] MJ FOX: What is crueler, to not have hope or to have hope? And it's not false hope. It's a very informed hope. I mean, it's hope that's informed by the opinion of our leading scientists, almost to the point of unanimity that embryonic stem cells, because they're pluripotent, because they have the capacity to be anything. . . I don't want to get too corny about it, but isn't that what that person in harbor with the thing is about, hope? And so to characterize hope as some kind of malady or some kind of flaw of character or national weakness is, to me, really counter to what this country is about.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116219346470839755
Limbaugh said he would slap actor and Parkinson's disease sufferer Michael J. Fox, "if you'd just quit bobbing your head." . . .

***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 @ 6:44 AM

 
NO BRAINERS

This nails it: how the Cheney “waterboarding” story reveals the utter inability of most of the mainstream press to report on the plain truth of a story without letting themselves get spun into a he said/she said mode

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010643
[DK] We're darn near six years into this nonsense, but still the White House can beat the press corps like a drum. I'm referring to Cheney's comment that waterboarding detainees was a "no brainer," which the White House has managed to turn into a story about what Cheney really said or what he really meant by what he said.

There's no legitimate doubt about what Cheney said and what he meant. Cheney knows it. The President knows it. So do Tony Snow and the whole White House press corps. Yet we have this spectacularly silly dance--clever people being too clever by half: Snow and Cheney's staff cleverly parsing the interview, and the press cleverly trying to trip up the parsers. . .

No thinking person believes Cheney was referring to anything other than waterboarding. The White House is unable to explain what else Cheney could have been referring to. Yet the leading papers are unable to cut through the malarkey.

I suppose the only thing we work harder at being in denial about than Cheney's comments is the fact that we have used waterboarding and other forms of torture. Every thinking person knows that to be true, too, and it shouldn't take Cheney's slip of the tongue to convince us.

OK, boys, I think we get it

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/28/iraq.main/index.html
"I consider myself a friend of the U.S., but I'm not America's man in Iraq," [Iraq’s Prime Minister] al-Maliki told the U.S. ambassador, according to Hassan al-Seneid.

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3512
[AP] President Bush on Saturday reaffirmed his support for Iraq's prime minister, telling Nouri al-Maliki that he is not "America's man in Iraq" but a sovereign leader whom the U.S. is aiding.

[Swopa] Wasn't George Lakoff just saying yesterday how denying a frame actually reinforces it? Oh, well.

This morning: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3514
[NYT] A Maliki spokesman, Ali Dabbagh, said the prime minister had said the Iraqi government wanted more control over its army, which operates under Americans. . .

One major lever the Iraqis have is the United Nations agreement that extends legal authority for foreign troops to be here. Senior officials are trying to amend the agreement, which expires on Dec. 31, in order to give the government more control over parts of the army sooner, a process American officials are watching worriedly.

“I am now prime minister and overall commander of the armed forces, yet I cannot move a single company without coalition approval because of the U.N. mandate,” Mr. Maliki told Reuters on Thursday. “If anyone is responsible for the poor security situation in Iraq, it is the coalition.”

When is a “timetable” not a timetable?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/28/AR2006102800959.html

Karl Rove applies his genius to military and geopolitical strategy – and if this is really how these people think you should be very, very worried

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/karl-rove-military-strategist.html
[AP] "More sacrifice is going to be required," Rove, President Bush's chief political strategist, told a ballroom full of Republicans . . . "We will either create a world in which our children and our grandchildren have a hope of an optimistic future or we will leave to them a world with a hateful empire centered in the Middle East."

[NB: Leave aside the fact that with the possible exception of Libya, everything these people have done has made the Middle East MORE hateful and unified against us: how much “more sacrifice” would be entailed with bringing their vision into reality?]

Bush: this is what REPUBLICANS are saying about him

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2006/10/28/225327/18
[Bruce Fein] Iraq will inexorably disintegrate under a White House successor in the White House who will have disowned the Bush madness and removed American troops as concessions to reality. Enjoying retirement in Texas, Mr. Bush will argue for the history books that Iraq was not lost on his watch; and, that more of his madness would have been crowned with victory. These observations will seem unjustifiably harsh to Mr. Bush's cheerleaders. But the president has consistently shown himself a small man driven by petty ambitions. And tall and high-minded American soldiers in Iraq pay a steep price. .. [read on]

Well, the Enron bad guys have all been sentenced, so I guess the problem of corporate corruption is finally solved. Good work, guys

http://www.slate.com/id/2152449
[M.J. Smith] The New York Times leads with corporations and Bush administration officials lining up for an easing of some business regulations put in place post-Enron. . . the story illustrates just how much steam efforts to lighten corporations' regulatory burdens have gained. Industry groups with close ties to the Bush administration have been working on proposals that would be put forward soon after the November elections. Why so soon after the new Congress takes office? Because, the Times says, it's "as far away as possible from the 2008 elections." The proposals may also, where possible, come in the form of rule changes instead of legislation to avoid that messy lawmaking process . . .

The Sarbanes-Oxley law put in place after Enron's collapse is among the targets. . .

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/business/29corporate.html

Income inequality in one sentence

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_10/009919.php
[Jonathan Chait] Over the last quarter century, the portion of the national income accruing to the richest 1 percent of Americans has doubled. The share going to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent has tripled, and the share going to the richest one-hundredth of 1 percent has quadrupled.

Hmmm. . . . how do people like this get in Ken Mehlman’s Rolodex?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010647
It turns out that the Republican National Committee is a regular recipient of political contributions from Nicholas T. Boyias, the owner and CEO of Marina Pacific Distributors, one of the largest producers and distributors of gay porn in the United States. This recent article on Marina Pacific's new marketing campaign form XBiz, a porn industry trade sheet, notes that, in addition to producing its own material, the "company acts as a distribution house to hundreds of lines, mostly gay, 40 of which can be purchased only through MPD." . . .

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/republican-national-committee.html

Jon Porter (R-NV) finally releases his schedule and phone records to “disprove” that he illegally made fundraising calls from his office. One little problem . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010640

Did George Allen (R-VA) spit on his ex-wife? Is this the sort of thing our national elections have come to? How do we feel about playing this game?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/2008-presidential-contender-once-spit.html
Allen is a renowned spitter. . .

Or does he deserve whatever he gets? http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8899.html

Webb fights back: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/28/205313/02

The role of the press: http://mediamatters.org/items/200610280001

More on how the media strains credulity to try to find moral equivalence between the Republicans’ attack ads (90% of their ad buys!) and anything similar on the Democratic side

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/10/howard-kurtzs-fear-of-facts.html

Fighting back: http://www.discourse.net/archives/2006/10/fighting_back.html

Eight key states with likely voting problems (thanks to David N. for the link)

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001874.php
Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Florida, Maryland, Ohio, New York

It’s already starting in Florida

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/10/28/20/10/big-surprise-5/
[Susan Madrak] Early voters in Florida are reporting problems with the electronic voting machines, and you’ll never guess what - the mistakes are all in favor of the Republicans!

What are the odds?

“Seven reasons why Karl Rove is optimistic” (make that eight – see above)

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2006/10/post_99.html

More: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-rove29oct29,0,440699.story

Theocracy watch: How national policies have been skewed by Bush’s deference to the Christian Right

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8895.html

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/27/AR2006102701230.html
ABC's "This Week": House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio; actor and stem-cell research activist Michael J. Fox; actress and UNICEF ambassador Sarah Jessica Parker.

CBS' "Face the Nation": Reps. John Murtha, D-Pa., and Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.; Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman.

NBC's "Meet the Press": Democratic Rep. Ben Cardin and Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, Maryland Senate candidates.

CNN's "Late Edition": Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind.; Samir Sumaidaie, Iraqi ambassador to the U.S.; Reps. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla.; retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton.

"Fox News Sunday": Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, R-Calif.; Sens. George Allen, R-Va., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

Bonus item: In the White House basement

http://blogs.chron.com/nickanderson/archives/2006/10/disposable_talk.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 @ 7:02 AM

 
TORTURED LOGIC

[Sorry for the late posting. Blogger is glitchy today]

Cheney cracks out of turn

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/27/cheney.torture.ap/index.html
In an interview Tuesday with WDAY of Fargo, North Dakota, Cheney was asked if "a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives."

The vice president replied, "Well, it's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there I was criticized as being the vice president for torture. We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in." . . .

Human Rights Watch said Cheney's remarks were "the Bush administration's first clear endorsement" of water boarding.

[NB: Now what else could he have thought “a dunk in water” referred to? I grew up near Lake Michigan and was dunked many times – nobody would ever think THAT was an interrogation technique. Clearly the only way it would be effective was if people thought they were going to drown. Call that “waterboarding” or not – it’s torture. Of course this was what Cheney meant]

Tony spins frantically

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7636
Q Tony, your argument that Vice President Cheney didn't know that he was being asked about water boarding or wasn't being asked about water boarding and didn't intend to give an answer that suggested he was saying the United States uses water boarding, it doesn't follow when you read the transcript and it doesn't follow sort of common sense.

MR. SNOW: Well, I'll tell you what he --

Q How can you really make that argument?

MR. SNOW: I'll tell you what he said. He was asked the question, "You dunk somebody's head in the water to save a life, is it a no-brainer?" And also, if you read the rest of the answer, he also -- the Vice President, who earlier had also been asked about torture, he said, "We don't torture." . . .

Q Then how can you say that he's not referring to water boarding, when it was very clear, when you look at the whole context, not only that specific question --

MR. SNOW: Does the word --

Q -- but the one before?

MR. SNOW: Did the word "water boarding" appear?

Q It came up in the context of talking about interrogation techniques and the entire debate that has been conducted in this country.

MR. SNOW: I understand that. I'll tell you what the Vice President said. You can push all you want, wasn't referring to water boarding and would not talk about techniques.

Q Let's back it up here for a second, because what we're saying is -- and I've got the transcript -- "Would you agree a dunk in water is a 'no-brainer' that can save lives?" Vice President: "It's a 'no-brainer' for me." Tony --

MR. SNOW: Read the rest of the answer.

Q What could "dunk in the water" refer to if not water boarding?

MR. SNOW: I'm just telling you -- I'm telling you the Vice President's position. I will let you draw your own conclusions, because you clearly have. He says he wasn't talking --

Q I haven't drawn any conclusions. I'm asking for an explanation about what "dunk in the water" could mean.

MR. SNOW: How about a dunk in the water?

Q So, wait a minute, so "dunk in the water" means what, we have a pool now at Guantanamo, and they go swimming?

MR. SNOW: Are you doing stand up?. . .

Q Why did the Vice President then, when the inference was clearly there from the questioner, who more than once referred to a dunk in the water. . . He, in the questioning, talked about how his radio listeners believe that this is a useful tool. "If it takes dunking someone in order to save lives, isn't it a silly debate to even be questioning that?" The Vice President says, "I do agree," later says, "That's been a very important tool that we've been able to secure the nation" -- referring to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

If the Vice President is so careful, why did he allow himself to answer a question in which "dunking in the water" was a part of that question?

MR. SNOW: The answer -- look, he was answering a question. And also as you know, he went on to talk about torture. Look, I've said what I'm going to say on it. I can't -- I really -- what you're asking me to do is to deconstruct something. I've asked what he meant. I've told you what he said he meant. I can't go any further than that, so you can ask all the whys and wherefores. But I want you to think -- let's go back to the "no brainer" part here.

The Vice President is not somebody who's going to reveal techniques. He's been in this business for a very long time.

Q He was asked about a technique, and he responded to a technique, and said that he agreed --

MR. SNOW: No, he was not asked -- he was not asked, no. . .

Q You're quibbling over semantics, to borrow your phrase. You're quibbling over semantics.

MR. SNOW: I know. But, no, I think -- I actually think. . .

Q It doesn't have to be legally precise. The Vice President understood what the questioner was asking.

MR. SNOW: I'm telling you -- and I will tell you once again -- the Vice President says that he refers to the fact that when you're questioning people, you don't torture. You obey the law, and you protect the American people. We're not going to go any further.

Q Tony, is it not possible that the two are not mutually exclusive? In other words, that the Vice President does not construe water boarding as torture, and therefore, to him --

MR. SNOW: No, no, no, no --

Q -- it's the same sentence --

Q So he does construe water boarding as torture?

MR. SNOW: No, what he does -- he doesn't talk about water boarding. And he also -- what he does say is that the techniques that the Americans use do not qualify as torture, and he is not going to talk about specific techniques.

Q So we know from this that a "dunk in the water" does not qualify as torture, right? And the Vice President is saying we're not involved in torture, and a dunk in the water is a "no brainer" for him.

MR. SNOW: Okay, and I will let you --

Q Is he saying --

MR. SNOW: I will let you deconstruct. The text speaks for itself. Let's change --

Q Did you talk to him?

MR. SNOW: No, I didn't. I talked to Lea Anne. . .

Q -- when he says "dunk in the water," that's a serious question. You can't just sort of beg off and say, I'm sorry, I'm not going to deconstruct it.

MR. SNOW: No, but, Jennifer -- Jennifer, you've listened -- there have been statements out of that office for two consecutive days that say they don't talk about water boarding, they don't talk about torture, they don't condone torture. They're not going to talk about techniques.

Q All we're asking is, what's a "dunk in the water"?

Q He agrees with it. We want to know what that means.

MR. SNOW: All right.

Q If he agrees with a "dunk in the water," then --

MR. SNOW: All right, talk about a dunk in the water.

Q But you need to deconstruct it, not us. That's why we're asking you.

MR. SNOW: Okay, well, I've told you what deconstruction I've had. . .

Q One follow on this, because what you said in the morning was, "You think Dick Cheney is going to slip up on something like this?" Is it possible that he's not slipping up at all --

MR. SNOW: No.

Q -- but that he's winking to the base and saying --

MR. SNOW: No.

Q -- "of course we water board, and of course we'll do anything we need to to get the information because he knows that what they do --

MR. SNOW: I think you just won the cynical question of the year award. No, I don't.

Q How is that cynical? . . .

[NB: By the way, let me blow this bogus “we don’t discuss techniques” issue out of the water. Their rationale is supposedly that disclosing techniques helps the terrorists because if they know our techniques they can train new terrorists to better withstand them. Two problems with this excuse: one is that unless you kill everyone you interrogate, or lock them in isolation from lawyers and the Red Cross forever (yeah, I know), sooner or later these techniques will come out. Second, waterboarding is hardly a secret now – and if they can prepare for it, you can be sure they already are. We’re not talking about some super-secret technique that no one has ever heard of. Refusing to acknowledge waterboarding as a technique is intended to conceal it from only one audience: the American people]

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8890.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010613

Amnesty International: http://susiemadrak.com/2006/10/27/10/27/the-america-we-believe-in-does-not-torture-people/

Cheney “explains”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/27/AR2006102700560.html
"I didn't say anything about waterboarding. . . . He didn't even use that phrase," Cheney said on a flight to Washington from South Carolina. . .

Former CIA general counsel Jeffrey H. Smith said Cheney's comments were "irresponsible" and send a signal to U.S. interrogators that "the people at the top want you to get rough."

"It's clear that the vice president didn't mean a friendly swim at the country club," Smith said. "It would be designed to somehow frighten a prisoner and elicit information from them. Whatever it means, a dunk in the water is not harmless or innocent."

[NB: A while back, Jon Stewart did a brilliant satire on the Bush gang’s magical belief in the power of “The Word” – i.e., if you don’t use a specific word or phrase (“stay the course,” etc) that is somehow a significant difference, even if your actual policies and actions are the same. This is another example of such magical thinking – is Cheney’s defense that he didn’t explicitly use the term “waterboarding”? Who is fooled by that?]

Lynne Cheney: almost as bad as her husband

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116198090163194386

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/lynne-cheney-tells-cnn-that-lesbian.html

http://makeashorterlink.com/?O2D241F0E

This stinks: the Ethics Committee investigation is complete, but they won’t release their report on the Foley scandal until AFTER the election

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/27/AR2006102701501.html

Oh geez: one of Hastert’s aides (Ted Van Der Meid), already on the hot seat over the Foley mess, is now accused of blocking a House corruption investigation

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001896.php

More: http://www.cq.com/public/20061027-spending.html
Ronald Garant and a second Appropriations Committee investigator who asked not to be identified said Van Der Meid engaged in “screaming matches” with investigators and told at least one aide not to talk to them. Van Der Meid also prohibited investigators from visiting certain sites to check up on the effectiveness of the work, the investigators said. . .

Do you think the news media mind being played for fools? Or will they go along with wall-to-wall coverage on this for the last 48 hours before the vote?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200610270011
The Bush administration has a long history of timing national security-related actions with the political calendar, and the media should be asking if it has done so again. The verdict of the Saddam Hussein trial, which was originally scheduled to be announced on October 16, 2006, has been postponed until November 5, 2006, just two days before the U.S. midterm elections.

Given the importance of the midterm elections, the administration's documented history of manipulating Iraq and terrorism announcements for political gain, and the heavy influence of the U.S. on the Iraqi court, David Brock, President and CEO of Media Matters for America, today called on the media to question the new date set for the release of the Saddam verdict.

"Why has the verdict been postponed? Is it designed to influence this fall's election? Is this yet another example of the administration playing politics with our policy in Iraq? These are the questions the media should be asking," said Brock. "Forget the October surprise -- it looks like Karl Rove and the Bush Administration have been preparing for a November surprise. . .”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010618
[Josh Marshall] Yep, they should be asking. Why haven't any of the major networks or national newspapers pressed the White House on why they scheduled the sentencing of Saddam Hussein two days before the US's midterm elections.

Interesting story: Is Condi Rice using her lieutenant (Philip Zelikow) to circulate critical views on Bush’s foreign policies?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/28/world/28zelikow.html

[NB: And while we’re on the subject of Zelikow, whatever happened to that story of a month ago, that George Tenet gave Condi a “10 on a scale of 10” briefing on July 10, 2001 that warned of a terrorist attack – but that SOMEBODY decided it didn’t need to be mentioned in the 9/11 Commission report, which Condi’s pal Zelikow oversaw? Remember? http://pbd.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_pbd_archive.html#115996395535251691]

George Allen (R-VA) wants to play rough – we can play rough: unseal those divorce records

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/10/27/buzz_in_virginia.html

It’s in the water! Convicted GOP crook Duke Cunningham’s replacement, Brian Bilbray (R-CA) is. . . .already under grand jury investigation himself (thanks to Josh Marshall for the link)

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/10/27/election2006/sandiego/20_50_4910_26_06.txt
A neighbor of Republican 50th District Rep. Brian Bilbray said Thursday that he was subpoenaed to testify before a San Diego County grand jury in August and spent about an hour and a half answering questions about whether Bilbray lived in his Carlsbad neighborhood. . .

Speculation has swirled around the Bilbray's residence issue for days, with Democrats and Busby's campaign claiming they had received calls from several of Bilbray's Carlsbad neighbors, saying they had been called to testify before a grand jury investigating the congressman's residence.

The allegations that Bilbray was not living where he said he was first surfaced in May, just weeks before a special election to pick a temporary replacement for the seat formerly held by the now-imprisoned Randy "Duke" Cunningham. . .

On a voter registration form that Bilbray signed in June 2005 and his statement of candidacy, which he signed in February, he lists his official residence as Carlsbad. His mother owns the home and Bilbray has said that he moved into the house in mid-2005 to help care for the woman, who uses a wheelchair.

However, because he has three homes, one in Carlsbad, one in Imperial Beach and one in Virginia ---- and on different documents has claimed each of them as his residence ---- Democrats called on the district attorney's office in May "to investigate whether Mr. Bilbray committed perjury or voter fraud."

More! Tom DeLay’s replacement (Shelley Sekula-Gibbs - R-TX) also in hot water

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010634

Jim Gibbons (R-NV) sure is acting like someone guilty of sexual assault

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001893.php

The media’s awful job covering the latest Republican salvo of lying, crazy, racist, sexually salacious attack ads

Must-read: http://billmon.org/archives/002894.html
[Billmon] But no one in the corporate media, to my knowledge, have even come close to putting an accurate lead on the story -- which would look something like this:

Faced with the likely loss of one if not both houses of Congress, the Republican Party has embarked on a massive, last-ditch effort to smear Democratic challengers in competitive districts across the country.

The resulting campaign has completely demolished whatever minor restraints remained on the use of lies and distortions in political attack ads, and has pushed the already debased American political process to a new low.

A "straight" journalist couldn't possibly write a lead like that and expect to get it past his/her editor -- even though the Republicans themselves revealed their intentions quite clearly some weeks ago . . . [read on!]

A case in point: a false equivalence

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116200788520773231
[Digby] I was just watching Washington Week with Gwen Ifill and they did a segment on the attack ads we are seeing this cycle. They led off with the Harold Ford Playboy ad and the Michael J. Fox ad in Missouri.

Did you see the Fox ad as an attack ad? Did he disparage Talent's character or imply that he was a bad person? Was he appealing to peoples baser nature by playing to their prejudices? . . .

I suspect the sad truth is that the kewl kids think it's hitting below the belt for a disabled person to appear in an advertisement --- just as Rush does. They obviously think it's manipulative and wrong to show the actual results of an illness for which you are advocating. After all, somebody might be having dinner and they don't want to have to look at that icky sick stuff that makes them feel all guilty and uncomfortable. Therefore, tt's an attack if someone endorses a particular candidate and he isn't "normal."

Negative ads: SHOULD the Democrats use them more?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010611

NBC refuses to run an ad for the new Dixie Chicks documentary (“Shut Up and Sing”) – why? Because it’s critical of Bush. . .

Well, you can see it here all the same: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/27/dixie-chicks-advertisement-nbc/

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010617
[Josh Marshall] This really is pretty unbelievable: NBC won't run ads for the Dixie Chicks documentary because, in the words of the NBC's commercial clearance department, "they are disparaging to President Bush."

Networks usually at least go to the length of coming up with a phony 'we don't run ads with a political message' excuse. But I'm not sure I've ever seen one say something like this. . . .

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/10/networks-refusal-to-accept-ads-for.html
[Glenn Greenwald] Leave to the side for the moment the fact that this controversy is far more likely to help the film than hurt it. Far more important than that issue is the emergence of a very disturbing trend whereby television networks are refusing to broadcast political advocacy material that will offend the Republican power structure in Washington.

In 2004, CBS and NBC both refused to broadcast an ad from the United Church of Christ which touted its acceptance of all people, including gays and lesbians, into its congregations. CBS said it rejected the Church's $2 million ad campaign "because its ad implies acceptance of gay and lesbian couples -- among other minority constituencies -- and is, therefore, too 'controversial.'" During that incident, CBS all but acknowledged that its decision was based upon the White House's potential disagreement with the ad's message. . . .

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/new-nbc-policy-bans-dixie-chick-tv-ads.html

Pretzel logic

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2006/10/meandering_aimlessly_carrying/
[Matthew Yglesias] More from the aforementioned Bush chat with conservative columnists. Why does the president keep saying this: "I am trying to show success. It will affect Iran. A free Iraq will affect Iran. It will affect Syria."

The administration's been caught in an infinite loop on this question from day one. As everyone can see, it's essentially impossible to accomplish anything in Iraq insofar as the governments of two adjacent countries are actively trying to undermine what we're doing. And yet, the president keeps insisting that one of his long-term goals in Iraq is to overthrow the governments of two of Iraq's neighbors. So -- surprise! -- they try to undermine his policies. And then the administration turns around and whines about it, before deciding down the road that he should once again re-iterate his goal of toppling the regimes. Meanwhile, he has no actual means at his disposal to accomplish this. It's moronic; the kind of thing that it would only take about five minutes of thinking to dissuade you from. But he's been at this for years.

Woo-hoo! Bush’s blazing economy

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Economy.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1162008000
The economy has slowed to a snail's pace, growing in the just-finished quarter at the slowest rate in more than three years and stirring fresh debate about the country's financial health heading into the elections. . .

More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/macroeconomic_policy_/2006/10/slowdown.php

It's Clinton’s fault: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010634

The Goofus Files

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7634
[Bush, in Iowa] You know, when I campaigned here in 2000, I said, I want to be a war President. No President wants to be a war President, but I am one. . . [read on]

Extra edition: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_10/009910.php

Hey, Dan Froomkin is on a roll. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/10/27/BL2006102700776.html
It may go down as one of the most ridiculous -- and ridiculed -- utterances of the Bush presidency. . . [read on]

George Lakoff on framing “stay the course”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/opinion/27lakoff.html
THE Bush administration has finally been caught in its own language trap.

“That is not a stay-the-course policy,” Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, declared on Monday.

The first rule of using negatives is that negating a frame activates the frame. If you tell someone not to think of an elephant, he’ll think of an elephant. When Richard Nixon said, “I am not a crook” during Watergate, the nation thought of him as a crook.

“Listen, we’ve never been stay the course, George,” President Bush told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News a day earlier. Saying that just reminds us of all the times he said “stay the course.” . . . [read on]

The myth of Republican (Rovean) invincibility

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/27/16341/955

Corporations start to plan for Democratic control of Congress, shift patterns of giving

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010632

Making peace with Wal-Mart?

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2006/10/the_times_they_are_achangin_walmart_division.php

Bonus item: Which Republican said this?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010630
“I trust Hamas more than I trust my own Government.”

***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 @ 1:51 PM

 
BACK OFF

The Bush gang shows what they think of any serious attempt to question them or hold them accountable for their mismanaged war

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/26/AR2006102600832.html
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters today to "just back off" and "relax" instead of looking for differences between U.S. and Iraqi officials on benchmarks for progress in Iraq toward political and security goals . . .

Rumsfeld bristled when asked about consequences for Iraqi failure to meet certain goals. . . "Well, it's a political season," he said. "And everyone's trying to make a little mischief out of this, and . . . turn it into a political football, and see if we can't get it on the front page of every newspaper and find a little daylight between what the Iraqis say or someone in the United States says. . . So you ought to just back off, take a look at it, relax, understand that it's complicated, it's difficult. Honorable people are working on these things together. . .”

[NB: Honorable people who have lied from the very start-up of the war until now. Honorable people who worry about perception management and word choice, when thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are being killed. Honorable people who are holding off on any course correction in Iraq until after the election, because political leverage is more important to them than doing the right thing]

Dick Cheney says (again) that the terrorists are correlating their attacks to influence the election

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8877.html

But the fact is, it’s THESE people who are manipulating war policy with the election date in mind

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8876.html
[CBS’s JIM] AXELROD: Well, the White House is in quite a bind, Katie, because on one hand, it has to project some sense of resolve, certainly to keep appealing to its base. On the other hand, they read the polls, and they know that voters want a change in Iraq policy. But as far as any significant change, a White House official tells me, do not expect to see anything significant prior to Election Day. Quoting, "You're not going to see anything before November 8th. It would be political suicide, and Karl Rove would never allow it."

More: http://mediamatters.org/items/200610260003

George Bush, winner

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/10/26/BL2006102600725.html
[Dan Froomkin] One of the more reality-defying aspects of President Bush's position on the war in Iraq is his insistence that we're winning.

That was a central theme at yesterday's press conference . . . "Absolutely, we're winning," Bush said. "As a matter of fact, my view is the only way we lose in Iraq is if we leave before the job is done."

With the body counts soaring, the country descending deeper into civil war and the central government consistently unable to assert itself, how can he call this winning?

The answer: It's becoming increasingly clear that Bush sees the war in Iraq in very simple terms. As he himself said, he believes that the only way to lose is to leave. Therefore anything else is winning -- anything else at all. . . . Even if no progress is being made -- even if things are getting worse, rather than better -- simply staying is winning.

So we're winning.

Bush expanded on this principle in a fascinating, one-hour Oval Office interview yesterday afternoon . . . The result was a slew of disjointed, sometimes not particularly intelligible, but sometimes deeply telling insights into his thinking about the war. It's a heckuva read.

For example, Bush said he owes his conviction that leaving equals losing to Gen. John P. Abizaid, the Central Command chief who oversees military operations in the Middle East.

And regardless of his recent public attempts at semantic backtracking, Bush made it clear to this group of supporters that "stay the course" remains his strategy. . . .

As for "stay the course"? Said Bush: "This stuff about 'stay the course' -- stay the course means, we're going to win. Stay the course does not mean that we're not going to constantly change."

Reality-challenged? http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_10_22_atrios_archive.html#116187727177975330
[Bush] My attitude about our – look, I'm into campaigning out there: People want to know, can you win? That's what they want to know. I mean, there's – look, there's some 25 percent or so that want us to get out, shouldn't have been out there in the first place – and that's fine. They're wrong. But you can understand why they feel that way. They just don't believe in war, and – at any cost. I believe when you get attacked and somebody declares war on you, you fight back. And that's what we're doing.

As Greg points out, a strong majority support getting out. But more than that, we weren't attacked by Iraq.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/bush-theres-some-kind-of-reward-during.html
Bush: "There's some kind of reward during Ramadan for violence"

More nonsense: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003315514
If you've ever fantasized about what it would be like to eavesdrop on our president chatting with some of his strongest fans in the media, then your decidedly odd dream has come true. President Bush met with eight leading conservative columnists on Wednesday afternoon, and a transcript has just been released. . .

Ten Republicans have called for Rumsfeld’s resignation

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001883.php

This letter from Pat Tillman’s brother will break your heart – and make you angry (thanks to several correspondents for the link)

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200601019_after_pats_birthday/

As noted here before, the “border fence” bill is an unusually dishonest bit of Washington kabuki – it doesn’t actually entail building a fence

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/26/bush-fence-bill/
[Nico] Bush is right, the bill does “authorize” the construction of a new fence. But that doesn’t mean the bill pays for it. As the Washington Post reported earlier this month:

No sooner did Congress authorize construction of a 700-mile fence on the U.S.-Mexico border last week than lawmakers rushed to approve separate legislation that ensures it will never be built, at least not as advertised, according to Republican lawmakers and immigration experts. . . . [S]hortly before recessing late Friday, the House and Senate gave the Bush administration leeway to distribute the money to a combination of projects — not just the physical barrier along the southern border. The funds may also be spent on roads, technology and “tactical infrastructure” to support the Department of Homeland Security’s preferred option of a “virtual fence.”

The Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee know they only have a short time to still be in charge and pull stunts like this

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010600
[Josh Marshall] There's a fight brewing behind the scenes at the House intel committee that deserves your attention. It kicked into high gear last week when ranking member Jane Harman (D-CA) released the summary of the committee's investigation into the corrupt practices of former committee member Rep. Duke Cunningham. As payback, Chairman Hoekstra (R-MI) yanked the clearances of one of the Democratic committee staffers and accused him of having leaked the Iraq NIE to the New York Times.

The accusation is one for which Hoekstra's staff now reportedly concedes the chairman has no evidence. Rep. LaHood (R-IL), who first leveled the accusation, went so far as to tell Fox News that the accusation was payback for Cunningham.

This has been kicking around for a few days. The staffer in question, Larry Hanauer, swore out an affidavit, stating that he played no role in the leak.

Then yesterday Chairman Hoekstra told the Democrats he wants to convene an investigation in which the Republicans alone choose an investigator and that investigator gets to look through the Democratic staff's phone logs, email, and review all other 'relevant' records all with a broad breach to uncover any "improper" conduct.

In other words, it's a witch hunt. . .

Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, and Big Pharma: the travesty that became a Medicare bill

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_10/009899.php

Chris Shays (R-CT): join the list, buddy

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_10_22_atrios_archive.html#116188449745167325
[TNR] Shays's moment of triumph in Iraq came about because he happened to already be in the Middle East--attending the third Qatar-American Conference on Free Markets and Democracy in the tiny oil-rich nation of Qatar. Shays's visit was paid for by The Islamic Free Market Institute, a nonprofit group founded by GOP ally Grover Norquist and run by a protégé of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff to help bring Muslims into the Republican fold. . .

Shays has been a strong advocate for public-disclosure rules over the years. "As public servants, we have a responsibility to uphold the ethics process, not weaken it," he told The Houston Chronicle in 2005, objecting to an effort to defang House ethics rules in the wake of revelations about Tom DeLay's overseas travels and ties to Abramoff. Those travel rules require members of Congress to file forms revealing all travel expenses paid by outside sources. But, despite his record of pushing for meticulous record-keeping, Shays's privately sponsored trip to Qatar was notably absent from his own annual federal financial disclosure form, filed in May 2004, in violation of House rules.

Here’s the list: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010594
How many members of the 109th Congress are under federal investigation? Hint: you can't count them on two (or even three) hands.

http://www.slate.com/id/2152326
[Daniel Politi] The WSJ fronts a look at trips members of the House of Representatives take abroad and says it has become routine for them to eat meals paid by lobbyists and defense contractors. Accepting these meals not only breaks House rules but also might be a violation of federal law. . .

Every time someone tells you this. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/us/politics/27marriage.html
The divisive debate over gay marriage, which played a prominent role in 2004 campaigns but this year largely faded from view, erupted anew on Thursday as President Bush and Republicans across the country tried to use a court ruling in New Jersey to rally dispirited conservatives to the polls. . . .

“Yesterday in New Jersey, we had another activist court issue a ruling that raises doubts about the institution of marriage,” Mr. Bush said . . . The president drew applause when he reiterated his long-held stance that marriage was “a union between a man and a woman,” adding, “I believe it’s a sacred institution that is critical to the health of our society and the well-being of families, and it must be defended.”

. . . just tell them this

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116180729067401776
[Bush, Oct 27, 2004] "I don't think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that's what a state chooses to do so," Bush said in an interview aired Tuesday on ABC. Bush acknowledged that his position put him at odds with the Republican platform, which opposes civil unions.

"I view the definition of marriage different from legal arrangements that enable people to have rights," said Bush, who has pressed for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage (search). "States ought to be able to have the right to pass laws that enable people to be able to have rights like others." . . . [read on]

More: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/10/rank-ignorance-posing-as-expertise.html

Personally, I will count it as a victory for us all if Jean Schmidt (R-OH) is sent home on election day

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010589

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8879.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_10_22_atrios_archive.html#116190593243933944

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/10/post_1777.html
[Charles P. Pierce] It is devoutly to be hoped that, if it does nothing else, a Democratic sweep in the upcoming elections might disenthrall the Republicans from the notion that they can collect anyone off the steam-grates of their party's boulevards, dress them up, and throw them out there to plague and pester the rest of us. Among its other effects, the "Gingrich Revolution" created a framework in which an incredible passel of fools, lightweights, mountebanks, kinky libertines, and public omadhauns managed to get themselves elected to Congress. . .

“Both sides do it” – except that both sides DON’T do it. The new generation of desperate, vicious GOP attack ads

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/26/AR2006102601811.html
On the brink of what could be a power-shifting election, it is kitchen-sink time: Desperate candidates are throwing everything. While negative campaigning is a tradition in American politics, this year's version in many races has an eccentric shade, filled with allegations of moral bankruptcy and sexual perversion. . . The result has been a carnival of ugly, especially on the GOP side. . . The National Republican Campaign Committee is spending more than 90 percent of its advertising budget on negative ads, according to GOP operatives, and the rest of the party seems to be following suit.

More: http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7626

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2006/10/the_first_w_is_missing.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010601

The kind of people they are

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/washington/27taxes.html
The commissioner of internal revenue has ordered his agency to delay collecting back taxes from Hurricane Katrina victims until after the Nov. 7 elections and the holiday season, saying he did so in part to avoid negative publicity. . . .

Are these people sick and heartless, or just very, very stupid?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116190299673496422
[NBC’s MATT] LAUER: And you brought up Michael J. Fox. Let me just ask you: You know, Rush Limbaugh started a lot of controversy when he said perhaps Michael J. Fox was exaggerating or faking these effects of Parkinson's disease in that ad promoting stem cell research. Didn't Rush Limbaugh just say what a lot of people were privately thinking? . . . But also, Susan, last word. If Michael Fox goes out there politically and puts himself in the fray, he has to expect to be, you know, taken to account, correct?

[SUSAN] ESTRICH: Correct. And he is being taken to account.

http://sideshow.me.uk/soct06.htm#10270116
[Avedon Carol] To: Susan Estrich
Subject: Calling Michael J. Fox to account

I completely agree that it was outrageous for Michael J. Fox to contract Parkinson's disease just so he could make campaign commercials, and congratulations to you for agreeing with Matt Lauer that he should be "called to account" for it.

My only quibble is that I can't help but wonder why you people didn't think he needed to be called to account for making a similar campaign commercial for Arlen Specter [R-PA] . . . . [read on]

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010597

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116192287353869843

The ad is changing minds: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/26/122145/38

Rush Limbaugh: how can someone like this still be taken seriously?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116187362905265866
[Tristero] [B]e sure to check out Sam Seder's comments, that Limbaugh's real job is to insulate his listeners from reality. He's absolutely right. The only real issue is funding for stem cell research, which the Republican party - consistent with its mistrust of all things scientific, be they biological, physical, ecological, or statistical - opposes. But suddenly the airwaves are all atwitter with chirpy parrots concerned with whether Michael J. Fox was acting. As if that matters one whit.

What matters is that the United States under Republican rule is deliberately undermining its commitment to world-class scientific inquiry. . . . Meanwhile, the real subject - the real issues in stem cell research, its potential and limitations - are not being addressed by a public that needs to be, and deserves to be, informed. Ditto evolution, global warming, racism, poverty, war, nuclear proliferation - you name it.

[NB: The problem is that in Limbaugh’s world there are only two categories: “good for Republicans” and “good for Democrats.” ANYTHING that benefits the Democrats politically, any issue that they have a more popular stance on, must be discredited by any means possible. Every other value – truth, fairness, even intellectual consistency – needs to be submerged under this larger purpose. If the Democrats win in the fall, will Rush acknowledge it as the will of the people speaking, that perhaps more people support those positions than his own? Of course not]

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/10/post_1780.html
[Shakespeare’s Sister] Limbaugh is just one of many loathsome characters who have made names for themselves by treating politics as a game, a fun and profitable little pastime that has no real-world consequences -- and the richer he gets, the more real a lack of consequences becomes for him. The luxury of staggering wealth means never having to worry about Social Security, or healthcare, or how much gas costs. It’s a game. Who cares.

And in that game, people like Michael J. Fox aren’t real people. They’re images on a screen, they’re pawns to be played. Stem cell research isn’t a real thing. It’s a political football. Safely nestled away from the real world in a radio studio, Limbaugh doesn’t want or need to think about the people he mocks, the people he uses to score a goal. . . [read on]

Bonus item: Bush likes to use “the Google”

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/23/bush-says-he-uses-the-google/

Yeah, it's on "the Internets" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internets_(colloquialism)

Extra bonus item: Iraq’s “Daily Show” (thanks to A.G. for the link)

http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2006/10/iraqs_daily_sho.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 @ 7:14 AM

 
EXPLAIN YOURSELF

Bush gives a press conference, he says, to offer the American people an explanation for the catastrophe he has made of the Iraq war. We’re still waiting. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/10/25/BL2006102500880.html
[Dan Froomkin] At a surprise press conference this morning, President Bush acknowledged the nation's grave concerns about the war in Iraq.

"I know many Americans are not satisfied with the situation in Iraq," Bush said, 13 days before a mid-term election that will in large part be a referendum on the war. "I'm not satisfied either."

"I think I owe an explanation to the American people," he said.

But Bush didn't have much new to say today, other than endorsing yesterday's already largely debunked announcement in Baghdad of a "new plan" that sounds very much like the old plan.

And after an hour of familiar sound bites, the public would be forgiven for feeling it still hasn't gotten that explanation he promised.

Among the things that remain unexplained:

* Why does Bush believe that staying in Iraq will make things better, when the evidence suggests that it keeps making things worse?

* Why does he believe that progress is being made, when the evidence suggests that Iraq is sliding deeper and deeper into civil war?

* Why does he remain confident in Iraq's central government, when the evidence suggests that the center is not holding?

* Why hasn't anyone in his administration been held accountable for all the things that have gone wrong?

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/10/presidents-vow-today-to-stay-in-iraq.html
[Glenn Greenwald] The President's Press Conference, devoted almost exclusively to Iraq, just concluded, and the internal contradictions and incoherent claims are literally too numerous to chronicle. But there really are only a few points worth making:

First, the President repeatedly defined "losing" as "leaving before the job is done" -- "the job" being the creation of a stable, unified Iraqi government that can defend itself. And we're not leaving before the job is done, which means that we are staying forever -- or at least as far as the eye can see into the future (or until the President leaves office). . .

Second, the President's remarks illustrated more vividly than ever before the towering incoherence at the heart of this whole project. According to the President, the reason that it is so important that we "win" -- meaning creating a stable Iraqi government -- is because American security depends upon the creation of an Iraq that is a "partner of the U.S. in the war on terror." But there is a complete disconnect -- and there always has been -- between stabilizing the Iraqi government and having a "partner of the U.S. in the war on terror." . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8867.html
[Steve Benen] Looking back over the transcript, it's hard to see a single instance in which Bush answered a question. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/bush-press-conf-open-thread.html
[Joe] A friend just asked me: Is this press conference a rerun? Good point. The media has been duped again. Bush is doing a political event.

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010577

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/10/25/bush/index.html

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7601

Top US Commander in Iraq still “explaining” his call for more troops

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/world/middleeast/26baghdadcnd.html

The “serious” punditocracy is calling for a bipartisan approach in Iraq. Haven’t they been paying attention? Or do they think it’s those mean ol’ Democrats who are refusing to be bipartisan?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/25/125443/14
[Atrios] If only we get the Wise Old Men of Washington in the room together, and have them put politics aside, then all will be well. The problems we've had, in an era where one party controls everything, are all due to partisan bickering. If only sensible voices, like Ignatius's, who are unfettered by the petty concerns of politics - you know, getting the support of voters, the consent of governed - could rise up above the fray and politicians could have the "strong stomachs" to listen to them, then we'd eventually find the pony.

[Kos] Bush has gotten everything he ever wanted for his war. It was a "bipartisan" affair. And that didn't turn out so well, did it?

The problems in Iraq don't stem from partisan bickering, but because of unfettered and unchallenged one-party rule that has led to an unaccountable executive which thinks it has dictatorial powers. Stay the course! Clap louder!

But I'm telling you, D.C. is a bizarre place where "serious" people furrow their brows to show just how much gravitas they have right before they send other's children and parents off to die in Iraq. The political and media elite in that town need to be cleaned out.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010564
President Bush: "Reconciliation is difficult in a country that has been tortured and divided by a tyrant."

He ain't kiddin'.

Poor George: he thinks he has been given the toughest war any US President has ever faced. Well, he’s MADE IT the toughest war, to be sure

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010562
[Josh Marshall] Gotta love the subtext of President Bush's excuse-making on 'the war'. Every earlier war was easy. Only mine is really tough. Gimme a break.

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116179402255224263

The Bush gang’s id, Dick Cheney, admits that they’ve used waterboarding as torture, then says what’s the big deal?

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/columnists/jonathan_s_landay/15847918.htm
"It's a no-brainer for me," Cheney said at one point in an interview. . .

Heel, boy, heel! PM Maliki starts to act like the head of an independent nation. Who the heck does he think he is?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/world/middleeast/26iraqcnd.html
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq today distanced himself from the American notion of a time line on political measures the Iraqi government should take, and he criticized a raid carried out by American forces against the leader of a Shiite death squad. . .

More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3502

There’s an old joke about a woodcutter who claims to have worked in the “Sahara forest.” When told that there are no trees in the Sahara, he replies, “Well, NOW. . .” I think of this joke when the Bush gang explains, for example, that the existence of “Al Qaeda in Iraq” (now) is proof that there was a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda before the war started – or that the bloodiness of the war is a confirmation that Iraq is the “central front in the war on terror.” Their bungled decisions have BROUGHT these predictions into reality. Here’s another example

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8868.html
[Steve Benen] Iraq is deteriorating, Iran is pursuing a nuclear program, and North Korea is defying the world and conducting nuclear tests. Looking at the international landscape, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has come to an interesting conclusion: Bush sure was right.

[USAT] After discussions of the North Korean nuclear test and the anti-Semitic remarks of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, radio host Sean Hannity asked Rice about the axis [of evil] remark.

"You think of some of the world reaction to the president's use of the word 'axis of evil,' and then you see how events have been unfolding," Hannity remarked.

"It was a pretty good analysis, wasn't it?" Rice replied. "It really was."

This is not at all encouraging. Looking back at the phrase, the lesson Rice should take away from the "axis of evil" isn't that our rivals are "evil," but rather that Bush's foreign policies have created an "axis."

Slate's Jacob Weisberg recently explained that the "axis of evil" did not actually exist at the time Bush read the phrase during his 2002 State of the Union address. . .

When you count your blessings, think of how lucky we are that the Republican leaders (Frist and Boehner) are SO STUPID

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061025/ap_on_go_co/republicans_iraq
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says if Republican candidates want to succeed on Election Day, they should turn their focus away from the Iraq war. . . . "The challenge is to get Americans to focus on pocketbook issues, and not on the Iraq and terror issue” . . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/frist-tells-republicans-to-ignore-iraq.html
[Joe] Sure, cause if you don't talk about it, maybe no one will notice the carnage. . . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116180755624371153
[Tristero] Any Democratic candidate that doesn't mention the unending disaster of Iraq within five seconds of beginning any interview or speech should be forced to listen to the collected speeches of Newt Gingrich for the week after s/he loses in November. Here's why.

And the second issue? The unbelievably widespread moral corruption of the Republican Party. Start by denouncing the degenerates who would sneer at a Parkinson's patient in order to evade the vitally important issue of funding stem cell research. Then mention the crass appeals to racism in the ads, the refusal to take responsibility. Then Foley, Abramoff, Reed, Cunningham, Libby, Armstrong Williams, Betting Bill Bennett, Michael Brown - my God, the list of creeps and hypocrites is long and getting longer by the moment. . . .

Bob Corker (R-TN) distances himself from the racist RNC ad by running one of his own

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010571
[Josh Marshall] So Tennessee senate candidate Bob Corker (R) says he's all bent out of shape about that RNC 'Harold Ford's an Uppity Negro' ad. So how does Corker feel about the radio ad his own campaign is running that features rumbling jungle drums every time the narrator mentions Ford's name?

More: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2006/10/25/8571.aspx

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010582
[Josh Marshall] [L]et's be honest with ourselves. Racism is one of the key building blocks of Republican politics in the United States. Don't look at me with a straight face and tell me you don't realize that's true. That doesn't mean that all Republicans are racists. Far from it. It doesn't mean that a lot of Republicans don't wish the stain wasn't part of their party's recent political heritage. They do. But racism and race-baiting is the hold card Republicans take into every election. When times are good, guys like Mehlman 'reach out' to blacks and Latinos to try to take the edge off their opposition to the Republican officeholders. But when things get rough the card gets played. And pretty much every time.

This isn't surprising. It's expected. . . [read on!]

Feminists for George Allen (R-VA): yeah, right

http://www.margieburns.com/blog/_archives/2006/10/25/2446824.html

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/25/AR2006102502070.html

Joe Lieberman (R?-CT) suddenly refashions himself as an anti-war candidate. Uh-huh

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/23/153858/53

Assorted Republican scandals getting worse

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2006/oct/25/566610130.html
Rep. Jon Porter [R-NV] refused Tuesday to release phone records or copies of his daily schedule, even though his office says the documents would disprove charges by a former aide that the congressman made dozens of illegal fundraising calls from his government offices.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001873.php
[Justin Rood] Two scandals broke last night with Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) at their centers. At first glance they have nothing in common. But a closer look reveals the deals now under federal scrutiny pivot on two central issues: Arizona's fragile but important San Pedro River, and Renzi's remarkable ability to aid his supporters by manipulating the waterway's health. . .

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2006/oct/25/102510122.html
A woman who says she was assaulted and propositioned by a Republican congressman running for Nevada governor said Wednesday she was threatened, pressured - and even offered money - to drop her allegations and change her story. . .

An interesting trend: local stations who refuse to run Republican ads that they know contain lies (fact checking -- what a novel idea!)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010572

Let’s see: Republicans announce in advance that they plan to sink most of their money into negative ads. They produce, in fact, a slew of really despicable and mendacious attacks. Now, how can the media cover this fact without seeming to tilt against the GOP? Well, the Democrats haven’t produced similar sorts of ads. . . but they MIGHT

http://mediamatters.org/items/200610250016?src=newsbox-atrios.blogspot.com
In a report on how recent campaigns advertisements are "getting ugly," ABC News, unable to point to a single instance of "nasty" attacks from Democratic candidates or their supporters, suggested it is only a matter of time before "the left" begins to "unleash its garbage as well." ABC News offered no evidence to back up its allegation that Democrats might soon resort to distasteful, negative advertising. . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_10/009894.php
[Kevin Drum] Needless to say, they present exactly zero evidence for this. . . I'm not breaking any new ground here when I say that this is, as usual, inexplicable. Sure, neither party is simon pure, but Tapper and McCown know perfectly well that the nauseating and polarized nature of modern American politics is almost entirely a Republican invention. From Lee Atwater to Rush Limbaugh to Newt Gingrich to Ken Starr to Tom DeLay to the Rove/Bush/Cheney machine, the Republican Party has pioneered a scorched-earth approach to politics that Democrats have never come close to matching. Their destruction of congressional traditions in the service of power has gone immensely farther than anything Democrats did when they were in power. Their deliberate and single-minded fealty to K Street lobbyists makes Democrats look like pikers.

Tapper and McCown know this. But they still insist on acting as if somehow both parties are equally responsible for this state of affairs. . . .

Freak show

http://billmon.org/archives/002883.html
[Billmon] Maybe I'm not reading this right, but it looks like 14% -- or one in seven -- of the Americans surveyed by Gallup in this new poll say the Republican Party is too liberal.

Too liberal. . .

Before Rove’s media machine whips up their evangelical base into a frenzy over the NJ court ruling, let’s remember what it endorses: civil unions, not “gay marriage.” That was Bush’s position too!

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/breaking-new-jersey-sup-ct-adopts.html

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/25/15466/838

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/10/25/nj-supreme-court-gay-couples-entitled-to-equal-spousal-rights/

http://www.slate.com/id/2152216/fr/rss/

I like this idea: if the Dems take over Congress, make election and voting reform a top legislative priority. Make Bush veto THIS

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/25/95216/657

Theocracy watch: Will there be legal challenges over churches’ political operations (in exchange for “faith-based” federal funds)?

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/26/31643/683

Bonus item: Rush is taking a well-deserved beating over his vicious comments on Michael J. Fox’s Parkinsons

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010581
[VC] I think that the Rush Limbaugh video clip where he is mocking Michael J Fox's movements in the recent video ad that Fox made, is the most despicable and disgusting political commentary I've ever seen. . . .

Don’t miss the video: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010578

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010584
[HL] I found the post-apology "Okay-he-wasn't-faking-it-but-he's-exploiting-his-medical condition" even more insulting to people with Parkinson's--and more dangerous--than his original faking conjecture. . .

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/25/limbaugh-fox-no-regrets/
[Rush] I stand by what I said. I take back none of what I said. I wouldn’t rephrase it any differently. It is what I believe; it is what I think. It is what I have found to be true.

How does he get away with it? http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010576

***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 @ 7:18 AM

 
SHELL GAME

Sometimes (only sometimes), I do kinda like Don Rumsfeld’s goofy uncle routine

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_10_22_atrios_archive.html#116172432957828901
HANNITY: A lot of debate has no emerged over the phrase “stay the course,” and what that actually means. “Well, the President is backing away from staying the course.”

RUMSFELD: Aww, that’s nonsense.

HANNITY: He’s not backing away from staying the course?

RUMSFELD: Of course not.

Oh, what a tangled web. . .

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7585
Q The Times story reported that top generals and Ambassador Khalilzad were crafting a timetable of sorts for disarming militia. Do you dispute the story --

MR. SNOW: No, the Iraqis themselves have set a timetable for trying to disarm the militia. They want to do so by the end of the year.

Q That's not what the Times is reporting --

MR. SNOW: I know. What the Times was reporting I think reflects the ongoing efforts of the joint committee. But the United States has not said, this is a date.

Q There's no crafting of a timetable going on right now among top generals?

MR. SNOW: I am sure that there is a crafting of timetables going on, drafting of goals --

Q To disarm the militia?

MR. SNOW: To work toward disarming the militia. That is something --

Q Can you give us a sense of what that might be?

MR. SNOW: No.

Q Why not?

R. SNOW: Because among other things, I don't know what it is, if there is such a thing. And secondly, that is a topic of cooperation between the two sides. . .

Q You talk about them setting up benchmarks, and you're telling us there's nothing new here with these markers.

MR. SNOW: Yes.

Q Have they met all the benchmarks? Or have they missed benchmarks?

MR. SNOW: I don't know. I don't know.

Q And I'm assuming they missed some benchmarks, which is, perhaps, why the President, the other day in the interview with George Stephanopoulos, said he wouldn't take any dawdling. Now, you keep saying the Iraqi government is doing a fine job, saying the right things, going forward. The President said he wouldn't stand for any dawdling. Where does that come from?

MR. SNOW: I think you can -- the two statements are reconcilable. Look, I don't want to say whether they did or didn't make benchmarks because I don't know. But it would be reasonable to assume that there are things that don't work out as planned and, therefore, what you do is adjust.

http://www.slate.com/id/2152177
[Daniel Politi] The NYT seems to be the only paper that got a hold of this timetable, which runs for seven months. The paper emphasizes the timeline provides deadlines to set up the structure to solve the big problems facing Iraq, but does not actually mention a timetable "for the implementation of policies that American officials believe is urgent if the tide in the war is to be reversed."

Here’s what happens when generals let themselves get roped into becoming part of the PR spin machine for the war

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15397894
Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference that his optimism about Iraq’s future is based on his belief that most Iraqis want peace and stability. He also said Iraqis have plenty of incentive to halt the sectarian violence that threatens to tear their country apart.

“The great incentive inside of Iraq with the Iraqi people is their own self-pride and determination that they want to stand on their own; they want to be free; they want to determine their own way ahead,” Pace said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061024/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_061024185441
[General George] Casey said Iraqi forces would be "completely capable" of controlling the country within the next 1 1/2 years.

"We are about 75 percent of the way through a three-step process in building those (Iraqi) forces," the general said. "It is going to take another 12 to 18 months or so until I believe the Iraqi security forces are completely capable of taking over responsibility for their own security. That's still coupled with some level of support from us."

Casey's estimate of when the Iraqi army will be ready was noteworthy because it has not changed even as the security situation in the country has deteriorated. Iraqis are now being killed at a pace of more than 40 each day in sectarian fighting and revenge killing. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2152177
USAT highlights how a little more than a year ago, Casey said there was a possibility of a significant U.S. troop reduction in Iraq "in the spring and summer." . . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/25/65555/868

Throwing good money after bad

http://www.slate.com/id/2152177/
[Daniel Politi] The NYT fronts the results of a government report that revealed some reconstruction projects in Iraq have used more than half of their budget on overhead costs. Although the cost of doing business in Iraq is naturally higher, the inspector general said many of these expenses were due to contractors and equipment often being at a standstill for months at a time. The contract with the highest proportion of overhead costs was an oil-facility contract held by a Halliburton subsidiary. The WP covers the Halliburton angle in its business pages, saying that at least 55 percent of the contract's total costs were eaten up by overhead.

Just an accident, I’m sure: company in Virginia cuts James Webb’s name off the electronic ballots in three cities, so it is listed only as James H. “Jim” (no Webb). They says it’s . . . because his name is too long!!???!!!

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/24/111047/27

Another accident?

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/24/troops-emails-foley/
Last week, U.S. troops received messages from the State Department and the Pentagon explaining how to vote in the congressional race in ex-Rep. Mark Foley’s (R-FL) former district.

The emails provided detailed instructions explaining how to vote for Foley’s replacement, Joe Negron, but failed to even mention the two other candidates in the race . . .

More accidents to come?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102401168.html
Two weeks before the midterm elections, at least 10 states, including Maryland, remain ripe for voting problems, according to a study released yesterday by a nonpartisan clearinghouse that tracks electoral reforms across the United States. . .

ANOTHER Republican under investigation: Rick Renzi (R-AZ)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010552

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/010557.php

And another. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/breaking-scandal-in-nevada-involving.html
This time it's the governor's candidate, Republican Congressman Jim Gibbons, the guy who was accused last week of attacking a young woman in a parking lot. Today we find out that the very anti-immigration Gibbons had an illegal alien working for him for years, and even hid her in the basement. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010555
[Josh Marshall] Okay, finding a pol who had an illegal alien as a nanny hardly makes the front page these days. But not that many made their nannies hide in the basement to make sure no one found out they had an illegal working in the home. Let's thank Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-NV), who's now running for governor, for raising the bar.

Let’s see: the Republicans run a vicious, racist ad against Harold Ford (D) in Tennessee. Candidate Bob Corker (R-TN) says it’s despicable but he can’t stop it because it’s run by the National Republican Committee. So let’s ask Chairman Ken Mehlman to stop running it – nope, he says, he has no power over such things. What a load of crap

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/010539.php
[AJ] I was just watching Tim Russert interview Ken Mehlman about the RNC's anti-Ford ad running in Tennessee. Russert asked him point blank if he would pull the ad given the outcry over racist overtones. He said it was an independent expenditure, so he wrote a check and that was it. He claimed to have no control over the content and no power to pull it. If that's really true, why does the legalese at the end of the ad state: "The Republican National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertisement. . .”

Corker: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/senate-candidate-bob-corker-r-tn-says.html

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/010547.php

Yes, racist: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010545

Remember Barbara Cubin (R-WY), the candidate who flipped out and threatened to slap her opponent? There’s a bit more to the story: her opponent is disabled and in a wheelchair

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/24/112840/86

I guess the Republicans just have trouble with disabled candidates (remember what they did to Max Cleland in Georgia?). Now, more of the same

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010530

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116171528956198206
[Digby] I honestly didn't think they'd go after the physically disabled. First Tammy Duckworth's opponent accuses the multi amputee Iraq veteran of "cutting and running." Then Rush takes a shot at Michael J. Fox. Now the GOP congresswoman who holds Dick Cheney's old seat says to her opponent, a wheelchair bound MS sufferer, "If you weren't sitting in that chair, I'd slap you across the face."

I shouldn't be shocked, now that I think about it. They had no problem questioning severely wounded war hero Max Cleland's courage back in 2002. (In 2004, the ever so lovely Ann Coulter even claimed he had wounded himself in combat.)

These guys engage in gutter politics even when they don't have to so it's not surprising that they would turn into barbaric political terrorists in the face of serious losses. We'll see if they can stroke the nation's id and eke out a victory in these close races one more time.

Remember the Republican candidate in California whose campaign sent out a false letter discouraging Latino voters from voting (his Democratic opponent is Hispanic). He denies he had anything to do with it. But then why did HE purchase a voter list sorted only by Hispanic last names?

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/socal/la-me-letter24oct24,0,2703369.story

Here are the races the Republicans are most worried about

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/24/183812/88

Denny Hastert (R-IL) testifies before the Ethics Committee, calls for a speedy resolution (i.e., get the report out now so we have a chance to swamp it under other news – like gay marriage – before the election). Because, you know, Denny only wants to get to the truth

http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/10/24/ap3117004.html

This is smart politics: when you’re doing well against an opponent, start spreading the playing field. I think the Dems have finally learned how to use wedge issues to their advantage for a change

Social security: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102401330.html

Stem cells: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/24/12338/719

Losers

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/25/75255/558
“Some conservatives said it is too late. "They honestly need a baseball bat against the head," said Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who helped Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) take over Congress in the 1990s. "Because if they don't change the lexicon immediately, as bad as this election is going to be, they're going to lose the presidency in 2008. I've given up on 2006. They've already made so many mistakes, there's no way they can fix it in two weeks. But I'm worried now they're going to lose all the marbles."

What is a Google Bomb? Using the power of numbers on the Internet to push items to the top of search engines. Here’s how to push negative news about Republican candidates to the top of search lists

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/24/122153/98

Bonus item: MoDo!

http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com/2006/10/maureen-dowd-running-against.html
[Maureen Dowd] Things have become so dire for the Republicans that now even Bush is distancing himself from Bush. . . [read on!]

***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 @ 8:04 AM

 
WORD CHOICE

Have you ever seen an administration so obsessed with what people CALL things?

So we haven’t given the Iraqis a TIMETABLE, have we? Nope, just MILESTONES and BENCHMARKS

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/washington/24policycnd.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/10/23/BL2006102300473.html

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8840.html

No, we never said STAY THE COURSE (except when we did). But we won’t say it any more (except when we will)

http://billmon.org/archives/002869.html

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/23/bartlett-stay-the-course/

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/24/world/middleeast/24policy.html

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003287010

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005076.html
[Peter Baker] [T]he White House is cutting and running from "stay the course." . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010523
[Josh Marshall] My God, it's a bloodbath.

No, not Iraq. That's horror, tragedy. I'm talking about the way the press is turning its hacking, slicing knives on the White House for the pitiful 'stay the course' debacle. . .

Just don’t call them PRIVATE accounts

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/gwb_the_beloved_leader_/2006/10/gwb_liberal.php

(Yep, he’s going after Social Security again) http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010520

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/23/23306/996

Social IN-security

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/10/23/18/27/the-great-risk-shift/
[Jacob Hacker] The premise of The Great Risk Shift is that risk — more precisely, the growing economic insecurity faced by middle-class Americans — is the defining domestic issue of our time, one that increasingly lies at the heart of our nation’s polarized politics. It provides a powerful opportunity for Democrats to reclaim the political high ground as bold protectors of middle-class interests. . . [read on]

Bush‘s very bad investment

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010512
[Josh Marshall] Think of the president as a failed or deadbeat entrepreneur (again, not such a stretch) who's already lost his investors a ton of money. He goes back to them and says, 'Okay, fine. You think I'm a moron and a screw-up who lost you guys a ton of money. Fine. But do you really want to finally, totally, conclusively kiss that $300 billion goodbye. You wanna just totally call it quits? Admit it's a total loss? What about giving me just another $10 billion and maybe somehow I'll actually pull this off? Or, since that's just not gonna happen, a mere $10 billion to put off for six months having to write the whole thing off as a loss, having to come to grips once and for all with the fact that all the money's gone and the whole thing's a bust?' . . .

President Bush can't and won't withdraw from Iraq because when he does, under the current conditions, he'll sign the epitaph, the historical death warrant for his presidency. Unlike in the past there are no family friends to pawn the failure off on and let them take the loss. It's all his. So he'll keep kicking the can down the road forever.

$6300 a second: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/24/6254/2668

Just when you think Iraq couldn’t get any worse. . .

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3490

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116164262926916697

http://www.juancole.com/2006/10/amara-explodes-in-violence-again-us.html

A couple of days ago we had a half-joking item that Fred Barnes was disappointed that the North Korea nuclear test wasn’t bigger, because that would have done more to alarm the American people. Turns out, this was the attitude within the Bush administration too!

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/23/north-korea-nuclear-rooting/
Senior Bush administration officials wanted North Korea to test a nuclear weapon because it would prove their point that the regime must be overthrown.

This astonishing revelation was buried in the middle of a Washington Post story published yesterday. . .

Before North Korea announced it had detonated a nuclear device, some senior officials even said they were quietly rooting for a test, believing that would finally clarify the debate within the administration.

Looks like the Ethics Committee report on the Foley scandal is going to be explosive: Hastert’s aides are lawyering up. Scott Palmer testifies for six and a half hours!

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/10/turmoil_in_hast.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010522

More Abramoff-related indictments to come

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001859.php
[Justin Rood] It's long been reported that Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA), Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT), former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) and Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) were on the Justice Department's short list. Is that list getting longer? . . .

More: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/10/23/abramoff_still_talking.html

Another Republican’s head explodes

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010525
[AP] Thomas Rankin, the Libertarian running for Wyoming's lone U.S. House seat, said Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., threatened to slap him after a televised debate. . . .

More: http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7580

The misleading spin that the Democrats “aren’t presenting an alternative” in the 2006 election

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010524
[Josh Marshall] Let's say this once and for all, after a deep breath and for the record: In US politics, in off-year elections with unpopular incumbents it is always that way. Always. Hear it again, always that way. . .

This is probably the most important poll you will see: Democrats are winning the Independent vote, two to one

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/23/AR2006102300766.html

More: http://billmon.org/archives/002870.html
[ABC] Nearly twice as many registered voters say they'll cast their ballot as a way to show opposition to the president (31 percent) as to support him (17 percent) . . .

No surprise: after months of immigrant-bashing, the Republicans are losing the Latino vote

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_10/009875.php

Bonus item: Hey Rush, you can mess with the Democrats, but leave Michael J. Fox alone – you can’t handle him

http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z36B2570E

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8846.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 @ 6:34 AM

 
“STAY THE COURSE”

What you can get away with when you know the interviewer will never say “that’s not true”

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/22/bush-stay-the-course/
[ABC, 10/22/06] STEPHANOPOULOS: James Baker says that he’s looking for something between “cut and run” and “stay the course.”

BUSH: Well, hey, listen, we’ve never been “stay the course,” George. . .

[NB: Ahem!]

BUSH: We will stay the course. [8/30/06]

BUSH: We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq. [8/4/05]

BUSH: We will stay the course until the job is done, Steve. And the temptation is to try to get the President or somebody to put a timetable on the definition of getting the job done. We’re just going to stay the course. [12/15/03]

BUSH: And my message today to those in Iraq is: We’ll stay the course. [4/13/04]

BUSH: And that’s why we’re going to stay the course in Iraq. And that’s why when we say something in Iraq, we’re going to do it. [4/16/04]

BUSH: And so we’ve got tough action in Iraq. But we will stay the course. [4/5/04]

More lies: http://mediamatters.org/items/200610220001

No change -- but don’t call it “stay the course”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/world/middleeast/23baghdad.html
The plan will be tweaked, adjusted and modified in the weeks ahead, as American commanders try to reverse the dismaying increase in murders, drive-by shootings and bombings.

But military commanders here see no plausible alternative to their bedrock strategy to clear violence-ridden neighborhoods of militias, insurgents and arms caches, hold them with Iraqi and American security forces, and then try to win over the population with reconstruction projects, underwritten mainly by the Iraqi government. There is no fall-back plan that the generals are holding in their hip pocket. This is it. . .

Billmon brings some clarity to all this “change the course/don’t change the course” nonsense

http://billmon.org/archives/002863.html

Republicans waiting until after the election to tell Bush his war adventure is over

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/22/biden-course/

Other changes to come (AFTER the elections) http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005067.html

Yep

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_war_in_iraq_/2006/10/hobbes_in_iraq.php
[Mark Kleiman] The scariest aspect of the fighting in Amarah is that the violence is not between Shi'a and Sunni, but between two Shi'a factions, each of which has a parliamentary party with a strong voice in the governing coalition and a private army, and each of which has been able to penetrate the Iraqi security forces.

"Civil war" isn't really the right label any more; a civil war is usually a struggle between two groups for control of a country. Iraq is now moving toward a complete breakdown of civil order: not civil war merely, but a Hobbesian "war of all against all."

http://www.slate.com/id/2152023
[Ryan Grim] The LAT also goes above the fold with a piece by Patrick J. McDonnell, who reported from Iraq for two years and then left for one. He returns to find that the chaos and violence he left a year ago looks like paradise compared to the hellish city he finds today. One of the most awfully telling details he shares: Shiite militias control major morgues and wait for Sunnis to come pick up slain relatives, then capture and kill them, too.

As predicted, the U.S. has been holding secret talks with Iraq insurgents. Whatever happened to “We don’t negotiate with terrorists”? (We absolutely don’t, until we decide we do)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2415692,00.html

Looks like somebody got taken to the woodshed

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_10/009865.php
[CNN] A senior State Department diplomat apologized Sunday for having told the Arab satellite network Al-Jazeera on Saturday that there is a strong possibility history will show the United States displayed "arrogance" and "stupidity" in its handling of the Iraq war.

“Upon reading the transcript of my appearance on Al-Jazeera, I realized that I seriously misspoke by using the phrase 'there has been arrogance and stupidity' by the U.S. in Iraq," Alberto Fernandez said in an e-mail sent to reporters by the State Department and attributed to him. "This represents neither my views nor those of the State Department. I apologize," the statement said.

[Kevin Drum] What is it Michael Kinsley said? "A gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth"? Sounds about right.

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005072.html

The mess Bush has made

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116154915175886937
[Digby] The other day someone (a former liberal who now believes the Republicans are better at national security) lectured me about how wonderful the lovely Condi Rice has been in representing this country around the world and how this shows that the modern Republican party, of which I am so critical, has changed. I answered, "The whole world hates us now. Do you really think that's good for this country?" She didn't have much of a response because having the whole world hate you represents a terrible failure of leadership and she knew it. . . [read on]

Good point here: the media tends to accept Rove’s own spin for what his plans will be (since he’s the one feeding them out) – in this case, that he’s planning some diabolical new offensive. Well, offensive, yes – but nothing new

http://makeashorterlink.com/?Q1792560E

Another Republican candidate in a fundraising scandal

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010508
[DK] Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., made dozens of campaign fundraising phone calls last spring from his district and Washington, D.C., offices, according to a former Porter staffer and e-mails obtained by the Sun.

The former staffer, Jim Shepard, a 10-year veteran of Capitol Hill who worked briefly for Porter this year, said he witnessed Porter making the calls on at least five different dates last spring. Such calls would violate federal election laws and House ethics rules.

Porter's top congressional aide strongly denied that the congressman made such calls.

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/23/05343/794

[NB: Simple, eh? Check the phone records. By the way, remember what happened to Al Gore for doing this? http://www.realchange.org/gore.htm#phone]

Looks like Joe Lieberman has finally made the Republican conversion: this could turn out to be a serious corruption charge

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/22/20142/544

Guess who’s getting rich off NCLB?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_22.php#010503
[Neil Bush]

Tough choice: in a bitter, hyperpartisanized context (entirely of the Republicans’ making), do the Democrats play by those same rules, or try to reflect a better way of doing politics?

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2006/10/23/0417/2865

Reframing: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3489

Fox bobbleheads can’t even read their own poll accurately

http://mediamatters.org/items/200610220003
On the October 22 broadcast of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, Fox News Washington managing editor Brit Hume and National Public Radio national political correspondent Mara Liasson, misrepresented the results of a recent Fox News poll by falsely suggesting it does not indicate that Americans support a major change in Iraq policy, when, in fact, 73 percent favor starting a withdrawal of U.S. troops. During a discussion with Hume and Liasson, Juan Williams, NPR senior national correspondent and Fox News contributor, stated that the Fox News poll indicates that "73 percent of Americans want a course change in Iraq." Hume responded that a "change in course doesn't necessarily mean . . . a major change in strategy. It may mean a major adjustment in tactics in pursuit of the same policy."

Similarly, Liasson stated that "when 73 percent say they want a change in course, what they're saying is, 'We want this to work,' " adding that a "true change in strategy" would be "giving up" on the goal of "a stable, not anti-American, non-terrorist-harboring country ... and saying we don't care what happens to Iraq, let's get out because it's a hopeless mess." In fact, the poll question to which Williams appeared to have been referring does not ask if respondents want to see merely a "major adjustment in tactics" or that they "want this to work" in Iraq; it found that 73 percent of respondents believe that "[t]he United States has sacrificed enough for the people of Iraq, and now it is time that they take on most of the burden of security in their country and let U.S. troops start to come home."

Shut up, Dad

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/22/AR2006102201258.html

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116159008731330724

The kind of people they are (I love these ordinary vignettes that capture at a very human level what a bunch of absolute pricks Bush and his bully boys turn out to be)

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001706.php

Bush relative accidentally runs over and kills a cop – a tragedy indeed. How did the police handle it? How would they have handled it if you or I killed him?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-22-judge-officer_x.htm

Bonus item: David Brooks takes on Limbaugh and Hannity

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/gop-columnist-slams-limbaugh-hannity.html
[NYT] “Tell us, why, again, Republicans need 55 senators?” Rush Limbaugh asked not long ago. “Why do we need 55 senators when we have so many malcontents and traitors in the bunch? And they all happen to be from the Northeast, and they all happen to be moderates, they all happen to be liberals.” . . .

Why have 55 Republican senators? Why not 25? Why not 15 brave and true? Throw in a few dozen pure-minded Republican House members and you could hold the next Republican convention in a living room. . . [read on]

***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 @ 6:34 AM

 
WRIGGLE ROOM

Bush huddles with his braintrust to re-examine his failed Iraq policy. Great minds ponder the complexities; grand geopolitical strategies are weighed. And the result? New benchmarks! (This is what happens when you have CEO types running govt policy.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/world/middleeast/22policy.html
The Bush administration is drafting a timetable for the Iraqi government to address sectarian divisions and assume a larger role in securing the country, senior American officials said.

Details of the blueprint, which is to be presented to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki before the end of the year and would be carried out over the next year and beyond [!!!!!], are still being devised. But the officials said that for the first time Iraq was likely to be asked to agree to a schedule of specific milestones, like disarming sectarian militias, and to a broad set of other political, economic and military benchmarks intended to stabilize the country. . .

But don’t call it a “timetable”!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/21/AR2006102100360.html
White House officials denied a New York Times report, posted yesterday afternoon on the newspaper's Web site, that said the administration is drafting a timetable for the Iraqi government to take on that greater role in securing the country.

If the Iraqis fail to meet the timetable, the Times quoted an unnamed senior Pentagon official as saying, the Bush administration would consider an abrupt shift in policy short of troop withdrawals. It would mark the first time that the administration has used deadline threats to pressure the Iraqi government to more aggressively pursue progress.

"The story is not accurate," said Frederick L. Jones II, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

http://www.slate.com/id/2152016
[Roger McShane] The WP says that if the NYT lead is accurate, "it would mark the first time that the administration has used deadline threats to pressure the Iraqi government." Really? Two paragraphs later the Post notes that "benchmarks have been part of the U.S. policy in Iraq for months." That's according to Dan Bartlett, a top Bush aide, who added, "Implicit in that is that if they are not achieving the benchmarks, we are going to have to make changes accordingly."

That sounds a lot like the plan the NYT lays out, except that all the benchmarks would be incorporated into a single blueprint that the Iraqi government would be asked to sign off on by the end of the year. So why the White House denial? Perhaps there is no comprehensive plan, or perhaps there is simply a lack of communication between the White House and the Pentagon, which is formulating the timetable. (It certainly wouldn't be the first time that happened.)

Whether there is or isn't an overarching plan, all parts of the administration agree that there will be consequences if the Iraqi government fails to meet certain political and military benchmarks.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_10/009859.php
[Kevin Drum] Take your pick: (a) They're serious about this. (b) They're trying to put together a plan — any plan — in order to prevent James Baker's forthcoming recommendations from becoming the default "sensible" middle course accepted by everyone in the DC punditocracy. (c) It's meaningless except as political theater. Bush just wants the country to think he's busily working on something, and this is the something.

I actually don't know which of the three it is. Maybe all of them to some degree. But while we're on the subject, note that this is all coming in the same week that the former head of the British armed forces gave his considered opinion about how we're doing in our various wars: "I don't believe we have a clear strategy in either Afghanistan or Iraq. I sense we've lost the ability to think strategically." He was talking about Britain, but obviously his remarks were aimed at the United States as well. After all, we're the ones primarily setting the strategy.

I wonder how long it will take America to recover from George Bush's uniquely blinkered and self-righteous brand of ineptitude? In the past five years he's demonstrated to the world that we don't know how to win a modern guerrilla war. He's demonstrated that we don't understand even the basics of waging a propaganda war. He's demonstrated that other countries don't need to pay any attention to our threats. He's demonstrated that we're good at talking tough and sending troops into battle, but otherwise clueless about using the levers of statecraft in the service of our own interests. If he had set out to willfully and deliberately expose our weaknesses to the world and undermine our strengths, he couldn't have done more to cripple America's power and influence in the world. Beneath the bluster, he's done more to weaken our national security than any president since World War II.

So how long will it take — after George Bush has left office — for our power and influence on the world stage to return to the level it was at in 2001? When I'm in a good mood, I figure five years. Realistically, ten years is probably more like it. And when I'm in a bad mood? Don't ask. It's really all very depressing.

More on goals, strategies, and tactics

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/20/AR2006102000867.html
President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday defended the U.S. strategy in Iraq, saying the ultimate goals remain unchanged despite escalating violence and increasingly somber assessments from military leaders on the ground.

Speaking at a Washington fundraiser, Bush said the U.S. goal in Iraq "is clear and unchanging": creating a country that can govern and defend itself and "that will be an ally in the war against these extremists."

In a briefing later at the Pentagon, Rumsfeld played down the significance of fighting and sectarian violence that have erupted over the past few days outside Baghdad, as U.S. troops in Iraq suffer some of the highest monthly casualties since the 2003 invasion. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html
[Dan Froomkin] The Bush White House (and its press corps) often confuse tactics, strategy and goals. Tactics are what you use in the service of the strategy you choose to achieve your goal. Even the best tactics, in pursuit of an ill-chosen strategy, will not achieve the desired goal.

Bush's goal is a stable, secure, democratic Iraq. His strategy is for American troops to stay there until that happens. The tactics are getting those troops killed.

And while the president has been talking about adjusting tactics lately, he can't accept that his strategy may need changing -- or even his goal. At least not yet.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/21/AR2006102100315.html
President Bush said Saturday he would make "every necessary change" in tactics to respond to spiraling violence in Iraq, and he acknowledged a drive to stabilize Baghdad had not gone as planned.

But he said he would not abandon his goal of building a self-sustaining Iraqi government. . .

While insisting he is always open to adjustments in tactics, Bush has denounced Democrats calling for a course correction as supporting a "doubt and defeat" approach.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/21/AR2006102100360.html
President Bush met today with his top advisers and military commanders on Iraq, but he offered no indication of change in strategy. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/21/133551/40
[Georgia10] The entire theme of the past week or so that the White House has been "rethinking" its failed Iraq strategy is pure fiction.

Time and time again, this White House has demonstrated that it seeks not change, but merely the illusion of change. We saw this White House tactic in full force earlier this year with the so-called "staff shake-up". The media touted the appointment of Josh Bolten as chief of staff as a signal that the White House was ready for "fresh ideas and energy." Months later, the same stale and stubborn White House remains.

Indeed, "stubborn" describes the President's attitude towards this "Iraq policy review" perfectly. . . .

Is the Bush gang considering partition, or not?

http://www.juancole.com/2006/10/break-up-of-iraq-threatens-mideast.html
[Juan Cole] The Guardian reported Saturday on the 8 options for Iraq allegedly being considered by the Bush administration:

1. British out now. This is possible, but as the events in Amara on Friday show, will be attended by instability.

2. US and Coalition troops out now: ' "We could pull out now and leave them to their fate," a [British] Foreign Office official said. "But the place could implode." '

3. Phased withdrawal. (Can be easily derailed by events.)

4. Talk to Iran and Syria.

5. Remove Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in favor of a strongman. (Iyad Allawi, the CIA asset and former Baathist thug has been mentioned.)

6. Break-up of Iraq

7. A US retreat to super-bases.

8. One last push.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061019-1.html
MR. SNOW: Yes, partition -- non-starter.

Q Non-starter? Kay Bailey Hutchison raised it yesterday --

MR. SNOW: Again, as I said, we have, in fact, considered -- we consider lots of things. We've thought about partition, for a series of reasons . . . ideas like partition had been studied.

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010500

Jim Baker’s kabuki

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/10/james_baker_the.html
[Brad DeLong] James Baker, after saying that his Iraq Study Group will not report until after the election so as not to "interfere in politics," interferes in politics by leaking his conclusions: that he will convince George W. Bush to abandon "stay the course," for it is time for the U.S. to leave Iraq.

Is this a head fake to try to hold reality-based Republicans in line until after the election, given that Bush has no desire to change course at all?

Is this a signal that Bush is looking for cover to justify a withdrawal from Iraq, but will not take the initiative himself or announce withdrawal until after the election--because of what he fears a change of course now would do to Republican office holders? . . .

Or is this a last-ditch attempt by Bush 41 partisans--reality-based Republicans--to use the stick of the election to make one more pathetic and vain attempt to unseat Cheney and company and get the stubborn and incompetent George W. Bush to recognize reality?

Meanwhile, a little feeler might suggest a newfound willingness to negotiate a way out. . . (or not, of course – EVERYTHING is about throwing up a bunch of mixed signals and smoke about their true intentions, which we won’t know until after the elections)

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2595975
A senior U.S. diplomat said the United States had shown "arrogance" and "stupidity" in Iraq but was now ready to talk with any group except Al-Qaida in Iraq to facilitate national reconciliation. . .

CBS/NYT poll: 27% of REPUBLICANS oppose Bush’s war in Iraq (and this was a month ago – I wonder what it is now)

http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm

http://makeashorterlink.com/?H2321450E
[AP] Five bicycle bombs and a hail of mortar shells ripped apart a market south of Baghdad on Saturday, killing 18 people. . . Three U.S. Marines also were killed, making October the deadliest month for American forces this year. . .

“I don’t think this country will ever be ready for U.S. forces to leave” (thanks to Digby for the link)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/video/page/0,,1927660,00.html

The case for withdrawal, period

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/21/11107/296
[DemFromCT] We've had many a debate about Iraq over the last four years. Some of us were never keen on the idea, some saw us as having no choice to oppose it politically, some saw a chance to do good and an opportunity blown, some bought into Colin Powell's Pottery barn theory (you break it, you own it), some see us stuck in a quagmire. . . .

The Republicans’ new “BOO!” ad – is it backfiring?

http://news.aol.com/elections/story/_a/republicans-bin-laden-ad-sparks-furor/20061021115909990001

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/21/AR2006102100852.html
Republicans have been promising they would ratchet up the rhetoric against Democrats in the final two weeks of the fall campaign, and the man President Bush called "The Architect" of his political campaigns offered a preview of what they have in mind on Friday night. . .

Fight back! http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_10/009856.php

How they play it

http://mediamatters.org/items/200610210003
[Jamison Foser] If you believe what you hear from prominent conservatives and political reporters, the following things are true:

1) Anytime terrorism is in the news, it plays to the political and electoral benefit of the Republicans.

2) Terrorists who are trying to destroy America are trying to help elect Democrats because they think Democrats are weak. The terrorists are doing so by increasing violence in Iraq and otherwise drawing attention to their existence, as the Osama bin Laden videotape released shortly before the 2004 election.

Those two things are obviously incompatible. The latter is based on the premise that increased news of terrorism benefits Democrats; the former is an explicit statement of the opposite. The two are fundamentally inconsistent. . .

Why does Fox News hate America?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116140031963578874
Fred Barnes is disappointed that the North Korean [nuclear] test wasn't bigger. . . .

[NB: So, here it is. Bad news is good for the Republicans, because they can claim it proves – not their failure, but their necessity. It proves that the Democrats are happy to see things going wrong, and try to benefit from it electorally. And it proves that the media are stacked against them by emphasizing the negative, and not the positive. So, if all we ever talked about were their successes and victories, they’d be happy. If you think this through, you see the nature of postmodern politics in the Rovean era]

Another example: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116141372679906455
CNN cable news has become "the publicist for an enemy propaganda film" by broadcasting a tape showing an insurgent sniper apparently killing an American soldier, said the chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee here Friday.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., called for the Pentagon to oust immediately any CNN reporter embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq.

"I think Americans like to think we're all in this together," Hunter said. "The average American Marine or soldier has concluded after seeing that film that CNN is not on their side." . . .

More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3487

I guess Republicans have given up running against the positions that Democrats actually hold – it’s so much easier to run against positions they make up for them

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2006/oct/21/mo_07_blunt_dems_are_plotting_to_establish_department_of_peace
[WP] On his Web site, Majority Whip Roy Blunt calls the prospect of Pelosi becoming speaker "just plain scary" and says: "While Republicans fight the War on Terror . . . House Democrats plot to establish a Department of Peace."

[NB: I love that word: “plot.” Yes, the peace cabal is hard at work again -- and they must be stopped!]

Curt Weldon (R-PA) is losing his mind

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010493
[Philadelphia Daily News] Sestak described how he'd gone to elementary school at St. Kevin's, right next door, and to Cardinal O'Hara High School, just down the road, before signing up for the Naval Academy during the Vietnam War.

"Unlike others, I decided I did want to serve my country," Sestak said.

That was apparently a bit too pointed for Weldon, who got a teaching deferment to avoid the Vietnam draft and never served in the military. Weldon said he had put himself in harm's way as a volunteer fireman, stuck between an oil tanker and a refinery fire.

"Have you ever faced a similar situation, Joe, or are you always in the admiral's quarters, drinking out of your wine goblets and being waited on by your sailor servants?" Weldon asked.

More: http://sestakforcongress.com/latest-news/246

http://billmon.org/archives/002860.html

The National Republicans run a truly repulsive ad against Harold Ford (D-TN), pushing all the race buttons they can. GOP candidate Bob Corker claims he had nothing to do with it (see a pattern?)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/010498.php

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_10/009855.php

The Illinois 6th congressional district: why should you care about this outcome? Read on

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010495

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0610180034oct18,1,5442756.story

The GOP’s fight against dark-skinned invaders who want to sneak into our country and destroy our way of life: Al Qaeda? No, Mexicans!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010494

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010496

John McCain (R-AZ), Mr. Straight Shooter, huh? Sounds like just another Republican weasel to me

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/mccain-cant-even-tell-truth-about.html

Joe Lieberman (R?-CT) taps into Bush’s donor network for big money – and more and more people are wondering if he will switch parties (and control of the Senate) if he wins

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/21/1031/5664

Absentee voting seems like a technicality, but now that 20% of the voters vote this way, with more each year, it’s transforming the face of democracy (and not for the better). It is also a major source of fraud – and guess who benefits?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/us/politics/22ballot.html

For those who want to vote on the day of election – more and more hurdles. And guess who it hurts?

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/10/21/22/25/youd-almost-think-they-dont-want-people-to-vote/

The SEC mysteriously shuts down an investigation against hedge fund scams – why?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/business/22hedge.html
Two Senate committees — Finance and Judiciary — are investigating how diligently the S.E.C. pursued its Pequot inquiry, whether Mr. Aguirre’s firing was an attempt to silence him, and whether senior S.E.C. officials gave special treatment to Mr. Mack by not taking his testimony when Mr. Aguirre wanted to. . .

Does House Speaker Denny Hastert (R-IL) have a list of people to replace him? (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2003315682_aliciacol.html
Doc Hastings, speaker of the House? People lingering around the Capitol during the pre-election recess recently began mouthing that phrase, though uncertainly.

It's all because of recent reports in Roll Call and The Washington Post about the existence of a secret list of those the current speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, has named as his potential successors in the event of a disaster.

The list is controversial and, at least one congressional scholar says, may be unconstitutional.

It was devised to ensure a calm transition if terrorists were to hit the Hill and Congress couldn't quickly elect a new speaker, as spelled out in the Constitution.

But these days, the disaster most likely to hit Hastert, R-Ill., is the Mark Foley scandal involving sexually explicit e-mails to underage congressional pages.

The speculation is that Hastert, who likes those who like him, named reliable GOP members to the list.

At the moment, Hastert is in a public dispute with the House Majority Leader, John Boehner of Ohio, and not exactly hugging the next most powerful Republican, House Whip Roy Blunt.

But when members say "Hastert loyalist," they frequently say "Doc Hastings." [R-WA] . . .

The list was created about four years ago, but is in the news now because of questions over Hastert's handling of complaints about Foley a year ago.

Hastings, as the Ethics Committee chairman, is in charge of the Foley investigation, including how complaints against Foley were handled.

Congressional scholar Norman Ornstein has complained that Hastings is too close to Hastert to investigate him . . .

Theocracy watch: losing faith

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15357623/site/newsweek/page/1/
If the elections for Congress were held today, according to the new NEWSWEEK poll, 60 percent of white Evangelicals would support the Republican candidate in their district, compared to just 31 percent who would back the Democrat. To the uninitiated, that may sound like heartening news for Republicans in the autumn of their discontent. But if you’re a pundit, a pol, or a preacher, you know better. White Evangelicals are a cornerstone of the GOP’s base; in 2004, exit polls found Republicans carried white Evangelicals 3 to 1 over Democrats, winning 74 percent of their votes. In turn, Evangelicals carried the GOP to victory. But with a little more than two weeks before the crucial midterms, the Republican base may be cracking. . .

So sad: watch this Michael J. Fox ad for stem cell research, and reflect again on the priorities of the so-called “values” Republicans (for whom preserving the value of a hypothetical life clearly outweighs the value of healing and benefiting actual living human beings)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116138387434034282

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/sunday-talk-shows-open-thread_22.html
ABC's "This Week" — President Bush; Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.; professional bowler Kelly Kulick.

CBS' "Face the Nation" — Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C.

NBC's "Meet the Press" — Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

CNN's "Late Edition" — Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.; Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas; former Secretary of State Alexander Haig; former national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.

"Fox News Sunday" — Sens. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., John Warner, R-Va., Joe Biden, D-Del., and Carl Levin, D-Mich.; business mogul Richard Branson.

Bonus item: Who’s driving?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010492
[RR] Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were in the front seat.

They drove the Iraq car off a cliff.

Then they turned to the Dems in the back seat.

And said the Dems couldn’t complain unless they could come up with a plan of their own.

The tragedy is that there is no rational hope for a plan (any plan) that will work well. When you’ve driven the car off the cliff, your range of options is quite limited. We’re in the hands of gravity at this point. . .

***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 @ 8:34 AM

 
A BUNCH OF HOOEY

What a strange moment: you have generals saying “it ain’t working” in Iraq. You have an administration that says they always listen to their generals and will “adapt to win.” But they also have set in concrete a set of war aims and policies that they refuse to back away from. Meanwhile, the whole rest of their party perceives an electoral debacle and are frantically trying to distance themselves from the stinking corpse of this failed war. But we are ruled by True Believers who really can’t imagine the possibility that they were wrong – and they say that NOTHING will move them

The turning point?

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/nl/newsletter2.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=917053
[Progress Report] Overwhelming bipartisan disapproval with the current Iraq strategy "will soon force the Bush administration to abandon its open-ended commitment to the war, according to lawmakers in both parties, foreign policy experts and others involved in policymaking," the Washington Post reports today. According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. military is already "in the midst of a re-evaluation of its Iraq strategy," with top commanders from each of the armed services convening at the Pentagon "for 60 days to generate options for how the U.S. might shift its counterinsurgency strategy." The message is clear: the U.S. has reached a turning point. "Stay the course" is no longer a credible strategy even among the most strident war supporters. . . .

So, here’s their dilemma. How do they undertake a serious rethinking of policy without (a) reaching out for a bipartisan approach, (b) embracing any suggestions that might have originated with Democrats, and most of all (c) ever admitting they made a mistake? They get into messes like this:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061019-1.html
MR. SNOW: No. The important thing to remember is that [the President] . . is determined to win. . . . And we'll continue to make adjustments as necessary to pursue victory. . . .But the one thing that nobody should have any doubt about is that we're going to win. . . .

Q Let me follow on that, because The Washington Times says in a front-page story today that the administration is preparing for a "course correction."

MR. SNOW: That's a bunch of hooey. I mean, it seems to be a collection of actually old hooey brought into a piece of new hooey. (Laughter.) . . .

Q And just to follow on hooey, the things that are raised in this hooey-filled article, such as the division of Iraq --

MR. SNOW: Yes, partition -- non-starter.

Q Non-starter? Kay Bailey Hutchison raised it yesterday --

MR. SNOW: Again, as I said, we have, in fact, considered -- we consider lots of things. We've thought about partition, for a series of reasons --

Q Phased withdrawal?

MR. SNOW: -- again, you don't -- you withdraw when you win. Phased withdrawal is a way of saying, regardless of what the conditions are on the ground, we're going to get out of Dodge.

Q The 5 percent solution --

MR. SNOW: No.

Q Non-starter?

MR. SNOW: Non-starter. . . I think what you're seeing here -- I'm not even sure that they're being assessed by the ISG. Again, what's happening is different groups have been tasked – [Jim Baker’s] Iraq Study Group -- to look in all different ways about Iraq and how we proceed forward. . . The President is always interested in differing points of view, especially from smart and well informed people. . . So we certainly are always considering new ideas, and we will reconsider old ideas to see if we think suddenly they have currency. But the ones mentioned in today's Washington Times do not fit that description. . .

Q No, but I just think that you're quickly dismissing several ideas here that were on the front page, but you're not dismissing this idea and what should we do --

MR. SNOW: Well, because what you should take from it is, for instance, ideas like partition had been studied. What you're talking now about are tactical adjustments that may be made along the way. And I'm not saying yes and I'm not saying no because I don't know. . .

Q Can you define again today what a win in Iraq is?

MR. SNOW: An Iraq that can defend, sustain and govern itself.

Q And U.S. troops will be there, you said they won't withdraw until you win?

MR. SNOW: Until we have reached the conclusion that the mission has been accomplished, and that is that you're going to have Iraqi security forces and police forces that are up to the job; that you are going to have the democracy that is able to sustain, govern and defend itself; and the Iraqis will have stood up.

But if you're asking for precise metrics on that, they don't exist, as you know. . . .

Q How seriously are you going to take this report from Baker?

MR. SNOW: We're going to take it seriously. But, once again, it's an advisory report. But you absolutely take it seriously. . . The President is going to do what he thinks is going to help us move toward and ultimately achieve victory in Iraq and in the war on terror. . .

Q This morning, General Caldwell said that it might be time, in his words, to refocus the strategy in Baghdad. Does the White House share the assessment that it's not working?

MR. SNOW: Actually, that's -- I talked to Major General Caldwell before we came in here because his comments have been misquoted. What he said is that, the levels of violence had not been lowered in a way that met our expectations, and so what we're doing is we're adjusting to bring them down, which is what you would expect. . . .

Q But do you think that plan as it is currently constituted, the idea of having higher U.S. troop levels in Baghdad, is still a smart, tenable plan? Or does it need to be dropped or changed?

MR. SNOW: Again, I would direct tactical questions to the generals there because they're the ones that --

Q People did, and that's what led to this question. . .

MR. SNOW: We're not going to lose. And this is a President who is going to -- is determined to see through the promise of Iraqi democracy . . . So there is no option here and, therefore, we will entertain no option other than to succeed and finish the job.

Q Can I just follow on that for a second? Because the last two times there have been press accounts of a general suggesting that either strategy needed to be refocused or Major Dannett saying you needed to pull the British troops out, things will appear in the paper and a couple of words, it will sound like they're suggesting some alternative strategy. And then upon further consultation, we're told they were either taken out of context --

MR. SNOW: No, no. . . What he's saying is, you have seen in the focus areas they've had success, but there is violence elsewhere; you need to figure out how to deal with that. . . . So naturally, you adjust all the time.

[NB: Reading this, I don’t see how they have left themselves any room to reformulate their policies in any significant way. It looks as if Baker’s group is wasting their time. Maybe it’s just window dressing before the election, suggesting a flexibility on the part of the Bush gang that does not in fact exist]

Don’t miss it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/10/20/tony-snow-bangs-head-agai_n_32151.html

More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3483

Tactics and strategies

http://www.slate.com/id/2152010/
[Alexander Dryer] In defending the American effort in Iraq, Bush continues to draw a distinction between "tactics," which he is willing to change, and "strategy," which he isn't. The essential question is what this means in practical terms—what is up for reexamination? . . . LAT has the sharp explanation that it's all about saving face: "By adhering to longer-term goals while allowing for tactical changes, Bush could argue that military shifts do not represent a failure of past policies." But as the NYT observed yesterday, those "longer-term goals" already are shifting subtly: While he still discusses a stable, self-sufficient Iraq, the president no longer waxes poetic about a flowering Middle East democracy. And at the same time, some of the "tactical changes" the LAT reports are under consideration—such as handing Iraq over to a strongman who can keep the country together—would amount to an outright renunciation of previous goals. . .

Theocracy watch: warmonger edition

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061019/pl_afp/usmilitarypolitics_061019193550
The top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God. . . . "He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. . .

[NB: This should alarm every American. When you believe that God is guiding your decisions (and Bush is just the same) you have no reason to doubt, or question, or rethink your views – and just because the facts of daily experience might indicate that you’ve made a mistake, you always know that your victory is preordained.]

More: http://billmon.org/archives/002855.html

Don’t confuse them with the facts!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/world/middleeast/21iraqcnd.html
Hundreds of militiamen linked to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr battled local police and members of a rival Shiite militia in the southeastern city of Amara today, destroying police stations and seizing control of entire neighborhoods, in apparent retaliation for the arrest of one of their fighters.

Local tribal and political leaders and representatives from the Baghdad offices of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki negotiated all day in an effort to stem the fighting.

The gunmen from Mr. Sadr’s militia, the Mahdi Army, eventually withdrew from their positions and ceded control of the city to an Iraqi Army batallion sent from Basra. The negotiations continued late into the evening. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/20/AR2006102000867.html
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld today dismissed the significance of recent setbacks in Iraq, saying they do not mean U.S. strategy has failed and stressing that U.S. forces must continue passing responsibilities to the Iraqis to avoid creating "a dependency on their part."

Iraqi authorities, he said, are going to have to provide security for their country "sooner rather than later."

However, Rumsfeld declined to say whether he believes a "course correction" is needed in Iraq . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8827.html

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3485

http://www.juancole.com/2006/10/amara-fighting-threatens-stability-of.html

Is this the best they can do?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116137301616064877
[CNN’S BAY] BUCHANAN: There's no question in that people have a legitimate concern.

But I think the issue here is not to debate whether we should have gone or not, but that we have a serious situation. We are at war in Iraq. It is not going well . What do you do now?. . . [read on]

Meanwhile Republicans facing tough campaign battles are falling all over themselves to deny that they were ever “stay the course” advocates

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_theswamp/2006/10/democrats_play_.html
President Bush, saddled with an unpopular war, is campaigning for Republicans in their bid to maintain control of Congress with a warning that Democrats are ready to "cut and run'' from Iraq. But Democrats are deploying Bush as a weapon against the GOP in their campaign ads. . . .

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-na-iraqpol20oct20,0,5900923.story
Public anxiety over the Iraq war, already reflected in polls and demands from some Democrats to withdraw U.S. troops, is now prompting calls for change from some unlikely quarters: Republican congressional candidates.

Across the country, GOP candidates are breaking with the White House over how long troops should remain in Iraq and who should lead the war effort.

Even some of President Bush's staunchest allies in solidly Republican states are publicly questioning the administration's war policies, while others are scrambling to find new ways to talk about Iraq in the face of rising voter frustration over management of the war. . .

"We haven't found one part of the country, even in the South, where it is good to say, 'Stay the course,' " said Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, executive director of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a group for GOP centrists.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2006/oct/20/ky_04_goper_davis_has_no_idea_how_many_soldiers_died_in_iraq
GOP Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY) -- a member of the party which claims to be the one grasping the importance of the Iraq war -- yesterday revealed that he didn't have any idea whatsoever how many U.S. soldiers had died in October. The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that when he was asked how many had died this month at a debate with Dem challenger Ken Lucas, Davis replied: "I believe it is 17." The questioner rejoined : "It's more like 71." Lucas pounced, saying Davis "minimizes what's going on" in Iraq. And then, referring to the fact that 17 and 71 are mirror images of each other, Lucas quipped that Davis is "dyslexic."

http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=112932&ran=244021
Less than three weeks before the Nov. 7 election, politics and reality have converged to unravel U.S. Sen. George Allen's [R-VA] stay-the-course mantra on Iraq.

For months, "we win, they lose and there is no substitute for victory" has been Allen's battle cry on the Middle East and terrorism.

Those who dared to challenge Bush administration orthodoxy on the war, including Democratic challenger Jim Webb, were dismissed as coddlers of terrorists.

But in a two-week shift begun when U.S. Sen. John Warner returned from Iraq and gravely warned that the war is "simply drifting sideways," Allen has undertaken a not-so-subtle readjustment in rhetoric. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010467
[Josh Marshall] Last summer the White House made the case to congressional Republicans that the best way for them to weather the Iraq storm politically was to embrace the war and the president's policy and try to make the debate into one of "staying the course" or "cutting and running."

As you can see by this post below, Rep. Sweeney (R-NY) did as he was told and now seems to regret it since he's now saying "I think that the strategy of 'staying the course' is not a strategy at all. It doesn't work." . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010468
Seems like [Bob] Corker down in Tennessee has a serious case of flip-flopitis on the 'stay the course'’ . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8816.html

John McCain (R-AZ) doesn’t have this problem, but a different one. He thinks we need 100,000 MORE troops (but has no idea where to come up with them)

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/10/john-mccain-unveils-his-grand-plan-for.html

This election just became about a very simple choice: here it is

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/20/162845/60
[DemFromCT] Democrats want to rethink the strategy because they are reality-based, Republicans (in the WH) want only to "stay the course". That's because admission of error is impossible for this President, but not for other Republicans, fleeing from this WH and their Iraq debacle.

This is a losing hand for the GOP, and they know it. The political pressure on the WH to change course is only going to grow, and it's going to come from Republicans as well as Democrats. Weasel words from the White House won't mask the ugly truth. . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/20/224544/20

Bush and Rove, terrorists

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_10_15_atrios_archive.html#116136927636048807
[Atrios] The point of terrorism is, as the name suggests, to terrorize. Not simply to kill and destroy, but to frighten the broader population. It puzzles me why the RNC has found common cause with terrorists in their new ad campaign, and it puzzles me more why they want to highlight the fact that over 5 years after 9/11 George Bush has failed to catch the guy responsible.

It is very strange that they're proud of this.

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010472

Rethinking the “Rove as genius” reputation

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8821.html

It’s official – the Bush gang no longer believes that Congressional approval is necessary for any of their appointments any more (except the ones that Congress approves overwhelmingly)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N19388207.htm

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010475
[Josh Marshall] President Bush recess appoints a new pro-industry chief to the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Shouldn't be a problem since mines are so safe already.

Don’t miss this: "The 109th Congress is so bad that it makes you wonder if democracy is a failed experiment”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8824.html

Curt Weldon (R-PA) may be the worst of them all

http://blog.citizensforethics.org/node/197
E-mails received by CREW have prompted us to ask the Department of Justice to investigate whether Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) violated the law by intimidating government personnel "in the national security field" who support his opponent, Joe Sestak.

The first e-mail describes a "hit list" compiled of Weldon opponent's supporters. In addition, that e-mail notes the Weldon said something to the effect of "If they don't think there will be retribution before or after the election, they're kidding themselves." The second e-mail states that Weldon had his staff contact Navy personnel to get information on Sestak. . .

Jerry Lewis (R-CA) – no, not THAT comedian, a different comedian

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/20/lewis-obey/
Powerful House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) has abruptly suspended the contracts of “60 investigators who had worked for his committee rooting out fraud, waste and abuse, effective immediately.” The investigators were “brought on to handle the extraordinary level of fraud investigations facing the panel.”

Lewis is currently under federal investigation over corruption charges reportedly uncovered during the Duke Cunningham investigation. He has spent nearly $800,000 in legal fees since May.

Lewis’ spokesman yesterday tried to portray the suspensions as part of a bipartisan review that occured with the support of the committee’s ranking member Rep. David Obey (D-WI). . .

But . . committee Democrats had not been consulted prior to the suspension of the investigators.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8818.html

Ken Blackwell (R-OH): so bad that one of the papers that endorsed him, UN-endorsed him

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/10/20/blackwell/index.html
“Mr. Blackwell, you should be ashamed of yourself.”

More: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/10/ken-blackwell-and-sean-hannity.html

Is this linked with the 16 year-old female page rumor? (a rumor Jerry Weller’s name has been connected with)

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001849.php
Rep. Jerry Weller, R-Morris, through his election attorney, moved Thursday to inform the House that a former page or intern may have been the subject of inappropriate attention from another lawmaker, Weller's campaign manager said Thursday.

Steven Shearer said the congressman was not prepared to reveal the identity of the youth, the timing, nor the identity of the lawmaker, but felt confident that a former page or intern was "inappropriately invited to a social function by another congressman."

More: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/10/19/the_rumor.html

Looks like payback is starting (while the Repubs are still in a position to do it)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/20/AR2006102000174.html
The Republican chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence suspended a mid-level Democratic staffer Tuesday based on a suspicion that he may have been connected to the leak of a politically damaging intelligence report almost a month ago, according to Republican and Democratic congressional sources.

The action by Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), which has drawn sharp criticism from Democratic panel members, was described by legislators of both parties as another example of the increased partisan infighting that has damaged the workings of the intelligence panel during this election year.

"The chairman's unilateral action is without basis and an abuse of his power to provide security accesses," Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), ranking Democrat on the panel, said yesterday. "There is no evidence to suggest that the professional staff member in question did anything wrong," she added. . .

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/20/lahood-intelligence-suspended/
Ray LaHood (R-IL) . . . said, “I’ll tell you why I did it. The reason I did it was because Jane Harman released the Duke Cunningham — who sat on our Intelligence committee — report.” That report, which detailed the misconduct of Cunningham, who is now serving a jail term, was not classified.

A Fox anchor asked, “So, it’s payback?” LaHood responded, “There are some of us on the other side who can equally play politics, and I’m not afraid to do it.”

More payback?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010474
Time says the FBI is now investigating Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) as part of their expanded AIPAC investigation. They are, says Time, "examining whether Rep. Jane Harman of California and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) may have violated the law in a scheme to get Harman reappointed as the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee."

http://billmon.org/archives/002856.html
[Billmon] The leak may or may not have been a Hail Mary pass by a GOP administration that desperately needs to find more Democrats to pin the label "under investigation" on. It may or may not be an act of retaliation for Harman's public release of some of the slimier details of the Duke Cunningham case. . . .

Here’s why there’s no predicting this vote in November. You have a huge mass of people out there who believe two things: (1) George Bush was chosen by God to lead this country and his policies are guided by a divine hand; (2) If the Democrats win, Osama Bin Laden will plant a nuclear bomb in your backyard and kill you, your family and everyone you know. They really believe this, and you can’t underestimate the desperate urgency of people like that to volunteer, call and beg everyone they know, empty their bank accounts, canvass the streets, and physically carry voters to the voting booth – with their churches organizing and exhorting them at every stage. They will do whatever it takes to avert what they have been led to believe will be a victory of the godless over everything they hold dear

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116131906438529260

A cautionary note

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010482
[Josh Marshall] This is no more than a gut sense and a reaction to the reverberations I can feel in the ground. But my gut sense is that this week the conventional wisdom or perhaps Democratic optimism reached into the realm of irrational exuberance. And my own not particularly scientific perusal of the polls suggests some slackening of the strong trend toward the Democrats we've seen over the last three weeks.

Don't get me wrong. The polls still paint an extremely bleak picture for the Republicans. Race after race that should have been safe for the GOP has crept within the margin of error.

Over the last couple months we've seen the campaign knocked this way and that by a series of strong pivots, pendulum swings that have driven the news for two or more weeks. Unfortunately for the GOP, most have swung against them. There was the pre-9/11 uptick in GOP fortunes, minute but real and detectable in the polls. Then the collapse of support with the NIE revelation, the Woodward book and mounting chaos in Iraq. And finally Foley.

We've got little more than two weeks left before the big day. But the news cycle the campaign feeds on has seemed a bit aimless over the last week. In fact it's started to feed on itself. And by that I mean that the major campaign issue has been how badly the campaign is going for the Republicans. But that type of inverted news cycle tends to feed on itself and like a bubble, burst.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and so much intensity and no news to chew on is exactly that.

I get the sense that this campaign, even with so little time left, has one more big jolt left in it.

What do you think? And what might it be?

Who votes, who doesn’t, and why

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/20/13258/478

How the Right views the blogosphere, the one news and information source they can’t control or intimidate

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/19/oreilly-blogosphere-grenade/
Last night on The O’Reilly Factor, political strategist Larry Sabato bemoaned the “blogs on left and right” and “the things they come up with daily, the vitriol, the vile nature of the comments.” . . . O’Reilly said that he knew “for a fact that President Bush doesn’t know what’s going on in the Internet.” O’Reilly then said, “I have to say President Bush has a much healthier attitude toward this than I do. Because if I can get away with it, boy, I’d go in with a hand grenade.”

[NB: Right, because O’Reilly, Fox, and right-wing talk radio aren’t sources of vitriol and misinformation]

I don’t really believe this, but might Fox News be tacking to the Left? (Right-wingers think so)

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/10/20/simpsons/index.html

Bonus item: The kind of people they are

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010480
[Utica Observer-Dispatch] Three Central New York television stations have chosen not to run an advertisement from the National Republican Congressional Committee that alleges Michael Arcuri made calls to a sex hotline while at a conference in New York City. . .

Democratic Oneida County District Attorney Michael Arcuri is in a highly competitive race for the 24th District Congressional District seat against Republican state Sen. Ray Meier.

Documents provided by both the NRCC and the Arcuri campaign show a call lasting less than a minute to an 800 number that is now a sex line. . . Arcuri said that number was dialed by accident by Sean Byrne, the executive director of the New York Prosecutor Training Institute, who was meeting with him and others in the hotel room. Byrne also said that was the case, and records show immediately following the call to the sex line, he called the same seven digits, but with a 518 area code, not an 800 prefix.

***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 @ 8:55 AM

 
FEAR FACTOR

”Stay the course” -- what course?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/world/middleeast/20iraqcnd.html
The American military’s stepped-up campaign to staunch unrelenting bloodshed in the capital under an ambitious new security plan that was unveiled in August has failed to reduce the violence, a military spokesman said Thursday.

Instead, attacks have actually jumped more than 20 percent over the first three weeks of the holy month of Ramadan, compared to the previous three weeks, said Gen. William Caldwell, the military’s chief spokesman in Iraq. . . .

In an unusually gloomy assessment. . . .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1926809,00.html
[T]he Pentagon yesterday admitted defeat in its strategy of securing Baghdad. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/world/middleeast/20policy.html
The acknowledgment by the United States Army spokesman in Iraq that the latest plan to secure Baghdad has faltered leaves President Bush with some of the ugliest choices he has yet faced in the war. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101901907.html
The growing doubts among GOP lawmakers about the administration's Iraq strategy, coupled with the prospect of Democratic wins in next month's midterm elections, will soon force the Bush administration to abandon its open-ended commitment to the war, according to lawmakers in both parties, foreign policy experts and others involved in policymaking.

Senior figures in both parties are coming to the conclusion that the Bush administration will be unable to achieve its goal of a stable, democratic Iraq within a politically feasible time frame. Agitation is growing in Congress for alternatives to the administration's strategy of keeping Iraq in one piece and getting its security forces up and running while 140,000 U.S. troops try to keep a lid on rapidly spreading sectarian violence. . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_10/009840.php

Perfect, just perfect. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101901799.html
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office has instructed the country's health ministry to stop providing mortality figures to the United Nations. . .

Whoa!

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7555
[Holden] Last time I checked Republikkkan Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison was a full 32 points ahead of Democratic opponent Barbara Ann Radnofsky and even farther ahead of her Libertarian opponent, Scott Lanier Jamison.

Still, she felt the need to say it was wrong to invade Iraq during last night's Texas senatorial debate.

“If I knew then what I had known now on the weapons of mass destruction, which was a key reason I voted the way I did, I would not have voted to go into Iraq then,” Hutchison said.

Legal, but STUPID (because sooner or later the truth comes out, and then any propaganda effects are reversed)

http://makeashorterlink.com/?W2C11220E
[AP] A U.S. military propaganda program used in the Iraq war was legal under the rules for psychological operations, a Pentagon investigation has concluded. . . A classified Defense Department inspector general's report said regulations were followed when the military paid to have favorable stories about coalition forces planted in Iraqi newspapers . . .

Both Bush and WH spokesman Tony Snow accept the analogy of the current Iraq offensive to Tet in Vietnam (perhaps not realizing what that meant). Now they are backpedaling furiously

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Iraq_Tet.html

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/19/iraq-vietnam-could/

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7547

More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_war_in_iraq_/2006/10/iraqs_tet_offensive.php

After weeks of denial, isn’t it interesting to hear now that Iraq has actually been in a civil war for a while?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/us-may-have-weeks-not-months-to-avert.html
"The civil war is already well along. . .”

It doesn’t matter whether Congress gives Bush what he wants or not – what he wants even more is to demonstrate that he doesn’t have to listen to Congress

http://www.airforcetimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2295747.php
Congress said it wants next year’s defense budget to include funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but President Bush has indicated he may ignore that request. . . In a “signing statement” released when he signed the 2007 Defense Authorization Act on Oct. 17, the president listed two dozen provisions in the act that he indicated he may or may not abide by. . . Among the provisions is Section 1008 of the Authorization Act, which requires the president to submit defense budgets for 2008 and beyond that include funding for the wars and contain “a detailed justification of the funds requested.”

[NB: Yeah, really. We can’t have THAT, can we?]

More: http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7545

Our slow descent toward despotism

http://sideshow.me.uk/soct06.htm#10191124
[Avedon Carol] Keith Olbermann on the attack on America by the Bush administration, and an interview with Jonathan Turley, who said, "People have no idea how significant this is. Really a time of shame this is for the American system. The strange thing is that we have become sort of constitutional couch potatoes. The Congress just gave the President despotic powers and you could hear the yawn across the country . . .”

I think I may have kvetched before about a nasty habit our legislators have of passing bills that they know the Supreme Court will overturn because they are unconstitutional and usually a mess besides. They pass whole bills as a campaign tactic, knowing they will never become law. They even pass bills they honestly believe are not merely unconstitutional but wrong because they think they can pass the buck to the Supremes. And perhaps fakers like Arlen Specter and John McCain thought that was what they were doing this time, as well. And I really wish I could believe that was true. But Scott Lemieux suspects that this time, they were wrong. . . . [read on]

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_10_15_atrios_archive.html#116131782218303462
[WP] Moving quickly to implement the bill signed by President Bush this week that authorizes military trials of enemy combatants, the administration has formally notified the U.S. District Court here that it no longer has jurisdiction to consider hundreds of habeas corpus petitions filed by inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

In a notice dated Wednesday, the Justice Department listed 196 pending habeas cases, some of which cover groups of detainees. The new Military Commissions Act (MCA), it said, provides that "no court, justice, or judge" can consider those petitions or other actions related to treatment or imprisonment filed by anyone designated as an enemy combatant, now or in the future. . .

The Constitutional issues: http://www.juancole.com/2006/10/unconstitutionality-of-military.html

The press’s failure: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003284714

Former House Clerk Jeff Trandahl testifies on Foley, and here’s what we know. TWO top aides to Denny Hastert were briefed on what was going on. And it wasn’t just Foley!

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/10/house_clerks_te.html
Jeff Trandahl. . . is believed to have testified that a top aide to House Speaker Dennis Hastert was informed of "all issues dealing with the page program," according to a Republican familiar with the investigation.

The Republican source said Trandahl planned to name Ted Van Der Meid, the speaker's counsel and floor manager, as the person who was briefed on a regular basis about any issue that arose in the page program, including a "problem group of members and staff who spent too much time socializing with pages outside of official duties," one of whom was Mark Foley.

Last week, Foley's former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, testified before the Ethics Committee about his public allegations that the speaker's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, was told about problems with Foley at least three years ago.

Palmer has said that Fordham's version of events "never happened." . . .

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/foley_follies_/2006/10/a_problem_group_of_members_and_staff.php
[Mark Kleiman] Well, that should set the cat among the pigeons. . .

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001842.php

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/18/foley.probe/

Fear and lies. It’s all they have left

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101901906.html
With top Republican strategists now privately predicting substantial House losses, President Bush and top GOP officials plan to spend the final days of the 2006 campaign attempting to rally partisans and limit conservative defections with dire warnings about the consequences of a Democratic Congress. . .

http://www.forbes.com/business/healthcare/feeds/ap/2006/10/19/ap3106059.html
The Republican Party will begin airing a hard-hitting ad this weekend that warns of more cataclysmic terror attacks against the U.S. homeland.

The ad portrays Osama bin Laden and quotes his threats against America dating to February 1998. "These are the stakes," the ad concludes. "Vote November 7." . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/19/211213/54
[Georgia10] Yawn. This ad may have worked years ago, but the Republican Party has zero credibility anymore. Americans don't believe that Republicans can protect teens from horny Congressmen, and they're going to believe that they can protect us from terrorists?

Thanks, GOP, for doing the job for us. Thanks for reminding Americans that six years after the terrorist attacks, Osama bin Laden is still podcasting and chillin' in the mountains of Afghanistan while we're playing beat cop on the streets of Baghdad. Thanks for producing an ad so laughably transparent in its fear-mongering, it crystallizes for voters exactly what your party is about: manufacturing fear, selling fear, and marketing fear . . .

I hope the RNC spends tons of money on this lame ad. I hope they air it and waste their money. . . If you decide you need a chuckle and do check out the ad, you'll see that it's just aching to be parodied. Any intrepid video guys or gals out there, get creative. You can just picture the rebuttal. The same tick...tick...ticking of time. The same pictures of bin Laden and other terrorists jumping around like sugar-hyped kids in a jungle gym. A voice-over of the President proclaiming "I'm truly am not that concerned about him.". . . .

Ugly, ridiculous lies. Make them pay

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/10/18/BL2006101800799.html
[George Bush] "What's interesting about these votes that took place in the Congress is the number of Democrats that opposed questioning people we picked up on the battlefield.”

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3480
[Ken Mehlman] "Democrats in the House voted against interrogating terrorists."

Why are Republicans so afraid of simply letting people vote?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/19/144952/41
[MSNBC] State investigators have linked a Republican campaign to letters sent to thousands of Orange County Hispanics. . . The Los Angeles Times and The Orange County Register both reported Thursday that the investigation appeared to be focused on the campaign of Tan D. Nguyen, a Republican challenger to Democratic U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez . . .

The letter, written in Spanish, tells recipients: "You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time."

In fact, immigrants who are naturalized U.S. citizens can vote.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8806.html
[Steve Benen] Yes, it is ironic that the Republican who is alleged to have warned immigrants not to vote is himself an immigrant. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101901721.html
A California Republican's congressional campaign went into meltdown Thursday after he said a staff member was responsible for sending thousands of letters to new voters with Hispanic surnames telling them -- wrongly -- that it is illegal for them to vote if they are immigrants.

Tan Nguyen, the GOP candidate for California's 47th District, said in a statement that a staff member had sent the letters without his knowledge . . . "The mailer was flawed. . ." Nguyen's statement said. . .

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/15791512.htm
Orange County Republican leaders on Thursday called for the withdrawal of a GOP congressional candidate who has acknowledged that his campaign sent a letter threatening Hispanic immigrant voters. . .

Why are Republicans afraid of the truth?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010459
[Josh Marshall] The House Appropriations Committee had hired 60 extra investigators to deal with the unprecedented level of corruption in federal appropriations these days.

Jerry Lewis, Chairman of the Committee (who's himself being investigated and has racked up $800,000 in legal fees) just fired them all. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010456
[Paul Kiel] There are some questions that Rep. Sue Kelly (R-NY) really doesn't want to answer. . . So much so that she ran away -- literally ran away -- from a local news crew.

SO typical: Republicans in Ohio admit attack ad is false, but keep running it

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1161255468153120.xml

The GOP won’t pull it, but the stations do: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010462

More details on Jim Gibbons’ (R-NV) alleged assault

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010460
[L.V. Review-Journal] A casino cocktail waitress told police a drunken U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons grabbed her, shoved her against a wall and threatened her in a Las Vegas parking garage after she rebuffed his advances at a restaurant Friday night. . . . Gibbons, 61, the Republican candidate for governor, denied her version of the story and told police he merely helped a woman to her vehicle and grabbed her arm when she tripped and fell. . .

The kind of people they are

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/19/235759/53
"No wonder there are anti-Semites"

Molly Ivins’ sober assessment: why poll number advantages don’t necessarily translate into voting day victories (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200601018_molly_ivins_count_republicans_out/

Republican money drying up

http://www.slate.com/id/2151920/
[Alexander Dryer] Meanwhile, the WSJ reports that Republicans' cash advantage is dwindling. Partly that's due to aggressive fund-raising by Democrats, but it also reflects the GOP campaign committees' high overhead costs. The paper notes that Republicans "spend significantly more for trinkets for donors, such as lithographs and $93,500 for books about the inauguration."

In another interesting trend in the era of Internet politics: now that we know how much excess campaign money certain “safe” Democratic candidates have, there is growing grassroots pressure on them to donate more to help candidates in closer races

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010443

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/19/211213/54

Republicans are already spinning a Democratic victory. See, when THEY win, it’s the voice of the people speaking, giving them a mandate. But if the Democrats win. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8805.html

Meanwhile, within the Republican party, the blame game has already started

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/us/politics/20conserve.html
Tax-cutters are calling evangelicals bullies. Christian conservatives say Republicans in Congress have let them down. Hawks say President Bush is bungling the war in Iraq. And many conservatives blame Representative Mark Foley’s sexual messages to teenage pages. . . With polls showing Republican control of Congress in jeopardy, conservative leaders are pointing fingers at one other in an increasingly testy circle of blame for potential Republican losses this fall. . .

Former GOP Majority Leader Dick Armey continues his assault against the stranglehold Christian conservatives have over his party (and it’s a wonder to behold)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/have-christian-conservatives-cost.html

Theocracy watch: the end of a church/state division

http://billmon.org/archives/002846.html
[Billmon] Fear of God
One doesn't need to wonder if the IRS will go after this violation of 501(c)3 status as vigorously as it went after this one. . . . We already know the answer.

That the fundamentalist Christian ward bosses are going balls out to turn out their troops and save the GOP's congressional bacon isn't exactly a news flash. But it appears, from the Bloomberg story linked to above, that in their desperation they are crossing whatever remaining lines separate churches from political clubs. . . .

We will never stop paying for this stupid decision (unless and until we have a paper backup for e-voting)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101901818.html
The FBI is investigating the possible theft of software developed by the nation's leading maker of electronic voting equipment. . .

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/diebold-voting-machine-code-mailed-to.html

Could be big (though I expect them to fight it tooth and nail)

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003285344
[AP] A federal judge has ordered the Bush administration to release information about who visited Vice President Dick Cheney's office and personal residence, an order that could spark a late election season debate over lobbyists' White House access.

The Washington Post asked for two years of White House visitor logs in June but the Secret Service refused to process the request. Government attorneys called it "a fishing expedition into the most sensitive details of the vice presidency."

U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina ruled Wednesday that, by the end of next week, the Secret Service must produce the records or at least identity them and justify why they are being withheld. . .

Bonus item: Hypocrite scamming hypocrite. Bush, after saying for months that a policing-only approach to immigration can’t work without being part of a comprehensive approach, suddenly decides that signing a “build a fence” bill will help him politically. Congress passes the bill, but with a provision that allows Bush to divert its funds into other purposes – so the damn fence may in fact never be built at all. Everone calls it “urgent.” But now there’s a struggle over WHEN to sign it – Bush wants to do it now, the Repubs want it signed closer to the election. So they are REFUSING to send him the bill to sign. And believe it or not, it gets even funnier. . . [read on!]

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8807.html

Extra bonus item: you couldn’t make it up

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/19/23634/626
Candidate seeks textbooks as shields
[Boston Globe] A candidate for state superintendent of schools said Thursday he wants thick used textbooks placed under every student's desk so they can use them for self-defense during school shootings.

"People might think it's kind of weird, crazy," said Republican Bill Crozier of Union City, a teacher and former Air Force security officer. "It is a practical thing; it's something you can do. It might be a way to deflect those bullets until police go there."

Crozier and a group of aides produced a 10-minute video Tuesday in which they shoot math, language and telephone books with a variety of weapons, including an AK-47 assault rifle and a 9mm pistol. The rifle bullet penetrated two books, including a calculus textbook, but the pistol bullet was stopped by a single book.

***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 @ 8:07 AM

 
PILING ON

The Republicans really are losing their minds (I guess desperation does that to you)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/010427.php
[Uniontown Herald-Standard] Embattled U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum said America has avoided a second terrorist attack for five years because the "Eye of Mordor" has instead been drawn to Iraq. . .

"As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else," Santorum said. . . "It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S.," he continued. "You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States."

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061018/NEWS01/610180374
With Republican Ken Blackwell trailing by double digits in almost every poll, Blackwell's campaign Tuesday tried to link his Democratic opponent to child sex predators - and the state Republican spokesman even raised questions about Ted Strickland's sexuality. . .

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005052.html
[CBS] In his first local TV interview since Monday's FBI raids, Congressman Curt Weldon [R-PA] told CBS 3 he's uncovered new evidence indicating the influence peddling investigation -- is an attempt to sabotage his re-election effort. . . . . "That is absolutely a partisan political activity on the part of [George Bush’s!] Justice Department. . .”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/18/172738/08
CONRAD BURNS [R-MT]: I said we gotta win. He wants to pull out. He wants everybody to know our plan. That's not smart. If you had a plan in order to win are you gonna tell the enemy? He's not...the enemy's not gonna tell us! That is absolutely unbelievable that anyone would take that approach! He says our president don't have a plan. I think he's got one. But he's not gonna tell everybody in the whole world. . . . Again he says there's no plan. There is a plan. We're not gonna tell you, John. We're not gonna tell you what our plan is because you'll just go out there and blow it. Period! By heavens, that's just common sense. That's enough.

JON TESTER: I just wanna say one thing.

BURNS: Wait a minute, hold the phone!

TESTER: Ok, all right, all right.

MODERATOR: This is his response.

TESTER: This is my response...

MODERATOR: Just this last word, then we'll move on.

BURNS: No, I don't think he has. I think he's out of bounds.

MODERATOR: No, no.

TESTER: Mike asked me a question, I answered, you get to answer, I get to answer. That's the way it works.

BURNS: Oh really?

TESTER: Yes.

BURNS: Like checkers?

TESTER: That's the way it works. Well it's interesting, Senator Burns because I listened to some of your comrades on TV last week who came back from Iraq, I guess they don't know the plan either. The chairman of the Armed Services Committee doesn't know the plan but you do. Because the chairman of the Armed Services Committee says that if things don't change we need to change things. We need to have a plan.

Shhh! I don’t want to talk about it

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/us/politics/19campaign.html
Four months ago, the White House offered a set of clear political directions to Republicans heading into the midterm elections: embrace the war in Iraq as critical to the antiterrorism fight and belittle Democrats as advocates of a “cut and run” policy of weakness. . . With three weeks until Election Day, Republican candidates are barely mentioning Iraq on the campaign trail and in their television advertisements. . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_10_15_atrios_archive.html#116120948135590255
[Atrios] This is hilarious. Tom Kean [R-NJ] dodges 23 Iraq questions. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010438
Republican U.S. Senate nominee Bob Corker said Wednesday he was forbidden from talking about a settlement in a lawsuit that challenged how a city conservation easement became an access road to commercial property his company sold while he was mayor. . .

Playing the race card – Republican edition

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8782.html
[Steve Benen] The lengths white right-wing conservatives will go to try and play African-American voters for fools is literally breathtaking.

Last month, it was the Washington-based National Black Republican Association which started running radio ads in Maryland holding Democrats responsible for Jim Crow laws, the KKK, and releasing vicious dogs and fire hoses on blacks during the Civil Rights era. "Republicans freed us from slavery and put our right to vote in the Constitution," the ads said.

This month, it's a new set of ads — running in more than two dozen congressional districts nationwide — sponsored by a political action committee called "America's Pac," which is a project of the very wealthy (and very white) Patrick Rooney. I honestly didn't think the right could be this disgusting.

"Black babies are terminated at triple the rate of white babies," a female announcer in one of the ads says, as rain, thunder, and a crying infant are heard in the background. "The Democratic Party supports these abortion laws that are decimating our people, but the individual's right to life is protected in the Republican platform. Democrats say they want our vote. Why don't they want our lives?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/18/AR2006101801754.html
When a black conservative group ran a radio ad proclaiming that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican, reaction was swift. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/17/AR2006101701440.html
Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele accused a leading Democratic congressman yesterday of racial insensitivity for saying the Republican candidate has "slavishly" followed the GOP. . .

Katherine Harris (R-Disneyworld) plans to sell her DC home. Go ahead, sister, you won’t be needing it much longer

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010435

Bob Ney (R-OH) STILL hasn’t quit

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/convicted-congressman-ney-still-around.html

Impeccable timing

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010436
[Josh Marshall] Yet another classic John Doolittle [R-CA] moment. He attacks his opponent for supporting the ACLU, which has defended child sex predators. Meanwhile, Doolittle himself was a character witness for a dentist on trial for sexually assaulting his patients while they were anesthetized.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/nevada-gop-candidate-for-governor-aka.html
[Joe] What is it with Republican Congressman? The GOP candidate for Governor in Nevada, Congressman Jim Gibbons, got himself in to some trouble last Friday night . . . [read on!]

Yep, another Republican crook – and this is an ugly one

http://makeashorterlink.com/?M2703200E
U.S. Rep. John Sweeney [R-NY] may have violated congressional ethics rules by failing to reveal who paid for a trip he took to a Pacific island with a lobbyist hired by convicted Washington influence peddler Jack Abramoff.

In January 2001, Sweeney traveled 8,000 miles to deliver a speech to the Saipan Chamber of Commerce in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory infamous for its garment sweatshops and prostitution trade. He traveled with Tony Rudy, who had just left the staff of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to work for Abramoff. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/010429.php
[RT] What no one seems to want to report is that Tom DeLay promised the garment industry in the Marianna Islands that the government would stay out of their sweat-shop affairs. DeLay got Abramhoff to get Mehlman to make sure the right guys were in control. That’s because the garment industry of the Islands had basically kidnapped Asian woman who paid a price to get to the United States for work. Since the Marianna’s are a US commonwealth, the garment industry can technically put “Made in the USA” labels on their products, but in reality, the garments are made in mediocre-paying sweat shops by captive labor who are also forced into prostitution and also forced to get abortions if they get pregnant. This is what DeLay, Mehlman, Abramhoff and company were getting paid to protect. Let’s get that story out, please.

[Josh Marshall] All true. A hideously sordid tale.

Here's the story of another member of Congress who went to the floor of the House on Abramoff's behalf to denounce a teenager filipino girl who was held captive as a sex slave on the islands. This stuff isn't just about misfiled disclosures and skyboxes. It's real dark. . .

Heat up some popcorn, and settle in. . . .

http://makeashorterlink.com/?R1402100E
GOP leaders are facing scrutiny over whether they or their aides did too little to stop Foley's inappropriate behavior toward pages when problems surfaced years ago. The revelations have been followed by weakening poll numbers for Republicans, who insist that no one in their party knew of the sexually graphic e-mails that have scandalized the public. . .

Alexander discussed the matter last spring with two top House GOP lawmakers, Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio and campaign chair Tom Reynolds of New York, both of whom say they spoke with House Speaker Dennis Hastert about it. Hastert, R-Ill., has said he does not recall the conversations. . .

As the House officer with direct responsibility for the page program, Trandahl is virtually certain to know whether there have been other complaints about Foley. . . The panel is trying to determine whether lawmakers and staff aides acted properly when alerted about Foley's behavior. Trandahl's testimony is crucial to knowing how many people knew about the page issue — and how problems with Foley were handled — before the scandal exploded last month. . .

Trandahl is in position to support testimony by Kirk Fordham, a former top aide to Foley, who has told the ethics panel that he informed top House GOP aides of Foley's inappropriate behavior toward pages years ago. Fordham has testified he told senior House staff aides about the page dorm incident when it happened several years ago.

A key issue is whether staff aides to Hastert knew about Foley's improper behavior before the 2005 episode and whether they told Hastert — who says he knew nothing about Foley and pages prior to the day Foley resigned. . .

Break out the tar and pitchforks – another page scandal, this time involving a 16-year-old girl

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/18/milbank-16/

Hitting bottom

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/462896p-389351c.html
In an ominous sign for the GOP, a Gallup Poll out yesterday says the public's approval of Congress remains at lows not seen since 1994 - when insurgent Republicans kicked Democrats out of power.

The survey found only 23% of the country approves of the job the GOP-led Congress is doing, with 71% saying they disapprove. . .

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15319792/
Just 20 days until Election Day, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds approval of the GOP-held Congress is at its lowest mark in 14 years, the Republican Party's favorability rating is at an all-time low and President George W. Bush's approval rating remains mired in the 30s -- all ominous signs for a party trying to maintain control of Congress.

In fact, according to the poll, Republicans are in worse shape on some key measures than Democrats were in 1994, when they lost their congressional majorities. . . .

In the survey, Bush's approval rating is at 38 percent, a one-point decline from a previous NBC/Journal poll released earlier this month after the Foley news first broke. Perhaps more revealing, only 16 percent now approve of the job Congress is doing -- its lowest mark since 1992.

So, why are Rove, Bush, and Mehlman so optimistic about the fall elections, when every poll says Republicans are tanking? False bravado, or. . .?

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2006/10/are_republican.html
If you're ever read a profile of Ken Mehlman, you know he is obsessed with metrics. For him, one of the most important sources of data is a weekly e-mail his political team prepares called the "Weekly Grassroots Report." It meticulously records the work of tens of thousands of volunteers in targeted states, counties and congressional districts across the country. The data summary allows the RNC to determine which states are meeting goals and which states are falling behind.

The RNC declined to share the most recent report, which was issued Monday. But two independent sources who saw last week's report professed to be surprised: not only was their no drop off last week, 12 states broke new voter contact records.

In a month, the party completed more than a million phone calls and door contacts conbined. Bigger states are putting up big numbers -- even Ohio, which lagged behind its targets all summer, has caught up. The RNC is particularly pleased with their progress in New Jersey, where they've rapidly set up a more aggressive version of their 72 Hour Program in light of the state's more competitive Senate race.

These are the numbers that motivate Karl Rove's optimism . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/010431.php
[Josh Marshall] The issue of the day is Money. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/18/212442/04
[NB: here’s $26 million. . . ]

The DCCC is bullish

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/18/171347/65
[Kos] "Cautious optimism" has been replaced with "confident aggressiveness". . .

More “what if’s” about a Democratic victory

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/18/8447/2674

A good ruling in Florida

http://makeashorterlink.com/?J3612200E
[Reuters] The candidate replacing Florida's disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley . . . on the ballot in next month's election has been barred from posting signs at polling places clarifying that votes for Foley will actually go to him, authorities said on Wednesday. . .

Rules prohibited taking Foley's name off the ballot so close to the November 7 election. So the Republicans' replacement candidate, Joe Negron, had asked election supervisors to post signs at the polls telling voters that ballots cast for Foley would elect him instead.

But Florida Circuit Court Judge Janet Ferris ruled against posting the signs outside the nearly 300 precincts in the eight-county congressional district once represented by Foley.

"The problem with posting or delivering such notices at polling places, which would speak only to the District 16 Congressional race, is that the legislature did not authorize them," Ferris wrote in an order granting the Florida Democratic Party's request for an injunction blocking the signs. . .

Defending Joe

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/18/15187/891
[McJoan] A billboard now up in Connecticut unfairly attacks Joe Lieberman. . . This billboard unfairly implies that Lieberman chose to support torture when he voted for the Military Commission Act of 2006. Now it is true that Lieberman is an unprincipled flip flopper, as his most recent flop on Bolton attests. But his position on torture has been consistent and steadfast -- he has always supported torture. . .

Getting worried, Senator Lieberman?

http://mydd.com/story/2006/10/18/213734/16
[A debate tag-team] Schlesinger: If you had someone doing a job for eighteen years, and after eighteen years, their record was one of complete failure, what would you do? What do you think should happen with that person?. . . Ned, you're a businessman: what would you say about someone like that?

Lamont: I'd say, "It's time to go, Joe!" . . .[read on!]

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/19/04113/790
What has happened is that Joe Lieberman competed in a Democratic primary, lost, and is now competing in a Republican primary, and is losing again. . .

A question Bush can't answer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/10/18/BL2006101800799.html
[Dan Froomkin] Fox News's Bill O'Reilly, of all people,. . . raised the issue of waterboarding, a particularly appalling technique that CIA interrogators reportedly used on terror suspects.

O'Reilly: "Is waterboarding torture?"

Bush: "I don't want to talk about techniques. But I do assure the American people that we were within the law and we don't torture” . . .

Then came the question I've been waiting for someone to ask.

O'Reilly: "But if the public doesn't know what torture is or is not, as defined by the Bush Administration, how can the public make a decision on whether your policy is right or wrong?”

Bush's ducking of such an important question, it seems to me, is highly newsworthy. Here's the president's response, in its entirety:

Bush: "Well, one thing is that you can rest assured we are not going to talk about the techniques we use in a public forum, no matter how hard you try, because I don't want the enemy to be able to adjust their tactics if we capture them on the battlefield.

"But what the American people need to know is we have a program in place that is able to get intelligence from these people and we have used it to stop attacks. The intelligence community believes strongly that the information we got from the detainee questioning program yielded information that made America safer, that we stopped attacks.

"Secondly, the courts. Yeah, I believe it is necessary to have military tribunals because I ultimately want these people to be tried. And it took a while to get these tribunals in place. The Supreme Court ruled that the president didn't have the authority to set up these courts on his own, that he needed to work with Congress to do so, and we did.

"What's interesting about these votes that took place in the Congress is the number of Democrats that opposed questioning people we picked up on the battlefield. And I think that's an issue that they will have to explain to the American people."

So apparently that's his answer to O'Reilly's excellent and important question: Democrats are pro-terrorist.

(And let's not even get into the fact that he misrepresented the views of Democrats, all of whom to the best of my knowledge favor questioning suspects -- just not necessarily torturing them.)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8797.html
[Steve Benen] Now that the White House torture bill is law, it was only a matter of time before the vaunted Bush political machine decided exactly how they'd use this new power — not against detainees, but against Democrats. . .

[NB: In fact, since it will be promptly ruled unconstitutional (and the Republicans voting for it knew so), this is its ONLY purpose]

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/10/what-fox-viewers-are-told-about.html
[Glenn Greenwald] The so-called Military Commissions Act of 2006, signed into law yesterday by President Bush, is replete with radical provisions, but the most dangerous and disturbing is that it vests in the President the power to detain people forever by declaring them an "unlawful enemy combatant," and they then have no ability to contest the validity of their detention in any tribunal. The President now possesses a defining authoritarian power -- to detain and imprison people for life based solely on his say-so, while denying the detainee any opportunity to prove his innocence.

But for those who rely on Fox News for their information about what the government is doing, not only do they not know that, they think the opposite is true. . . .

Iraq: what more can we say?

http://www.slate.com/id/2151838
[Alexander Dryer] The Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and USA Today all lead with the mushrooming violence in Iraq, where 11 U.S. troops died Tuesday and a twelfth died Wednesday. The latest deaths put October on track to be the third-deadliest month of the war. . . . Digging into the details of the Iraq casualty reports reveals that the numbers are actually worse than they first appear. The two deadliest months of the war for U.S. forces were April 2004 (with 135 deaths) and November 2004 (with 137 deaths). Significantly, those months were marked by full-scale offensives in Falluja and Najaf. This month, the NYT notes, the "military has not conducted any major operations," and yet at the current rate, around 120 Americans will have died by November 1. In other words, day-to-day operations in Iraq are now nearly as deadly as open warfare was two years ago . . .

Donald Rumsfeld’s doubletalk

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/rumsfeld-says-its-just-not-possible.html

Iraq’s Tet offensive

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7537
[Scout Prime] ABC is reporting that when asked about Tom Friedman's column which compares today's Iraq to the Tet Offensive, Pony Blow said this....

"I think Friedman may be right, but we'll have to see." . . .

UPDATE: Well this appears now on ABC home page...

In an exclusive interview President Bush said "He could be right," when George Stephanopoulos asked him about New York Times' columnist Thomas Friedman's claim that the situation in Iraq right now might be the equivalent of the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2582129
[ABC] As Friedman did, we should take time out here for younger readers who may not have heard of Tet.

It was a series of attacks launched in what was then South Vietnam by communist forces. . . . They lasted almost a year and a half, ending in June 1969.

American forces said that the communists suffered a devastating military defeat. And most historians agree. But that was not the way Americans at home viewed it.

They sat in their living rooms watching shocking pictures of communist troops deep inside the South Vietnamese capital, Saigon. The troops even penetrated the grounds of the U.S. Embassy.

After the Tet offensive began, support for the Vietnam War declined — and so did support for President Johnson.

Fair and balanced?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200610180011

Why the mainstream media fears and despises the blogosphere

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/18/13352/263
[McJoan] The reason . . . you are eventually going to be put out of business is because you forgot your business. You rival the GOP Rubber Stamp Congress in looking the other way when it comes to the disaster this administration has wrought. Cheney's energy policy, drafted by big oil? Well, how important could that be. Lying about estimates for the cost of the prescription drug plan? Numbers are confusing. 800 signing statements undoing the will of Congress? Um, signing statements? Lying to the nation and to the international community to take this country into a misguided, expensive, poorly planned and even more poorly executed war? Lying to the nation to take us to war? That's not my beat.

The media's failure. . . to demand any accountability at all for this president and for the Congress that has propped him up, is the seed you planted for your own destruction. Your failure to recognize and point out the radical right that has taken over the Republican party is not the fault of us great unwashed liberal bloggers, the legions of the shrill. Your failure is all yours. What you wrought by pushing the agenda of the Clinton haters and the Gore detractors was this unmitigated catastrophe known as the Bush administration. . .

Bonus item: The anti-suffragist

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/18/21590/433
Limbaugh Doesn't Want Single Women to Vote . . .

***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 @ 7:11 AM

 
USEFUL IDIOTS

Here’s how completely the torture bill (negotiated by “mavericks” McCain, Graham, Specter, et al) caved in and gave Bush EVERYTHING he wanted – he didn’t even bother adding any “signing statements”!

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8786.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/10/17/BL2006101700619.html
[Dan Froomkin] President Bush this morning proudly signed into law a bill that critics consider one of the most un-American in the nation's long history. . .

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/torture_/2006/10/how_totally_did_mccain_co_cave_on_the_torture_bill.php
[Mark Kleiman] Best Democratic response line I've heard so far: "When the Supreme Court strikes this down, as it surely will, the bill becomes a get-out-of-jail-free card for terrorists."

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2006/10/giving_voice_to_the_silenced_majority.html
[Michael Froomkin] The campaign to repeal the Bush Torture Bill, aka the Military Commissions Act of 2006, begins today. (So does the legal battle.) . . .

Another disaster for Bush’s tunnel-vision foreign policy

http://makeashorterlink.com/?I28C52DFD
[AP] The head of the U.N. nuclear agency warned Monday that as many as 30 countries could soon have technology that would let them produce atomic weapons "in a very short time," joining the nine states known or suspected to have such arms. . .

Next up: Bush sets his finely-honed strategic intellect on the dominance of space (oh, christ)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/17/AR2006101701484.html
President Bush has signed a new National Space Policy that rejects future arms-control agreements that might limit U.S. flexibility in space and asserts a right to deny access to space to anyone "hostile to U.S. interests." . . .

Idiots!

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_10_15_atrios_archive.html#116110392423779010
[Jeff Stein] Take Representative Terry Everett, a seven-term Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence.

“Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?” I asked him a few weeks ago.

Mr. Everett responded with a low chuckle. He thought for a moment: “One’s in one location, another’s in another location. No, to be honest with you, I don’t know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or something.”

To his credit, he asked me to explain the differences. I told him briefly about the schism that developed after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and how Iraq and Iran are majority Shiite nations while the rest of the Muslim world is mostly Sunni. “Now that you’ve explained it to me,” he replied, “what occurs to me is that it makes what we’re doing over there extremely difficult, not only in Iraq but that whole area.”

[NB: Vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence!]

http://billmon.org/archives/002840.html
[Jeff Stein] A few weeks ago, I took the F.B.I.’s temperature again. At the end of a long interview, I asked Willie Hulon, chief of the bureau’s new national security branch, whether he thought that it was important for a man in his position to know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites. "Yes, sure, it’s right to know the difference," he said. "It’s important to know who your targets are." . . . So next I asked him if he could tell me the difference. He was flummoxed. "The basics goes back to their beliefs and who they were following," he said. "And the conflicts between the Sunnis and the Shia and the difference between who they were following."

O.K., I asked, trying to help, what about today? Which one is Iran — Sunni or Shiite? He thought for a second. "Iran and Hezbollah," I prompted. "Which are they?" . . He took a stab: "Sunni." . . .

Representative Jo Ann Davis, a Virginia Republican who heads a House intelligence subcommittee charged with overseeing the C.I.A.’s performance in recruiting Islamic spies and analyzing information, was similarly dumbfounded when I asked her if she knew the difference between Sunnis and Shiites.

"Do I?" she asked me. A look of concentration came over her face. "You know, I should." She took a stab at it: "It’s a difference in their fundamental religious beliefs. The Sunni are more radical than the Shia. Or vice versa. But I think it’s the Sunnis who’re more radical than the Shia.". . . [read on!]

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2006/10/government_by_moron/
[Matt Yglesias] The lack of any interest in actually understanding what's going on in the Islamic world -- the preference for crude historical analogies, chest-pounding, and feel-good rhetoric -- in this country is both absurd and more than a little frightening. . .

The idiots who believe this serial liar

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/17/cheney-rush/
Rush Limbaugh interviewed Vice President Cheney on his show today. At one point, Limbaugh asked Cheney to respond to growing frustration over U.S. efforts in Iraq. . . . “If you look at the general overall situation, they’re doing remarkably well.”

Remarkable: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20601699-5005961,00.html
[Jim Baker] “a helluva mess”

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3474
Anarchy. . .

http://www.juancole.com/2006/10/31-percent-increase-in-iraq-poverty-60.html
[Juan Cole] 31 Percent Increase in Iraq Poverty
60 Percent Unemployment
30 Bodies Found in Baghdad . . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2151735/fr/rss/
[Joshua Kucera] The Journal fronts a good investigation into the shoddy, pointless training of the U.S. troops who advise the nascent Iraqi forces—ostensibly the linchpin of U.S. strategy there. "In my 28 years of military service I have never seen such an appalling approach to training," said one of the officers who went through the training. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/18/7131/1760
[WP] Ten U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq on Tuesday, one of the bloodiest days of the war for American forces outside of major combat operations. . . October is on track to become one of the deadliest of the conflict for U.S. soldiers . . .

Ken Mehlman is dirty – he’s got a real Abramoff problem – and the press shouldn’t let him go into any interview or news show without addressing these questions

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/ken-mehlman-still-hasnt-been-honest.html

George Allen (R-VA) has so many problems he has to find a new way to run campaign ads. His approach? Hide who the candidate is

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/allens-campaign-smacks-of-desperation.html

Curt Weldon (R-PA) has a big problem – but it looks like the House “Ethics” Committee has an even bigger one

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010410
[Daily Times-Herald] After the Los Angeles Times first reported in 2004 on Weldon's ties to Solutions clients, the congressman voluntarily provided the House Ethics Committee with the relevant documentation. He has refused to share that documentation with the Daily Times.

Weldon said Monday that the committee asked some follow-questions and eventually gave him a "written letter closing the case." Asked if the letter cleared him of the current allegations, he responded: "I didn't say clearing, I said closing the case. I'll use their exact terminology."

Weldon said he spoke to committee Chairman Doc Hastings on Sunday and Hastings said he "was not aware of any contact between the ethics committee and the Justice Department." . . .

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010425

Sunshine is the best disinfectant

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010406
[Justin Rood] Remember the House intelligence committee's investigation into the bribe-taking former lawmaker, Duke Cunningham? The panel finished its inquiry this summer, but sat on the results.

Today, the top Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman (CA), released the executive summary. Check it out. . .

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001817.php

More counseling for Mark Foley (R-FL)

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/10/17/D8KQKQQ00.html
Disgraced former U.S. Congressman Mark Foley has revealed to the Archdiocese of Miami the name of the Roman Catholic clergyman he says abused him as a teenager, a close friend of Foley's said Tuesday.

The name was not made public and it was not immediately clear whether the person was still active in the church or is alive.

Foley's civil attorney Gerald Richman was to make the announcement at a news conference Tuesday evening, the friend told The Associated Press, on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the case.

According to the source, the church offered Foley counseling in the matter, which Foley accepted. He plans to begin that counseling after completing treatment for alcoholism. . .

Will Denny Hastert (R-IL) slip away from his culpability?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/18/us/politics/18trandahl.html

Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) under scrutiny for page misconduct?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-10-17-pages_x.htm

Ken Blackwell (R-OH) is an enemy of democracy

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8778.html
It's fairly absurd that Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell (R) is running for governor while serving in a position that allows him to make decisions as to who can vote in the gubernatorial race. He should have handed over those responsibilities months ago, but instead he issued absurd rules intended to curb voter-registration drives. . . . But the idea that Blackwell can also help decide whether his opponent, who is beating him badly, stays on the ballot, is truly painful. (thanks to reader G.D. for the tip)

Voters in Ohio can be forgiven if they feel they have been beamed out of the Midwest and dropped into a third-world autocracy. The latest news from the state's governor's race is that the Republican nominee, Kenneth Blackwell, who is also the Ohio secretary of state, could rule that his opponent is ineligible to run because of a technicality. We'd like to think that his office would not ultimately do that, or that if it did, such a ruling would not be allowed to stand. But the mere fact that an elected official and political candidate has the authority to toss his opponent out of a race is further evidence of a serious flaw in our democracy.

Dem plan to expand their pool of competitive races, despite funding disadvantages

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010408
[Paul Kiel] Republicans hold the fundraising edge over their Democratic challengers in 41 out of the 60 most competitive House races. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/17/AR2006101701544.html
Top Democrats said yesterday that they are planning to significantly expand the number of GOP House seats they will target during the final 20 days of the campaign but that financial disputes and fundraising problems are hindering the effort.

Democrats said private polls have convinced top party officials that they could pick up 40 or more seats -- nearly double their internal projections from a week ago -- if they spend enough money on television advertising for long-shot races. Strategists James Carville and Stan Greenberg are among those pleading with party leaders to go deep into debt to run ads in as many as 50 GOP-held districts. . . .

Here’s what the DC “pros” said about this strategy

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/18/1136/7073
[Stuart Rothenberg] Blogger Chris Bowers at MyDD perhaps is the best example of how clueless some bloggers really are about politics.

Last summer, he penned a piece, "DCCC Not Aggressive Enough," in which he complained about his party's House campaign committee. Now, in a two-part series called "Taking Back the House," he insists "we need to attack everywhere."

"I want 80 serious challenges to GOP House incumbents every two years and a Democratic name on the ballot in all 435 districts," he demands. "I have had enough of just targeting the twenty or so top races - let's engage in a full-frontal assault. ... The first step is to identify eighty Republicans against who we could mount a serious challenge."

[Kos] Ha ha, that Chris Bowers. What a moron! That's what happens when amateurs try to meddle in work best left to the adults, those DC-based pros. So cute! So adorably naive! You can picture the good chuckle those elites had at Bowers' expense.

But man, doesn't that Rothenberg column look and sound idiotic nowadays?

More on how the Republicans invented hyperpartisanship, and how they keep it alive (a great analysis from Steve Benen)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8776.html

Here’s the list (long and growing) of GOP corruption scandals: 32, so far

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/17/14510/029

Joe Lieberman (R?-CT) flips on John Bolton’s nomination for the UN

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/17/11515/710
"I see no reason not to be for Bolton," Lieberman told a meeting of the New York Daily News editorial board. . . "Based on his capabilities - and now based on his performance - I believe Bolton is well-qualified," he said. . . "I think he's been a good negotiator and a good spokesman. He deserves to have a vote. I think he deserves to be confirmed." . . . Lieberman had not publicly taken a position on Bolton before.

[Matt Stoller] That last line is wrong. Lieberman voted against Bolton twice, in fact. . .

A slap in the face: http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/17/193545/08

As I’ve said before, we need to invent a new word, beyond “hypocrite” – Bush declares “National Character Week,” and “Domestic Violence Awareness Month,” then goes to campaign for this guy

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_10_15_atrios_archive.html#116114153257851692

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/bush-honors-dv-awareness-month-by.html

After the election. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/17/AR2006101701586.html
Bush has been preparing his post-election agenda in a series of meetings, sitting down one-on-one with nine members of his Cabinet in the past month to review ideas. Bush insists that the sessions not consider a victory by Democrats, participants said. . . "He's fired up for the last two years of his administration," Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said in an interview after meeting with Bush. . .

Yeah, right: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/lame-duck-cometh.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010423

Theocracy watch: it’s incredible to watch the cognitive dissonance going on among right-wing Christians over David Kuo’s book, which PROVES that (a) the Bush gang views the Christian Right as useful idiots and (b) the “Faith Based Initiative” was an utterly cynical (and underfunded) set of promises designed to bribe church groups into dependency on Republican largesse. Their response? “Why are liberals telling us these bad things?”

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116112623203708817
[Rebecca Sinderbrand] Kuo's story -- if it's believed at all -- wouldn't affect the way voters like my mom feel about the president. And the White House-based account definitely wouldn't have an impact on how they view the GOP-controlled Congress, which doesn't make much of an appearance in the book. So what sorts of questions does it raise in their minds? How about: Why did this come out three weeks before the election? Who's plugging this story? And: is there any reason to trust them?

Here's your answers: This story -- which people they trust dismiss out of hand -- comes by way of a turncoat. Even if it is true, the words of some nameless White House aides, and a couple of missing numbers on a spreadsheet, aren't enough for to make them question long-standing frindships. Meanwhile: the fact that these charges are emerging in mid-October makes them feel manipulated. And sure, that kind of manipulation makes them angry -- but not at the Republican party.

[Kuo] ‘This message that has been sent out to Christians for a long time now: that Jesus came primarily for a political agenda, and recently primarily a right-wing political agenda – as if this culture war is a war for God. . .”

[Digby] They don't care about Jesus (you'll recall he was very, very big on helping the poor.) They care about beating Democrats.

[NB: Useful idiots, indeed]

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/16/AR2006101601101.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_10_15_atrios_archive.html#116113298525403021

Bonus item: The Five Stages of Republican Scandal

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010397
[PT] 1. “I have not been informed of any investigation or that I am a target”
2. “I am cooperating fully, but this whole thing is a political ploy by the Democrats”
3. “I’m SHOCKED by the mistakes made by my subordinates”
4. “I’m deeply sorry for letting down my friends and family. I now recognize that I am an alcoholic. I will be entering rehab immediately, so I have no time for questions”
5. “Can I serve my time at Eglin Federal Penitentiary (aka Club Fed)?”

***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 @ 7:35 AM

 
STAY THE COURSE?

Nothing is working right for these guys

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/16/washington/16cnd-prexy.html
The White House tried today to deflate suggestions that there are serious disagreements between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government, saying that President Bush supported efforts by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to build democracy in his country. . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_10_15_atrios_archive.html#116100935030803311
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said in an interview with USA TODAY that his government will not force militias to disarm until later this year or early next year, despite escalating violence in Baghdad fueled by death squads and religious warfare. . .

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/10/16/iraq_postpones_reconciliation_conference/
Iraq's government indefinitely postponed a much-anticipated national reconciliation conference yesterday as a two-day surge of sectarian revenge killings and insurgent bombings left at least 86 Iraqis dead. . .

http://billmon.org/archives/002838.html
[Bloombrg] President George W. Bush said he would reject any recommendation to partition Iraq along ethnic and sectarian lines, and he reaffirmed his confidence in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's ability to unify the country. . . Bush, in an interview on the Fox News Channel, said Maliki agrees that creating semi-autonomous states for Kurds and Shiite and Sunni Muslims would worsen divisions in Iraq, which has been suffering a surge of sectarian violence. . .

[Billmon] His Majesty seems to be blissfully unaware that the Iraqi parliament, of which Mr. Maliki is the nominal head, just voted to do what he has expressly denied it permission to do -- with the full support of Maliki's Dawa Party.

His Majesty also apparently hasn't been told of the statement issued by the real leader of the governing Shi'a coaltion, Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq . . .

http://www.juancole.com/2006/10/end-of-press-freedom-in-iraq-al-zaman.html
[Juan Cole] Al-Zaman, the Times of Baghdad, reports [Ar.] that press freedom may soon be a thing of the past in Iraq. The Iraqi parliament on Monday passed a resolution calling on the president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, to intervene to close down the offices of the al-Sharqiyah television channel in Iraq, and to close down a newspaper, al-Zaman itself! Both are owned by a media group headed by Saad al-Bazzaz, and they have a mild secular, Arab nationalist tone. It is not a point of view welcome to the Shiite fundamentalists who dominate the Iraqi parliament. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/white-house-is-clueless-about-iraq.html
[Think Progress] QUESTION: Just a simple question: Are we winning?

SNOW: We’re making progress. I don’t know. How do you define winning?

The fact is, in taking on the war on terror — no, let me put it this way: The president’s made it obvious we’re going to win. And that means ultimately providing an Iraq that is safe, secure and an ally in the war on terror. And at any given time, as you’ve seen in previous wars, there are going to be spikes in violence.

[Joe] The voice of the White House doesn't know if we're winning and he doesn't know how to define winning. The White House issued a "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" back in November of 2005.

At the start of the Situation Room today, Wolf Blitzer talked about "fresh carnage in Iraq part of a four-day rampage that the government seems powerless to stop." That doesn't sound like progress. Doesn't sound like we're winning either.

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/16/192831/70

More proof that women are smarter than men

http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2006/10/poll-support-for-war-among-americans.html
A poll carried out for CNN over the weekend finds support among Americans for the war in Iraq at an all-time low, with just 34 percent saying they approve, and 64 percent saying they disapprove.

Women led the opposition, with seven in 10 saying they oppose the war and only 28 percent saying they favor it, the lowest support among women in any CNN poll taken since the invasion more than three years ago. . .

Is Bush going to change course in Iraq, or not?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061015/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq
[AP] Two leading Republican senators called Sunday for a new strategy in Iraq, saying the situation in getting worse and leaving the United States with few options. . . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116104714761749215
[Digby] Can we get one thing straight? The "leaking" of James Baker's secret plan to end the war --- which Baker himself is appearing all over television *not* talking about, is a political ploy to get wobbly Republicans to believe --- again --- that the "grown-ups" are riding to the rescue. Jesus, how obvious can they be? . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/17/71211/865
[London Times] A special panel set up to advice the White House on Iraq is to propose radical changes to US policy including the large-scale withdrawal of US troops. . . The commission, which won the backing of George Bush, will recommend two options which would effectively represent reversals of US policy. One of these, called "Redeploy and Contain", would see the phased withdrawal of US troops to bases outside Iraq where they could be deployed against terrorist organisations anywhere in the region.

[DarkSyde] This sounds vaguely familiar, where have we heard it before?. . . Oh wait I remember: It's what Congressmen John Murtha (D-PA), among others, recommended a year ago. . . .

Just a coincidence, I’m sure

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/010380.php
Saddam verdict to be read out on November 5th. . . .

Read and enjoy

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/10/16/BL2006101600504.html
Bush in a Snit
[Dan Froomkin] The notion that President Bush is not just in denial -- but is petulantly in denial -- is taking on greater credence thanks to two recent Washington Post stories.

One describes Bush's seemingly inexplicable confidence that Republicans will maintain control of both houses of Congress in the upcoming elections. He doesn't even seem to have a backup plan.

The other describes Bush's growing penchant for calling events on the world stage that he doesn't like "unacceptable" -- an awfully strong formulation in diplomatic circles -- even as his ability to affect those events continues to wither away. . . [read on]

More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/gwb_the_beloved_leader_/2006/10/the_boy_in_the_bubble.php

Bush to sign torture bill (I hope he’s proud)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/bush-to-finally-sign-pro-torture-law.html
[Chris] I can't wait to hear how many signing statements have been tacked on to this dog with fleas. This legislation is yet another important step in dragging down the good name of the US . . .

The torture of George H.W. Bush (Poppy)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8771.html
'Personally, I think he's dying inside' . . .

When will we see the news series reviewing the serial resignations and indictments from the Bush administration and GOP Congress?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001810.php
[Bloomberg] Lester Crawford, the former U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner who resigned after two months on the job, was charged in federal court for conflict of interest and making false statements related to his investments. . .

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/16/215917/71

The history of hyperpartisanship. It has become obligatory among the media chin-pullers to bemoan the loss of civility and accommodation in Washington. True enough. What they never point out is that this is a conscious strategy originally fomented by Newt Gingrich to benefit Republicans – that it continues to benefit them – and they ain’t gonna stop doing it (until we stop them)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116103978596815727

Hmmm. . . . are Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman in a struggle over control of the GOP’s election strategy?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/is-there-rovemehlman-power-struggle.html

Is Mehlman in trouble?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200610170001

The politics of redistricting

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_10/009799.php

Mr. Contrarian

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2006/10/ballgazing/
[Matt Yglesias] All the polls seem to indicate substantial wins for the Democrats in a couple of weeks but, to be honest, I just can't bring myself to believe it'll happen. Republicans, for those few cycles when I've really been paying attention, have always won. What's more, I feel like things have always looked good for the Democrats in October. Do I have any real basis for this pessimism? Well, no, on some level I don't. But I do keep coming back to the money gap. The turnout models that are used for midterm elections -- especially for House races -- involve an awful lot of imprecision and guesswork. This years' GOP ground game is, by all accounts, the superior of the two. And when you combine that with boatloads of cash that can be deployed during the final weeks, well, let's just say it continues to make me unconfident. . .

Joe Lieberman (R?-CT) gets reminded that there’s a real Republican in his Senate race – and he’s not giving up. Will this make Joe tack even harder to the right?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/10/16/in_connecticut_its_now_a_threeway_race.html

More page allegations against congressmen?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/house-page-board-looking-into.html

Theocracy watch, pt 1: How Bush’s “faith based” programs work (and how it’s distorting, not only politics, but religion itself)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116104714761749215

Theocracy watch, pt 2: Now they’re angry with Condi

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/evangelical-christians-are-disgusted.html
[John Aravosis] First the gay-bashing from the religious right hate group the Family Research Council:

"We have to face the fact that putting a homosexual in charge of AIDS policy is a bit like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse." . . .

As for Condi Rice, the article goes on to point out that the hate groups were profoundly offended that she treated the gay man with respect, and they were offended, apparently, that gay people were permitted to touch Bibles. (Which is ironic, because I'm offended that religious right pseudo-Christians are allowed to touch Bibles.) . .

Another example of how easily the media can be manipulated into giving serious consideration and air-time to the most ridiculous Republican talking points

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001812.php
[Paul Kiel] Rep. Curt Weldon's (R-PA) daughter had her house raided today by FBI agents, who raided five other locations, all connected to her lobbying activities. The players involved, the favors they won from Weldon, the money changing hands -- it's not a simple story, of course.

But that doesn't explain why, in covering the fiasco, CNN apparently took their cue from Rep. Curt Weldon's (R-PA) trademark bluster and hyperbole. Rather than explain why Weldon's in so much trouble, CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Dana Bash devoted most of their coverage on the unfolding FBI probe to ask the burning question of whether the investigation is a massive liberal conspiracy against Weldon, as he has charged. (Absent evidence, as is his wont.) . . .

Did Abramoff give him up? http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005030.html

Snark!

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/10/david_carr_on_b.html
[David Carr] The actual journalistic accomplishment in State of Denial is less than grand. It took him three books to arrive at a conclusion thousands of basement-bound bloggers suggested years ago: that the Bush administration is composed of people who like war, don't seem to be very good at it and have been known to turn the guns on each other. . . .

One of Mr. Woodward’s chief discoveries was that Donald H. Rumsfeld was not the asset that he first described him as. In “Bush at War” in 2002, Mr. Rumsfeld was described as “handsome, intense, well educated with an intellectual bend, witty with an infectious smile.” In “Plan of Attack” in 2004, he was a leader whose “way was clear, and he was precise about it.” In “State of Denial,” he is a turf-obsessed control freak whose “micromanaging was almost comic.”. . . .

Bonus item: fighting an unexpected enemy in Afghanistan (thanks to Jenn for the link)

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/troops-battle-10-foot-marijuana-plants/20061013085109990009
[Reuters] Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy -- almost impenetrable forests of 10-feet-high marijuana plants. . .

"We tried burning them with white phosphorous -- it didn't work. We tried burning them with diesel -- it didn't work. The plants are so full of water right now ... that we simply couldn't burn them," he said. . . . "A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those (forests) did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action," Hillier said dryly.

One soldier told him later: "Sir, three years ago before I joined the army, I never thought I'd say 'That damn marijuana'."

***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 @ 7:14 AM

 
D OR R?

Remember when Bush said last month, to great fanfare, that all remaining prisoners being held in US secret prisons were being transferred to Guantanamo?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010369
A suspected al Qaeda leader, accused of being involved in September 11 and planning the 2004 Madrid train bombings, has been imprisoned in a secret U.S. jail for the past year, Spain's El Pais newspaper reported on Sunday. . .

It gets worse. . . http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116094762015995164

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2006/10/14/580/00824

In Iraq: using air strikes to fight an insurgency?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010371

Not that this should be surprising, but having trumpeted the glories of democracy in Iraq and enshrining PM Maliki for a spot on Mt. Rushmore, the Bush gang is now prepared to cut him loose and overturn the will of the people they praised just a few short months ago

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/10/15/what-about-all-those-purple-fingers/
[Chris] Matthews: David, do you believe the President is looking for an out from his doctrinaire policy of staying the course?

[David] Brooks: Not really, no I don't. I think they're looking at policy options. One of those options is trying to replace the current government which seems to be doing nothing. . .

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/shared/news/nation/stories/0203scene.html
[AP, Feb 2, 2005] A footnote of political history will remember it as the night of the purple fingers.

Ink was provided by a fledgling Republican congressman from Louisiana near the entrance of the House chamber Wednesday night. On their way to hear President Bush's State of the Union address, many lawmakers — mostly Republicans — dipped a digit and thrust up a purple index finger. . .

"We all watched with joy as Iraqis dipped their fingers in ink and held them high, proudly proclaiming to the world that they had voted," recalled [Rep. Bobby ] Jindal . . . "This symbolic gesture will tell Iraqis, and the world, that we believe in their cause and will stand beside them and all peoples who embrace freedom," said Jindal. . .

In Iraq, the purple finger was the mark of a voter — and a sign of defiance to the terrorists who might target them. In his speech, Bush added his praise to those Iraqis who wore ink stains.

"Our generational commitment to the advance of freedom, especially in the Middle East, is now being tested and honored in Iraq," he said. "We will succeed because the Iraqi people value their own liberty as they showed the world last Sunday."

Supporters stuck their forefingers in the air — not unlike college football fans declaring "We're number one" — as the president spoke. . .

http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/gallery/photoessay/IraqTrip/06.html
[June 13, 2006] The President expressed praise for Prime Minister Maliki's efforts in assembling a strong and diverse unity government in Iraq and said, "I want to thank you for giving me and my cabinet a chance to hear from you personally and a chance to meet the members of this team you've assembled. It's an impressive group of men and women, and if given the right help, I'm convinced you will succeed, and so will the world."

Well, we know they don’t really believe in democracy anyway – which is just what has us worried about what they might pull between now and the election

http://www.mahablog.com/2006/10/15/what-does-he-know-that-we-dont/
[WP] Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the coming midterm elections, there are two people whose confidence about GOP prospects strikes even their closest allies as almost inexplicably upbeat: President Bush and his top political adviser, Karl Rove. . . [read on!]

More: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/10/15/white_house_predicts_small_losses.html

John Murtha (D-PA) – someone you want on your side in a bar fight

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/13/AR2006101301425_pf.html
The Republicans are running scared. In the White House, on Capitol Hill and on the campaign trail, they're worried about losing control of Congress. And so the administration and the GOP have launched a desperate assault on Democrats and our position on the war in Iraq. Defeatists, they call us, and appeasers and -- oh so cleverly -- "Defeatocrats."

Vice President Cheney has accused Democrats of "self-defeating pessimism." Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has faulted us for believing that "vicious extremists can be appeased." The White House calls Democrats the party of "cut and run."

It's all baseless name-calling, and it's all wrong. Unless, of course, being a Defeatocrat means taking a good hard look at the administration's Iraq policy and determining that it's a failure.

In that case, count me in. Because Democrats recognize that we're headed for a far greater disaster in Iraq if we don't change course -- and soon. This is not defeatism. This is realism. . . [read on]

I can’t figure this out: is the Bush gang preparing to ignore the Baker Commission recommendations on how to get out of Iraq – or are they grateful for the cover it will give them to declare victory and leave?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_10/009783.php

Will the much-ballyhooed sanctions against North Korea do anything to stem their nuclear development? (I bet you can guess the answer even before clicking the link)

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3467

Ken Mehlman gets drawn into the Abramoff scandal (during his WH staff days). In an ordinary news cycle, this would be a massive story – in the present context there’s a danger of it drifting away unnoticed

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.mehlman15oct15,0,7689854.story
For five years, Allen Stayman wondered who ordered his removal from a State Department job negotiating agreements with tiny Pacific island nations - even when his bosses wanted him to stay. . .

It came after intervention by one of the highest officials at the White House: Ken Mehlman, who acted on behalf of one of the most influential lobbyists in town, Jack Abramoff.

E-mails recently made public disclose that Abramoff, whose client list included the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, had long opposed Stayman's work advocating labor reforms in that U.S. protectorate and considered what his lobbying team called the "Stayman project" a high priority.

"Mehlman said he would get him fired," an Abramoff associate wrote after meeting with Mehlman, who was then White House political director. . .

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010375

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/15/1016/9559

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/wolf-kicked-mehlman-around-today.html

http://billmon.org/archives/002835.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010367
The LA Times interviews former White House political director and current GOP national chairman Ken Mehlman on his role in the Abramoff scandal:

[LAT] "I was a gateway," Mehlman said in an interview. "It was my job to talk to political supporters, to hear their requests, and hand them on to policymakers." . . . Mehlman said he had known Abramoff since the mid-1990s and would listen to his requests along with those of other influential Republicans. . . "I know Jack," Mehlman said. "I certainly recall that if he and others wanted to meet I would have met with them, as I would have met with lots of people."

[DK] Contrast that with Mehlman's "Jack who?" defense earlier this year in Vanity Fair: "Abramoff is someone who we don't know a lot about. We know what we read in the paper."

Remember the good old days when someone like Mehlman could get busted for such a baldfaced lie and there would be serious adverse consequences, personally and politically?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010374
[DK] Ken Mehlman, defending the GOP handling of the Foley scandal, today on CNN:

The fact is the speaker and our leadership could not have been more aggressive. The moment they found out about this, they gave Mark Foley the political death penalty. . . . They said, get out of Congress or we're going to throw you out. They called in the FBI and the Department of Justice to investigate.

He just makes this stuff up, doesn't he? Sits in on a conference call sometime Saturday evening with other clever guys and gals and just starts pulling responses to the expected Sunday morning questions out of the air.

Recall that Speaker Hastert has already admitted that Foley was gone so fast they didn't have time to tell him to resign. They never told Foley, Quit or we're going to kick you out. Simply never happened. It was Nancy Pelosi who first moved to refer the matter to the Ethics Committee, not any GOP leader. So I don't know what exactly Mehlman considers to have been "aggressive" action by the House leadership because in fact they took no unprompted action.

Recall, too, that Hastert's letter to the Attorney General requesting an investigation came after Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) had already publicly called for an federal investigation earlier that same day.

Ugly Americans

http://alternet.org/story/42972/
Immediately after the Mark Foley scandal broke, some anti-Republican gay-rights activists composed a memo containing the names of closeted gay Republican Congressional staffers and sent it to leading Christian-right advocacy groups. The founder and chairman of one of those groups, the Rev. Don Wildmon of the American Family Association, told me he has received that memo, which he referred to simply as "The List." Based on The List's contents, Wildmon is convinced that a secretive gay "clique" boring within the Republican-controlled Congress is responsible for covering up Foley's sexual predation toward teenage male House pages. Moreover, Wildmon calls on the Republican Party leadership to promptly purge the "subversive" gay staffers. . .

Would it surprise you to hear that Arlen Specter (R-PA) sold out his Senate colleagues on the surveillance bill?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/15/AR2006101501123.html

Just in case there is ANY doubt that these people can’t be trusted with new surveillance powers

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116095175771910454

Mitt Romney (R-MA), being touted as a serious Presidential candidate, has a little problem with the Big Dig. . .

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/15/131729/97
Federal officials are probing scathing allegations that the Romney administration falsely claimed to conduct safety inspections in the Big Dig tunnel that collapsed and killed a woman in July. . .

More on the Republicans writing off unwinnable races

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/15/231332/52
Republicans are now pinning their hopes of holding the Senate on three states -- Missouri, Tennessee and, with Ohio off the table, probably Virginia . . .

[NB: The Dems need 2 of these 3 to retake the Senate]

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/gop-firewall-strategy-is-going-up-in.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010376

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/16/0464/3371

Handicapping the key races

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010377

Paul Krugman: in this election, only one thing matters

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/15/224831/01
D or R?

Joe Lieberman (R?-CT), echoing Martin Peretz, isn’t sure he favors a Democratic takeover in Congress

http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-lieberman1015.artoct15,0,4212964.story
"Uh, I haven't thought about that enough to give an answer," Lieberman said, as though Democrats' strong prospects for recapturing the House hadn't been the fall's top political story. . . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_10_15_atrios_archive.html#116092182419780144
[Atrios] We've tried to warn all the big guns in Washington that Joe no longer thinks of himself as a Democrat, but they won't listen. Between being unable to say if the country would be better off if Democrats take control of the House and sending out mailers referring to the "Democrat" party, Joe is a Republican. . . It's time for his good friends in the Senate to figure that out.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010368
[DK] [M]y second biggest dread about the November election (the biggest being the GOP retaining both chambers) is that control of the Senate comes down to Lieberman--and he defects to the GOP. . . [read on]

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/15/94445/010

Meet Mitch McConnell, next leader of the Senate Republicans

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010370
[Lexington Herald-Leader] In the early 1970s, Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr., a young and intense Republican lawyer, strode into the political science class he taught at the University of Louisville.

He didn't introduce himself to his students. He went straight to the chalkboard and scribbled.

"I am going to teach you the three things you need to build a political party," he said, and backed away to reveal the words: "Money, money, money." . . .

"He's completely dogged in his pursuit of money. That's his great love, above everything else," said Marshall Whitman, who watched McConnell as an aide to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and as a Christian Coalition lobbyist. . . Some senators shy away from fund-raising duties because of ethical concerns. Top donors tell senators what they want from upcoming votes, and top donors get special treatment, said retired Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo. Their calls to Senate offices are returned first, Simpson said, and their wishes are a priority when action is taken.

"I didn't enjoy it at all," Simpson said. "I just felt uncomfortable."

Yet McConnell never blinks, Simpson said.

"When he asked for money, his eyes would shine like diamonds," Simpson said. "He obviously loved it."

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/big-expose-on-gop-senator-mitch.html
[John Aravosis] Apparently McConnell is freaking out about the series . . .

The growing trend toward negative campaigning: we know it works and we know it is pushed primarily by one party. Why not SAY so?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_10_15_atrios_archive.html#116094380719339926

Defending liberalism

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8762.html
[Geoffrey Stone] 1. Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others…. Liberals are skeptical of censorship and celebrate free and open debate.

2. Liberals believe individuals should be tolerant and respectful of difference.

3. Liberals believe individuals have a right and a responsibility to participate in public debate.

4. Liberals believe "we the people" are the governors and not the subjects of government, and that government must treat each person with that in mind.

5. Liberals believe government must respect and affirmatively safeguard the liberty, equality and dignity of each individual.

6. Liberals believe government has a fundamental responsibility to help those who are less fortunate.

7. Liberals believe government should never act on the basis of sectarian faith.

8. Liberals believe courts have a special responsibility to protect individual liberties.

9. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, for without such protection liberalism is impossible.

10. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, without unnecessarily sacrificing constitutional values.

A new Democratic realignment?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_10/009782.php

What’s wrong with Press Sect’y Tony Snow going on the stumps politicking and fundraising?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/16/us/politics/16snow.html
His booking agent is the White House political shop, run by Karl Rove, the president’s chief strategist. The White House is not keeping track of how much money Mr. Snow raises. . . “It’s like Mick Jagger at a rock concert,” Mr. Rove said. . .

Mr. Snow’s extracurricular activities are making some veteran Washington hands, including those with strong Republican ties, deeply uneasy.

“The principal job of the press secretary is to present information to reporters, not propaganda,” said David R. Gergen, who served in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations and also advised President Bill Clinton. “If he is seen as wearing two hats, reporters as well as the public will inevitably wonder: is he speaking to us now as the traditional press secretary, or is he speaking to us as a political partisan?”

[NB: Well, there isn’t any question about that any longer, is there?]

http://www.slate.com/id/2151597
The sound bites provided from a recent Illinois rally are particularly amusing, especially [Snow’s] description of Bush's mental prowess: "He reminds me of one of those guys at the gym who plays about 40 chessboards at once."

George Bush’s patricide

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_15.php#010373

Bonus item: News media keeps identifying Republican crooks and losers as Democrats. Once is a goof, twice is a coincidence – what is it after the third or fourth time?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200610130010

***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 @ 6:24 AM

 
MR. IRRELEVANT

Listen to me!

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_10/009772.php
[WP] Bush's proclamations are not the only rhetorical evidence of his mounting frustrations. One of his favorite verbal tics has long been to instruct audiences bluntly to "listen" to what he is about to say, as in "Listen, America is respected" (Aug. 30) or "Listen, this economy is good" (May 24). This year, he made that request more often than he did in a comparable portion of 2005, a sign that he hasn't given up hope it might work.

[Kevin Drum] This is a symptom of what I find so mysterious about Bush's popularity: his speaking style always strikes me as irritated and angry, as if he's nearly ready to jump out of his skin in frustration that his audience just doesn't get it. Even though he keeps explaining it! And explaining it again! And again! What's wrong with you people?!?

This feeling is almost palpable, and it's the reason I don't understand why his supporters continue to find him attractive. Especially over the past couple of years, he seems increasingly angry, defensive, frustrated, and completely unable to understand why he can't control events around him. . .

Listen, George: Being hectored just isn't a good way to people's hearts, and repeating the same words over and over isn't a good way to influence actual events in the world. Is it any wonder your approval ratings are stuck in the 30s?

This is hilarious: Tony Snow tries to demonstrate that his boss isn’t dumb, isn’t ill-informed, isn’t closed-minded, isn’t in a bubble, and isn’t disengaged – and thinks this is smart politics.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8761.html

Just another day in the news

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005021.html
[Laura Rozen] You open the Washington Post this morning, and on one two-page spread: Ney pleads guilty, Weldon being investigated, a Foley story, and Kolbe Grand Canyon trip probed. Sigh. Our Congress. Then you turned to the Iraq page: US deemed responsible for killing British reporter, Iraqi police behind death squads, etc.

[NB: See? This shows the liberal bias of the media. Why aren’t they writing about Whitewater, Clinton and Lewinsky, Sandy Berger, Jim Wright, and Chappaquiddick?]

The pre-election numbers look GREAT

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/14/93556/159

Sharp analysis. In the golden days of the Bush/Rove empire, there was bold talk about a permanent Republican realignment – some people seemed to seriously believe that the Democrats might never have dominance at the national level again (and doubts about e-voting machines reinforced this sense of GOP hegemony). Suddenly it appears that if the Democrats manage things right – a BIG if – the effects of the Bush regime (war, insecurity, a mountain of financial debt, institutionalize cronyism and corruption, erosion of the Constitution and national decency at home and abroad) may lead to a transformation in quite the opposite direction.

But I’m still concerned about e-voting machines . . .

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/14/19246/807

Some open-ended speculation on what will happen if (when) the Democrats win

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116084944991700027

Still, never underestimate what these people will do to hold onto power

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/us/politics/15base.html

The kind of people they are

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_10_08_atrios_archive.html#116086390922967732

Bush’s Mafia: you f--- with us, we will destroy you

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/13/AR2006101301583.html
Conservative religious leaders described themselves as shocked yesterday by a new book's charge that Bush administration staffers privately dismissed evangelical Christian political activists as "nuts" and "goofy."

But their dismay was aimed at the book's author, former White House official David Kuo, rather than at President Bush or his senior advisers. . .

In the book, Kuo asserts that the faith-based office was hurriedly set up after Bush took office in 2001 by a transition volunteer who was given less than a week to roll out the initiative.

Kuo asserts that evangelical leaders were called "the nuts" by people in White House political strategist Karl Rove's office. "National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person, and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as 'ridiculous,' 'out of control' and just plain 'goofy,' " the book says, according to MSNBC. . .

Beginning in 2002, the White House held ostensibly "nonpartisan" conferences about the availability of federal grants for religious charities. But Kuo alleges that the events were, in fact, designed to help vulnerable Republican incumbents.

Ken Mehlman, then the White House director of political affairs and now chairman of the Republican National Committee, "loved the idea and gave us our marching orders" to hold meetings in 20 congressional districts, the book says. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8760.html

Bush’s ever-changing rationale for the war he brought upon us

http://makeashorterlink.com/?J218348FD

The Iraqi police: part of the problem, not the solution

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3463

The untold story of Iraq’s refugees

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6049174.stm
Thousands of Iraqis are fleeing the country every day, in what the UN's refugee agency describes as a steady, silent exodus. . .

More: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200611/iraqi-refugees
Refugees from Iraq are on the move. More than 1.2 million of them have already fled the country, and recent anecdotal reports—a many-fold increase in the buses traveling daily from Baghdad to Jordan this summer, for example—suggest that the tempo of the exodus is increasing . . .

In Afghanistan, two major military powers are reduced to scrounging for helicopters. Ask any military planner how pathetic this is

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/us-hangs-uk-out-to-dry-in-afghanistan.html

Don’t call Bush a “hardliner” on North Korea

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_08.php#010360
[Josh Marshall] What has emerged as U.S. "policy" is inertia. No carrot. No stick. No nothing, unless cheap rhetoric about what is "unacceptable" counts for something. . .

No joke

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2006/10/the_new_justice/
[Matt Yglesias] Abdul Rahim Al Ginco flees to Afghanistan in 2000, where he's taken prisoner by the Taliban, tortured, and under the duress of captivity and torture forced to appear in an al-Qaeda propaganda video. For his trouble he's spent years as a prisoner of the Bush administration in Guantanamo Bay. . .

How Bush counts on the press’s economic ignorance and laziness

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/10/the_bush_admini.html

Crazy Curt Weldon (R-PA): a crook AND a liar

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/10/14/crazy-curt-weldon-denies-being-investigated/
"There is no investigation," said the congressman’s spokesman, John Tomaszewski. "There is no formal investigation and there is no inquiry. There’s nothing. This is nonsense, ludicrous."

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_08.php#010365
The federal corruption investigation of Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) first reported yesterday by McClatchy has been confirmed by the Philadelphia Inquirer and the AP . . .

Background: http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=12007

Bob Ney (R-OH): using “rehab” to trim time off his corruption sentence?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001803.php

The Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) mystery heats up

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_08.php#010361

Interesting: Chris Shays (R-CT) complains about a filthy NRCC ad run in his district. But since when can the national party develop and run ads on your behalf without your permission in the first place?

http://makeashorterlink.com/?N1D7318FD

Plame update! Did Cheney tell Libby to leak info on Plame?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005023.html

More: http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=12101
[Jeff Lomonaco] From the outset, FBI investigators -- and then Fitzgerald and the grand jury -- pursued leaks from both the White House and Armitage. Their work has revealed a White House, and particularly an Office of the Vice President, fixated on Wilson and his accusation, in a July 6, 2003, New York Times piece, that the administration had twisted the intelligence on Iraq’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons program, which threatened to expose the baseless justification for the war and undermine Cheney’s credibility. The week that Wilson's op-ed appeared, the White House went into crisis mode; there were multiple meetings daily about the matter.

Around that time, Cheney wrote up a series of rhetorical questions critical of Wilson's article, asking whether his trip was a junket set up by his wife -- precisely the charge used to discredit Wilson. Fitzgerald has argued not just that Cheney communicated the Plame information (for the second time) to Libby shortly thereafter, but also that Libby understood Cheney wanted the information conveyed to the public. Libby testified that Cheney repeatedly told him he wanted to "get everything out." On July 8, according to Fitzgerald, Libby disclosed Plame's CIA status to Judith Miller. (This was actually the second time Libby had told Miller; the first had been two weeks earlier.) He repeated the information to Miller again on July 12, as well as confirming it for Time’s Matt Cooper, following a media strategy session with Cheney aboard Air Force Two.

The vagueness of Cheney's instruction to get everything out may allow Fitzgerald to argue that Libby both followed what he understood to be Cheney's desire but blew Plame's cover at his own initiative. That would enable the special prosecutor to avoid the risk of portraying Libby before the jury as the loyal subordinate of a powerful -- and deeply unsympathetic -- boss. But more dramatically, deep in one of the hearings last spring during the discovery phase, Fitzgerald came closer to indicating that he believes, and may argue at trial, that Libby was acting on more explicit directions from Cheney to disclose Plame's CIA status to Miller -- on the basis of Libby's own notes. . .

Theocracy watch: polling place in a CHURCH?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8757.html

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/14/AR2006101400985.html
FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.); Crystal Palmer of the D.C. Office of Motion Picture and Television Development.

THIS WEEK (ABC): John R. Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.); Tennessee Senate candidate Bob Corker (R); actress Marg Helgenberger.

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Rice; Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.); former senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.).

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Bolton; Rep. Mark Kennedy (R-Minn.); Minnesota Senate candidate Amy Klobuchar (D).

LATE EDITION (CNN): Bolton; Sens. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.); Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean; Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman.

Bonus item: Unacceptable

http://billmon.org/archives/002833.html
Washington D.C. (Whiskey Bar News Service) -- The White House today angrily denounced a Washington Post story pointing to a sharp increase in President Bush's use of the word "unacceptable" to describe things and events he doesn't like.

The story, which was based on an analysis of presidential speeches and transcripts over the past six years, suggests that Bush's use of the word is "a signpost of Bush's rising frustration with his declining influence."

A White House spokesman denied that interpretation, saying such speculation was "unacceptable."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_10/009772.php
[Kevin Drum] Six years into his presidency, there are a lot more things I find unacceptable about the world too. The only difference between Bush and me is that I recognize the correlation and he doesn't.

***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 @ 7:22 AM

 
LOSING IT

The Republicans are panicking, and saying even crazier things than they usually do. (I hope you’re enjoying this as much as I am)

Republicans start conceding races, trying to shore up a bare majority

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/12/AR2006101201881.html
Faced with a deteriorating political climate, Republican Party officials are hoping to keep control of the House and Senate with a strategy aimed at shoring up enough endangered incumbents to preserve their majorities, while scaling back planned spending on races that now appear unwinnable. . .

Democrats, meanwhile, are juggling pleas for financial assistance from candidates in House districts once considered second-tier opportunities. The Democrats have ordered up polls in a dozen or more of these long-shot districts and now face a critical choice: whether to place bets on a few of these districts in the hope of expanding the field of competitive seats, or concentrate advertising dollars as planned on the roughly 20 to 25 districts where the odds appear most favorable. . .

Bob Ney (R-OH) pleads guilty to corruption, but won’t resign his House seat – and the Republican leadership can’t or doesn’t want to force him out (I say, THANK YOU!). Do these people not realize how this reinforces the Foley scandal (circle the wagons and protect your own, even when you know they’ve done wrong)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/13/AR2006101300169.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/13/125848/64

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_08.php#010345

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/gop-congressman-pleaded-guilty-today.html

Kirk Fordham testifies, and somebody’s lying. To me it’s very simple: is it conceivable that a report moves up the chain to Hastert’s Chief of Staff that a Republican member is consistently behaving in a manner that is not only dangerously wrong, but politically explosive, and no one tells the man in charge?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_08.php#010337

OF COURSE they knew. Think of your workplace – one of your gay coworkers has been hitting on junior staff FOR YEARS. And this isn’t commonly known (if never discussed openly)?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/bush-suddenly-started-avoiding-foley.html
[John Aravosis] Why did the White House suddenly decide two years ago that Foley was too hot to handle? And even more interesting, why did Foley reach out to Jeb Bush about something he needed his advice on right about the time Foley's creepy emails became known amongst Republicans on the Hill in late 2005? Did Foley and Jeb Bush talk about the scandal a year ago? Did the White House know something two years ago?

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/13/white-house-foley/
The Palm Beach Post has published emails between ex-Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) and Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) suggesting that the White House considered Foley a political liability as early as 2004 and asked him not to attend events with President Bush. . .

A non-denial: http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7500

[NB: Oh, man. If there is a headline next week reading "White House knew about Foley two years ago," we are off to the races. . . ]

Not only is the Republican insistence that Democrats are somehow to blame for their own mishandling of the Foley matter simply goofy. Not only is their repetition of it an obvious sign of desperation. What they don’t seem to get is that this complaint reinforces the perception that they aren’t acting like the party in charge, and can’t accept responsibility

http://www.crgazette.com/2006/10/13/Home/housepages.htm
[AP] House Majority Leader John Boehner today accused Democrats of endangering House pages for political gain.

Boehner, speaking at a campaign event for 3rd District Republican candidate Jeff Lamberti, said Democratic operatives have known about inappropriate e-mails sent by former Rep. Mark Foley, a Florida Republican, to young male pages for some time. He said Democrats had been shopping the information around Washington as a political ploy.

"Someone who had this information allowed those 16-year-old pages to be at risk while they were playing their political games," said Boehner, R-Ohio. "I do not believe thus far that Republicans knew about these sexually explicit instant messages." . . .

[NB: Of course, he is playing fast and loose here – mixing the “inappropriate e-mails” which Democrats AND Republicans have long known about, and the “sexually explicit instant messages” which only surfaced – from a REPUBLICAN source – fairly recently. And if the Republicans didn’t know about them, it’s because they didn’t bother to try to find out (repeatedly)]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_08.php#010348
[Josh Marshall] Boehner: Dems should be punished at the polls for not reporting our GOP pedophilia sooner.

Clever analysis

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_08.php#010338
[Reader CH] That's what Foley has done--provided an emotional space within which people can reevaluate their views without having to question themselves or their previous beliefs too deeply. I believe there has been a growing sense in the country that things are going badly, very badly, on all sorts of fronts. Foley, frankly, doesn't have much to do with that. But now it's OK to step up and say, "Hell with it, I'm tired of this crap." And change your vote. . .

[Josh Marshall] I think that's something like what we've seen over the last two weeks, though we won't be able to know for sure until after election day. There's been a tremendous dissatisfaction in the country on many fronts. But it's been amorphous and latent. Or perhaps better to say people hadn't yet had to concentrate on just how they were going to act on those sentiments. Partisan identification also does weird stuff to people. For instance, is it really true that 40% of the public is satisfied with the job the president has done on Iraq? Objectively, I find that difficult to believe. But Republicans are Republicans. And for a lot of committed partisans, the Dems say No, so they say Yes. What the question in becomes somewhat beside the point. And, yes, same on both sides. My point is only that strong partisan identification props up support for things people probably don't really, in their heart or hearts, support.

In itself, Foleygate isn't going to drive many people's votes. And even fewer will admit that it has in polls. But I think Foley has provided a collective gut-check moment for the country, when perhaps a critical portion of the country has said, Enough. it's not about Foley. It's really about everything that has come before. But it's allowed people to step back, take in the whole picture and say: No, I'm done. . .

Paul Krugman

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/krugman-if-gop-loses-election-it-will.html
[A] huge Democratic storm surge is heading toward a high Republican levee. It’s still possible that the surge won’t overtop the levee — that is, the Democrats could fail by a small margin to take control of Congress. But if the surge does go over the top, the flooding will almost surely reach well inland — that is, if the Democrats win, they’ll probably win big. . .

Is another gay Republican congressman going to be drawn into accusations of misconduct with underage pages?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001799.php

Chris Shays (R-CT): Abu Ghraib a “sex ring” (not torture)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/010344.php

[NB: Hey Chris – people were KILLED there, and it wasn’t from sex]

More craziness from Shays: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/13/12124/242








Err. . . ahem. . . .what I REALLY meant to say. . .

http://makeashorterlink.com/?T223317FD
[TPM] Shays acknowledged to the Associated Press today that what happened at the prison was in fact torture. But he offered a curious qualification, saying "it was torture because sex abuse is torture." . . . .


Group sex?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116077118225674039
[Digby] I don't know what kind of sex these GOP freaks are having, but I don't think most of these things (from the Taguba report) are normally considered "sex” . . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116079013642072932

Rick Santorum (R-PA) goes nuts

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_10/009764.php

MORE trouble for George “Self-destructing” Allen, (R-VA)?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_08.php#010346

ANOTHER ONE

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/13/AR2006101301471.html
The Justice Department is investigating whether Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) traded his political influence for lucrative lobbying and consulting contracts for his daughter . . .

Theocracy watch: It’s confirmed – the Republicans are even losing their core base of white churchgoers

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_08.php#010336

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/abc-news-on-religious-right-being.html

Assuming the Republicans lose their House majority – perhaps by a decisive margin – what do they do next? Start cashing in by retiring and taking big-bucks lobbying jobs? Party-switching? Continuing to serve as a restive and shrill minority, ignored and abused by the Democrats, as they have treated them? Or, striking back at a White House they feel has abandoned them?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/13/152416/20

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/13/15332/505
[US News] Some Republican strategists are increasingly upset with what they consider the overconfidence of President Bush and his senior advisers about the midterm elections November 7-a concern aggravated by the president's news conference this week.

"They aren't even planning for if they lose," says a GOP insider who informally counsels the West Wing. If Democrats win control of the House, as many analysts expect, Republicans predict that Bush's final two years in office will be marked by multiple congressional investigations and gridlock. . .

"The Bush White House has had no relationship with Congress," said a Bush ally. "Beyond the Democrats, wait till they see how the Republicans-the ones that survive-treat them if they lose next month." GOP insiders are upset by Bush's seeming inability to come up with new ideas or fresh approaches. . .

I don’t know about you, but I know people who like to complain about things by calling them unacceptable (“This seat assignment on the plane is unacceptable.” “This steak is unacceptable.”). This has always struck me as an unintentionally passive form of criticism – weak and whining. And how do you look when you end up HAVING to accept it? Well, guess who’s taken up the phrase?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/12/AR2006101201580.html
President Bush finds the world around him increasingly "unacceptable."

In speeches, statements and news conferences this year, the president has repeatedly declared a range of problems "unacceptable," including rising health costs, immigrants who live outside the law, North Korea's claimed nuclear test, genocide in Sudan and Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Bush's decision to lay down blunt new markers about the things he deems intolerable comes at an odd time, a phase of his presidency in which all manner of circumstances are not bending to his will . . .

Some presidential scholars and psychologists describe the trend as a signpost of Bush's rising frustration with his declining influence. . .

Rumors of a coup in Iraq!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/12/AR2006101201669_pf.html
As the security situation in Baghdad has deteriorated over the past month, there has been growing talk among Iraqi politicians about a "government of national salvation" -- a coup, in effect -- that would impose martial law throughout the country. This coup talk is probably unrealistic, but it illustrates the rising desperation among Iraqis as the country slips deeper into civil war. . .

More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3462

Tony Blair shares Bush’s pain

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1870873.ece
The authority of Tony Blair was left battered last night as he attempted to play down a rift with the head of the British Army over his unprecedented warning that the presence of foreign troops was "exacerbating" the security situation in Iraq

The devastating assessment by General Sir Richard Dannatt, the chief of the general staff, infuriated ministers and caused alarm in Washington. . .

A North Korea primer (thanks to Glenn Greenwald for the link)

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2006/10/do_you_feel_saf.html

If there is any group whose world view and strategy have been roundly discredited over the past five years, it’s the “Project for the New American Century” neo-cons. So why are Democrats still enabling them?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_10_08_atrios_archive.html#116074947593100511

How the politics of fear works (and it DOES work)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/13/7915/3084

Bonus item: thanks, Billmon

http://billmon.org/archives/002827.html
QUESTION: Do you believe that the biggest drag on the Republican Party is the situation in Iraq?

THE PRESIDENT: I believe that the situation in Iraq is, no question, tough on the American psyche . . . no question this is an issue, but so is the economy. And I believe there'll be -- I still stand by my prediction, we'll have a Republican Speaker and a Republican leader of the Senate. And the reason I say that is because I believe the two biggest issues in this campaign are, one, the economy. And the economy is growing.

George W. Bush
Press Conference
October 11, 2006

Translation: "Iraq is the central front in the global war to save civilization from the Islamic Caliphate, but you, the voter, should focus your attention on the fact that the civilian unemployment rate is one tenth of a percentage point lower than it was a month ago. God bless America."

***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 @ 8:16 AM

 
DEFINING VICTORY DOWNWARD

Over the next few months (but not until after the election), Bush is going to start backing away from every major commitment he has made on Iraq: “nothing less than victory,” “turn over security to the Iraqis,” “a stable and unified coalition government,” “promoting democracy,” and most of all, “no troop reductions until the job is done.” Just watch

http://www.nysun.com/article/41371
A commission formed to assess the Iraq war and recommend a new course has ruled out the prospect of victory for America, according to draft policy options shared with The New York Sun by commission officials.

Currently, the 10-member commission — headed by a secretary of state for President George H.W. Bush, James Baker — is considering two option papers, "Stability First" and "Redeploy and Contain," both of which rule out any prospect of making Iraq a stable democracy in the near term.

More telling, however, is the ruling out of two options last month. One advocated minor fixes to the current war plan but kept intact the long-term vision of democracy in Iraq with regular elections. The second proposed that coalition forces focus their attacks only on Al Qaeda and not the wider insurgency.

Instead, the commission is headed toward presenting President Bush with two clear policy choices that contradict his rhetoric of establishing democracy in Iraq. The more palatable of the two choices for the White House, "Stability First," argues that the military should focus on stabilizing Baghdad while the American Embassy should work toward political accommodation with insurgents. The goal of nurturing a democracy in Iraq is dropped.

The option papers, which sources inside the commission have stressed are still being amended and revised as the panel wraps up its work, give a clearer picture of what Mr. Baker meant in recent interviews when he called for a course adjustment.

They also shed light on what is at stake in the coming 2 1/2 months for the Iraqi government. The "Redeploy and Contain" option calls for the phased withdrawal of American soldiers from Iraq, though the working groups have yet to say when and where those troops will go. The document, read over the telephone to the Sun, says America should "make clear to allies and others that U.S. redeployment does not reduce determination to attack terrorists wherever they are." It also says America's top priority should be minimizing American casualties in Iraq. . .

Britain too: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6046332.stm
In an interview in the Daily Mail, Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff, is quoted as saying the British should "get out some time soon". . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/12/203121/26

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2006/10/bakerhamilton/
[Diabolical Matt Yglesias] This is interesting. Apparently, the Baker-Hamilton Commission is proposing that the administration choose between one of two options for forward-looking Iraq policy, either of which would be an improvement over the current situation. One of the members or staffers of the commission, however, doesn't seem to have liked this idea at all so he leaked the plans to Eli Lake who spins the commission's proposals as "rul[ing] out the prospect of victory for America" a framing for them that makes it much more politically difficult for the president to adopt Baker-Hamilton ideas.

As I discussed a few days ago, “victory” has always been a meaningless term in relation to Iraq, let alone the wider “war on terror”

http://pbd.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_pbd_archive.html#116013774544843960
[NB] Bush says two things: We will accept nothing less than victory in Iraq AND that we will hand off the war to the Iraqis as soon as we think they are ready to handle things in their own. But then, of course, we would be pulling out our troops short of “victory,” right? And however confident we might be, there is no guarantee of what will happen once we leave. So which is it? “Victory” is a meaningless concept in a “war on terror,” as there will be no surrender, no final battle, no clear benchmark of success. . . [T]he only thing it can mean for Bush is “no retreat while I’m President” – the “victory” is only a matter of his own ego

Another serious intelligence failure by the Bush gang that we learn about only when it is too late to do anything about it

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_10/009749.php
[North Korea]

Extraordinary

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005009.html
[Newsweek] "An unsolicited remark from Porter Goss, then chairman House Intelligence Committee, led a British journalist to unravel many of the details of the CIA’s controversial 'extraordinary rendition' program, according to a new book. The disclosure of this highly sensitive operation later prompted a major leak investigation that roiled the agency."

Oh, geez. Did interrogators give Padilla LSD to make him talk? Why won't they release his medical records?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_08.php#010329

The right-wing echo chamber goes crazy trying to debunk the number of 655,000 dead Iraqis

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2006/10/innumerate_cowa.html

Signs of a bankrupt party: Republicans blaming all their failures on an administration that’s been out of power for almost six years

Clinton’s fault: http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/200601012_bush_blames_clinton_again/

Albright’s fault: http://www.gop.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=6631

Berger’s fault: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001787.php

Bonus round: blame Kennedy! http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/15738427.htm

Bush wants to brag about the declining federal budget deficit (declining, that is, from a high point of his own making) – but what about the trade deficit?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/12/business/13econcnd.html
In a separate report today, the Commerce Department said the nation’s trade gap widened in August to a surprisingly large $69.9 billion, setting a new record for the ever-growing disparity between what Americans import and export.

[NB: Notice that you have to read four paragraphs into the story to get this fact. Talk about burying the lede]

Talking to a bush – watch this ad!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCo8cQd6Gdc

The Abramoff scandal heats up again

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/12/AR2006101200889.html
Five conservative nonprofit organizations, including one run by prominent Republican Grover Norquist, "perpetrated a fraud" on taxpayers by selling their clout to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Senate investigators said in a report issued today.

The report includes previously unreleased e-mails between the now-disgraced lobbyist and officers of the nonprofit groups, showing that Abramoff routed money from his clients to the groups. In exchange the groups, among other things, produced ostensibly independent newspaper op-ed columns or press releases that favored the clients' positions. . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/12/18814/111

If Mark is right, break out the champagne

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/corruption_in_washington_/2006/10/good_question.php
Is Susan Ralston singing? . . .

There are so many scandals burying the Republicans that the press clearly feels guilty that they only have bad news to cover – this seems unfair to them. So I guess some of these scandals have to be suppressed so the press can feel “balanced”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/12/131620/65
[DemFromCT] It's helpful to remember a few things about Our Media, bless their little ol' hearts. The media hates a blowout and loves a horserace. . . What's developing in the last 24 hours (with no major feeding of the Foley-Hastert-Reynolds scandal media beast) is the new conventional wisdom that Foley matters only in spot cases (FL 16, NY 29) and even then may not be definitive (MN 6, e.g). The Note is, as always, as good a place as any to seep in media derivative thinking. . .

A Democratic landslide? http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/12/14357/845

New troubles for Hastert

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/12/20013/173

The Republicans didn’t just plead and cajole with Foley to get him to run again (AFTER they knew about his little page problem) – they THREATENED him into it

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_08.php#010326

Media Matters does the press’s work for them. Here guys: a GOP Foley lie cheat sheet

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_10_08_atrios_archive.html#116067183914963340

More: http://mediamatters.org/items/200610110009

Bad news: the Bush gang gets to trumpet its first treason indictment
Good news: it isn’t anybody from the New York Times

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/10/questions-about-first-treason.html

The Goofus Files

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7485
You know, I -- gasoline prices are down, and that's good news. Yes. I think everybody in America ought to be applauding. It's like -- if you're driving a truck for a living, it helps you. . . [read on]

Theocracy watch: losing the evangelicals

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116070180074590531

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8739.html

Yeah, Bush and Hastert will appear together – but will any OTHER Republican want to appear with them?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15233646/
The president on Wednesday called Hastert "very credible" and, last week, a "father, teacher and coach who cares about the children of this country." . . .

Bonus item: Erasing the past – another GOP congressman wants to pretend that he NEVER had any connection with George Bush (who?)

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/gwb_the_beloved_leader_/2006/10/gwb_unperson.php

More erasing the past (Lieberman edition):http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/12/142551/47

http://nedlamont.com/blog/1764/jayson-blair-writes-new-joe-lieberman-ad

***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 @ 3:54 AM

 
AN AGENDA FOR THE FUTURE

120,000 troops in Iraq until 2010 (at least)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061011/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq_6
The U.S. Army has plans to keep the current level of soldiers in Iraq through 2010, the top Army officer said Wednesday, a later date than Bush administration or Pentagon officials have mentioned thus far. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2151406
At his press conference, reporters asked Bush about recent comments by Republican elders like Sen. John Warner of Virginia and James Baker, his father's former Secretary of State, that suggest that the war in Iraq is not going so well. Bush defended his administration's "stay the course" strategy, but said his methods for fighting the war are flexible. "My attitude is, 'Don't do what you're doing if it's not working; change,'" . . .

[NB: Don’t blame me if you just spewed coffee all over your computer screen]

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20061012/1a_lede12.art.htm
[USAT] “All Time High” in Baghdad Violence
The number of sectarian killings each month in Baghdad has more than tripled since February, and the violence has not slowed despite a major offensive in the capital. . . .

Scary

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_10_08_atrios_archive.html#116058378439384059
[Atrios] If someone smarter than me can figure out the thought process behind this I think we'd understand our preznit quite a bit more than we do:

I am, you know, amazed that this is a society which so wants to be free that they’re willing to — you know, that there’s a level of violence that they tolerate.

Bush’s false choice (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-bush12oct12,0,386683.story
[LAT] AT HIS NEWS CONFERENCE Wednesday, President Bush expressed not once but three times his view that if the U.S. does not defeat the terrorists "over there" in Iraq, it will have to fight them here in the United States. This crude formulation is tiresome and insulting to Americans' intelligence. . .

Bush’s embarrassing press conference

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_08.php#010317
[Josh Marshall] I'm curious to hear from you on this. We're listening to the Bush press conference here. And evaluating it as objectively as I can, it really sounds like a train wreck. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/10/11/BL2006101100780.html
Bush's Plea for Attention
[Dan Froomkin] Trying to seize back the microphone, President Bush today holds another surprise press conference, this time having given reporters less than two hours notice to present themselves at the West Wing driveway for the stroll over to the Rose Garden. . . As I've been chronicling over the last week or so, Bush has been having a devil of a time making anyone pay much attention to him of late. . . [read on]

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/gwb_the_beloved_leader_/2006/10/unraveling_before_our_eyes.php
[Michael O’Hare] This morning's press conference was one of the scariest public events of the last few years. Bush appears to be crumbling before our eyes; I can't believe they let him out in the condition he displayed. His responses were rambling and unfocused, stringing together irrelevant bromides and half-thoughts, the discourse of someone not getting any sleep. His response styles were even more alarming, bouncing from whining about all the hard decisions he has to make; to a sort of sneering impatient condescension, with which he explained simple falsehoods as though to children and as though they were obviously true; to the recital of incompletely rehearsed talking points, cut up into phrases and reassembled at random; to his familiar fake-macho pronouncing style. There was a round of joking about reporters' clothes that just made him appear clueless about the importance of the North Korean bomb and the collapse of his party's electoral prospects, completely tineared in the context of the event. One response after another headlined a simple unexplained and unembroidered refusal to hear facts, from poll results to the new estimates of Iraqi deaths. And the word unacceptable apparently means "if it continues, I will say it's unacceptable, but louder, so watch out!"

Bush has always been a man who knows a few simple things, to assert if not to act on coherently, and who is not in the business of increasing this stock. Now those are one-by-one turning out to be silly, bad guidance, or just vacuous, and his handlers are coming up empty giving him lines and tricks to get through the week. The man is not only in desperate straits but, what is new for him, beginning to recognize it. It was a really chilling spectacle; we're all in a bad situation here. It's not good for anyone that the president becomes a humiliating occasion for ridicule, a midget drum major prancing on the sidelines, beating out a rhythm no-one else is keeping, while the band breaks up into chaos on the field.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/010315.php
[Josh Marshall] Just listening to this press conference, I'm really surprised his handlers had him hold this sort of appearance. His statement was a long meandering catalog of his policies -- a bit confused, with various defenses, none that great. . . [M]y gut tells me anybody on the fence at this point would not feel reassured or heartened by what the president is saying.

On North Korea, needless to say, he fibbed about the basic issue, elided the key points. We'll see if the press teases out what he ignored and misstated. . .

[NB: Ha! Don't hold your breath]

He let the Agreed Framework lapse. The excuse is alleged (and probably true) uranium enrichment research, which wouldn't have come to fruition for many, many years. The result was ramping back plutonium production which has now already created a bomb. The president's boast is that his failed negotiations have more participants around the table.

Wow.

The Goofus Files (press conference edition)

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7464
THE PRESIDENT: I would cite my opponent in the 2004 campaign when he said there needs to be a date certain from which to withdraw from Iraq. I characterize that as cut and run because I believe it is cut and run. In other words, I've been using either their votes or their words to characterize their positions.

Q But they don't say cut and run.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, they may not use cut and run, but they say date certain is when to get out, before the job is done . . .[read on!]

Funny: when they gave Dick Cheney the truth serum

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/10/cheney_was_with.html

McCain’s lies about Clinton and North Korea

http://www.slate.com/id/2151354/nav/tap2/
[Fred Kaplan] McCain's version of history goes beyond "revisionism" to outright falsification. It is the exact opposite of what really happened. Let's take a look at the plain facts. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8732.html

The Hastert scandal (I’m renaming it): where things stand

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/11/AR2006101101639.html
With House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert denying personal knowledge of former representative Mark Foley's activities, investigators for the House ethics committee are bearing down on three senior members of Hastert's staff to determine when they learned of Foley's actions and whether they passed on their knowledge to the speaker. . .

The key players: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_08.php#010324

This IS a man with a drinking problem (and other problems too). Foley made another late-night visit to the page dormitory

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/10/foley_cruising_.html

A serious and frank discussion about violence against youth (uh-huh)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8727.html
[Steve Benen] And that was that. After a series of school shootings, government officials and community leaders got together for an hour-long chat without even casually addressing the weapon behind all of the violence. It's a bit like talking about rebuilding New Orleans without mentioning the hurricane. . . .[read on]

Govt report: the real sources of voter fraud

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-10-10-poll-fraud-report_x.htm
USA TODAY obtained the report from the commission four months after it was delivered by two consultants hired to write it. The commission has not distributed it publicly. . .

At least 11 states have approved new rules for independent voter-registration drives or requirements that voters produce specific forms of photo ID at polling places. . . The bipartisan report by two consultants to the election commission casts doubt on the problem those laws are intended to address. "There is widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling-place fraud, or at least much less than is claimed, including voter impersonation, 'dead' voters, non-citizen voting and felon voters," the report says.

The report, prepared by Tova Wang, an elections expert at the Century Foundation think tank, and Job Serebrov, an Arkansas attorney, says most fraud occurs in the absentee ballot process . . .

More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/vote_fraud_/2006/10/in_case_you_were_wondering.php

[NB: Let me explain what this means – accusations of voting site fraud are typically directed against Democratic constituencies. A voter-ID law, which would clearly suppress that vote, is directed at a problem that doesn’t exist. The REAL fraud, which no one is talking about, is in absentee voting – and guess which constituencies primarily benefit from that?

http://www.gop.com/VoteEarly/

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/07/con04321.html

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/dec2000/semi-d09.shtml
The facts of the Seminole County case were not in dispute. . . The Republican loyalist admitted that she had told Democrats that applications for absentee ballots sent in without voter ID numbers would be disqualified, while allowing two Republican Party operatives to come into her offices and work for several weeks filling in missing ID numbers on applications from Republican voters. . .]

Will Ohio 2006 be even worse than Ohio 2004?

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=12006

Theocracy watch

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/religion_and_politics_/2006/10/faithbased_pork.php
[Mark Kleiman] C'mon, you didn't really believe that the "faith-based initiative" stuff was anything but a political scam, did you? . . . And if you were wondering how the "faith-based initiative" process was going to avoid funding jihadists, don't worry: they just load the review panels with bigots who give all proposals from non-Christians scores of zero. . .

Is the love-fest between evangelicals and the Bush gang coming to an end?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/10/12/white_house_dismissed_evangelicals_as_nuts.html
[David] Kuo, who worked in the White House Office of Faith Based Initiatives, "says some of the nations most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as 'the nuts.' National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as 'ridiculous,' 'out of control,' and just plain 'goofy.'" . . .

"More seriously, Kuo alleges that then-White House political affairs director Ken Mehlman knowingly participated in a scheme to use the office, and taxpayer funds, to mount ostensibly 'nonpartisan' events that were, in reality, designed with the intent of mobilizing religious voters in 20 targeted races." . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8731.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/12/5139/9897

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/12/91755/004
[WP] GOP's Hold on Evangelicals Weakening . . .

CNN does its part to advance the “dissent is treason” meme

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_10_08_atrios_archive.html#116057639111062011
One expert points out that this current debate could even be harmful to national security. The North Koreans, he says, are watching this, looking for seams inside America's political system to see how much maneuvering they can get. . .

Bonus item: 5 things the Dems should investigate if (when?) they retake Congress

http://www.alternet.org/stories/42880/

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 9:18 AM

 
PROGRESS REPORT

Over 650,000 dead in Iraq

http://www.juancole.com/2006/10/655000-dead-in-iraq-since-bush.html
[Juan Cole] [F]olks, this is a major civil war, with something close to 200,000 dying every year. . .

Torture in Iraq: worse than under Saddam

http://www.juancole.com/2006/10/100-tortured-each-day-in-iraq.html
[U.N.] Every day about 100 people become victims of murder and torture in Iraq. . .

Digby replies: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116055081442988050

Jane Araf (NBC), reporting from Iraq

http://onthescene.msnbc.com/baghdad/2006/10/calling_bob_in_.html#posts
Some readers and viewers think we journalists are exaggerating about the situation in Iraq. I can almost understand that because who would want to believe that things are this bad? Particularly when so many people here started out with such good intentions.

I'm more puzzled by comments that the violence isn't any worse than any American city. Really? In which American city do 60 bullet-riddled bodies turn up on a given day? In which city do the headless bodies of ordinary citizens turn up every single day? . . . [read on!]

What the Baker commission is trying to do

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/10/post_1613.html

North Korea: as predicted, the blame-Clinton meme starts

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/us/politics/11politics.html
On Tuesday, the Republican National Committee circulated a photograph of Madeleine K. Albright, Mr. Clinton’s secretary of state, clinking glasses with Mr. Kim.

The picture was taken during talks in 2000 that were aimed at persuading the North to limit its nuclear program. Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman, said in an interview that voters might be seeing more such images in the coming weeks — accompanied by a reminder that Ms. Albright had presented Mr. Kim a basketball autographed by Michael Jordan.

His committee coined a phrase for it — “basketball diplomacy” — which Mr. Mehlman sprinkled through his remarks. . .

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_08.php#010308

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116052675502423116

Condi Rice is a monumental twit

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/washington/11diplo.html
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday that the United States did not intend to invade or attack North Korea, but she warned the North’s leaders that they now risked sanctions “unlike anything that they have faced before.” . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_08.php#010311
[Josh Marshall] Will someone come out and say what a monumental twit Condi Rice is as Secretary of State. . .

[NB: Just did]

[CNN] U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday defended the Bush administration's refusal to hold bilateral talks with North Korea in the face of Pyongyang's claim of a successful nuclear test. She told CNN the Clinton administration tried that approach in the 1990s and it had failed.

[Marshall] "Failure" =1994-2002 -- Era of Clinton 'Agreed Framework': No plutonium production. All existing plutonium under international inspection. No bomb.

"Success" = 2002-2006 -- Bush Policy Era: Active plutonium production. No international inspections of plutonium stocks. Nuclear warhead detonated.

Face it. They ditched an imperfect but working policy. They replaced it with nothing. Now North Korea is a nuclear state.

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_10_08.php#010309
[Bill Perry] For almost six years this policy has been a strange combination of harsh rhetoric and inaction. . .

Tony Snow: any suggestion that North Korea’s nuclear test demonstrates a failure of Bush policies is just plain “silly”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8715.html
[Think Progress] Today, a reporter asked if President Bush believes he has made any mistakes with respect to North Korea. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow responded, "Oh, my goodness…it's a silly question." Later, he called the question "gratuitous." Snow explained that "you need to give presidents the benefit of the doubt when national security is involved."

[Steve Benen] This is classic, quintessential Bush White House. A cursory glance at the administration's policy towards North Korea highlights just how wildly, dangerously unsuccessful it's been. If you'd like some kind of explanation for why the policy has failed so spectacularly, it's "a silly question." Of course it is; his "accountability moment" was two years ago.

And the very idea that Bush deserves "the benefit of the doubt when national security is involved" is, perhaps, the single most amusing thing Tony Snow has ever said. The whole idea behind credibility is someone earns it by demonstrating competence. Bush would probably have the benefit of the doubt on national security, if it weren't for Iraq. And North Korea. And Iran.

As Kevin Drum put it yesterday, "The Bush/Cheney administration took a bad situation with Iraq and made it even worse. They've taken a bad situation with Iran and made it even worse. They've taken a bad situation with North Korea and made it even worse. At every step along the way, they've deliberately taken actions that cut off any possibility of solving our geopolitical problems with anything other than military force." . . .

The kind of people they are

http://mediamatters.org/items/200610100007
On the October 9 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage declared that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is a "traitor" who "should be tried for treason, and when she's found guilty, she should be hung." . . .

Three, maybe four, different people say they told the House leadership about Foley long before the latest email flap

[Trandahl] http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/10/foley.scandal/index.html
Denying a newspaper report that he confronted Rep. Mark Foley directly about his exchanges with teenage congressional pages, Rep. Jim Kolbe said Tuesday he knew of e-mails that made a page "uncomfortable" and passed them on to Foley's office and the House clerk. . .

The clerk at the time, Jeff Trandahl, said Tuesday he will speak to investigators about Foley but will make no public comment on the issue.

"Jeff Trandahl will cooperate fully with the FBI and the House ethics committee investigations," his attorney Cono Namorato said. "At this time, Mr. Trandahl will not be airing his recollections with the media."

Trandahl, who was overseeing the page program at the time, closely monitored Foley's interaction with pages and repeatedly raised concerns about Foley to GOP leaders before 2005, which is when Republicans said they learned of the correspondences, sources said.

Trandahl resigned from his post in 2005. . .

[Fordham] http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2550501&page=1
Meanwhile, ABC News has learned that one former staffer who worked for the GOP leadership will tell the House Ethics Committee Thursday about an incident several years ago in which he was alerted that an apparently inebriated Foley had tried to gain access to the pages' dormitory.

A source with firsthand knowledge of events says that this coming Thursday, Kirk Fordham — former chief of staff to both Foley and more recently Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y. — will testify that a few years ago he was told by then-House clerk Jeff Trandahl that Foley had been stopped while trying to enter the pages' dorm in an apparently intoxicated state. The source said Fordham will testify that he recalls this being the event that convinced both him and Trandahl to warn Hastert's office, with Fordham designated to have the conversation with Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer. . . The source tells ABC News that Fordham will testify that he alerted Palmer that Foley had a pattern of displaying inappropriate behavior toward pages. . .

[Brown-Waite] http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2550501&page=1
Last month, before the Foley scandal broke, Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Fla., also learned about the dormitory incident, which she said she was told about from firsthand sources. After learning about an inappropriate but not sexually charged e-mail Foley sent, which had been posted on ABCNEWS.com's "The Blotter" on Thursday Sept. 28, Brown-Waite decided to launch her own investigation. She said she alerted GOP leadership on Friday Sept. 29 about both the dorm incident and about pages who had been made to feel uncomfortable by Foley. . .

[Kolbe?] http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001760.php
Concerns About Foley to Congressman in 2000
"A former Congressional page approached Representative Jim Kolbe, Republican of Arizona, as long as six years ago to report feeling uncomfortable by messages sent from Representative Mark Foley [as was reported yesterday in The Washington Post], but a spokeswoman for Mr. Kolbe said Monday that it was unclear if Mr. Kolbe had forwarded the complaint to House leaders. . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001763.php
[Paul Kiel] Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) released a statement giving his "best recollection" of the Foley incident back in 2000, that's at odds with key details of an earlier statement given by his own press secretary. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/kolbe-was-member-of-page-board-when.html
[John Aravosis] So we're to believe that Kolbe was a member of the Page Board, but when a former Page came to him - a Page who Kolbe sponsored (was he a constituent, a family friend?) and said that he was being harassed by another member of Congress, Kolbe told the kid, basically, you're on your own? Deal with it yourself? Go confront your abuser when you're only 16 and he's nearly 50 and a member of Congress?

If that's Kolbe's story, it's an incredible dereliction of duty. And frankly, I don't believe it. . .

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/i-really-wish-washington-post.html

And (at least) two congressional colleagues say they talked with Hastert about it a year ago

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15110582/#061010a
[David Shuster] Today it became abundantly clear to all of us in the press corps and those of you tracking the story at home, that the Mark Foley page scandal is not about to disappear and that it is proving to be a major distraction for House Speaker Dennis Hastert. How distracting? Even Hastert’s advance team and office aides seem a bit befuddled today. When we first saw the Speaker step to the microphones this morning for a rather hastily arranged news conference, off to the side in some of the camera shots was a cemetery.

Graveyard references are not exactly what a political leader wants when he or she is facing a scandal that could cost them their post. But, so it goes right now with Speaker Hastert. And today, he all but sacrificed his own staff. Asked about who in his office knew what and when in the Foley page scandal, Hastert replied, “If there was a problem, if there was a cover-up, we should find that out through the investigative process. They should not continue to handle their jobs.”

Two members of the House Republican leadership, John Boehner and Thom Reynolds, both say they told Hastert last spring about Foley’s sexually suggestive contacts with pages. . .

The buck stops. . .uh. . . over there

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3451
[Fubar] Hastert news conference (Oct. 5, 2006):
I'm sorry -- you know, when you talk about the page issue and what's happened in the Congress, I'm deeply sorry that this has happened.

And the bottom line is that we're taking responsibility, because ultimately, as someone has said in Washington before: The buck stops here.

WaPo (Oct 10, 2006):
Hastert Pledges to Fire Anyone Involved in Foley Cover Up

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) pledged today to fire anyone on his staff who covered up information

More: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15208078/

The Religious Right is calling for a purge of gay congressional staffers

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_theswamp/2006/10/is_a_purge_of_c.html
In an item headlined, “Party of Whose Values?” [Tony Perkins, Family Research Council] essentially seems to be accusing gay GOP staffers of being a fifth column within the congressional Republican power structure, thwarting legislative initiatives dear to social conservatives. . .

Yesterday also saw a column by Cliff Kincaid, editor of the conservative organization Accuracy in Media's AIM Report in which he shouts a similar rooftop warning about the damage gays in the congressional Republican establishment have done to the conservative agenda.

In the column titled "Homosexual Blackmail on the Capitol Hill, he said: "For the sake of honest and open government, not to mention protection of the children, the secret Capitol Hill homosexual network must be exposed and dismantled. But only Republican leaders can do that. Their failure to do so suggests that the network may go higher and deeper—and have more power—than even the New York Times article indicated."

How to “cut” the budget deficit: project ridiculously high forecasts, then trumpet the numbers when they turn out to be not so bad (unless you remember that they started with a surplus)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001210.html

The FBI still doesn’t have a significant number of Arabic-speaking agents

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001388.html

The phony fence bill

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/10/post_1618.html
For the best piece of newspaper reportage you'll read today, check out The Washington Post's exploration of the 700-mile fence that Congress passed -- with a provision making sure it'll never actually happen. As the bill was being passed, an amendment was tacked on allowing the president to divert the earmarked cash for whatever border security measures he deems appropriate or necessary. . .

Joe flip-flops again

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/10/181037/20

George “Stock Options” Allen (R-VA) – still lying, in stupidly, easily documented ways

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8709.html
[Steven Benen] As if Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) didn't have enough problems, the hits just keep on coming. . . Substantiated charges of racism have hampered Allen, who has seen his once-huge lead over former Navy Secretary Jim Webb (D) disappear. By any reasonable standards, this new controversy should seal the deal.

Sen. George Allen did not disclose to Congress that he owned stock options in a Virginia high-tech company and has now requested an opinion from the Senate Ethics Committee about whether that failure violated Senate rules.

Allen (R-Va.) received options on 15,000 shares of stock in Commonwealth Biotechnologies Inc. after serving on its board of directors between the end of his term as governor and his election to the Senate. He disclosed the options before his first Senate term in 2001 but has not reported his continued ownership of them since, campaign officials said Monday.

Congressional conflict-of-interest rules mandate disclosure on all deferred compensation, including stock options. Allen not only failed to do so, he also asked the Army to help another business that gave him similar stock options.

Allen's defense, thus far, is that the stock options were worthless, and therefore not worth reporting. As it turns out, that's wrong, too.

Bloomberg reported today:

Stock options that Senator George Allen described as worthless were worth as much as $1.1 million at one point, according to a review of Senate disclosure forms and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

The records appear to contradict remarks he made to the Associated Press. "I got paid in stock options which were worthless,'' AP quoted him as saying. . .

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2006/10/gop_always_worse_than_you_think.html
[Michael Froomkin] George Allen's defense to the revelation that he had failed to disclose stock options to the Senate as its rules require was that the options were worthless and thus not worth disclosing (never mind that the Senate rules require disclosure regardless of value, and that even options with negative value are a potential conflict since there might be incentive to move the stock to a position where the options become profitable).

Well, it turns out that Allen lobbied the Army for one of the firms at a time he held their options. And, those "worthless" options? They were worth $1.1 million at their peak. . .

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/george-allen-r-va-lied-about-stock.html

Mike DeWine (R-OH), locked in a fight for his life, makes a big mistake

http://makeashorterlink.com/?J174251FD
GOP Senator Mike DeWine's campaign is refusing to say whether a soldier appearing in one of the campaign's political ads is an actor or a real member of the military. . .

[A] Department of Defense spokesperson has now told Election Central that "all military personnel...are prohibited from wearing military uniforms at political campaign or election events." The spokesman added that he'd "forwarded this matter over to the Army for review." . . .

The best and the brightest? An unusual (and creepy) insight into the “mind” of Duke Cunningham, (R-CA, retired in disgrace)

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001749.php

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001765.php

Polls hammer Republican prospects

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/10/74648/548

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/10/211656/34

Why they’re losing

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/11/1348/6257

Reality check: a Democratic Senate?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/10/144136/28

Bush’s word games (thanks to Susan Madrak for the link)

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=128588

Theocracy watch, part 1

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8702.html
[Steve Benen] The New York Times is running a terrific series. . . on the sometimes-extraordinary benefits extended to religious organizations, which their counterparts, including non-profit organizations, cannot legally receive. A religious day care center, for example, is entitled to tax-breaks and regulatory exemptions that a secular day care center isn't eligible for.

The NYT series has already included some fascinating anecdotal examples, but one from yesterday stood out.

[Ohio attorney J. Jeffrey Heck's] client was a middle-aged novice training to become a nun in a Roman Catholic religious order in Toledo. She said she had been dismissed by the order after she became seriously ill — including a diagnosis of breast cancer.

In her complaint, the novice, Mary Rosati, said she had visited her doctor with her immediate supervisor and the mother superior. After the doctor explained her treatment options for breast cancer, the complaint continued, the mother superior announced: "We will have to let her go. I don't think we can take care of her."

Some months later Ms. Rosati was told that the mother superior and the order's governing council had decided to dismiss her after concluding that "she was not called to our way of life," according to the complaint. Along with her occupation and her home, she lost her health insurance, Mr. Heck said.

[Benen] Rosati sued the diocese for firing her because of her illness. Had she worked for any business in America, she would have prevailed — the Americans with Disabilities Act offers protections against this kind of treatment. But Rosati's case was thrown out of court; a federal judge ruled that "the First Amendment requires churches to be free from government interference in matters of church governance and administration.”. . .

The NYT series, which started yesterday and continues today, points to a series of rather startling examples of religious organizations enjoying exemptions from all kinds of laws, simply because they're religious. . . [R]emind me again why conservatives believe that there's some kind of "war on religion" underway? When ministries enjoy financial, employment, and regulatory breaks that secular organizations can only dream of, doesn't that pretty thoroughly debunk the religious right's talking points about anti-faith persecution?

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/10/business/10religious.html

Theocracy watch, part 2: Texas Republican party wants to ban “atheists” from running for office

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2006/10/no_religious_test.php

More: http://www.themoderatevoice.com/posts/1156591264.shtml

Judge lays into Bush’s (and now Congress’s) lawless approach to trials

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7452
[U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Leif Clark ] "The very idea of holding anyone without trial, without the right to see the evidence that was used to justify naming them an enemy combatant, and depriving them of the ability to challenge why they're even there, is so repugnant to a constitutional democracy that I'm shocked this man actually claims to be defending American values," Clark said in the e-mail. "These are the tactics of the old Soviet Union, not of a country that stands for freedom and the rule of law."

Bonus item: The “revised” Bill of Rights

Funny: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/11/6856/8481

Not funny: http://www.discourse.net/archives/2006/10/olbermann_on_the_incredible_shrinking_bill_of_rights.html

Extra bonus item: Bumper stickers

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/10/10/11/07/bumper-stickers/
“The Republican Party - Come for the torture, stay for the pedophilia!”

“The Republican Party - It’s NEVER our fault!”

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- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:18 AM

 
DECLINE AND FALL

Hmmm. . . . Bush is not a happy camper. He thought he had all the stars in alignment to shake fear into the American people leading up the elections – and then reality struck

www.nydailynews.com/front/story/459722p-386715c.html
Suddenly, like the fierce "blue northers" that sweep across Texas each autumn, the political winds have turned bleaker for Republicans - and President Bush's private mood has blackened accordingly.

Just two weeks ago, as gasoline prices plummeted and his tough-talking terror counterattack began moving poll numbers his way, Bush turned bullish on the November elections.

"He's on scent and he's driving hard," a longtime political confidant of the President reported early this month. "He's got the microphone and thinks he's controlling the political debate." . . .

Now, however, friends, aides and close political allies tell the Daily News Bush is furious with his own side for helping create a political downdraft that has blunted his momentum and endangered GOP prospects for keeping control of Congress next month.

Some of his anger is directed at former aides who helped Watergate journalist Bob Woodward paint a lurid portrait of a dysfunctional, chaotic administration in his new book, "State of Denial."

In the obsessively private Bush clan, talking out of school is the ultimate act of disloyalty, and Bush feels betrayed from within.

"He's ticked off big-time," said a well-informed source, "even if what they said was the truth." . .

Moreover, Bush's personal disgust with the GOP sex scandal involving ex-Rep. Mark Foley has exacerbated his already-strained relations with congressional Republicans. While publicly embracing House Speaker Dennis Hastert, sources close to Bush say he thinks Hastert and other GOP House leaders have bungled their handling of the Foley affair and look like they've been engaged in a coverup.

Bush has complained, these sources said, that the scandal torpedoes furious GOP efforts to reenergize a dispirited political base - especially Christian conservatives.

"There's steam coming out of his ears over the Foley thing," someone who talks to the President regularly said. "The base is starting to get turned off again."

For all the misery, Bush remains defiantly resolute. He will campaign relentlessly in the next month and has told friends he's determined to prove his Democratic and media enemies wrong on Election Day.

Bush is less worried about his standing with history, telling aides that George Washington's legacy is still being debated two centuries later. Bu