DRAMA QUEENS

Arlen Specter (R-PA) says the right thing – now what will he do about it?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/washington/30cnd-congress.html
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee began laying the constitutional groundwork today for an effort to block President Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq and place new limits on the conduct of the war there, perhaps forcing a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.

They were joined by Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who led the panel for the last two years, in asserting that Mr. Bush cannot simply ignore Congressional opposition to his plan to send 21,500 additional troops to Iraq.

“I would respectfully suggest to the president that he is not the sole decider,” Mr. Specter said. “The decider is a joint and shared responsibility.”

Mr. Specter said he considered a clash over constitutional powers to be “imminent.” . . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/30/161351/607

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/republicans-and-congress-war-powers.html

Behind the scenes

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/washington/31cong.html
The Bush administration’s allies in the Senate began a major effort on Tuesday to prevent a potentially embarrassing rejection of the president’s plan to push 20,000 more troops into Iraq.

With the Senate expected to reach votes on possible resolutions sometime next week, the signs of the new campaign seeped out after a weekly closed-door lunch in which Republican senators engaged in what participants described as a heated debate over how to approach the issue. . . .

One of the bright ideas the Republicanists have put forward in order to avoid taking a stance on Bush’s escalation of the war, is to support more troops but to require “benchmarks” of progress. Three problems – they can’t put time limits on those benchmarks (I think that’s the DEFINITION of a benchmark); they can’t say what the consequences will be of failing to meet them (some benchmarks); and to Bush loyalists even this reeks of “micromanaging” the war. The trifecta!

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/boehner-makes-boner.html

Two predictions

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_28_atrios_archive.html#117016904646093881
[US News] Even Republicans supporting President Bush's new Iraq strategy have been saying this is the last chance for the Iraqi government, and there may be an underlying message for the President there as well. US News Political Bulletin hears from GOP strategists with close ties to Capitol Hill that the President and his senior aides are too optimistic about keeping GOP congressional support for the Iraq war over the long term. One senior Republican adviser says Bush has "until April or May" to improve things in Iraq. If he cannot, he could face a GOP rebellion that could result in reductions in spending for the conflict and legislation to start bringing the troops home.

[Atrios] Things will still be awful by the end of May, and most Republicans won't change their position at all.

McCain, still drinking the kool-aid. You have an ill-conceived war, mismanaged from the start, which has devolved into an unrecoverable mess. As a “last resort,” you try a troop increase – and what if that doesn’t work?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/30/12265/9965
[Before] “If this strategy doesn’t succeed, we will have to devise another strategy” . . . One of those options, McCain said “is to withdraw to the borders (of Iraq). . .”

[After] COOPER: Is there any scenario in which withdrawing troops would be acceptable to you, or redeploying them?

MCCAIN: Not until we have the situation under control . . . .

The ISG chairs try to maintain their “relevance” by selling out their own committee’s report

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_28_atrios_archive.html#117019503844222189
[Atrios] From what I gathered from CNN coverage just now, they support sending more troops to Iraq (James "Give it a chance!" Baker more than Hamilton), but they warn that nothing will improve unless there's also diplomacy with Iran and Syria.

Personally, I don't really understand their obsession with diplomacy with Iran and Syria. It's probably a good idea on its own merits, though what it has to do with Iraq I'm not sure.

Still, they say they support sending more troops to Iraq. Then they say it needs to be accompanied by things which won't happen.

I just don't understand this game anymore. . .

Answer the question!

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002441.php
[Paul Kiel] A couple weeks ago, Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) asked Secretary Condoleeza Rice if the administration thought President Bush had the power to take military action against Iran without permission from Congress.

She deferred an answer, saying, "I'm really loathe to get into questions of the president's authorities without a rather more clear understanding of what we are actually talking about. So let me answer you, in fact, in writing. I think that would be the best thing to do."

Well, it's been two weeks, and Sen. Webb is still waiting. So he's asked again, in a letter sent to Rice yesterday. To help speed a response, he even suggested the range of answers she might provide: "This is, basically, a 'yes' or 'no' question regarding an urgent matter affecting our nation’s foreign policy." . . .

Set your DVRs

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_28.php#012197
[Josh Marshall] When the bogus 'Iran incident' happens that becomes the predicate for a military attack on Iran, what will it look like? Let's try to sketch it out in advance. . . [read it all!]

NIE finally to be released

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002435.php

The shifting stories on Najaf (no, the Iraqis are nowhere near ready to start taking responsibility for their own security)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/30/75152/2025

More (thanks to Laura Rozen for the link): http://arablinks.blogspot.com/

I asked about this a while back – looks like we still don’t have answers

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9781.html
[Steve Benen] One key facet to the escalation policy that’s gone largely unmentioned: “Boosting U.S. troop levels in Iraq by 21,500 would create major logistical hurdles for the Army and Marine Corps, which are short thousands of vehicles, armor kits and other equipment needed to supply the extra forces, U.S. officials said.” As David Corn noted, “It seems that Bush will be sending GIs into war without sufficient levels of equipment. So who’s supporting the troops?”

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_28.php#012198

Very, very careful, or unqualified?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010649.php
[Spencer Ackerman] I just got back from Admiral Bill Fallon's hearing to head Central Command, and I've never heard a military officer testify for nearly four hours and fail to exhibit an understanding of even one issue he's about to grapple with. . .

"As you know, I've got a full-time job in Pacific Command, and I've tried to stay away from the detail of Central Command until such time as I might be confirmed," he said. "Then I intend to dive into it."

"I'm surprised that you don't have that understanding going in, frankly," said Senator Levin. . .

I don’t like this

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/30/AR2007013001085.html
Democratic leaders agreed yesterday to President Bush's idea for a new bipartisan panel to advise him on the fight against terrorism and the Iraq war, days after rejecting such a commission. . .

Putting Bush on the couch

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2618.html#015296
[Tom Schaller] All must be sacrificed to George W. Bush's whim, his need to be right, his desire to find now the affirmation and self-regard that so painfully eluded him before his 40th birthday.

All of which is preview to this prediction: Dick Cheney will be sacrificed. . .

[NB: No, I don’t believe it, but read it and judge for yourself]

The shame of the nation

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19853
[Joseph Lelyveld] The Bush administration seems never to have put it quite so baldly but in its rush to consolidate its authority after the terrorist attacks of September 11, it came close to asserting the power of the commander in chief to declare anyone in the world, of whatever citizenship or location, "an unlawful enemy combatant" and—solely on the basis of that designation—to detain the person indefinitely without charge, beyond reach of any court. As we now know, it then acted on its own theory; according to a list being compiled by Human Rights Watch, alleged terrorists were detained at American behest in Mauritania, Bosnia, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen— as well as Afghanistan and the border areas of Pakistan where most al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters were captured. Many of them were then turned over to the United States for transfer to the prison hastily constructed out of cargo containers in the American military enclave at Guantánamo, or other overseas detention centers used by the United States.

The five years since the first shackled prisoners were unloaded at Guantánamo have not been uneventful for constitutional scholars, lawyers concerned with human rights, and journalists of an investigative bent. Their questions and discovery motions have shaken loose information, including the names of many detainees, out of a government committed to secrecy. That information has been used as kindling for a slow-burning debate on coercive interrogation that eventually led Congress—nearly two years after publication of the notorious pictures of naked Iraqis stacked and taunted at Abu Ghraib prison—to affirm legislatively in the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 that existing laws and treaty commitments barring torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment (sometimes called "torture lite") were still binding on American interrogators in what was grandiosely called "the Global War on Terror."

At least the question of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment had been addressed; how effectively is another matter. The Supreme Court has also cautiously asserted its jurisdiction on detention issues, picking apart arguments made on behalf of an executive branch that hubristically called on the Court to stand aside and, essentially, let the President reign. But—as the remaining 395 captives at Guantánamo enter the sixth year of their imprisonment without a single one of them having been put on trial—the question of whether we're prepared to hold terrorist suspects without charge for the rest of their natural lives has yet to be squarely addressed by either Congress or the courts. . .

First Italy, now Germany

http://www.slate.com/id/2158685
[Daniel Politi] The Los Angeles Times leads with word that German investigators have recommended arrest warrants be issued for 13 American intelligence operatives who were involved with the "extraordinary rendition" of a German citizen. Investigators say Khaled Masri was kidnapped and sent to Afghanistan, where he was allegedly beaten and secretly detained for five months before he was released without charges. . . .

New allegations about Abu Ghraib (thanks to Holden for the link)

http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/1079/US_Army_Investigating_New_Torture_Allegations

A “vacuum cleaner”

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002438.php
[CNet] The FBI appears to have adopted an invasive Internet surveillance technique that collects far more data on innocent Americans than previously has been disclosed . . .

The Republicanists blink first on the minimum wage

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/30/13150/5672

The Goofus Files

http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/your_president__8.html
Now, in order to export something, somebody has to make it. In other words, when I talk about numbers, behind the numbers is people who are providing the service and/or making the product.

Bonus: http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/your_president__7.html
One, the business sector, small business sector of the heartland is strong. And it's really strong because of the low taxes. But it's also strong because of the entrepreneurial spirit is strong.

How’s the trial going, Scooter?

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3770

[NB: Don’t miss it!]

What we’ve learned so far

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/01/30/BL2007013000803.html
[Dan Froomkin] From the first time the White House was asked about allegations that senior officials had exposed a CIA agent's identity as part of a plot to discredit an administration critic, the answer was consistent.

As spokesman Scott McClellan put it as early as July 22, 2003: "That is not the way this President or this White House operates."

But in the course of the Scooter Libby trial, one thing has become quite clear: That is precisely the way this White House operates.

Faced with accusations that they had marched the country to war on evidence they knew was suspect, White House aides evidently responded with little if any restraint in attempting to discredit their critics. . .

More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2621.html

Judy, Judy, Judy: read Marcy Wheeler’s inspired account of her drama-ridden performance in front of the Libby trial. What a piece of work that woman is

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#117019840596659074
[Digby] I just had a chance to catch up on today's Libby blogging and it's priceless. Judy's doing her full-on diva routine, slouching, gesticulating, sniffling and eye-rolling.

M says she doesn't remember affadvit

J is it true that you were planning to write an article

M Sir I wasn't planning to write an article [ohh, angry Judy]

J Didn't you talk to the bureau chief

M I was not going to write the story. It was not my assignment.

J puts up affadvit from Miller

M Yes I signed it.

J You did contemplate writing one or more articles in July 2003, about issues related to Wilson.

M Yes, but not about Wilson and Plame, there were other things I wanted to pursue

J You said you met with several potential sources.

J Who were the others. Can you remember just one of them?

Judy wipes nose.

She's got her chin in her hand.

Now reading through something looks like Kristof's article.

Judy back to looking straight ahead, now looking down, back to not breathing, bends forward to get something. Arms folded. Eyes roll up into head. Looking down. Back to reading whatever is in front of her. Wipes nose.

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/01/30/libby-live-judy-one/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/01/30/libby-live-judy-two/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/01/30/libby-live-judy-three/

Summing up: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/01/30/miller2/index.html
[Tim Grieve] Scooter Libby's defense team is finally drawing blood, and it belongs to former New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

It's hard to believe that Miller could look any worse than she did before walking into Judge Reggie Walton's courtroom this afternoon . . .

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/30/233250/861
[Jeralyn Merritt] What an afternoon at the Scooter Libby trial. This is what I came to Washington for -- that sense of being right in the middle of the action, totally engrossed in the moment, never once looking at my watch, and when 5:00 came, wishing we didn't have to go home. . . .

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/01/30/miller/index.html

Getting what she deserves: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/01/30/the-publics-dilemma/

Questions she still won’t answer: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/01/30/libby5/index.html

Break out the popcorn: Paul Bremer will testify before Henry Waxman’s committee

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002440.php

More: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0701310151jan31,1,7037579.story
The U.S. government wasted tens of millions of dollars in Iraq reconstruction aid, including scores of unaccounted-for weapons and a never-used Baghdad training camp with an Olympic-size swimming pool . . .

Mitt who?

http://goodbyemitt.notlong.com
GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney — who's under fire from conservatives who think he's exhibited an overly liberal streak in the past — threw a fundraiser for a Democratic Senate candidate in 1992 . . .

The kind of people they are

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#117012667606228614

A linguistic analysis of the slur “Democrat Party”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_28.php#012199

Grit your teeth before reading this one. The Dems finally address the spending authorizations the Republicanists were legally required to pass in the last Congress, but couldn’t quite find the time to get done. Now that it’s ready to move forward, the AP headline reads “Democrats unveil massive spending bill.” Hmmm. . . do you think the headline would have read “Republicans unveil massive spending bill” if they had done it?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/another-misleading-story-from.html
[John Aravosis] In fact, the story is about how the Democrats are finally going to pass the budget that the Republicans refused to pass LAST YEAR - the budget that already went into effect last October.

So, the reason the spending bill is "massive" is because it takes all the budget bills that the Republicans failed to pass last year and lumps them into one big bill. . .

Here’s the proper headline and the real story: NO EARMARKS

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/30/AR2007013001705.html
Democrats Move Leftover Spending Measure
Special Projects Stripped Under Earmarks Ban

Bonus item: Oh my. Head of the WORLD BANK?

http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/this_couldnt_co.html





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- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:02 AM

 
TAKING THE LEAD

Who led the fighting in Najaf?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003545907_najaf29.html
Iraqi officials said today that U.S.-backed Iraqi troops . . .

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/01/29/iraq.main/index.html
U.S. forces took the lead . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/29/AR2007012901752.html
"This fight is an indication of what is taking place, and that is the Iraqis are beginning to take the lead," Bush said. "So my first reaction on this report from the battlefield is that the Iraqis are beginning to show me something."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/world/middleeast/30iraq.html
Iraqi forces were surprised and nearly overwhelmed by the ferocity of an obscure renegade militia in a weekend battle near the holy city of Najaf and needed far more help from American forces than previously disclosed . . . [read on!]

Who were they fighting? http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/about-those-250-insurgents-supposedly.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_28.php#012167

Bush screwed his party in the 2006 elections, and is lining them up for another defeat in 2008 by forcing them to back his “surge.” Thanks, George!

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/29/113010/548

Bush prepares to send even more than 21,000 additional troops

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2007/01/a_feather_of_force_for_iraq.html

Fred Kagan, original advocate of the “surge”

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010642.php
This is not our plan. . . .

When will Baker and Hamilton speak up?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/bush-now-quoting-baker-hamilton-report.html
[John Aravosis] Bush's National Security Adviser has penned an op ed in Monday's Washington Post that repeatedly cites the Baker-Hamilton report - the report that Bush completely disregarded in coming up with the Bush-McCain escalation plan in Iraq - and he's citing the report as "proof" that the escalation plan is a good idea, when the report actually said, among other things, that we should be engaging Iran in diplomacy, not trying to goad them into our third war this very short century.

And in any case, Bush dismissed the report, out of hand. . . .

Extra credit if you can find the other lies in the op ed. You can start with the claim that the Iraqis are the ones who came up with the escalation plan - they denied that lie two weeks ago.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9767.html
[Steve Benen] For one thing, the ISG argued against troop escalation, not for it. . .

Messing with Iran – and losing

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_28_atrios_archive.html#117012149608630645

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_28.php#012179

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002425.php

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/01/oh_the_irony/

Deceived by their own slogans: the people at the very highest levels of this government have NO IDEA what the Shia-Sunni and regional dynamics of the Middle East are all about. None

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#117002894234543910

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/01/29/BL2007012900577.html
[Dan Froomkin] While Dick Cheney undoubtedly remains the most powerful vice president this nation has ever seen, it's becoming increasingly unclear whether anyone outside the White House believes a word he says. . . . He seems to think that by asserting things that are simply untrue, he can make others believe they are so.

Maybe that works within the White House. But for the rest of us, it's becoming a better bet to assume that everything -- or almost everything -- Cheney says is flat wrong. . . [read on]

More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3765

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/29/cheney-half-glass-full/

Here’s a number you haven’t heard: in addition to US troops, how many “private military contractors” have also been killed in Iraq?

http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/contractor_deat.html
Nearly 800 . . .

More Executive expansionism from the Bush gang

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/washington/30rules.html
President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/30/72344/6809
[DarkSyde] Heads up to the legislative and legal branch, that includes Democrats, but most especially Republicans: For the good of the nation and your political skin, you need to think about how you're going to shut these neoclowns down, or look for a new line of work. They've proven themselves utterly inept at everything they touch. They have a well established track record of leaving ruined lives, dead or maimed bodies, and terminal political careers, in their wake.

http://www.slate.com/id/2158590/fr/rss/
[Daniel Politi] The administration insists the new executive order wasn't directed at any specific agency, but some believe it was issued out of concern for rules and guidance issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Saftey and Health Administration. Naturally, business groups who have to deal with often costly rules praised the executive order while others aren't so pleased. Besides having the political appointees in place, the White House also wants to review any new guidance documents it deems significant. "Having lost control of Congress the president is doing what he can to increase his control of the executive branch," a professor tells the paper.

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#117013454094132259

Bush even lies about the little things: called on his “Democrat” slur, he has the audacity to pretend it’s just a little oversight

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9766.html
Today, during an interview with NPR, Bush pleaded innocent. “That was an oversight,” Bush said. “I mean, I’m not trying to needle…. I meant to be saying, why don’t we show the American people we can actually work together?”

Bush concluded, “I’m not that good at pronouncing words anyway.”

[NB: So, this means he’ll stop doing it, right?]

No accident: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2611.html

Astounding: it takes dogged investigative work just to find out WHO WORKS FOR THE VICE PRESIDENT

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/012172.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_28.php#012176

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9768.html

Henry Waxman (C-CA) gets his ducks in a row – and then, WATCH OUT

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9764.html
[WSJ] With a Democrat now in the driver’s seat, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is set to hold Congress’s first in-depth hearings into charges of waste and fraud involving money spent on reconstruction in Iraq. . .

Jack Cafferty takes on the US prosecutor purge

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002429.php

The Republicanists on the minimum wage

http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/2007/01/gop-stalls-on-minimum-wage-to-avoid.html
"Tuesday, we'll have a vote and, you know, they may defeat cloture just like they did on the ethics thing," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), at a joint press conference with Ted Kennedy (D-MA) on Friday. "They know that they're on the wrong side on this issue. And we're going to not let them forget it."

"If they defeat cloture on minimum wage, they think we're going to bring this right back? Oh, no we're not. We're going to move to another subject they don't like to talk about: escalation of the war in Iraq… they know when minimum wage is finished, we're going to Iraq."

Rough times for John McCain

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/29/15379/6619

Traitor?!? http://nitpicker.blogspot.com/2007/01/traitor.html

McCain vs. McCain: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2610.html
a damning video of McCain's flip-flops . . .

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/01/29/the-double-talk-express/
the results reveal McCain to be more of a bootlicking toady than an independent maverick. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/therealmccaincom.html
simply devastating . . .

Sam Brownback (R-KS) is running for President

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_28.php#012180
"A President who will not rest until Roe v. Wade is overturned."

Ari does Libby in

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/01/29/b-i-n-g-o/
[Christy Hardin Smith – not a direct transcript]

P where and who was present?

Fl just Libby and me

P was anything discussed

Fl my plans what I was going to do in the private sector. Talked about sports, football, both fans of the Dolphins. I don't remember if I brought up or Libby brought up the briefing. I said I got asked about Wilson. I said what I was asked by the OVP to say. What I recall Libby saying to me, reiterated that VP did not send Wilson. Ambassador Wilson got sent by his wife, she works at CIA, Works in CPD, I recall that he told me her name. This is hush hush this is on the QT….

P What word did Libby use when he described Wilson's wife.

Fl I remember him saying she works at CIA at CPD.

P Did you know what it meant.

Fl not in specific, I don't know enough about CIA inner structure to know what it means.

P her name, how did he describe her name

Fl I believe he said Valerie Plame

Fl the news that VP had not sent him, it was the first time I ever heard it.

P what did you understand Libby to mean by hush hush

Fl I thought it was kind of odd. My sense was Libby was saying it was kind of newsie, no one knows.

P did you understand that it was classified

Fl absolutely not. There's a very strict protocol when classified info is spread, my experience, when someone conveyed info that I was authorized to hear, it was always, "this is classified you're authorized to hear." When it's oral, people always say, "this is classified you cannot use it."

More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3764

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001911.php

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/washington/29cnd-libby.html

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003538686

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/01/29/never-in-his-wildest-dreams/

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/01/29/fleischer3/index.html

Discrepancies in Fleischer’s testimony?

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2007/1/29/192549/075

http://www.slate.com/id/2158157/entry/2158492/

Valerie Plame/Valerie Wilson: why it matters

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010643.php

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_28_atrios_archive.html#117009712326527385

As everyone knows, the Libby trial is for perjury, not for the leak of classified information: and everything about the trial so far suggests that Fitzgerald is going right after the perjury issue (it took minutes to get the key facts from Ari Fleischer), and avoiding the larger question. This is probably good from the standpoint of a focused, no-frills prosecution, but it’s frustrating those of us who want to know about the larger conspiracy too

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3766

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/01/29/miller/index.html

Putting Bush on the couch

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/01/29/bush_on_the_couch.html
One of the most unnerving things about George Bush is his smile... It’s been pointed out that until he became president, Bush didn’t smirk. It’s grown into a disturbing tic, expressing a mixture of contradictory traits: smugness, disdain, self-consciousness, doubt... Have we seen a more inappropriate smile from any politician since Nixon? I doubt it. . . [more! read on]

Bush’s changing tone

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/gwb_the_beloved_leader_/2007/01/tone_and_style.php

The Goofus Files

http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/your_president__5.html
In other words, there's a lot of things politically that can happen, Juan, and – you know, I made a decision that – and, listen, I listen to a lot of folks here in Washington. I listen to the military people, I listen to people who are critical of the policy, I listen to Republicans, I listen to Democrats, and I listen carefully for which strategy would yield – would most likely yield success, and the one I picked is the one I believe will. . . [read on]

Bonus: http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/your_president__6.html

Tony “Baghdad Bob” Snow says that the anti-war protests on DC were a sign of healthy democracy – but rushes to point out that the attendance was less than predicted

http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/today_on_holden_5.html

Theocracy watch: global warming is just a sign of the coming End of Days

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#117011459402981274

[NB: Well, at least now they’re acknowledging that it’s real]

Bonus item: No sense of humor

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#117010258062718794

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2606.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 @ 7:59 AM

 
YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH

20!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/washington/28cnd-policy.html
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee predicted today that no more than 20 senators would vote to support the president’s troop increase for Iraq, and he and other Democrats angrily contested the Bush administration’s suggestion that their criticism of the war was emboldening the nation’s enemies. . .

Voting against Bush’s policies “emboldens the enemy,” huh?

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/28/brownback-knocks-down-lieberman-claim-that-iraq-resolutions-encourage-the-enemy/
[Who said it?] “I don’t see this enemy as needing any more emboldening or getting it from any resolution. They’re emboldened now.”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_28.php#012154
[Who said it?] "It's not the American people or the U.S. Congress who are emboldening the enemy. It's the failed policy of this president going to war without a strategy, going to war prematurely."

Richard Lugar (R-IN) misses the point

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_28.php#012155
"I don't believe that it's helpful right now to show there's disarray around the world as well as in our body at home. We really need, at this point, to get on the same page."

To which TPM Reader DC replies: "I guess he hasn't figured out yet that most of us are on the same page: we are done in Iraq, and the disaster there was brought to us by the failed policies of the administration."

Dick Cheney, reality-challenged

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/28/cheney-shored-up/
CHENEY: My sense of it is that what’s happened here now over the last few weeks is that the president has shored up his position with the speech he made a couple of weeks ago, specifically on Iraq. And I think the speech, frankly Tuesday night, the State of the Union address was one of his best. I think there’s been a very positive reaction of people who saw the speech. And I think to some extent that’s helped shore us up inside the party on the Hill. . . [all false: read on]

Bob Schieffer sums it all up

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/28/opinion/schieffer/main2405058.shtml
During the court martial scene in the movie "A Few Good Men," young Navy prosecutor Tom Cruise put Marine Colonel Jack Nicholson on the stand and demanded the truth.

Nicholson replied, "The truth? You can't handle the truth!"

A memorable line, but we are left to as: Has the government concluded Nicholson's character was right, that Americans can't handle the truth?

As the war has grown worse, we have heard government spokesmen from the top on down tell us "Stuff happens," "Mission accomplished," "Enormous progress," "The good news is not reported."

We can't even get a straight story on how our troops die.

Last week, the Pentagon first reported that four Americans were killed in Iraq while repelling an enemy attack. Then on Friday we were told they had actually been kidnapped during a shootout and executed, two of them handcuffed and shot in the head.

In the hours after the killings, reporters who had pieced together the real story were told their version was inaccurate. The new Secretary of Defense claimed he was unaware of the new information an hour before it was announced.

The government argues that public criticism hurts the war effort, but it is being damaged much more by its own loss of credibility brought on by such incidents.

Truth is the foundation of democracy and Americans can handle the truth — they demand it. History shows that when they fail to get it, they no longer follow their leaders, no matter the cause. They are more likely to just change leaders.

Why did the military not reveal the facts they knew about the Karbala kidnapping and murder of US troops?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005549.html

More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070126/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_sneak_attack

Press coverage of the fight in Najaf repeatedly claims that “250 insurgents” were killed. This is a totally fabricated number – the fact is they have no idea. But expect to see more trumped-up victories to highlight how well the new partnership is going

http://news.bostonherald.com/international/middleEast/view.bg?articleid=179659

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/iraqi-military-goes-from-0-to-300-in.html
[Chris in Paris] It's amazing how the US supported troops were non-existent only moments ago but suddenly in the middle of a PR push by the administration and after news of insurgents speaking English, wearing US uniforms, holding US equipment and driving US trucks, and abducting and killing US troops, suddenly - almost from nowhere, really - Iraqi troops are hell on wheels and killing insurgents by the hundreds. Are those guys fast learners or what?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_28.php#012160
[David Kurtz] I'll be interested in learning the extent to which Iraqi forces truly took the lead in this battle.

http://www.juancole.com/2007/01/fighters-for-shiite-messiah-clash-with.html
[Juan Cole] Well, a big battle took place at the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Saturday night into Sunday, but there are several contradictory narratives about its significance. Iraqi authorities, claimed that the Iraqi army killed a lot of the militants (250) but only took 25 casualties itself. The Shiite governor of Najaf implied that the guerrillas were Sunni Arabs and had several foreign Sunni fundamentalist fighters ("Afghans") among them. . .

I'd take the claim of numbers killed with a large grain of salt, though the Iraqi forces did have US close air support. I infer that the guerrillas shot down one US helicopter. . .

An outrageous proposal from Hillary

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/hillary-calls-for-withdrawal-from-iraq.html
[AP] President Bush should withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq before he leaves office, asserting it would be "the height of irresponsibility" to pass the war along to the next commander in chief.

"This was his decision to go to war with an ill-conceived plan and an incompetently executed strategy," the Democratic senator from New York said . . .

Sean Penn

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=161056
"In a democracy," the actor told the cheering crowd, which organizers said numbered in the hundreds of thousands, "we are the deciders."

More: http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com/2007/01/bob-herbert-more-than-antiwar.html

You’re fired!

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9757.html
[Thomas Friedman] “[T]he American people basically fired George Bush in the last election,” Friedman said. “We’re now just watching him clean out his desk.”

The true test of patriotism

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_war_in_iraq_/2007/01/moral_clarity.php
[Mark Kleiman] Anyone can support an anti-terrorist policy that works. The true test of manliness and patriotism is supporting an anti-terrorist policy that won't work. That's why our Beloved Leader dreamed up the Surge: to separate the real Americans from the terrorist sympathizers.

Mission accomplished!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/world/middleeast/29iranians.html
Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad outlined an ambitious plan on Sunday to greatly expand its economic and military ties with Iraq — including an Iranian national bank branch in the heart of the capital — just as the Bush administration has been warning the Iranians to stop meddling in Iraqi affairs. . .

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/28/AR2007012801075.html
Vice President Cheney said the deployment this month of a second aircraft-carrier task force to the Persian Gulf delivered a "strong signal" of the United States' commitment to confront Iran's growing influence in the region. . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010640.php

When these people say they aren’t provoking Iran and aren’t looking for a fight, all you can say is . . . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/bush-is-looking-for-fight-with-iran.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimacy_of_the_2003_invasion_of_Iraq
The secret Downing Street Memo also shows that the Bush Administration had decided to attack Iraq and to "fix intelligence" to support the WMD pretext to justify it. A transcript of a secret conversation between President Bush and PM Blair leaked by a government whistleblower reveals that the US and UK were prepared to invade Iraq even if no WMD were found (NY Times, March 27, 2006 . . . Further, President Bush proposed provoking Iraq, including using fake UN planes, to manufacture a pretext for the invasion he had already decided on. (NY Times, March 27, 2006). . .

Money well spent?

http://afghantheft.notlong.com
Corrupt police and tribal leaders are stealing vast quantities of reconstruction aid that is intended to improve the lives of ordinary Afghans and turn them away from the Taliban, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

In some cases, all the aid earmarked for an area has ended up in the wrong hands. Defence officials in the United States and Britain estimate that up to half of all aid in Afghanistan is failing to reach the right people. . .

No, they CAN’T walk and chew gum at the same time

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/27/AR2007012701172.html
A peace agreement that two years ago ended Africa's longest-running conflict -- and that the White House considers one of President Bush's signature achievements -- is in danger of unraveling because of inattention by top U.S. officials and growing tensions between Sudan's government and the former rebels who signed the deal . . .

Look, the problem with the early days of mismanagement in Iraq (the Paul Bremer days), wasn’t just that good decisions went bad. It was that they actively shunned, ignored, and/or punished anyone who told them differently

http://public.cq.com/docs/hs/hsnews110-000002438709.html

Incredible: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200401/fallows

He’s b-a-a-a-c-k (again)

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001907.php

INVOLUNTARY call-ups? (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070128/NEWS02/701280344/1009
Hundreds of thou sands of National Guard and Reserve members previously mobilized for tours in Iraq and Afghanistan are exposed anew to involuntary call-up under a policy change unveiled with President Bush's plan to "surge" forces into Baghdad.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he has rescinded a rule, set in 2002, that barred involuntary mobilization of reserve personnel beyond a "cumulative" 24-month ceiling for a wartime emergency. . .

The Bush gang’s newfound interest in global warming: but of course, the only “solutions” they are willing to consider ignore limiting energy usage or anything that involves controlling emissions. Instead. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_28.php#012159
The US response says the idea of interfering with sunlight should be included in the summary for policymakers . . .

Bush’s predictable approach to immigration: get tough with the workers, go easy on the businesses that hire them

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/28/AR2007012801172.html

Andrew Sullivan had a good line on the Chris Matthews show Sunday. He said, Bush and his war are pulling down McCain the same way they did Tony Blair: people who tried to do the right thing in sticking by Bush, and then were destroyed by it. I’m not sure McCain and Blair’s motives are quite so honorable, but there’s no doubt that everything “Arbusto” touches turns to crap

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/28/20562/4831
[Rasmussen] McCain is now viewed favorably by just 52% of American voters. That's down from 56% earlier this month and from 59% in December. His vocal advocacy of increased troop strength in Iraq may be having a negative impact on his popularity. Just one-third of voters (34%) share McCain's view . . .

http://www.famoustexans.com/georgewbush.htm
George W. Bush . . . started his own oil and gas company by 1978, taking $17,000 from his education trust fund to set up Arbusto Energy (arbusto means Bush in Spanish). The company fell on hard times when oil prices fell. He made several attempts to revive the business, first by changing the company's name and later by merging with other companies. In 1983, Bush’s company was rescued from failure when Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation bought it. . . Bush became chief executive officer. Harken Energy Corporation acquired Spectrum 7 in 1986, after Spectrum had lost $400,000. . . Bush became a director and was hired as a "consultant" to Harken. . . . By the spring of 1987, Harken was in need of cash. . .

Dick Cheney: the arrogance of power

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/01/28/cheney/index.html
[Tim Grieve] Dick Cheney on criticism from Brent Scowcroft and others with whom he's worked before: "Well, I'm vice president and they're not."

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_28.php#012162
[Laura Rozen] When I inquired about a staffer’s rumored move to the Veep’s office, a Cheney press officer answered sweetly, “If we have a personnel announcement we’d like you to know about, we’ll tell you.” . . [read on]

Joe Lieberman, once honored with the Vice Presidency of his party, continues his long, slow journey of betrayal (it’s just a matter of time)

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/01/28/lieberman-says-hell-consider-voting-republican-in-08/

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_28.php#012157

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_28_atrios_archive.html#117003516308679940
[Atrios] [I]f Joe doesn't have a prime time spot at the RNC in '08 I'll be shocked.

Remember “Cully” Stimson, the Bush Defense Dept official who suggested that law firms who offered legal advice to Guantanamo prisoners should be boycotted? Looks like he may be needing a good lawyer himself

http://www.kget.com/news/state/story.aspx?content_id=d208c6fa-f209-4a9d-beac-f31a53fe84b4

Did John Ashcroft recuse himself from the Plame investigation back in 2003 because he didn’t want to be the one granting Ari Fleischer immunity? And what does Fleischer have to disclose that justifies his cushy deal?

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3761

More like this please: a study of the right-wing smear machine

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/us/politics/29media.html
Jeffrey T. Kuhner, whose Web site published the first anonymous smear of the 2008 presidential race, is hardly the only editor who will not reveal his reporters’ sources. What sets him apart is that he will not even disclose the names of his reporters.

But their anonymity has not stopped them from making an impact. In the last two weeks, Mr. Kuhner’s Web site, Insight, the last remnant of a defunct conservative print magazine owned by the Unification Church led by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, was able to set off a wave of television commentary, talk-radio chatter, official denials, investigations by journalists around the globe and news media self-analysis that has lasted 11 days and counting. . . .

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_28.php#012161
[Josh Marshall] Wonderful little line at the end of Dave Kirkpatrick's piece on the man behind the Obama-Madrassa smear ...

After Insight posted the article on Jan. 17, Mr. Kuhner said, he was disappointed to see that the Drudge Report did not link to it on its Web site as it has done with other Insight articles. So, as usual, he e-mailed the article to producers at Fox News and MSNBC.

Negged by Drudge, so forced to peddle it to Fox and MSNBC.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010639.php
[Kevin Drum] And that was that. Your media machine at work. . .

Bonus item: Jon Stewart on Glenn Beck

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/jon-stewart-on-cnn-host-and-abc.html
“Finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking"

***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 @ 6:04 AM

 
I’VE FALLEN AND I CAN’T GET UP

Bush support continues to plummet

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16840614/site/newsweek
[T]he state of the Bush administration is at its worst yet, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll. The president’s approval ratings are at their lowest point in the poll’s history—30 percent—and more than half the country (58 percent) say they wish the Bush presidency were simply over. . .

With Bush widely viewed as an ineffectual “lame duck” (by 71 percent of all Americans), over half (53 percent) of the poll's respondents now say they believe history will see him as a below-average president, up three points from last May. The first time this question was asked, in October 2003, as many people thought Bush would go down in history as an above average president as thought we would be regarded as below average (29 to 26 percent). Only 22 percent of those polled think Bush's decisions about Iraq and other major policy are influenced mainly by the facts; 67 percent say the president's decisions are influenced more by his personal beliefs. This perhaps explains why only about half (49 percent) of adult Americans even bothered to watch or listen to any of the State of the Union speech as it happened. . . Overall, 61 percent are unsatisfied with the way things are going in America; just 30 percent are satisfied.

Dubya’s Daddy has a problem with those who have “personal animosity” toward his son. (Well then he has a lot of people to deal with)

http://dubyasdaddy.notlong.com

Dick Cheney? Oh yeah, we love him too

http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com/2007/01/maureen-dowd-daffy-does-doom.html
[Maureen Dowd] Has anyone in the history of the United States ever been so singularly wrong and misguided about such phenomenally important events and continued to insist he’s right in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

How Bush has tried to make “Commander in Chief” synonymous with “President”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_21.php#012146
[Garry Wills] When Abraham Lincoln took actions based on military considerations, he gave himself the proper title, “commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” That title is rarely — more like never — heard today. It is just “commander in chief,” or even “commander in chief of the United States.” This reflects the increasing militarization of our politics. The citizenry at large is now thought of as under military discipline. . . . [read on]

More: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/public-servant-v-military-commander.html

It certainly looks as if the Bush gang is laying the groundwork for an attack on Iran (though of course they would talk this way anyhow, even if they had no intention)

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005543.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_28.php#012152

Will the next phase of excuses and “last chances” in Iraq – after the surge fails – involve dumping Maliki and finding a new “partner”?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/25/213431/294

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005545.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005544.html

US corporations scrambling to build facilities in Iraq (well, scrambling for first in line, anyway – can you imagine anyone building a hot dog stand in the present climate, where anything US-related is sure to be bombed?)

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/states/california/16560149.htm

Images and accounts from the DC anti-war rally

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/some-photos-and-video-from-anti-iraq.html

http://mydd.com/story/2007/1/27/18741/4449

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/28/61743/6126

Myths about Viet Nam

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/27/194054/550

We can’t afford someone with such a distorted sense of judgment anywhere near national office, can we?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9755.html
[Steve Benen] [T]o hear [Rudy] Giuliani tell it, Bush is Lincoln, and the war in Iraq is the U.S. civil war. Giuliani did not appear to be kidding.

For good measure, Giuliani also said we could balance the budget by embracing the “budget discipline” of “the Reagan years,” which tells us a bit about Giuliani’s understanding of recent history.

Remember when Giuliani considered himself a serious person?

Arianna goes womano a mano with McCain

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/davos-notes-john-mccain-_b_39788.html

Pushing back: the Republicanists try to rally their demoralized troops

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/us/politics/27repubs.html

Jeb to the rescue? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/27/AR2007012701171.html

I’m sticking with “Republicanist,” but “Anti-Democratic” works too

http://www.correntewire.com/dont_say_republican_say_anti_democratic

Ari Fleischer, next on deck for the Libby trial

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_21.php#012145
[Seth Stevenson] It turns out Ari Fleischer will be the next witness, once court resumes Monday. (Damn, just missed him!) The defense team wants to note—for the jury's benefit—that Fleischer demanded immunity before he would agree to testify, because this might cast Fleischer's testimony in a different light.

And here Fitzgerald makes a nice little chess move: Fine, he says, we can acknowledge that Fleischer sought immunity. As long as we explain why. Turns out Fleischer saw a story in the Washington Post suggesting that anyone who revealed Valerie Plame's identity might be subject to the death penalty. And he freaked.

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3760
[Swopa] Very amusing stuff. Except for one thing — I don't think it's true. . . [read on]

More sneak previews: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/28/31158/8075

What we don’t know (yet)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_21.php#012149
[Josh Marshall] The truth, though, is that we are not really examining the cover-up in this case so much as we are still living within it. Most of the key facts of this episode either remain entirely concealed or buried under a mass of government produced misinformation. The Senate intelligence committee report, authored by Republicans, but shamelessly and with great cowardice okayed by senate Democrats? I've been asked many times why the Democrats signed off on this fraudulent document. I think there are two basic reasons -- or two categories of reasons.

First, as hard as it is to say, shallow and poor staff work on the Democratic side, abetted, caused and hopelessly bound up with senators unwilling to get their noses dirty or their ribs bruised. Second, there was a more specific and complex error. In so many words, the Democrats agreed to let the Republican authors of the report lie and deceive as much as they wanted on the Niger/Uranium and Wilson/Plame fronts in exchange for allowing a semi-revealing look at other instances of flawed Iraq intelligence. For the minority party to bargain for lies in some areas and portions of the truth in others is a tactic with rather inherent drawbacks. But in this case it displayed a telling obliviousness to the political context of that moment.

In this case, the senate Republicans (and the White House officials who were directing their actions) knew what they were doing; the Democrats didn't . . .

And what about the law enforcement investigation of the Niger forgeries themselves. Here too the White House has taken effective steps to prevent any real investigation. I've written at length before about the joke which has been the FBI's investigation of the Niger matter. But roughly a year ago, a colleague and I sat down with two federal law enforcement officials with detailed knowledge of the bureau's investigation of the Niger matter. The trail, of course, led to Italy. So any progress is getting to the bottom of the matter would require the Italians to cooperate with US law enforcement to get to the bottom of what hapened. Only the Italians didn't want to cooperate. That's not altogether surprising given that Italy's lead intelligence agency was implicated in the fraud. But to get action, the FBI needed the US government to make clear to the Italian government that we desired their cooperation. But the Bush administration simply refused to do this. They had a tacit understanding with the Italian government to stonewall the investigation.

The catalog of official lies in this matter goes on and on.

Lawless

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/benchconference/2007/01/the_never_mind_pattern.html
[Andrew Cohen] [T]he government now is asking the federal courts to throw out a challenge to the NSA spy program because, the feds say, the program now is being supervised by the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Court and thus is no longer the program that the American Civil Liberties Union had challenged. Moreover, the White House now argues, it didn't voluntarily change the nature of the spy program by asking the FISA court to get involved and evaluate surveillance requests, the court unilaterally did so. This is legally significant because of a legal doctrine called "voluntary cessation" which allows plaintiffs to continue their court cases against the government if the government simply (and perhaps temporarily) halts the challenged action as a result of the lawsuit.

Of course, we don't really know how the whole change in the program came about because, as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told legislators last week, he wasn't sure he could share those details with Congress (never mind the ACLU). Same as it ever was. Knowing that the program was constitutionally suspect, and knowing that a Democratic Congress was closing in, the feds ducked and now are covering. The courts should keep the NSA challenge alive and determine the constitionality of the program, then and now. We deserve more answers than we have so far received.

More Peretz-bashing

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116993650952991848

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010635.php

Theocrat pushes porn

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9749.html
“Because it is so explicit, I could not even include a description of it here,” hyperventilated Wildmon. “I hope you will simply trust me. However, if you want to read our review of the scene, or to see the video of the scene, click here. . .”

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainment/16555959.htm
ABC's "This Week" - Sens. Joe Biden, D-Del., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind.; Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.; actor Kevin Bacon.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Sens. Jim Webb, D-Va., Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and David Vitter, R-La.; former presidential speechwriter Michael Gerson; Kenneth Pollack, a Brookings Institution analyst.

CNN's "Late Edition" - Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.; former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele; Democratic strategist Donna Brazile.

"Fox News Sunday" - Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.; Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation.

***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 @ 6:59 AM

 
ONE TRICK PONIES

Plus ca change. So, we’re charting a new course in Iraq, a fresh start, and a plan that will succeed where all the others have failed. (Uh-huh.) But if it’s all so new, why do we still hear from the President that “he’s the decision maker,” still hear from the VP that things are basically going well in Iraq and the press is only focusing on the bad news, and still hear from the Sect’y of Defense that questioning war policies gives aid and comfort to the enemy? It all seems so . . . familiar

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_21.php#012137
[Josh Marshall] What the White House is saying is that the United States senate can't do anything does not express full support for President Bush -- even something that only expresses sentiment -- without aiding the enemy. The very exercise of the senate's constitutional authority aides the terrorists.

Having this resolution passed really does worry the White House -- even if it is merely a non-binding, sense-of-the-senate resolution -- because their whole model of political control is based cowing the political opposition. That is the key. Once that spell's broken, for them it's the abyss.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_21.php#012133
[AC] President Bush has never been very strong on the stuff most of us learned in 7th grade civics--namely, that there are three branches of government that share power. Of course, part of that is because he's always had a rubber-stamp congress. His comment that "I'm the decider" on Iraq shows that view remains. No surprise there. But now there's a congress with a mandate to oppose him. If I were Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi, I'd take that as a sign that I have to show SOME sign -- any sign -- that I have the power to say no. Bush is showing he really doesn't think Dems will take any action -- in fact, he's basically daring them to rein him in, even though that's exactly what Americans charged them with doing last November. And you know what the saddest part is? He's probably right. The congressional dems probably won't do anything other than pass non-binding resolutions, which he'll shrug off as meaningless suggestions from folks who don't have any real power, anyway. And sadly, he's kind of right. If you never exercise your power, isn't that the same as being powerless?

The whole show is quite pathetic, don't you think?

What should the Democrats do?

http://politicalinsider.com/2007/01/wouldcouldshould.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/world/middleeast/27cong.html

Just think about it: U.S. uniforms and equipment

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003538279
Contrary to U.S. military statements, four U.S. soldiers did not die repelling a sneak attack at the governor's office in the Shiite holy city of Karbala last week. New information obtained by The Associated Press shows they were abducted and found dead or dying as far as 25 miles away. . . .

The new information has emerged after nearly a week of inquiries. The U.S. military in Baghdad repeatedly declined comment on reports that began emerging from Iraqi government and military officials which suggested a major breakdown in security at Karbala site. . .

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070126/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_sneak_attack
In perhaps the boldest and most sophisticated attack in four years of warfare, gunmen speaking English, wearing U.S. military uniforms and carrying American weapons abducted four U.S. soldiers last week at the provincial headquarters in the Shiite holy city of Karbala and then shot them to death. . . . The attackers traveled in black GMC Suburban vehicles (the type used by U.S. government convoys), had American weapons, wore new U.S. military combat fatigues, and spoke English, according to two senior U.S. military officials as well as Iraqi officials.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jan/26/a_growing_military_credibility_gap
[Larry Johnson] At the very moment we are surging troops into Baghdad, who will be scattered in small outposts throughout the city and will have to rely on Iraqi soldiers to protect them, we learn belatedly that someone in Iraq is dressing up in US military uniforms, carrying US weapons, and speaking English like a gringo. You know what this means? U.S. soldiers who were already skeptical about the trustworthiness of their Iraqi counterparts will now also have to question whether the U.S. soldier coming towards them is really a U.S. soldier.

The planning evident in this operation is sophisticated and points clearly to the uncomfortable fact that someone within the Iraqi military, who was knowledgeable about the meeting, tipped off the bad guys. It could have been Iranians retaliating for the earlier U.S. attacks on Iranian diplomats inside Iraq or maybe it was someone with a militia group with a grudge to settle. Regardless, it is bad news all around.

Equally disturbing is the fact that someone in the U.S. military chain of command lied about what happened and put out false information to the press and the American people. It is one thing to lie in order to preserve operational security. It is another thing to lie simply to cover your ass so you do not look like a complete fool. Unfortunately, when the lie is uncovered the charge of being a "fool" is the least of the blowback. An incident like this also raises an important question, "Can the military be trusted to tell the truth?" If the American people begin to doubt they are getting the straight information about the situation on the ground in Iraq, the ebbing public support could turn into a complete rout.

General Petraeus makes his first really, really bad decision

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/26/AR2007012601494.html
Army Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new top U.S. commander in Iraq, told Congress that he might supplement efforts to secure Baghdad using the Iraqi Facilities Protection Service, a 150,000-man force that guards Iraqi government agencies. . .

But that service is widely considered unreliable, and elements were described in July by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as "more dangerous than the militias," according to Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.). . . . "The prime minister said he wanted to get rid of the FPS as fast as possible," Reed said this week, recalling his meeting with Maliki in Baghdad last summer. There are "bad elements" in FPS units that "are carrying out murders and kidnappings . . . [and] attacking the infrastructure that they are supposedly protecting," Reed said . . .

The FPS was formed in 2003 by order of L. Paul Bremer, then administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, to protect the 27 Iraqi ministries and their facilities throughout Iraq. Each minister, who generally represents one of Iraq's political parties, has his or her own FPS unit, whose armed members wear military uniforms.

The Iraq Study Group described FPS members as having "questionable loyalties and capabilities." It quoted an unnamed senior U.S. official as saying that they are "incompetent, dysfunctional and subversive," with some serving the manpower needs of sectarian party militias and death squads. . .

Changing tactics vs changing strategies: today’s must-read

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_21.php#012143
[David Kurtz] In following the political debate over the Iraq debacle, it helps to take a step back from time to time and to re-focus on Iraq from a strategic vantage point. Our President isn't able to do that, and for the most part neither is the media nor the Congress. As Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) has repeatedly pointed out, the President's surge is not a new strategy but a new tactic. . . .

When the political debate over Iraq is viewed at the strategic level, it becomes much clearer. Silly diversions are revealed for what they are, like the demands from the President and Vice President that opponents of the surge present their own tactical plans for "success" or the defense secretary's claim that the debate itself emboldens the "enemy." (Gates has candidly said that four wars are currently underway in Iraq, so which enemy is emboldened? All of them?)

The Democrats in Congress want to "send a message" with a resolution opposing the surge. That's fine, as far as it goes. But . . . the President has committed strategic errors of monumental proportions. Getting bogged down in a debate with the President over tactics, lets him off the hook for the most egregious of his sins, which are strategic, and makes it more difficult to chart a way out of this strategic disaster.

[General William E. Odom] Several critics of the administration show an appreciation of the requirement to regain our allies and others' support, but they do not recognize that withdrawal of US forces from Iraq is the sine qua non for achieving their cooperation. It will be forthcoming once that withdrawal begins and looks irreversible. They will then realize that they can no longer sit on the sidelines. The aftermath will be worse for them than for the United States, and they know that without US participation and leadership, they alone cannot restore regional stability. Until we understand this critical point, we cannot design a strategy that can achieve what we can legitimately call a victory.

Any new strategy that does realistically promise to achieve regional stability at a cost we can prudently bear, and does not regain the confidence and support of our allies, is doomed to failure. To date, I have seen no awareness that any political leader in this country has gone beyond tactical proposals to offer a different strategic approach to limiting the damage in a war that is turning out to be the greatest strategic disaster in our history.

On Bush’s threat to start killing Iranians

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/01/justified_incredibly_poor_poli/

Who stands where on the “surge”?

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/26/profiles-in-courage-2/
A top conservative Capitol Hill staffer tells Politico that more than 70 senators would oppose Bush’s escalation if their vote matched their comments in private meetings. “The White House is trying to but they really don’t know how to handle this,” the staffer said.

http://www.slate.com/id/2158444
[Joshua Kucera] Bush's strategy for pushing through his "surge" plan is to keep Republicans on board and to encourage a large number of resolutions to "muddy the waters" and blunt the impact from the rebuke by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which this week passed a resolution opposing a troop increase. "By keeping down the number of Republican defections, the administration hopes to make any vote appear highly partisan and to buy Bush's new plan more time," the Post says. . . .

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_21.php#012134

Yesterday, today

Yesterday: http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/today_on_holden_4.html
Q Do you expect Iraq will dominate the meeting tomorrow with the House Republicans?

MR. SNOW: I don't think so. In fact, I don't expect it at all. . . I think what House Republicans are looking for is they're going to want to talk about issues that came up in the State of the Union address . . .

Today: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2007/01/the_gop_flood_watch.html
Lawmakers said most of the questioning focused on Bush's proposed troop build up in Iraq . . .

The leading Republican in the Senate says. . . .

http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2007/01/mcconnell-skeptical-iraqi-government.html
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said he is "skeptical" about the Iraqi government but warned the recent U.S troop increase ordered by President Bush is the Iraqis' "last chance to step up and show they can be effective and can join with us to get this mission accomplished."

"This is it," he said. . . .

Blair “supports” Bush’s “surge,” but won’t commit more British troops to the meat grinder

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070126/ap_on_re_eu/world_forum_blair

Not only does the U.S. stand alone in Iraq – they can’t even get allies to help them in Afghanistan (you know, the “successful” war?)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/world/asia/26cnd-afghan.html

The Canadian govt shames the U.S.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_21.php#012132
[Paul Kiel] Publicly rebuking the United States, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will take the extraordinary step of publicly apologizing to Maher Arar today.

The U.S. government continues to insist it did nothing wrong.

More: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/tale-of-two-governments.html

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/gwb_the_beloved_leader_/2007/01/unsurprisingly_.php

George Bush as the Bad Dad

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116984978128988458

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_21.php#012136
[JB] [Y]ou must have noticed that Bush's very expansive claims of executive authority are being made by the first President in our history to delegate to his Vice President anything close to the authority over policy and personnel that he has ceded to Cheney. Back in 1980 the GOP Convention audience was kept amused by an effort to establish a "co-Presidency" with Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, who'd have been given extensive authority if elected. Reagan decided then that it was a stupid idea; he wasn't running to be half a President. And now we have a President weak enough to make the "co-Presidency" a reality.

A weak President claiming vast powers is, if not unique in our history surely unusual.

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html

Dick Cheney as Captain Queeg

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116977673809855125

The Goofus Files

http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/your_president__3.html
My instructions to the General is, get over to the zone as quickly as possible and implement a plan that we believe will yield our goals. . . .

Photo: http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/idiot_wind_blow.html



Fitzgerald’s immunity deal for Ari Fleischer: I hope he gets some good stuff out of it. (We’ll soon know)

http://www.examiner.com/a-530035%7EFitzgerald_Reveals_Gamble_in_CIA_Leak_Ca.html

Here it comes: subpoenas for Rove and Bartlett

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16832257/site/newsweek/
White House anxiety is mounting over the prospect that top officials—including deputy chief of staff Karl Rove and counselor Dan Bartlett-may be forced to provide potentially awkward testimony in the perjury and obstruction trial of Lewis (Scooter) Libby. . .

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/26/234211/941

NINE U.S. attorneys replaced with Bush hacks

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/16555903.htm

And now, from the so-called “liberal” New Republic

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2591.html
[Martin Peretz, New Republic] I actually believe that Arabs are feigning outrage when they protest what they call American (or Israeli) "atrocities." They are not shocked at all by what in truth must seem to them not atrocious at all. It is routine in their cultures. That comparison shouldn't comfort us as Americans. We have higher standards of civilization than they do. But the mutilation of bodies and beheadings of people picked up at random in Iraq does not scandalize the people of Iraq unless victims are believers in their own sect or members of their own clan. And the truth is that we are less and less shocked by the mass death-happenings in the world of Islam. Yes, that's the bitter truth. Frankly, even I--cynic that I am--was shocked in the beginning by the sectarian bloodshed in Iraq. But I am no longer surprised. And neither are you.

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/meaning-of-marty-peretz.html
I've written once before, several months ago, about the unbelievably overt anti-Arab/anti-Muslim bigotry that spews forth regularly from The New Republic Editor Marty Peretz . . . [read on]

Does ABC really want to be associated with the likes of the Washington Times and Fox News? (Yes, apparently so)

http://mediamatters.org/items/200701250006

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jan/26/fox_to_air_controversial_scene_from_path_to_911

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/president-clinton-contacting-head-of.html

John McCain, more and more, just another GOP weasel

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9746.html
[Steve Benen] I can appreciate that presidential campaigns have to come up with new and different ways to beg donors for money, but John McCain’s “Presidential Agenda Survey” is a pretty dumb stunt.

Under the name of McCain’s campaign manager, Terry Nelson, possible donors received an email with the following message:

“I am writing you, a core McCain supporter, to ask for your personal assistance. Senator McCain has tasked me to complete a major project, and I need your help to do so today.

I am asking you to take a moment to visit our exploratory committee web site and complete the Presidential Agenda Survey…. I know that you have very valuable opinions about all of the important issues facing our country, and I urge you to share them with us. . . .”

Recipients are encouraged to go to this website, where they can take a poll that, according to McCain’s campaign manager, will help the senator “build an agenda” of his own. Indeed, on the site itself, Team McCain says the unscientific poll results will have a “profound impact” on McCain’s agenda.

Now, it’s fairly obvious this is just a cheap stunt. The poll is irrelevant; the point is to get people to the “Presidential Agenda Survey” website, where the McCain team can hit them up for a “generous contribution.” In fact, you can’t even share your “very valuable opinions” with McCain and his campaign team until after you’ve given them cash. That’s right — no donation, means no survey. . .

I like this: as long as Repubs call it the “Democrat Party,” we call them the “Republicanist Party”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/25/171413/165

Bonus item: “Impeach at the Beach”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/27/03922/7320

Extra bonus: Clearly, Barack Hussein Osama – oops, Obama – needs some repackaging. Here are some tips (thanks to A.G. for the link)

http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2007/01/barack_to_the_d.html

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:35 AM

 
FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION

Here’s Bush’s new “war plan,” in all its subtlety

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/25/politics/main2397489.shtml
[Nancy Pelosi, D-CA] "He's tried this two times — it's failed twice," the California Democrat said. "I asked him at the White House, 'Mr. President, why do you think this time it's going to work?' And he said, 'Because I told them it had to.' " . . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/its-even-better-than-kos-reports.html
[John Aravosis] Oh, it's better than that. When I was on the Hill on Tuesday, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) told us (on the record) the rest of the story. Apparently, Pelosi's final come-back to the president was the following:

PELOSI: He's tried this two times — it's failed twice. I asked him at the White House, 'Mr. President, why do you think this time it's going to work?'

BUSH: Because I told them it had to.

PELOSI: Why didn't you tell them that the other two times?

More on Bush’s “bipartisanship”

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/25/politics/main2397489.shtml
In Bush's speech on Iraq more than two weeks ago, he said he had "consulted members of Congress from both parties," as well as overseas allies and distinguished outside experts. And the president and his top aides had a swirl of meetings with lawmakers from both parties. But Pelosi said she was not satisfied, particularly recalling a White House meeting the afternoon of the speech.

"He brought us in to tell us what he was going to say in a matter of hours," she said. "It wasn't a consultation — it was a notification. And a late-minute one at that." . . . .

Yesterday we ran Bush’s phony baloney call for Dems to join him in a partnership in the war against terror. The Dems, rightly, have said “no thank you” to this trap. Bob Novak finds this (excuse me while I laugh). . . . “rude”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9730.html
[Steve Benen] Reid and Pelosi responded to the president, in writing, explaining that they “welcome [his] expression of a willingness to work more cooperatively with Congress,” but respectfully added that “Congress already has bipartisan structures in place, like the committee system and other Congressional working groups such as the Senate’s National Security Working Group.” . . . .[read on]

Senate Republicans are looking for a place to hide on Bush’s troop escalation

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/senate-republicans-are-melting-down.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/senator-voinovich-r-oh-is-latest.html

The Pledge

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/our-supreme-general-has-spoken.html
[Glenn Greenwald] There is nothing like a feeling of besiegement and desperation to make a political movement -- one that knows it is in its "last throes" -- show its true colors. The Supreme General-Commander has now decreed that any opposition to the "surge" helps The Enemy. Therefore, according to Bush followers -- beginning with the Vice President and moving down -- it is now the solemn duty of every patriotic American, especially those in Congress, to refrain from voicing any objections to the decision made by the Leader and the General. We must merely ask ourselves only one question: how can we lend the greatest support possible to our Leader's glorious plans? Everything else should be cleared away quietly and peacefully from our minds.

As usual, Bill Kristol was ahead of the authoritarian curve, last week proclaiming that war critics are "so irresponsible that they can’t be quiet for six or nine months." Yesterday, Party loyalist Hugh Hewitt unveiled what he and his comrades are calling "The Pledge" -- a creepy, Soviet-sounding declaration of loyalty, all based on Gen. Petraeus' decree, that vows to repudiate any Republican who opposes the "surge," and even refuses to donate to the NRCC unless they agree "in writing" that none of the contributions will go to any "surge" opponents. . . .

Dick Durbin (D-IL): Cheney is “delusional”

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/16544658.htm

Meanwhile, Tony (Baghdad Bob) Snow is somewhere south of delusional

http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/today_on_holden_4.html
Q Do you have a comment on the resolution that got passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday?

MR. SNOW: No real surprises. Senator Hagel was the only Republican to vote for it. He was a co-sponsor, however, so you expect him to sign on to his own resolution. . .

Q Republicans on the panel were critical of the plan, like Voinovich and Lugar. Are you worried about the party splitting over Iraq?

MR. SNOW: No. What we want to do is, again, let members of the party -- and we know they will -- take a look at what happens as we proceed with the way forward. . . .

Q Do you expect Iraq will dominate the meeting tomorrow with the House Republicans?

MR. SNOW: I don't think so. In fact, I don't expect it at all. . . I think what House Republicans are looking for is they're going to want to talk about issues that came up in the State of the Union address . . .

Q How aggressively is the White House lobbying members, particularly Republicans, on the resolutions?

MR. SNOW: Not particularly. We're talking with them . . .

John McCain drank the Kool-Aid too

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/01/post_17.php

Oh, yeah, THIS is working

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/world/middleeast/26iraq.html
Iraq’s Shiite prime minister and Sunni lawmakers hurled insults at one another during a raucous session of Parliament on Thursday, with the prime minister threatening a Sunni lawmaker with arrest and the Sunni speaker of Parliament threatening to quit. . . .The uproar revolved around the new Baghdad security plan, but it came as the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, is under increasing pressure to demonstrate evenhandedness. President Bush’s new strategy for Iraq hinges in large measure on the Iraqi government’s ability to rein in both Shiite and Sunni militants. . .

Why wouldn’t CBS run this story?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_21_atrios_archive.html#116975547922777399

More: http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16537080.htm
For the second time in two weeks, on Wednesday, U.S. and Iraqi forces backed by helicopter gunships and mortar fire stormed the central Baghdad neighborhood astride Haifa Street in an effort to uproot suspected Sunni Muslim insurgents.

Army Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a spokesman for the multi-national forces in Baghdad, said the objectives were to clear the area of insurgents, recover weapons caches and restore order. "We're optimistic that in short order we're going to be able to turn full control over to the Iraqis," he said.

However, the use of Apache helicopters and mortars so soon after a similar assault on the same neighborhood Jan. 9 suggested that uprooting armed groups in Baghdad won't be easy . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010624.php
[NYT] As the sun rose, many of the Iraqi Army units who were supposed to do the actual searches of the buildings did not arrive on time, forcing the Americans to start the job on their own. When the Iraqi units finally did show up, it was with the air of a class outing, cheering and laughing as the Americans blew locks off doors with shotguns. . .

Many of the Iraqi units that showed up late never seemed to take the task seriously, searching haphazardly, breaking dishes and rifling through personal CD collections in the apartments. Eventually the Americans realized that the Iraqis were searching no more than half of the apartments; at one point the Iraqis completely disappeared, leaving the American unit working with them flabbergasted.

"Where did they go?" yelled Sgt. Jeri A. Gillett. Another soldier suggested, "I say we just let them go and we do this ourselves." . . .

Provoking Iran

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/25/AR2007012502199.html
The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran's influence across the Middle East . . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2158382/fr/rss/
[Daniel Politi] There are several interesting tidbits throughout the story, but the Post's Dafna Linzer leaves one of the best ones for the end. Two administration officials separately compared the Iranian government to the Nazis and Iran's Revolutionary Guard to the "SS." In addition, the officials talked about Guard members using the term "terrorists," which could make them targets in the "war on terror."

Echoes

http://sideshow.me.uk/sjan07.htm#01261138
[Avedon Carol] Right now we're hearing the same reasons to stay in Iraq that we used to hear about Vietnam when we'd already been in there for twenty years. We didn't stay in long enough for them then, and there's no reason to think that two decades will be long enough for them this time, either.

You don’t think the Army is desperate for recruits?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/new-army-commercial-urges-kids-to.html

Rumsfeld, resigned as Defense Sect’y but still hanging around. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9731.html
[Washington Times] On Jan. 4, Mr. Rumsfeld opened a government-provided transition office in Arlington and has seven Pentagon-paid staffers working for him, a Pentagon official said.

The Pentagon lists Mr. Rumsfeld as a “nonpaid consultant,” a status he needs in order to review secret and top-secret documents, the official said.

Mr. Rumsfeld and his aides, who include close adviser Stephen Cambone, are sifting through the thousands of pages of documents generated during his tenure.

The Pentagon official said former secretaries are entitled to a transition office to sort papers, some of which can be taken with them for a library, for archives or to write a book. . .

[Benen: Rumsfeld’s predecessors, William Cohen and William Perry, “both returned to private life immediately after leaving the Defense Department. Cohen had ‘two military personnel…sort through his papers for about six weeks,’ while Perry had his papers mailed via compact disk to Stanford University.”]

. . . Apparently, even Pentagon officials are surprised at Rumsfeld’s inability to walk away.

The transition office has raised some eyebrows inside the Pentagon. Some question the size of the staff, which includes two military officers and two enlisted men. They also ask why the sorting could not have been done from the time Mr. Rumsfeld resigned Nov. 8 to when he left the building Dec. 18. . . .

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005526.html
[Laura Rozen] Hopefully the operation does not involve a shredder. . .

Another nail in Libby’s coffin

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/washington/25cnd-libby.html
Cathie Martin, Mr. Cheney’s former spokeswoman, testified that she has a clear memory of telling both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby that a prominent war critic’s wife worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, days before he contends he first learned that from a reporter. Ms. Martin was the fourth witness for the prosecution in the trial of Mr. Libby, who is charged with lying during an investigation of who leaked the name of the C.I.A. operative, Valerie Wilson. Unlike the previous three witnesses who worked at the C.I.A. and State Department, Ms. Martin’s testimony may prove especially damaging to Mr. Libby because of her perspective as a former insider in the vice president’s office, and as a former colleague of Mr. Libby, to whom she repeatedly referred as “Scooter,” his nickname. . . .

Ms. Martin’s testimony raised difficulties for Mr. Libby’s defense in two respects. She bolstered the prosecution’s assertion that Mr. Libby was made aware of Ms. Wilson’s identity from a number of administration officials. He denied passing her name to two reporters, but those reporters have told a grand jury otherwise.

She also described an incident in which his behavior appeared less than noble. She recounted a senior staff meeting at the White House in which Stephen J. Hadley, the deputy national security adviser, expressed anger after receiving a query from Andrea Mitchell of NBC. Ms. Mitchell had heard that the White House was blaming the C.I.A. for causing the president to inaccurately say in his most recent State of the Union Address that the British government had confirmed Iraq’s efforts to buy uranium in Africa.

Ms. Martin made it clear earlier today that it was Mr. Libby who had gone out of his way to take on the task of speaking to Ms. Mitchell about that issue.

But at the July 2003 meeting in the White House, she said that Mr. Hadley made a point of turning around and looking directly at her as if to signify he knew she was Ms. Mitchell’s source.

Were you in fact the source? she was asked by Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor. No, she said. What was Mr. Libby doing when Mr. Hadley was all but accusing her?

“He was looking down at the floor,” she said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/25/AR2007012500171.html
Vice President Cheney personally orchestrated his office's 2003 efforts to rebut allegations that the administration used flawed intelligence to justify the war in Iraq and discredit a critic who Cheney believed was making him look foolish, according to testimony and evidence yesterday in the criminal trial of his former chief of staff. . .

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005528.html
[Laura Rozen] Marcy Wheeler's account of former Cheney press aide Cathie Martin testifying at the Libby trial today as a prosecution witness -- strikes me as pretty devastating. Not for Libby, but for revealing so starkly just how this greater White House works, how it uses the press, and strategizes on using the press, etc. "Oped" means not an oped written by a figure from the administration or their staff -- but getting one of their surrogates or columnists to channel their point of view. But it also reveals a kind of well trod working relationship with other key journalists and outlets . . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/25/AR2007012501951.html
[Dana Milbank] Memo to Tim Russert: Dick Cheney thinks he controls you.

This delicious morsel about the "Meet the Press" host and the vice president was part of the extensive dish Cathie Martin served up yesterday . . .

More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070125/pl_nm/usa_crime_libby_dc_2

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2586.html

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/25/211954/041

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/26/3207/68938

Now that Pat Roberts (R-KS) is no longer in charge to take orders from Dick Cheney, will the Senate Intel Committee EVER get around to issuing its report on prewar intelligence lies?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010628.php

Hello? Hello? Is anybody noticing that the basic practice of our democracy is being gradually eroded?

http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/ohio_election_o.html
[Holden, on Ohio] Two election workers were convicted Wednesday of rigging a recount of the 2004 presidential election to avoid a more thorough review in Ohio's most populous county. . .

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/01/undervotes_in_the_recent_election.html
[Michael Froomkin, on Florida] Looks like I wasn’t the only person to notice the weirdly high rate of undervotes in the special election. But could you imagine a more belittling treatment than this story in the Herald today? . . . [T]here’s good reason to worry that something funny is going on with our voting machines, as can be seen from this passage in one the Herald’s own blogs . . .

The Republicans put forward a purely symbolic bill to eliminate the minimum wage. Here’s who voted for it

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/01/pop_quiz.html
[NB: Yep, you saw Saint John’s name on there. Be sure to ask him about this in 2008]

http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/2007/01/kennedy-to-republicans-what-is-it-about.html
Kennedy to Republicans: "What is it about working men and women that you find so offensive?" . . .

Bye-bye Mitt: we barely had a chance to get to know ya

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jan/24/romney_gave_three_contributions_to_democrats
GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney — who has struggled recently to convince conservatives that he is a reliable ally and is deeply committed to their issues — gave three political donations in 1992 to Democrats . . . .

The Goofus Files

http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/your_president__2.html

Fox News: Insufferable when their people were running the country – but now that almost everyone and everything they stand for has been discredited, they are becoming even worse

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9725.html

Bonus item: The best critique of Bush’s State of the Union you will see

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/01/opportunity_costs/

***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 @ 6:38 AM

 
WE’RE (NOT) ALL IN THIS TOGETHER

Now that Bush’s pet war is on the brink of collapse, he suddenly wants to share responsibility (and blame) for it. Do not fall for this, Democrats

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/23/2007-sotu/
[Bush] The war on terror we fight today is a generational struggle that will continue long after you and I have turned our duties over to others. That is why it is important to work together so our Nation can see this great effort through. Both parties and both branches should work in close consultation. And this is why I propose to establish a special advisory council on the war on terror, made up of leaders in Congress from both political parties. We will share ideas for how to position America to meet every challenge that confronts us. And we will show our enemies abroad that we are united in the goal of victory.

[NB: AT NO POINT has Bush ever expressed the slightest interest in developing a consensus or truly bipartisan approach. Up until the present prospect of failure, he has insisted on his sole historic responsibility for this war — he has ignored any and all calls for modifying or redirecting his policies — and he has hammered anyone who has questioned him as disloyal, or even treasonous. Nor does he have any real intention of becoming more conciliatory now. (It’s not in his nature.) Hang this miserable failure around his neck, where he always wanted it, and chart a different, independent course. In the end, he’s going to do what he wants to do anyway]

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_21_atrios_archive.html#116966640990490236

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/24/125529/211

It's infuriating when Bush and his sock puppets accuse anyone who questions their war plans of treason. Pretty hard to stomach, right? How much worse is it when a supposed “Democrat” does it to his fellows?

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/toxicity-of-joe-liebermans-treason.html
[Glenn Greenwald] Joe Lieberman has probably become the single most poisonous Beltway voice when it comes to the war in Iraq. The Bush administration's principal rhetorical tactic for the last five years, of course, has been to equate opposition to its policies and criticism of the Leader with love of the Terrorists. But when it comes to the debate over Iraq, Lieberman -- time and again -- has managed to descend even further into the rhetorical sewer than the administration itself.

Lieberman, of course, spent several years warning Americans not to criticize their Leader with regard to the War. Just two weeks ago, Lieberman went on Meet the Press and prompted an angry outburst from Chuck Hagel after Lieberman sat there smugly accusing Hagel and anyone else who opposes the Glorious Surge of wanting the U.S. to lose in Iraq. In the same appearance, Lieberman also looked straight into the camera and said that the U.S. was "attacked on 9/11 by the same enemy that we’re fighting in Iraq today" -- a claim so transparently false that even the President long ago abandoned it.

But yesterday, Lieberman reached what might be a new low. During the confirmation hearings of Gen. David Petraeus, Lieberman provoked this truly reprehensible exchange with Gen. Petraeus, as summarized by The Washington Post's Thomas Ricks:

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) asked Army Lt. Gen. David H . Petraeus during his confirmation hearing yesterday if Senate resolutions condemning White House Iraq policy "would give the enemy some comfort."

Petraeus agreed they would, saying, "That's correct, sir." . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9718.html
[Chuck Hagel, R-NE] “Stop the impugning of people’s motives,” Hagel added. “Stop the political stuff — all of us. All of us. This is much bigger than that. And if we’re not adult enough to understand that, we will loose the confidence of the American public. That’s what’s happened right now.”

Bush can’t even get REPUBLICANS to share responsibility with him for this fiasco

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002402.php
[Chuck Hagel, R-NE] I don't think we've ever had a coherent strategy. In fact, I would even challenge the administration today to show us the plan that the president talked about the other night. There is no plan. I happen to know that Pentagon planners were on their way to Central Com over the weekend -- they haven't even Team B'ed this plan.... There is no strategy. This is a ping-pong game with American lives.... We'd better be damned sure what we're doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more lives into that grinder.... and I want every one of you, every one of us, 100 senators to look in that camera, and you tell your people back home what you think. Don't hide any more, none of us.". . . [read on]

Two anti-escalation bills move forward out of Senate committees: if they can reconcile them, a stack of Republicans will support it – and that will become the Big Story

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-warvote25jan25,1,538419.story

House Republican leader John Boehner says the “surge” has 2-3 months to succeed

http://boehnersurge.notlong.com

Ayad Allawi thinks the “surge” is really all about pressuring Iran (thanks to Josh Marshall for the link)

http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2007/01/allawi_on_plus_.html

Bush’s ridiculously cynical call for earmark reform (which he never mentioned when the Republicans were in the majority and were benefiting from them)

http://sideshow.me.uk/sjan07.htm#01241920
[Avedon Carol] The best laugh line in Bush's speech was probably the one where he says that something must be done about the evil of earmarks. If he had said it a few years ago - maybe even a year ago - you might have thought, "Wow, he's actually saying something true about something that should be stopped - something the Republicans have been doing that has been incredibly wasteful and destructive!" But he didn't say it four years ago, or two years ago, or even two months ago; he said it after the new Democratic Congress had just passed new laws to stop it. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/24/74721/2043
[Steve Benen] On the substance of the comment, Bush’s complaint about earmarks was merely hypocritical. As TP noted, Bush has “engaged in his own earmarking, using the federal budget process to ‘reward political supporters, campaign contributors and sometimes members of Congress’ for votes on a presidential priority. Unlike with appropriations bills, you have no way to know whether an executive earmark ‘comes from some agency’s discretionary fund, and they decide to put it in some key district or state’ for political gain.” In other words, it’s not as if the president has the moral high ground here.

But there’s something else. The president was decrying these extra-legal provisions — which sound an awful lot like his signing statements. Lawmakers don’t “vote them into law”; Bush doesn’t “sign them into law”; and yet “they’re treated as if they have the force of law.”

Avedon also calls our attention to this must-read decoding of the little hidden messages and danger signs in Bush’s speech, from Greg Palast. Plus, a little tip on how to tell when Bush is lying

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/5002

Fact-checking the SOTU: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/24/74721/2043

Bush’s magical, mysterious shrinking deficit

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/24/AR2007012401449.html
The federal budget deficit will fall to $172 billion this year, $98 billion next year and disappear completely by 2012, according to a new report released today by the Congressional Budget Office. But nobody -- not even top CBO officials -- believes those figures.

That's because the CBO, the nonpartisan office that supplies Congress with cost estimates, is required by law to make some whopping assumptions, including . . .

Another trap: Bush’s health care proposal

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010617.php

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/24/AR2007012401956.html

Bush may want to pretend he is still setting the policy agenda, but there’s no reason for the Democrats to play along with that little game

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/01/score_points/
[Ruth Marcus] "Democrats -- if they care more about addressing health-care needs than scoring political points -- ought to be finding ways to improve and build on the Bush proposal, not condemning and mischaracterizing it."

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_21_atrios_archive.html#116967175898918954
[Atrios] Unlike a couple of months ago, the Democrats control Congress. They have no reason to try to take Bush proposals and make them better, because they get to actually put their own proposals up for a vote. Republicans not named Bush also don't have any particular reason to support Bush proposals, unless they like them, so there's just not much reason to really care what Bush thinks about health care, immigration, or any other potential areas where Congress might be passing laws. Given the nature of the Senate, they do have to worry about pleasing some Republicans, but not ones named Bush.

In defense of "scoring political points": http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/01/score_points/

Make. Them. Pay. Republicans scuttle the minimum wage increase, with the flimsiest of excuses

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/24/AR2007012400919.html

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2569.html
[Ezra Klein] In a display of savage corporatism, Senate Republicans are filibustering the minimum wage increase until Democrats lard the bill with tax cuts for businesses. Over the last six years, of course, businesses have gotten, literally, hundreds of billions in tax breaks. Congress hasn't raised the minimum wage in a decade.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9721.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/24/155530/926

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/2007_democratic_agenda_/2007/01/senator_call_your_office.php

Dick Cheney loses it

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/24/AR2007012401567.html
CHENEY: Well, [Hussein] was after the first Gulf War -- had managed -- he kicked out all the inspectors. He was providing payments to the families of suicide bombers. He was a safe haven for terror, was one of the prime state sponsors of terror, as designated by our State Department, for a long time. He'd started two wars. He had violated 16 U.N. Security Council resolutions. If he were still there today, we'd have a terrible situation. Today, instead --

BLITZER: But there is a terrible situation.

CHENEY: No, there is not. There is not. There's problems, ongoing problems, but . . .

BLITZER: How worried are you of this nightmare scenario, that the U.S. is building up this Shiite-dominated Iraqi government with an enormous amount of military equipment, sophisticated training, and then in the end, they're going to turn against the United States?

CHENEY: Wolf, that's not going to happen. The problem that you've got --

BLITZER: Very -- very -- warming up to Iran and Syria right now.

CHENEY: Wolf, you can come up with all kinds of what-ifs. . . .

BLITZER: [S]ome of your good Republican friends in the Senate and the House, are now seriously questioning your credibility because of the blunders, of the failures. All right, Gordon Smith --

CHENEY: Wolf, Wolf, I simply don't accept the premise of your question. I just think it's hogwash. Remember --

BLITZER: What, that there were no blunders? The President himself says there were blunders --

CHENEY: Remember, remember me -- remember with me what happened in Afghanistan. . .

BLITZER: What if the Senate passes a resolution saying, this is not a good idea. Will that stop you?

CHENEY: It won't stop us . . .

BLITZER: So you're moving forward no matter what the consequences?

CHENEY: We are moving forward. We are moving forward. . . .

BLITZER: Here's the problem that you have -- the administration -- credibility in Congress with the American public, because of the mistakes, because of the previous statements, the last throes, the comment you made a year-and-a-half ago, the insurgency was in its last throes. How do you build up that credibility because so many of these Democrats, and a lot of Republicans now are saying they don't believe you anymore?

CHENEY: Well, Wolf, if the history books were written by people who have -- are so eager to write off this effort, to declare it a failure, including many of our friends in the media, the situation obviously would have been over a long time ago. Bottom line is that we've had enormous successes, and we will continue to have enormous successes. . . .

Just think for a minute -- and think for a minute, Wolf, in terms of what policy is being suggested here. What you're recommending, or at least what you seem to believe the right course is, is to bail out --

BLITZER: I'm just asking questions.

CHENEY: No, you're not asking questions.

BLITZER: Yes, I am. I'm just asking --

CHENEY: Implicit -- implicit -- implicit in the critics --

BLITZER: -- your critics are --

CHENEY: Implicit in what the critics are suggesting, I think, is an obligation to say, well, here's what we need to do, or we're not going to do anything else. We're going to accept defeat. . . .

BLITZER: We're out of time, but a couple of issues I want to raise with you. Your daughter Mary, she's pregnant. All of us are happy. She's going to have a baby. You're going to have another grandchild. Some of the -- some critics, though, are suggesting, for example, a statement from someone representing Focus on the Family:

"Mary Cheney's pregnancy raises the question of what's best for children. Just because it's possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father, doesn't mean it's best for the child."

Do you want to respond to that?

CHENEY: No, I don't.

BLITZER: She's obviously a good daughter --

CHENEY: I'm delighted -- I'm delighted I'm about to have a sixth grandchild, Wolf, and obviously think the world of both of my daughters and all of my grandchildren. And I think, frankly, you're out of line with that question.

BLITZER: I think all of us appreciate --

CHENEY: I think you're out of -- I think you're out of line with that question.

BLITZER: -- your daughter. We like your daughters. Believe me, I'm very, very sympathetic to Liz and to Mary. I like them both. That was just a question that's come up and it's a responsible, fair question.

CHENEY: I just fundamentally disagree with your perspective.

BLITZER: I want to congratulate you on having another grandchild. . . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/cheney-flips-out-on-cnn-over-his.html
[John Aravosis] Ironically, Cheney hasn't said anything that I've seen to defend his daughter, or his future grandchild, against the incredibly vicious attacks from his own supporters. But when CNN asks about the controversy, suddenly CNN is out of line for bringing the issue up. So, it's okay for Cheney's religious right buddies to openly attack his daughter and grandkid, but it's not okay for the media to ask about the controversy.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116968713670445364
[Digby] Cheney went on Wolf Blitzer and demonstrated that he has totally lost touch with reality . . . His demeanor was extremely hostile and aggressive. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2158283
[Daniel Politi] Most of the papers include Cheney saying Congress "won't stop us" but the Post goes a step further and fronts a separate story that looks at the whole interview. Apparently everyone is wrong about Iraq. According to Cheney, although "there's problems" in Iraq there's also "been a lot of success." Cheney challenged CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer throughout the interview and accused him of wanting "to bail out." The vice president said many in the media, along with several lawmakers, want to "write off" Iraq and "declare it a failure." The paper notes the vice president's attitude was very different from that expressed by Bush at the State of the Union . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9722.html
[Steve Benen] On the one hand it’s breathtaking to see Cheney continue to deny reality with such stubbornness, but on the other, there’s a political upside. If the Vice President wants to go on national television and tell the nation something they already know to be patently false, then the White House has given up on ever regaining its credibility. . . .

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/01/24/cheney/index.html

Video: http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/snarly.html

The Goofus Files

http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/your_president__1.html
Dependence on oil, as well, means that if a terrorist were able to destroy infrastructure somewhere else in the world, it's going to affect what you pay for at the gasoline pump. In other words, as we learned, the terrorists attacked us in brutal ways; they attacked us by flying airplanes into our buildings. . . [read on]

Is Libby’s lawyer’s threat to put the WH and Karl Rove on trial a not-so-subtle way to signal “give us a pardon or we’ll make your lives hell”?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002401.php
[Justin Rood] The defense never spelled out Rove's alleged role, or how they believe aides to President Bush had tried to "sacrifice" Libby to protect the man known as "Bush's Brain." Will they be more explicit? Who knows. Perhaps it depends on what assurances they get from the Oval Office.

Or . . . . http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3753

More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2567.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/01/24/BL2007012401134.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005519.html

Just the facts, ma’am

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/24/AR2007012400944.html
A former high-ranking CIA official testified yesterday that, when Vice President Cheney's agitated chief of staff called him out of the blue in June 2003 to ask what he knew about a CIA-sponsored trip to Niger, he jumped to get answers.

Summoned out of a meeting with the CIA director to take I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's urgent call later that same afternoon, then-Associate Deputy Director Robert Grenier said he relayed all he had learned about former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV . . . Yes, Wilson had gone on a CIA-sponsored mission to check out intelligence that Iraq was trying to buy uranium for nuclear weapons and had concluded that the tip was unfounded, Grenier testified he told Libby. And, he told Libby, it appeared that Wilson's wife, a CIA officer, had suggested Wilson for the trip.

The timing of Grenier's response and Libby's anxiety over Wilson are central to the prosecution's allegation that Libby lied to investigators when he said that he believed he first learned CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity from NBC's Tim Russert a month later. Grenier is one of three government officials to testify, so far, that they held conversations with Libby about Wilson's wife weeks before Libby contends he learned her name. . . .

Moonie Times publication “Insight” trashes the CNN report debunking their Obama/madrassa story

http://mediamatters.org/items/200701240007

Fox “News” is even worse: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/24/gibson-obama/
[Nico] Fox News host John Gibson . . . . refused to back down. He claimed the CNN reporter who debunked the false report “probably went to the very madrassa” as Obama. Gibson implied that CNN’s report had covered up religious extremism at the school . . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/24/213257/082

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_21_atrios_archive.html#116969710685840705
[Atrios] [T]he mainstream media - the "serious" media - really needs to figure out how to handle outlets like Fox. Aside from their complete lack of ethics or standards, they also imagine (or claim to imagine) they're correcting an imbalance which doesn't exist. . . .

Bonus item: Zzzzzzzzz. . . . . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_21_atrios_archive.html#116965045090908185

Extra bonus: MB luvs GB

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2567.html

http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/an_awesome_date.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 @ 5:54 AM

 
DIRE SITUATIONS

I’ve been saying for a while that Plame prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was careful not to charge cases that he couldn’t get a conviction on – as long as the conspiracy of liars were covering for one another. But if you pry off one of them and put him on the hot seat while the others sip their bourbons and relax, you get some interesting paybacks. There is more than one way to punish the bad guys and bring them down: and suddenly Cheney and Rove look to be on very thin ice indeed. I don’t think anyone expected this!

For the Defense: “A nasty bout of finger-pointing”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/washington/23cnd-libby.html
In his opening statement today, the chief defense lawyer for I. Lewis Libby Jr. set the stage for a nasty bout of finger-pointing in the Bush administration, asserting that Mr. Libby, the vice president’s former chief of staff, had been made a scapegoat to protect the president’s longtime political strategist, Karl Rove.

The unexpected statement by Theodore V. Wells Jr. was the first sign that Mr. Libby, who is facing five felony counts, would seek to deflect some of the blame on to his former White House colleagues. Until today, Mr. Libby’s defense to perjury and obstruction of justice charges was that he might simply have remembered incorrectly what he testified to in a grand jury and to F.B.I. agents.

Mr. Wells told the jury that the unnamed White House officials wanted to protect Mr. Rove because they believed his survival as President Bush’s political adviser was crucial to the health of the Republican Party. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_21.php#012086
[Josh Marshall] The logical inference from that decision is that Libby and his lawyers have decided that President Bush will not pardon their client.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002395.php
[LG] [W]hile it may be true that the [White House] was trying to hang Libby out to protect Rove, this in no way absolves Libby from charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. How is that a defense? Seems like just a smokescreen to me.

Libby destroyed evidence?

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/23/cheney-libby-trial/
[MSNBC] “Scooter Libby destroyed a note from Vice President Cheney about their conversations and about how Vice President Cheney wanted the Wilson matter handled.”

(Unfortunately not) http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/01/23/libby/index.html
[Tim Grieve] Is that really what Patrick Fitzgerald is alleging? Maybe not. In a subsequent report on its Web site, MSNBC now suggests that Schuster may have jumped to a possibly unfounded conclusion based on something Fitzgerald said in court today. Fitzgerald told jurors that Libby had "wiped out" the note from Cheney. "It was not clear," MSNBC now says, "if Fitzgerald meant that an attempt was made to destroy the note or that Libby had forgotten about it. In any case, the note was recovered and is part of the evidence."

Ari Fleischer demands (and gets) immunity

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/01/23/fleischer_wells/index.html
[Alex Koppelman] Which member of the Bush administration refused to testify before Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury unless he received a grant of immunity first? That question has been a central part of Plamegate parlor games for several months, and now we've got the answer: Ari Fleischer.

In his opening statement today, Libby lawyer Ted Wells said that the former White House press secretary "refused to testify without immunity," then testified after getting immunity that he had told "multiple reporters" about Joseph Wilson's wife.

If you've ever watched a mob trial, especially one involving witnesses who have been "flipped" by the government to testify against their former colleagues, then you'll probably be familiar with what Wells intends to accomplish by talking about Fleischer's deal: Call into question the credibility of the witness . . .

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/23/15858/9246

For the Prosecution: the hammer falls on Cheney

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/23/114444/552
[MSNBC] Even for people that have been following this case closely, the information coming out about VP Cheney will strike many people as astounding. First of all, the prosecutors made it clear that the evidence is going to show that the first person to inform Scooter Libby that Valerie Wilson was undercover at the CIA was VP Cheney.

The prosecutors will also show that it was VP Cheney who directed Scooter Libby on how to handle the media inquiries on the Wilsons, on Joe Wilson's criticisms, that was a violation of protocol. In addition, prosecutors are alleging that VP Cheney himself wrote out for Scooter Libby what he should say to one of the crucial reporters in the case and it was during that conversation with the reporter when Scooter Libby gave the confirmation to that reporter that Valerie Wilson was undercover at the CIA.

There was other information that was damaging to the Vice President concerning the State of the Union and the false claim that was made. The prosecutors say the evidence will make it clear that VP Cheney asked the Director of the CIA George Tenet to take complete responsibility for the mistake and to make it clear that the VP and the president were not involved...

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010610.php
[From a reader] I know, and have friends who know, people that both work in Fitzgerald's office in Illinois and that have tried cases against Fitzgerald. The book on him (and this is not new, I just want to reaffirm it) is that he is meticulous, reserved and that he NEVER makes claims in opening statements that he cannot absolutely prove up to a jury. . .

Given the statements and allegations Fitzgerald has made in his opening statement, and given his reputation for always backing up his statements, if I were Cheney's attorney, I would absolutely find some way, somehow, whatever it took, to keep him off the stand. It is crystal clear that Fitzgerald is convinced, and I mean strongly convinced, that this whole imbroglio is Cheney's personal doing . . .

Resignation talk already?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116957751746718548
[Digby] Norah O'Donnell is asking Andy Card and Leon Panetta if the president is going to have to ask Dick Cheney to resign as a result of what's being alleged at the Libby Trial. (They both punted.)

If that's the beltway chatter, look for the Republican noise machine to go into high gear. I'll be expecting to hear rumors of Patrick Fitzgerald's affinity for bestiality starting tomorrow --- mostly from Mary Matalin, Dick Cheney's most vicious attack dog, who will be snarling like a caged beast over this (and thus will show herself an expert on the subject.)

Update: To be clear -- the Republicans have to go after Fitzgerald, not Libby. He's holding a cudgel over Cheney and Rove's heads and they are not in much of a position to hit back at him. The GOP will try to stir up the shit and distract everyone with an attack on the prosecutor to discredit the whole case. It's really the only move they have.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116957460635215115
[Marcy Wheeler] Cheney's note: "Not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others."

The person who was to be protected was Karl Rove. Karl Rove was President Bush's right hand person. Karl Rove was the person most responsible for making sure Bush stayed in office. He had to be protected. The person who was to be sacrificed.

[Digby] And here I always thought the VP's office was part of the White House. . . . I suspect that when the history is written we will find more and more proof that Vice President Cheney has been running a shadow government from the very beginning and that much of the malfeasance of this era is a result of incompetent and competing power centers vying for supremacy. It begins to explain the unprecedented level of faulty reasoning and epic mistakes coming from the one administration. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/23/142527/394
[Kos] No matter which story you choose to believe -- the prosecutors or the defense -- they both paint a bleak picture for the administration

More, more, more: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/01/23/libby-liveblog-wells-opening-statement-part-one/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/01/23/libby-liveblog-wells-opening-statement-part-two/

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2549.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16770023/

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/23/205811/204

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/012307.html

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=159887

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005516.html

What next?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/01/23/final_thoughts/index.html?source=rss

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/01/23/russert_libby/index.html?source=rss

Fox News covers the trial – fair and balanced, as always

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116959830982710196

Oh, christ

http://www.juancole.com/2007/01/another-helicopter-downed-5-americans.html
Another Helicopter Downed, 5 Americans Dead . . .

And he’s one of the optimists!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/world/middleeast/23cnd-general.htm
“The situation in Iraq is dire,” Lt. Gen. David Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee today. . . .

A glimpse of the NIE is revealed, and you can be sure that it’s the most positive part

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/23/AR2007012301275.html
The draft of a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq says it will be "very difficult" but "not impossible" for the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to succeed . . .

Not impossible? http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/24/world/middleeast/24noshow.html
[Iraq’s] Parliament in recent months has been at a standstill. Nearly every session since November has been adjourned because as few as 65 members made it to work, even as they and the absentees earned salaries and benefits worth about $120,000.

Part of the problem is security, but Iraqi officials also said they feared that members were losing confidence in the institution and in the country’s fragile democracy. As chaos has deepened, Parliament’s relevance has gradually receded.

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005514.html

Pitiful, just pitiful

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002393.php
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) took time out to "make a plea to [his] colleagues in the Senate" to "put the brakes" on the gathering bipartisan momentum for a nonbinding resolution condemning the president's plan to increase troops in Iraq. . .

McCain, scrambling to cover his rear now that the surge is happening, says (1) the mismanaged war is all Cheney’s fault (!) and (2) if the surge fails, he may support a withdrawal of US troops to the Iraq borders

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9703.html
[Steve Benen] If you’re starting to think McCain is just flailing around, struggling to forge some kind of coherent approach to the war, panicking about his political future, and failing on both counts, we’re on the same page.

I told you no one would be paying attention to Bush’s State of the Union address – look how far down the page it slipped

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/01/23/BL2007012300715.html
[Dan Froomkin] President Bush tonight will try to change the subject -- and will fail.

http://politicalinsider.com/2007/01/another_day_another_blunder.html
[Dan Conley] The gang that couldn't shoot straight is at it again ... didn't anyone at the White House realize that the State of the Union would coincide with the opening arguments of the Scooter Libby trial? Forget the endless stream of bad news polls, this is the worst possible overture for Bush's speech.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_21_atrios_archive.html#116960121787431331
[John King, CNN] Last year at the State of the Union they [military families] heard the president say he was confident that by the end of last year he would be bringing the troops home. Tonight they will hear the president describe his plan, and try to sell his plan, to send tens of thousands of more troops to Iraq.

Bush: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_21_atrios_archive.html#116960258240360810
This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we are in. . .

Analysis: http://www.slate.com/id/2158159/fr/rss/
“pffft . . . blah”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/24/opinion/24wed1.html
“tepid”

http://www.slate.com/id/2158160/fr/rss/
“dispiriting”

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2557.html
“uniformly awful”

The Emperor has no clothes

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116960439801994436

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/23/AR2007012301550.html

The Democrat Party

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_21.php#012091
[Josh Marshall] What a strange man. After disarmingly gracious opening remarks about Nancy Pelosi's speakership, the president congratulates the 'Democrat majority' -- words most every Democrat takes as a calculated insult. The prepared remarks say "Democratic majority". But apparently he couldn't help himself.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/23/212035/155
[McJoan] BIPARTISAN!! BIPARTISAN!! I wanna work with the Democrat Party!

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/060807ta_talk_hertzberg
[Hendrik Hertzberg] There’s no great mystery about the motives behind this deliberate misnaming. “Democrat Party” is a slur, or intended to be—a handy way to express contempt. Aesthetic judgments are subjective, of course, but “Democrat Party” is jarring verging on ugly. It fairly screams “rat.” At a slightly higher level of sophistication, it’s an attempt to deny the enemy the positive connotations of its chosen appellation.

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/01/why_republicans.html
[WSJ] [T]he phrase was a particular favorite of former Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy. A recent Washington Post column filled in the backstory: according to the Columbia Guide to Standard American English, McCarthy "sought by repeatedly calling it the Democrat party to deny it any possible benefit of the suggestion that it might also be democratic" . . .

Jim Webb’s (D-VA) great response

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/text-of-democratic-response.html
[T]his country has patiently endured a mismanaged war for nearly four years. Many, including myself, warned even before the war began that it was unnecessary, that it would take our energy and attention away from the larger war against terrorism, and that invading and occupying Iraq would leave us strategically vulnerable in the most violent and turbulent corner of the world. . . .

Like so many other Americans, today and throughout our history, we serve and have served, not for political reasons, but because we love our country. On the political issues – those matters of war and peace, and in some cases of life and death – we trusted the judgment of our national leaders. We hoped that they would be right, that they would measure with accuracy the value of our lives against the enormity of the national interest that might call upon us to go into harm's way.

We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it. But they owed us – sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it.

The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq, the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable – and predicted – disarray that has followed.

The war's costs to our nation have been staggering. Financially. The damage to our reputation around the world. The lost opportunities to defeat the forces of international terrorism. And especially the precious blood of our citizens who have stepped forward to serve. . . .

Iraq = Vietnam http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/24/02923/6095

The gendered discourse of national politics

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116961726367571340

Dick Cheney’s 3000% investment profit (thanks to Owen’s brother for the link!)

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Cheneys_stock_options_rose_3281_last_1011.html

Ezra, Ezra – please don’t tell me you’re surprised

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2545.html
[Ezra Klein] Alright, unpleasant post to write, but I was wrong: The Bush administration's health plan is a trap. . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010613.php
[Ruth Marcus] If George W. Bush proposes something, it must be bad. . . .

More: http://bushhealthplan.notlong.com

Bonus item: An ad for Grecian Formula

Before: http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/check_the_hair_.html









After: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-01-23-bush-state-union_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA







***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 @ 6:04 AM

 
HARD-EARNED AND WELL-DESERVED

Bush: 28% approval!

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/22/opinion/polls/main2384943.shtml

Nixon territory: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_21_atrios_archive.html#116951962699297667

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/22/193719/659
[Matt Stoller] Bush's approval is at 28, which is four points higher than Nixon's approval at his point of departure. Bush's disapproval is two points lower than Nixon's when he said 'the end'.

How did Bush get such low poll numbers? It’s hard to say

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/22/AR2007012200236.html
Iraq dominates the national agenda, with 48 percent of Americans calling the war the single most important issue they want Bush and the Congress to deal with this year. . .

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003535841
Tony Snow was asked point blank if Iraq was "the most important issue facing the U.S." All major polls show that the public certainly thinks it is, and by a wide margin."

But Snow, answered, "it's hard to say." . . .

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/analysis/174
Bush Expected to Ignore Iraq Quagmire in State of the Union . . .

Iraq is turning into a massacre – and what does the Bush gang say about it?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070122/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
A suicide bomber crashed his car into a central Baghdad market crowded with Shiites just seconds after another car bomb tore through the stalls where vendors were hawking DVDs and used clothing, leaving 88 dead Monday in the bloodiest attack in two months.

The bombings, along with a double bombing that killed 12 people in the town of Khalis, battered Shiites during one of their holiest festivals. The attacks were the latest in a renewed campaign of insurgent violence in advance of a U.S.-Iraqi security operation.

In all, 137 people were killed or found dead across Iraq, including a teacher who was gunned down as she was on her way to work at a girls' school in a mainly Sunni area of Baghdad. The toll also included the bullet-riddled bodies of at least 30 people, apparent victims of death squads largely run by Shiite militias. . . .

http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/today_on_holden_3.html
MR. SNOW: [W]hat's really going on is that you can expect as there is push-back that there is going to be some increase in violence. . . You also understand, Terry, that they know that the media will focus on body counts and will focus on large acts of violence because that for the terrorists is a victory. . . .

So you see, an upsurge of violence is a sign that Bush policies are working (no, really)!

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_21_atrios_archive.html#116948172349082503
[John Kyl, R-AZ] There is no question there will be an increase in violence. And we should not come to believe that that increase in violence is a signal that this is not working. In fact, it's probably a signal that it is working . . .

There’s madness behind their methods

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002384.php
In application, that means more troops in Iraq, more troops in Afghanistan, and, to make the Iranians come around, more troops and aircraft carriers in the region . . . Here's how that would work in Iraq: the troop buildup is designed as "a source of leverage over the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki" -- the buildup will halt "if Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government does not deliver on promises to send its own troops to Baghdad and not to interfere with operations against Shiite death squads in Baghdad."

More Republicans come out against Bush’s troop escalation. It doesn’t matter much to me what the precise wording of the non-binding resolution will be – the key is to get 60-plus votes for it, including as much as a third of Bush’s own party!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/22/AR2007012200999.html

Word choices: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_21.php#012064

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9694.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010598.php

The Boehner option

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jan/22/gop_leaders_continue_breaking_ranks_on_iraq_but_will_it_matter

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/01/22/blunt/index.html?source=rss
[Tim Grieve] Boehner and Blunt are proposing the creation of a "bipartisan select panel charged with monitoring the implementation" of Bush's escalation. . . The idea seems rooted in the president's conception of what working with Congress means: He does what he wants, and Congress can complain later if it wants -- at which point the president's supporters can say that Congress is wasting its time looking backward when it's really time to move forward.

But look out – Bush has Liz Cheney behind him, 100 percent

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/22/AR2007012201103_pf.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_21.php#012070
[Josh Marshall] Is it just me or does this column read like it was written by someone in junior high?

The day before Bush’s State of the Union and. . . . oh look!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_21.php#012062
"DOCUMENTS SEIZED IN IRAQ REVEAL INSURGENT PLAN FOR ATTACK IN U.S., ABC NEWS' PIERRE THOMAS HAS LEARNED"

[Josh Marshall] I'm just shocked at the timing of this leak.

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/01/22/timing/index.html

Previewing the SOTU speech – which I expect will be ignored in record numbers

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/washington/22speech.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2158140/fr/rss/
[WP] "Only twice in the past six decades has a president delivered his annual speech to the nation in a weaker condition in the polls -- Harry S. Truman in the midst of the Korean War in 1952 and Richard M. Nixon in the throes of Watergate in 1974."

Is this a surprise to anyone any more?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_21.php#012053
[Josh Marshall] Lately I've been leafing through Bob Woodward's State of Denial. And here's one choice quote. It's chief weapons inspector David Kay on Condi Rice. "She was probably the worst national security adviser in modern times since the office was created."

More on the missing NIE

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116948716335384050

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9691.html

Bush’s bogus health care plan – if they were serious, here’s what they’d do

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_21_atrios_archive.html#116950000634605860

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/22/18850/2645

Of course you never believed them when the Bush gang said they would reopen negotiations on Social Security with “no preconditions,” did you?

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/22/133138/001

The stem cell debate is going to come back

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9696.html
[WP] The National Institutes of Health official overseeing the implementation of President Bush’s embryonic stem cell policy yesterday suggested that the controversial program is delaying cures, an unusually blunt assessment for an executive branch official. . . [read on]

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/23/14817/5403

Carol Lam, ousted U.S. Attorney, gets her licks in before leaving

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_21.php#012055

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/23/04515/7177

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005503.html

Firedoglake: your best source of Libby trial info and analysis

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/01/22/libby-liveblog-jury-instructions/

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3751

Nancy Pelosi, hero or failure? (Hey, it’s been three whole weeks!)

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/22/165026/200

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/nancy-pelosi-damaged-goods.html

I just LOVE it when Republican operatives give the Democrats advice on how to wield their new powers. Here's a funny one: "be nice"

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9698.html

It’s a “problem” because we SAY it’s a problem . . . and the fact that we’re talking about it as a “problem” – that makes it a bigger problem

http://mediamatters.org/items/200701220002

http://www.juancole.com/2007/01/rightwing-smearers-of-obama-dont-know.html
[Juan Cole] The smear campaign would be hilarious if it weren't so satanic. . .

Just don’t bother us with the facts: http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/22/obama.madrassa/index.html
Allegations that Sen. Barack Obama was educated in a radical Muslim school known as a "madrassa" are not accurate, according to CNN reporting. . . . The Insight article was cited several times Friday on Fox News and . . . The Glenn Beck program on CNN Headline News . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_21.php#012067
[Josh Marshall] So who will Fox News fire for peddling the Obama hoax? How about the Washington Times? Who will they fire?

[NB: I think we all know the answer to that, don’t we?]

Bonus item: Worst. President. Ever.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/22/17367/5603

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9692.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/01/22/BL2007012200609.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 @ 6:17 AM

 
WHO CARES WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT?

Bush: National Sanctity of Human Life Day

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/21/71529/4924

The ironies write themselves: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/iraq-war-president-has-audacity-to-say.html
[Joe in DC] Yesterday was one of the deadliest days in Iraq for U.S. soldiers. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2158011/fr/rss/
[Daniel Politi] The Washington Post leads with word that the deadly attack in the city of Karbala, Iraq, on Saturday was carried out by a group of men who traveled in a convoy and apparently disguised themselves as Americans using U.S. military uniforms and badges. Adding two Marines that were killed in Anbar province Sunday, at least 27 U.S. servicemembers died in Iraq over the weekend . . .

Watch McCain distance himself from the troop surge he called for

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16634747/
SEN. McCAIN: I am concerned about it, whether it is sufficient numbers or not. I would have like to have seen more. I looked General Petraeus in the eye and said, “Is that sufficient for you to do the job?” He assured me that he thought it was and that he had been told that if he needed more he would receive them. I have great confidence in General Petraeus. I think he’s one of the finest generals that our military’s ever produced, and he has a proven record on that. He wrote the new Army counterinsurgency manual. But do I believe that if it had been up to me would there have been more? Yes, but one of the keys to this is get them over there quickly rather than feed them in piecemeal as some in the Pentagon would like to do today. . . .

MR. RUSSERT: . . . Should we be moving troops from Afghanistan, at this delicate stage in that war, to Iraq?

SEN. McCAIN: I’m not aware of that, and on its face I would be very concerned. A recent trip that we made to Afghanistan, it’s clear to one and all that the Taliban has been reconstituted, particularly in safe area in Pakistan just across the Afghan border, and there will be increased attacks on U.S. and coalition forces. So, as I say, I’ve—had not seen the report, but I would be concerned about it. . . . I would prefer not to take troops out of Afghanistan . . .

MR. RUSSERT: But, senator, if, in fact, in six months, nine months, the situation in Iraq does not improve, it is not stable, would you then say we gave it our best shot, it’s time to come home?

SEN. McCAIN: I think it would depend on the situation on the ground at the time, Tim. . .

Moving the goalposts: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9688.html

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/21/mccain-small/

How far will the Dems go in opposing the surge?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070121/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq

Bush and Cheney come out and say it: they don’t care what Congress says

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/14/60minutes/main2359119_page3.shtml
PELLEY: Do you believe as commander-in-chief you have the authority to put the troops in there no matter what the Congress wants to do?

BUSH: In this situation, I do, yeah. Now, I fully understand they could try to stop me from doing it. But I made my decision, and we're going forward. . .

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/21/hagel-cheney-escalation/
[Chuck Hagel, R-NE] “What are we about? We’re Article 1 of the Constitution. We are co-equal branch of government. Are we not to participate? Are we not to say anything? Are we not to register our sense of where we’re going in this country on foreign policy?”

Hiding the NIE

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_21.php#012046
[David Kurtz] Remember the long-delayed National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq that the Bush Administration managed to push off completing until after the election? Well, the Administration has slow-rolled completion of the NIE past the introduction of the surge and the State of the Union address . . .

Frank Rich: Lies, and the lying liars who lie about them

http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com/2007/01/frank-rich-lying-like-its-2003.html

Bush to raise taxes!

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010596.php
[Kevin Drum] Apparently the big new healthcare proposal in Tuesday's State of the Union address is going to be a tax increase aimed at (some) people who already have employer-provided health insurance combined with a tax deduction aimed at (some) people who have to buy individual health insurance. Yippee. . .

More: http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/16513010.htm

Analysis: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3748

http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com/2007/01/paul-krugman-gold-plated-indifference.html

What people really want

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/21/AR2007012100878.html
Harry and Louise have had a change of heart.

Thirteen years after television ads from the insurance industry featuring the fictional middle-class couple helped kill the Clinton health-care plan and make universal coverage politically radioactive, comprehensive proposals for expanding coverage to millions of uninsured Americans are flowering again inside the Beltway and around the country. . .

The Democrats have the strongest field of potential Presidential candidates they’ve had for a long time. . . .

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jan/21/an_american_dream_team
[Reed Hundt] Over the years I've met most of the currently announced Democratic candidates, and I just pinch myself when I see the line-up. Senators Clinton, Edwards, Obama, and Dodd, Governors Richardson and Vilsack are just terrific people. They are each bright and capable. Person by person, they are committed to bringing out the best in America. In ethnic and gender terms, they represent a marvelous picture of the real America, and not a one of them appeals to hate or divisiveness. . . .

But the right wing has a meme – Dems are always PERSONALLY distasteful individuals (and the media plays along)

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/01/around_and_around_it_goes/

More: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/nancy-pelosi-damaged-goods.html

For the Republicans it’s McCain or. . . . ?

Brownback? http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/conservative-gop-prez-candidate-sam.html

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/01/new_entrants/

A few days ago Tony Snow fumbled over the question whether the Bush gang believes ANY sort of dissent is legitimate in time of war. Now Bill Kristol, Mr. Dependable, just comes out and says what they’re all thinking

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/21/kristol-iraq-quiet/
“It’s just unbelievable. … It’s so irresponsible that they can’t be quiet for six or nine months,” adding, “You really wonder, do they want it to work or not? I really wonder that.” . . .

The Libby trial, so far

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/21/2161/89350

Carlyle Group bids to take over the Tribune Company – because the Right doesn’t control enough of the media already

http://sanantonio.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2007/01/15/daily46.html

Bonus item: Alan Wolfe makes Dinesh D’Souza look like the idiot he is

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/books/review/Wolfe.t.html

More: http://roxanne.typepad.com/rantrave/2007/01/wake_me_for_the.html

[NB: Thanks to Avedon Carol for the link]

***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 @ 7:15 AM

 
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070120/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
At least 20 American service personnel were killed in military operations Saturday in one of the deadliest days for U.S. forces since the Iraq war began . . .

Desperate measures: more abuse for long-serving U.S. servicemen and women

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2007/01/tnsCorpscomeback1.19/
The Marine Corps plans to ask up to 100,000 former Marines released from the ranks since September 2001 whether they would like to come back. . . .

[NB: “like to”??!!???]

PowerlessPoint

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/20/AR2007012001446.html
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had a surprise for President Bush when they sat down with their aides in the Four Seasons Hotel in Amman, Jordan. Firing up a PowerPoint presentation, Maliki and his national security adviser proposed that U.S. troops withdraw to the outskirts of Baghdad and let Iraqis take over security in the strife-torn capital. Maliki said he did not want any more U.S. troops at all, just more authority.

The president listened intently to the unexpected proposal at their Nov. 30 meeting, according to accounts from several administration officials. Bush seemed impressed that Maliki had taken the initiative, but it did not take him long to reject the idea. . . .

He never seriously considered beginning to withdraw U.S. forces, as urged by newly elected Democratic congressional leaders and the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. And he had grown skeptical of his own military commanders, who were telling him no more troops were needed.

So Bush relied on his own judgment that the best answer was to try once again to snuff out the sectarian violence in Baghdad, even at the risk of putting U.S. soldiers into a crossfire between Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias. When his generals resisted sending more troops, he seemed irritated. When they finally agreed to go along with the plan, he doubled the number of troops they requested.

It was a signature moment for a president who seems uninfluenced by the electorate on Iraq and headed for a showdown with the new Democratic Congress. Presented with an opportunity to pull back, Bush instead chose to extend and, in some ways, deepen his commitment, gambling that more time and a new plan will finally bring success to the troubled U.S. military mission. . . .

Dos Maliki have ANY intention of getting serious about the Sadrists? (Can he do anything about it even if he does?)

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_war_in_iraq_/2007/01/good_news_or_bad_in_iraq.php

As they stand up. . . . uh . . . as they step up. . . err. . . as they step forward . . . oh, hell, we just can’t rely on these guys at all

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16502266.htm
Kurdish soldiers from northern Iraq, who are mostly Sunnis but not Arabs, are deserting the army to avoid the civil war in Baghdad, a conflict they consider someone else's problem. . . .

[NB: And, as is widely known, these Peshmerga militias are supposedly the best trained and MOST reliable troops. Without them, there is no way Maliki can reach his numbers of matching U.S. “surge” troops]

Here’s how the Bush gang has avoided the accusation that they are cooking the intelligence (again) to justify a troop escalation in Iraq: they simply aren’t providing any

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/01/19/show_me_the_intelligence.php
[Ray McGovern] Having successfully cooked intelligence four years ago to get authorization for war, the Bush administration has zero incentive to try a repeat performance. Nor is there any sign that the new Democratic chairmen of the Senate and House intelligence committees will even think to ask the intelligence community to state its views on the likely effect of the planned “surge” in troop strength. This, even though an NIE on Iraq has been “almost ready” for months. . . .

Bush continues his long slow slide toward irrelevance

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_14_atrios_archive.html#116931832631968798
[Newsweek] When President George W. Bush declared earlier this month that the only way to quell sectarian violence in Iraq was to send more than 20,000 additional American troops, he probably knew the move would be unpopular. Indeed, the latest NEWSWEEK poll finds that Bush’s call for a “surge” in troops is opposed by two-thirds (68 percent) of Americans and supported by only a quarter (26 percent). Almost half of all respondents (46 percent) want to see American troops pulled out “as soon as possible.”

Bush’s Iraq plan isn’t doing anything for his personal approval rating either; it’s again stuck at its lowest point in the history of the poll (31 percent). Meanwhile, the new Democratic-controlled Congress is getting relatively high marks. And 55 percent actually trust Congressional Dems on U.S. policy in Iraq, far more than the 32 percent who trust their commander in chief. . . .

Smart move: Dems refuse to give credibility to Bush’s phony “bipartisan” proposal

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_14.php#012037
[Bush] Acting on the good advice of Senator Joe Lieberman and other key members of Congress, we will form a new, bipartisan working group that will help us come together across party lines to win the war on terror. This group will meet regularly with me and my administration; it will help strengthen our relationship with Congress. . .

[NB: This falls into the same category as “give me your alternatives.” Bush DOESN’T WANT alternatives, and he doesn’t care about bipartisanship – all he cares about is legitimacy for what he intends to do anyway]

Joe Lieberman – sometimes you just want to slap him. Yeah

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_14_atrios_archive.html#116934575542574875
Imus: "You really haven't answered, well not really, you haven't answered my question, and my question is what happens, what's plan B? What happens–"

Sen. Joe Lieberman: "Yeah."

Imus: "…When this doesn't work?"

Sen. Joe Lieberman: "Yeah."

Imus: "I know we hope and pray it does work. Of course we do."

Sen. Joe Lieberman: "Yeah" . . .

Imus: "Well, anyway, what happens when it doesn't work?"

Sen. Joe Lieberman: "Yeah, well, you know, we will then look at the situation and decide what we can do, and the alternatives are limited . .

Lebanon: on the brink

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070120/ap_on_re_mi_ea/lebanon_hezbollah

How terrible is Alberto Gonzales? Kevin Drum misses Ashcroft!

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010595.php

More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/torture_/2007/01/attorney_general_no_right_to_habeas_corpus.php
[Mark Kleiman] [T]he power the Attorney General claims on behalf of the President is nothing less than tyrannical power. . . .

Bush enablers still deny the coming catastrophe of global warming

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/21/55031/5545

Heckuva job, Brownie

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9681.html
[USAT] Party politics played a role in decisions over whether to take federal control of Louisiana and other areas affected by Hurricane Katrina, former FEMA director Michael Brown said Friday.

Some in the White House suggested only Louisiana should be federalized because it was run by a Democrat, Gov. Kathleen Blanco . . . Brown said he had recommended to President Bush that all 90,000 square miles along the Gulf Coast affected by the hurricane be federalized, making the federal government in charge of all agencies responding to the disaster.

“Unbeknownst to me, certain people in the White House were thinking ‘We had to federalize Louisiana because she’s a white, female Democratic governor and we have a chance to rub her nose in it,” he said.

[Steve Benen] Who, exactly, argued this position in the White House? Brown wouldn’t say . . .

Making the case for Hillary

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010592.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/21/2126/02900

John McCain, shunned by the religious right, decides he must abase himself even further to gain their support

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,243999,00.html

Catch-22

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3747
[NYT] Were Mr. Libby’s statements, if false, about something important (something material, in legal jargon)? On the one hand, prosecutors have said that his testimony frustrated a grand jury’s investigation into who disclosed Ms. Wilson’s identity. On the other, no one has been charged with the crime of leaking her name.

[Swopa] Golly gee, you think maybe no one's been charged with the leak because someone's lies "frustrated [the] grand jury's investigation"? So, like, maybe the special prosecutor needs to deal with the guy who's lying first, then see if the results help him get closer to the truth of who's responsible for the leak.

It's a pity this reasoning is too complex for the Times' reporters to grasp.

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/20/AR2007012001447.html
FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.); Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House.

THIS WEEK (ABC): Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.); and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D).

NEWSMAKERS (C-SPAN): Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.).

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Hagel.

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

LATE EDITION (CNN): Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.); Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Mike Pence (R-Ind.); and Sameer Shaker Sumaidaie, Iraq's ambassador to the United States.

Bonus item: Rush is popular, but not as popular as football. Looks like he has thrown out another racist incitement one too many times

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_14_atrios_archive.html#116930810784504592
The Rush is no longer going to be on the air on WJBC. Radio Bloomignton General Manager Red Pitcher announced this afternoon the syndicated Rush Limbaugh Show will air for the last time March 2, 2007. Pitcher tells WJBC's Steve and Beth on The Drive, local programming will replace Rush.

Pitcher believes Limbaugh's popularity is declining becuse of controversial remarks that are offending even his Republican fans. He pointed to today's show in which Limbaugh compared players in the NFL with gang members. . . .

***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 @ 7:44 AM

 
ONE ON ONE

Pelosi on Bush

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070119/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq
In an exchange of harsh rhetoric that underscored the intensity of the political fight, Pelosi, D-Calif., said the war should not be "an obligation of the American people in perpetuity."

"The president knows that because the troops are in harm's way, that we won't cut off the resources. That's why he's moving so quickly to put them in harm's way," Pelosi said on ABC's "Good Morning America."

When asked whether she thought the president manipulated the deployments to avoid congressional action, Pelosi said she hoped he did not but thought "he could have told us about it sooner. ... We found out about it as the troops were going in." . . .

The White House called her assertion "poisonous." . . . Perino said, "I think questioning the president's motivations . . . is not appropriate, it is not correct, and it is unfortunate because we do have troops in harm's way."

[NB: Yep, can’t have anyone questioning Bush’s motivations. And isn’t it a FACT that they were already starting troop mobilizations the very day Bush gave his announcement?]

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9675.html

And how did the tone in Washington get so “poisonous”?

http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/today_on_holden_2.html
Q I just wanted to follow up on something you said a minute ago about the President being disappointed about the tone in Washington. Does the White House not bear some responsibility for setting that tone? We heard from the White House during the campaign, for instance --

MS. PERINO: I think in this particular issue we're looking at the Iraq new way forward that the President announced, that we have unprecedented extensive outreach to members of Congress. The President listened to all that they had to say. . . .

Q They complain that they weren't properly consulted, that the decisions had already been made on the policy before they were talked to.

MS. PERINO: I've heard that criticism and I can understand where it comes from, in part. . . .

Rockefeller on Bush

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/20/washington/20intel.html
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who took control of the committee this month, said that the administration was building a case against Tehran even as American intelligence agencies still know little about either Iran’s internal dynamics or its intentions in the Middle East.

“To be quite honest, I’m a little concerned that it’s Iraq again,” Senator Rockefeller said during an interview in his office. “This whole concept of moving against Iran is bizarre.”

Mr. Rockefeller did not say which aspects of the Bush administration’s case against Iran he thought were not supported by solid intelligence. He did say he agreed with the White House that Iranian operatives inside Iraq were supporting Shiite militias and working against American troops.

Mr. Rockefeller said he believed President Bush was getting poor advice from advisers who argue that an uncompromising stance toward the government in Tehran will serve American interests.

“I don’t think that policy makers in this administration particularly understand Iran,” he said. . .

I know they make “plans” for all sorts of contingencies – but is this something more than that?

http://iranattack.notlong.com
[Reuters] U.S. contingency planning for military action against Iran's nuclear program goes beyond limited strikes and would effectively unleash a war against the country, a former U.S. intelligence analyst said on Friday.

"I've seen some of the planning ... You're not talking about a surgical strike," said Wayne White, who was a top Middle East analyst for the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research until March 2005.

"You're talking about a war against Iran" that likely would destabilize the Middle East for years, White told the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington think tank. . . .

Mondale on Cheney

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/19/mondale.cheney.ap/index.html
Vice President Dick Cheney has bullied federal agencies and given absurd advice about the nation's risk and Iraq, Walter Mondale said Friday.

Mondale said behavior such as Cheney's never would have been tolerated when Mondale was vice president.

"I think that Cheney has stepped way over the line," Mondale said . . . "I think Cheney's been at the center of cooking up farcical estimates of national risks, weapons of mass destruction and the 9/11 connection to Iraq," he said. . . . "If I had done as vice president what this vice president has done, Carter would have thrown me out of there," Mondale said. "I don't think he could have tolerated a vice president over there pressuring and pushing other agencies, ordering up different reports than they wanted to send us. I don't think he would have stood for it."

Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for Cheney, had this response to Mondale's comments: "Twice elected to serve with President Bush, the vice president is committed to protecting Americans from those who wish to do us harm." . . .

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/19/17435/7951

More from the Gonzales testimony: since I’m in Canada at the moment, a little local news

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070119.ARAR19/TPStory/
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said yesterday there was "nothing new" in the American dossier on Maher Arar that would justify keeping him on a terrorist watch list . . . "We have seen some recent information that has not altered our opinion at all."

Mr. Chertoff refused to comment on why Mr. Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, still cannot enter the United States or fly over its territory. Barely a kilometre away in Washington, Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was also demanding an explanation from U.S. Attorney-General Alberto Gonzalez.

"I'm hoping that we can get you the information next week," Mr. Gonzalez told Mr. Leahy, a Vermonter who proudly wears his close Canadian ties.

"I'm somewhat upset," said Mr. Leahy as he ripped a strip off the Attorney-General in an outburst rarely matched in the often combative but usually genteel Senate committee hearings. . .

"Before you get more upset, perhaps you should wait to receive the briefing," said Mr. Gonzalez.

Mr. Arar was detained in New York in 2002 as a suspected terrorist and shipped to Syria where he was jailed and tortured.

Mr. Leahy said that kind of midnight rendition had sullied the reputation of the United States.

"That has happened a number of times, in the past five years," said Mr. Leahy. "It is a black mark on us. It has brought about the condemnation of some of our closest and best allies."

Why are U.S attorneys getting fired?

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/01/court.html

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002381.php
[Las Vegas Review-Journal] A GOP source said [Sen. John Ensign (R-NV)] was told that the decision to remove U.S. attorneys, primarily in the West, was part of a plan to "give somebody else that experience" to build up the back bench of Republicans by giving them high-profile jobs.

Republican scandals about to hit the front pages again

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_14.php#012022

Ho-hum

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/18/AR2007011801758.html
The chief of the U.S. General Services Administration attempted to give a no-bid contract to a company founded and operated by a longtime friend, sidestepping federal laws and regulations . . .

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/19/AR2007011901506.html
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), the ranking GOP member of the Finance Committee, said it "is infuriating . . .”

Chutzpah

http://www.slate.com/id/2157999/
[Ryan Grim] How's this for chutzpa? An increasing number of companies' executives are getting busted stealing money from shareholders by backdating their stock options. Lock 'em up? Not hardly. Instead, the WSJ reports above the fold, companies are taking away the stock options but giving executives bonuses to make up for the loss.

Joe Lieberman (I-CT), no longer to be identified here as a “Democrat”

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/19/14336/2862

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/19/221444/921

I’ve always thought that Mitt Romney’s (R-MA) run for President was a fool’s errand. It was only a matter of time for stories like this to show up. . .

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/balance/stories/011907dnediharrop.502f8e3.html

What’s happening with the Libby jury selection?

http://hardblogger.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/01/19/36730.aspx

Generation gap: the difficulty of getting young people today fired up about political issues – even war

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116926699432183951
[John McMillian] Some of my students suggested that they might not even be capable of experiencing the kind of indignation and disillusionment that spurred many baby boomers toward activism. In the Vietnam era, the shameful dissembling of American politicians provoked outrage. But living in the shadow of Vietnam and Watergate, and weaned on "The Simpsons" and "The Daily Show," today's youth greet the Bush administration's spin and ever-evolving rationale for war with ironic world-weariness and bemused laughter. "The Iraq war turned out to be a hoax from the beginning? Figures!"

Here’s how they do it: Fox News reports that Insight magazine claims that Hillary’s campaign staff is reportedly digging up dirt about Barack Obama’s Muslim upbringing. Nice – you get all the benefit of the slime, while distancing yourself from the accusation that it’s YOUR claim (you’re just reporting someone ELSE’S claim) – and hanging it on Hillary to boot. A two-fer!

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/19/153531/326
This morning, Fox News featured a segment highlighting a right-wing report that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) attended an Islamic “madrassa” school as a 6-year-old child. . .

[Kos] The hosts are trying to make it seem that Obama somehow hid this part of his life. Except that he hasn't. From his book Dreams of my Father. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9672.html

http://mediamatters.org/items/200701200003

Is the press putting into their blogs what they should be putting into their news stories?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_14_atrios_archive.html#116924882450805278
Karen Tumulty for this post on the Time blog, where she reports that a GOP aide offered her "false spin" that was quickly contradicted by reality. . . . In a straight news story you rarely see a sentence like "a top GOP aide told this reporter something that turned out to be a big fat whopper."

[NB: Like to tell us who, Karen? THAT would be reporting]

WH Correspondents Association denies telling Rich Little to go easy on Bush at their annual dinner

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003534983

Rush Limbaugh: Guantanamo prison a “resort”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/19/181433/722

[NB: I’m sure we could arrange a reservation for you, Mr. Limbaugh]

Bonus item: Putting their political reporting on the Style page

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/19/3149/29712
[NYT] Just raising the issue of a powerful woman’s wardrobe choices strikes some people as sexist, an undermining of her talents and qualifications. And last week, when a reporter approached several of the female members of the House and Senate, or their staff, to talk fashion, some did not want to engage. Others cringed, at least initially. . . . But when the conversation veered into the nitty-gritty — what do you wear, where do you buy it, what image do you want to project — the women in politics happily chatted away. . . .

***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 @ 7:25 AM

 
WHY DO THEY HATE AMERICA?

Of all the Orwellian characters in Bush’s gang, perhaps the worst is an Attorney General whose entire job description seems to be to explain why the President DOESN’T have to follow the law. Ladies and gentleman, we bring you Alberto Gonzales, a man with literally no shame. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/18/15219/0788
Specter: Now wait a minute, wait a minute. The Constitution says you can't take it away except in the case of invasion or rebellion. Doesn't that mean you have the right of habeas corpus?

Gonzales: I meant by that comment that the Constitution doesn't say that every individual in the United States or every citizen has or is assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn't say that. It simply says that the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended.

[McJoan] Alberto Gonzales should not only be impeached for his willfully obtuse interpretations of the Constitution, he should be disbarred.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/18/AR2007011800113.html
The chief judge of a secret intelligence court is willing to turn over to Congress copies of new orders that allow government surveillance of international communications, but Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales signaled that he was likely to block such an action.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/washington/18cnd-justice.html
[Pat Leahy, D-VT] “Are you saying that you might object to the court giving us decisions that you’ve publicly announced?” the senator asked. “Are we a little Alice in Wonderland here?”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_14.php#011999
Sen. Feinstein pressed Attorney General Gonzales on those firings of US Attorneys. And he basically just stonewalled her. Click here to see the exchange. He won't say how many they've pushed out. His dodge was that the question of how many USAs they've canned is a 'personnel matter'. . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002367.php
"How many U.S. Attorneys have been asked to resign in the past year?" Feinstein asked Gonzales.

"You're asking me to get into a public discussion" of personnel issues, Gonzales replied.

"I'm asking you to give me a number."

"I don't know the answer to that question," said Gonzales.

"You didn't know the answer when we spoke on Tuesday, but you said you would find out," Feinstein pressed.

Gonzales referred to a letter his office had sent Feinstein earlier in the week on the issue.

"I read the letter," Feinstein shot back. Gonzales denied the administration had any tricks up its sleeve and was only trying to do what was best.

"Do you deny that your office has asked U.S. Attorneys to resign in the past year?" Feinstein asked.

"I don't deny that," Gonzales said. "But that happens in every administration, during different periods for different reasons. . . Some people should view that as a sign of good management." . . .

"If we take a break for lunch," Leahy asked him, "would it be possible to get the number Sen. Feinstein asked for?"

Gonzales fished around for an answer, and finally answered, "I think so." But then he said he couldn't get into a public discussion of personnel matters. . . .

Leahy shot back. "Just get us the numbers."

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116920214693373200
[Paul Krugman] In case you’re wondering, such a wholesale firing of prosecutors midway through an administration isn’t normal. . . [read on!]

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/grave-and-epic-war-spending-time-with.html
[Sen Russ] Feingold began by pointing out that the administration, including Gonzales, has many times accused opponents of the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" -- meaning those who insisted that eavesdropping take place within the law, within the FISA framework -- of "opposing eavesdropping on terrorists" (I can find 20 examples in 5 minutes of that).

Feingold's first question - "do you know of any one in the country who opposed eavesdropping on terrorists?"

Gonzales: Sure - if you look at blogs today, there is a lot of concern about all types of eavesdropping, who don't want us eavesdropping at all.

Feingold: Do you know anyone in government who ever took that position?

Gonzales: No, but that is not what I said.

Feingold: It is a disgrace and disservice to your office and the President to have accused people on this Committee of opposing eavesdropping on terrorists.

Gonzales: I didn't have you in mind or anyone on the Committee when I referred to people who oppose eavesdropping on terrorists. Perish the thought.

Feingold: Oh, well it's nice that you didn't have us "in your mind" when making those accusations, but given that you and the President were running around the country accusing people of opposing eavesdropping on terrorists in the middle of an election, the fact that you didn't have Congressional Democrats in "mind" isn't significant. Your intent was to make people think that anyone who opposed the "TSP" did not want to eavesdrop on terrorists, even though that was false. No Democrats oppose eavesdropping on terrorists.

Gonzales: I wasn't referring to Democrats.

It’s the damn bloggers: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9660.html

More: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aaOgEjU9LsJs&refer=home

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116914839358677315

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010586.php
[Kevin Drum] Adam Liptak makes a point about the NSA's domestic spying program that I meant to make myself yesterday: namely that negotiating a voluntary end to the program conveniently allows the White House to avoid settling the main issue the program raises . . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2157920
[T]he NYT says the change in the eavesdropping program is another example of the way the Bush administration "often seeks to change the terms of the debate just as a claim of executive authority is about to be tested in the courts or in Congress." . . .

PM Maliki considers Bush admin policies and public statements an impediment to progress in Iraq. He just said so

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002362.php
[WP] Maliki disputed President Bush's remarks broadcast Tuesday that the execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein "looked like it was kind of a revenge killing" and took exception to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Senate testimony last week that Maliki's administration was on "borrowed time."

The prime minister said statements such as Rice's "give morale boosts for the terrorists and push them toward making an extra effort and making them believe they have defeated the American administration," Maliki said. "But I can tell you that they have not defeated the Iraqi government." . . .

Maliki spoke slowly and seriously for most of the conversation, but occasionally broke into a smile, such as when he was asked whether Bush needs him more than he needs Bush. "This is an evil question," he said, laughing.

Maliki’s Roveanism: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9654.html
[Steve Benen] It’s hard not to appreciate the irony of it all. When members of Congress, from both parties, criticize the president’s handling of the war, White House officials suggest that lawmakers are undermining the mission and emboldening terrorists. But when the Bush gang criticizes Maliki, and suggests he’s not doing enough to step up and lead, he argues that the White House is undermining the mission and emboldening terrorists. . . .

What does the WH think? http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/today_on_holden_1.html

Will Iraq free the Iranians the U.S. just seized?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/18/AR2007011800206.html
Iran's ambassador said Thursday that Iraq's foreign minister promised him that Iranians captured by U.S. troops in north of the country last week will be freed "within days," adding that their detention was an insult to the Iraqi government and people. . .

Did the Bush gang blow off an overture from Iran in 2003 that could have helped stabilize Iraq?

http://www.juancole.com/2007/01/cheney-blew-off-iran-in-2003-for-love.html

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/19/22139/7437

Hey guys, how’s that retraining of Iraqi troops going? Guys? . . . . guys?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9659.html

Retired generals explain why Bush’s “surge” won’t work, and offer alternatives (which the Bush gang asked for, and which I am sure they will now study closely and consider very seriously)

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/01/18/generals/index.html
As we noted earlier today, soon-to-be-retired Army Chief of Staff Pete Schoomaker is apparently predicting that George W. Bush's new plan for Iraq has only a "50-50 chance" of succeeding. Compared with a panel of retired generals who testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today, Schoomaker is an optimist. . . .

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/world/middleeast/18cnd-general.html
“Too little and too late,” is the way Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, a former chief of the Central Command, described the effort . . .

Fred Kagan, surge advocate, explains why Bush’s escalation plan is basically the same as his own: Bush is low-balling the numbers of troops he actually intends to send

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/01/its_okay_theyre_lying/

Here are the current anti-escalation bills making their way through Congress

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jan/18/your_guide_to_bills_on_troop_escalation

What can you do? http://thinkprogress.org/escalation-house-senate/

He was against it before he was for it: Norm Coleman (R-MN) becomes the first Republican to come out against escalation, then waffle

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/18/114259/688

Where others stand: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/18/escalation-congress/
ThinkProgress is keeping track of where every member of Congress stands on escalation. . . .

The “first hundred hours” is a success – in only forty-two hours!

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/19/2397/75844

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/washington/18cnd-royalty.html
The House voted this evening to rescind $14 billion worth of tax breaks and subsidies for oil drillers and channel the money into a fund that would finance renewable energy projects and new technologies for conserving energy.

Despite opposition from the oil industry and the Bush administration, which contended that the bill would unfairly single out oil companies for higher taxes . . .

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/2007_democratic_agenda_/2007/01/now_what.php
[Jonathan Zasloff] Now that the House Democrats have passed their 100-hours agenda (much of which will die in the Senate), where should they go next?

I think that the obvious next choice is the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow employees to form unions based upon signing cards rather than go through the laborious process of elections. Those elections are so difficult and drawn out that they allow employers to dismiss or intimidate workers interested in unionizing. While unionization is hardly the complete cure toward rebuilding the security of the American working class, it is a necessary step.

The Republicans whine: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9663.html

Then back down: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/washington/19ethics.html

Steve Benen does due diligence on incompetence over at the Small Business Administration

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9661.html
I know the Small Business Administration isn’t exactly the sexiest agency in the government, but this is the quintessential example of how the Bush administration tries, and fails, to operate as a functional branch of government. . . .

John McCain (R-AZ) gets his escalation wish, and his poll numbers instantly start to fade. That plus his reversals on virtually every one of his “straight talk” principles have made people see him for what he is

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/01/18/mccains_support_is_crumbling.html
Said ARG's Dick Bennett: "John McCain is tanking. That’s the big thing [we’re finding]. In New Hampshire a year ago he got 49 percent among independent voters. That number’s way down, to 29 percent now.”

Even more worrying for the McCain campaign is that ARG "is finding a similar trend in other states polled, including early primary battlegrounds like Iowa and Nevada."

Reversals: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9658.html

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002366.php

Who will be the next Great Republican Hope?

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2007/01/meet_the_2008_republican_nominee.php

Fox News rehearses the new Libby defense (prepping for a pardon?)

http://mediamatters.org/items/200701190001

WH Correspondents’ Association dinner goes easy on Bush

Last year: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_14_atrios_archive.html#116918010555263150

This year: http://www.attytood.com/2007/01/dont_mention_the_war.html

Wow. Bush LESS popular than Cheney!

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jan/18/fox_poll_more_americans_dislike_bush_than_cheney

Did PBS and CBS promise not to ask Bush tough follow-ups as the price of getting exclusive interviews with him?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200701180017

Bonus item: we were all young once, weren’t we? Meet “Barry” Obama

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/18/181128/082

***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 @ 7:36 AM

 
FAILURE

Bush admits that "stay the course" means "slow failure"

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9643.html
LEHRER: Mr. President, do you have a feeling of personal failure about Iraq right now?

BUSH: I’m frustrated at times about Iraq because I understand the consequences of failure…. Look, I had a choice to make, Jim, and that is - one - do what we’re doing. And one could define that maybe a slow failure. . . .

[Steve Benen] I’m curious when, exactly, Bush came to the realization that the plan he’s been defending for the last four years was marked by failure, albeit a slow one. As recently as three months ago, when Democrats running in the midterm elections characterized the policy this way, Bush described them as weak, wrong, and dangerous. Now, he’s come around to the same conclusion they did. I’m sure an apology will be forthcoming.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061025.html
[Oct 25, 2006, before the election] THE PRESIDENT: Absolutely, we're winning. . . . We're winning, and we will win . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/19/AR2006121900880_pf.html
[Dec 20, 2006, after the election] "We're not winning, we're not losing” . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/01/17/BL2007011701107.html
[Dan Froomkin] Bush is clearly hoping to win back some credibility with the American people by admitting that what he had previously called success he now recognizes as failure. But all this really proves is that he couldn't be trusted before.

Over much of the course of the war Bush has incrementally made concessions that things are not going well in Iraq. Yesterday's admission was just the latest. And while it suggests a dawning acceptance of some aspects of reality, it doesn't speak to the quality of his decisions, or to any learning.

Bush has never said: I made a wrong decision in this case, here's why, and here's what I learned from it, which is why you can have greater faith in me this time.

So why should he be trusted now? Bush is constantly being asked that very question these days, but he can't come up with a persuasive answer. He simply says that he believes we can succeed. . .

More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2490.html

Cratered

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010578.php
[Kevin Drum] Public support for the war has pretty much cratered . . . Somebody remind me. How long did it take before public opinion turned this sharply against the Vietnam War?

(Answer: It's a trick question. Opposition reached 61% in 1971 but never exceeded that number. The Iraq war is now more unpopular than the Vietnam War ever was.) . . .

Wow, simply wow. Read this Tom Tomorrow cartoon from April Fool’s Day, 2003, and ask yourself where he got his crystal ball (thanks to Atrios for the link)

http://www.workingforchange.com/comic.cfm?itemid=14762

Maliki wants U.S. arms, not U.S. troops

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/17/AR2007011702346.html

O.K., explain this to me. Bush creates a warrantless surveillance program that violates the FISA law, then explains that he’s not violating the law because he’s not bound by the law. Now, suddenly, he says the FISA procedures have been changed in such a way that he’s happy to start following them again – but isn’t that an admission that the law DOES apply to him?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/washington/18spycnd.html
Mr. Gonzales said President Bush would not issue an executive order reauthorizing the eavesdropping program when it expires, within the next 45 days, but would instead defer to the surveillance court. Until now, the White House has contended that it has all the authority it needs to keep the program going, and that a presidential review every 45 days guarded against abuses. Indeed, in his letter, Mr. Gonzales said the surveillance program as it has been run “fully complies with the law.”

[NB: Which law? The one they were violating, or the one they are following now? IT’S THE SAME LAW]

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9649.html
[Steve Benen] I assume there has to be a catch . . [read on]

And on a purely political note, the Bush gang also seems to have cut off at the knees every right-wing supporter who said the domestic surveillance program was absolutely necessary, had to be kept separate from FISA, and could not be altered under any circumstances.

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/nothing-to-celebrate_116907140467333806.html
[Glenn Greenwald] My specific analysis of the legal and political issues surrounding the FISA story are here, but I want to make one broad point. Having read around the blogosphere and elsewhere, what emerges is that there is no way to discern exactly what this new framework is between the administration and the FISA court because the only evidence describing it is Gonzales' letter, which is quite vague in a number of respects about exactly what has happened.

But ultimately, there are only two options -- (1) the administration is now complying fully and exclusively with FISA when eavesdropping, in which case all of its prior claims that it could not do so and still fight against The Terrorists are false, or (2) the administration has changed its eavesdropping program some, but it is still not fully complying with FISA, in which case nothing of significance has changed (at least on the lawbreaking issues) because the administration is still violating the law.

The FISA court and the administration cannot reach an agreement for proceeding that deviates from the FISA law itself. So it is only one or the other of the two options, neither of which reflect well on the administration. . .

More: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/fisa-and-president-together-again.html

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/01/terrorist-surveillance-program-never.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010576.php
[Kevin Drum] First, I just have to ask: does anybody really believe that the Bush administration has been studiously beavering away on this for two years, and it's just a coincidence that they finally made this concession a mere few days after Democrats took control of Congress? Any takers on that?

Of course, if Gonzales is telling the truth, that's even worse for Bush because it's a clear sign that the previous program was patently illegal. In fact, so illegal that it took two solid years to finally develop an alternative that a judge deemed acceptable. If the program merely needed a few tweaks here and there, it would have taken a month for a judge to approve it, not two years.

http://www.slate.com/id/2157837
[Daniel Politi] But wait, what does this announcement mean? How will the secret court oversee the program? Short answer: No one seems to know. Administration officials aren't telling and the papers have different people telling them different things. It is unclear whether the administration found a friendly judge who gave a blanket approval to the program or whether it will have to seek individual approval each time it wants to eavesdrop. The LAT quotes Rep. Jane Harman, formerly the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who said, "the bottom line here is they will have to get individualized warrants if they want to listen to the communications of Americans in America." . . .

When Harman talked about how the courts would have to issue separate warrants for each case, she emphasized she wasn't "talking about people who are not Americans or U.S. persons." She refused to elaborate, citing that the information is classified, but the LAT wisely points out that it seems to imply the government could continue its warrantless eavesdropping if it were targeting someone who is not considered a "U.S. person." . . .

In a prescient editorial, USAT points out that regardless of these changes the government can still get information about Americans without a court order using National Security Letters . . . On Sunday, the NYT revealed the CIA is using these letters along with the FBI to get information about American citizens. "Unlike the warrantless wiretapping program, these letters don't violate any laws, though perhaps they should," says USAT.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/17/17825/7022
[Jeralyn Merritt] Once again the Bush Administration has acted on its own without consulting Congress.

Hopefully, the new plan will involve more than just mere rubberstamping by FISA judges. But if Gonzales is happy with it, I'm not optimistic that will be the case.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/17/AR2007011701256.html
Presidential press spokesman Tony Snow insisted to reporters that the move was neither politically motivated, in response to any criticism or tied to any court action.

"No, no, no, no, no. No. No.," Snow said . . . .

Hilarious. Watch Tony try to explain: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002358.php

This morning’s development

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/washington/18intel.html
The Justice Department said it had worked out an “innovative” arrangement with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that provided the “necessary speed and agility” to provide court approval to monitor international communications of people inside the United States without jeopardizing national security. . . .

But senior lawmakers said they were still uncertain Wednesday, even after the administration’s announcement, about how the court would go about approving warrants, how targets would be identified, and whether that process would differ from the court’s practices since 1978.

The administration said it had briefed the full House and Senate Intelligence Committees in closed sessions on its decision.

But Representative Heather A. Wilson, Republican of New Mexico, who serves on the Intelligence committee, disputed that, and some Congressional aides said staff members were briefed Friday without lawmakers present.

Ms. Wilson, who has scrutinized the program for the last year, said she believed the new approach relied on a blanket, “programmatic” approval of the president’s surveillance program, rather than approval of individual warrants.

Administration officials “have convinced a single judge in a secret session, in a nonadversarial session, to issue a court order to cover the president’s terrorism surveillance program,” Ms. Wilson said in a telephone interview. She said Congress needed to investigate further to determine how the program is run. . . .

Alberto Gonzales gained his post as Attorney General by lying. Can we do anything about it now?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/17/131154/642
[January 2005] SEN. DURBIN: But you believe he has that authority; he could ignore a law passed by this Congress, signed by this president or another one, and decide that it is unconstitutional and refuse to comply with that law?

MR. GONZALES: Senator, again, you're asking me where the -- hypothetically, does that authority exist? And I guess I would have to say that hypothetically that authority may exist. But let me also just say that we certainly understand and recognize the role of the courts in our system of government. We have to deal with some very difficult issues here, very, very complicated. Sometimes the answers are not so clear. The president's position on this is that ultimately the judges, the courts will make the decision as to whether or not we've drawn the right balance here. And in certain circumstance the courts have agreed with the administration positions; in certain circumstances, the courts have disagreed. And we will respect those decisions.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/17/113348/944
[MSNBC] Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says federal judges are unqualified to make rulings affecting national security policy, ramping up his criticism of how they handle terrorism cases. In remarks prepared for delivery Wednesday, Gonzales says judges generally should defer to the will of the president and Congress when deciding national security cases.

[Big Tent Democrat] I think the Attorney General could not be clearer. He advocates the vitiation of the Constitution by the judiciary when the President so desires. He is unfit for the office of Attorney General. He should be removed from office. . . .

Alberto Gonzales should never have been confirmed as Attorney General. His conduct in office confirms our judgment at the time. His speech today makes clear that he must be removed from office. He will not respect the Constitution and the laws of the United States. These views are simply unacceptable in the Nation's chief law enforcement officer. He must go.

There’s going to be a congressional bill against Bush’s war escalation. Some Republicans will support it. The only remaining question is how tough the Dems can make it without losing the bipartisan support (pretty tough, I’m guessing)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/world/middleeast/17cnd-cong.html
With a prominent Republican senator joining top Senate Democrats to oppose a troop increase in Iraq, President Bush met today with a group Republican senators in an effort to shore up support for his war plan.

The Senate is preparing to hold a vote on a nonbinding resolution opposing the troop increase. The move has added to the mounting political pressures on Mr. Bush — and on the Republicans who will have to vote on it — over his new Iraq strategy, which has met with widespread criticism.

But other Democrats said today that they would press for even tougher measures, such as demanding that the president seek congressional authorization before increasing the troop presence in Iraq.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/17/AR2007011700976.html
Senate Democrats today introduced competing measures in opposition to President Bush's planned buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq, with Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) seeking a legislative cap on American forces there . . . . Later, however, Democratic Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.) and Carl M. Levin (Mich.) were joined by Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska in putting forward a resolution that describes Bush's troop buildup in Iraq as "not in the national interest of the United States." . . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/16/AR2007011601458.html
The resolution . . . will not come to a vote before Bush's State of the Union address on Tuesday. But by sending it to Biden's committee this week, Democratic leaders will give senators from both parties multiple opportunities to voice concerns about the president's policy.

In another high-profile move, Democratic leaders yesterday tapped Sen. James Webb (D-Va.), a Reagan administration Navy secretary who secured victory in November on an antiwar push, to deliver the party's nationally televised response to Bush's speech. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/17/17828/9261
[Kagro X] A flood of bills calling for an everything from a rejection of the Bush/McCain escalation to the requirement of separate authorization for any hostilities with Iran have been introduced by both houses, and even by Members from both sides of the aisle. In all, 11 bills have been introduced, dealing with bringing the Iraq war to an end, or preventing a war in Iran. . . .

A twist

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9651.html
[Steve Benen] Here’s an odd twist. For the last two weeks, Republicans have been daring — almost begging — Democrats to take up a measure cutting off funding for the war in Iraq. Polls notwithstanding, the right believes Dems would be walking into a political nightmare.

It came as a surprise, therefore, to see House Republicans go in a far different direction today. . .

This strikes me as odd for a few reasons. One, for political purposes, Republicans had been hoping that Dems at least tried to cut off funding for the war. Now they’re saying Dems shouldn’t be able to, whether they want to or not.

Two, the whole argument behind the legislation is largely moot. . . Brendan Daly, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s spokesman, added, “It sounds like they’re trying to play politics. We’ve said repeatedly we support funding for troops in the field.”

And three, this new House GOP effort would undermine the power of the House now and forevermore. The ability of lawmakers (any lawmakers) to cut off funds for a president’s war (any president, any war) is fundamental to the system of checks and balances. Even if we put aside the merit behind the idea of cutting off funds, if this new measure became law, the House would be nearly powerless to check a president’s authority — a check which previous Congresses have utilized on several occasions. (Would the House GOP want to give up this power if a Democratic president was screwing up a major war?)

The “Otter Defense” – don’t miss it!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_14.php#011982

The Goofus Files (expanded edition)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/17/132742/908
...look, death is terrible . . .

http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/first_draft/2007/01/bush_speaks.html
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah, you know, that's an interesting question. I don't quite view it as the broken egg; I view it as the cracked egg --

MR. LEHRER: Cracked egg?

PRESIDENT BUSH: -- that - where we still have a chance to move beyond the broken egg. . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010574.php
LEHRER: Let me ask you a bottom-line question, Mr. President. If it is as important as you've just said -- and you've said it many times -- as all of this is, particularly the struggle in Iraq, if it's that important to all of us and to the future of our country, if not the world, why have you not, as president of the United States, asked more Americans and more American interests to sacrifice something?....

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, you know, I think a lot of people are in this fight. I mean, they sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible images of violence on TV every night.

[Kevin Drum] Jeebus. Is Bush getting even worse with every passing day? I swear, he can hardly open his mouth these days without saying something so dumb and tin-eared it just makes your jaw drop. It's like reading the second half of "Flowers for Algernon."

How different things look from either side of the aisle

http://www.slate.com/id/2157732/
Congressional Democrats seldom agonize before ditching presidents of their own party. In 1967, they fled Lyndon B. Johnson right and left—the right over civil rights, the left over Vietnam. A decade later, they shoved Jimmy Carter's legislative agenda back in his face. Bill Clinton faced constant rebellion from his own side.

Republicans are made of firmer stuff. They value loyalty, hierarchy, and deference over independence and private conscience. When the GOP controls the White House, the party's congressional wing readily accepts its subordinate position. For an example of widespread GOP abandonment of a president of their own party, you have to go back to Watergate, when, as now, Republican legislators faced a tricky calculation about how to handle an embattled, isolated, and failing president. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/17/134727/694
[Bob Novak] The gloom pervading the Republican Party cannot be exaggerated. The long-range GOP outlook for 2008 is grim. The consensus is that U.S. troops must be off the ground of Iraq by next year to prevent an electoral catastrophe in the next election . . .

Iraq, one of Bush's top political advisers now notes, is a black hole for the Republican Party. A nationally prominent Republican pollster reported confidentially on Capitol Hill after the President's speech that if U.S. boots are still on the ground in Iraq and U.S. blood is still being spilled there at the end of the year, the GOP disaster in 2008 will eclipse 2006. . . .

Meanwhile: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/01/17/democrats_go_on_offensive.html
Democratic leaders "are launching a broad counteroffensive on issues ranging from Iraq to energy policy in advance of President Bush’s State of the Union address next week, hoping to separate the president from the typical popularity boost that comes with the nationally televised speech," Roll Call reports.

The new House and Senate leaders "are orchestrating a 'strong push-back' beginning today on some of Bush’s major proposals... and "will hold numerous events on both sides of the Capitol to try to ensure they go into Tuesday night’s speech with an upper hand on the issues they believe Bush is set to address, including the Iraq War, balancing the budget, global warming and energy independence. Democrats already are fanning out to the rank-and-file Members, urging them to set expectations high, so that the onus is on Bush to measure up."

The ”first hundred hours” roll on

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/18/7633/15859
[AP] The House legislation, passed 356-71, would slice rates on the subsidized loans from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent in stages over five years at a cost to taxpayers of $6 billion. About 5.5 million students get the loans each year. ... Democrats conceded Congress needs to do more to make college more affordable. But they said reducing student loan interest rates was a significant step toward tuition relief. . . .

How they play it

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_14.php#011993
[Josh Marshall] Republicans use poison pill to derail ethics reform in the senate.

No ethics reform unless the Republicans get a line item veto.

Call it what it is. The senate Republicans don't want an ethics bill.

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/lying_in_politics_/2007/01/budget_nonsense_from_right_blogistan.php
[Mark Kleiman] The incumbent President of the United States has abused every power he has, and some he doesn't have. He has presided over a profligate fiscal policy, never once vetoing an appropriation while his co-partisans controlled Congress. Now that the Democrats will be passing the appropriations bills, he wants "rescission" authority: in effect, a line-item veto that allows him to punish his enemies by eliminating projects that benefit their constituents.

I hope this doesn’t shock you

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/16/AR2007011601731.html
A Defense Department database devoted to gathering information on potential threats to military facilities and personnel, known as Talon, had 13,000 entries as of a year ago -- including 2,821 reports involving American citizens, according to an internal Pentagon memo to be released today by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Pentagon memo says an examination of the system led to the deletion of 1,131 reports involving Americans, 186 of which dealt with "anti-military protests or demonstrations in the U.S.". . .

The anti-Mel Martinez (R-FL) campaign for head of the RNC turns ugly – very ugly

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/17/192539/344

Guess who squeezed in that provision of the Patriot Act that the Bush gang is now abusing to force out U.S. Attorneys who have gotten too aggressive about investigating Republicans? Apparently, it’s that stalwart and dependable opponent of executive power excesses (uh-huh) Arlen Specter (R-PA)

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002354.php

John McCain, just another Republican

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_14_atrios_archive.html#116904872112092130
Danny Diaz, a McCain spokesperson, responded to MoveOn's ad by telling ABC News: "MoveOn.Org is an out-of-the-mainstream organization that has a long history of airing inflammatory material, even comparing the President to Hitler. It is not surprising that a liberal group opposed to military action after September 11th would attack Senator McCain's conservative values, as well as changing strategy and securing victory in Iraq."

[Atrios] Move On never opposed military action after 9/11 and never compared Bush to Hitler. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_14.php#011988
[Josh Marshall] Paging Wolf Blitzer and other pundits: Please read this the next time you feel moved to say that John McCain "likes straight talk."

Cully Stimson’s “apology” . . . can you guess?

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/01/a_partial_apology_from_cully_stimson.html
[Michael Froomkin] Unfortunately, there are three good reasons to question its sincerity.
. .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9650.html

ABC’s disturbing rightward turn

http://mediamatters.org/columns/200701160012

Bonus item: O.J. kills again

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/books/16cnd-regan.html

More: http://www.slate.com/id/2157652/

http://www.slate.com/id/2157766/entry/0/fr/rss/

***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 @ 7:00 AM

 
DUMPING GROUND

As long as we’re recycling Vietnam era rhetoric, what about “turning the corner” or “light at the end of the tunnel”?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/17/AR2007011700456.html
The coordinated detonation of two bombs during the after-school rush at a Baghdad university killed at least 60 people Tuesday and wounded more than 140 in what university officials described as one of the deadliest attacks on academia since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

The spate of killings, which also included a bombing outside a Sunni Muslim shrine in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood of central Baghdad, made plain the difficulties facing U.S. and Iraqi troops poised for their latest effort to tamp down rampant violence in the capital. It coincided with a report from the United Nations that said 34,452 Iraqi civilians died violently last year -- an average of 94 per day -- an estimate nearly triple the death toll provided by three Iraqi government ministries. . . .

A great time to be pulling out thousands of troops to support the “surge” in Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/world/asia/16cnd-gates.html
Senior American officials said Tuesday that they had seen a threefold surge in insurgent attacks in Afghanistan in recent months, caused by militants coming across the border with Pakistan . . . Of particular concern, the officials said, has been rise in attacks by Taliban and other militants launched from remote and largely ungoverned remote tribal areas in Pakistan into eastern Afghanistan, where most American combat forces are based.

I don’t quote Howard Fineman here much, but this is good

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16610771/site/newsweek/from/RS.2/
A generation ago, a war—Vietnam—launched a realignment of American politics. Now, it seems increasingly clear, Iraq is doing the same. . . [read on]

Another snippet from Bush’s 60 Minutes interview, on imposing multiple tours of duty on the military, which is almost impossible to stomach when you think about Bush’s own cushy National Guard experience

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/16/193115/633
Bush: This is a different situation. This is a volunteer army. In Vietnam, it was, ‘We’re going to draft you and you’re going to go for a year.' . . . [read on!]

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116900571719519003

A reminder of how this war is being conducted

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116901367866185209
[Digby] Reader Colin reminded me of this little nugget from a year ago, which made the hair on the back of my neck stand up:

[Newsweek] The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq . . . [read on]

Fighting insurgencies: lessons from history

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010571.php

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/01/counterinsurgency/

At least SEVEN U.S. attorneys summarily dumped recently. Why?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011960.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_14.php#011958
[Josh Marshall] Given that these new USAs are being plopped into offices currently investigating Republicans and other administration officials and others into states with 2008 presidential candidates, there's certainly ample opportunity for mischief.

So we're looking into just who the White House is appointing. . . [read on!]

Hmm. . . . and they’re being replaced without Senate approval. Now, the authority to do all this was buried deep within the Patriot Act. (But what does that have to do with national security?)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_14.php#011964
[Josh Marshall] Okay, we've got some background here on that little-known provision of the Patriot Act that facilitated the federal prosecutor purge. Seems it only took the White House four months to start putting the new power to use. . . .

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002348.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/16/215554/886

“Cully” apologizes

http://www.slate.com/id/2157723
[Daniel Politi] Charles D. "Cully" Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, writes a letter to the Post today in which he apologizes for criticizing the U.S. law firms that are representing prisoners in Guantanamo. On Thursday, Stimson suggested that corporate clients should question being represented by law firms that are working to defend suspected terrorists. But today he writes that "those comments do not reflect my core belief." And added: "I believe firmly that a foundational principle of our legal system is that the system works best when both sides are represented by competent legal counsel."

Tin ear

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20070116-122754-5361r.htm
Rebellion is brewing among conservatives on the Republican National Committee over President's Bush's attempt to "impose" Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida as "general chairman" of the party . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9637.html

May or may not be true, but I like the sound of it

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/16/121117/552
[Kos] I've long suspected that McCain got screwed by Bush's escalation plan.

It goes like this --

Late last year, McCain needs to find a way to appeal to the neocon cabal. He knows the war in Iraq is finished and lost, but he cannot admit as much and hope to get out of the primaries.

He sees the Iraq Study Group close to advocating a gradual withdrawal, and conventional wisdom was convinced (despite all evidence to the contrary) that Bush would take that advice. . . . So McCain hatches his too-clever-by-half plan -- while Bush works to draw down forces, he'll argue for a "surge". And when people wondered in the coming years why we lost the war -- a war that McCain had cheered from the beginning -- he would say, "if they had only listened to me, we would've won!" . . . [read on]

Sanctimonious Joe Lieberman doesn’t know the meaning of loyalty

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/16/154736/864

Suddenly the Democrats are acting like their positions ARE the mainstream view on most issues (and the media is acknowledging that)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/16/22157/5318

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9634.html

Cool, if you like this sort of thing: a social network analysis of the lefty blogosphere

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/16/20197/6047

Bonus item: Tony Snow – we’re lucky he’s as bad as he is at his job

http://tonydissent.notlong.com
[Greg Sargent] In today's press briefing, David Gregory pointed out that Dems opposing this or that aspect of President Bush's war policies have long been painted by the White House as friends of the enemy. He then asks the key follow-up question: "What's an appropriate way to dissent?" It's a good question, and Snow has a fair amount of trouble coming up with an answer to it -- at first he appears to start denying that this charge has ever been lodged at Dems before cutting himself off. View it here. . .

***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 @ 6:19 AM

 
DAMN INGRATES

So, Bush is upset that the Iraqis aren’t GRATEFUL enough

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2465.html#015115
[60 Minutes] PELLEY: Do you think you owe the Iraqi people an apology for not doing a better job?

BUSH: That we didn't do a better job or they didn't do a better job?

PELLEY: Well, that the United States did not do a better job in providing security after the invasion.

BUSH: Not at all. I am proud of the efforts we did. We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude, and I believe most Iraqis express that. I mean, the people understand that we've endured great sacrifice to help them. That's the problem here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq.

[Sam Rosenfeld] Very nice. Also good to know the president has a handle on what's really bothering the American people about the war.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_14_atrios_archive.html#116888775378012186
[January 2003] In Bremer's account, the President was seriously interested in one issue: whether the leaders of the government that followed the CPA would publicly thank the United States. But there is no evidence that he cared about the specific questions that counted: Would the new prime minister have a broad base of support? Would he be able to bridge Iraq's ethnic divisions? What political values should he have? Instead, Bush had only one demand: 'It's important to have someone who's willing to stand up and thank the American people for their sacrifice in liberating Iraq.' According to Bremer, he came back to this single point three times in the same meeting. Similarly, Ghazi al-Yawar, an obscure Sunni Arab businessman, became Bush's candidate for president of Iraq's interim government because, as Bremer reports, Bush had 'been favorably impressed with his open thanks to the Coalition.’

Looks like the American people aren’t grateful enough, either

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/01/usat_poll_ameri.html
USAT Poll: Americans 'more pessimistic' after Bush's Iraq speech . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/15/21438/5129
President Bush's address to the nation last week outlining a "new way forward" in Iraq failed to move public opinion in support of his plan . . . The percentage who said they disapprove of Bush's performance as president was 63%, vs. 59% before the speech.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011945.php
[Josh Marshall] As Atrios aptly notes, poll numbers showing President Bush became less popular after his speech should not surprise anyone. President Bush is by any reasonable measure extremely unpopular. Not unpopular -- extremely unpopular. Mid-low forties is unpopular. Mid-low thirties is extremely unpopular. Almost, but not quite unprecedented in the modern era for such a sustained period of time. The Iraq War is one of the few things that rivals his unpopularity. And the public after signaling deep opposition to the war at the polls sees this extremely unpopular president come before them to announce that he's expanding the really unpopular war. And if that's not enough he has the quavering look of a degenerate gambler begging his wife, half cockily half desperately, for one more chance. . . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_14_atrios_archive.html#116892233364091956
[Atrios] In 1998 when Clinton's personal favorability rating flirted with sub-50 this was evidence he should resign. . . .

More from 60 Minutes

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/bush-on-60-minutes-lies-about-lying.html
"You know better than I do that many Americans feel that your administration has not been straight with the country, has not been honest. To those people you say what?" Pelley asks.

"On what issue?" the president replies. "Like the weapons of mass destruction?"

"No weapons of mass destruction," Pelley says.

"Yeah," Bush says.

"No credible connection between 9/11 and Iraq," Pelley says.

“Yeah,” the president replies.

“The Office of Management and Budget said this war would cost somewhere between $50 billion and $60 billion and now we're over 400,” Pelley says.

“I gotcha. I gotcha. I gotcha,” Bush replies.

“The perception, Sir, more than any one of those points, is that the administration has not been straight with…,” Pelley says.

“Well, I strongly disagree with that, of course,” Bush says. “So I strongly reject that this administration hasn’t been straight with the American people. The minute we found out they didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, I was the first to say so.”

http://toohotfortnr.blogspot.com/2007/01/its-like-bottle-to-head.html
[Spencer Ackerman] Needless to say, this is a lie; he said the exact opposite. It takes a special type of asshole to lie when trying to defend himself against the charge of lying.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9618.html
[Steve Benen] Sure, the president can dissemble his way through an interview with 60 Minutes while only embarrassing himself a couple of times, but the truth is, as a professional deceiver and demagogue, Bush’s skills are limited. He doesn’t sound credible; at times he barely seems to believe what he’s saying.

To see a real pro at work, we need to watch the Vice President in action. . . . [read on!]

The Bush Doctrine turns insane

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_14.php#011936
[Josh Marshall] I'm not sure how many people saw it. But the big catch in Scott Pelley's interview with President Bush last night, in my mind at least, was the new rationale for the invasion of Iraq: to defend against future hypothetical scenarios. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_14.php#011938
[BS] That the President is being less than forthcoming on an issue of national security is hardly anything new. What worries me is setting out a doctrine that pre-emptive strikes are not only justified by an actual gathering threat but by hypothetical futuristic scenarios which have no bearing in the present reality. You can’t invade a country without a nuclear program to stop them from maybe one day changing their mind about it any more than you can shoot an unarmed man because he might one day buy a gun. . . .

Didn’t Bush ever read that Bible he likes to invoke so much? Remember Exodus, where mean old Pharoah starts killing all Hebrew newborn males to decimate the population? To quote:

“Look, the Israelite people are much too numerous for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase; otherwise in the event of war, they may join our enemies in fighting against us and rise from the ground.” (Exodus 1:8)

By Bush’s new logic, Pharoah would have been completely justified in his genocide - yeah the Hebrews weren’t rising up but “imagine a world” in which they did. In fact, by this logic a nation can justify invading ANY country at ANY time and even commit widespread atrocities against civilians. . . .

[Josh Marshall] We really can spin out this yarn in an infinite number of directions. But the antic nature of this riff really is inseparable from the ridiculousness of the president's logic.

So, so revealing. Like the decision to replace Rumsfeld, the decision to rethink war policy only took hold AFTER the beat-down Bush and the Republicans received on November 7.

It’s all, once again, mainly about trying to regain political momentum

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/15/1742/88041
[Hunter] Does this basically mean that if the election had turned out differently, Bush would have never recognized the need for a change in direction? . . . Or does it mean that until his party lost an election, Bush really just didn't give a damn about whether the plan was working or not?

Sigh. You know, completely independent of whether it's a good plan, a bad plan, or even a new "plan" at all, you really don't have to be a cynic to marvel at the extent to which pure political calculation was responsible for selling this war, corrupted it during execution, and continues to dominate it now. But congratulations, America: it only took a complete rout of the president's own party and a shifting of both houses of Congress to get Bush to figure out that things in Iraq maybe weren't going as well as his teleprompter kept saying they were. . .

Yep, this will help defuse ethnic tensions in Iraq

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/15/AR2007011501045.html
The Kurdish makeup of two of the three Iraqi army brigades due to be sent to Baghdad under President Bush's new strategic plan is drawing concern from Iraqi and U.S. experts.

Questions have been raised about whether the Kurds would fight Sunni insurgents in Baghdad at a time when some Sunni clerics and organizations have spoken out against aiding U.S. troops and the Iraqi government. But there is also concern that the soldiers would be heavy-handed if sent into heavily Shiite areas. . .

More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_war_in_iraq_/2007/01/20000_more_troops_to_support_ethnic_cleansing.php

Two more hangings of Saddam associates in Iraq – and they handle this almost as well as they handled the last one

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/15/1549/59379
[Reuters] [T]he trapdoors swung open, they dropped and the rope severed the hooded head of Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam's younger half-brother and former intelligence chief.

Government officials said they had decided not to distribute any part of the film to the public. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/15/AR2007011500401.html
In many parts of Iraq, the executions set off new waves of anger and celebration along sectarian lines, though Maliki's government had gone to great pains to prevent the type of chaotic spectacle that accompanied Hussein's hanging two weeks ago . . .

More on Charles “Cully” Simpson

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_14.php#011942
[Josh Marshall] Over the weekend, David Kurtz kept you up to speed about the story of Charles D. Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, who is calling on corporate America to boycott law firms who are providing legal defense to detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Subsequently, the Pentagon disavowed Stimson's comments and said they don't represent the Pentagon's views.

As far as I know, however, Stimson himself has not retracted his comments. And he is hardly some random official. He is the Defense Department appointee charged with overseeing "detainee affairs". He runs it.

We've become greatly desensitized in recent years to shocking abuses of civil liberties and administration contempt for the rule of law. Even in that context though this stands out as an outrageous attack on the rule of law in this country. When high level Defense Department appointees are publicly calling for blacklisting lawyers defending clients in the civilian justice system you know we've gotten to a very bad place.

This story should not end here. Stimson should be fired immediately. And if the White House won't, the Congress should investigate his activities.

Dog bites man. Bush admin sucks up to Big Oil

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002339.php
[Justin Rood] Uh-oh. The Interior Department's internal watchdog says top officials at the agency knew about problems costing taxpayers as much as $10 billion in revenue, but tried to hide the problem from the public, according to Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Tollefson.

One official may even have lied to Congress about when she knew things were screwy with her agency's energy contracts, which have allowed companies like ExxonMobil and Shell to pay billions less than they should have to extract oil and gas from federal lands . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9623.html
[Steve Benen] This news comes shortly after we learned that the Justice Department is “investigating whether the director of a multibillion-dollar oil-trading program at the Interior Department has been paid as a consultant for oil companies hoping for contracts.”

Which comes shortly after we learned that former Interior Secretary Gale Norton has sailed through the revolving door to become a lawyer for Royal Dutch Shell.

Which comes shortly after revelations that officials at Bush’s Interior Department tried to hide information that federal incentives for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico isn’t cost effective, doesn’t produce a lot of oil, and is generally just a massive give-away to oil companies.

You know, I’m starting to get the impression that Bush’s Interior Department might be beholden to Big Oil. I can’t wait to see what Henry Waxman does to these guys. . .

ANOTHER U.S. attorney gets fired. Why?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002340.php
[Justin Rood] Less than a week after news broke that the Bush administration has forced the resignation of San Diego U.S. attorney Carole Lam, we learn that it has done the same to Daniel Bogden, U.S. attorney for Nevada.

According to today's Las Vegas Review-Journal, no one seems to know why he's been asked to leave before his term expires in 2008. . .

And this: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011598.php
Late Friday, the Department of Justice announced that the President had used a recess appointment to name a 34-year-old former White House aide to Karl Rove as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Apparently J. Timothy Griffin made his mark as a Republican campaign operative as opposed to, say, as a lawyer. He replaces current USA Bud Cummins.

Bush, author of the biggest deficit in U.S. history, becomes a quick convert to balanced budgets

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/15/AR2007011501085.html
Budget experts and economists from across the political spectrum, including some who worked in the Bush White House, say that Bush is unlikely to offer real concessions toward a balanced budget in the plan he delivers to Congress next month. . . .

What the Dems are doing: http://alternet.org/story/46710/

Republican Senator Wayne Allard (CO) abides by his term limit promise, will step down -- even though it may well shift his seat to the Democrats

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/15/152615/028

Cheering soldiers?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200701120016
In a January 11 article on President Bush's appearance at the Fort Benning Army military base in Georgia, the Associated Press claimed that Bush was "surrounded ... by cheering soldiers" as he promoted his plan to send more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq. That characterization of how Bush was received stands in stark contrast with what The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times reported in their coverage of Bush's Fort Benning visit. The AP also did not include a reference to soldiers at the base being forbidden to talk to reporters, as the three papers suggested. . . .

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 5:56 AM

 
LIFE DURING WARTIME

Bush (yesterday): You can’t criticize our plan without proposing alternatives
Cheney (today): Who gives a damn what you propose; we won’t run the war by committee

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/14/US.iraq.ap/index.html

More alternatives: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116875513924019762
[Digby] There's the Murtha plan, the Biden plan, the Baker-Hamilton plan, the Levin-Reed plan --- and that's just off the top of my head.

There are plenty of plans, all of which Bush thinks are "flaming turds" . . .

How cynical can you get? http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/14/191943/399
[WP] "This buys us time," said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss strategy. . . . [read on]

Dick Cheney, existentialist: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/cheney-attacks-majority-of-americans.html

The Decider

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/washington/14cnd-prexy.html
President Bush, facing sharp and widespread opposition to his plan to send more troops to Iraq, insists that he has the authority to do so even without the approval of Congress. . . “I fully understand they could try to stop me from doing it,” he said in a taped interview for the CBS News program “60 Minutes” that is to be broadcast this evening. “But I’ve made my decision. And we’re going forward.”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/15/51716/7671
[BarbinMD] Following George Bush's appearance last night on 60 Minutes, CBS put up the transcript of the entire interview by Scott Pelley, kindly cleaning up the worst of Bush's mangling of the English language. What follows are a few excerpts from that interview, transcribed without the kindness. . .

What must be said

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116882223929709662
[Digby] I have long said that the Republicans are undemocratic, but now they're just coming right out and saying it: democracy is all well and good until the people and their representatives object to what the president is doing at which point the people and their representatives become a superfluous "committee." They have interpreted the words "commander in chief" to mean that the constitution gives the president dictatorial powers during "wartime" (which the president defines.) . . .

This is something the Fourth Estate should be doing more regularly

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/16460924.htm
[McClatchy] President Bush and his aides, explaining their reasons for sending more American troops to Iraq, are offering an incomplete, oversimplified and possibly untrue version of events there that raises new questions about the accuracy of the administration's statements about Iraq. . . . [READ – IT – ALL]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/14/204210/306
[SusanG] Real journalism. Real fact-checking. Real analysis. . . . It’s enough to make you weep for joy.

Guess who’s not convinced? (They know better)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/world/middleeast/15baghdad.html
Just days after President Bush unveiled his new war plan for Iraq, the heart of the effort — a major push to secure the capital — faces some of its fiercest resistance from the very people it depends on for success: Iraqi government officials. . .

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-sunnis15jan15,0,6674692.story
President Bush's plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq has inflamed passions among the restive Sunni Arab minority, bringing new recruits to insurgent cells and outpourings of popular anger toward the U.S., the spokesman for the country's most hard-line Sunni clerical group declared Sunday.

"Iraq is like a fire," said Mohammed Bashar Faidi, spokesman for the Muslim Scholars Assn. "Instead of putting water on the fire, Bush is pouring gasoline.” . . .

Better is worse

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1989397,00.html
Rami was explaining how the insurgency had changed since the first heady days after the US invasion. "I used to attack the Americans when that was the jihad. Now there is no jihad. Go around and see in Adhamiya [the notorious Sunni insurgent area] - all the commanders are sitting sipping coffee; it's only the young kids that are fighting now, and they are not fighting Americans any more, they are just killing Shia. There are kids carrying two guns each and they roam the streets looking for their prey. They will kill for anything, for a gun, for a car and all can be dressed up as jihad." . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010562.php
[Fareed Zakaria] If the 20,000 additional American troops being sent to the Iraqi capital focus primarily on Sunni insurgents, there's a chance the Shiite militias might get bolder. Colonel Duke puts it bluntly: "[The Mahdi Army] is sitting on the 50-yard line eating popcorn, watching us do their work for them."

So what will happen if Bush's new plan "succeeds" militarily over the next six months? Sunnis will become more insecure as their militias are dismantled. Shiite militias will lower their profile on the streets and remain as they are now, ensconced within the Iraqi Army and police. That will surely make Sunnis less likely to support the new Iraq. Shiite political leaders, on the other hand, will be emboldened. . .

The greatest danger of Bush's new strategy, then, isn't that it won't work but that it will -- and thereby push the country one step further along the road to all-out civil war....The U.S. Army will be actively aiding and assisting in the largest program of ethnic cleansing since Bosnia. Is that the model Bush wanted for the Middle East?

More: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/editorial/16459277.htm
[Juan Cole] President Bush's escalation of the Iraq War is premised on a profound misunderstanding of who the enemies are, how to deal with them and what the limits are of U.S. power. . . .

Hey, cheer up!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16609997/site/newsweek/
Intel director John Negroponte gave Congress a sobering assessment last week of the continued threats from groups like Al Qaeda and Hizbullah. But even gloomier comments came from Henry Crumpton, the outgoing State Department terror coordinator. An ex-CIA operative, Crumpton told NEWSWEEK that a worldwide surge in Islamic radicalism has worsened recently, increasing the number of potential terrorists and setting back U.S. efforts in the terror war. "Certainly, we haven't made any progress," said Crumpton. "In fact, we've lost ground." . . . "We don't want to acknowledge we're going to get hit again in the homeland, but we are," he said. "That's a hard, ugly fact. But it's going to happen."

Cut to fit: they finally asked “surge” advocate Fred Kagan what he thinks of Bush’s troop levels, which are far below what he had been insisting was a bare minimum for success. Guess what he says now?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_14_atrios_archive.html#116880992590281275

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_14.php#011921
[PS] Just a note on Fred Kagan – the guy is not an expert on insurgency, civil war, or stability ops. He has a Ph.D in history, with a focus on the 19th century Russian military. His major scholarly book is on Napoleon from 1801-5. From what I can tell, he has no serious background studying the issues that are at the core of his “surge” plan (his AEI bio page is below). So I am completely baffled by the extent to which the media has given him credibility as a “military expert”; one imagines how the surge would have been received if Kagan was accurately identified as “an expert on Napoleon and the early 19th century Russian army.” His CV reveals no publications in refereed history or political science journals in the last decade. Basically the intellectual architect of the surge is an oped/Weekly Standard writer whose only substantive expertise is on Napoleon. Great. . .

A Republican challenges a Democrat on Iraq, and guess whose side I’m on?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9616.html

What will the Democrats do?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/washington/15troopscnd.html
While most Democratic leaders have not endorsed taking steps beyond seeking to pass non-binding resolutions opposing the troop increase, pressure has been mounting for the last week from opponents of the war for taking more direct and assertive action to block Mr. Bush. . .

What will the Republicans do?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16610773/site/newsweek/
Bush expected at least a handful of Republican senators—critics like Chuck Hagel and George Voinovich—to run from a troop increase. But the White House was surprised when even pro-war senators, including Sam Brownback and Lisa Murkowski, came out against the plan. Other prominent senators, including Lott and John Warner, the senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee, have been quiet. They aren't bashing the idea, but they aren't promoting it either. Warner and Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, are contemplating a resolution to draw bipartisan support for the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group report. . . .

A former senior Bush aide who is still close to the White House says if things don't improve, a delegation of Republican senators could one day show up in the Oval Office to tell Bush that the party is no longer with him and the war must end—much like Sen. William Fulbright's forcefully urging Lyndon Johnson to bring the Vietnam War to a close. . .

“A mutiny” http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2154792.ece

Making it up as they go along

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/13/AR2007011301372_pf.html
Timothy M. Carney went to Baghdad in April 2003 to run Iraq's Ministry of Industry and Minerals . . . He left after two months, disgusted and disillusioned. The U.S. occupation administration in Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), placed ideology over pragmatism, he believed. . . . "Planning was bad," he wrote in his diary on May 8, "but implementation is worse."

When he returned to Washington, he made little secret of his views. They were so scathing that his wife lost a government contract. He figured his days of working on Iraq were over.

Until a phone call on Tuesday.

David Satterfield, the State Department's Iraq coordinator, was on the line with a question: Would Carney be willing to go back to Baghdad as the overall coordinator of the American reconstruction effort?

The decision to send Carney back to Iraq -- and to abandon the policies that so rankled him in 2003 -- represents a fundamental shift in the Bush administration's approach to stabilizing the country. Desperate for new approaches to stifle the persistent Sunni insurgency and Shiite death squads that are jointly pushing the country toward an all-out civil war, the White House made a striking about-face last week, embracing strategies and people it once opposed or cast aside. . .

[NB: Read it all – the real jaw-droppers are how stunningly stupid the policies under Bremer et al. were. . . . and still are!]

Chalabi?!!???

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/13/AR2007011301372_pf.html
The de-Baathification expert in the CPA's headquarters was Meghan O'Sullivan, then an aide to Bremer and now a deputy national security adviser working on Iraq. Although she voiced initial misgivings, she quickly became a vigorous and uncompromising enforcer of the edict. . . .

Bremer eventually concluded that the policy had been applied "unevenly and unjustly." But instead of rescinding his edict, he announced that appeals would be handled by a de-Baathification commission headed by Ahmed Chalabi, a controversial former exile whose informants had helped the Bush administration make the case for war. Chalabi, a Shiite, saw little need to accommodate former Baathists, most of whom are Sunnis. . . .

In an attempt to get the process moving, Bush used his televised address last week to call on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to embrace the reintegration of former Baathists. Maliki told Bush recently that he supports a revised de-Baathification law -- but the issue isn't in the prime minister's hands. It's still with Chalabi.

Chalabi is the chairman of the Supreme National Commission for De-Baathification, which continues to have ultimate authority to decide which ex-Baathists can return to work and which cannot. . . .

Chalabi said he heard Bush's call for swift action on the de-Baathification law, but he emphasized that he and his fellow Iraqis, not U.S. officials, are in charge of the legislative timetable.

"We don't feel any pressure," he said.

You think things have gotten better?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_14.php#011922
[The Independent] The American company appointed to advise the US government on the economic reconstruction of Iraq has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars into Republican Party coffers and has admitted that its own finances are in chaos because of accounting errors and bad management. . . [read on]

Bush doesn’t have the political strength, or the public credibility, or the legal authority to start another war – but he seems to think he does

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/01/14/iran.us/index.html
The White House said Sunday it is not planning military action against Iran, but refused to rule out the possibility, bucking pressure from several senators who said the administration is not authorized to do so. . . .

Gulf of Tonkin II

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116879869672662122

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/01/lurching_toward_war/

Cheney isn’t concerned about expanded domestic surveillance, and doesn’t think you should be either

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/washington/15spy.html
Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday defended efforts by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency to obtain financial records of Americans suspected of terrorism or espionage, calling the practice a “perfectly legitimate activity” used partly to protect troops stationed on military bases in the United States. . .

“There’s nothing wrong with it or illegal,” Mr. Cheney said. “It doesn’t violate people’s civil rights. And if an institution that receives one of these national security letters disagrees with it, they’re free to go to court to try to stop its execution.”

Haw haw haw: all of McCain’s pandering to the Religious Right (the folks he once called “agents of intolerance”) has been for naught – they know who he is and they don’t want him

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/religious-right-leader-james-dobson-on.html

Interesting: the firing of US attorney Carol Lam may have more to do with the case she hasn’t prosecuted yet (Jerry Lewis, R-CA) than with the one she successfully did (Duke Cunningham)

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005443.html

Bonus item: Martin Luther King Day

http://www.juancole.com/2007/01/sleeping-through-revolution-martin.html
“I want to say one other challenge that we face is simply that we must find an alternative to war and bloodshed. Anyone who feels, and there are still a lot of people who feel that way, that war can solve the social problems facing mankind is sleeping through a great revolution.”

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/15/23848/6304

***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 @ 7:21 AM

 
IRRESPONSIBLE

Could this be any more lame and clichéd?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/13/Bush.Dems.radio.ap/index.html
President Bush on Saturday challenged lawmakers skeptical of his new Iraq plan to propose their own strategy for stopping the violence in Baghdad.

"To oppose everything while proposing nothing is irresponsible," Bush said. . .

"Members of Congress have a right to express their views, and express them forcefully," Bush said. "But those who refuse to give this plan a chance to work have an obligation to offer an alternative that has a better chance for success. "

[NB: We’ve been through this before. The best answer was Tom Tomorrow’s, a couple of weeks ago: “Here’s my alternative: build a friggin’ time machine and go back and LISTEN to all of us who were telling you not to do this, before you screwed it up irrecoverably!”]

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/bush-today-called-70-of-american.html
Bush today called 70% of the American people "irresponsible" . . .

You want alternatives?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/13/13758/8358
[SusanG] All righty, then. I’ll play. Off the top of my head, here are just two examples of what "proposing nothing" looks like, starting with: John Murtha’s plan . . .

Then there’s the Iraq Study Group report, first commissioned by the president, then ignored by the president, then the choice to actively pursue the precisely opposite suggestions is made ... by the president . . . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/i-have-plan-for-bringing-terri-schiavo.html
[John Aravosis] I was watching "The Mummy 2" on the plane back from France, and I now have a plan for bringing Terri Schiavo back from the dead. I recognize that many are skeptical. And they have a right to express their views, and express them forcefully. But those who refuse to give this plan a chance to work have an obligation to offer an alternative that has a better chance for success. To oppose everything while proposing nothing is irresponsible.

Bush unifies the Congress

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/13/AR2007011300561.html
The bipartisan opposition to President Bush's troop-increase plan has proved more intense than his advisers hoped and has left them scrambling to find support, but the White House is banking on the assumption that it can execute its "new way forward" in Iraq before Congress can derail it. . .

Today’s must-read: Dick Cheney, still around, still in control

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0701.rozen.html

What happens when (not if) the current escalation fails?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070113/ap_on_go_pr_wh/iraq_what_if_it_fails
If the revamped Iraq war plan fails, it will be time to withdraw most U.S. troops. Or send more in. The United States is seen as having a limited number of options, all grim, if President Bush's "new way forward" hits a wall. The pressure for U.S. disengagement will be immense. Yet a further escalation, however unimaginable now, may not be out of the question.

Few expect helicopters to beat the air over Baghdad in a hasty retreat of the kind that closed the books on America's defeat in Vietnam. The Mideast and its oil are too important.

"We were able to walk away from Vietnam," said Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who was a prisoner of war there. "If we walk away on Iraq, we'll be back, possibly in the context of a wider war in the world's most volatile region."

The administration is almost certainly considering fallback options if the latest plan falls apart. Officials are loath to talk about them. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_14.php#011916
[David Kurtz] Condi Rice channeling Donald Rumsfeld:

Aboard her plane, Rice also told reporters that the United States would not abandon Iraq even if Bush's latest plan fails. . . . "We're not pulling the plug on Iraq," she said. "I think we'll worry about making Plan A work for now. And obviously, if it doesn't, then you know, we're not going to say, oh my goodness, that didn't work, there's nothing that can be done."

Oh my goodness.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116877687931843167
[New Republic] No one is in a position to say for sure whether or not the new focus on counter-insurgency and its implementation in Bagdad and Anbar province is going to work.

[Tristero] Wrong. I'm in a position to say that it wont work. . . [read on]

This is a smart move by Hillary, vis a vis Bush now, and McCain for 2008, because Maliki WON’T (or can’t) do what he has promised – and that’s the key reason why the escalation will fail

http://abcnews.go.com/International/IraqCoverage/story?id=2792632
In an exclusive interview with ABC News in Baghdad, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., called the situation in Iraq "heartbreaking". . . .

"I'm skeptical that the Iraqi government will do what they have promised to do, and that I think is the concern of all of us who have heard this before," she said. "All the promises, and intentions in the world don't substitute for action and we haven't seen a lot of action."

McCain, in for a penny, in for a pound: http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/13/184935/617

More on indications that the US is laying the groundwork to move (Mr. Purple Finger) Nouri al-Maliki O-U-T

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_war_in_iraq_/2007/01/a_coup_in_baghad.php
[Mark Kleiman] I won't pretend to be shocked that the United States government is grossly interfering in the politics of what's supposed to be the sovereign and democratic nation of Iraq. As far as I can tell, Iraq isn't sovereign, isn't especially democratic, and isn't a nation. If Iraq's biggest problem is sectarian warfare, and its current government is encouraging sectarian warfare by allowing sectarian militias to take over pieces of its army and police force, then a new government sounds like just what the doctor ordered.

But if al-Maliki falls, with us pushing him, that's not going to do much for our credibility as a promoter of democracy. And do we really have any good reason to believe that his successor would be able to do better? Iraq had elections, and the secularists got a thumpin'. Finding a parliamentary majority for a government that will actually go after the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades seems impossible. So what's left? An unparliamentary strongman regime? Last time I checked, all the actual strong men were on the wrong side.

Anyway, can you say, "Ngo Dinh Diem"? I was sure you could.

More: http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/01/easing_him_out/

Benchmarks

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010555.php
[Kevin Drum] Regardless of whether you believe that Bush's "benchmarks" in Iraq are serious or not, Defense Secretary Robert Gates testified that we'd know if Maliki was meeting them "probably within a couple of months."

That was on January 12. A couple of months takes us to March 12. We should expect to see Gates back in front of the Armed Services Committee on that date. . . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010554.php

We all know the “whack-a-mole” analogy by now. So what happens if, as Juan Cole predicts, the insurgents just lie low for a while? Bush claims that his “surge” is pacifying matters, he claims success and starts a partial withdrawal before the end of his term. . . and then what?

http://www.juancole.com/2007/01/mahdi-army-lowers-profile-sunni.html

Playing with fire

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001872.php
[Steve Clemons] I suspect that we will soon see more collisions between US military squads and Special Force operations against suspected Syrian and Iranian convoys and personnel -- civilian and military -- inside Iraq as well as more border interdiction. At some point, these units will go into Syria and Iran to accomplish their "disruption" missions.

At that point, Syria and Iran will make a calculation as to whether they should respond with proportionate military force against US military assets -- or whether they respond in lateral ways against other players in the region -- like American allies in Afghanistan or Iraq, or Israel. Alternatively, Iran could pump up the sophistication of weaponry it is supplying to Shiite groups and design and organize higher profile assaults on the Sunni population and American and British forces -- operating through proxies. . .

They won’t stop (until we stop them)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/13/161426/718
[SusanG] So ... the drip drip drip of news about who's spying domestically on American citizens utilizing questionable legal tactics continues. Yesterday, the NSA ... today ... the U.S. military, and to a lesser extent, the CIA, according to the New York Times. Yes, we knew they were keeping an eye on protestors near military installations, but today's story reporting the Pentagon has been issuing an estimated "thousands" of national security letters regarding hundreds of Americans brings it to a whole new level. . . [read on]

http://www.slate.com/id/2157639
[Andrew Rice] [T]he disclosure is significant, because it marks a breach of the traditional strictures on domestic operations by spy agencies. Congress has rejected several attempts by the agencies to gain the power to compel banks to give them such information. It's not clear whom the agencies are investigating. The military claims it's mostly keeping tabs on servicemen and private contractors, though others say the surveillance is broader, especially when it comes to the Pentagon, which has made the use of such letters "standard practice." . . .

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/13/17029/1423

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116873210351012644

The coordinated effort to punish law forms who had the audacity to offer legal support to Guantanamo prisoners

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_07.php#011910

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_07.php#011911

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/13/151449/366

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_07.php#011909
[David Kurtz] The Administration has already done virtually everything possible to deny detainees any hope of justice. Encouraging boycotts of the law firms representing detainees is an effort to close off any last chance that the detainees will be treated in accordance with Anglo-American legal standards.

Each of us will mark our own low point of the Bush presidency. This is on my short list.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_07_atrios_archive.html#116870908731280936
[Atrios] These people really just don't believe in the American system of justice. . . .

Is “Cully” Stimson, the DoD lawyer who floated this slander, accusing the firms of being funded by terrorists, in trouble? He should be

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/law_notes_/2007/01/with_lawyers_like_this_who_needs_lawyer_jokes.php

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/torture_/2007/01/due_process_we_dont_need_no_stinkin_due_process.php

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005438.html

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/13/193124/251
[Jeralyn Merritt] Cully is but one cog in the Administration's wheel of injustice at Guantanamo. Let's try to keep our eye on the larger issue -- that for five years, the Bush Administration has kept people imprisoned without a trial and without a reliable basis to believe that the vast majority of them are terrorists.

Just as bad, the Bush Administration has refused, despite Supreme Court law to the contrary, to allow the detainees to raise challenges in our federal courts. It pushed Congress to pass a law obliterating habeas corpus for the detainees.

These are the larger issues behind Cully's comments. Regardless of what happens to him, the Administration must not be let off the hook for its unfair, unjust and un-American treatment of the detainees.

http://www.slate.com/id/2157493/fr/rss/
[Dahlia Lithwick] The real reason the Bush administration won't back down on Guantanamo. . .

Ho ho ho

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_07.php#011913
[Josh Marshall] Charles Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, says there should be a boycott of law firms defending Gitmo detainees. Too bad one of those firms, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison is representing Scooter Libby in his trial that starts Monday.

Guess Scooter won't be honoring the boycott.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_07.php#011912
[David Kurtz] The Pentagon is disavowing the comments made by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles Stimson, saying they don't represent the views of the Department of Defense or the thinking of its leadership.

Go for it

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/01/13/democrats_may_push_to_shutter_war_prisons/
House Democratic leaders yesterday outlined plans to try to force the Bush administration to close the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, taking aim at two sites that have sparked an international furor over the Bush administration's war policy. . .

Interesting article (subscription only) at The Atlantic, on Bush’s propensity for lying. This section caught my eye

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200701/cannon-lying/4
[Carl Cannon] David Corn, author of The Lies of George W. Bush, is a longtime acquaintance of mine, and I asked him to consider the following premises:

a) That Bush considers himself a truth teller.

b) That although statements made by Bush as president have proven to be untrue, Bush generally believed they were true when he made them.

c) That even when Bush’s words have been at odds with the facts, you could hook him up to a polygraph machine; he’d still tell you he was telling the truth—and he’d pass.

[NB: This is bending over backwards to be fair to Bush, and I’m not sure he’s earned the benefit of the doubt. But isn’t (c) even WORSE, when you think about it?]

Putting Bush on the couch

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116870545816034039
[W. David Jenkins III] Although the thought has crossed my mind many times in the past, I have to admit that my concern for the psychological stability (or lack thereof) of George Dubya has increased tenfold . . . [read on]

On the firing of Carol Lam, the US Attorney who nailed Duke Cunningham

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_07.php#011907
[David Kurtz] The top FBI official for San Diego, on the firing of U.S. Attorney Carol Lam: "I guarantee politics is involved." . . .

Lam prosecuted the Duke Cunningham case and is in charge of other high-profile public corruption cases involving Republicans.

The Republicans are “splintering”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/13/AR2007011301189.html

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/14/0746/72842

The Democrats aren’t

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-dems14jan14,1,4774108.story

Of course this won’t get the press coverage given to Nancy Pelosi’s supposedly bitchy “snub” of Jane Harman – but it’s important to be reminded that this is the way the game is played on both sides of the aisle

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9614.html
[Steve Benen] Rep. Walter Jones Jr. (R-N.C.) seems to have learned a great deal over the last few years, particularly when it comes to the war in Iraq.

Jones, you may recall, came up with the idea of changing the name of “french fries” to “freedom fries” in the House dining hall in 2003. . .

That was then. By May 2003, Jones was publicly criticizing the war, saying we invaded Iraq “with no justification.” He lined the hallway outside his office with “the faces of the fallen” and ultimately suggested that lawmakers may have been “given misinformation intentionally by people in this administration.” Now, Jones is as active an opponent of the president’s policy in Iraq as any Democrat on the Hill.

And he’s paying a price for being right.

House Armed Services ranking member Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., has disciplined one of his party’s most vocal anti-war members by denying him a minority leadership position on the powerful defense committee. . . . “We have to pay a price, from time to time,” Jones said of Hunter’s decision.

Jones was one of seven House Republicans to send Bush a letter this week, urging him not to escalate the U.S. presence in Iraq. “This goes all the way back to four years ago, when the president told us we had to go to war over weapons of mass destruction,” Jones said. “I don’t think the president is listening.” . . .

Update on that immigration sweep in Colorado

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_14.php#011915
[Rocky Mountain News] A federal judge ordered immigration officials Friday to provide the names and whereabouts of at least 260 immigrant workers arrested during a raid at Greeley's Swift & Co. meatpacking plant.

U.S. District Judge John L. Kane also warned lawyers representing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that he is scrutinizing how they handled the detainees. . . [read on]

The Democrats’ watered-down Medicare drug bill was always a poor substitute for real health-care reform. Apparently it’s even less than that

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/01/negotiations/

How often do we have to listen to racist right-wingers accusing the Democrats of “lynching” African-American conservatives?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200701120014?src=other

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/sunday-talk-shows-open-thread_14.html
FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Vice President Cheney.

THIS WEEK (ABC): Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.); national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley; California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R); Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin (D).

NEWSMAKERS (C-SPAN): Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.)

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.).

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Hadley; Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.).

LATE EDITION (CNN): Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.); Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz; Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari; Gen. Richard B. Myers, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman.

Bonus item: Playing “Risk”

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003532383
Junior was known as an extremely aggressive player in the venerable Parker Brothers board game, a brutal contest that requires bluster and bluffing as you invade countries, all the while betraying alliances. Notably, it’s almost impossible to win Risk and conquer the world if you start the game in the Middle East, because you’re surrounded by enemies. . .

***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 @ 9:26 AM

 
WHAT IF?

Robert Gates answers the question, What if this escalation doesn’t work? His answer will not reassure you

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0701/12/sitroom.02.html
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, the Pentagon has high hopes for the new strategy in Iraq. But Defense Secretary Gates said today if it doesn't work, the U.S. can't just throw in the towel.

MCINTYRE (voice-over): In his Senate testimony, Defense Secretary Robert Gates conceded the new Iraq strategy could fail, but argued Plan B should not be the phased withdrawal advocated by some Democrats.

ROBERT GATES, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: If we talk about the consequences of American failure and defeat in Iraq, then saying if you don't do this, we'll leave, and we'll leave now, does not strike me as being in the national interests of the United States. . . .

MCINTYRE: But the problem is success is beyond the control of the U.S. Everything depends on Iraqis doing things that so far they have been unwilling or unable to do. . . .Gates admits that if the Iraqis fail again, he doesn't know what the consequences are, except they would have to re-look at the strategy. . . .

[NB: Every military plan has to have a contingency for what to do if it doesn’t work. Either they have one, and aren’t saying what it is (except to say that it DOES NOT include withdrawal or redeployment); or they don’t have one, and they'll figure it out when and if they have to. Either possibility is deeply, deeply disturbing. So if the “surge” doesn’t work, will their answer still be . . . stay the course? Looks like it.]

More: http://www.ksla.com/Global/story.asp?S=5924690&nav=menu50_1
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday it remains unclear how long the "temporary" U.S. military buildup ordered by President Bush in Iraq will last. . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002330.php
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, like his infamously inconstant predecessor, still won't admit that Iraq is in a state of civil war, but that non-civil war is apparently, one of four ongoing wars in Iraq. . . . Shia on Shia conflict in the south; sectarian violence, particularly in Baghdad, but also in Diyala and a couple of other provinces; an insurgency; and Al Qaeda. . . .

Tony Snow: claims that the US might attack Iran are a ridiculous “urban legend”

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005433.html

He should clear this with the Secretary of State . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/13/world/middleeast/13strategy.html
A recent series of American raids against Iranians in Iraq was authorized under an order that President Bush decided to issue several months ago to undertake a broad military offensive against Iranian operatives in the country, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday. . .

The White House decision to authorize the aggressive steps against Iranians in Iraq appears to formalize the American effort to contain Iran’s ambitions as a new front in the Iraq war. Administration officials now describe Iran as the single greatest threat the United States faces in the Middle East, though some administration critics regard the talk about Iran as a diversion, one intended to shift attention away from the spiraling chaos in Iraq.

In adopting a more confrontational approach toward Iran, Mr. Bush has decisively rejected recommendations of the Iraq Study Group that he explore negotiations with Tehran . . .

Mr. Bush’s public warning to Iran was accompanied by the deployment of an additional aircraft carrier off Iran’s coast and advanced Patriot antimissile defense systems in Persian Gulf countries near Iran’s borders. Both the White House and the secretary of defense, Robert M. Gates, insisted Friday that the United States was not seeking to goad Iran into conflict . . .

And with the Defense Secretary . . .

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/812883.html
On Friday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that while U.S. forces are trying to prevent Iran and Syria from disrupting U.S. forces in Iraq, there were no immediate plans for an attack.

"We believe that we can interrupt these networks that are providing support through actions inside the territory of Iraq, that there is no need to attack targets in Iran itself," Gates told the panel, adding that he continues to believe that "any kind of military action inside Iran itself, that would be a very last resort." . . .

And with the Justice Dept

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005431.html
[Laura Rozen] John "torture memo" Yoo and the pride of Yale Law School doesn't think the president needs to inform Congress to expand the war to Iran and Syria:

[NY Sun] The Justice Department lawyer who helped draft many of the legal authorities after September 11 used by the White House to justify intensive interrogations, John Yoo, yesterday said he did not agree with Mr. Biden's reading of the Constitution with regard to hot pursuit. "As a matter of practice and history, presidents have used force abroad without any congressional authorization," Mr. Yoo said in an e-mail to The New York Sun . . .

DOES he have that power? http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/presidents-power-to-attack-iran.html

They’re going to take on Iran? They can’t even deal with Somalia

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/us-raid-on-al-qaida-in-somalia-major.html
[Chris in Paris] When I read the headlines of the US air raid in Somalia that killed a top al Qaida leader on the morning of Bush's "new" plan for Iraq, my first thought was that we've been here before, but who knows, maybe they got it right this time. Taking out the top bad guys who have killed Americans is what the real war on terror is supposed to be about.

Sadly, the non-Pentagon-hype truth is out and once again our raid on terrorists with guns a blazin' turned out to be 70 nomads who were seeking water and villagers in a fishing village and not al Qaida leaders. Who gathers this intelligence and then makes these aggressive plans? Haven't we seen raids like this in Afghanistan and Iraq over and over and over? As bad as our reputation is, you would expect something better and not another adventure of the Keystone Cops with deadly force. . .

The Irbil raid: like everything else, a tough-guy gesture with tone-deaf political ramifications

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2454.html
[Spencer Ackerman] The enormity of what happened in Irbil yesterday is just starting to become clear. To recap, U.S. forces raided the Iranian liaison office in Irbil -- apparently it's not an actual consulate -- seized a number of computers and other documents, and took six Iranian nationals into custody. The six are accused of involvement in attacks on U.S. forces. What will happen to them? Here's Eli Lake in today's New York Sun:

Another administration source yesterday said the White House and State Department do not consider the Iranians arrested yesterday to have diplomatic immunity because the building that was raided was not a consulate. This means that unlike senior Iranian officials arrested last month, those detained yesterday will likely not be returned to Iran.

Forgive me my daily shrillness, but ... have we just taken Iranian hostages? Practically everyone who's not part of the Bush administration has condemned the raid: the Kurdish warlord faction that controls Irbil, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, has denounced it furiously. The BBC quoted Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari as saying that all six have been working "under the approval of the (Iraqi) government." . . .

More, from Juan Cole: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/01/12/iran/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070113/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_070112183247

Today’s must-read: John Burns of the NYT

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0701/12/sitroom.02.html
BLITZER: And joining us now from Baghdad, the "New York Times" Pulitzer Prize winning correspondent, John Burns.

John, the spokesman for Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister of Iraq had a rather, in your words, tepid response to the president's address to the nation the other night. "What is suitable for our conditions in Iraq," he said, "is what we decide, not what others decide for us."

Since so much of the new U.S. strategy depends on cooperation from Nouri al-Maliki, what's going on?

JOHN BURNS, "NEW YORK TIMES": Well, it's pretty clear that there are contending American and Iraqi agendas here. The United States is looking for a road home which, requires at least a minimal fulfillment of American objectives here. To accomplish that, they've got to have some kind of healing process amongst Iraqi politicians of different ethnic and religious backgrounds.

Mr. Maliki, on the other hand, is a tribute of a Shiite religious interest and, as he would see it, of the 60 percent of the population that are Shiites who have waited a thousand years for this opportunity to rule here. And they do not intend to be reflected or, if you will, constrained by the United States.

So I think what we're going to see here is a growing contest of wills. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if the loser in that is Mr. Maliki.

There is much talk across the river in the Green Zone about easing him out over the next few weeks or months.

BLITZER: So in other words, Nouri al-Maliki could be in trouble unless he delivers.

Bottom line, do you think he has the guts to go stand up against Muqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army, this Shiite militia in Sadr City?

BURNS: You know, I don't think it's a question of guts. . . . I think it's a question of will and whether or not Maliki, Nouri al-Maliki, can break with 30 or 40 years of commitment in the Shiite religious cause. There is no sign to date that he has been prepared to do that.

He makes the right speeches. He sat across the table from President Bush and said all the right things, he did right from the start when he took office eight months ago. He just hasn't done it. He continues to look for ways around it. Indeed, at the extreme, he has intervened to persuade the Americans to release captured Iraqis who the American military command has designated as death squad leaders in the Shiite interest. . . .

So the signs are not good. And I think one interpretation you can make of the Bush plan is that they've built this assumption in, that Maliki will not fulfill those pledges, he won't meet the benchmarks and the Americans have been working desperately behind the scenes to create a kind of parallel political movement, a moderate political movement based on factions within the existing Iraqi parliament that could be used as a vehicle for a parliamentary coup against Mr. Maliki.

BLITZER: Fascinating material.

One related question, this U.S. military operation in the northern part of the country in Irbil, the Kurdish area, against these Iranian officials, supposedly diplomats, is causing some heartburn in the Iraqi government, among the Kurds.

What's going on?

BURNS: Well, I'm in Baghdad. It happened in Irbil, 150 miles north of here. But it seems to me, from everything I know about it, that it's a straw in the wind. Whatever else it may mean -- and clearly the Iranians have been up to no good here. They have been supplying sophisticated weapons, including armor penetrating missiles and rockets, to insurgents here. They have been killing -- helping to kill American soldiers.

Whatever else it may mean, I think it's part of the no more Mr. Nice Guy attitude. I think when you see General Petraeus come in here as the new U.S. military commander, there is going to be a lot less patience from the part of the American military commanders, of the American embassy here. I think there is going to be a lot less niceness about Iraq's so-called sovereignty.

I think the line is going to be, this is the last chance. We're bringing in 20,000 of our troops. We know more of our boys are going to die. This time we expect you to perform and we are not going to sit by and see Iranian diplomats or any other kind of Iranian agent in Iraq, in effect, arm or supply, advise, finance our enemy.

So I think it was a signal event.

More: http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2007/01/meanwhile_in_ba.html
[NYT] A Shiite political leader who has worked closely with the Americans in the past said the Bush benchmarks appeared to have been drawn up in the expectation that Mr. Maliki would not meet them. . .

Views such as these — increasingly common among the political class in Baghdad — are often accompanied by predictions that Mr. Maliki will be forced out as the crisis over the militias builds. The Shiite politician who described him as incapable of disarming militias suggested he might resign; others have pointed to an American effort in recent weeks to line up a “moderate front” of Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish political leaders outside the government, and said that the front might be a vehicle for mounting a parliamentary coup against Mr. Maliki, with behind-the-scenes American support.

http://www.slate.com/id/2157637/?nav=fix
[Conor Clarke] According to the LAT, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has given the top military position in Baghdad to a "virtually unknown Iraqi officer chosen over the objections of top U.S. and Iraqi military commanders." The appointment, which was also made without consulting other Iraqi factions, is significant because it is Maliki's "first public move after President Bush's announcement that he is sending more troops to Iraq." It's also significant because, as this morning's Post reminds us, many of the soldiers in Iraq's army are outright supporters of the Mahdi Army, the massive militia that the U.S. blames for much of the violence in Baghdad.

The Big Lie: that the escalation was all Maliki’s idea

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/01/12/BL2007011201281.html

More lies

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8236

This would be stunning if it were true, but it’s obviously a lie

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4022
[Brad Friedman] The White House didn't bother to even come up with a casualty estimate for their new escalation plan in Iraq. So much for "supporting the troops." At least if Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice is to be believed.

We've been asking since last Sunday --- and then again just after Bush's Wednesday night speech when he said, "We must expect more Iraqi and American casualties" --- what the White House's estimates are for the increased (or decreased) body count that we can expect vis a vis his new plan for a troop "augmentation" (nee "surge") in Iraq.

Surely due-diligence when creating such a plan requires such estimates be made by the military for the cost expected in blood for our U.S. troops before such a plan is actually implemented.

Well, finally, the question has been asked of the White House, or at least of Rice, during yesterday's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the planned escalation.

If Rice is to be believed, the White House has made no such estimate. . .

John McCain calls for more troops, and gets what he wants. So he should be happy, right? Well, he’s already distancing himself from the “McCain Doctrine”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/12/AR2007011202220.html
There is no mistaking the anguish of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Sitting in his Senate office, he is uncharacteristically subdued, his voice at times almost inaudible.

Although the Bush administration this week finally embraced his long-standing call to send more troops to Iraq, McCain believes the way it has handled the war "will go down as one of the worst" mistakes in the history of the American military.

"One of the most frustrating things that's ever happened in my political life," he said, "is watching this train wreck." . . .

McCain’s dilemma: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116866120413765646

Republicans continue to abandon Bush on Iraq escalation: 7 against, 9 more “skeptical”

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jan/12/numerous_gop_senators_skeptical_of_white_house_surge_plan

The original Authorization to Use Military Force, which we can all see now was a mistake to pass as broadly worded as it was: Should it be repealed? Yes, but easier said than done

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/11/215158/380

Mitch McConnell (R-KY), new Minority Leader, says he may try to filibuster any bill questioning Bush’s war escalation. We say . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9595.html
[Steven Benen] Bring it on . . .

Read this heartbreaking letter from a National Guard officer to the young men and women whose tours will be extended by Bush’s escalation move

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2452.html#015092
Is this a raw deal? Of course! We have every right to be angry, but the reality is that the long awaited homecoming will be pushed back.

The message I want to give is that now, probably more than ever, is the time to reach out to each other and through mutual support, weather this set-back. I will be asking the State of Minnesota to step up to help the families of our soldiers. My hope is that this would help ease the burdens. . .

Bush’s rock-bottom credibility (thanks to Matthew D. for the link)

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011206A.shtml

The Goofus Files

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8238
“I believe that 2005 would have been a -- we would have completed a lot of the mission and that would had been training the Iraqis so they would be in the lead, that they would be in a position to uphold the wishes of the 12 million people that voted. In spite of the remarkable progress, 2006 turned out differently than I had anticipated. . . .”

“The commanders on the ground in Iraq, people who I listen to -- by the way, that's what you want your Commander-in-Chief to do. You don't want decisions being made based upon politics, or focus groups, or political polls. You want your military decisions being made by military experts. . . .”

“And there needs to be a bigger presence because, in the past, we would go in with Iraqis and clear a neighborhood of extremists and terrorists, and then there wouldn't be enough troops to hold the neighborhood. So our kids would do a lot of hard work, and insurgents and terrorists and killers would generally not want to engage our troops -- probably a pretty smart decision on their part. But when they did, they would find justice, and then we'd go on to another assignment, and they'd come back in the neighborhood.” . . [read on]

Another new low

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Bush_Job_Approval.htm
Just 35% of Americans now approve of the way that George W. Bush is performing his role as President. That’s down sharply in recent days and is the lowest level of Approval ever measured by Rasmussen Reports . . .

Let’s not forget that Bush’s catastrophic mismanagement of the Middle East is matched only by his catastrophic mismanagement of matters at home

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2457.html

The Bush gang sees that they are losing a number of legal cases on their mistreatment and denial of rights to Guantanamo detainees. Now, in a truly despicable move, they are swiftboating the firms providing legal assistance to those prisoners

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9603.html
[WP] Most Americans understand that legal representation for the accused is one of the core principles of the American way. Not, it seems, Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs. In a repellent interview yesterday with Federal News Radio, Mr. Stimson brought up, unprompted, the number of major U.S. law firms that have helped represent detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

“Actually you know I think the news story that you’re really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request through a major news organization, somebody asked, ‘Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there,’ and you know what, it’s shocking,” he said.

Mr. Stimson proceeded to reel off the names of these firms, adding, “I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out.”

Asked who was paying the firms, Mr. Stimson hinted of dark doings. “It’s not clear, is it?” he said. “Some will maintain that they are doing it out of the goodness of their heart, that they’re doing it pro bono, and I suspect they are; others are receiving monies from who knows where, and I’d be curious to have them explain that.” . . .

[I]t’s offensive — shocking, to use his word — that Mr. Stimson, a lawyer, would argue that law firms are doing anything other than upholding the highest ethical traditions of the bar by taking on the most unpopular of defendants. It’s shocking that he would seemingly encourage the firms’ corporate clients to pressure them to drop this work.

And it’s shocking — though perhaps not surprising — that this is the person the administration has chosen to oversee detainee policy at Guantanamo.

[Steve Benen] Ideally, it’s the kind of incident that should force Stimson’s resignation. It’s simply beyond the pale.

Stimson, unprompted, unethically, and dishonestly, accused a series of respected law firms of literally traitorous behavior. He ignored the fact that some of these detainees may be innocent, rejected the fact that our system guarantees that everyone is entitled to a defense, and implied, on the air, that these firms may be financed by terrorist funds. . . .

For all our hopes that McCarthyism is a thing of the past, the Bush administration reminds us that we still aren’t rid of these disgusting tactics.

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/01/white_house_tries_economic_pressure_on_lawyers_representing_guantanamo_detainees.html
[Michael Froomkin] I'm sorry, but this is just disgusting. . .

http://www.ericumansky.com/2007/01/the_pentagons_l.html
[Eric Umansky] Deeply odious. . . .

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/13/1123/43977
[Jeralyn Merritt] Stinson's accusations are insulting and show he has a fundamental misunderstanding of how criminal justice works under our Constitution.

It's time for some intrepid investigative journalist to run with a multi-level background check on Stinson, so the public can be assured (or not, depending on the findings) that he either deserves to keep his lofty post -- or be removed from it as soon as possible.

Get the popcorn. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/13/washington/13gonzales.html
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, who has faced controversy throughout his two-year tenure, is likely to enter an even stormier phase next Thursday when he appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee for the first time since control fell to the Democrats. . . .

He did it at the Dept of Defense, now he’s doing it at the World Bank

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005435.html
[Bloomberg] World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz faces mounting criticism from directors of the international lending organization who say he relies on a coterie of political advisers with little expertise in development while driving away seasoned managers. . .

The IRS goes easy on big business tax cheats

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9601.html

A totally unfair overgeneralization (and I like it)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116863498980197288
[Digby] I think this is one of the defining aspects of conservatism. They have a stunted sense of empathy and an undeveloped ability to understand abstract concepts. It makes them unable to fashion any solutions to common problems, which they blame on "poor character" because they cannot visualize themselves ever being in a vulnerable or unlucky position through no fault of their own. Until it happens to them or someone they know, in which case they never question their philosophy as a whole but merely apply a special exemption to whichever particular problem or risk to which they have personally been exposed. . .

A party in disarray?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/01/12/a_damaged_brand.html
[Charlie Cook] "Republican campaign consultants have been publicly expressing a great deal of concern that the 'GOP brand' has been damaged, or at least tarnished. For top strategists to be so candid about their party’s problems is fairly unusual, and it reflects just how urgent they consider the party’s need to redefine itself as it prepares for the 2008 campaign."

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/12/155534/600
[Chris Bowers] Republicans are defecting in large numbers to join Democrats in passing several new pieces of legislation. Republican Senators are breaking with Bush over his escalation plans. The Republican Governor of California is proposing universal health care for residents in his state--including undocumented residents. Triangulation and political defection have a new color, and that color is red.

Preview of next week’s Plame trial (includes leaked grand jury testimony)

http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0112nj1.htm
[Murray Waas] On the flight back to Washington, Cheney huddled with two of his top aides -- I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, his then-chief of staff, and Catherine Martin, then assistant to the vice president for pubic affairs. According to federal court records, the three discussed how to counter and discredit the allegations made by a former U.S. ambassador, Joseph C. Wilson IV, that the Bush administration had manipulated and distorted intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq.

On January 16, Libby will go on trial in the federal courthouse in Washington D.C. on five counts of lying to federal investigators, perjury, and obstruction of justice. He is accused of attempting to conceal his role, and possibly that of others, in leaking to the media that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA officer, and that she might have played a role in sending her husband on a CIA-sponsored mission to Niger in 2002 to determine whether Saddam Hussein had attempted to procure uranium from Niger to build a nuclear weapon.

In attempting to determine Libby's motives for allegedly lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury about his leaking of Plame's CIA identity to journalists, federal investigators theorized from the very earliest stages of the case that Libby may have been trying to hide Cheney's own role in encouraging Libby to discredit Wilson, according to attorneys involved in the case. . .

Both Cheney and Libby have repeatedly denied -- both publicly and to federal investigators -- that Cheney ever encouraged Libby specifically to leak information to the press about Plame. But since the early days of the leak probe in fall 2003, even before it was taken over by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, investigators have maintained that Libby devised an elaborate cover story even though he must have known that contemporaneous records and the testimony of others was very likely to show that he was lying. Other than the motive to protect himself, the only other driving force behind Libby's actions, federal investigators have theorized, was to protect Cheney or other superiors, according to attorneys who have been involved in the CIA leak probe. . . . [read on!]

Analysis: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3730

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/12/18824/5064

Just a coincidence? Prosecutor who nailed Duke Cunningham (R-CA) now being forced to quit

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_07.php#011896
[San Diego Union Tribune] The Bush administration has quietly asked San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, best known for her high-profile prosecutions of politicians and corporate executives, to resign her post, a law enforcement official said. . . . [read on]

It’s a little thing, but part of a pattern: photographers banned from Bush event

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/white-house-correspondents-association.html

Bonus item: Watch Barney Frank (D-MA) school Patrick McHenry (R-NC)

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/01/11/barney-frank-kicks-patrick-mchenry-around-the-house-floor/

***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

 
BEHIND THE CURTAIN

What’s the plan – really?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/01/11/BL2007011100873.html
[Dan Froomkin] After more than a month of frenzied anticipation, President Bush's speech last night was such a limp letdown -- with the notable exception of provocative, bellicose words aimed at Iran and Syria -- that it raises the question: What is he really up to?

Could his secret goal be to run out the clock, and leave Iraq to his successor? Might he be setting the stage for an exit on his terms -- giving the Iraqis one last chance, and if they blow it, then he withdraws? Is it even possible that he is beginning the process of shifting the attention of the military -- and the American public -- from Iraq to Iran?

Those theories may sound a bit conspiratorial, but Bush's new proposal is so internally contradictory, so incremental, so problematically dependent on Iraqi good behavior, and so unlikely to galvanize public support that it seems to me that it's open season on alternate explanations of his motivation.

There is, for instance, an irresolvable contradiction between Bush's insistence on the necessity of winning, because the alternative is cataclysmic, and his demand that the Iraqi government meet certain benchmarks, or else.

What does he mean by or else? He won't say.

Is he talking about a coup? Presumably he means we would pull out if they don't meet their benchmarks. But how can he plausibly threaten to pull out -- which, of course, happens to be what a majority of Americans and Iraqis now want -- if he continues to insist that pulling out would put America in mortal danger, not to mention detonate the entire Middle East? . . .

Anonymous White House officials tied themselves into rhetorical pretzels yesterday insisting that the U.S. commitment in Iraq is no longer open-ended -- without giving any indication of how it might close.

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_07_atrios_archive.html#116852974450054843

The absurd paradox of saying the surge is all Maliki’s idea, and he is ready to take the lead, while also threatening to take him out if he fails to meet OUR benchmarks for him

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9585.html

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_occupation_of_iraq_/2007/01/possibilities.php

Bush says the escalation is “not open-ended” – what does that mean?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9590.html

Is the real escalation to come a fabricated confrontation with Iran?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9584.html
[Steve Benen] Over the course of the president’s 20-minute address last night, he used one word six times: “Iran.” . . . .

http://www.juancole.com/2007/01/us-forces-storm-iranian-consulate-in.html
The US military stormed the Iranian consulate in the northern Iraq Kurdistan city of Irbil on Thursday. . . [read on]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_07.php#011886
[Josh Marshall] I'm getting some hints that this raid on the Iranian consulate in northern Iraq may be part of something much bigger. Is there a classified presidential directive to the CIA and DOD to take down Syrian and Iranian operations inside Iraq, even so far as operations into Iranian and Syrian territory? And is the aim here to provoke a conflict with one or the other of these states? To provoke an attack from Iran perhaps? The plan from the neocons was always to build the chaos outwards. Never too late, I guess. Watch this. Something's up. . . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/bush-invaded-iran-last-night.html
[John Aravosis] Last night, Bush sent US forces to attack the inviolate territory of a foreign diplomatic mission, the Iranian mission in northern Iraq - legally, the land of a foreign nation - and took the Iranians hostage. It's hard to see under international law how this is legal, let alone how this isn't an act of war. And it's beyond ironic that we appear to have condoned the very action that we condemned Iran for - attacking diplomatic missions in violation of international law.

But what's most troubling about this is the transparency of what Bush is up to. He's trying to provoke a war with Iran, either by forcing Iran to strike back, or by discovering secret Iranian diplomatic documents that would prove their complicity in helping the insurgents in Iraq. We just invaded Iran last night, folks. Foreign embassies and diplomatic outposts are legally the foreign soil of the country represented. We invaded Iran. This is an act of war. . . .

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001869.php
[Steve Clemons] Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran.

The President may have started a new secret, informal war against Syria and Iran without the consent of Congress or any broad discussion with the country. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/10/212932/237
[PA2006Voter] So let me ask this simple question....In four years of combat against insurgents how many Patriot Anti-Aircraft/Anti-Missile Missiles have American Forces used. I would guess...ZERO...I think that is a great question for Tony Snow...

But tonight President Bush announces we are sending Patriot Missile batteries to the Middle East..

Quoting the speech (provided by Paige) "We are also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will expand intelligence sharing - and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies."

You don't use a 17 foot long surface launched missile with large radars and other trucks that tracks incoming aircraft, helicopters and long range missiles in an urban street battles. You would use it to defend against incoming Iranian aircraft and Scud missiles. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_07.php#011890
[Josh Marshall] Bill Arkin sees another clue about apparent White House plans to pick a fight with Iran and Syria. I don't think it's too much to say that the addition of 20,000 US troops into Baghdad is a footnote in comparison to the trouble this portends. The Veep's office and the nutjobs are still running the show. Condi is still a mere cipher. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_07.php#011888
[Josh Marshall] [N]ote Joe Biden's exchange today with Condi Rice in which he warned her that an attack on Iran would "generate a constitutional confrontation in the Senate, I predict to you."

A comment like that doesn't come out of the blue.

This is a dangerous time for the US for many reasons. One reason is that I'm not sure the real issues are getting aired for the American public. In itself, I doubt the 'surge' is the big issue on the table. I think we're talking about escalation on an entirely different level. Or that's the real issue in the background, as yet unstated -- high-stakes reckless gambits aimed at busting the White House out of the box they've gotten themselves and us into. Remember, build the chaos outwards.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001871.php
[Flynt Leverett] [T]he administration is laying the rhetorical and operational foundations for implementing a presidential decision to initiate military operations against Iran. . .

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/01/were_in_trouble.html
[Michael Froomkin] If this is true, we're in very big trouble. . . .

More: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/presidents-intentions-towards-iran.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_07.php#011880

http://counterpunch.org/roberts01102007.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_07.php#011893

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010548.php

Listen: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3851426890212250833

Does the Bush gang think the original authorization to fight in Iraq can be stretched to cover an attack on Iran?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_07.php#011891

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116858636423080867
[Digby] Absolutely not and the record is very specific and very clear. . .

Bush and his spinmeisters keep repeating that this NEW new strategy shift is truly different from all the previous new strategy shifts in Iraq. But the fact is . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/11/105448/098

What’s going to happen? Listen to someone who understands the multisided complexities of the place

http://www.juancole.com/2007/01/bush-sends-gis-to-his-private.html
[Juan Cole] [I]f a nimble guerrilla group can come out at night and set off a bomb at the base of a large tenement building in a Shiite neighborhood, they can keep the sectarian civil war going. They work by provoking reprisals. They like to hold territory if they can. But as we saw with Fallujah and Tal Afar, if they cannot they just scatter and blow things up elsewhere.

And the main problem is not "al-Qaeda," which is small and probably not that important, and anyway is not really Bin Laden's al-Qaeda. They are just Salafi jihadis who appropriated the name. When their leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed, it didn't cause the insurgency to miss a beat. Conclusion: "al-Qaeda" is not central to the struggle. Izzat Ibrahim Duri and the Baath Party are probably the center of gravity of the resistance.

Bush admitted that the Sunni guerrilla destruction of the Askariyah (Golden Dome) shrine at Samarra set off an orgy of sectarian reprisals. But he does not seem to have actually absorbed the lesson here. The guerrillas did not have to hold territory in order to carry out that bombing. They just had to be able to sneak into a poorly guarded old building that Bush did not even know about and blow it up. The symbolic and psychic damage that they did to the Shiites was profound. . . There are other such targets. The Shrine of Imam Kadhim at Kadhimiya, the shrine of Ali in Najaf, and the shrine of Husayn in Karbala, and the person of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani himself, also the person of Hujjat al-Islam Muqtada al-Sadr. (The arrogance and ignorance of the US chattering classes is such that they openly talk about "taking out" al-Sadr, as though that would calm the Iraqi Shiites down. Saddam thought like that when he offed Muqtada's father; didn't work.) The US and British military nevertheless seem set to attack the Mahdi Army. Investments in guarding those sites (the most exposed of which is Kahdimiya) would be worth far more than temporarily intimidating angry Sunnis who have picked up a gun in the Dura neighborhood of Baghdad.

Bush could not help taking swipes at Iran and Syria. But the geography of his deployments gives the lie to his singling them out as mischief makers. Why send 4,000 extra troops to al-Anbar province? Why ignore Diyala Province near Iran, which is in flames, or Babel Province southwest of Baghdad? Diyala borders Iran, so isn't that the threat? But wait. Where is al-Anbar? Between Jordan and Baghdad. In other words, al-Anbar opens out into the vast Sunni Arab hinterland that supports the guerrilla movement with money and volunteers, coming in from Jordan. If Syria was the big problem, you would put the extra 4,000 troops up north along the border. If Iran was the big problem, you'd occupy Diyala. But little Jordan is an ally of the US, and Bush would not want to insult it by admitting that it is a major infiltration root for jihadis heading to Iraq.

The clear and hold strategy is not going to work in al-Anbar. Almost everyone there hates the Americans and wants them out. To clear and hold you need a sympathetic or potentially sympathetic civilian population that is being held hostage by militants, and which you can turn by offering them protection from the militants. I don't believe there are very many Iraqi Sunnis who can any longer be turned in that way. The opinion polling suggests that they overwhelmingly support violence against the US.

This strategy may have some successes here and there. It won't win the day, and I'd be surprised if it did not collapse by the end of the summer.

If part of the strategy is to assault the Mahdi Army frontally, that will cause enormous trouble in the Shiite south. I would suggest that PM Nuri al-Maliki's warning to the Mahdi Militia to disarm or face the US military is in fact code. He is telling the Sadrists to lie low while the US mops up the Sunni Arab guerrillas. Sadr's militia became relatively quiescent for a whole year after the Marines defeated it at Najaf in August, 2004. But since it is rooted in an enormous social movement, the militia is fairly easy to reconstitute after it goes into hiding.

More: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F0715269-DCC3-4164-823E-B5D25D02E066.htm
Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, has told Shia fighters to surrender their weapons, as the US president announces plans to send thousands more troops to Iraq.

Al-Maliki agreed on Wednesday to crack down on fighters loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shia leader, Iraqi officials said. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_07.php#011881
[Josh Marshall] [I]t's silly to really believe that Maliki is going to try to crush the Mahdi Army when they a) give him the votes to remain Prime Minister and b), more importantly, those are the fighters Maliki is planning on using the Civil War really gets cracking. . .

And this is what the REPUBLICANS are saying

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0701110203jan11,1,4350597.story
Sen. Norm Coleman, the Minnesota Republican. . . "I don't want to embarrass the president, but my position is clear," said Coleman, who visited Iraq last month. "I do not believe that a surge in troops is going to solve the fundamental problem we have." . . .

"Based on the trip I took to Iraq last month, I concluded it would be a mistake to increase the overall level of troops in Iraq," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). . . .

So did Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), who delivered a lengthy speech on the Senate floor in December, outlining his increasing frustration with the war. He has told the president that he opposed a so-called surge in troops.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) was similarly unimpressed with the idea of putting more troops at risk, describing her view as "deep skepticism."

Also not persuaded is Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"At this point I am skeptical that a surge in troops alone will bring an end to sectarian violence and the insurgency that is fomenting instability in Iraq," he said. "The generals who have served there do not believe additional troops alone will help. And my faith in Prime Minister [Nouri] al-Maliki's political will to make the hard choices necessary to bring about a political solution is fragile at best." . . .

Sen. John Warner of Virginia, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, has expressed his own reservations, but urged his colleagues to spend some time mulling Bush's proposal in the coming days. . . . Still, Warner is unhappy with the strife dominating Iraq, something he has witnessed. . . . "Young men and women in uniform should not be caught in the crossfire of a civil war started with who should have succeeded Muhammad in 650 A.D.," he said.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070111/NEWS07/70111011/1001
Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel told Rice the president’s plan was “the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it’s carried out.”

And another Republican member, Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, said Bush could no longer count on his support.

“You’re going to have to do a much better job” explaining the rationale for the war, “and so is the president,” Voinovich told Rice. “I’ve gone along with the president on this and I’ve bought into his dream and at this stage of the game I just don’t think its going to happen.” . . .

In speech in the House of Representatives, meanwhile, Rep. Ric Keller, R-Fla. noted that he was breaking ranks with Bush after long supporting the president’s war policy.

“At this late stage, interjecting more young American troops into the crossfire of an Iraqi civil war is simply not the right approach,” solution,” Keller said.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/11/17410/7272
Twelve Republican Senators have now expressed a varying degree of "concern" over Bush's escalation plan . . .

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005417.html
[Chris Nelson] Across the board, the President now enjoys almost no credibility on Iraq, and little trust on anything involving personal judgment...such is the cancerous fallout from events on the ground, and his various perceived failures amongst the “governing class”. That doesn’t mean the President has no defenders...of course Republicans will move, quickly, to defend him when possible.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell this morning, for example, warned Dems that if they try the “budget weapon” to cut off funding for the President’s Iraq plan, they will be filibustered...and he predicted, probably with accuracy, that there’s no way 60 votes to kill the President’s plan could be found...for now.

But politicians on both sides clearly have reached their political and emotional limit in giving the Bush Administration one-inch of the benefit of the doubt. Despite success for 5 years, bullying from the White House (or Rummy) won’t work on anyone now. The President’s speech last night was dissected, inch by inch, assumption by assumption...with the verdict that most, if not all, are fatally faulty.

We have repeatedly noted that it won’t be Democrats who disconnect the life support from Bush policy...they can’t do it alone. The President can only continue to rule so long as Republicans don’t desert him. So when a normally compliant place holder like Sen. Murkowski gets tough, you can see a plug getting ready to be pulled. . . [read on]

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8228
Q How concerned is the President about losing Republican support on the Hill? I think you had Coleman and, yesterday, Brownback, surprisingly, one of the conservatives, saying -- Voinovich and others -- how concerned -- is there any concern around the White House about that?

MR. JOHNDROE: You know, we understand that people are going to be skeptical. We've said that --

Q But they're opposed, not skeptical.

MR. JOHNDROE: We've said that ourselves. . . [HUH?]

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9583.html

The media coverage could hardly be worse for them

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/bulletin/bulletin_070111.htm
Most media analysts greeted President Bush's new Iraq strategy with marked skepticism, if not outright hostility. . . .

Devastating: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/11/great-moments-in-bushs-iraq-speeches/

Supporting the troops?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010546.php
[AP] The Pentagon has abandoned its limit on the time a citizen-soldier can be required to serve on active duty, officials said Thursday, a major change that reflects an Army stretched thin by longer-than-expected combat in Iraq. . .

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005420.html
[NYT] President Bush came to this Georgia military base looking for a friendly audience to sell his new Iraq strategy. But his lunchtime talk received a restrained response from soldiers who clapped politely but showed little of the wild enthusiasm that they ordinarily shower on the commander in chief. . .

Pentagon still covering up data on the number of insurgent attacks (is there something you don’t want us to know, fellas?)

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002323.php

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9592.html

Bush polls a new low

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_07_atrios_archive.html#116853626709131377

An area ripe for congressional investigation: Bush’s warrantless spying

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/11/105448/098

The Bush gang’s assault on privacy continues

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/11/185137/856

The military refuses to pay for a legal and medically justified abortion. What the Democrats should do about it

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/2007_democratic_agenda_/2007/01/jane_doe_navy_wife_and_her_abortion.php

Joe Lieberman, turncoat

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_07.php#011889
[Newsweek] Sen. Joe Lieberman, the only Democrat to endorse President Bush’s new plan for Iraq, has quietly backed away from his pre-election demands that the White House turn over potentially embarrassing documents relating to its handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans. . .

Peggy Noonan, twit

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/seriousness-v-superficiality.html

Ann Coulter, felon

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003531258
An election official is having trouble finding a law-enforcement agency to investigate Ann Coulter's alleged voting fraud in Florida, according to a Wednesday article by Palm Beach Post staff writer Jose Lambiet.

He reported: "When it comes to dealing with Palm Beach GOP vixen Ann Coulter -- who, police now say, could end up facing two felonies and one misdemeanor -- elections boss Arthur Anderson . . . is looking desperately for a law-enforcement agency willing to investigate."

Lambiet continued: "In November, Anderson went to the town's police department. But Palm Beach's finest weren't interested. And Tuesday, Anderson met with a sheriff's deputy. ... He could end up having to take it up with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Why's Anderson making those rounds? Because he was told that State Attorney Barry Krischer -- a Democrat whose recent attempt to prosecute another conservative pundit, Rush Limbaugh, for alleged doctor shopping, went limp -- needs police action before he brings formal charges. Catch-22, anyone?"

According to the Post article, the Palm Beach police department last month issued a three-page report saying Coulter -- the conservative Universal Press Syndicate columnist -- "could end up charged with one felony count for signing a voter form claiming she lived at her Realtor's Indian Road home instead of her Seabreeze Avenue homestead; one felony count for 'unauthorized possession of a driver's license,' also for providing the same wrong address when obtaining her license; and a misdemeanor for knowingly voting in the wrong precinct."

But the report's author said his agency didn't have jurisdiction . . .

Condi Rice: failure follows her like a shadow

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/10/AR2007011002021.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/11/AR2007011102080.html

Bonus item: Condi says a number of incredibly dumb things

(1) http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070111/NEWS07/70111011/1001
Rice disputed Hagel’s characterization of Bush’s buildup as an “escalation.”

“Putting in 22,000 more troops is not an escalation?” Hagel asked.

“I think, senator, escalation is not just a matter of how many numbers you put in.”

“Would you call it a decrease?” Hagel asked.

“I would call it, senator, an augmentation . . .”

(2) http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jan/11/quote_of_the_day_rice_warns_against_planning_for_possibility_of_failure
[WP] "It's bad policy to speculate on what you'll do if a plan fails when you're trying to make a plan work."

(3) http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9588.html
[CNN] Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice let slip her news media preferences Thursday, saying, “I love every single one” of Fox News network’s correspondents . . .

More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/politics_and_leadership_/2007/01/a_glimpse_into_the_mind_of_condi.php

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- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:39 AM

 
MISSION NOT ACCOMPLISHED

Bush’s Big Speech. To my viewing, it was shockingly listless and unconvincing. Two substantive issues struck me. One was that all of our effort now is being presented as a RESPONSE to a new Iraqi determination to get serious – the troop increase wasn’t our initiative, but Maliki’s

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/10/BAGOKNGANV7.DTL

Not only is that blatantly untrue; I also doubt that most Americans are very reassured about this proposal when they hear that its success all depends on a man who doesn’t even want to be the head of his country

http://www.slate.com/id/2157389/nav/tap1/
[John Dickerson] Two months ago, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley wondered whether Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was clueless, incompetent, or devious. Now, Bush is betting the farm on him. His troop surge is based on a plan that he says Maliki authored. He is banking on the leader's promise to end the vicious cycle of sectarian violence. Bush also promises that Maliki will form a plan to share oil revenues, create new jobs, reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution.

The president isn't just asking the American people to buy into a new military strategy for Baghdad; he's asking the country to embrace Iraqi leadership that, in the same speech, the president portrayed as so fragile it would collapse if U.S. troops pulled back. Two months ago, Donald Rumsfeld considered the government so infantile he referred to giving it more responsibility as "taking our hand off the bicycle seat." Bush's plan takes as a matter of faith that Maliki can deal with Muqtada Sadr and his militia—to which the Iraqi prime minister is politically beholden. It assumes that ragtag Iraqi troops will shortly be trained, equipped, and capable. Bush was admirably blunt this time about his past mistakes and the slog ahead. But the confidence he expressed in the Iraqi government—without caveats, doubts, or warnings—seemed utterly fantastical. . . .

Today, this

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/world/middleeast/11iraq.html
As President Bush challenges public opinion at home by committing more American troops, he is confronted by a paradox: an Iraqi government that does not really want them.

The Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has not publicly opposed the American troop increase, but aides to Mr. Maliki have been saying for weeks that the government is wary of the proposal. . . .

http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/special_packages/iraq/16421080.htm
For the Americans assigned to train Iraqi troops here, the incident was another in a long string of problems that's persuaded many of them that it will be years before Iraq's army can stand on its own.

On Wednesday night, President Bush is expected to announce that he's sending thousands more American soldiers to Iraq as part of a new plan to overcome the country's widening sectarian violence. But to many of the U.S. soldiers who already are struggling to prepare Iraqi troops in Diyala province say that more Americans won't solve Iraq's problems. . .

The second point that struck me – and it’s all over the blogosphere this morning – is that, far from accepting the Iraq Study Group’s recommendation to engage Iran and Syria, Bush went out of his way to threaten them

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2007/01/the_president_giveth_and_he_ta.html

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/presidents-intentions-towards-iran.html

The details

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9579.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9581.html

The performance

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16568507/site/newsweek/
[Howard Fineman] George W. Bush spoke with all the confidence of a perp in a police lineup. I first interviewed the guy in 1987 and began covering his political rise in 1993, and I have never seen him, in public or private, look less convincing, less sure of himself, less cocky. With his knitted brow and stricken features, he looked, well, scared. Not surprising since what he was doing in the White House library was announcing the escalation of an unpopular war.

The president may well be right that we cannot afford to leave or lose in Iraq . He makes profound sense when he observes that a collapse of Iraq would mean the rise of a giant version of the Taliban's Afghanistan—with a million times the oil in the ground.

But if he was trying to assure the country that he had confidence in his own plan to prevent that collapse, well, a picture is worth a thousand words. And the words themselves weren't that assuring either. Does anyone in America or Iraq , or anywhere else in the world for that matter, really think that the Sunnis and Shia will make peace? Does anyone think that embedded American soldiers won't be in danger of being fragged by their own Iraqi brethren? Does anyone really think that Iran and Syria can be prevented from playing havoc in Iraq and the rest of the region by expressions of presidential will?

George Bush had the look of a man who knew he had made a royal hash of things in reaching for what most enlightened people would say was a noble goal: a stable, antiterrorist Iraq. . . .

More: http://sideshow.me.uk/sjan07.htm#01111257

The polls

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/11/AR2007011100282.html
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted following the President's speech finds broad and strong opposition to his call to send about 21,500 more troops to Iraq: 61 percent oppose the force increase, with 52 percent "strongly" opposing the build-up. Thirty-six percent support the additional troops; only one-quarter of the public is strongly supportive. . .

The audacity

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116846693829638196
[Digby] Think about that. We just had an election that completely repudiated the president's strategy in the Iraq war. . . . The military is not backing this either. Yet what are we watching on television all day? "How many more troops is the president going to send to Iraq?"

This is not just a slap in the face to the democratic process, it's a slap in the face to our concept of reality. I wrote before that this president has always governed by tantrum, and this is no exception. He is doing exactly the opposite of what logic would dictate, just as he did after the 2000 election debacle when he governed from the far right as if he'd won a huge ideological mandate --- and after 9/11 when he nonsensically insisted that we invade a country that had not been involved in the attacks.

I can hardly believe my eyes that he is getting away with it again. It's truly stunning. . . [read on]

More: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/01/10/olbermann-a-look-backward-at-the-commanders-credibility

Déjà vu

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/10/144728/897
[Edgery] This is the 5TH "Surge" in Iraq . . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/11/33541/6805

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010540.php

Six more months – AND THEN WHAT?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_07_atrios_archive.html#116847580739221434

“Tell me how this ends”

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/01/10/tell-me-how-this-ends/
[WP] Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who is President Bush’s choice to become the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, posed a riddle during the initial march to Baghdad four years ago that now becomes his own conundrum to solve: “Tell me how this ends.”. . . . That query, uttered repeatedly to a reporter then embedded in Petraeus’s 101st Airborne Division, revealed a flinty skepticism about prospects in Iraq — and the man now asked to forestall a military debacle.

[Scarecrow] I doubt that the President understands this question. As best I can tell, the President and his “national security team,” seem to be preoccupied with not losing a war they started, especially not during Bush’s term. They still believe, or at least claim to believe, that they can still “win” their war. But that belief seems be based on the non sequitur that since the consequences of losing are unthinkable to them, winning is the only option. As McCain put it, “It’s just so hard for me to contemplate failure that I can’t make the next step.” McCain repeated the argument for WaPo and before AEI, and AEI’s Frederick Kagan added his own fears about the consequences of failure on CSPAN’s Washington Journal. Henry Kissinger, who helped Nixon deny that we lost the Viet Nam war, and left that unhappy result for President Ford, is the current President’s model for how to leave a losing hand to the hapless sap that follows you. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1987457,00.html

Here’s a non-trivial question I’ve seen discussed nowhere else: you can add 20,000+ more troops, but what about supporting equipment and supplies (body armor, etc) that are already in short supply? Where is a “surge” in materiel going to come from?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/10/133430/278
[Baltimore Sun] The thousands of troops that President Bush is expected to order to Iraq will join the fight largely without the protection of the latest armored vehicles . . .

When will surge advocates Kagan and Keane be asked what they think of a plan that sends fewer troops, for a shorter period of time, than they have said is the absolute minimum to have a chance of success?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/bush-is-short-changing-his-own.html

Remember just a few weeks ago when Bush said, we’re flexible, we’ll change tactics but we won’t change strategy? Last night’s speech was trumpeted as a “new strategy” (to deflect attention from what it was, a proposal for escalation) – but it really only seems at most a shift in tactics

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/01/10/BL2007011001146.html
[Dan Froomkin] A relatively minor increase in troops, a promise of greater cooperation from the Iraqi prime minister, a small infusion of reconstruction money -- not only have we heard all this before, but it doesn't amount to much. . . .

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/10/ap/politics/mainD8MIDRO01.shtml
President Bush's new plan for Iraq sounds a lot like his old one. Send in more troops, set goals for the Iraqi government and assure Americans it's better to wage war there than here. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/10/21315/5042
[Devilstower] What was expected to be a major new policy in Iraq, was nothing of the sort. Instead, a red-faced and clearly nervous Bush delivered the most minor, technical tweaking of the current disaster imaginable, and failed to even find language to make the plan sound important. . .

More: http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/01/speech_ii/

You can say that again

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_07.php#011869
[Bush] "Victory [in Iraq] will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved. There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship."

Words matter

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9580.html
[Steve Benen] The “escalation” vs “surge” rhetorical debate is surprisingly important in helping shape public opinion. ThinkProgress made a fascinating observation today about the results of a recent CBS poll: when Americans were asked if the support an escalation of forces in Iraq, only 18% said yes. Asked if they support a “short-term troop increase,” approval jumps to 45%. Note to media: word choice matters.

Why “the surge” won’t work

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/why-surge-wont-work.html
[AJ] [Read it all, but here’s the conclusion] Moreover, by launching this escalation at a time of year during which violence traditionally ebbs anyway, the decrease in violence may create the false impression that the new surge strategy is working (post hoc ergo propter hoc). The current mess in Iraq isn't the fault of the troops -- again, we're lacking in areas that are not the job of our troops -- but the troops are certainly paying for it. And after tonight, another 20,000 will continue to pay for hubris, arrogance, and incompetence. . . .

More: http://www.juancole.com/2007/01/bush-sends-gis-to-his-private.html

Will the Iraqis EVER be ready?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_07_atrios_archive.html#116843270017570812
[Atrios] The Iraq war exists in a perpetual state of cultural amnesia . .

[CNN] The official said Bush intends to hand control of the country to Iraqi forces by November. . . . The official cautioned that the November date for Iraq control does not mean U.S. troops would withdraw by then.

[MSNBC, Nov. 30] Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Thursday that his country's forces would be able to assume security command by June 2007 — which could allow the United States to start withdrawing its troops.

"I cannot answer on behalf of the U.S. administration but I can tell you that from our side our forces will be ready by June 2007," Maliki told ABC television after meeting President Bush on Thursday in Jordan. . .

It won’t surprise you to hear that the Bush gang decided early on to completely ignore the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group (what else is new?) – but it might surprise you to hear how petty their motivations were

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9575.html

How did we get from the ISG to this? A sad, sordid tale

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/01/thuds_and_screa.html

LBJ, forty years ago to the day (compare the quotes)

http://www.attytood.com/2007/01/eday_it_was_40_years_ago_today.html

Oh, man, and this is from Bush’s SUPPORTERS

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_occupation_of_iraq_/2007/01/hail_mary.php
[Michael O’Hare] The shocking moment of the evening was John Thune (R-SD) on NPR's post-mortem, looking as though he'd lost his best friend, beginning his reaction with a motto proud and bold, a ringing, confident endorsement of his chief: "well, we have to try it" ...and losing enthusiasm from that point on. . . . [read on]

Plan B?

http://www.slate.com/id/2157473/
[Daniel Politi] The NYT says Bush's aides hinted the administration has already come up with a "Plan B" in case this one fails, but they wouldn't give specifics. Slate's Fred Kaplan says the fact that Bush did not mention a backup plan was "this speech's most dreadful shortcoming."

What can the Congress do? A range of possibilities

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_01_07_atrios_archive.html#116843843302699134
[Atrios] I basically agree with what Marty Lederman is suggesting . . . The Democrats should pass something limiting the number of troops in Iraq. Bush will veto it. Republicans will make sure there aren't enough votes to override the veto. Stopping CooCoo Bananas from sending more troops is likely, in practical terms, impossible in the short term at least. But they can make sure it's clear whose war this is, and whose plan it is.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/10/102041/532
[Kagro X] As Barb mentioned earlier (than I got up) this morning, there are competing resolutions on the Iraq escalation in the Senate, one championed by Sen. (and now Presidential candidate) Joe Biden, and one by Sen. Ted Kennedy. The chief difference between them, of course, is that the Biden resolution -- which currently has the backing of the Senate leadership and is scheduled for a vote -- is non-binding. It'll be a "Sense of the Senate" resolution, which is just what it sounds like. . . .

Four ways to stop the war: http://www.slate.com/id/2157392

Cut-off funding? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/10/AR2007011002613.html

Why they won’t: http://www.slate.com/id/2157390/

More: http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/01/what_can_be_done/

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/10/6727/00207

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9572.html

Congressional review? The "surge" has already started!

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/10/173733/134

Where are the Republicans on this? At least ten senators have already said, “no way”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_01_07.php#011867

McCain, sounding more and more like Bush every day

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9577.html
[Steve Benen] To his credit, Russert was asking the right questions, reminding McCain of his now-embarrassing comments from a couple of years ago, in which the senator predicted an easy conflict. I’m paraphrasing a little, but Russert noted that McCain said the war would be “easy,” to which McCain responded, “It was easy.”

I’ve been anxious to know how McCain could possibly respond to some of his remarks from 2002 and 2003, beyond the obvious-but-honest, “I was completely wrong,” which he wouldn’t dare say. To be sure, it’s a political problem. McCain said on CNN in September 2002, “I believe that the success will be fairly easy.” A few days later, he said, “We’re not going to have a bloodletting of trading American bodies for Iraqi bodies.” Two months before the invasion, McCain boasted, “We will win this conflict. We will win it easily.”

Now we know the spin — just so long as we consider the war having ended the moment Bush declared the mission accomplished, McCain (and his like-minded allies) were exactly right. The “conflict” really was “easy.”

That’s the message McCain is prepared to take to the voters in 2008? Everything after May 2003 doesn’t count? . . .

Update: It’s even worse than I thought. Check the transcript. . .

RUSSERT: Go back, Senator, to 2002. The administration saying we would be greeting as liberators. John McCain saying you thought success would be fairly easy.

MCCAIN: It was.

RUSSERT: In all honesty…

MCCAIN: It was easy, it was easy. I said the military operation would be easy. It was easy. We were greeted as liberators. . . .[read on]

[NB: So only the initial invasion counted as